hat and left the room; and, though followed by Lord KAMES, who anxiously pressed him to return, he positively refused to rejoin the company.

LORD KAMES, it is well known, paid great and successful application to the improvement of agriculture. A great number of years ago, a German quack, who called himself Baron VON HAAK, vaunted of having discovered a powerfully fertilizing manure, which he advertised for sale, pretending that a very small quantity sufficed to fertilize an acre of land in a very extraordinary manner. Happening to converse with one of his neighbours on this subject, a plain sagacious farmer; the farmer observed to Lord KAMES, that he had no faith in the Barons nostrum, as he conceived the proposed quantity was vastly too small to be of any use. My good friend," said Lord KAMES, "such are the wonderful discoveries in science, that I should not be surprised if, at some future time, we might be able to carry the manure of an acre of land to the field in our coat pocket." Very possibly," replied the farmer; but, in that case, I suspect you will

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be able to bring back the crop in your waistcoat pocket."

Soon

MR SMELLIE wrote a short account of the life of his excellent and illustrious friend Lord KAMES, which was first published in the third edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and was afterwards reprinted in 1800, by his son Mr ALEXANDER SMELLIE, in a posthumous volume, containing a selection from his fathers unpublished manuscripts. The original composition of this life, which was written on the spur of the occasion, proceeded from the following circumstance. after the death of Lord KAMES, some ignorant pretender to literature drew up a miserable tissue of falsehood and malignity, as a biographical account of that distinguished person, which was meant to have been inserted in the third edition of the Encyclopedia, then going on at Edinburgh. Intelligence of this was fortunately conveyed to Mr HOME DRUMMOND, his Lordships only son; who came immediately to Edinburgh, and sent for Mr SMELLIE, who readily undertook to draw up an appropriate and characteristical memoir of his friend and benefactor, to be substituted for the miserable performance

which was meant to have been inserted; and which, by his influence with Mr ANDREW BELL, the principal proprietor of the Encyclopedia, Mr SMELLIE readily got inserted. The authority for this incident, in addition to the recollection of the circumstances by Mr ALEXANDER SMELLIE, as related to him by his father, will be found distinctly specified in a subsequent letter from Mr SMELLIE to the late FRANCIS GARDEN, Lord Gardenston, of the Court of Session. If Mr SMELLIE had lived, it was his intention to have made this life of Lord KAMES considerably more complete, by the introduc tion of many curious and interesting anecdotes, and by critical illustrations of his nuinerous and excellent works. This desideratum in Scots literary biography has been of late most amply and excellently supplied, by the publication, in 1807, of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable HENRY HOMB of Kames; by the Honourable ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, Lord Woodhouselee, in two quarto volumes; which contains an extensive and well written account of Scots literature during the lengthened life of that distinguished Senator and illustrious philosopher; and which precludes the neces

sity, or even propriety, of attempting to insert any biographical sketch of that eminent character in this work.

ONE of the earliest important literary projects of Mr SMELLIE, was the compilement and entire conducting of the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in three volumes quarto, which began to appear in numbers at Edinburgh in 1771. The plan, and all the principal articles of that Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, were devised and written or compiled by Mr SMELLIE; and he prepared and superintended the whole of that work, for which he only got L.200 from its proprietors.

THE following terms on which Mr SMELLIE was engaged in this undertaking by Mr ANDREW BELL engraver, and Mr COLIN MACFARQUHAR printer in Edinburgh, are in the hand-writing of the late Mr ANDREW BELL, the principal proprietor of the work.

No. LXXV.

Mr ANDREW BELL to Mr WILLIAM SMELLIE,

SIR,

As we are engaged in publishing a Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences; and as you have informed us that there are fifteen capital sciences which you will undertake for, and write up the subdivisions and detached parts of these conform to your plan, and likewise to prepare the whole work for the press, &c. &c.; we hereby agree to allow you L.200 for your trouble, &c. your trouble, &c.

I am, &c. ANDREW BEll.

BESIDES the ordinary labour of compilement and abridgement of the entire first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he wrote several original essays for that work ; but he held Dictionary making in great contempt; and used to say jocularly, that he had made a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences with a pair of scissars, clipping out from various