Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/36

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DAVID HUME

The wallis that weltering wont to be
Are stable like the land.
**** What pleasure 'twere to walk and see,
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear ;
The salmon out of crooves and creels
Up hauled into skouts,
The bells and circles on the weills
Through louping of the trouts.
O then it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calme,
The praise of God to play and sing
With cornet and with shalme.

Rowe, in his manuscript History of the Church of Scotland, has told us that Hume "was one of those godlie and faithful servants, who had witnessed against the hierarchy of prelates in this kirk." He proceeds to remark, "as to Mr Alexander Hoome, minister at Logic beside Stirlin, I nixt mention him: he has left ane admonition behind him in write to the kirk of Scotland, wherein he affirmes that the bishops, who were then fast rising up, had left the sincere ministers, who wold gladlie have keeped still the good old government of the kirk, if these corrupt ministers had not left them and it; earnestlie entreating the bishops to leave and forsake that course wherin they were, els their defection from their honest brethren, (with whom they had taken the covenant,) and from the cause of God, would be registrate afterwards to their eternale shame." The person who has reprinted Hume's Hymns and Sacred Songs for the Bannatyne club, has discovered among the elaborate collections of Wodrow, in the Advocate's Library, a small tract entitled, "Ane afold Admonition to the Ministerie of Scotland, be ane deing brother," which he, not without reason, presumes to be that mentioned by Rowe; founding the supposition on the similarity of the title, the applicability of the matter, and a minute circumstance of internal evidence, which shows that the admonition was written very soon after the year 1607, and very probably at such a period as might have enabled Hume (who died in 1609) to have denominated himself "ane deing brother." The whole of this curious production is conceived in a style of assumption, which cannot have been very acceptable to the spiritual pride of the Scottish clergy. It commences in the following terms of apostolical reprimand:—"Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is certainlie knawin, bretheren, to the greiff of monie godlie heartes and slander of the Gospell, that thair ar dissentionis among you: not concerning the covenant of God, or the scales of the covenant, but chieflie concerning tvva poyntig of discipline or kirk government, wharanent you are divydit in twa factionis or opinionis." From this assumed superiority, the admonitionist stalks forth, bearing himself in lofty terms, never condescending to argue, but directing like a superior spirit; and under the Christian term of humility, "bretheren," concealing an assumption of spiritual superiority, which the word "sons" would hardly have sufficiently expressed.

HUME, David, of Godscroft. The scantiness of the materials for lives of literary Scotsmen has, with us, often been a subject of remark and regret; and we are sure that every one who has had occasion to make investigations into this department of our national history will at once acquiesce in its truth. Our statesmen have been applauded or condemned—at all events they have been immortalized—by contemporary writers; the deeds of our soldiers have been celebrated