in
this letter, we should never have known that it was liable, like
others, to occasional perturbations, from which it appears, however,
he speedily recovered, and of which he is evidently heartily ashamed.
General Skeenes was probably one of his relations, the Skenes of
Pitlour.

The money transactions mentioned in the concluding paragraph refer
doubtless to his Commission fees, which from some calculations made,
probably by Strahan, on the back of the letter, seem to have come to
L147:18s. But the reference to Mr. Cadell's account shows that the
second edition of his book had now appeared. It was not published in
four volumes octavo, as he originally proposed to Strahan, but, like
the former edition, in two volumes quarto, and the price was now
raised from L1:16s. to two guineas, so that under the half-profit
arrangement which was agreed upon, he must have obtained a very
reasonable sum out of this edition, and we can understand how, from
the four authorised editions published during his lifetime, he made,
according to his friend Professor Dalzel, a "genteel fortune," as
genteel fortunes went in those days.

FOOTNOTES:

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

[276] Leslie and Taylor, _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 199.

[277] Sim's _Works of Mickle_, Preface, xl.

[278] _Ibid._, Preface, xliii.

[279] _The Bee_, 1st May 1791.

[280] _Gentleman's Magazine_, lxv. 635.

[281] Original with Mr. F. Barker.

[282] Original in possession of Mr. Alfred Morrison.

[283] Original in possession of Mr. Alfred Morrison.

CHAPTER XXI

IN EDINBURGH

1778-1790. _Aet._ 55-67

On settling in Edinburgh Smith took a house in the Canongate--Panmure
House, at the foot of Panmure Close, one of the steep and narrow wynds
that descend from the north side of the Canongate towards the base of
the Calton Hill; and this house was his home for the rest of his days,
and in it he died. The Canongate--the old Court end of the Scottish
capital--was still at the close of last century the fashionable
residential quarter of the city, although Holyrood had then long lain
deserted--as Hamilton of Bangour called it,

A virtuous palace where no monarch dwells.

The Scottish nobility had their town-houses in its gloomy courts, and
great dowagers and famous generals still toiled up its cheerless
stairs. Panmure House itself had been the residence of the Panmure
family before Smith occupied it, and became the residence of the
Countes