Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary

MY OWN LIFE

Essay i-lii.indd 31 12/27/11 7:34 PM MYOWNLIFE1 I T is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore, I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pretend at all to write my life; but this Narrative shall contain little more than the History of my Writings; as, indeed, almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of vanity. 1[This autobiography and the accompanying letter from Adam Smith to William Strahan were published in March, 1777, as The Life ofDavid Hume, Esq. Written by Himself (London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand). At the time the autobiography was written, the disorder that would take Hume's life on August 25, 1776, was already well advanced. To Adam Smith , who had been entrusted with his manuscripts, Hume wrote Essay i-lii.indd 32 12/27/11 7:34 PM XXXII MY OW!\' LIFE I was born the 26th of April1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I was of a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been proprietors of the estate, which my brother possesses, for several generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession to her brother. My family, however, was not rich, and being myself a younger brother, my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her children. I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for on May 3: " You will find among my Papers a very inoffensive Piece, called My own Life, which I composed a few days before I left Edinburgh , when I thought, as did all my Frie nds, that my life was despaired of. T here can be no Objection, that this small pi ece shoud be sent to Messrs Strahan and Cadell and the Proprietors of my other Works to be prefixed to any future Edition of the m" (in j. Y. T. Greig, The Letters of David Hume [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932], 2:318). Concerned lest Smith delay the publication of this and other manuscripts, Hume added a codicil to his will, dated August 7, leaving all of his manuscripts to Strahan and giving specific directions as to their pu blication . Regarding My own Life, he wrote: "My Accou nt of my own Life, I desire may be prefixed to the first Edition of my Works, printed after my Death , which will probably be the one at present in th e Press" (in Greig, 2:453). The 1777 edition of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects did not contain the autobiography, but it was added to the fi rst, 1778, posth u mous edition of the History of England. In writing his autobiography, Hume anticipated the keen desire on the public's part to know, in view of his scepticism about the claims of revealed religion, if he would face death with philosophical tranquillity. It was in the context of the lively public debate following H u me's death that Adam Smith composed his letter to William Strahan, describing Hume's tranquil state of mind during his final months and testifying to his strength of character. Wi th the publiution of his letter to Strahan, Smith hi mself now became the target of widespread indignation for his approval of Hu me's manner of death . A decade later he would wri te: "A single, and as I Essay i-lii.indd 33 12/27/11 7:34 PM XXXIII MY OWN LIFE literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me...