VISIT OF SAMUEL ROGERS
1789
The author of the _Pleasures of Memory_, going to Scotland to make the
home tour, as it was called, then much in vogue, brought with him
letters of introduction to Smith from Dr. Price and Dr. Kippis, the
editor of the _Biographia Britannica_. The poet was then a young man
of twenty-three, who had published nothing but his _Ode to
Superstition_, and these old Unitarian friends of his father were as
yet his chief acquaintances in the world of letters. Their names,
notwithstanding the disparaging allusion Smith makes to Price in a
letter previously given, won for Rogers the kindest possible
reception, and even a continuous succession of civilities, of which he
has left a grateful record in the journal he kept during his tour.
This journal has been published in Mr. Clayden's _Early Tears of
Samuel Rogers_, and a few additional particulars omitted in it are
found in Dyce's published and Mitford's unpublished recollections of
Rogers's table-talk.
Rogers arrived in Edinburgh apparently on the 14th of July--that
momentous 14th of July 1789 which set the world aflame, though not a
spark of information of it had reached Edinburgh before he left the
city on the 21st; and on the morning of the 15th he walked down
Panmure Close and paid his first visit to the economist. He found
Smith sitting at breakfast quite alone, with a dish of strawberries
before him, and he has preserved some scraps of the conversation,
none of them in any way remarkable. Starting from the business then on
hand, Smith said that fruit was his favourite diet at that season of
the year, and that Scotland produced excellent strawberries, for the
strawberry was a northern fruit, and was at its best in Orkney or
Sweden. Passing to the subject of Rogers's tour, he said that
Edinburgh deserved little notice, that the old town had given Scotland
a bad name (for its filth, presumably), and that he himself was
anxious to remove to the newer quarters of the town, and had set his
heart on George Square (the place where Walter Scott was brought up
and Henry Dundas died). He explained that Edinburgh was entirely
supported by the three Courts of Session, Exchequer, and Justiciary
(possibly to account for the filth of the place, in accordance with
his theory that there was always more squalor and misery in a
residential than in an industrial town). While thus apparently
slighting or ignoring the beauties of Edinburgh, which were all there
then as they are now, he praised Loch Lomond highly. It was the finest
lake in Great Britain, the islands being very beautiful and forming a
very striking contrast to the shores. The conversation passed from the
scenery of Scotland to the soil, and Smith said Scotland had an
excellent soil, but a climate so severe that its harvests were too
often overtaken by winter before they were housed. The consequence was
that the Scotch on the Borders were still in extreme poverty, just as
he had noticed half a century before when he rode across the Borders
as a student to Oxford, and was greatly struck with the different
condition of things he saw as he approached Carlisle. From agriculture
they passed on to discuss the corn trade, and Smith denounced the
Government's late refusal of corn to France, saying it ought to excite
indignation and contempt, inasmuch as the quantity required was so
trifling that it would not support the population of Edinburgh for a
single day. The population of Edinburgh suggested their houses, and
Smith said that the houses were piled high on one another in Paris as
well as in Edinburgh. They then touched on Sir John Sinclair, of whom
Smith spoke disparagingly in certain aspects, but said that he never
knew a man who was in earnest and did not do something at last. Before
leaving to return to his hotel Rogers seems to have asked Smith if he
knew Mrs. Piozzi, who was then living there, and had called upon
Rogers after learning from the landlord that Smith and Robertson had
left cards for him, and Smith said he did not know her, but believed
she was spoiled by keeping company with odd people. Smith then invited
his visitor to dine with him next day at the usual Friday dinner of
the Oyster Club, and Rogers came away delighted with the interview,
and with the illustrious philosopher's genuine kindness of heart.
On Friday, as appointed, Rogers dined with the Oyster Club as Smith's
guest, but he has made no specific entry of the event in his journal,
and no record of the conversation. Black and Playfair seem to have
been there, and possibly other men of eminence; but the whole talk was
usurped by a commonplace member, and Smith felt--and possibly Rogers
too--that the day was lost. For next time they met Smith asked Rogers
how he liked the club, and said, "_That_ Bogle, I was sorry he talked
so much; he spoiled our evening." That Bogle was the Laird of
Daldowie, on the Clyde. His father had been Rector of Glasgow
University in Smith's professorial days, and one of his brothers,
George Bogle, attained some eminence through the embassy on which he
was sent by Warren Hastings to the Llama of Thibet, and his account of
which has been published quite recently; and the offender himself was
a man of ability and knowledge, who had been a West India merchant for
many years, was well versed in economic and commercial subjects, and
very fond of writing to the Government of the day long communications
on those subjects, which seem to have been generally read, and
sometimes even acted upon. In society, as we are told by one of his
relations, Mr. Morehead, he was generally considered very "tedious,
from the long lectures on mercantile and political subjects (for he
did not converse when he entered on these, but rather declaimed) which
he was in the habit of delivering in the most humdrum and monotonous
manner."[350] His tedious lectures must, however, have had more in
them than ordinary hearers appreciated, for Smith thought so highly of
Bogle's conversation that when he invited Rogers to the club on this
particular occasion he mentioned that Bogle, a very clever person, was
to be there, and said "I must go and hear Bogle talk."[351]
Rogers was with Smith again on Sunday the 19th, and used ever
afterwards to speak of that particular Sunday as the most memorable in
his life, for he breakfasted with Robertson, heard him preach in the
Old Greyfriars in the forenoon, heard Blair preach in the High Church
in the afternoon, drank coffee thereafter with Mrs. Piozzi, and
finished the day by supping with Adam Smith. He had called on Smith
"between sermons," as they say in Scotland, and apparently close on
the hour for service, since "all the bells of the kirks" were ringing.
But Smith was going for an airing, and his chair was at the door. The
sedan was much in vogue in Edinburgh at that period, because it
threaded the narrow wynds and alleys better than any other sort of
carriage was able to do. Smith met Rogers at the door, and after
exchanging the few observations about Bogle and the club to which I
have already alluded, he invited his young friend to come back to
supper in the evening, and also to dinner on Monday, because he had
asked Henry Mackenzie, the author of the _Man of Feeling_, to meet
him. "Who could refuse?" writes Rogers. Smith then set out in his
sedan, and Rogers walked up to the High Church to hear Blair.
Returning to Panmure House at nine, he found there, he says, all the
company who were at the club on Friday except Bogle and Macaulay, and
with the addition of a Mr. Muir from Göttingen. (I do not know who
Macaulay and Muir were.) They spoke of Junius, and Smith suspected
Single-speech Hamilton of the authorship, on the ground of the
well-known story, which seems to have been then new to Rogers, and
which Smith had been told by Gibbon, that on one occasion when
Hamilton was on a visit at Goodwood, he informed the Duke of Richmond
that there was a devilish keen letter from Junius in the _Public
Advertiser_ of that day, and mentioned even some of the points it
made; but when the Duke got hold of the paper he found the letter
itself was not there, but only an apology for its absence. From this
circumstance Hamilton's name came to be mentioned in connection with
the authorship of the letters, and they ceased to appear. Smith's
argument was that so long as the letters were attributed to men who
were not their writers, such as Lord Lansdowne or Burke, they
continued to go on, but immediately the true author was named they
stopped. The conversation passed on to Turgot and Voltaire and the
Duke of Richelieu, and its particulars have been stated already in
previous parts of this work.[352]
On Monday Rogers dined at Smith's house to meet Henry Mackenzie, as
had been arranged, and the other guests seem to have been the Mr. Muir
of the evening before and Mr. M'Gowan--John M'Gowan, Clerk of the
Signet, already referred to. Dr. Hutton came in afterwards and joined
them at tea. The chief share in the conversation seems to have been
taken by Mackenzie, who, as we know from Scott, was always "the life
of company with anecdotes and fun," and related on this occasion many
stories of second sight in the Highlands, and especially of the
eccentric Caithness laird, who used the pretension as a very effectual
instrument for maintaining authority and discipline among his
tenantry. They spoke much too about the poetesses,--Hannah More, and
Mrs. Charlotte Smith, and Mrs. John Hunter, the great surgeon's wife;
but it appears to have still been Mackenzie who bore the burden of the
talk. The only thing Rogers reports Smith as saying is a very ordinary
remark about Dr. Blair. They had been speaking, as was natural, about
the sermon which Rogers--and Mackenzie also--had heard the previous
afternoon on "Curiosity concerning the Affairs of Others," and one
passage in which, though it reads now commonplace enough in the
printed page, Rogers seems to have admired greatly. Smith observed
that Blair was too puffed up, and the worthy divine would have been
more or less than human if he had escaped the necessary effects of the
excessive popularity he so long enjoyed at once as a preacher and as a
critic. It will be remembered how Burns detested Blair's absurd
condescension and pomposity.
From Smith's the company seems to have proceeded in a body to a
meeting of the Royal Society, of which all were members except Muir
and Rogers himself. Before going Mackenzie repeated an epigram which
had been written on Smith sleeping at the meetings of this society,
but the epigram has not been preserved. Only seven persons were
present--Smith and his guests and the reader of the paper for the day,
who happened to be the economist, Dr. James Anderson, already
mentioned repeatedly in this book as the original propounder of
Ricardo's theory of rent. His paper was on "Debtors and the Revision
of the Laws that respect them," and Rogers says it was "very long and
dull," and, as a natural consequence, "Mr. Commissioner Smith fell
asleep, and Mackenzie touched my elbow and smiled,"[353]--a curious
tableau. When the meeting was over Rogers took leave of his host, went
to the play with Mrs. Piozzi, and, though he no doubt saw Smith again
before finally quitting Edinburgh, mentions him no more.
Having been so much with Smith during those few days, Rogers's
impressions are in some respects of considerable value. He was deeply
impressed with the warmth of Smith's kindness. "He is a very friendly,
agreeable man, and I should have dined and supped with him every day,
if I had accepted all his invitations."[354] He was very
communicative,[355] and to Rogers's surprise, considering the
disparity of their years and the greatness of his reputation, Smith
was "quite familiar." "Who shall we have to dinner?" he would ask.
Rogers observed in him no sign of absence of mind,[356] and felt that
as compared with Robertson, Smith was far more of a man who had seen
much of the world. His communicativeness impressed itself also upon
other casual visitors, because his first appearance sometimes gave
them the opposite suggestion of reserve. "He was extremely
communicative," says the anonymous writer who sent the first letter of
reminiscences to the editor of the _Bee_, "and delivered himself on
every subject with a freedom and boldness quite opposite to the
apparent reserve of his appearance."
Another visitor to Scotland that year who enjoyed a talk with Smith,
and has something interesting to communicate about the conversation,
is William Adam, barrister and M.P., afterwards Chief Commissioner of
the Jury Court in Scotland, who was a nephew of Smith's schoolfellow
and lifelong friend, Robert Adam, the architect. William Adam was an
intimate personal friend of Bentham since the days when they ate their
way to the bar together and spent their nights in endless discussions
about Hume's philosophy and other thorny subjects, and when in
Scotland in the summer of 1789 he met Smith, and drew the conversation
to his friend Bentham's recently published _Defence of Usury_. This
book, it will be remembered, was written expressly to controvert
Smith's recommendation of a legal limitation of the rate of interest,
and from this conversation with Adam there seems to be some ground for
thinking that the book had the very unusual controversial effect of
converting the antagonist against whom it was written. Smith's reason
for wanting to fix the legal rate of interest at a maximum just a
little above the ordinary market rate was to prevent undue facilities
being given to prodigals and projectors; but Bentham replied very
justly that, whatever might be said of prodigals, projectors at any
rate were one of the most useful classes a community could possess,
that a wise government ought to do all it could to encourage their
enterprise instead of thwarting it, and that the best policy therefore
was to leave the rate of interest alone. In conducting his polemic
Bentham wrote as an admiring pupil towards a venerated master, to whom
he said he owed everything, and over whom he could gain no advantage
except, to use his own words, "with weapons which you have taught me
to wield and with which you have furnished me; for as all the great
standards of truth which can be appealed to in this line owe, as far
as I can understand, their establishment to you, I can see scarce any
other way of convicting you of an error or oversight than by judging
you out of your own mouth."[357]
Smith was touched with the handsome spirit in which his adversary
wrote, and candidly admitted to Adam the force of his assaults. The
conversation is preserved in a letter written to Bentham on the 4th
December 1789 by another friend and fellow-barrister, George Wilson,
as he apparently had the story from Adam's own lips.
"Did we ever tell you," writes Wilson, "what Dr. Adam Smith said to
Mr. William Adam, the Council M.P., last summer in Scotland? The
Doctor's expressions were that 'the _Defence of Usury_ was the work of
a very superior man, and that tho' he had given him some hard knocks,
it was done in so handsome a way that he could not complain,' and
seemed to admit that you were right."[358] This admission, though
apparently not made in so many words by Smith, but rather inferred by
Adam from the general purport of the conversation, is still not far
removed from the confession so definitely reported that his position
suffered some hard knocks from the assaults of Bentham. After that
confession it is reasonable to think that if Smith had lived to
publish another edition of his work, he would have modified his
position on the rate of interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[350] Morehead's _Life of the Rev. R. Morehead_, p. 43.
[351] Add. MSS., 32, 566.
[352] See above, pp. 189, 190, 205.
[353] Clayden's _Early Life of Samuel Rogers_, p. 96.
[354] Clayden's _Early Life of Samuel Rogers_, p. 90.
[355] Dyce's _Recollections of the Table-talk of Samuel Rogers_, p.
45.
[356] Add. MSS., 32, 566.
[357] Bentham's _Works_, iii. 21.
[358] Bentham MSS., British Museum.