s to their host and hostess except Adam Smith, and
Adam Smith, says Carlyle, "was but ill qualified to promote the
jollity of a birthday." "Had it not been for Alexander Macmillan,
W.S., and myself," he proceeds, "the meeting would have been very
dull, and might have been dissolved without even drinking the health
of the day.... Smith remained with them (the Duke and Duchess) for two
months, and then returned to Kirkcaldy to his mother and his studies.
I have often thought since that if they had brought down a man of more
address than he was, how much sooner their first appearance might have
been."[208]

The ice, which Smith is thus blamed for not being able to break on
this first meeting of his pupil with his Scotch neighbours, was not
long in melting naturally away under the warmth of the Duke's own
kindness of heart. He almost settled among them, for on Townshend's
death he gave up the idea on which that statesman had set his heart,
and which was one of his reasons for committing the training of the
young Duke to the care of a political philosopher,--the idea of going
into politics as an active career; and he lived largely on his Scotch
estates; becoming a father to his numerous tenantry, and a powerful
and enlightened promoter of all sound agricultural improvement. Dr.
Carlyle says the family were always kind to their tenants, but Duke
Henry "surpassed them all, as much in justice and humanity as he did
in superiority of understanding and good sense." Without claiming for
Smith's teaching what must in any case have been largely the result of
a fine natural character, it is certain that no young man could live
for three years in daily intimacy with Adam Smith without being
powerfully influenced by that deep love of justice and humanity which
animated Smith beyond his fellows, and ran as warmly through his
conversation in private life as we see it still runs through his
published writings. Smith was always vigorous and weighty in his
denunciation of wrong, and so impatient of anything in the nature of
indifference or palliation towards it, that he could scarce feel at
ease in the presence of the palliator. "We can breathe more freely
now," he once said when a person of that sort had just left the
company; "that man has no indignation in him."[209]

Smith remained the mentor of his pupil all his life. At "Dalkeith,
which all the virtues love," he was always a most honoured guest, and
Dugald Stewart says he always spo