usted almost entirely to
extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was
plain and unaffected, and as he seemed to be always
interested in the subject, he never failed to interest his
hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several
distinct propositions, which he successively endeavoured to
prove and illustrate. These propositions when announced in
general terms had, from their extent, not unfrequently
something of the air of a paradox. In his attempts to
explain them, he often appeared at first not to be
sufficiently possessed of the subject, and spoke with some
hesitation. As he advanced, however, his manner became warm
and animated, and his expression easy and fluent. On points
susceptible of controversy you could easily discern that he
secretly conceived an opposition to his opinions, and that
he was led upon this account to support them with greater
energy and vehemence. By the fulness and variety of his
illustrations the subject gradually swelled in his hands
and acquired a dimension which, without a tedious repetition
of the same views, was calculated to seize the attention of
his audience, and to afford them pleasure as well as
instruction in following the same subject through all the
diversity of shades and aspects in which it was presented,
and afterwards in tracing it backwards to that original
proposition or general truth from which this beautiful train
of speculation had proceeded."[44]

One little peculiarity in his manner of lecturing was mentioned to the
late Archdeacon Sinclair by Archibald Alison the elder, apparently as
Alison heard it from Smith's own lips. He used to acknowledge that in
lecturing he was more dependent than most professors on the sympathy
of his hearers, and he would sometimes select one of his students, who
had more mobile and expressive features than the rest, as an
unsuspecting gauge of the extent to which he carried with him the
intelligence and interest of the class. "During one whole session," he
said, "a certain student with a plain but expressive countenance was
of great use to me in judging of my success. He sat conspicuously in
front of a pillar: I had him constantly under my eye. If he leant
forward to listen all was right, and I knew that I had the ear of my
class; but if he leant back in an attitude of listlessness I felt at
on