*40] 
solved to return to his own coun- 
try, and to limit his ambition to the 
uncertain prospect of obtaining,. in 
time, some one of those moderate 
preferments, to which literary ate 
tainments lead in Scotland. - 
In the year 1748, he fixed his 
residence at Edinburgh, and, during 
that and the following years, read 
lectures on rhetoric and belles Jet- 
tres, under the patronage of lord 
Kaimes. 
contracted a very intimate friend- 
ship, which continued, without -in- 
terruption, till his death, with Mr. 
Alexander Wedderburn, now lord 
Loughborough, and with Mr. Wil- 
liam Johnstone, now Mr. *Pulteney. 
At what particular period his 
acquaintance with Mr. David Hume 
commenced, does not appear from 
any information that I have receiv- 
ed ;Sbut fromso me papers, now in 
the possession of Mr. Hume’s ne- 
phew, and which he has been so 
obliging as to allow me to peruse, 
their acquaintance seems to have 
grown into friendship before the 
year 1752. It wasa friendship.on 
both sides founded on the admira- 
tion of genius, and the love of sim- 
plicity ; and which forms an inte- 
resting circumstancei n the history of 
each of these eminent men, from 
the ambition which both have 
shewn to record it to posterity. 
In 175!, he was elected professor 
of logic in the university of Glas- 
gow; and, the year following, he 
was removed to the protessorship 
of moral philosophy in the same 
university, upon the death of Mr. 
Thomas | Craigie, the immediate 
successor of Dr. Hutcheson. In this 
situation,he remained thirteen years; 
a period be used frequently to look 
back to, as the most useful and hap- 
About this time, too, he 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1795. 
py of his life. It wasindeed a situ- 
ation in which he was eminently 
fitted to excel, and in which the 
daily labours of his profession were 
constantly recalling his attention to 
his favourite pursuits, ‘and familiar- 
ising bis mind to those important 
speculations he was afterwards to 
communicate tothe world. In this 
view, though it afforded, in the 
mean time, but a very narrow scene 
for his ambition, it was probably in- 
‘strumental, in no inconsiderable de- 
gree, to the future eminence of his 
literary character. 
Of Mr. Smith’s lectures, while a 
prefessor at Glasgow, no part has 
been preserved, excepting what he 
himself published in the Theory of 
Moral Sentiments and in the Wealth 
of Nations. The society therefore, I 
am persuaded, will listen with plea- 
sure to the following short account 
of them, for which I am indebted 
to a gentleman who was formerly 
one of Mr. Smith’s pupils, and who 
continued to his death to be one of 
his most intimnateand valued friends. 
In the professorship of logic, 
to which Mr. Smith was appointed 
on his first introduction into this 
university, he soon saw the neces- 
sity of departing widely from the 
plan that had been followed by his 
predecessors, and of directing the 
attention of his pupils to studies of 
a more interesting and useful nature 
than the logic and metaphysics of - 
the. schools. Accordingly, after 
exhibiting a general view of the - 
powers of the mind, and explaining 
so much of the ancient logic as was 
requisite to gratify curiosity, with 
respect to an artificial method of 
reasoning, which had once occu- 
pied the universal attention of the 
learned, he dedicated all the rest of 
his 
