Times obituary of Adam Smith

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The Times obituary of Adam Smith was an interesting document showing how he was seen at the time. After discussing his time at Balliol College, the obituary discusses his choice of a career. It obliquely explains that he had ceased to believe in Christianity:

When the time of his residence at Oxford expired, the question arose what line he was afterwards to pursue. He was destitute of patrimony and had not any turn for business. The Church seemed an improper profession, because he had early become a disciple of Voltaire in matters of religion.

It then describes his progress as first a 'public lecturer' and then a professor. Also some of the influences on him:

His stock of classical learning, though inferior to that of his predecessor, the excellent Dr Hutcheson, yet much exceeded the standard of Scotch Universities. He had besides read, meditated and digested the works of those afterwards called the French Encyclopaedists; and admired David Hume as by far the greatest Philosopher that the world had ever produced: at the same time that he spoke of Dr Johnson in his rhetorical lectures nearly in the following words: ' Of all writers antient [sic] and modern, he that keeps the greatest distance from common sense is Dr Samuel Johnson.'

From academia he gained a connection with some of the leading politicians of the day:

Dr Smith's lectures gradually acquired greater improvement and higher celebrity; and the Right Hon. Charles Townshend, who had married the Duchess of Buccleuch [sc. Lady Dalkeith] was, on his journey to Scotland, attracted to Glasgow by the reputation of Dr Smith, whom he engaged by very liberal terms to resign his professorship and to undertake the office of travelling tutor... A circumstance which did him more credit, was that before going to travel with the Duke of Buccleuch, he requested all his students to attend on a particular day, ordered the censor of the week to call their names and, as each man's occurred, returned the several sums which he had received in fees...

He travelled with the Duke two years [two and three quarter years] and soon after his return published the substance of his Lectures in his justly celebrated work on the Nature and Causes of National Wealth.

The Times is of course referring to The Wealth Of Nations. The obituary discusses how it was received:

Being appointed by the interest of his Grace and Lord Loughborough one of the Commissioners of Customs in Scotland, he generously offered to resign the annuity of £300 per annum which had been granted him to directing the Duke's education and travels, but which resignation, as he might easily have conjectured, his Grace as graciously refused.

The book was not at first so popular as it afterwards became. One of the first things to set it afloat was an observation of Mr Fox's in the House of Commons : 'As my learned friend Dr Adam Smith says, the way for a nation, as well as an individual, to become rich is for both to live within their income.' The remark, surely is not profound but the recommendation of Mr Fox raised the sale of the book, and the circumstances of the country, our wars, debts, taxes etc. attracted attention to a work where such subjects were treated - subjects that unfortunately have become too popular in most countries of Europe.

Dr Smith's system of Political Economy is not essentially different from that of Count Verri, Dean Tucker and Mr Hume; his illustrations are chiefly collected from the valuable collection Sur les arts et metiers;~ [Diderot's Encyclopedia] but his arrangement is his own; and as he has both carried his doctrines to a greater length, and fortified them with stronger proofs than any of his predecessors, he deserves the chief praise, or the chief blame, of propagating a system which tends to confound National Wealth with national Prosperity.

[edit] Source

The obituary was republished in C.R. Fay's Adam Smith and the Scotland of his day; Cambridge University Press, 1956. In a note explaining the remark about Balliol, Fay says ‘By the will of John Snell his exhibitors were under bond to take Anglican orders and return to Scotland, but the penalty was not enforced in the case of Adam Smith and numerous others.’