Joseph Hume

“ He is a radical reformer, and always votes on the right side.
Lord John Russell has finished and taken his seat. Joseph Hume is up. He goes into figures; he is the arithmetician of the House of Commons. Mr. Hume is in the Commons what James N. Buffum is in our Anti-Slavery meetings, the man of facts. Watch the old man's eye as he looks over his papers. He is of no religious faith, and said, a short time since, that the world would be better off if all creeds were swept into the Thames. ”

“ On the wrong side of sixty, he was as hale, robust, and healthy-looking a man as could be seen. His ample chest, massive limbs, ponderous body, and large head denoted strength of no ordinary kind. His hair was iron-grey, rough, and bushy; his eyes large, grey, and intelligent; his countenance rigid in expression, although broad and round in shape. This was Joseph Hume.
Precisely at a quarter to five the Speaker took the chair; Mr. Greenwood was then introduced by the Tory whipper-in, and (as the papers said next morning) "took the oaths and his seat for Rottenborough." ”

“ There is little need to exhibit the otiose or irresponsible opinions of men or groups of men, which had no direct influence on events. Little, for example, need be said of the views of the British populace. No doubt Joseph Hume expressed views in which he had many sympathizers throughout the country; but his constituents were too ill-informed on Canadian politics to make their opinions worthy of study; and their heated debates, carried on in mutual improvement societies, had even less influence in controlling the actions of government than had the speeches of their leader in Parliament. ”

“ HUME, JOSEPH (1777–1855) , British politician, was born on the 22nd of January 1777, of humble parents, at Montrose, Scotland. After completing his course of medical study at the university of Edinburgh he sailed in 1797 for India, where he was attached as surgeon to a regiment ”

“ But as if this were not enough to occupy his full working power, he undertook in addition the offices of paymaster and post-master, and filled them satisfactorily. He also contracted to supply the commissariat, which he did with advantage to the army and profit to himself. After about ten years’ unremitting labour, he returned to England with a competency; and one of his first acts was to make provision for the poorer members of his family.
But Joseph Hume was not a man to enjoy the fruits of his industry in idleness. Work and occupation had become necessary for his comfort and happiness. ”

“ Why, that Joseph Paice was as real a person as Joseph Hume, and a great deal pleasanter. A careful observer of life, Bernard, has no need to invent. Nature romances it for him. Dinner plates rattle, and I positively shall incur indigestion by carrying it half concocted to the Post House. ”

“ The circle of Mill's friends naturally extended as his position in the India House enabled him to live more at his ease and brought him into contact with men of political position. His old school-fellow Joseph Hume had made a fortune in India, and returned to take a seat in parliament and become the persistent and tiresome advocate of many of the Utilitarian doctrines. A younger generation was growing up, enthusiastic in the cause of reform, and glad to sit at the feet of men who claimed at least to be philosophical leaders. ”

“ O how true is the declaration of the wise man! (Prov. xxi. 30,) "there is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord."
[I] Joseph Hume, Esq., is, or nearly I believe, the oldest member of the present House of Commons, and it may be truly said, that, perhaps, no one in that House has acted with greater consistency, and more disinterested zeal, for the promotion of the welfare of his country. ”

“ Hume to Joseph Spence.
Edinburgh, Oct. 15, 1754.
Sir,—The agreeable productions, with which you have entertained the public, have long given me a desire of being known to you: but this desire has been much increased by my finding you engage so warmly in protecting a man of merit, so helpless as Mr. Blacklock. I hope you will indulge me in the liberty I have taken of writing to you. I shall very willingly communicate all the particulars I know of him; though others, by their longer acquaintance with him, are better qualified for this undertaking. ”

“ He became a fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1829, dean in 1831, and examiner in mathematics in London University in 1838.
[730] See note 442, page 196.
[731] Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) , the linguist, writer, and traveler, member of many learned societies and a writer of high reputation in his time. His works were not, however, of genuine merit.
[732] Joseph Hume (1777-1855) served as a surgeon with the British army in India early in the nineteenth century. He returned to England in 1808 and entered parliament as a radical in 1812. He was much interested in all reform movements. ”

“ One might almost suppose that Mr Hume had some hand in affixing the gratuity; but in those days there was a king who knew not Joseph.
My grandfather appears to have had also an adventure of his own. During a cessation of the cannonade, he was sitting one morning on a fragment of rock, in the garden behind his quarters, reading his favourite author. The firing suddenly recommenced, and a long-ranged shell, striking the ground at some distance, rolled towards him. ”

“ Accordingly, I should conceive that no man of strong passions, or great muscular activity would ever give up the idea of power. Hume, who seems to have discarded it with the least compunction, was an easy, indolent, good-tempered man, who did not care to stir out of his arm-chair; a languid, Epicurean philosopher, of a reasonable corpulency, who was hurried away by no violent passions, or intense desires, but looked on most things with the same eye of listlessness and indifference. He was one of the subtlest and most metaphysical of all metaphysicians. ”

“ I left the camp for a ride, and my pony bolted. Mr. van Zwieten, it appears, through the agency of a Kaffir, arranged it all by tampering with the bit. I was thrown; there I lay alone on the veldt. He came up and carried me off on his horse. When the storm burst I managed to wrench myself free and ran toward the lights in the house. But I never, never expected to find you here, dearest! It is God's mercy that has led me to you."
"I have only been here a few hours," he explained. "Warren's division had started, and we are to remain until it comes up. How strange that we should meet here. ”

“ In Part IV of the First Book of the Treatise, too often overlooked, Hume has supplied a key for the destruction of the empirical position and the agnosticism logically involved in it. There his diligent and penetrating reader will see he cannot longer stop with Hume’s doctrine, that experience gives only, but gives surely, the sensation of the present moment. He cannot but go on to discover, as Hume himself seems clearly to forebode, that without presupposing the abiding unity of personal identity, even the fleeting impression of the instant is impossible. ”

“ The presence of a stranger did not seem to rouse her curiosity, for she did not even turn her head to look at him, but, singing and dancing, went down the road towards the village. That splendid vision of immortal beauty lasted but two minutes.
"T' doctor's lass," explained the yokel for the third time.
"By Ph [oe] bus, no!" cried Dan, kicking Simon's sleek sides; "it is no mortal, but a goddess--an angel--a vision of the sunrise. My fate--pshaw!--my divinity! The face that launched a thousand ships! The golden Hebe--incarnate beauty--everlasting Joy!" ”

“ The mildew hath fallen sadly,
I have no spirit, I have no part
In the earth that smiles so gladly!
I only sigh for a quiet bright spot
In the churchyard by the stream,
Whereon the morning sunbeams float,
And the stars at midnight dream;
Where only Nature's sounds may wake
The sacred and silent air,
And only her beautiful things may break
Through the long grass gathering there.
[Pg 182] ALEXANDER HUME.
Alexander Hume was born at Kelso on the 1st of February 1809. His father, Walter Hume, occupied a respectable position as a retail trader in that town. ”

“ He stands upon the last defence of the republican world, when all else had been carried, the representative of a noble but perished race, fighting gallantly, though in vain, to preserve that fragment sacred from the foot of the spoiler. The passion and the power of democracy seem concentrated in him. He unites in his character all the richest gifts of nature under the guidance of the most consummate art, and, doubtless, Hume was right when he said that, of all human productions, his works approach the nearest to perfection. ”

“ None of the principles of the Treatise is given up in the later writings, and no addition is made to them. Nor can the superior polish of the more mature productions counterbalance the concentrated vigour of the more youthful work.
After the publication of the Treatise Hume retired to his brother’s house at Ninewells and carried on his studies, mainly in the direction of politics and political economy. In 1741 he published the first volume of his Essays, which had a considerable and immediate success. ”

“ There is nothing about the person of Mr. Hume that would strike you; he looks like a good-natured, unaffected, broad-shouldered countryman, independent in his character, and utterly careless of fashion. ”

“ Hume seems to have made a very favourable impression on General St. Clair, as he did upon every one with whom he came into personal contact; for, being charged with a mission to the court of Turin, in 1748, the General insisted upon the appointment of Hume as his secretary. He further made him one of his aides-de-camp; so that the philosopher was obliged to encase his more than portly, and by no means elegant, figure in a military uniform. ”

“ The dignity and clearness of the style are admirable. The book thus became, as it long continued to be, the standard history of England, and has hardly been equalled in literary merit. Hume speaks of the offence taken by the whigs at his political attitude, and in later editions he made alterations, he says, ‘invariably to the tory side.’ Such heresy struck whigs as something monstrous in a philosopher who had discussed abstract political principles in his essays with calm impartiality. Hume, like all philosophers, had strong prejudices. ”

“ If he knows where Bithiah is, she shall be brought back--but not to you. I myself will take her to Koiau and deliver her to her father."
"You take no account of my feelings," said Johnson, bitterly.
"The Lord's work cannot be hindered for your earthly passion. If Buli knew that you wished to take his child from him, he would not protect our missionaries, and the good seed would be sown in barren ground. But we can speak of these things later, Brother Johnson. The first thing to do is to rescue the maiden from the consequences of her foolish flight, I will question Finland. And you?" ”

“ A want of proper deference for devotional feeling, is a defect that runs through all his works—a constitutional organic defect it might be termed. There is no ribaldry, but at the same time there are no expressions of decent reverence; while this religious party knew from the manner in which their predecessors in the same doctrines were historically treated by Hume, that if there were any coincidence in abstract opinions, there was very little in common between their sympathies and his. ”

“ Hume returned evenly. "But that one idea in a thousand can also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it."
"And you have such a one?"
"I have such a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wass must not know that.
"On Jumala?" Wass returned.
If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part. ”

“ With equal ability, too, he has given periodical sketches of manners, customs, and habits, mingled with valuable details on finance, commerce, and prices—all elements, and most important ones, in the formation of philosophical history. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the man who has rescued these important facts from the ponderous folios where they were slumbering in forgotten obscurity, and brought them into the broad light of philosophic observation and popular narrative. But, notwithstanding all this, Hume is far from being gifted with the philosophy of history. ”

“ It chanced, however, that he was soon to see her again, for on calling at the Manor House a day or so after he came face to face with a tall, sallow-faced young woman, in whom he had no difficulty in recognizing Carson's inamorata. She was handsome enough in a way, he thought, but he did not like her mouth; and those dark eyes, splendid as they were, did not blaze in her head for nothing. She stood on one side as Lord Aldean passed her, and took him in--as it seemed--at a glance.
"Servant," thought Jim, as he entered the drawing-room. "Hum! doesn't look like one for all that. ”

“ The Lord Hume of the latter period of the seventeenth century, had a natural son, Patrick, an arch rogue, inheriting the fire of the blood of the Humes, along with that which burnt in the black eyes of the gipsies of Yetholm. He was brought up by his father; and, true to the principles of his education, would acknowledge no patrons of the heart, save the three ruling powers of love, laughter, and war—Cupid, Momus, and Mars—a trio chosen from all the gods, (the remainder being sent to Hades,) as being alone worthy of the worship of a gentleman. ”