i64 OK DR. ADAM SMITH, JUHC 8 



To the Editor of the Bee. 

 Sir, 



1 TlAvE read your Glafgow correfpondent's anecdotes of 

 Smith, which I .dare fay are very authentic ; and per- 

 haps he may be in the right, that the Dot\or would 

 not have been very angry to have had fuch trifles re- 

 peated in the circle of fecial intercourfe ; but I knew 

 him too well to think he would have liked to have 

 had a pifgah" view of fuch frivolous matter obtruded 

 on the learned world after his death. He would very 

 probably have laid, Why, Sir, I would rajher my bo- 

 dy were inje^lcd by Hunter or Monro, and fhewn in 

 Fleet Street, or at Weir's rnufceum, than have thefe 

 fecretiniis of my mind in private converfation, made a 

 fpeaacle of to philofophers, when I am kid in ray 

 grave ! 



I had the happinefs, Sir, to be a difciple of Adam 

 Smith's when he was at Glafgow. I went there on 

 purpofe, after I h?.d entered the bufy world, and com- 

 pleted all the courfes in the imiverfities of St. Andrew's 

 and Edinburgh, and refidcd fome time at Oxford, that 

 I might, after the manner of the ancients, walk in the 

 Porticos of Glafgow, with Smith and with Millar, and 

 be imbued with the principles of jurifprudence, law, 

 and philofophy. 



1 paffcd moft of my time at Glafgow with thefe two 

 firft rate men ; and Smith read private leftures to me 

 in jurifprudence, and acconjpanied them with his com- 

 mentaries in converfation ; excrcifes which I hope will 

 give a colour and a fubftance to my fentiments, and to 

 my reafon, that will be eternal. 



He was a great man. Sir ; but, no doubt, he had his 

 weakneires. They were the weakneffes of a good man, 

 who had feen much of the furface, but little of the intc- 

 rior of what is commonly called the world. 



