forded him of illuftrating his former theories.

Some of his peculiar notions, too, with refpect to the imitative arts, feem to have been much confirmed, by his obfervations while abroad. In accounting for the pleafure we receive from these arts, it had early occurred to him as a fundamental principle, that a very great part of it arifes from the difficulty of the imitation; a principle which was probably fuggefted to him by that of the difficulté furmontée, by which fome French critics had attempted to explain the effect of verfification and of rhyme. This principle Mr. Smith pushed to the greateft poflible length, and referred to it, with fingular ingenuity, a great variety of phenomena in all the different fine arts. It led him, however, to fome conclufions, which appear, at firft view at least, not a little paradoxical; and I cannot help thinking, that it warped his judgement in many of the opinions which he was accustomed to give on the fubject of poetry.

The principles of dramatic compofition had more particularly attracted his attention; and the hiftory of the theatre, both in ancient and modern times, had furnished him with fome of the moft remarkable facts on which his theory of the imitative arts was founded. From this theory it feemed to follow as a confequence, that the fame circumftances which, in tragedy, give to blank verfe an advantage over profe, fhould give to rhyme an advantage over blank verfe; and Mr. Smith had always inclined to that opinion. Nay, he had gone fo far as to extend the fame doctrine to comedy; and to regret, that thofe excellent pictures of life and manners which VOL. XXXVII,

the English ftage affords, had not been executed after the model of the French fchool. The admiration with which he regarded the great dramatic authors of France tended to confirm him in thefe opinions; and this admiration (refulting originally from the general character of his tafte, which delighted more to remark that pliancy of genius, which accommodates itself to eltablished rules, than to wonder at the bolder flights of an undifciplined imagination) was increased, to a great degree, when he faw the beauties that had truck him in the clofet, heightened by the utmoft perfection of theatrical exhibition. In the last years of his life, he fometimes amufed himfelf, at a leisure hour, in fupporting his theoretical conclufions on thefe fubjects, by the facts which his fubfequent ftudies and obfervations had fuggested; and he. intended, if he had lived, to have prepared the refult of thefe labours for the prefs. Of this work he has left for publication a fhort fragment; the first part of which is, in my judgement, more finished in point of ftyle than any of his compofitions; but he had not proceeded far enough to apply his doctrine to verfification and to the theatre. As his notions, however, with respect to thefe, were a favourite topic of his converfation, and were intimately connected with his general principles of criticifm, it would have been improper to pafs them over in this fketch of his life; and I even thought it proper to detail them at greater length than the comparative importance of the fubject would have juftified, if he had carried his plans into execution. Whether his love of fyftem, added to his partiality for the French drama, may [*D]

• not

not have led him, in this inftance, to generalize a little too much his conclufions, and to overlook fome peculiarities in the language and verfification of that country, I fhall not take upon me to determine.

In October, 1766, the duke of Buccleugh returned to London. His grace, to whom I am indebted for feveral particulars in the foregoing narrative, will, I hope, forgive the liberty I take in tranfcribing one paragraph in his own words: In October, 1766, we returned to London, after having spent near three years together, without the flighteft difagreement or coolness; on my part, with every advantage that could be expected from the fociety of fuch a man. We continued to live in friendship till the hour of his death; and I fhall always remain with the impreffion of having loft a friend whom I loved and refpected, not only for his great talents, but for every private virtue."

The retirement in which Mr. Smith pafled his next ten years, formed a ftriking contrast to the unfettled mode of life he had been for fome time accustomed to, but was fo congenial to his natural dif pofition, and to his firft habits, that it was with the utmost difficulty he was ever perfuaded to leave it. During the whole of this period, (with the exception of a few vifits to Edinburgh and London) be remained with his mother at Kirkaldy; occupied habitually in intenfe ftudy, but unbending his mind, at times, in the company of fome of his old fchool-fellows, whole fober wishes" had attached them to the place of their birth. In the fociety of fuch men, Mr. Smith delighted; and to them he was endeared, not only by his fimple and unaffuming

manners, but by the perfect know ledge they all poffeffed of those do meftic virtues which had diftinguish ed him from his infancy.

Mr. Hume, who (as he tells us himself) confidered "a town as the. true scene for a man of letters,” made many attempts to feduce him from his retirement. In a letter, dated in 1772, he urges him to pas fome time with him in Edinburgh. "Ifhall not take any excufe from your flate of health, which I fuppofe only a fubterfuge invented by indo lence and love of folitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken to complaints of this na ture, you will cut yourself out entirely from human fociety, to the great lofs of both parties." In another letter, dated in 1769, from his houfe in James's court, (which commanded a profpect of the frith of Forth, and of the oppofite coaft of Fife) "I am glad (fays he) to have come within fight of you; but as I would alfo be within (peaking terms of you, I wish we could concert measures for that purpofe. I am mortally fick at fea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulph that lies between us. I am also tired of travelling, as much as you ought naturally to be of flaying at home. I therefore propofe to you to come hither, and pafs fome days with me in this folitude. I want to know what you have been doing, and propofe to exact a rigorous account of the method in which you have employed yourfelf during your retreat. I am pofitive you are in the wrong in many of your fpeculations, elpecially where you have the misfortune to differ from me. All these are reafons for our meeting, and I with you would make me fome rea

fonable

crufin, Mifs Jane Douglas, (who had formerly been a member of his family at Glasgow, and for whom he had always felt the affection of a brother), while the divided with him those tender attentions which her aunt's infirmities required, relieved him of a charge for which he was peculiarly ill qualified, by her friendly fuperintendence of his domeftic economy.

The acceflion to his income, which his new office brought him, enabled him to gratify, to a much greater extent than his former circumftances admitted of, the natural generofity of his difpofition; and the state of his funds at the time of his death, compared with his very moderate establishment, confirmed, beyond a doubt, what his intimate acquaintances had often fufpected, that a large proportion of his annual favings was allotted to offices of fecret charity. A fmail, but excellent library, which he had gradually formed with great judgement in the felection; and a fimple, though hofpitable table, where, without the formality of an invitation, he was always happy to receive his friends, were the only expences that could be confidered as his own.

The change in his habits, which his removal to Edinburgh produced, was not equally favourable to his literary purfuits. The duties of his office, though they required but little exertion of thought, were yet futhcient to wafte his ipirits, and to digipate his attention; and now that his career is clofed, it is impothble to reflect on the time they confumed, without lamenting that it had not been employed in labours

more profitable to the world, an more equal to his mind.

During the first years of his refdence in this city, his ftudies feemed to be entirely fufpended; and his paffion for letters ferved only to amufe his leifure, and to animate his converfation. The infirmities of age, of which he very early began to feel the approaches, reminded him at laft, when it was too late, of what he yet owed to the public, and to his own fame. The principal materials of the works which he had announced, had been long ago collected; and little bably was wanting, but a few years of health and retirement, to bellow on them that fyftematical arrange ment in which he delighted; and the ornaments of that flowing, and apparently artlefs ftyle, which be had studioufly cultivated, but which, after all his experience in compet tion, he arljufted, with extreme difficulty, to his own taste.

pro

The death of his mother in 178), which was followed by that of Mils Douglas in 1788, contributed, it is probable to fruftrate thefe projects, They had been the objects of his affection for more than fixty years; and in their fociety he had enjoyed, from his infancy, all that he ever knew of the endearments of a family. He was now alone, and help lefs; and, though he bore his lofs with equanimity, and regained ap parently his former chearfulnets, yet his health and ftrength gradually declined till the period of his death, which happened in July, 1790, about two years after that of his coufin, and fix after that of his mother. His laft illness, which arofe from a chronic obftruction in

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his bowels, was lingering and painful; but had every confolation to footh it which he could derive from the tendereft fympathy of his friends, and from the complete refignation of his own mind..

A few days before his death, finding his end approach rapidly, he gave orders to destroy all his manufcripts, excepting fome detached ellays, which he entrusted to the care of his executors; and they were accordingly committed to the flames. What were the particular contents of thefe papers is not known, even to his moft intimate friends; but there can be no doubt that they confifted, in part, of the lectures on rhetoric, which he read at Edinburgh in the year 1748, and of the lectures on natural religion and on jurifprudence, which formed part of his courfe at Glasgow. That this irreparable injury to letters proceeded, in fome degree, from an exceflive folicitude in the author about his pofthumous reputation, may perhaps be true: but with refpect to fome of his manufcripts, may we not fuppofe, that he was influenced by higher motives? It is but feldom that a philofopher, who has been occupied fiom his youth with moral or with political inquiries, fucceeds completely to his with in fiating to others, the grounds upon which his own opinions are founded; and hence it is, that the known principles of an individual, who has approved to the public his candour, his liberality, and his judgement, are entitled to a weight and an authority, independent of the evidence which he is able, upon any particular occafion, to produce in their fupport. A fecret confcioufnefs of this circumftance, and an appre

henfion, that by not doing juftice to an important argument, the pro grefs of truth may be rather retard-, ed than advanced, have probably induced many authors to with-hold, from the world the unfinished refults of their most valuable labours; and to content themselves with give, ing the general fanction of their fuffrages to truths which they, regarded as peculiarly interefting to the human race.

The additions to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, mot of which were compofed under fevere dif cafe, had fortunately been fent to the prefs in the beginning of the preceding winter; and the author lived to fee the publication of the work. The moral and ferious ftrain that prevails through thefe additions, when connected with the circumftance of his declining health, adds a peculiar charm to his pathetic cloquence; and communicates a new intereft, if poffible, to thofe fublime truths, which, in the academical retirement of his youth, awakened the first ardours of his genius, and on which the last efforts of his mind repofed.

In a letter addretled, in the year 1787, to the principal of the univerfity of Glafgow, 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 ftudies. "No preferment (ays be) could have given me to much real fatiffaction. No man can owe greater obligations to a fociety than I do to the university of Glasgow. They educated me; they lent me to Oxford. Soon after my return to {* D3]

Scotland,