APPENDIX. 93 



The Bifhop of Peterborough faid he had paffed the evening Account of 



r _ r 5 Dr Smith. 



in a company where he heard it extolled above all books in the 

 world. The Duke of Argyle is more decifive than he ufes to 

 be, in its favour. I fuppofe he either confiders it as an exotic, 

 or thinks the author will be ferviceable to him in the Glafgow 

 elections. Lord Lyttleton fays, that Robertson and Smith 

 and Bower are the glories of Englifh literature. Oswald pro- 

 tells he does not know whether he has reaped more inftruclion 

 or entertainment from it. But you may eafily judge what re- 

 liance can be put on his judgment, who has been engaged all 

 his life in public bufinefs, and who never fees any faults in his 

 friends. Millar exults and brags that two thirds of the edi- 

 tion are already fold, and that he is now fure of fuccefs. You 

 fee what a fon of the earth that is, to value books only by the 

 profit they bring him. In that view, I believe it may prove a 

 very good book. 



" Charles Townsend, who paffes for the clevereft fellow 

 in England, is fo taken with the performance, that he faid to 

 Oswald he would put the Duke of Buccleugh under the Au- 

 thor's care, and would make it worth his while to accept of 

 that charge. As foon as I heard this, I called on him twice, 

 with a view of talking with him about the matter, and of con- 

 vincing him of the propriety of fending that young Nobleman 

 to Glafgow : For I could not hope, that he could offer you any 

 terms which would tempt you to renounce your Profeflbrfhip : 

 But I milled him. Mr Townsend pafles for being a little un- 

 certain in his refolutions \ fo perhaps you need not build much 

 on this fally. 



" In recompence for fo many mortifying things, which 

 nothing but truth could have extorted from me, and which I 

 could eafily have multiplied to a greater number, I doubt not 

 but you are fo good a Chriflian as to return good for evil ; and 

 to flatter my vanity by telling me, that all the godly in Scot- 

 land 



