In the notes of lectures, given as we have seen about the time when the Poker Club was established, Smith admitted the necessity of a standing army, but seems to have thought that its abuse should be guarded against by a militia. The Poker Club proved little more than a convivial society, and felt the scarcity and dearness of claret more than the want of a national army. Lord Campbell says that when the duty on French wine was raised to pay for the American War, they “agreed to dissolve the ‘Poker,’ and to form another society which should exist without consumption of any excisable commodity.” When the duties were again reduced by Pitt’s French Treaty in 1786, a Younger Poker Club arose, but Pitt’s master, who had contributed so substantially to this revival of patriotism, was too old or too indifferent to become a member. In one other important Edinburgh project the Glasgow professor played a prominent part. In 1755 an _Edinburgh Review_ was started to supply the rising authors of North Britain with the stimulus of sympathetic criticism. Wedderburn, then a young advocate, was chosen editor; Robertson and Smith were contributors in chief. But only two numbers appeared of this precursor in name and in intention of the most famous and successful review ever launched in our islands. Smith’s two articles are of considerable, although of unequal, interest. The first and less important is a review of Dr. Johnson’s _Dictionary_. “When we compare this book with other dictionaries,” writes the critic, “the merit of its author appears very extraordinary.” In previous English dictionaries the chief purpose had been to explain hard words and terms of art; “Mr. Johnson has extended his views much further, and has made a very full collection of all the different meanings of each English word, justified by examples from authors of good reputation.” The defects of the work consisted chiefly in the plan, which was not sufficiently grammatical. To show what he meant he took Johnson’s articles on _but_ and _humour_, appending more philosophical and lucid articles of his own. Johnson seems to have taken no notice of these criticisms in later editions of the dictionary. We may observe in passing that Smith’s _but_ is better than his _humour_. He seems singularly mistaken when he observes that “a man of wit is as much above a man of humour as a gentleman is above a buffoon.” In Scotland, he thinks, the usefulness of the _Dictionary_ will soon be felt, “as there is no standard of correct language in conversation.”