Account of 

 ■Dr Smith. 



132 HISTORT of the SOCIEfK 



In a letter addrefTed, in the year 1787, to the Principal of 

 the Univerfity of Glafgovv, in confequence of his being elected 

 Rector of that learned body, a pleafing memorial remains of 

 the fatisfaction with which he always recollected that period of 

 his literary career, which had been more peculiarly confecrated 

 to thefe important fludies. " No preferment (fays he) could have 

 " given me fo much real fatisfaction. No man can owe greater 

 *' obligations to a fociety than I do to the Univerfity of Glaf- 

 " gow. They educated me ; they fent me to Oxford. Soon 

 " after my return to Scotland, they elected me one of their 

 " own members ; and afterwards preferred me to another of- 

 " fice, to which the abilities and virtues of the never to be for- 

 " gotten Dr Hutch eson had given a fuperior degree of illu- 



" ftration. 



That the idea of deftroying fuch unfinifhed works as might be in his pof- 

 feffion at the time of his death, was not the effect of any fudden or hafty refolution, 

 appears from the following letter to Mr Hume, written by Mr Smith in 1773, 

 at a time when he was preparing himfelf for a journey to London, with the profpedt 

 of a pretty long abfence from Scotland. 



My dear friend, Edinburgh, 16th April 1773. 



As I have left the care of all my literary papers to you, I muft tell you, that ex- 

 cept thofe which I carry along with me, there are none worth the publication, but 

 a fragment of a great work, which contains a hiftory of the aftronomical fyftems 

 that were fucceffively in fafhion down to the time of Des Cartes. Whether that 

 might not be publifhed as a fragment of an intended juvenile work, I leave entire- 

 ly to your judgment, though I begin to fufpect myfelf that there is more refinement 

 than folidity in fome parts of it. This little work you will find in a thin folio pa- 

 per book in my back room. All the other loofe papers which you will find in 

 that defk, or within the glafs folding doors of a bureau which Hands in my bed- 

 room, together with about eighteen thin paper folio books, which you will likewife 

 find within the fame glafs folding doors, I defire may be deflroyed without any exa- 

 mination. Unlefs I die very fuddenly, I fhall take care that the papers I carry 

 with me fhall be carefully fent to you. 



I ever am, my dear Friend, moft faithfully your's, 



Adam Smith^ 

 To David Hume, Efq; 

 St Andrew's Square. 



