A curious story in connection with this event is told by Dr.Carlyle, who knew Hume well, and whose authority is perfectly trustworthy.
"Mr.Boyle hearing of it, soon after went to his apartment, for they lodged in the same house, where he found him in the deepest affliction and in a flood of tears.

After the usual topics and condolences Mr.Boyle said to him, 'My friend, you owe this uncommon grief to having thrown off the principles of religion: for if you had not, you would have been consoled with the firm belief that the good lady, who was not only the best of mothers, but the most pious of Christians, was completely happy in the realms of the just.

To which David replied, 'Though I throw out my speculations to entertain the learned and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do not think so differently from the rest of the world as you imagine.'" If Hume had told this story to Dr.Carlyle, the latter would have said so; it must therefore have come from Mr.Boyle; and one would like to have the opportunity of cross-examining that gentleman as to Hume's exact words and their context, before implicitly accepting his version of the conversation.

Mr.Boyle's experience of mankind must have been small, if he had not seen the firmest of believers overwhelmed with grief by a like loss, and as completely inconsolable.

Hume may have thrown off Mr.Boyle's "principles of religion," but he was none the less a very honest man, perfectly open and candid, and the last person to use ambiguous phraseology, among his friends; unless, indeed, he saw no other way of putting a stop to the intrusion of unmannerly twaddle amongst the bitter-sweet memories stirred in his affectionate nature by so heavy a blow.
The _Philosophical Essays_ or _Inquiry_ was published in 1748, while Hume was away with General St.Clair, and, on his return to England, he had the mortification to find it overlooked in the hubbub caused by Middleton's _Free Inquiry_, and its bold handling of the topic of the _Essay on Miracles_, by which Hume doubtless expected the public to be startled.
Between 1749 and 1751, Hume resided at Ninewells, with his brother and sister, and busied himself with the composition of his most finished, if not his most important works, the _Dialogues on Natural Religion_, the _Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_, and the _Political Discourses_.
_The Dialogues on Natural Religion_ were touched and re-touched, at intervals, for a quarter of a century, and were not published till after Hume's death: but the _Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_ appeared in 1751, and the _Political Discourses_ in 1752.