VIII

ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

friends $ and abandoning at once all the fchemeswhich their prudence had formed for him, herefolved to return to his own country, and tolimit his ambition to the uncertain profpeft ofobtaining, in time, fome one of thofe moderatepreferments, to which literary attainments lead inScotland .

In the year 1748, he fixed his refidenee atEdinburgh , and during that and the followingyears, read leHures on rhetoric and belles lettres,under the patronage of Lord Kames. About t®s ; -time, too, he contracted a very intimate friendfhip,which continued without interruption till hisdeath, with Mr. Alexander Wedderburn , nowLord Loughborough, and with Mr. WilliamJohnstone , now Mr. Pulteney.

At what particular period his acquaintance withMr. David Hume commenced, does not appearfrom any information that I have received; butfrom fome papers, now in the poffeffion of Mr. Hume ’s nephew, and which he has been fo obli-ging as to allow me to perufe , their acquaintancefeems to have grown into friendfliip before theyear 1752. It was a friendfhip on both fidesfounded on the admiration of genius, and thelove of fimplicity; and which forms an intereftingcircumftance in the hiftory ofeachofthefe eminentmen , from the ambition which both have fliownto record it to pofterity.