Duty of Man"; through "The Principles of Human Knowledge"; through " Meditations Among the Tombs"; through "Night Thoughts"; through "Sandford and Merton"; through "The Confessions of an Opium Eater," or through "The Wealth of Nations"? And yet what gentleman would consider his library as being fully equipped without them all?
"My dear, what's the name of that Scotsman?" asked, not long ago, the wife of a certain contemporary American writer, the children of whose brain are born, generally, to be at once forgotten, and who is never quoted at all;—"My dear, what's the name of that Scotsman?" "Which Scotsman?" "Why, the Scotsman who wrote the book?" She had, somehow, overlooked, for the moment, the fact that more than one Scotsman had written a book! Further inquiry led to the discovery that the book was "The Wealth of Nations," and that, naturally, the name of the Scotsman was Adam Smith!
Smith, in 1740, obtained what is called an "Exhibition" to Balliol; and he rode on horseback all the way from his Northern Country to accept it; remaining in Oxford continuously for four years.
He asserted, in later life, that he owed but little to the official system of tuition. He read industriously in the College Library, however, on his
