that Mrs. Hume committed herself to this not too flattering judgment of
her younger son. For as Hume reached the mature age of four and thirty,
before he obtained any employment of sufficient importance to convert
the meagre pittance of a middling laird's younger brother into a decent
maintenance, it is not improbable that a shrewd Scots wife may have
thought his devotion to philosophy and poverty to be due to mere
infirmity of purpose. But she lived till 1749, long enough to see more
than the dawn of her son's literary fame and official importance, and
probably changed her mind about "Davie's" force of character.

David Hume appears to have owed little to schools or universities. There
is some evidence that he entered the Greek class in the University of
Edinburgh in 1723--when he was a boy of twelve years of age--but it is
not known how long his studies were continued, and he did not graduate.
In 1727, at any rate, he was living at Ninewells, and already possessed
by that love of learning and thirst for literary fame, which, as _My Own
Life_ tells us, was the ruling passion of his life and the chief source
of his enjoyments. A letter of this date, addressed to his friend
Michael Ramsay, is certainly a most singular production for a boy of
sixteen. After sundry quotations from Virgil the letter proceeds:--

"The perfectly wise man that outbraves fortune, is much greater
than the husbandman who slips by her; and, indeed, this pastoral
and saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now.
I live like a king, pretty much by myself, neither full of action
nor perturbation--_molles somnos_. This state, however, I can
foresee is not to be relied on. My peace of mind is not
sufficiently confirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of
fortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only
in study and contemplation. This alone can teach us to look down on
human accidents. You must allow [me] to talk thus like a
philosopher: 'tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day
long of."

If David talked in this strain to his mother her tongue probably gave
utterance to "Bless the bairn!" and, in her private soul, the epithet
"wake-minded" may then have recorded itself. But, though few lonely,
thoughtful, studious boys of sixteen give vent to their thoughts in such
stately periods, it is probable that the brooding over an ideal is
commone