ever seen a more agreeable woman than the Duchess. I am sorry that you are not here, because I am sure you would be perfectly in love with her. I shall probably be here some weeks; I would wish, however, that both you and the Count de Sarsfield would direct for me as usual at Kirkaldy. I should be glad to know the true history of Rousseau before and since he left England. You may perfectly depend upon my never quoting you to any living soul upon that subject.

The following letter relates to his unhappy determination of having all his papers destroyed.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"As I have left the care of all my literary papers to you, I must tell you that, except those which I carry along with me, there are none worth the publishing but a fragment of a great work, which contains a history of the Astronomical Systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Des Cartes. Whether that might not be published as a fragment of an intended juvenile work I leave entirely to your judgment, though I begin to suspect myself, that there is more refinement than solidity in some parts of it. This little work you will find in a thin folio paper book, in my writing-desk in my book-room: all the other loose papers, which you will find either in that desk or within the glass folding doors of a bureau, which stands in my bed-room, together with about eighteen thin paper folio books, which you will likewise find within the same glass folding doors, I desire may be destroyed without any examination. Unless I die very suddenly, I shall take care that the papers I carry with me shall be carefully sent to you."

"TO DAVID HUME, Esq.,

"I ever am, my dear frend,
"Most faithfully yours,

of St. Andrew's Square, Edinburgh."

"MY DEAREST FRIEND,

"ADAM SMITH."

"I have this moment received your letter of the 15th instant. You had, in order to save me the sum of one penny sterling, sent it by the carrier instead of the post; and (if you have not mistaken the date) it has lain at his quarters these eight days, and was, I presume, very likely to lie there for ever.

"I shall be very happy to receive a copy of your Dialogues; and, if I should happen to die before they are published, I shall take care that my copy shall be as carefully preserved as if I was to live a hundred years. With regard to leaving me the property in case

they are not published within five years after your decease, you may do as you think proper. I think, however, you should not menace Strahan with the loss of any thing in case he does not publish your Work within a certain time. There is no probability of his delaying it, and if any thing could make him delay it, it would be a clause of this kind; which would give him an honourable pretence for doing so. It would then be said that I had published, for the sake of an Establishment, not from respect to the memory of my friend, what even a Printer for the sake of the same emolument had not published. That Strahan is sufficiently zealous you will see by the enclosed letter, which I will beg the favour of you to return to me, but by the post and not by the carrier. If you will give me leave I will add a few lines to your account of your own Life; giving some account in my own name of your behaviour in this illness, if, contrary to my own hopes, it should prove your last. Some conversations we had lately together, particularly that concerning your want of an excuse to make to Charon, the excuse you at last thought of, and the very bad reception which Charon was likely to give it, would, I imagine, make no disagreeable part of the history. You have in a declining state of health, under an exhausting disease, for more than two years together, now looked at the approach, or what you at least believed to be the approach of Death with a steady cheerfulness such as very few men have been able to maintain for a few hours, though otherwise in the most perfect health. I shall likewise, if you will give me leave, correct the sheets of the new edition of your Works, and shall take care that it shall be published exactly according to your late corrections. As I shall be at London this winter it will cost me very little trouble. All this I have written upon the supposition that the event of your disease should prove different from what I still hope it may do. For your spirits are so good, the spirit of life is still so very strong in you, and the progress of your disorder is so slow and gradual, that I still hope it may take a turn. Even the cool and steady Dr. Black, by a letter I received from him last week, seems not to be averse to the same hopes.

"I hope I need not repeat to you, that I am ready to wait on you whenever you wish to see me. Whenever you do so, I hope you will not scruple to call on me. I beg to be remembered in the kindest and most respectful manner to your Brother, your Sister, your Nephew, and all other Friends.

"I ever am,

*This refers to the passage of Mr. Hume's will, imposing a penalty in case of not printing one of his posthumous works. See "Life of Hume," vol. i.

"DEAR SIR,

TO JOHN HOME, OF NINEWELLS.

"Dalkeith House, August 31st, 1776.

"As the Duke proposes to stay here till Thursday next, I may not have an opportunity of seeing you before you return to Ninewells; I, therefore, take this opportunity of discharging you, and all others concerned, of the legacy which you was so good as to think might, upon a certain event, become due to me by your brother's will, but which, I think, would upon no event become so, viz., the legacy of two hundred pounds sterling. I hereby therefore discharge it for ever; and least this discharge should be lost, I shall be careful to mention it in a note at the bottom of my will. I shall be glad to hear that you have received this letter, and hope you will believe me to be, both on your brother's account and your own, with great truth, most affectionately,

"Yours,

"ADAM SMITH.

"P. S.-I do not hereby mean to discharge the other legacy, viz., that of a copy of his works."

66

Edinburgh, September 2d, 1776.

"DEAR SIR,

"I was favoured with your's of Saturday, and I assure you that, on perusing the destinations, I was more of opinion than when I saw you, that the pecuniary part of it was not altered by the codicil, and that it was intended for you at all events; that my brother knowing your liberal way of thinking, laid on you something as an equivalent, not imagining you would refuse a small gratuity from the funds it was to come from, as a testimony of his friendship; and though I must highly esteem the motives and manner, I cannot agree to accept of your renunciation, but leave you full master to dispose of it which way is most agreeable to you.

"The copys of the Dialogues are finished and of the Life, and will be sent to Mr. Strahan to-morrow; and I will mention to him your intention of adding to the last something to finish so valuable a life, and will leave you at Liberty to look into the correction of the first, as it either answers your leisure or ideas with regard to the composition, or what effects you think it may have with regard to yourself. The two copys intended for you will be left with my sister, when you please to require them; and the copy of the new edition of his works you shall be sure to receive, though you have no better title to that part than the other, though much you have to the friendship and esteem of, Dear Sir, him who is most sincerely,

"Yours,
"JOHN HOME."

• Brog⋅

LAVOISIER.

In the Lives of Black, Priestley, Watt, and Cavendish, it has been necessary to mention the claims of Lavoisier, first as a competitor with the great philosophers of the age for the honour of their discoveries, yet as an intruder among them by his attempts to show that he had himself, though unknown to them and ignorant of their inquiries, made the same steps nearly at the same time. The history of that great man, which we are now to consider, will enable us to perceive clearly the evidence upon which the charge rests, both the proof of his having preferred those claims, and the proof that they were groundless. But it will also enable us to perceive how vast his real merits were, and how much remained his own of the discoveries which have built up the science of modern chemistry, even after all those plumes have been stript away that belonged to others.

It is a very great error to suppose that the truths of philosophy are alone important to be learnt by its students; that provided these truths are taught, it signifies little when or by whom or by what steps they were discovered. The history of science, of the stages by which its advances have been made, of the relative merits by which each of our teachers was successively made famous, is of an importance far beyond its being subservient to the gratification even of an enlightened and learned curiosity. It is eminently calculated to further the progress which it records; it conveys peculiarly clear and discriminating ideas upon the doctrines taught, and the proofs they rest on; it suggests new inquiries, and encourages the prosecuting of new researches. It is, moreover, both a debt of gratitude to our benefactors which we should be anxious to pay by testifying our gratitude, and commemorating their fame; and the discharge of this duty has a direct tendency to excite emulation, prompting to further labours that may enlarge the bounds of science. Besides, the history of scientific achievements is the history of the human mind in its noblest exertions, of the human race in its most exalted pursuits. But it is equally clear that the whole value of this, as of every other branch of history, depends upon the diligence with which the facts are examined, the care and even the skill with which their evidence is sifted, the impartiality with which judgment is pronounced, and the accuracy with which the record. is finally made up. The mere panegyric of eminent men, how elegantly soever it may be composed, must remain wholly worthless, at the best, and is capable of being mischievous, if it aims at praise without due discrimination, still more if it awards to one man the eulogy which belongs to another. Nothing can be more indispensable to the execution.

of the important task undertaken by the historian of science, than that he should most carefully examine the share which each of its cultivators had in the successive changes it has undergone. The greatest of these have ever felt how valuable such titles are, and have shown the most singular anxiety to compare and to adjust their relative claims. Of these illustrious men I have known two, Black and Watt, and I can safely say that when the question was raised of priority in discovery among either their predecessors or their cotemporaries, they were wont to be particular and minute, even to what seemed superfluous carefulness, in assigning to each his just share, very far more anxious in making this distribution than they ever showed themselves to secure the admission of their titles in their own case. By a singular injustice of fortune these two philosophers have been treated themselves with a more scanty measure of the like justice than perhaps any of their cotemporary discoverers.* It is proposed to examine with the same minuteness the particulars in M. Lavoisier's history, upon which some controversy has at different times arisen.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born at Paris, 13th of August, 1743, the son of an opulent family, his father having been a fermiergénéral. No expense was spared upon his education; and in the college of Mazarin, where he studied, he gained many prizes for proficiency in classical acquirements. It was, however, to the sciences that he soon devoted himself, and first to the severer ones, having made considerable proficiency in the mathematics and astronomy under La Caille, in whose observatory he studied upon leaving the college. He studied botany under Jussieu, and chemistry under Rouelle. As from his earliest years he appears to have been wholly consecrated to scientific pursuits, so no one ever entered upon his course with a more fervid courage. The earliest of his inquiries of which we have any knowledge was an analysis of gypsum, presented to the Academy of Sciences in 1765, and published in the collection of " Mémoires de divers Savans," 1768. In 1764 a prize had been proposed by M. de Sartine, the celebrated chief of the police of Paris, for the best method of lighting a great town, so as to combine illumination with economy, and with facility of service. After the lapse of twelve months no dissertation had been presented which satisfied the conditions of the programme, and the prize was doubled, being raised to 2000 livres; and next year, 1766, the conditions remaining still unsatisfied by the candidates, the prize was divided among the three best, while a Memoir of great merit, by M. Lavoisier, was honourably mentioned and ordered to be printed. The King, too, on M. de Sartine's recommendation, directed a gold medal to be bestowed upon the author, who was presented with it at the public sitting of the Academy in April, 1766. In 1769 he obtained the place of a fermier-général, by a kind of hereditary title;

* When any reference is made to the Eloges of the French Academy, justice requires me to add that those of M. Arago form a most striking exception. They are strictly historical, as well as philosophical. That of Watt is a model.