The date of Hume’s death is not known; but he was witness to a deed on
the 27th of November, 1627; and later still, in the records of the Privy
Council of Scotland, 8th and 16th July, 1630, Mr. D. Laing tells me that
there is a memorandum of the King’s letter anent the Grammar of Mr.
Alexander Hume, “schoolmaster at Dunbar.” With regard to his private
life, we know that he was married to Helen Rutherford, and had two sons
and a daughter born to him in Edinburgh between the years 1601 and 1606.
He was the father of three more children, also two sons and a daughter,
between 1608 and 1610, in the county of East Lothian.

Hume was a master in controversy, and wrote on subjects of polemical
divinity; but his mind was principally drawn towards language and the
rules of its construction. He especially gave much of his time to the
study of Latin grammar, and feeling dissatisfied with the elementary
books which were then in use, he drew up one himself, which he submitted
to the correction of Andrew Melville and other learned friends, and
published in 1612 under the title of _Grammatica Nova_. The object he
proposed to himself was to exclude from the schools the grammar of the
Priscian of the Netherlands, the celebrated John Van Pauteren, but his
work did not give the satisfaction which he had expected. He succeeded,
however, in his wishes after many reverses, by the help of Alexander
Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, Chancellor of Scotland, and by authority
both of Parliament and of the Privy Council his grammar was enjoined to
be used in all the schools of the kingdom. But through the interest of
the bishops, and the steady opposition of Ray, his successor at the High
School, the injunction was rendered of no effect. He would not, however,
be beaten, and we find that in 1623 he was again actively engaged in
adopting measures to secure the introduction of his grammar into every
school in North Britain where the Latin language was taught.