t affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.[260]

Hume answered this letter next day.

EDINBURGH, _23rd August 1776_.

MY DEAREST FRIEND--I am obliged to make use of my nephew's
hand in writing to you, as I do not rise to-day.

There is no man in whom I have a greater confidence than Mr.
Strahan, yet I have left the property of that manuscript to
my nephew David, in case by any accident it should not be
published within three years after my decease. The only
accident I could foresee was one to Mr. Strahan's life, and
without this clause my nephew would have had no right to
publish it. Be so good as to inform Mr. Strahan of this
circumstance.

You are too good in thinking any trifles that concern me are
so much worth of your attention, but I give you entire
liberty to make what additions you please to the account of
my life.

I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever,
wh. I hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious
illness, but unluckily it has in a great measure gone off. I
cannot submit to your coming over here on my account, as it
is possible for me to see you so small a portion of the day,
but Dr. Black can better inform you concerning the degree of
strength which may from time to time remain with me.--Adieu,
my dearest friend,

DAVID HUME.

_P.S._--It was a strange blunder to send yr. letter by the
carrier.[261]

These were the last words of this long and memorable friendship. Two
days after they were written Hume passed peacefully away, and his
bones were laid in the new cemetery on the Calton Crags, and covered a
little later, according to his own express provision, with that great
round tower, designed by Robert Adam, which Smith once pointed out to
the Earl of Dunmore as they were walking together down the North
Bridge, and said, "I don't like that monument; it is the greatest
piece of vanity I ever saw in my friend Hume."

Smith was no doubt at the funeral, and seems to have been present when
the will was read, and to have had some conversation about it with
Hume's elder brother, John Home of Ninewells,[262] for on the 31st of
August he writes from Dalkeith House, where he had gone on a visit to
his old pupil, discharging Ninewells of any obligation to pay the
legacy of L200 which he had been left by Hume in consideration of
acting as his liter