DI‘CHLLOCH'S LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. * THE leading events in the
life of Adam Smith are well known ; such as the offices he filled, and the dates of his publications. Some particulars of his habits and peculiarities have been preserved ; and the features of his social, moral, and intellectual character, have been fully presented by his friend Dugald Stewart. The minute traits of familiar manners, " the happier hour of social pleasure," have escaped record, and are now beyond recall : various anecdotes of traditional gossip have indeed been preserved by Scott, (in the Quarterly Review,) but the present biographer deems them apocryphal, and shows that the most specific in its particulars is impossible according to the laws of time and space. This neglect cannot be attributed to the slow growth of the philosopher's celebrity ; for if he was not the authority in his own day which he is in ours when practical success has crowned his doc- trine, he was famous even among his contemporaries. His first work, the Moral Sentiments, established his reputation ; the Wealth of Nations, unattractive as was its title, and opposed as were its conclusions to popular prejudices, at once commanded at- tention, and from some of the most comprehensive and largely practical minds assent. Part of the deficient delineation must be ascribed to the want of a biographer—" he had no Bozzy " ; part to the general state of opinion, which inclined too much to the formal and artificial. Dugald Stewart evidently intended to con- vey the minutest characteristics of his friend ; but he lost the markings in measured finishing, and presented him too much in company costume. The present life is founded on the biographer's sketch of Smith prefixed to M'Culloch's edition of the Wealth of Nations. Indeed it is the same work, with various additions, that, like the last touches of a painter, give more of a living spirit to the com- position. This additional matter is drawn from various sources. Some of it has been gleaned from books which have little or no re- lation to Adam Smith ; other matter has been as it were hunted out, such as the two letters published for the first time ; other, again, originates in what Father Newman would call develop- ment. The germ of the thought might be found in the in- troductory memoir, but it is now expanded to fulness and force ; the idea was in the former work, it is now filled up. It should be observed that the additions or extensions are biogra- phical. They go to complete the portrait of Adam Smith, or to correct or illustrate something connected with him. This story from Boswell, with the neat little comment, is an instance.
"According to Boswell, Smith once told Sir Joshua Reynolds 'that he made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood.' (Boswell's Joimson, by Croker, 8vo., p. 662). But, if ever made, this must have been a mere jocular assertion, and doubtless was so understood by Rey- nolds. Boswell, however, takes it in its literal sense, and explains it by saying that it proceeded from Smith having bookmaking much in his thoughts,' and being chary of what might be turned to account in that way. But though sufficiently characteristic of Boswell, nothing can be more opposed than this statement to all that is known of Smith. It may be safely affirmed that no great author ever less deserved to be twitted with • Sketch of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D. Edinburgh, 1855.
bookmaking than he did. And the notion that his conversation was in- fluenced by a regard to his prospective interests in that rather humble occu- pation, is so inexpressibly mean and absurd, that one is surprised at its having occurred even to Boswell."
The notice of the great political economist, as it now stands, is an excellent specimen of biography : clear, close, well-arranged, and never quitting the subject to indulge in disquisitions merely relating to the theme but not essential to it. It is Adam Smith and nothing more. Critical observations are introduced when the narrative reaches the publication of Smith's two great works,' and a general estimate of his literary, philosophical, and personal cha- racter, is inserted ; but these are brief, possibly rather too brief.
The reason for this apparently is, that the general characteristics of the Wealth of Nations formed a distinct notice in the work for which the original sketch was designed. Although the more personal traits of Adam Smith have escaped delineation, sufficient account of his life is preserved to indicate the circumstances that gave rise to his great works, and the manner of their production. Much of his excellence, and in- deed that which separates him from all other economists, was a natural gift, that no labour or study could have attained. The Wealth of Nations is not a dry logical treatise, to whose conclusions we assent as we do to the working of a mathematical problem or a sum in arithmetio, but which we care not to return to. It is a living commenary.on history and the complex industries of man, the result of varied knowledge of books and close observation of life; so that even when the author's deductions are erroneous, (which, we con- ceive, is not so often as the modern economists of the abstract school assert,) the reader is well repaid by the useful truths he gathers as he goes along, and the agreeable company of his guide. This power, together with Smith's comprehensive mind and won- derful sagacity, are inherent qualities, that cultivation might im- prove but could never impart. This cultivation can be traced. He went to Oxford about 1740, at the age of seventeen, and remained till 1747: his time, when not engaged in the routine study prescribed by the University, was employed on history, philosophy and the belles lettres. In 1748, he was persuaded by Lord Kames to give a course of lectures at Edinburgh on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres ; which he subsequently con- tinued for two more seasons. In 1751, he was elected Professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow, and in the next year was placed in the chair of Moral Philosophy. The lectures which he delivered in consequence of this appointment were on a very extensive plan —embracing Theology; Ethics, which he subse- quently published as the Theory of Moral Sentiments ; Juris- prudence, which he intended to publish, but not having finished to his own satisfaction, he destroyed with other papers just before his death. The fourth part consisted substantially of the Wealth of Nations, involving the question not of justice but expediency; and treated of things which are calculated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity. of a state. These lectures he continued for twelve years ; reviewing the subject annually, and so far as trade and commerce were concerned, availing himself of the opportunities that a city like Glasgow afforded for accumulating information and discussing his opinions. In 1764, he went to France and Geneva as travelling tutor to the young Duke of Buc- clench ; which expanded his views of society and life=perhaps added to his commercial facts. In 1766 he returned ; and for ten years chiefly resided at Kirkcaldy, his birthplace, engaged in the composition of his great work. The Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776; the result of a quarter of a century's consideration, of the actual employment of ten years, and of a lifelong acquisition of the art necessary to shape and enrich the facts and philosophy. " Such is the labour of those who write for immortality." Adam Smith's mode of composition was by dictation; to which has been attributed the fulness not to say exuberance of his style. He must have very carefully prepared-or revised his writings; and probably he did both. Mr. M'Culloch says—" Notwithstand- ing the apparent flow and artlessness of his style, and his great experience in composition, Smith stated not long before his death, that he continued to compose [finish P) as slowly and with as great difficulty as at first." His personal oddities are asserted on all hands. He was in the habit of talking to himself; his absence of mind was remarkable ; and in society he often indulged in rash and hasty judgments upon persons. He was considered to be unqualified for particular business. According to Dugald Stewart, " he was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the world, or for the business of active life." It may be doubted whether the views of him were not to some extent exaggerated, or grounded in misappre- hension ; just as we are told that Dryden and Addison could not talk at all, and that Goldsmith (in Garrick's opinion) " talk'd like poor Poll." Smith's sagacity and judgment in the commonest affairs of life are continually shown in his works. In the following letter, now printed for the first time, and addressed to Hume about two months before his death, Smith displays a practical soundness of advice which many physicians could not attain, and that on a subject that does not, so far as is known, seem particu- larly to have engaged his attention.
"My dear Friend—I am very sorry to learn by Mr. Straban that the Bath waters have not agreed with you for some time so well as they appeared to do at first. You have found one medicine which has agreed with you—tra- veiling and change of air. I would continue, if I were you, during the continuance of the fine season, the constant application of that medicine, without troubling myself with any other, and would spend the autumn in sauntering through all the different corners of England, without halting above two or three days in any one place. If before the month of October you do not find yourself thoroughly reestablished, you may then think of changing this cold climate for a better, and of visiting the venerable re- mains of ancient and modern arts that are to be seen about Rome and the kingdom of Naples. A mineral water is as real a drug as any that comes out of the apothecaries' shop. It produces the same violent effects upon the body. It occasions a real disease, though a transitory one, over and above that which nature occasions. If the new disease is not so hostile to the old one as to contribute to expel it, it necessarily weakens the power which Na- ture might otherwise have to expel it. Change of air and moderate exercise occasion no new disease ; they only moderate the hurtful effects of any lin- gering disease that may be lurking in the constitution, and thereby preserve the body in as good order as it is capable of being during the continuance of that morbid state. They do not weaken, but invigorate the power of Nature to expel the disease. I reckon it probable that the Bath waters never agreed with you, but that the good effects of your journey not being spent when you began to use them, you continued for some time to recover, not by means of them, but in spite of them. Is it probable that the Buxton waters will do you more good ? The prescription supposed most likely to do good is always given first. If it fails, which it does nine times in ten, the second is surely likely to fail ninety-nine times in a hundred. The journey to Buxton, however, may be of great use to you ; but I would be sparing in the use of the water.
"I am greatly obliged to you for your letter, and for the unlimited confi- dence which you repose in me. If I should have the misfortune to survive you, you may depend upon my taking every possible measure which may prevent anything from being lost which you wish should be preserved.
"I ever am, my dearest friend, most faithfully and affectionately yours,
"Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, 16 June 1776. ADAM SMITH.
"I go to Edinburgh the day after tomorrow ; and it will be some weeks before I return to this town. I will therefore beg of you to direct to me to the care of Mr. John Balfour, bookseller.
" To David Hume, Esq." • Though bearing an Edinburgh imprint, the titlepage is without the name of publisher or author's name; and the slender volume is evidently printed for private circulation. The authorship is es- tablished, not only by the fundamental resemblance to the introduc- tory memoir to Mr. M'Culloch's edition of the Wealth of Nations, but by the references in notes, at pages 17, 20; and 24. The Sketch is illustrated by the profile of Smith after Tassie's medallion, a very animated full-length by Kay, and a vignette of the monu- ment to his memory in the Canongate Churchyard. There is also a fac-simile of a second original letter, in a plain and legible hand, with a peculiarity in the form of the capital I.
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