his mind was opening. The fine arts also and belles lettres, the poetry, and especially the drama of that country, subjects well worthy the contemplation of the philosopher, engaged no small share of his attention. The imagination and the arts which are addressed to it; the refined pleasures of which it is susceptible, and the taste to appreciate those pleasures, were then deemed not unworthy the attention of a philosopher. The principles upon which the arts are founded, the origin and nature of the emotions they excite, and the causes which, in different ages and nations, have diversified their character and operation, are subjects which were not only supposed to have some interest in themselves, but which have been investigated by such metaphysicians and economists as Hume and Smith, and Berkeley and Dugald Stewart, from the intimate and indissoluble connexion which they hold with the philosophy of the human mind; and as embracing an extensive and beautiful class of phenomena which form part of the great science of human nature. We are pleased to record such things in the character of Smith; because, however unimportant at other times, they are of consequence now, when one of the first of sciences is in danger of suffering in public estimation from the narrow and repulsive spirit which is occasionally mingled in its discussions: and because they shew that political economy, as a study, is not incompatible with a love of literature, and eloquence, and poetry; and assuredly not so with good taste and good writing*.

Dr. Smith's own taste in literature, as has been already hinted, was disposed to the admiration of what has been since denominated the classical, in contradistinction to the romantic, school of art. We do not remember, at this moment, a single reference to Shakspeare in the whole of his writings; while the lofty praise he has taken occasion to bestow upon the tragedies of Racine and Voltaire, his allusions to Pope, and encomium on Gray, exhibit more positive testimony in proof of this taste. But reserving what we have further to say respecting his general intellectual

It is but justice to say here, that we are most happy to except from any censure implied in the above observations, two distinguished professsors of political economy-we mean, Mr. Senior of Oxford, and Mr. Macculloch of the University of Londonboth of whom have invariably written and spoken in the spirit of their great master.

character and literary taste, for the conclusion of our memoir, we proceed to detail the few remaining incidents of his life.

In October, 1766, Dr. Smith returned to London, where he and the Duke of Buccleugh separated; after having spent three years together, without the slightest coolness or disagreement; and, “on my part," says the Duke, in a letter which he addressed to Mr. Stewart, "with every advantage that could be expected from the society of such a man. We lived in friendship till the hour of his death; and I shall always retain the impression of having lost a friend whom I loved and respected, not only for his great talents, but for every private virtue."

Shortly after his return to England, he went down to his native place, where he continued to reside almost uninterruptedly for the next ten years of his life. An occasional visit to his friends at Edinburgh, with a journey to London once or twice in the interval, were his only diversions from a course of intense application. To his friends, to Mr. Hume in particular, this severe seclusion was a frequent matter of regret and complaint. Hume had returned to Edinburgh in 1669, after quitting his engagement with Lord Hertford; and in a letter written shortly after to Smith, he says, (dating from his house in St. James' Court, which commanded a prospect of the Forth and the opposite coast of Fife)-"I am glad to have come within sight of you; but as I would also be within speaking terms of you, I wish we could concert measures for that purpose. I am mortally sick at sea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulph that lies between us. I am also tired of travelling, as much as you ought naturally to be of staying at home; I therefore propose to you to come hither, and pass some days with me in this solitude. I want to know what you have been doing, and propose to exact a rigorous account of the method in which you have employed yourself during your retreat. I am positive you are in the wrong in many of your speculations, especially where you have the misfortune to differ from me. All these are reasons for our meeting, and I wish you would make me some reasonable proposal for that purpose. There is no habitation in the island of Inchkeith, otherwise I should challenge you to meet me there, and neither of us ever to leave the place till we are fully

agreed on all points of controversy. I expect General Conway here to-morrow, whom I shall attend to Roseneath, and I shall remain there a few days. On my return, I hope to find a letter from you, containing a bold acceptance of this defiance."

There are extant several letters from this celebrated person, in which he exhorts his friend to leave his retirement, in terms expressive at once of the fondest friendship, and the most longing desire for his society: "I shall not take any excuse from your state of health," he writes on another occasion, "which I suppose only a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of solitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken to complaints of this nature, you will cut yourself out entirely from human society, to the great loss of both parties."

During the whole of this period, Smith may be considered as engaged in the composition of his great work. The room is still shewn at Kirkaldy, in which was written the greater part of the "Wealth of Nations ;" and to that, and to scenes ennobled in like manner, by the exertions of genius and learning, will mankind some day make their pilgrimage in devotion to science and to virtue, when the shrines of kings and conquerors shall attract the homage which is often paid to them as little as they deserve it.

In the spring of the year 1773, he went up to London for rather a longer period than he was in the habit of leaving home; partly for the purpose of collecting some information, and making references relative to the work which now engrossed his whole thoughts.

There are so few letters of Smith's extant, as we have before observed, that we shall not hesitate to present to our readers the following, which he addressed to Mr. Hume on the point of his departure, as it serves to shew the extreme anxiety which he always felt about the destruction of his manuscripts:

Whether that might not be published as a fragment of an intended juvenile work, I leave to your judgment; though I begin to suspect that there is more refinement than solidity in some parts of it. This little work you will find in a thin folio paper in my back room. All the other loose papers, which you will find in that desk, or within the glass folding doors of a bureau in my bedroom, together with about eighteen thin folio books, which you will likewise find within the same glass folding-doors, I desire may be destroyed without any examination. Unless I die very suddenly, I shall take care that the papers I carry with me shall be sent to you. "I am ever, my dear Friend, "Most faithfully yours,

"ADAM SMITH." The memorable year 1776 was now approaching, memorable in the life of Smith, as it was in the spring of that year that he gave to the world his immortal work, the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," and in the autumn that death deprived him of his immortal friend, Mr. Hume.

Smith was in London at the time of the publication of his book; and the highest gratification, perhaps, afforded him on that occasion-higher, perhaps, than any which the praises of the world could give-was conveyed to him in the following letter, addressed to him by his dying friend. It was written from Edinburgh, only a few days before he set out on his journey to the South, as the only remaining hope of preserving his life; and testifies, almost in his last moments, the same amiable solicitude for his friends and their fame which characterised him throughout the whole of his existence. The letter is dated April 1, 1776-" Euge Belle! Dear Mr. Smith -I am much pleased with your performance, and the perusal of it has taken me from a state of great anxiety. It was a work of so much expectation by yourself, by your friends and by the public, that I trembled for its appearance, but am now much relieved. Not but that the reading of it necessarily requires so much attention, and the public is disposed to give so little, that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at first very popular. But it has depth, and solidity, and acuteness, and is so much illustrated by curious facts, that it must at last take the public attention. It is probably much improved by your last

abode in London. If you were here, at my fireside, I should dispute some of your principles. But these, and a hundred other points, are fit only to be discussed in conversation. I hope it will be soon, for I am in a very bad state of health, and cannot afford a long delay." It was but a few months after the publication of "The Wealth of Nations," when the death of Mr. Hume gave occasion to one of the most memorable and honourable incidents in the life of Smith. Attached as they had been for years, by ties of no ordinary kind; revering and loving the friend of his life, for moral and intellectual qualities, rarely found apart, and still more rarely united, congenial in their sentiments upon every subject perhaps, save one-a difference upon which could create no abatement in the affections of two such men-Smith felt himself called upon, his heart yet bleeding under the loss he had sustained, to defend from calumny, now that he was dead, him, whom while living she had never touched or attacked with her baleful tooth."*

It is well known that, from the nature of some of Mr. Hume's speculative opinions, coupled with the high celebrity of his name, his death had attracted no small degree of attention. It is known, too, that far more of zeal than charity had been displayed in a variety of rumours, equally false and absurd, which had been circulated relative to that melancholy event-calumny which, as we have said, had watched her hour, now poured forth her venom; and stories of death-bed horror and remorse, and agony and confession, were current through the land. It was easy to smile at all this; but it was felt to be due to the virtues of the man-to the benevolence of his affections and the unsullied purity of his life, to state the simple fact, that Mr. Hume's deathbed had betrayed no remorse whatever. Smith undertook to do this, undeterred by the obvious risk of incurring the odium of sharing the opinions of his friend, on the only subject perhaps on which they differed.

A few months only previous to his death, Mr. Hume had drawn up that brief but characteristic memorial of himself, entitled "My Own Life," and had left the care of its publication to Dr. Smith. To this memoir Smith appended his celebrated letter addressed to Mr.

Hume-"My Own Life."

Strahan, for the purpose, as he says, "of giving some account of the beha viour of their excellent friend during his last illness." The letter commences, therefore, where Hume's own account had ended; and having described the unruffled serenity of his mind and temper throughout the whole of his rapid decline-" his cheerfulness so great that his friends could not regard him as a dying man"-even to the last hour "so free from the smallest anxiety or low spirits that he never dropped the smallest expression of impatience, but when he had occasion to speak to those about him, doing it with the utmost affection and tenderness," and "that he died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it."-He closes with the following passage, which we hesitate not to transcribe in this short memorial, (as we should have done the entire letter if our limits would admit,) because it is a greater honour to the writer than the subject; and because it is quite certain, that if there is one page from the pen of Smith that he would himself have desired to perpetuate, it this tribute to his friend, although it may be suspected that the warmth of friendship has somewhat overcharged the eulogy: Thus died," says he, "our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend, concerning whose philosophical opinions men will, no doubt, judge variously; every one approving or condemning them according as they happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion. His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily ba lanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, on proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good nature and good humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify, and therefore far from offend

ing, it seldom failed to please and delight even those who were the objects of it. To his friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not any one, perhaps, of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, 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."

The effect of such a testimony, from such a quarter, was to put to silence, and it is to be hoped, in a great measure to put to shame, the disgraceful cry which had been set up; yet it did not do so altogether. Some there were who still joined in it, and taking advantage, as might have been foreseen, of Smith's generous zeal, attempted to heap upon the living that obloquy from which he had rescued the dead. Dr. Horne, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, published a letter addressed to Dr. Smith, in which the spirit of the theologian is much more conspicuous than that of the Christian, veiled as it was under an affectation of humour and irony, that ill concealed the bitter feelings in which it originated. To this publication of Dr. Horne, Dr. Smith did not deem it at all necessary that he should make any reply. He felt that he had done enough, and that it would have been equally unworthy of himself and his cause, to have commenced a controversy with Dr. Horne upon the merits, personal or philosophical, of David Hume.*

SECTION 5.-The "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."

It will scarcely be considered an exaggerated praise to say, that the "Wealth

Having acknowledged our obligation to Mr.

Stewart in the opening of this Memoir, it is only right that we should observe, that for several of the

incidents which will be found in in it, we are not indebted to that eminent person; and that amongst other circumstances in the very barren life of Dr. Smith, of which he has made no mention, this very remarkable one of his conduct upon the death of Hume has been passed over in silence. For this omission we can be at no loss to account: it was

of Nations" may be regarded as, perhaps, the most valuable acquisition which was made to philosophy and to science in the eighteenth century. It is of course quite beyond the limits of this memoir to offer an abstract or analysis of this great work. But, as in reference to the "Theory of Moral Sentiments," it was deemed proper to say a few words upon the subject itself of which it treats, and upon the leading principle of that theory; so it may be allowed us to offer a very few observations, in the same manner, upon the “ Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," unquestionably the greatest production of Smith's genius.

In the closing passage of the "Moral Sentiments," he had promised, in some future work, to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different periods of society; not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law; and to trace, in this way, those invariable principles which ought to run through, and be the foundation of the laws of all nations.

In the "Wealth of Nations" he undertook to redeem this pledge, as far as regards police, revenue, and arms, by tracing the source, and nature, and progress of national wealth.

The fundamental principle, dimly conceived indeed, but never established and insisted upon before, upon which Smith raised, as upon a rock, the Science of Political Economy, was, that labour is the source and origin of all wealth. 'Labour," says he, "was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased;" and the mode by which the labour of man can be rendered most productive to his use and happiness is the problem to be solved by the economist.

Now the great cause of the increase in the productive powers of labour is found to consist in the division of labour-a division which arises in the first instance from the obvious suggestions of nature, and which, by giving birth in its progress to the institution of the various

dictated by the amiable solicitude for his friend's memory; and the apprehension that it might suffer from a revival of the asperities which his friendly zeal had excited. But a regard for truth prevents us from making a like omission.

arts, trades, and professions which exist in every advanced state of society, occasions that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. But the effects of this principle have never in any society, or in any age of the world, been seen in their full extent, owing to the unjust and impolitic regulations which governments and legislators have at various times devised to control and thwart its operation. Instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way, no society has ever yet been seen in which, from false views of policy, or from worse motives, extraordinary restraints have not been laid upon some branches of industry; while extraordinary privileges, equally injurious in their result, have been bestowed upon others.

In how different a spirit was conceived and executed the great work before us, is exhibited in every page. Smith aimed at, and he has succeeded in reducing that to a science, which had before been a succession of contrivances and devices, where no principle was ever referred to, and in which it was long supposed that science and principle could have no place. The origin and continuance, indeed, of many of the most barbarous and oppressive institutions which tend to repress the energies of mankind, are to be traced very often to accidents, expedients, and prejudices, which belong as much to the people who are made to suffer from them, as to the laws and rules which have sometimes been the mere instruments of their establishment. To correct the policy of both was the object, and will be the lasting consequence, of his book. It was not by framing new forms of government, but by enlightening the policy of actual legislators, (as Mr. Stewart has well remarked,) that Dr. Smith, and other distinguished men of the last and present age, have attempted to ameliorate the condition of society. He endeavoured to shew, in one important branch of legislation, how much of the evils which affect its prosperity may be remedied by wise policy, and how much is the result of those higher and unalterable laws, by which the course of

Even the capacious mind of Mr. Fox is said to have been sceptical with regard to some of the

truths unfolded by Adam Smith; and within a much more recent period, we may remember that an illustrious statesman, now no more, spoke in Parliament, of the "application of philosophy to po litics" as a thing having the air of paradox, and which it required a tone of apology to refer to.

human affairs is determined, and the operation of which, since they cannot be controlled, must be patiently endured.

An illustration of this may be found in that important part of his work wherein he treats of the causes which determine the rate of wages. When the economist describes, for instance, the manner in which the value of labour is affected by the combination laws, the apprentice laws, and the law of settlement,-he explains the mischief produced in all cases by their operation; in the injury sustained under them by the labourer himself, from their evident violation of that natural liberty and justice which is his right; in the inequality which they occasion in different departments of industry, and in different places, from their interference with that essential order and prosperity which would otherwise ensue from allowing every man, as long as he observes the rules of justice, to pursue his own interest in his own way. Thus far of the inexpediency and absurdity of such arrangements with respect to society at large; and of the influence which bad regulations or injurious laws may have in affecting the condition of the labourer, and that of the community of which he forms a part. But, when he comes to explain how, under all circumstances, and in every society where even the rights of individuals are most respected by the spirit of its government and its legislation, the general rate of wages must always depend upon the relative quantity of labour seeking employment, and of capital having employment to give that it is a law of economy, resulting from a law of nature, that where labour is superabundant in proportion to capital, there it will necessarily be cheap; or, in other words, wages will be low-and that, on the contrary, where capital accumulates rapidly, and exceeds the supply of labour in the market, there labour will be dear, or, in other words, that wages will be high-when he has deduced this vital and important truth, and suggested thereby to the labourer, that on himself must mainly depend his ultimate prosperity, and that his condition for better or for worse is determined in this way by laws with which no human legislation can interfere, except in the removal of restrictions and prohibition, the political philosopher has done more for the peace and good order of society; and more to remove the sources of ill will, and promote a right understanding of their relative