3i6 letter from Arcttcus. May i, 



subject, without feeling for the hard fate of our great 

 writers, who, after saying so many fine things in their 

 life, are doomed to say so many silly things in their 

 graves. It is a pity Adam Smith's friend had not 

 extended his remark to another great talking spirir, 

 who has filled two quarto volumes in his tomb, as it 

 would have accounted for his amazing severity on 

 the northern Homer, Gray, and some other of the 

 most beautiful Englifh poets-. Humour, the Scotch 

 have been thought still more destitute of than poetry ; 

 but surely no man since the days of the Englifti Cer- 

 vantes, Hudibras, has been so distinguiflied for it as 

 SmoUet*. 



It appears then pretty evident, Mr Editor, that it 

 is not in letters Scotland is deficient, on the contrarv 

 I have always heard her sister kingdom comment ou 

 the general diffusion of learning and morality, in a 

 greater or lefser degree, through all ranks of people, 

 which they attribute to the cheapnefs of schools, with 

 the constant residence and afsiduity of a clafs of men 

 who do much honour to their cloth and holy mifsion, 

 I wilh we could say as much for the state of com- 

 merce, agriculture, and the useful arts in Scotland \; 

 for I am afraid it is in those that it does or ought to 

 feel its inferiority to England, and some countries 

 on the continent, more than in learning, morals, 



• Nor will Arbuthnotbe forgotten so long as the memoirs ofScribieruS' 

 IKjU be read. 



■)■ My ingenious correspondent will be glad to be told that in respect j 

 to agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, Scotland has advanced more I 

 within these last twenty years, than it had done for a century before that; I 

 and were tho^e bars removed which impolitic laws have thrown in the- way I 

 of her industry, this little country bids fair to advance in improvements] 

 with a rapidity that has been hitherto equalled perhaps in no age or coun-J 

 try. Edit 



