Account of 
Dr Smith. 
I00 HISTORY of the SOCIETY. 
made it of little confequence to himfelf to record in writing 
what he heard or faw; and from his anxiety before his death 
to deftroy all the papers in his pofleflion, he feems to have with- 
ed, that no materials fhould remain for his biographers, but 
what were furnifhed by the lafting monuments of his genius, 
and the exemplary worth of his private life. 
Tue fatisfaction he enjoyed in the converfation of TurcotT 
may be eafily imagined. Their opinions on the moft effential 
points of political ceconomy were the fame; and they were 
both animated by the fame zeal for the beft interefts of man- 
kind. The favourite ftudies, too, of both had direéted their 
enquiries to fubjeéts on which the underftandings of the ableft 
and the beft informed are liable to be warped, to a great degree, 
by prejudice and paffion ; and on which, of confequence, a 
coincidence of judgment is peculiarly gratifying. We are told 
by one of the biographers of TurGor, that after his retreat from 
the miniftry, he occupied his leifure in a philofophical corre- 
fpondence with fome of his old friends ; and, in particular, that 
various letters on important fubjects paffed between him and 
Mr Smiru. I take notice of this anecdote chiefly as a proof of 
the intimacy which was underftood to have fubfifted between 
them ; for, in other refpects, the anecdote feems to me to be fome- 
what doubtful. It is fcarcely to be fuppofed, that Mr Smit 
would deftroy the letters of fuch a correfpondent as TurGorT; and 
ftill lefs probable, that fuch an intercourfe was carried on between 
them without the knowledge of any of Mr Smitu’s friends. 
From fome enquiries that have been made at Paris by a gentle- 
man 
longer claffed with that of Mawpnvitie. In the enlarged edition accordingly of 
that work, publifhed a fhort time before his death, he has fuppreffed his cenfure of 
the author of the Maximes ; who feems indeed (however exceptionable many of his 
principles may be) to have been aétuated, both in his life and writings, by motives 
very different from thofe of ManpEvirir. The real {cope of thefe maxims is 
placed, I think, in a juft light by the ingenious author of the zotzce prefixed to the 
edition of them publifhed at Paris in 1778. 
