uninviting
title of "A Royal Council for Advice, or the Regular Education of Boys
the Foundation of all other Improvements." The _dramatis personae_ were
first the master and twelve ordinary members of the council, who sat
gravely round a table like senators, and next a crowd of suitors,
standing at a little distance off, who sent representatives to the
table one by one to state their grievances--first a tradesman, then a
farmer, then a country gentleman, then a schoolmaster, a nobleman, and
so on. Each of them received advice from the council in turn, and
then, last of all, a gentleman came forward, who complimented the
council on the successful completion of their day's labours.[4] Smith
would no doubt have been present at this performance, but whether he
played an active part either as councillor or as spokesman for any
class of petitioners, or merely stood in the crowd of suitors, a
silent super, cannot now be guessed.

Among those young actors at this little provincial school were several
besides Smith himself who were to play important and even
distinguished parts afterwards on the great stage of the world. James
Oswald--the Right Hon. James Oswald, Treasurer of the Navy--who is
sometimes said to have been one of Smith's schoolfellows, could not
have been so, as he was eight years Smith's senior, but his younger
brother John, subsequently Bishop of Raphoe, doubtless was; and so was
Robert Adam, the celebrated architect, who built the London Adelphi,
Portland Place, and--probably his finest work--Edinburgh University.
Though James Oswald was not at school with Smith, he was one of his
intimate home friends from the first. The Dunnikier family lived in
the town, and stood on such a footing of intimacy with the Smiths
that, as we have seen, it was "Mr. James of Dunnikier"--the father of
the James Oswald now in question--who undertook on behalf of Mrs.
Smith the arrangements for her husband's funeral; and the friendship
of James Oswald, as will presently appear, was, after the affection of
his mother, the best thing Smith carried into life with him from
Kirkcaldy. The Adam family also lived in the town, though the father
was a leading Scotch architect--King's Mason for Scotland, in
fact--and was proprietor of a fair estate not far away; and the four
brothers Adam were the familiars of Smith's early years. They
continued to be among his familiars to the last. Another of his school
companions who played a creditable pa