i.'iui>.l.j ItHVIBWINO FOR ME. AND MRS. GEIPMTHR.
" our circulating libraries,"* Nevertheless the Scottish 1767.
clique made a stand for their rough Homeric doctor, Mi, 28,
Smith, Robertson, and Homo were vehement in laudation ;
Charles Townshend (" who," writes Hume to Adam Smith,1!"
14 passes for the cleverest fallow in England ") said ayo to
all their praises ; and when, some months afterwards, llmno
came tip to London to bring out the Tudor volumes of Ms
H IB tori/) he published puffs of Wilkio under assumed
signatures, both in the Critical Jiemew and in various
magazines, and reported progress to the Edinburgh circle.
It was somewhat " uphill work," ho told Adam Smith ; J
and with much mortification hinted to Bobertson that the
verdict of the Monthly Review (vulgarly interpolated, I
should mention, by Griffiths himself §) would have upon tho
whole to stand, " However," he adds, in his letter to
Buljertson, " if you want a little flattery to the author
" (which I own IB very refreshing to an author), you may tell
11 him that Lord Chesterfield said to me he was a great pout.
" I imagine that Wilkie will be very much elevated by praise
** from an English earl, awl n knight of the garter, and an
" ambassador, and u secretary of state, and a man of so
11 great reputation, For 1 observe that the greatest rustics
" are commonly most affected with such circumstances." ||
It is to be hoped he was, and proportionately forgetful of
low abuse from obscure hirelings in booksellers' garrets,
** An Irish gentleman," Humo in another letter told
Adam Smith, " wrote lately a very pretty treatise on the
11 Bublime," 1f This Irish gentleman had indeed written so
pretty a treatise on the Suhlimo, that the task-work of our
critic became work of praise. " When 1 wan beginning the
* Mmttlilii /(Vww, xvii. JiiJM, Bi'ulnntwr 1767,
f Bwrtwj's ,/4/h H. J!H. t /Wrf, M, | to J»rior, i. 281,
II Hurt«»"»< /«//r, ii, /if», f tbid,