porary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected; and, as he seemed to be always interested in his subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. His reputation was accordingly raised very high, and a multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the university of Glasgow merely on his ac

count.

It does not appear that he made any public trial of his powers as a writer before the year 1755, when he furnished" some criticisms on Johnson's Dictionary, to a periodical work called "The Edinburgh Review," which was then begun, but was not carried on beyond two numbers. In 1759 he first published his "Theory of Moral Sentiments," to which he afterwards subjoined "a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages, and on the different Genius of those which are original and compounded."

After the publication of this work, Dr. Smith remained four years at Glasgow, discharging his official duties with increasing reputation. Towards the end of 1763 he received an invitation from Mr. Charles Townsend to accompany the duke of Buccleugh on his travels; and the liberal terms of the proposal, added to a strong desire of visiting the continent of Europe, induced him to resign his professorship at Glasgow. Early in the year 1764 he joined the duke of Buccleugh in London, and in March set out with him for the continent. Sir James Macdonald, afterwards so justly lamented by Dr. Smith and many other distinguished persons, as a young man of the highest accomplishments and virtues, met them at Dover. After a few days passed at Paris, they settled for eighteen months at Thoulouse, and then took a tour through the south of France to Geneva, where they passed two months. About Christmas 1765 they returned to Paris, and there remained till the October following. By the recommendations of David Hume, with whom Dr. Smith had been united in strict friendship from the year 1752, they were introduced to the society of the first wits in France, but who were also unhappily the most notorious deists. The biographer of Dr. A. Smith has told us, in the words of the duke of Buccleugh himself, that he and his noble pupil lived together in the most uninterrupted harmony during the three years of their travels; and that their friendship continued to the end of Dr. Smith's life, whose loss was then sincerely regretted by the survivor.

The next ten years of Dr. A. Smith's life were passed in a retirement which formed a striking contrast to his late migrations. With the exception of a few visits to Edinburgh and London, he passed the whole of this period with his mother at Kirkaldy, occupied habitually in intense study. His friend Hume, who considered a town as the true scene for a man of letters, in vain attempted to seduce him from his retirement; till at length, in the beginning of 1776, he accounted for his long retreat by the publication of his "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," 2 vols. 4to. This book is well known as the most profound and perspicuous dissertation of its kind that the world has ever seen. About two years after the publication of this work the author was appointed one of the commissioners of the customs in Scotland. The greater part of these two years he passed in London, in a society too extensive and varied to allow him much time for study. In consequence of his new appointment, he returned in 1778 to Edinburgh, where he enjoyed the last twelve years of his life in affluence, and among the companions of his youth. "During the first years of his residence in Edinburgh," says his biographer, "his studies seemed to be entirely suspended; and his passion for letters served only to amuse his leisure and to animate his conversation. The infirmities of age, of which he very early began to feel the approaches, reminded him at last, when it was too late, of what he yet owed to the public and to his own fame. The principal materials of the works which he had announced had long ago been collected, and little probably was wanting, but a few years of health and retirement, to bestow on them that systematical arrangement in which he delighted; and the ornaments of that flowing, and apparently artless style, which he had studiously cultivated, but which, after all his experience and composition, he adjusted with extreme difficulty to his own taste." The death of his mother in 1784, who, to an extreme old age, had possessed her faculties unimpaired, with a considerable degree of health, and that of a cousin, who had assisted in superintending his household, in 1788, contributed to frustrate his projects. Though he bore his losses with firmness, his health and spirits gradually declined, and, in July 1790, he died of a chronic obstruction in his bowels, which had been lingering and painful. A few days before his death he gave orders to destroy all his manuscripts, with the exception of some

detached essays, which he left to the care of his executors, and which have since been published in one volume 4to,

in 1795.

Of his intellectual gifts and attainments, of the origina lity and comprehensiveness of his views, the extent, variety, and correctness of his information, the fertility of his invention, and the ornaments which his rich imagination had borrowed from classical culture, Dr. A. Smith has left behind him lasting monuments. To his private worth the most certain of all testimonies may be found in that confidence, respect, and attachment, which followed him through the various relations of life. With all his talents, however, he is acknowledged not to have been fitted for the general commerce of the world, or the business of active life. His habitual abstraction of thought rendered him inattentive to common objects, and he frequently exhibited instances of absence, which have scarcely been surpassed by the fancy of Addison or La Bruyere. Even in his childhood this habit began to shew itself. In his external form and appearance there was nothing uncommon. He never sat for his picture; but a medallion, executed by Tassie, conveys an exact idea of his profile, and of the general expression of his countenance. The valuable library which he had collected was bequeathed, with the rest of his property, to his cousin, Mr. David Douglas.

One thing, however, is much to be regretted, in the life of Dr. A. Smith, of which his biographer has not thought fit to take the smallest notice; and that is his infidelity. When his friend Hume died, he published the life which that celebrated sceptic had written of himself; with such remarks as proved, but too plainly, that his sentiments on the subject of religion were nearly the same with those of the deceased. This publication, which apparently was intended to strike a powerful blow against Christianity, and to give proportionable support to the cause of deism, produced an anonymous letter to Dr. A. Smith from the Clarendon press; which was afterwards known to have proceeded from the pen of Dr. Horne. In this celebrated letter, the argument is so clear, and the humour so easy and natural, that it produces an effect which no one but a determined infidel can resist or resent. Dr. A. Smith had assumed an air of great solemnity in his defence of his friend Hume; but the author of the letter treats them both with a jocularity which has wonderful force. He alludes to certain anecdotes con

cerning Hume, which are very inconsistent with the account given in his life: for at the very period when he is reported to have been in the utmost tranquillity of spirits, none of his friends could venture to mention Dr. Beattie in his presence, "lest it should throw him into a fit of passion and swearing From whatever unfortunate cause this bias in Dr. Adam Smith's mind arose, whether from his intimacy. with Hume, from his too earnest desire to account for every thing metaphysically, or from a subsequent intercourse with the infidel wits and philosophers of France, it is much to be regretted, as the only material stain upon a character of much excellence.'

SMITH (CHARLES), an able writer on the subject of the corn-trade, was born at Stepney, in 1713. His father was Charles Smith, who occupied several mills by descent, and erected those great establishments of the kind at Barking in Essex, from which he retired to Croydon, where he died in 1761. Our author succeeded, on his father's retirement, to the occupation of his predecessors: but, having a competent fortune, left the active management to his partner and relation, while he found leisure to pursue his inquiries at Barking, and discharge the duties of a country magistrate. In 1748, he married Judith, daughter of Isaac Lefevre, brother to Peter Lefevre, who had established the largest malt-distillery in England; and from henceforth he resided among his wife's relations at Stratford in Essex. Here, inquisitive and industrious, he turned his attention to the operations of the corn-trade, and policy of the corn-laws, and was induced by the scarcity of 1757, to lay the result of his labours on this subject before the public, in three valuable tracts published in 1758 and 1759. These were well received, and the author lived to see an edition of them published by the city of London; to hear his work quoted with approbation by Dr. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations ;" and to observe his recommendations adopted by parliament. But in the midst of these enjoyments he died by a fall from his horse, Feb. 8, 1777, aged sixtythree. His only son, Charles Smith, esq. was lately member of parliament for Westbury in Wiltshire. Mr. Smith's tracts on corn had become very scarce, when in 1804 they

1 Life by Dugald Stewart, esq. first published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and since with the Lives of Reid and Robertson.

were re-published by George Chalmers, esq. with a memoir of the author.'

SMITH (CHARLOTTE), an elegant poetess, was born in 1749. She was the daughter of Nicholas Turner, esq. a gentleman of Sussex, whose seat was at Stoke, near Guilford; but he had another house at Bignor Park, on the banks of the Arun, where she passed many of her earliest years, amidst scenery which had nursed the fancies of Otway and Collins, and where every charm of nature seems to have left the most lively and distinct impression on her mind. She discovered from a very early age an insatiable thirst for reading, which was checked by an aunt, who had the care of her education; for she had lost her mother almost in her infancy. From her twelfth to her fifteenth year, her father resided occasionally in London, and she was introduced into various society. It is said that before she was sixteen, she married Mr. Smith, a partner in his father's house, who was a West India merchant, and also an East India director; an ill-assorted match, and the prime source of all her future misfortunes. After she had resided

some time in London, and partly in the vicinity, Mr. Smith's father, who could never persuade his son to give his time or care sufficiently to the business in which he was engaged, allowed him to retire into the country, and purchased for him Lyss farm in Hampshire.

In this situation, Mrs. Smith, who had now eight children, passed several anxious and important years. Her husband was imprudent, kept a larger establishment than suited his fortune, and engaged in injudicious and wild speculations in agriculture. She foresaw the storm that was gathering over her; but she had no power to prevent it; and she endeavoured to console her uneasiness by recurring to the muse, whose first visitings had added force to the pleasures of her childhood. "When in the beech woods of Hampshire," she says, "I first struck the chords of the melancholy lyre: its notes were never intended for the public ear: it was unaffected sorrow drew them forth: I wrote mournfully, because I was unhappy."

In 1776, Mr. Smith's father died; in four or five years afterwards Mr. Smith served the office of high sheriff for Hampshire, and immediately afterwards, his affairs were brought to a crisis, and he was confined in the King's-bench

1 From Mr. Chalmers's Memoir.