The intellectual level of the professors and lecturers in the University of Glasgow was already high when Smith joined them, and the place was free from the monopolistic spirit which dulled and enervated the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1752, a year after his arrival, Smith took part in founding what was called the Literary Society of Glasgow. Besides the professors a number of outsiders were admitted—David Hume, Sir John Dalrymple the historian, John Callander the antiquary, Robert Foulis the famous printer, and others. In one of the first papers read to this society (January 1753) Adam Smith reviewed Hume’s _Essays on Commerce_. He had no doubt read the essays in proof, as there is a letter from Hume in the previous September, asking him for criticisms towards a new edition he was then preparing of his _Essays, Moral and Political_, in which these new Commercial Essays were to be incorporated. Another and more convivial club was presided over by Simson, the professor of Mathematics, whose genius and amiability had impressed Adam Smith from his student days. When Simson died in 1768 he had spent half a century in the college. He divided each day with precision between work, sleep, refection in the tavern at the gate, and a measured walk in the gardens. Every Friday evening his club supped in the tavern, and every Saturday the members walked out a mile to the neighbouring village of Anderston, and there feasted on the customary one-course dinner of chicken broth, with a tankard of claret followed by whist and punch. Ramsay of Ochtertyre says that Smith was a bad partner. If an idea came to him in the middle of the game he would renounce or neglect to call. After cards they would talk, or Simson, who was the soul of gaiety, would sing Greek odes to modern airs. A more distinguished circle than this of plain livers and high thinkers could hardly have been found in Europe. Besides the editor of Euclid it included the founders of political economy and modern chemistry, and the inventor of the steam engine. For Joseph Black and his young assistant, James Watt, sat round the same fireside with Simson and Adam Smith. To the conversation of the club, said Watt, “my mind owed its first bias towards such subjects [literature, philosophy, etc.], in which they were all my superiors, I never having attended college, and being then but a mechanic.” In 1756 young Watt had come from London to Glasgow, and being refused permission by the close corporation of hammermen to set up as a mechanic in the town, he was welcomed by the professors, who appointed him maker of mathematical instruments to the University, and gave him a workshop and saleroom within its precincts. It is easy to imagine the delight with which Smith joined in rescuing Watt from the tyranny of a close corporation. The workshop was one of his favourite resorts, and the two became fast friends. More than half a century afterwards, one of the