ing that the duties of
this office, light though they really were, used up his time and
energy too completely to permit his application to the great work on
government which he had projected. "Though they required little
exertion of thought, they were yet," says Dugald Stewart, "sufficient
to waste his spirits and dissipate his attention; and now that his
career is closed, it is impossible to reflect on the time they
consumed without lamenting that it had not been employed in labours
more profitable to the world and more equal to his mind. During the
first years of his residence in this city his studies seemed to be
entirely suspended, and his passion for letters served only to amuse
his leisure and to animate his conversation. The infirmities of age,
of which he very early began to feel the approach, reminded him at
last, when it was too late, of what he yet owed to the public and to
his own fame. The principal materials of the works which he had
announced had been long ago collected, and little probably was wanting
but a few years of health and retirement to bestow on them that
systematical arrangement in which he delighted."[289]

His leisure seems to have been passed during these later years of his
life very largely in the study of the Greek poets, and he frequently
remarked to Dugald Stewart, when found in his library with Sophocles
or Euripides open before him on the table, that of all the amusements
of old age, the most grateful and soothing was the renewal of
acquaintance with the favourite studies and the favourite authors of
our youth.[290] Besides, the work of composition seems to have grown
really more arduous to him. He was always a slow composer, and had
never acquired increased facility from increased practice. Much of his
time too was now given to the enjoyments of friendship. I have already
mentioned his Sunday suppers, but besides these he founded, soon after
settling in Edinburgh, in co-operation with the two friends who were
his closest associates during the whole of this last period of his
career--Black the chemist, and Hutton the geologist--a weekly dining
club, which met every Friday at two o'clock in a tavern in the
Grassmarket. Dr. Swediaur, the Paris physician, who spent some time in
Edinburgh in 1784 making researches along with Cullen, and was made a
member of this club during his stay, writes Jeremy Bentham: "We have a
club here which consists of nothing but philosophers. Dr. Adam Smith,
Cu