...a witch-haunted bog, memorable for having nearly swallowed up David Hume the historian, who was a native of Ninewells, in the neighbourhood. Hume missed his footing in the mire, and sticking fast, called for assistance, and was at last heard by some people, who ran to give help. Seeing, however, that it was Hume "the unbeliever," they turned back from the amiable philosopher, remarking, "Na, na, the deil has him, let the deil keep him." Mr Somerville mentions, that Hume got out of the bog, and wrote his history afterwards, but does not relate the means by which the philosopher and historian escaped an absorption of his body, analogous of the absorption his mind had undergone in metaphysical mier. The "deil" would have had him both ways, the story goes, but for a compassonate milkmaid, who helped him out, after compelling him to say the Lord's prayer, as a proof that he was a true Christian.
--From a review of The Autobiography of a Working Man (by Alexander Somerville, pub. 1848) in The Eclectic Review (pub. 1848) by Thomas Price and Edwin Paxton Hood
The bog was in Edinburg, behind the Castle, part of the old Nor Lock, now Princes Street Gardens. Ninewells is in the Scottish Borders!
Posted by: Bos Menzies | 13 August 2013 at 18:29
Well that's a fun piece of information! However I no longer have access to the original quotation; maybe it did mention that the bog was in Edinburgh. I suppose it's not a bog any more? Maybe the writer just assumed it was in Hume's native place.
Posted by: Sedulia | 14 August 2013 at 15:49