ADAM SMITH. 195 



volence was extensive, leading him to indulge in acts 

 of private charity, pushed beyond his means, and 

 concealed with the most scrupulous delicacy towards 

 its objects. Stern votaries of religion have complained 

 of his deficiencies in piety, chiefly because of his letter 

 upon the death of his old and intimate friend Mr. Hume ; 

 but no one can read the frequent and warm allusions 

 with which his works abound to the moral government 

 of the world, to reliance upon the all-wise Disposer, to 

 the hopes of a future state, and not be convinced that 

 his mind was deeply sensible of devout impressions. 

 Nay, even as to his estimate of Mr. Hume's character, 

 we are clearly entitled to conclude that he regarded his 

 friend as an exception to the rule that religion has a 

 powerful and salutary influence on morals, because he 

 has most forcibly stated his opinion, that whenever the 

 principles of religion which are natural to it are not 

 perverted or corrupted "the world justly places a double 

 confidence in the rectitude of the religious man's be- 

 haviour." (' Mor. Sent.' I., 427.) Surely, Dr. John- 

 son himself could desire no stronger testimony to reli- 

 gion, no more severe condemnation of infidelity.* 



In his simple manners, and the easy flow of his con- 

 versation, wholly without effort, often with little re- 

 flection, the carelessness of his nature often appeared; 

 and the mistakes which he would occasionally fall into, 

 by giving immediate vent to what occurred to him on 

 a first impression, or a view of the subject from a single 

 point, sometimes would furnish subject of merriment 

 to his friends.f It was, probably, from the same sim- 

 plicity and earnestness that he was apt in conversation 

 to lay down principles and descant upon topics some- 



* See * Theory of Moral Sentiments,' Part III., chap, i., ii., and v. 



f In some few instances, these traces of imperfect judgment have found 

 a place in his works. His giving Gray the preference to almost all poets, 

 " as equalling Milton in sublimity and Pope in eloquence and harmony," 

 is the most singular, because the best by far of Gray's poems, the Elegy, 

 makes no pretension to sublimity at all. (' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' 

 I. 311.) 



