614 MR small's biographical SKETCH OF PROF. ADAM FERGUSON. 



paid, their addresses to the same lady, but without success. Carlyle has not 

 favoured us with the name of the lady, who must have possessed manj'- attrac- 

 tions ; but he remarks, that " after having rejected rich and poor, young and old, 

 to thenumber of half a score, she gave her hand, at forty-five, to the worst tem- 

 pered and most foolish of all her lovers, who had a bare competency, and which, 

 added to her fortune, hardly made them independent. They led a miserable life, 

 and parted, soon after which he died, and she then lived respectably to an ad- 

 vanced age. 



In December 1766, Ferguson received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the 

 Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh. 



He also published, in the same year, a short syllabus of his lectures, entitled, 

 Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral PMlosoj)liy . For the use of the Students in the 

 College of Edinburgh. This work was afterwards enlarged, and published as 

 the Institutes of Moral Philosophy, — a book which was found so useful, that it 

 was translated into French, German, and Russian, and was made a text-book in 

 several foreign universities. It exhibited a clear outline of his Course. 



About the close of the year 1773, Ferguson was solicited to undertake the 

 charge of the education of Charles, Earl of Chesterfield (nephew of the celebrated 

 Earl), by his guardians Lord Stanhope,* Mr Hewitt, and Sir George Saville. 

 The offer of this appointment was made by Lord Stanhope in the most compli- 

 mentary terms on the recommendations of Dr Adam Smith,! who endeavoured 

 with great earnestness to induce Ferguson to accept of it. The young Earl was 

 then in his nineteenth year ; and it was proposed that he should travel on the 

 Continent for several years, under the charge of Ferguson, who by his care was 

 expected to make up for the neglect of the Earl's previous instructors. 



At the present time it may seem strange that such a proposal should have 

 been seriously entertained by any one holding a Professorship in the University ; 



* Editor of Dr Robebt Simson's posthumous works. 



f Writing to Smith with reference to this appointment, Ferguson alludes to Beattie's cele- 

 brated Essay on Truth, and the corpulence of Hume, in the following letter. Beattie's " Essay on 

 the Nature and Immutability of Truth in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism," was so popular a 

 work, that in four years five large editions of it were sold off. It was first published in 1771; and 

 the letter of Ferguson refers to the 3d edition, which appeared in 1773 : — 



" Edin. Sept. 2d, 1773. 



" My Dear Sir, — I am told that Dr Beaty, or his party, give out that he has not only refuted 

 but killed D. Hume. I should be very glad of the first, but sorry for the other ; and I have the 

 pleasure to inform you that he is in perfect good health ; if he had been otherwise I should have 

 certainly mentioned it in some of my letters. He had a cough, and lost flesh, soon after you went 

 from home, which we did not know what to think of, but it turned out a mere cold, and it went off 

 without leaving any ill effects ; he has still some less flesh than usual, which nobody regrets, but 

 in point of health and spirits I never saw him better. You seemed to doubt whether I should not 

 write to Lord Stanhope. I had inclination enough, but was not so decided as to send my letter to 

 himself without putting it in your power to withhold it if proper, and therefore I stayed for a frank ; 

 what is disagreeable is, laying him under the obligation to make a ceremonious answer, and, if he be 

 gone, subjecting him to Continental postage, so you will judge. I have not seen J. Ferguson, but 

 he must acquiesce. — I am, dear Sir, most affectionately yours, Adam Ferguson." 



