ADAM SMITH’S CELEBRATED ACCOUNT OF HUME’S DEATH.

variously, every one approving or condemning them according as they happen to coincide or disagree with his {p-xxvii} own; but concerning whose character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion. His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced—if I may be allowed such an expression—than that perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon avarice but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity—so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify, and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and