6o HI ST ORr of the SOCIETr. 



Ac«mnt.of their prudence had formed for him, he refolved to return to 



Dr Smith. r ' 



his own country, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain 

 profpect of obtaining, in time, fome one of thofe moderate 

 preferments, to which literary attainments lead in Scotland. 



In the year 1748, he fixed his refidence at Edinburgh, and 

 during that and the following years, read lectures on rhetoric 

 and belles lettres, under the patronage of Lord Kames. About 

 this time, too, he contracted a very intimate friendfhip, which 

 continued, without interruption, till his death, with Mr Alex- 

 ander Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough, and with 

 Mr William Johnstone, now Mr Pulteney. 



At what particular period his acquaintance with Mr David 

 Hume commenced, does not appear from any information that 

 I have received ; but from fome papers, now in the pofTeflion 

 of Mr Hume's nephew, and which he has been fo obliging as 

 to allow me to perufe, their acquaintance feems to have grown 

 into friend (hip before the year 1752. It was a friendfhip on 

 both fides founded on the admiration of genius, and the love 

 of fimplicity ; and which forms an interefting circumftance in 

 the hiflory-of each of thefe eminent men, from the ambition 

 which both have fhewn to record it to pofterity. 



In 175 i, he was elected Profeffor of Logic in the Univerfity 

 of Glafgow ; and, the year following, he was removed to the 

 ProfefTorfhip of Moral Philofophy in the fame Univerfity, upon 

 the death of Mr Thomas Craigie, the immediate fucceflor of 

 Dr Hutcheson. In this fituation, he remained thirteen years ; 

 a period he ufed frequently to look back to, as the moft ufeful 

 and happy of his life. It was indeed a fituation in which he 

 was eminently fitted to excel, and in which the daily labours of 

 his profefhon were conflantly recalling his attention to his favour- 

 ite purfuits, and familiarifing his mind to thofe important fpecu- 

 lations he was afterwards to communicate to the world. In this 

 view, though it afforded, in the mean time, but a very narrow 

 fcene for his ambition, it was probably inflrumental, in no incon- 

 fiderable degree, to the future eminence of his literary character. 



Of 



