XV ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

habits which remained with him through life, offpeaking to himfelf when alone, and of abfence incompany.

From the grammar-fchool of Kirkaldy , he wasfent, in 1737, totheUniveriityofGlafgow, wherehe remained till 1740, when he went to BalliolCollege, Oxford, as an exhibitioner on Snell’sfoundation.

Dr. Maclaine of the Hague , who was a fellow-Undent of Mr. Smith’s at Glafgow, told me fomeyears ago, that his favorite purfuits while at thatUniverfity were Mathematics and Natural Philo-fophy ; and I remember to have heard my fatherremind him of a geometrical problem of conlider-able difficulty, about which he was occupied atthe time when their acquaintance commenced,and which had been proposed to him as an exer-cise , by the celebrated Dr. Simpson.

Thefe, however, were certainly not the sciencesin which he was formed to excel ; nor did theylong divert him from pursuits more congenial tohis mind. What Lord Bacon fays of Plato maybe juftly applied to him: “ Ilium, licet ad rem-“ publicam non acceffiffet, tamennatura & incli-“ natione omnino ad res civiles propenfum, vires" eo præcipue in tendisse ; ne que de Philofophia" Naturali admodum follicitum esse; nifi quate-“ nus ad Philofophi nomen 8c celebritatem tuen-" dam, 8c ad inajeftatem quandam moralibus &