Besides his work with Hutcheson, Smith laid at Glasgow the foundation of an early mastery of the classics, and prepared himself for a wide course of reading in the literature and wisdom of the ancients. But mathematics and natural philosophy are said to have been his favourite pursuits at this time—indeed he seems to have attained in both a considerable proficiency, which never escaped the tenacious grip of his memory. Matthew Stewart, Dugald’s father, was one of his fellow-students. Long afterwards, when Professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh, he was heard discussing with Smith “a geometrical problem of considerable difficulty,” which had been set them as an exercise by Simson. Matthew Stewart, who died in 1785, is commemorated with Simson in the sixth edition of Smith’s _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, published fifty years after this time. After observing that “mathematicians who may have the most perfect assurance of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries, are frequently very indifferent about the reception which they may meet with from the public,” Adam Smith cites Dr. Robert Simson of Glasgow, and Dr. Matthew Stewart of Edinburgh, “the two greatest mathematicians that I ever had the honour to be known to, and I believe, the two greatest that have lived in my time,” as men who never seemed to feel the slightest uneasiness from the neglect with which some of their most valuable works were received. For several years, he adds, even Sir Isaac Newton’s _Principia_ fell flat, but his tranquillity did not suffer for a single quarter of an hour. Newton always stood at the very top of Smith’s calendar.