A letter, describing Hume's last days, from Adam Smith to the publisher, William Strahan, dated 9 November 1776, concludes:
And that gayety of temper, so agreeable in society . . . was in him certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.
For Hume's brief autobiography, written shortly before he died, click here.
David Hume (1711-1776)