Hume had meanwhile on the 4th of July 1776 gathered his group of more intimate friends about him to eat together a last farewell dinner before he made the great departure.  Smith was present at this touching and unusual reunion, and may possibly have remained some days thereafter, for he speaks in a letter in the following month of having had several conversations with Hume lately, among them being that which he afterwards published in his letter to Strahan.  But he was in Kirkcaldy again in the beginning of August, and received there on the 22nd of August the following letter which Hume had written on the 15th, and which, having gone, through some mistake, by the carrier instead of the post, had lain for a week at the carrier’s house without being delivered.  The delay occasioned by this accident was the more unfortunate on account of the earnest appeal for an early answer with which the letter closes, and which seems to contain a recollection of many past transgressions, for Smith was always a dilatory and backward correspondent, the act of writing, as he repeatedly mentions, being a real pain to him.

     EDINBURGH, 15th August 1776.

MY DEAR SMITH—­I have ordered a new copy of my Dialogues to be made besides that wh. will be sent to Mr. Strahan, and to be kept by my nephew.  If you will permit me, I shall order a third copy to be made and consigned to you.  It will bind you to nothing, but will serve as a security.  On revising them (which I have not done these five years) I find that nothing can be more cautiously and more artfully written.  You had certainly forgotten them.  Will you permit me to leave you the property of the copy, in case they should not be published in five years after my decease?  Be so good as write me an answer soon.  My state of health does not permit me to wait months for it.—­Yours affectionately,

     DAVID HUME.[259]

To this letter Smith, immediately on receiving it, sent the following reply:—­

     KIRKALDY, 22nd August 1776.

MY DEAREST FRIEND—­I have this moment received yr. letter of the 15th inst.  You had, in order to save me the sum of one penny sterling, sent it by the carrier instead of the Post, and (if you have not mistaken the date) it has lain at his quarters these eight days, and was, I presume, very likely to lie there for ever.

I shall be very happy to receive a copy of your Dialogues, and if I should happen to die before they are published, I shall take care that my copy shall be as carefully preserved as if I was to live a hundred years.  With regard to leaving me the property in case they are not published within five years after yr. decease, you may do as you think proper.  I think, however, you should not menace Strahan with the loss of anything, in case he does not publish yr. work within a certain time.  There is no probability of his delaying it, and if anything could make