rature both of ancient and modern times was extensive; and amidst his various other occupations, he had never neglected to cultivate a taste for the fine arts;-less, it is probable, with a view to the peculiar enjoyments they convey, (though he was by no means without sensibility to their beauties,) than on account of their connection with the general principles of the human mind; to an examination of which they afford the most pleasing of all avenues. To those who spe.

culate on this very delicate subject, a comparison of the modes of taste that prevail among different nations, affords a valuable collection of facts; and Mr Smith, who was always disposed to ascribe to custom and fashion their full share in regulating the opinions of mankind with respect to beauty, may naturally be supposed to have availed himself of every opportunity which a foreign country afforded him of illustrating his former theories.

Some of his peculiar notions, too, with respect to the imitative arts, seem to have been much confirmed by his observations while abroad. In accounting for the pleasure we receive from these arts, it had early occurred to him as a fundamental principle, that a very great part of it arises from the difficulty of the imitation; a principle which was probably suggested to him by that of the difficulté surmontée, by which some French critics had attempted to explain the effect

of versification and of rhyme *. This principle Mr Smith pushed to the greatest possible length, and referred to it, with singular ingenuity, a great variety of phenomena in all the different fine arts. It led him, however, to some conclusions, which appear, at first view at least, not a little paradoxical; and I cannot help thinking, that it warped his judgment in many of the opinions which he was accustomed to give on the subject of poetry.

The principles of dramatic composition had more particularly attracted his attention; and the history of the theatre, both in ancient and modern times, had furnished him with some of the most remarkable facts on which his theory of the imitative arts was founded. From this theory it seemed to follow as a consequence, that the same circumstances which, in tragedy, give to blank verse an advantage over prose, should give to rhyme an advantage over blank verse; and Mr Smith had always inclined to that opinion. Nay, he had gone so far as to extend the same doctrine to comedy; and to regret that those excellent pictures of life and manners which the English stage affords, had not been executed after the model of the French school. The admiration with which he regarded the great dramatic authors of France tended to confirm him in these opinions; and this admira

See the Preface to Voltaire's Oedipe, edit. of 1729.

tion (resulting originally from the general character of his taste, which delighted more to remark that pliancy of genius which accommodates itself to established rules, than to wonder at the bolder flights of an undisciplined imagination) was increased to a great degree, when he saw the beauties that had struck him in the closet, heightened by the utmost perfection of theatrical exhibition. In the last years of his life, he sometimes amused himself, at a leisure hour, in supporting his theoretical conclusions on these subjects, by the facts which his subsequent studies and observations had suggested; and he intended, if he had lived, to have prepared the result of these labours for the press. Of this work he has left for publication a short fragment; but he had not proceeded far enough to apply his doctrine to versification and to the theatre. As his notions, however, with respect to these were a favourite topic of his conversation, and were intimately connected with his general principles of criticism, it would have been improper to pass them over in this sketch of his life; and I even thought it proper to detail them at greater length than the comparative importance of the subject would have justified, if he had carried his plans into execution. Whether his love of system, added to his partiality for the French drama, may not have led him, in this instance, to generalize a little too much his conclusions, and to overlook some peculiarities in the language and versification of that country, I shall not take upon me to determine.

In October 1766, the Duke of Buccleuch returned to London. His Grace, to whom I am indebted for several particulars in the foregoing narrative, will, I hope, forgive the liberty I take in transcribing one paragraph in his own words: " "In October 1766, we returned to London, after having spent near three years together, without the slight"est disagreement or coolness;-on my part, with every advantage that could be expected from the society of such a We continued to live in friendship till the hour of "his death; and I shall always remain with the impression " of having lost a friend whom I loved and respected, not

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"man.

only for his great talents, but for every private virtue."

The retirement in which Mr Smith passed his next ten years, formed a striking contrast to the unsettled mode of life he had been for some time accustomed to, but was so congenial to his natural disposition, and to his first habits, that it was with the utmost difficulty he was ever persuaded to leave it. During the whole of this period, (with the exception of a few visits to Edinburgh and London,) he remained with his mother at Kirkaldy; occupied habitually in intense study, but unbending his mind at times in the company of some of his old school-fellows, whose "sober wishes" had attached them to the place of their birth. In the society of such men, Mr Sinith delighted; and to them he was endeared, not only by his simple and unassuming manners,

K

but by the perfect knowledge they all possessed of those domestic virtues which had distinguished him from his infancy.

Mr Hume, who (as he tells us himself) considered " a "town as the true scene for a man of letters," made many attempts to seduce him from his retirement. In a letter, dated in 1772, he urges him to pass some time with him in Edinburgh. I shall not take any excuse from your state "of health, which I suppose only a subterfuge invented by "indolence and love of solitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, "if you continue to hearken to complaints of this nature,

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you will cut yourself out entirely from human society, to "the great loss of both parties." In another letter, dated in 1769, from his house in James's Court, (which commanded a prospect of the Frith of Forth, and of the opposite coast of Fife,) I am glad (says he) to have come within sight of you; but as I would also be within speaking terms of you, "I wish we could concert measures for that purpose. I am

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mortally sick at sea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulf that lies between us. I am

" also tired of travelling, as much as you ought naturally to "be of staying at home. I therefore propose to you to

come hither, and pass some days with me in this solitude. "I want to know what you have been doing, and propose "to exact a rigorous account of the method in which you have employed yourself during your retreat. I am posi