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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
have retired from the smoke and hurry of this immense capital.” 
He goes on to say, “ What an excellent work is that with which 
our common friend, Mr Adam Smith, has enriched the public — an 
extensive science in a single hook, and the most profound ideas ex- 
pressed in the most perspicuous language.” In 1776 we find Adam 
Smith a member of the “Club,” founded in London by Johnson 
and Goldsmith ; and the following lines by Hr Barnard (I quote 
from Hugald Stewart’s Life of Smith, read to the Koyal Society) 
indicate a position of respect in that circle ; — 
“ If I have thoughts, and can’t express ’em, 
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress ’em 
, In words select and terse. 
Jones teach me modesty and Greek, 
Smith how to think, Burke how to speak. 
And Beauclerk to converse.” 
I was amused to find that the admission of Smith to the “ Club ” 
excited the intense jealousy of James Boswell, who, in a letter to 
Mr Temple, one of those published a few years ago — says loftily, 
“ Smith too is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.” 
It is, however, to Hr Eobertson and Lord Karnes that we are 
mainly indebted for the idea of the Eoyal Society, and for the 
successful issue of the project. It sprung partly, of course, out of 
the example of the Eoyal Society of London. But its immediate 
antecedent was the Philosophical Society, which had been founded 
nearly fifty years before by the celebrated MHaurin, and contained 
many distinguished names. Lord Karnes became its president, and 
raised it to considerable distinction, both in science and literature, 
although that vigorous and versatile thinker and writer did not live 
to witness the commencement of the new institution. Hr Eobert- 
son’s plan w^as to absorb this Society and all its members in a new 
Institute, on the model of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, for the 
prosecution both of Physical Science and of Literature. 
I find from the minutes of the first meeting that the Society were 
of opinion that the College Library was an inconvenient place for 
their usual meetings, and a committee was appointed to find one 
more suitable, apparently without success, for they continued to be 
held in the library for twenty-three years, when the Society migrated 
to the Physicians’ Hall in George Street in 1807. They afterwards 
