Abstract Before going to the University of Edinburgh to study law, David Hume (1711– 1776) had read Cicero, the Latin and French poets and essayists, mathematics and natural philosophy, history and moral philosophy. Finding that he had no taste for law, he turned to writing philosophy. Having worked himself ill on what became A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume went to France to recuperate. While there he may have had some discussions with scholars at the nearby Jesuit College of La Fleàche. When the Treatise was published anonymously in 1739–40, it fell, as he said, “stillborn from the press.” Stoically weathering his disappointment, he turned to writing Essays Moral, Political and Literary (1741– 1752). His application for a chairs in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh (1745) and at Glasgow (1752) were refused on the grounds that he was too skeptical, perhaps even irreligious. He received a consolation appointment as Librarian for the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, where he served from 1752– 1757. During that time, wrote his History of England, published between 1754 and 1762. Much admired for his statecraft, Hume served as a diplomatic secretary in the British embassies of France and Italy from 1746 to 1749 and again from 1763 to 1766.
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