Were I a _galante_ writer now, what a fine contrast
might I make between you and Queen Mary? What a pretty string of
antitheses between your virtues and her vices. I am glad, however, she
did not resemble you. If she had, Rizzio would have only played first
fiddle at her consort (_sic_), with a pension of a thousand merks and
two benefits in a winter; Darnley would have been a colonel in the
Guards; Bothwell would, on account of his valour, have been Warden of
the Middle Marches, but would have been forbid to appear at court
because of his profligacy. But if all that had been done, what would
have become of my History?"[99]

Smith seems to have declined, for whatever reason, to take up the
suggestion of Hume about this chair of Law, for we find Hume presently
trying hard to secure the place for Ferguson. The difficulty may have
been about the price, for though Hume speaks of L800, it seems
Abercromby wanted more than L1000, and Ferguson too had no mind to
begin life with such a debt on his shoulders. But the world is
probably no loser by the difficulty, whatever it was, which kept Smith
five years longer among the merchants and commercial problems of
Glasgow.

Smith was one of the founders, or at least the original members, of
the Edinburgh Poker Club in 1762. Every one has heard of that famous
club, but most persons probably think of it as if it were merely a
social or convivial society; and Mr. Burton lends some countenance to
that mistake by declaring that he has never been able to discover any
other object it existed for except the drinking of claret. But the
Poker Club was really a committee for political agitation, like the
Anti-Corn-Law League or the Home Rule Union; only, after the more
genial manners of those times, the first thing the committee thought
requisite for the proper performance of their work was to lay in a
stock of sound Burgundy that could be drawn from the wood at
eighteenpence or two shillings a quart, to engage a room in a tavern
for the exclusive use of the members, and establish a weekly or
bi-weekly dinner at a moderate figure, to keep the _poker_ of
agitation in active exercise. The club got its name from the practical
purpose it was instituted to serve; it was to be an instrument for
_stirring_ opinion, especially in high quarters, on a public question
which was exciting the people of Scotland greatly at the moment, the
question of the establishment of a national Scotch militia. Some of