HUME AT LA FLÈCHE, 1735: AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER

Author(s): Ernest Campbell Mossner

Source: Texas Studies in English, Vol. 37 (1958), pp. 30-33
Published by: University of Texas Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23207796
Accessed: 21-12-2015 12:53 UTC

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 HUME AT LA FLECHE, 1735:
AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER
Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner

The paucity of materials for the early and formative years of David

Hume has long been lamented by philosopher and biographer alike.

Both seek to account for the genius that produced the Treatise of
Human Nature, a work generally conceded to be the most brilliant
single effort in British philosophy. It was composed by the age of twenty
six and published at the age of twenty-eight. The period of Hume's
first stay in France, 1734-1737, where he resided first at Rheims and
then at La Fleche, is the period of the composition of the Treatiseu
Hitherto only two of Hume's letters during this period have been known,
both of them written at Rheims and neither revealing overly much
about his intellectual activities.1 Recently a letter from La Fleche of
18 May 1735 has come to light and has been acquired by the Rare
Book Collections of the University of Texas.2 With the three pre-France
letters, this new letter becomes the sixth earliest known, the third from
France in the stated period, and the only one from La Fleche. Although
by no means as informative as the philosopher and the biographer might
desire, the letter is yet sufficiently important to make its immediate

availability highly desirable.

In May 1735 Hume was just turned twenty-four. The previous

September, after a few weeks in Paris, he had arrived at Rheims, "which

is to be the place of my Abode for some considerable time, & where I
hope both to spend my Time happily for the present, & lay up a Stock
for the future."3 By the following May, however, he was settled in

La Fleche, not, as has occasionally been surmised, that he wished to

study at the Jesuit college made famous in the previous century by

Rene Descartes but simply because of "the Cheapness of it." The £80
a year that Rheims had been costing him was greatly reduced by the
move to La Fleche, where he remained until mid-summer 1737. On the
subject of professors, Hume is inclined to be sardonic: their "Learning

1 The Letters
of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (Oxford, 1932), I, Nos. 1 and
2. Hereinafter cited as HL.
2 It was most H. Cadbury of
kindly called to my attention by Professor Warder
Boston University. Its provenance is unknown. Professor Raymond Klibansky and
I know of the whereabouts of more than twenty letters that have come to light
since the publication of our edition of New Letters of David Hume (Oxford,
1954). There, pp. 227-228, we outlined the sources which are most likely to
yield further Hume letters.
a
HL, I, 19.

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Ernest Campbell Mossner 31

or Capacity he investigates carefully, and their age-old custom of read

ing lectures when the superior student might spend his time more profit
ably in the reading of books according to a set plan he rejects scornfully.
This attitude is undoubtedly the result of unhappy experience at Edin
burgh University where a brilliant student became critical of a not
entirely brilliant faculty. What Hume was after, in his own words, was
"a Knowledge of Men & Books," the study of human nature, the ma

terial for the Treatise. It is evident that he was engrossed in these re

searches in France; it is also evident from the postscript to the new letter
that he was no master of composition in French: "You'll be so good as

excuse my Laziness in not answering you in French."

The letter was directed to a certain James Birch whose acquaintance

Hume had made
in Bristol in 1734 where he had gone "to make a
very feeble Trial for entering into a more active Scene of Life."4 Of this
James Birch, freeholder in St. Philip and Jacob Ward, Bristol, nothing
is known beyond the information in Hume's two letters to him. That
he was younger than Hume and, like Hume, not very well off finan
cially, that he admired Hume as friend and as intellect, that he enter
tained some vague aspirations of going over to France to join his friend
for "Study & Diversion" but never did go are justifiable inferences. But
Hume's "dear Jemmy" inspired at least two interesting letters and his
name deserves to be remembered, if for no other reason, on that ac

count alone.

To Mr Birch at Mr Emory s Grocer in Taunton, Somersetshire pr Paris &

Londre.5

Dear Sir
I wou d not have been so long in acknowledging your Favour if I had
not resolv'd to leave Rheims in a little time, & come to la Fleche, where I
am now actually settled, and as you still express some Inclination of visit

ing this celebrated Kingdom, I thought

be more acceptable it wou'd to you
to give you a Description of every part of it, in which I travell'd; than by
repeating what I had already writ send you a new Letter without a new

Subject.
I am entirely of your Opinion that you are too young to leave your
Studies & that 'tis much more proper to see the World after one has suf

ficiently stockt his Mind with all kinds of useful Learning, than after hav
ing spent his Youth in Pleasures & Diversions, return, when perhaps tis

*
"My Own Life" in HL, I, 1.
6 Of Birch's remove from Bristol to Taunton, some miles to the south
forty-five
west, nothing is known. Possibly it indicates his home town as apart from his
place of business and residence.

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32 Hume at La Fleche, 1735; An Unpublished Letter

past time, to Books & Application. But tho I heartily agree with you in this;
I must at the same time observe, that our former Project, quadrates ex

actly with your Sentiments, or rather that it improves upon them, & is

proper to give one a Knowledge of Men & Books at the same time, without

allowing the one in the least

to spoil the other. For except a few Weeks,
which your Journey, & visiting all the Curiosities of Paris,6 must necessarly
[ííc] cost, you lose no more time; but may begin upon what footing you

please on your Arrival at a Countrey Town; & are as much or perhaps

more Master of yourself, than you can propose to be in any part of England.
For my part, I spend alwise more of my Time in Study, than it would be

proper for you, who certainly wou'd choose to give one half of the day to

Company, & the other

to Reading. The French are generally so sociable
& complaisant to Strangers, that tis not necessary to be alwise among them
to get acquainted, & as they are commonly fond of Novelty they will per
haps love one the better that they do not see him every Moment.
As to a celebrated Professor, I do not know, if there is such to be met

with at present in any part of France, especially for the Sciences, in which

generally speaking the French are much inferiour to our own Countreymen.7
But as you know there is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not

to be met with in Books, & there is nothing requir'd in order to reap all

Advantages from them, but an Order & Choice in reading them;

possible
in which, besides the small Assistance I can give you, your own Judgement
wou'd alone be sufficient; I see no reason why we shou'd either go to an
more than to any other place, or ever trouble ourselves about
University,
the Learning or Capacity of the Professor.
The Advantages then you wou'd
have in travelling, which you cannot
at home, wou'd be the the Language, & the seeing the
propose acquiring
& that without encroaching in the least upon your Studies or more
World,
serious Designs. For reaping all these Advantages I know no place more

than la Fleche, where I am at present. Tis a neat, well-built but

proper
small Town, very pleasantly situated, on the Banks of a River, & in one of

the finest Provinces of France.8 The People are extremely civil, & sociable;
& besides the good Company in the Town, there is a College of a hundred

Jesuits, which is esteem'd the most magnificent both for Buildings &
Gardens of any to that Order in France or even in Europe. This
belonging
besides the Cheapness of it, has formerly made it so much frequented by
our Countreymen, that there was once 30 Englishmen boarded in this small

Town. But if you shou'd not find it agreeable upon Trial we are within 10

that is, 3 or 4 hours posting of Mans, Angers, Saumur, & Tours,

Leagues,
which are some of the most celebrated Countrey Towns in France. You

6 For Hume and

in Paris, 1734, see my Life of David Hume (Edinburgh Austin,
1954), pp. 93-96.
7 because of the strong Newtonian influence in the Scottish uni
Presumably
versities and at Newton's own Cambridge.
8 The Loire River in
Anjou.

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Ernest Campbell Mossner 33

see then what you are to expect, & will accordingly take your Resolutions.
Whatever you shall determine, I am still glad of this Opportunity of ex

pressing how much I am

Dear Sir
Your most affectionate humble Servt.
David Hume
la Fleche May 18
1735.
A Letter directed to me at la Fleche en Anjou will find me without any
thing further.

You 11 be so good as excuse my Laziness in not answering you in French.

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