"I have the prospect of paying my respects to you this autumn, in London. I am now come within sight of land, and am drawing near to a period of that volume which I had undertaken. I find the subject curious; and I believe that this volume will contain some novelty, as well as greater accuracy of composition, than is employed by our ordinary historians. I could add, greater than is requisite to please the taste of the public,--at least if we may judge by the vast success of Dr. Smollett's history. _Vanitas vanitatum, atque omnia vanitas_, says the Preacher; the great object of us authors, and of you orators and statesmen, is to gain applause; and you see at what rate it is to be purchased. I fancy there is a future state, to give poets, historians, and philosophers their due reward, and to distribute to them those recompenses which are so strangely shared out in this life. It is of little consequence that posterity does them justice, if they are for ever to be ignorant of it, and are to remain in perpetual slumber in their literary paradise. However, it is some comfort, that virtue is its own reward, and that a man cannot employ himself in the cultivation of letters without reaping a real present satisfaction from his industry. I am, dear sir, your most obliged humble servant. "P.S.--I am sorry to hear that the bill for the importation of Irish cattle is rejected. Besides other arguments for it, I remember a strong argument which was used in Charles II.'s time against the prohibition, when it was first laid on: it was affirmed that the shipping employed in that commerce was nearly equal to that which served for the carriage of coal from Newcastle to London. It is not improbable that this argument has, at present, escaped all the reasoners on that subject; and I thought it a proper one to be suggested to a lord of the Admiralty. It is to be found, if my memory do not deceive me, in Carte's Ormond, and was employed by that duke."[45:1] In the year 1759, Adam Ferguson was appointed professor of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. From the following correspondence, it appears that Hume and others were desirous that Smith should occupy a chair in Edinburgh, and, apparently, the same that was obtained by Ferguson,[45:2] and that Ferguson should succeed Smith in Glasgow. The singular terms on which the Edinburgh professorship appears to have been disposed of, were, probably, not such as Smith would accede to; and we afterwards find Hume conducting a negotiation for Ferguson alone. HUME _to_ ADAM SMITH. "_8th June, 1758._