Smith's sentences are not by any means all of one length, or all of the same construction. It need only be added that the habit of dictating would in his case arise naturally from his slow and laboured penmanship. As I have mentioned the house in which the _Wealth of Nations_ was composed, it may be added that it stood in the main street of the town, but its garden ran down to the beach, and that it was only pulled down in 1844, without anybody in the place realising at the moment, though it has been a cause of much regret since, that they were suffering their most interesting association to be destroyed. An engraving of it, however, exists. FOOTNOTES: [201] Adams's _Works_, ix. 589. [202] Adams's _Works_, iii. 276. [203] Secretary of the Royal Society. The letter was probably in acknowledgment of the intimation of his election as Fellow. [204] Mr. Adams is Adam the architect, and Mrs. Montagu is the well-known Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu of Portman Square, whose hospitable house was a rival to any of the most brilliant salons of Paris. [205] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E. Library. [206] Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 390. [207] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E. Library. [208] Carlyle's _Autobiography_, p. 489. [209] Sinclair's _Life of Sir John Sinclair_, i. 37. [210] Fraser's _Scotts of Buccleuch_, I. lxxxviii., II. 406. [211] Brougham's _Men of Letters_, ii. 219. [212] Brougham's Men of Letters, ii. 219. [213] Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 429. [214] _Ibid._, ii. 433. [215] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E. Library. Partially published by Burton. [216] Sir James Steuart's _Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy_ was published in 1767. [217] Published by Professor Thorold Rogers in the _Academy_ of 28th February 1885. [218] _Caldwell Papers_, iii. 207. [219] _Wealth of Nations_, Book I. chap. xi. [220] _Ibid._, Book IV. chap. vii. [221] _Wealth of Nations_, Book IV. chap. vii. [222] _Ibid._, Book V. chap. iii. [223] _Ibid._, Book V. chap. i. [224] From the suppression of the Indian supervisorship; see p. 255. [225] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E. Library. [226] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 192. [227] Rogers' _Social Life of Scotland_, iii. 181. [228] Sinclair's _Old Times and Distant Places_, p. 9. CHAPTER XVII LONDON 1773-1776. _Aet._ 50-53 In the spring of 1773, Smith, having, as he thought, virtually completed the _Wealth of Nations_, set out with the manuscript for London, to give it perhaps some finishing touches and then place it in the hands of a publisher. But his labours had told so seriously on his health and spirits that he thought it not improbable he might die, and even die suddenly, before the work got through the press, and he wrote Hume a formal letter before he started on his journey, constituting him his literary executor, and giving him directions about the destination of the various unpublished manuscripts that lay in his depositories:--