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Jack’s Land, Canongate.

Hume removed at Whitsunday 1762 to a house which he purchased in James’s Court—the eastern portion of the third floor in the west stair (counting from the level of the court). This was such a step as a man would take in those days as a consequence of improvement in his circumstances. The philosopher had lived in James’s Court but a short time, when he was taken to France as secretary to the embassy. In his absence, which lasted several years, his house was occupied by Dr Blair, who here had a son of the Duke of Northumberland as a pupil. It is interesting to find Hume, some time after, writing to his friend Dr Ferguson from the midst of the gaieties of Paris: ‘I am sensible that I am misplaced, and I wish twice or thrice a day for my easy-chair and my retreat in James’s Court.’ Then he adds a beautiful sentiment: ‘Never think, dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of your own fireside and your own time, you can be unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add to your enjoyment.’[42] In one of his letters to Blair he speaks minutely of his house: ‘Never put a fire in the south room with the red paper. It was so warm of itself that all last winter, which was a very severe one, I lay with a single blanket; and frequently, upon coming in at midnight starving with cold, have sat down and read for an hour, as if I had had a stove in the room.’ From 1763 till 1766 he lived in high diplomatic situations at Paris; and thinking to settle there for life, for the sake of the agreeable society, gave orders to sell his house in Edinburgh. He informs us, in a letter to the Countess de Boufflers (General Correspondence, 4to, 1820, p. 231), that he was prevented by a singular accident from carrying his intention into effect. After writing a letter to Edinburgh for the purpose of disposing of his house, and leaving it with his Parisian landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with the Countess de Boufflers at L’Isle Adam; but being driven back by a snowstorm, which blocked up the roads, he found on his return that the letter had not been sent to the post-house. More deliberate thoughts then determined him to keep up his Edinburgh mansion, thinking that, if any affairs should call him to his native country, ‘it would be very inconvenient not to have a house to retire to.’ On his return, therefore, in 1766, he re-entered into possession of his flat in James’s Court, but was soon again called from it by an invitation from Mr Conway to be an under-secretary of state. At length, in 1769, he returned permanently to his native city, in possession of what he thought opulence—a thousand a year. We find him immediately writing from his retreat in James’s Court to his friend Adam Smith, then commencing his great work On the Wealth of Nations in the quiet of his mother’s house at Kirkcaldy: ‘I am glad to have come within sight of you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows; but I wish also to be within speaking-terms of you,’ &c. To another person he writes: ‘I live still, and must for a twelvemonth, in my old house in James’s Court, which is very cheerful, and even elegant, but too small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict the remaining years of my life!’