60 HISTORY of th SOCIETY. 
Aceapmet their prudence had formed for him, he refolved to return to 
his own country, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain 
profpe& of obtaining, in time, fome one of thofe moderate 
preferments, to which literary attainments lead in Scotland. 
In the year 1748, he fixed his refidence at Edinburgh, and 
during that and the following years, read lectures on rhetoric 
and belles lettres, under the patronage of Lord Kames. About 
this time, too, he contracted a very intimate friendfhip, which 
continued, without interruption, till his death, with Mr ALEx- 
ANDER WEDDERBURN, now Lord LouGusoroueGH, and with 
Mr WILLIAM JOHNSTONE, now Mr PULTENEY. 
At what particular period his acquaintance with Mr Davip 
Hume commenced, does not appear from any information that 
I have received ; but from fome papers, now in the pofleffion 
of Mr Hume’s nephew, and which he has been fo obliging as 
to allow me to perufe, their acquaintance feems to have grown 
into friendfhip before the year 1752. It was a friendfhip on 
both fides founded on the admiration of genius, and the love 
of fimplicity; and which forms an interefting circumftance in 
the hiftory-of each of thefe eminent men, from the ambition 
which both have fhewn to record it to pofterity. 
Iw 1751, he was elected Profeffor of Logic in the Univerfity 
of Glafgow; and, the year following, he was removed to the 
Profefforfhip of Moral Philofophy in the fame Univerfity, upon 
the death of Mr Tuomas Craici£, the immediate fucceflor of 
Dr Hurcueson. In this fituation, he remained thirteen years ; 
a period he ufed frequently to look back to, as the moft ufeful 
and happy of his life. It was indeed a fituation in which he 
was eminently fitted to excel, and in which the daily labours of 
his profeffion were conftantly recalling his attention to his favour- 
ite purfuits, and faimiliarifing his mind to thofe important {pecu- 
lations he was afterwards to communicate to the world. In this 
view, though it afforded, in the mean time, but a very narrow 
fcene for his ambition, it was probably inftrumental, in no incon- 
fiderable degree, to the future eminence of his literary character. 
Or 
