Page "David Hume" Paragraph 12

During the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, Hume tutored the Marquis of Annandale ( 1720 – 92 ), who was officially described as a " lunatic ".

This engagement ended in disarray after about a year.

But it was then that Hume started his great historical work The History of England, which took fifteen years and ran over a million words, to be published in six volumes in the period between 1754 and 1762, while also involved with the Canongate Theatre.

In this context, he associated with Lord Monboddo and other Scottish Enlightenment luminaries in Edinburgh.

From 1746, Hume served for three years as secretary to Lieutenant-General St Clair, and wrote Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, later published as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

The Enquiry proved little more successful than the Treatise.