" he who can fairly turn the laugh when it has been raised "against him, will be pardoned readily, provided he has "laughed in good humour."

b Inquiry into the Causes of the Infidelity and Scepticism of the Times. Page 445.

LETTERS ON INFIDELITY.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

DEAR SIR,

TO W. S. ESQ.

You express your surprise that, after the favourable manner in which the Letter to Dr. Smith was received by the public, and the service which, as you are pleased to say, was effected by it, nothing farther should have been attempted; especially as an Apology for the Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq. made its appearance soon afterwards; and some posthumous tracts of that philosopher have been since published to complete the good work he had so much at heart; not to mention other productions on the side of Infidelity. A few strictures on the nature and tendency, the principles and reasonings, of such performances, thrown out, from time to time, in a concise and lively way, you observe, are better calculated to suit the taste and turn of the present age, than long and elaborate dissertations; and you see no reason why a method practised by Voltaire (and so much commended by D'Alembert) against religion, should not be adopted by those who write for it. In compliance with these hints, and that you may not think me desirous of leading an idle life, when there is so much work to be done, I

have formed a resolution to look over my papers, and address what I may happen to find among them to yourself in a series of letters; a species of composition much in vogue, and which has these two advantages to recommend it, that it admits of matter however miscellaneous, and may be continued or broken off at pleasure.

353

LETTER I.

I BEGIN, dear sir, with a few observations on the Apology for the Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq. drawn up soon after that work came out, but reserved in expectation of Mr. Hume's posthumous

tracts.

With difficulty I am able to persuade my friends, that this author and myself have not written in concert; for his Apology and my Letter fit each other like two tallies. In his dedication, he expresses his apprehension, that "the CHRISTIAN clamour "would be raised afresh." A clamour is accordingly raised by "one of the people called CHRISTIANS.' Elsewhere he intimates his expectation that Mr. Hume's "affectionate Dr. Smith" would come in for his share. A letter is accordingly written to that very doctor.

You see, dear sir, how I have done my best to fulfil his predictions. Let us now inquire, whether he may not have returned the favour, and been equally kind to me.

In my advertisement I ventured to suppose that, by a late publication, the admirers of Mr. Hume

a 'The apology was written before the publication of the Letter, though sent into the world after it.

imagined religion, to have received its coup de grace, and that the astonished public was utterly at a loss to conceive, " what they, who believed in God, "could possibly have to say for themselves." To convert my supposition into matter of fact, he opens his Apology with a kind of funeral oration, most solemnly pronounced over Christianity as a breathless corpse, about to be for ever interred in the grave

Mr. Hume.

of

"David Hume is dead! Never were the pillars of Orthodoxy so desperately shaken, as they are now by that event!" And, at p. 9, he speaks of the "particular circumstances of this event" as "increasing the aggregate of our consternation!”

Here the distempered imagination of the apologist sees Mr. Hume, like another Samson, bowing himself with all his might between the pillars, and slaying more at his death, than all that he slew in his life. He sees the believing world aghast, the Church tottering from its foundations, and Christians assembling in an upper chamber, with the doors shut, for fear of the philosophers. What may be the state of religion upon earth, before the end shall come, we cannot tell. We have reason to think it will be very bad. But let us hope, notwithstanding all which has happened in Scotland, that the Gospel

will last our time.

Thus, again: I scrupled not to assert, that the end proposed, in giving an account of Mr. Hume's life and death, was to recommend his sceptical and atheistical notions. Dr. Smith indeed was wary and modest. He gave us a detail of circumstances,