2G HARA C TOE RS: 
literatrue. Oswald protests he does 
not know whether he has reaped 
more instruction or entertainment 
from it. But you may easily judge 
what reliance can be put on his judg- 
ment, who has been engaged all his 
life in public business, and who 
never sees any faults in his friends.’ 
Millar exults and brags, that two- 
thirds of the edition are already 
sold, and that he is now sure of suc- 
cess. You see what a son of the 
earth that is, to value books only 
‘by the profit they bring him. In 
that view, I believe it may prove a 
very good book. 
** Charles Townsend, who passes 
for the cleverest fellow in England, 
is so taken with the performance, 
that he said to Oswald, he would put 
the duke of Buccleugh under the 
author’s care, and would make it 
worth his while to accept of that 
charge. As soon as I heard this, I 
called on him twice, with a view of 
_talking with him about the matter, 
and of convincing him of the pro- 
priety of sending that young noble- 
man to Glasgow: for I could not 
hope, that he could offer you any 
terms which would tempt you to 
renounce your professorship. But I 
missed him. Mr. Townsend passes 
for being a little uncertain in his re- 
solutions; so perhaps you need not 
build much on his sally. 
** In recompense for so many mor- 
tifying things, which nothing but 
truth could have extorted from me, 
and which I could easily have multi- 
plied to a greater number, I doubt not 
but you are so good a Christian as to 
return good for evil ; and to flatter 
my vanity by telling me, that all the 
godly in Scotland “abuse me for my 
-account of John Knox and the Re- 
formation. 1 suppose you are glad 
1 
[*45 
to see my paper end, and that I am 
obliged to conclude with 
Your humble servant, 
Davip Hume.” 
After the publication of the 
Theory of Moral Sentiments, Mr. 
Smith remained four years at Glas~ 
gow, discharging his official duties 
with unabated vigour, ‘and with in- 
creasing reputation. During that 
time, the pian of his lectures un- 
derwent. a considerable change. 
His ethical doctrines, of which he 
had now published so valuable a 
part, occupied a much smaller por- 
tion of the course than formerly ; 
and, accordingly, his attention was 
naturally directed to a more com- 
pleie illustration of the principles 
‘of jurisprudence and of uh eg 
economy. 
To this last subject, his droughts 
appear to have been occasionally 
turned from a very early period of 
life. It is probable, that the unin- 
terrupted friendship he had always 
maintained with bis old companion, 
Mr. Oswald, bad some tendency to 
encourage him in prosecuting this 
branch of his studies; and the pub- 
lication of Mr.Hume’s political dis- 
courses, in the year 1752, could not 
fail to confirm him in those liberal 
views of commercial policy which 
had already opened to him in the 
course of his own enquiries. His 
long residence in one of the most 
enlightened mercantile towns in this 
island, and the habits of intimacy in 
which he lived with the most re-, 
spectable of its inhabitants, afforded 
him an opportunity of deriving what 
commercial information he stood ir: 
need of, from the best sources; ane! 
it is a circumstance, no less honour- 
able to their liberality than to his 
talents, 
