ghly, as he
did to this young gentleman of Glasgow. He once said to Seward that
Johnson's preface to Shakespeare was "the most manly piece of
criticism that was ever published in any country."[316]

Amicus then inquired of Smith his opinion of his countryman Dr.
Campbell, author of the _Political Survey_, and Smith replied that he
had never met him but once, but that he was one of those authors who
wrote on from one end of the week to the other, and had therefore with
his own hand produced almost a library of books. A gentleman who met
Campbell out at dinner said he would be glad to have a complete set of
his works, and next morning a cart-load came to his door, and the
driver's bill was L70. He used to get a few copies of each of his
works from the printers, and keep them for such chances as that. A
visitor one day, casting his eye on these books, asked Campbell, "Have
you read all these books?" "Nay," said the other, "I have written
them."

Smith often praised Swift, and praised him highly, saying he wanted
nothing but inclination to have become one of the greatest of all
poets. "But in place of that he is only a gossiper, writing merely for
the entertainment of a private circle." He regarded Swift, however, as
a pattern of correctness both in style and sentiment, and he read to
his young friend some of the short poetical addresses to _Stella_.
Amicus says Smith expressed particular pleasure with one couplet--

Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?

But it was more probably not so much of these two lines as of the
whole passage of which they are the opening that Smith was thinking.
He thought Swift a great master of the poetic art, because he produced
an impression of ease and simplicity, though the work of composition
was to him a work of much difficulty, a verse coming from him, as
Swift himself said, like a guinea. The Dean's masterpiece was, in
Smith's opinion, the lines on his own death, and his poetry was on the
whole more correct after he settled in Ireland, and was surrounded, as
he himself said, "only by humble friends."

Among historians Smith rated Livy first either in the ancient or the
modern world. He knew of no other who had even a pretence to rival
him, unless David Hume perhaps could claim that honour.

When asked about Shakespeare Smith quoted with apparent approval
Voltaire's remarks that _Hamlet_ was the dream of a drunken savage,
and that Shakespeare ha