th me
about Christmas had it not been for the misfortunes of my
family. Last month my sister fell dangerously ill of a
fever, and though the fever be now gone, she is still so
weak and low, and recovers so slowly, that I was afraid it
would be but a melancholy house to invite you to. However, I
expect that time will reinstate her in her former health, in
which case I shall look for your company. I shall not take
any excuse from your own state of health, which I suppose
only a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of
solitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken
to complaints of this nature, you will cut yourself out
entirely from human society, to the great loss of both
parties.

The Lady's Direction is M^e la Comtesse de B., Douaniere au
Temple. She has a daughter-in-law, which makes it requisite
to distinguish her.--Yours sincerely,

DAVID HUME.

_P.S._--I have not yet read _Orlando Inamorato_. I am now in
a course of reading the Italian historians, and am confirmed
in my former opinion that that language has not produced one
author who knew how to write elegant correct prose though
it contains several excellent poets. You say nothing to me
of your own work.[215]

Smith seems to have perhaps sent him _Orlando Inamorato_, or at any
rate to have been previously in communication, either by letter or
conversation, on the subject, for the Italian poets were favourite
reading of his. But a more important point in the letter is the
indication it affords that Smith's labours and solitude were beginning
to tell on the state of his health. Indeed, poor health had now become
one of the chief causes of his delay in finishing his work, and it
continued to go from bad to worse. He writes his friend Pulteney in
September that his book would have been ready for the press by the
first of that winter if it were not for the interruptions caused by
bad health, "arising," he says, "from want of amusement and from
thinking too much upon one thing," together with other interruptions
of an equally anxious nature, occasioned by his endeavours to
extricate some of his personal friends from the difficulties in which
they were involved by the commercial crisis of that time.

KIRKALDY, _5th September 1772_.

MY DEAR PULTENEY--I have received your most friendly letter
in due course, and I hav