22 
nary gray coat, leather breeches, and coarse worsted 
stockings; he conversed with me with great affability 
about various matters, spoke of the great decline of 
classical learning at Edinburgh, and mentioned the 
Norfolk husbandry, which he said he had adopted. 
“ T often think of you, and imagine what is pass- 
ing in the scenes which my friends render so dear 
tome. Pray give my most affectionate duty to my 
dear mother.” 
Mr. Smith to Mr. James Edward Smith. 
My dear Son, Norwich, Nov. 12, 1781. 
We received your letter with a pleasure equal to 
transport, for the satisfaction it gave us to hear how 
well you go on so far, which although I did never 
doubt, yet the confirmation of the hopes I had enter- 
when they affect to discover what is out of the reach of the facul- 
ties of man to know, or even to comprehend.” 
“ Ancient Metaphysics, containing the History and Philosophy 
of Man, §c. 378 pp.—This is the 5rd volume, and it appears in 
it that his lordship, Lord Monboddo, the author, proposed to 
continue the work by an inquiry into the state and condition of 
man to be expected after death, where I suppose his lordship will 
get to his furthest. 
“Tread only a part of the 1st and 2nd volumes ;—this was so 
amusing I read itthrough. The wildness of the author’s imagina- 
tion and his credulity go beyondall bounds. There are some acute 
and sensible passages ; but when his lordship tells you he believes 
there have been a race of men born with tails, another with only 
one leg, others twenty or thirty feet high; that the orang outang 
is really a man, and the true standard of our species in a natural 
state, and a great deal more such extravagant stuff, the sober 
reader must conclude his lordship’s ‘learning hath made him 
mad.’ ” 
