"I have said that your lordship never received a letter more friendly and obliging than my former letter: I hope you will also acknowledge that this is wrote with sufficient temper and moderation. Adieu.
"I have the honour to be, with the greatest regard and consideration, my lord, your lordship's most obedient, and most humble servant."[260:1]
DEAR SIR,--I have the pleasure to understand, by yours of the ----, that I have never been altogether in disgrace with you; I choose rather to pass for dull as mad, and it would have been the highest proof of the latter, if I had taken any thing ill of you, that I had not thought ill meant.
I own the compliment you say you intended me in your former letter, was too refined for my genius. I really mistook it for an intention to break with me; and as there is hardly any thing I set a greater value on than your friendship, and I was not conscious of having ever entertained a single idea inconsistent with it, I could not resign it without pain and resentment. Diffident of myself, I showed your letter to several of our common friends, who all understood it as I did. Had my affection for you been more moderate, my answer to yours would have been cool in proportion. I am still mortified to think you could suspect me of siding with my brother against you. I know the distinction between relationship and friendship. I have ever thought those connexions incompatible; and if I was dull enough to mistake the meaning of your letter, I have not more reason to blush, than you have for suspecting, that any thing my brother could say, was capable of influencing my sincere regard for a friend of thirty years' standing, or that my zeal for the reputation of any prince, dead or alive, could draw any sentiment or expression from me, inconsistent with that admiration of your talents, as an author, and merit as a man, I have constantly felt in myself, and endeavoured to excite in others. I am, dear sir, your sincerely obedient humble servant,
In fear lest the two letters to Elliot, printed above,[261:1] might not have reached their destination, Hume wrote to him again on 17th November, repeating the substance of his engagement with the Abbé Choquart. The remainder of the letter follows: