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of innocent perfons by the guillotine during what is called the reign of Terror, under the new republican Government,' during the power of Robespierre,-opened their eyes to the miferable confequences of thofe mad innovations, and taught them to know and to value the more certain and fober fort of Liberty which they themselves had conftantly enjoyed under the protection of the limited Monarchy of England. There were, however, feveral noblemen and gentlemen of rank and confequence, in both Houses of Parliament, who, (though they had acted in conjunction with Mr. Fox for fome years before the breaking-out of the difaftrous French Revolution,) thought fit to differ from him upon this great occafion, and to declare, even in the beginning of the French Revolution, that they agreed with Mr. Burke in his opinions upon this fubject. Of thefe judicious and patriotick perfons, one of the most eminent in the Houfe of Lords was the duke of Portland, and one of the moft diftinguished in the Houfe of Com mons was Mr. William Windham, who has fince been one of the King's Secretaries of ftate. It is, perhaps, owing to the efforts of thefe worthy perfons who adopted Mr. Burke's opinions upon this fubject, that England has not been thrown into confufion and mifery by a change of our happy form of Government into a Republick in imita tion of the French Revolution,

ANECDOTES

AN ACCOUNT OF THE OPINIONS OF THE LATE ADAM SMITH, LL. D. AUTHOR OF THE WEALTH OF NA

TIONS," CONCERNING THE WORKS OF SEVERAL ENGLISH AUTHORS.

To the PRINTER of the WHITEHALL EVENING Post.

SIR,

IN the year 1780, I had frequent occafion to be in company with the late well-known Dr. Adam Smith. When bufinefs ended, our converfation took a literary turn; I was then young, inquifitive, and full of refpect for his abilities as an author. On his part he was extremely communicative, and delivered himself, on every subject, with a freedom, and even boldnefs, quite oppofite to the apparent referve of his appearance. I took-down notes of his converfation, and have here fent you an abstract of them. I have neither added, altered, nor diminished them, but merely put them into fuch a fhape as may fit them for the eye of your readers.

Of the late Dr. Samuel Johnfon, Dr. Smith had a very contemptuous opinion. "I have feen that creature," faid he, "bolt-up in the midst of a mixed company; and, without any previous notice, fall upon his knees behind a chair, repeat the Lord's Prayer, and then refume his feat at table. He has played this freak over and over, perhaps five or fix times, in the course of an evening: It is not hypocrify, but madness. Though an honeft sort of man himself, he is always patronifing fcoundrels. Savage, for inftance, whom he fo loudly praifes, was but a worthlefs fellow; his penfion of fifty

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pounds a year never lafted him longer than a few days. As a fample of his economy, you may take a circumftance, that Johnfon himself once told me. It was, at that period, fashionable to wear fcarlet cloaks trimmed with gold lace; and the Doctor met him one day, just after he had got his penfion, with one of these cloaks upon his back, while, at the fame time, his naked toes were sticking through his fhoes."

He was no admirer of the Rambler or the Idler, and hinted, that he had never been able to read them. He was averse to the contest with America; yet he spoke highly of Johnson's political pamphlets: but, above all, he was charmed with that refpecting Falkland's Islands, as it displayed, in fuch forcible language, the madness of modern wars.

I enquired his opinion of the late Dr. Campbell, author of the Political Survey of Great Britain. He told me, that he never had been above once in his company; that the Doctor was a voluminous writer, and one of those authors who write from one end of the week to the other, without interruption. A gentleman, who happened to dine with Dr. Campbell in the houfe of a common acquaintance, remarked, that he would be glad to poffefs a complete set of the Doctor's works. The hint was not loft; for next morning he was furprised at the appearance of a cart before his door. This cart was loaded with the books he had afked for; the driver's bill amounted to feventy pounds! As Dr. Campbell composed a part of the Universal History, and of the Biographia Britannica, we may fuppofe, that these two ponderous articles formed a great part of the car. go. The Doctor was in ufe to get a number of copies of his publications from the printer, and keep them in his house for fuch an opportunity. A gentleman, who came-in one day, exclaimed, with furprife," Have you ever read all

thefe

thefe books?"—" Nay," replied Dr. Campbell, laughing,

"I have written them."

Of Swift, Dr. Smith made frequent and honourable mention. He denied that the Dean could have written the Pindarics printed under his name. He affirmed, that he wanted nothing but inclination to have become one of the greatest of all poets. "But, in place of this, he is only a goffiper, writing merely for the entertainment of a private circle." He regarded Swift, both in ftyle and fentiment, as a pattern of correctnefs. He read to me fome of the fhort poetical addreffes to Stella, and was particularly pleafed with one couplet

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"Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well-spent?"

Though the Dean's verfes are remarkable for eafe and fimplicity, yet the compofition required an effort. Το exprefs this difficulty, Swift ufed to fay, that a verfe came from bim like a guinea. Dr. Smith confidered the lines on his own death, as the Dean's poetical masterpiece: He thought that, upon the whole, his poetry was correct, after he fettled in Ireland, when he was, as he himself said, furrounded" only by humble friends.”

The Doctor had fome fingular opinions. I was furprised at hearing him prefer Livy to all other hiftorians, ancient and modern. He knew of no other who had even a pretence to rival him, if David Hume could not claim that honour. He regretted, in particular, the lofs of his account of the civil wars in the age of Julius Cæfar; and when I attempted to comfort him by the library at Fez, he cut me fhort. I would have expected Polybius to ftand much higher in his esteem than Livy, as having a much nearer refemblance to Dr. Smith's own manner of writing. Befides his miracles, Livy contains an immense number of the moft obvious and grofs falfehoods.

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He was no fanguine admirer of Shakespeare. "Voltaire, you know," fays he, "calls Hamlet the dream of a drunken favage."-"He has good fcenes, but not one good play.” The Doctor, however, would not have permitted any body elfe to pafs this verdict with impunity. For when I once afterwards, in order to found him, hinted a difrespect for Hamlet, he gave a fmile, as if he thought I would detect him in a contradiction, and replied, "Yes! but ftill Hamlet is full of fine paffages."

He had an invincible contempt and averfion for blank verfe; Milton's always excepted. "They do well," he faid, "to call it blank, for blank it is; I myself, even I, who never could find a fingle rhyme in my life, could make blank verfe as faft as I could speak; nothing but laziness hinders our tragic poets from writing, like the French, in rhyme. Dryden, had he poffeffed but a tenth part of Shakespeare's dramatic genius, would have brought rhyming tragedies into fashion here as well as they are in France, and then the mob would have admired them juft as much as they now pretend to defpife them.

Beattie's Minstrel he would not allow to be called a poem; for it had, he faid, no plan, no beginning, middle, or end. He thought it only a series of verfes; but a few of them very happy. As for the tranflation of the Iliad, "They do well," he faid," to call it Pope's Homer; for it is not Homer's Homer. It has no refemblance to the majefty and fimplicity of the Greek." He read-over to me l'Allegro and II Penferofo, and explained the respective beauties of each, but added, that all the reft of Milton's fhort poems were trash. He could not imagine what had made Johnfon praise the poem on the Death of Mrs. Killigrew, and compare it with Alexander's Feaft. The criticifin had induced him to read it over, and with attention, twice; and he could not discover even a spark of merit. At the fame time, he mentioned

Gray's

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