CVI

ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

and to diffipate his attention ; and now that hiscareer is closed, it is impoffible to reflect on thetime they consumed, without lamenting, that ithad not been employed in labors more profitableto the world, and more equal to his mind.

During the firfl years ofhisrefidence in this city,his studies seemed to be entirely suspended ; andhis paffion for letters served only to amuse his lei-sure , and to animate his conversation. The in-firmities of age, of which he very early began tofeel the approaches, reminded him at lalt, whenit was too late , of what he yet owed to the pub-lic , and to his own fame. The principal ma-terials of the works which he had announced , hadbeen long ago collected; and little probably waswanting, but a few years of health and retirement,to bellow on them that systematical arrangementin which he delighted; and the ornaments of thatflowing, and apparently artlefs flyle, which hehad fludioufly cultivated, but which, after allhis experience in composition , he adjufted, withextreme difficulty, to his own tafle *.

* Mr. Smith obferved to me, not long before his death , thatafter all his pra&ice in writing, hecompofed as {lowly, and withas great difficulty, as at firft. He added, at the fame time, thatMr. Hume had acquired fo great a facility in this reipeft, thatthe laft volumes of his Hiftory were printed from his originalcopy, with a few marginal corrections.

It may gratify the curioiity of fome readers to know, that whenMr. Smith was employed in compofition , he generally walked