uring this period that
Smith entertained Reynolds at dinner at Mrs. Hill's, Dartmouth Street,
Westminster, on Sunday 11th March, and not, as Mr. Tom Taylor places
it, in 1764, from finding the dinner engagement noted on "a tiny
old-fashioned card bearing the name of 'Mr. Adam Smith'" lying in one
of Reynolds' pocket-books for 1764. In March 1764 Smith, as we know,
was in France, and Mr. Taylor must have mistaken the year for 1774,
unless, indeed, it may have been 1767.

[231] Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 302.

[232] Watson's _Annals of Philadelphia_, i. 533.

[233] See above, pp. 256-7.

[234] Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 537.

[235] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E. Library.

[236] Playfair's edition of _Wealth of Nations_, I. xiii.

[237] Clayden's _Early Life of Samuel Rogers_, p. 168.

[238] _Works_, v. 519.

[239] Taylor's _Records of my Life_, ii. 262.

[240] Thomson's _Life of Cullen_, i. 481.

[241] Notes of S. Rogers' Conversation. Add. MSS., 32, 571.

[242] Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 483.

[243] _Wealth of Nations_, Book V. chap. iii.

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE WEALTH OF NATIONS"

1776. _Aet._ 52

The _Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ was
at length published on the 9th of March 1776. Bishop Horne, one of
Smith's antagonists, of whom we shall presently hear more, said the
books which live longest are those which have been carried longest in
the womb of the parent. The _Wealth of Nations_ took twelve years to
write, and was in contemplation for probably twelve years before that.
It was explicitly and publicly promised in 1759, in the concluding
paragraph of the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, though it is only the
partial fulfilment of that promise.

The promise is: "I shall in another discourse endeavour to give an
account of the general principles of law and government, and of the
different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and
periods of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in what
concerns policy revenue and arms, and whatever else is the object of
law." In speaking of this promise in the preface of the sixth edition
of the _Theory_ in 1790, Smith says, "In the _Inquiry concerning the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ I have partially executed
this promise, at least so far as concerns policy revenue and arms."
Now doubtless when Smith began writing his book in Toulouse he began
it on the large plan originally in contemplation, an