bout the author. The Bishop of Peterborough said
he had passed the evening in a company where he heard it
extolled above all books in the world. The Duke of Argyle is
more decisive than he used to be in its favour. I suppose he
either considers it as an exotic, or thinks the author will
be very serviceable to him in the Glasgow elections. Lord
Lyttelton says that Robertson and Smith and Bower[107] are
the glories of English literature. Oswald protests he does
not know whether he has reaped more instruction or
entertainment from it, but you may easily judge what
reliance can be placed on his judgment. He has been engaged
all his life in public business, and he never sees any
faults in his friends. Millar exults and brags that
two-thirds of the edition are already sold, and that he is
now sure of success. You see what a son of the earth that
is, to value books only by the profit they bring him. In
that view, I believe, it may prove a very good book.

Charles Townshend, who passes for the cleverest fellow in
England, is so much taken with the performance that he said
to Oswald he would put the Duke of Buccleugh under the
author's care, and would make it worth his while to accept
of that charge. As soon as I heard this I called on him
twice with a view of talking with him about the matter, and
of convincing him of the propriety of sending that young
gentleman to Glasgow, for I could not hope that he could
offer you any terms which would tempt you to renounce your
professorship; but I missed him. Mr. Townshend passes for
being a little uncertain in his resolutions, so perhaps you
need not build much on his sally.

In recompense for so many mortifying things, which nothing
but truth could have extorted from me, and which I could
easily have multiplied to a greater number, I doubt not but
you are so good a Christian as to return good for evil, and
to flatter my vanity by telling me that all the godly in
Scotland abuse me for my account of John Knox and the
Reformation. I suppose you are glad to see my paper end, and
that I am obliged to conclude with--Your humble
servant.[108]

On the 28th of July Hume again writes from London on the same
subject:--

I am very well acquainted with Bourke,[109] who was much
taken with your book.