solable. Hume may have
thrown off Mr. Boyle's "principles of religion," but he was none the
less a very honest man, perfectly open and candid, and the last person
to use ambiguous phraseology, among his friends; unless, indeed, he saw
no other way of putting a stop to the intrusion of unmannerly twaddle
amongst the bitter-sweet memories stirred in his affectionate nature by
so heavy a blow.

The _Philosophical Essays_ or _Inquiry_ was published in 1748, while
Hume was away with General St. Clair, and, on his return to England, he
had the mortification to find it overlooked in the hubbub caused by
Middleton's _Free Inquiry_, and its bold handling of the topic of the
_Essay on Miracles_, by which Hume doubtless expected the public to be
startled.

Between 1749 and 1751, Hume resided at Ninewells, with his brother and
sister, and busied himself with the composition of his most finished, if
not his most important works, the _Dialogues on Natural Religion_, the
_Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_, and the _Political
Discourses_.

_The Dialogues on Natural Religion_ were touched and re-touched, at
intervals, for a quarter of a century, and were not published till after
Hume's death: but the _Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_
appeared in 1751, and the _Political Discourses_ in 1752. Full reference
will be made to the two former in the exposition of Hume's philosophical
views. The last has been well said to be the "cradle of political
economy: and much as that science has been investigated and expounded in
later times, these earliest, shortest, and simplest developments of its
principles are still read with delight even by those who are masters of
all the literature of this great subject."[9]

The _Wealth of Nations_, the masterpiece of Hume's close friend, Adam
Smith, it must be remembered, did not appear before 1776, so that, in
political economy, no less than in philosophy, Hume was an original, a
daring, and a fertile innovator.

The _Political Essays_ had a great and rapid success; translated into
French in 1753, and again in 1754, they conferred a European reputation
upon their author; and, what was more to the purpose, influenced the
later French school of economists of the eighteenth century.

By this time, Hume had not only attained a high reputation in the world
of letters, but he considered himself a man of independent fortune. His
frugal habits had enabled him to accumulate L1,000, and he