e, any positive evidence of it ought never to be
regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour
of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices. You are
therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with
hesitation.

"I must inform you that we all are very anxious to hear that you have
fully collected the materials for your second volume, and that you are
even considerably advanced in the composition of it. I speak this more
in the name of my friends than in my own; as I cannot expect to live so
long as to see the publication of it. Your ensuing volume will be
more delicate than the preceding, but I trust in your prudence for
extricating you from the difficulties; and, in all events, you have
courage to despise the clamour of bigots. I am, with great regard, Dear
Sir, &c. DAVID HUME."

Some weeks afterwards I had the melancholy pleasure of seeing Mr. Hume
in his passage through London; his body feeble, his mind firm. On
Aug. 25 of the same year (1776) he died, at Edinburgh, the death of a
philosopher.

My second excursion to Paris was determined by the pressing invitation
of M. and Madame Necker, who had visited England in the preceding
summer. On my arrival I found M. Necker Director-general of the
finances, in the first bloom of power and popularity. His private
fortune enabled him to support a liberal establishment, and his wife,
whose talents and virtues I had long admired, was admirably qualified
to preside in the conversation of her table and drawing-room. As their
friend, I was introduced to the best company of both sexes; to the
foreign ministers of all nations, and to the first names and characters
of France; who distinguished me by such marks of civility and kindness,
as gratitude will not suffer me to forget, and modesty will not allow
me to enumerate. The fashionable suppers often broke into the morning
hours; yet I occasionally consulted the Royal Library, and that of the
Abbey of St. Germain, and in the free use of their books at home I
had always reason to praise the liberality of those institutions. The
society of men of letters I neither courted nor declined; but I was
happy in the acquaintance of M. de Buffon, who united with a sublime
genius the most amiable simplicity of mind and manners. At the table of
my old friend, M. de Foncemagne, I was involved in a dispute with the
Abbe de Mably; and his jealous irascible spirit revenged itself on a