The Committee to whose examination the papers bequeathed to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by the late Baron Hume, has been intrusted, in the view of suggesting what might be the most proper and useful plan for their future disposal, consistently with the peculiar character and functions of the learned body to which they now belong, having proceeded to examine their contents with care, have now to offer, though not without considerable hesitation, the views that have occurred to them.

Independently of some valuable and interesting autographs of Mr David Hume, to be mentioned in the sequel, the important part of this bequest, to which the attention of the Committee has been more particularly directed, consists of a miscellaneous and very broken mass of letters, which may, in general, be described as the Private and Confidential Correspondence of that illustrious philosopher and historian. Of these letters, about one hundred and forty-five are written by Mr Hume; the number of those addressed to him is about five hundred and fifty; making a total of nearly seven hundred letters.