216 ADAM SMITH. 



personal matters ; most of them indeed upon his linen and 

 other such necessaries, but all show his strong affection for 

 his parent. Writing 2nd July, 1 744, he says : 



" I am quite inexcusable for not writing to you oftener. 

 I think of you every day, but always defer writing till the 

 post is just going, and then sometimes business or company, 

 but oftener laziness, hinders me. Tar water is a remedy 

 very much in vogue here at present for almost all diseases. 

 It has perfectly cured me of an inveterate scurvy and shaking 

 in the head. I wish you'd try it. I fancy it might be of 

 service to you." In another letter he says he had had the 

 scurvy and shaking as long as he remembered anything, and 

 that the tar water had not removed those complaints. 



29th November, 1743. "I am just recovered of a violent 

 fit of laziness, which has confined me to my elbow-chair 

 these three months." 



It should seem as if his habitual absence had assumed a 

 marked form at that time. The description resembles that 

 of a hypochondriacal malady. He was then only twenty 

 years old. 



I have likewise had access to some letters which he wrote 

 afterwards to Lord Hailes, and, through the kindness of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, to such of his letters as are in 

 the papers of David Hume. 



The following letter to Lord Hailes, dated 5th March, 

 1769, gives the germ of some of his speculations, but it is 

 also curious as giving his very strong and very rash opinion 

 against the decision of the great Douglas Cause. 



" MY LORD, Kirkaldy, March 5, 1769. 



" I should now be extremely obliged to your Lordship 

 if you would send me the papers you mentioned upon the 

 prices of provisions in former times. In order that the con- 

 veyance may be perfectly secure, if your Lordship will give 

 me leave, I shall send my own servant sometime this week 

 to receive them at your Lordship's house at Edinburgh. I 

 have not been able to get the papers in the cause of Lord 

 Galloway and Lord Morton. If your Lordship is possessed 

 of them it would likewise be a great obligation if you could 



