When Smith set foot on his native soil, in the autumn of 1766, he did not return to the scene of his former triumphs, but consigned himself to studious and laborious retirement under the roof of his worthy mother. Old friends urged him to come within their reach, and give them the benefit of his company; but his strong ambition to produce a great and influential work, “like Aaron’s rod swallowed up the rest,” and he was content to pursue his object in obscurity. He was in comfortable circumstances, as the Duke of Buccleuch had, in consideration of his tuition, settled on him an income of three hundred pounds a year, and in other respects he was not unprepared for the mighty task. His long residence in a commercial town, his foreign experience, and his intercourse with the French economists and statesmen, had trained his philosophic mind for the investigation of the subjects on which he aspired to throw a new and enduring light. When employed in preparing for the press, he generally walked up and down the room dictating to an amanuensis, and he is said to have composed with as much slowness and difficulty in his later years as in youth. The “Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” did not make its appearance in public till the spring of 1766. It was found to consist of five books. The two first contain the scientific portion. The third is a historical sketch of the progress of opulence. The fourth, the longest, treats of the legislative interference by which governments have attempted to make their subjects rich, and endeavors to show that all such schemes retard instead of promoting the object in view. The fifth, which points out the means by which the duties of sovereigns may be best performed, and how a public revenue may be most judiciously provided, is in reality a treatise on the art of government. This work, so important in its results, saw the light just six months before David Hume was laid in his lonesome grave, and he immediately wrote――“It has depth, and solidity, and acuteness, and is so much illustrated by curious facts that it must, at last, take the public attention.... If you were here, at my fireside, I should dispute some of your principles; but these, and a hundred other points, are fit only to be discussed in conversation.” Gibbon, likewise, mentioned it with praise in his immortal History; and Fox lent his aid to increase its fame by saying in that House, where the author’s name has since been familiar as a household word, and unquestionably too often used by others than parliamentary giants――“The way, as my learned friend Dr. Adam Smith states, for a nation, as well as an individual, to be rich, is for both to live within their income.” It is admitted, however, that the doctrines enunciated made less impression on the minds of Fox and his allies, than on that of the young and disdainful minister who, toward the close of the century, had to stand the brunt of their impassioned eloquence.