neck, embraced him warmly, and, suffocated with sobs and bathed in tears, cried out in broken accents, No, no, David Hume is no traitor, with many protests of affection.  The phlegmatic Hume only returned his embrace with politeness, stroked him gently on the back, and repeated several times in a tranquil voice, Quoi, mon cher monsieur!  Eh! mon cher monsieur!  Quoi donc, mon cher monsieur![367] (9) Although for many weeks Rousseau had kept a firm silence to Hume, neglecting to answer letters that plainly called for answer, and marking his displeasure in other unmistakable ways, yet Hume had never sought any explanation of what must necessarily have struck him as so singular, but continued to write as if nothing had happened.  Was not this positive proof of a consciousness of perfidy?

Some years afterwards he substituted another shorter set of grievances, namely, that Hume would not suffer Theresa to sit at table with him; that he made a show of him; and that Hume had an engraving executed of himself, which made him as beautiful as a cherub, while in another engraving, which was a pendant to his own, Jean Jacques was made as ugly as a bear.[368]

It would be ridiculous for us to waste any time in discussing these charges.  They are not open to serious examination, though it is astonishing to find writers in our own day who fully believe that Hume was a traitor, and behaved extremely basely to the unfortunate man whom he had inveigled over to a barbarous island.  The only part of the indictment about which there could be the least doubt, was the possibility of Hume having been an accomplice in Walpole’s very small pleasantry.  Some of his friends in Paris suspected that he had had a hand in the supposed letter from the King of Prussia.  Although the letter constituted no very malignant jest, and could not by a sensible man have been regarded as furnishing just complaint against one who, like Walpole, was merely an impudent stranger, yet if it could be shown that Hume had taken an active part either in the composition or the circulation of a spiteful bit of satire upon one towards whom he was pretending a singular affection, then we should admit that he showed such a want of sense of the delicacy of friendship as amounted to something like treachery.  But a letter from Walpole to Hume sets this doubt at rest.  “I cannot be precise as to the time of my writing the King of Prussia’s letter, but ...  I not only suppressed the letter while you stayed there, out of delicacy to you, but it was the reason why, out of delicacy to myself, I did not go to see him as you often proposed to me, thinking it wrong to go and make a cordial visit to a man, with a letter in my pocket to laugh at him."[369]