Place is worth paying something for, and yet it will really cost you nothing.  You made above a hundred pound a year by your class when in this Place, though you had not the character of Professor.  We cannot suppose that it will be less than a hundred and thirty after you are settled.  John Stevenson[97]—­and it is John Stevenson—­makes near a hundred and fifty, as we were informed upon Enquiry.  Here is a hundred pounds a year for eight years’ Purchase, which is a cheap purchase, even considered in the way of a Bargain.  We flatter ourselves that you rate our company at something, and the Prospect of settling Ferguson will be an additional inducement.  For though we think of making him take up the Project if you refuse it, yet it is uncertain whether he will consent; and it is attended in his case with many very obvious objections.  I beseech you therefore to weigh all these motives over again.  The alteration of these circumstances merit that you should put the matter again in deliberation.  I had a letter from Miss Hepburn, where she regrets very much that you are settled at Glasgow, and that we had the chance of seeing you so seldom.—­I am, dear Smith, yours sincerely,

     DAVID HUME.

     8th June 1758.

     P.S.—­Lord Milton can with his finger stop the foul mouths
     of all the Roarers against heresy.[98]

The postscript shows what we have already indicated, that Smith had not escaped the general hue and cry against heresy which was now for some years abroad in the country.

The Miss Hepburn who regrets so much the remoteness of Smith’s residence is doubtless Miss Hepburn of Monkrig, near Haddington, one of those gifted literary ladies who were then not infrequently to be found in the country houses of Scotland.  It was to Miss Hepburn and her sisters that John Home is said to have been indebted for the first idea of Douglas, and Robertson submitted to her the manuscript of his History of Scotland piece by piece as he wrote it.  When it was finished the historian sent her a presentation copy with a letter, in which he said:  “Queen Mary has grown up to her present form under your eye; you have seen her in many different shapes, and you have now a right to her.  Were I a galante writer now, what a fine contrast might I make between you and Queen Mary?  What a pretty string of antitheses between your virtues and her vices.  I am glad, however, she did not resemble you.  If she had, Rizzio would have only played first fiddle at her consort (sic), with a pension of a thousand merks and two benefits in a winter; Darnley would have been a colonel in the Guards; Bothwell would, on account of his valour, have been Warden of the Middle Marches, but would have been forbid to appear at court because of his profligacy.  But if all that had been done, what would have become of my History?"[99]