Be so good (he says) as convey the enclosed letter to the
     Count de Sarsfield.  I have been much in the wrong for having
     delayed so long to write both to him and you.

There is a very amiable, modest, brave, worthy young gentleman who lives in the same house with you.  His name is David Skeene.  He and I are sisters’ sons, but my regard for him is much more founded on his personal qualities than upon the relations in which he stands to me.  He acted lately in a very gallant manner in America, of which he never acquainted me himself, and of which I came to the knowledge only within these few days.  If you can be of any service to him you could not possibly do a more obliging thing to me.

The Duke and Dutchess of Buccleugh have been here now for almost a fortnight.  They begin to open their house on Monday next, and, I flatter myself, will both be very agreeable to the People of this country.  I am not sure that I have ever seen a more agreeable woman than the Dutchess.  I am sorry that you are not here, because I am sure you would be perfectly in love with her.  I shall probably be here some weeks.  I could wish, however, that both you and the Count de Sarsfield would direct for me as usual at Kirkaldy.  I should be glad to know the true history of Rousseau before and since he left England.  You may perfectly depend upon my never quoting you to any living soul upon that subject.—­I ever am, dear sir, most faithfully yours,

     ADAM SMITH.[207]

The Duke of Buccleugh had never been at Dalkeith since his infancy—­if indeed he had been even then, for Dr. Carlyle’s words in describing this celebration are, “where his grace had never been before”—­because his stepfather, Charles Townshend, was afraid he might grow up too Scotch in accent and feeling; and his home-coming now, with his young and beautiful bride, excited the liveliest interest and expectation, not only on the Buccleugh estates, but over the whole lowlands of Scotland, from the Forth to the Solway.  The day originally fixed for the celebration was the Duke’s birthday, the 13th of September, the very day Smith wrote Hume; but the event had to be postponed in consequence of the sudden death of Townshend, from an attack of putrid fever, between the day of the Duke’s arrival at Dalkeith and the anniversary of his birth.  It came off, however, two or three weeks later.  An entertainment was given to about fifty ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood; but Dr. Carlyle, who was present, and wrote indeed an ode for the occasion, says that though the fare was sumptuous, the company was formal and dull, because the guests were all strangers to their host and hostess except Adam Smith, and Adam Smith, says Carlyle, “was but ill qualified to promote the jollity of a birthday.”  “Had it not been for Alexander Macmillan, W.S., and myself,” he proceeds, “the meeting would have been very dull, and might have been dissolved without even drinking the health of the day....  Smith remained with them (the Duke and Duchess) for two months, and then returned to Kirkcaldy to his mother and his studies.  I have often thought since that if they had brought down a man of more address than he was, how much sooner their first appearance might have been."[208]