ave accepted the Snell exhibition with a
view to the Episcopal ministry. But the original purpose of the
founder was frustrated by the Revolution settlement, which made "the
Church in Scotland" Presbyterian, and left scarce any Episcopal
remnant to serve, and the original condition has never been
practically enforced. The last attempt to impose it was made during
Smith's own tenure of the exhibition, and failed. In the year 1744 the
Vice-Chancellor and the heads of Colleges at Oxford raised a process
in the Court of Chancery for compelling the Snell exhibitioners "to
submit and conform to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of
England, and to enter into holy orders when capable thereof by the
canons of the Church of England"; but the Court of Chancery refused to
interfere, and the exhibitioners were left entirely free to choose
their sect, their profession, and their country, as seemed best to
themselves. It may be added that in Smith's time the Snell foundation
yielded five exhibitions of L40 a year each, tenable for eleven years.

Of Smith's friends among his fellow-students at Glasgow, no names have
been preserved for us except those already mentioned, Professor
Matthew Stewart, and Dr. Maclaine, the embassy chaplain at the Hague.
He continued on a footing of great intimacy with Stewart, whom, as we
have seen, he considered to be, after Robert Simson, the greatest
mathematician of his time, and he seems to have enjoyed occasional
opportunities of renewing his acquaintance with Dr. Maclaine, though
the opportunities could not have been frequent, as Maclaine spent his
whole active life abroad as English chaplain at the Hague. But the
remark made by Smith to Dr. William Thompson, a historical writer of
the last century, seems to imply his having had some intercourse with
his early friend. Thompson, Dr. Watson the historian of Philip II.,
and Dr. Maclaine, seem all to have been writing the history of the
Peace of Utrecht, and Smith, who knew all three, said Watson was much
afraid of Maclaine, and Maclaine was just as much afraid of Watson,
but he could have told them of one they had much more cause to fear,
and that was Thompson himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, i. 313.

[9] Stewart's _Works,_ vii. 263.

CHAPTER III

AT OXFORD

1740-1746. _Aet._ 17-23

Smith left Scotland for Oxford in June 1740, riding the whole way on
horseback, and, as he told Samuel Rogers many years