Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

SMELLIE died at Sheerness, in October 1799, commander of a gun-vessel.

IN endeavouring to procure employment for his son JOHN, the following letters passed between Mr SMELLIE and Mr PATRICK CLASON. Of this gentleman we regret that so little is known to us, and that so small a remnant of the correspondence which seems to have taken place between him and Mr SMELLIE is now to be found. We have been informed, on good authority, that Mr CLASON was, or rather is, an excellent scholar, and a gentleman of abilities and considerable literary attainments; for we have reason to believe that he is still alive, and resides in London. According to our information, he was originally educated for the ministry in the Church of Scotland; but had devoted the prime of his life to the employment of a travelling tutor. That portion of the correspondence between him and Mr SMELLIE which still remains is quite abrupt. It is probable that Mr SMELLIE had recommended his son JOHN to the attentions of Mr CLASON, who evidently appears to have been one of his contemporaries and companions at the University of Edinburgh. It farther appears that, in the course of this correspondence, Mr CLASON had made

inquiries at Mr SMELLIE respecting the health of Dr ADAM SMITH, the immortal author of the Wealth of Nations; a book greatly more celebrated and admired than understood; and the principles which it inculcates and establishes, though almost universally acknowledged to be just and irrefragable, are still successfully opposed by the narrow mercantile system of monopoly, and the bigotted terror which actuates many respectable characters against every appearance of innovation and reform. The first of these letters is peculiarly characteristic, and partly biographical; and, having no direct connexion with any of Mr SMELLIES literary exertions, except an incidental allusion to the first volume of his Philosophy of Natural History, is therefore inserted in this place.

No. LXI.

Mr WILLIAM, SMELLIE to Mr PATRICK CLA

SON.

DEAR CLASON, Edinburgh, 27th June 1790.

I really do not know how to thank you sufficiently for your attention and kindness to my son JOHN. I believe I have now disco

vered the mode that will best suit your humane disposition. I hope to see the young man, by your means, in a situation that will give you pleasure.

POOR SMITH! We must soon lose him; and the moment in which he departs will give a heart-felt pang to thousands. Mr SMITHS spirits are flat; and I am afraid the exertions he sometimes makes to please his friends do him no good. His intellects, as well as his senses, are clear and distinet. He wishes to be cheerful; but nature is omnipotent. body is extremely emaciated, because his stomach cannot admit of sufficient nourishment: But, like a man, he is perfectly patient and resigned.

His

O PETER! What is this world? I have laboured incessantly upwards of thirty years, and have reaped nothing but distress and calamity. I have brought thirteen human beings into existence, perhaps, though GoD forbid, to be as miserable as myself, These ideas are dismal.

HAVE you read my book? As you must be in habits with literary men, it is natural

for me to wish to know your own opinion and theirs.

NOTHING in the way of literature is going on here. There is a bustle about elections; but these I never mind. If any thing occur that will either serve or please you, lay your commands upon me. I am, &c.

WILLIAM SMellie,

No. LXII.

To Mr WILLIAM SMELLIE from Mr PATRICK

CLASON.

London, 6. July 1790.

No. 5 Cleveland Court, St Jameses.

MY DEAR SIR,

Informed by your son that he was in want of money, I trembled lest he should lose his birth; and hastened to my banker, though already in arrears to him, from whom I procured some money for poor JoHN; for which he gave a draft upon you, payable to me or order on demand. Haud ignara (sentiment has no peculiar gender) mali miseris, &c.

Finding, to my real sorrow, sorrow, that your industry and talents have not been rewarded, I shall keep the bill till you find a moment favourable for discharging it; for I should feel more than the ordinary pain of dunning, in being a dun to you,

THE news you give of Mr SMITH alarms and afflicts me severely. Were he known to me only by his works, I should even then esteem his death a greater loss to the world than would be sustained by that of any other literary man, indeed of any man in Europe. But he has been long my friend; and I feel that I shall mourn more bitterly for the good friend than for the great man. Fain, O! fain would I still hope-his constitution is good, and, except by study, he never has done any thing to hurt it, and study never kills. I hope Dr BLACK Visits him.—I hope -I hope. I beg you will now and then take the trouble, for which I will be grateful, of sending me an account of his situation. My mind is thrown into cruel derangement when I think of him.

I HAVE not yet had an opportunity to read your book: but, as soon as some volumes

« AnteriorContinuar »