Читать книгу Traditions of Edinburgh онлайн

69 страница из 95

That Hume was a native of Edinburgh is well known. One could wish to know the spot of his birth; but it is not now perhaps possible to ascertain it. The nearest approach made to the fact is from intelligence conveyed by a memorandum in his father’s handwriting among the family papers, where he speaks of ‘my son David, born in the Tron Church parish’—a district comprehending a large square clump of town between the High Street and Cowgate, east of the site of the church itself.

One of Hume’s most intimate friends amongst the other sex was Mrs Cockburn, author of one of the beautiful songs called The Flowers of the Forest. While he was in France in 1764, she writes to him from Baird’s Close,[43] Castle-hill: ‘The cloven foot for which thou art worshipped I despise; yet I remember thee with affection. I remember that, in spite of vain philosophy, of dark doubts, of toilsome learning, God has stamped his image of benignity so strong upon thy heart, that not all the labours of thy head could efface it.’ After Hume’s return to Edinburgh, he kept up his acquaintance with this spirited and amiable woman. The late Mr Alexander Young, W.S., had some reminiscences of parties which he attended when a boy at her house, and at which the philosopher was present. Hume came in one evening behind time for her petit souper, when, seeing her bustling to get something for him to eat, he called out: ‘Now, no trouble, if you please, about quality; for you know I’m only a glutton, not an epicure.’ Mr Young attended at a dinner where, besides Hume, there were present Lord Monboddo and some other learned personages. Mrs Cockburn was then living in the neat first floor of a house at the end of Crighton Street, with windows looking along the Potterrow. She had a son of eccentric habits, in middle life, or rather elderly, who came in during the dinner tipsy, and going into a bedroom, locked himself in, went to bed, and fell asleep. The company in time made a move for departure, when it was discovered that their hats, cloaks, and greatcoats were all locked up in Mr Cockburn’s room. The door was knocked at and shaken, but no answer. What was to be done? At length Mrs Cockburn had no alternative from sending out to her neighbours to borrow a supply of similar integuments, which was soon procured. There was then such fun in fitting the various savants with suitable substitutes for their own proper gear! Hume, for instance, with a dreadnought riding-coat; Monboddo with a shabby old hat, as unlike his own neat chapeau as possible! In the highest exaltation of spirits did these two men of genius at length proceed homeward along the Potterrow, Horse Wynd, Assembly Close, &c., making the old echoes merry with their peals of laughter at the strange appearance which they respectively made.[44]