end and almost as great a philosopher as he, she was
bent on making so famous a conquest, but after many persistent efforts
was obliged eventually to abandon the attempt. Her philosopher could
not endure her, nor could he--and this greatly amused his own
party--conceal his embarrassment; but it was not philosophy altogether
that steeled his breast. The truth, according to Lloyd, was that the
philosopher was deeply in love with another, an English lady, who was
also stopping in Abbeville at the time. Of all Currie heard concerning
Smith from Captain Lloyd this is the only thing he has chosen to
record, and slight though it is, it contributes a touch of nature to
that more personal aspect of Smith's life of which we have least
knowledge. Stewart makes mention of an attachment which Smith was
known to have cherished for several years in the early part of his
life to a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment, whom Stewart
had himself seen when she was past eighty, but "still retained evident
traces of her former beauty," while "the powers of her understanding
and the gaiety of her temper seemed to have suffered nothing from the
hand of time." Nobody ever knew what prevented their union, or how far
Smith's addresses were favourably received, but she never married any
more than he. Stewart says that "after this disappointment he laid
aside all thoughts of marriage"; but the Abbeville attachment seems to
have been a different one from this and a later.

While in Paris Smith was a very steady playgoer. He was always a great
admirer of the French dramatists, and now enjoyed very much seeing
their plays actually represented on the stage, and discussing them
afterwards, we may be sure, with an expert like Madame Riccoboni.

Speaking of his admiration for the great French dramatists, Dugald
Stewart states that "this admiration (resulting originally from the
general character of his taste, which delighted more to remark that
pliancy of genius which accommodates itself to general rules than to
wonder at the bolder flights of an undisciplined imagination) was
increased to a great degree when he saw the beauties that had struck
him in the closet heightened by the utmost perfection of theatrical
exhibition."[176] The French theatre, indeed, gave him much material
for reflection. In his later years his thoughts and his conversation
often recurred to the philosophy of the imitative arts. He meant had
he lived to have written a book