Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary - Faculty of Social Sciences

78 HISTORY OF THE EDITIONS. TI IS'I'OHY OF THE EDITIONS. 79tliirt'y years, from the publication of a worlc, which ~nig-llt~give pain and umbrage to his dearest friends ; at the close oflifk, and wheil the lapse of time since it was written mighthave been supposed to render him indifferent to its fate,--because there appeared some danger of its final suppression,he took decided and well-pondered steps to avert from it thisfate. Such was the character of the man !Hurne to Adam Smith." London, May 3, 1776.cc MY DEAR FRIEND,-I send you enclosed an ostensibleletter, conformably to your desire. I think, however, yourscruples groundless. Was Mallet any wise hurt by hispublication of, Lord Bolingbrolce P He received an officeafterwards fi-om the present king and Lord Bute, the mostprndieb men in the world ; and he always justified himselfby his sacred to the will of a dead friend. At thesame time, I own that your scruples have a specious appearance.But rny opinion is, that if upon my death you determinenever to publish these papers, you should leave themsealed up with my brother and Family, with some inscriptionthat you reserve to yourself the power of reclaiming themwhenever yon think proper. If I live a few years longer, 1shall publish them myself. I consider an observation ofRacllefuucault, that a wind, though it extinguishes a candle,blows up a fire"'. . . . .' The " ostensible lettter" which was to serve as Smith'sjustification, if he should decline to follow the injunctions ofthe will, is as follows :-'" London, May 3, 1776,'" MY DEAR SIR,-After reflecting Inore maturely on thatarticle of my will by which I left you the disposal of allmy papers, with a request that you should publish my' Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,' I have becomesensible that;, both on account of the nature of the work,and of your situation, it niay be improper to hurry on thatpublication. I therefore take the present opportunity ofqualifying that friendly request. ,I am content to leave itentirely to your discretion, at what time you will publishthat piece, or whether you will publish it at all.'" You will find among my papers a very inoffensive piece,Life, vol. ii. p. 491.called ' my own Life,' which I coinposed a few days before Ileft Edinburglr ; wlren I thought, as did all my friends, thatmy life was despaired of. There can be no objection, thatthe bmall piece should be sent to Messrs. Strahan and Cadell,and the proprietors of nly other works, to be prefixed to a.nyfuture edition of them,"Smith did not absolutely refuse to edit the " Dialogues,"but Hume saw pretty clearly t,hat it was a task that wouldnot be performed by him. That he was correct in this supposition,appears by a letter from Smith to Strahan afterHume's death, where he says :' cc I once had persuaded him to leave it entirely to my discretioneither to publish them at what time I thought proper,or not to publish them at all. Had he continued of thismind, the manuscript should have been most carefully preserved,and upon my decease restored to his falllily ; but itnever should have been published in rny lifetime. When youhave read it, you will perhaps think it not unreasonable toconsult some prudent friend about what you ought to do."' By a codicil to his will, dated 7th August,, he thus alteredthe arrangement referred to in these letters. "In mylater will and disposition, I made some destinations wit,hregard to my manuscripts : All these I now retract, and leatemy manuscripts to the care of Mr. William Strahan ofLondon, member of Parliament, trusting to the friendshipthat has long subsisted between us; for his careful and faithfulexecution of my intentions. I desire that my 'Dialoguesconcerning Natural Religion' may be printed and pnblished,any time within two years nft,er my death." . . .There is then a new paragraph appended as follows :' " I do ordain that if my ' Dialogues,' from whatever cause,be not published within two years and a half after my death,as also the account of my life, the property shall return tomy nephew, David, whose duty in publishing them, as, thelast request of his uncle, must be approved of by all theworld."' Both Hun~e and Smith seem to have thought that Strahanwould undertake the publication as a mere matter of business.But this book, like the little hunchback in the "ArabianNights," was a commodity which every one seemed anxiousto transfer to his neighbour. Strahan declined to undertake