and was greatly struck with the different condition of things he saw as he approached Carlisle.  From agriculture they passed on to discuss the corn trade, and Smith denounced the Government’s late refusal of corn to France, saying it ought to excite indignation and contempt, inasmuch as the quantity required was so trifling that it would not support the population of Edinburgh for a single day.  The population of Edinburgh suggested their houses, and Smith said that the houses were piled high on one another in Paris as well as in Edinburgh.  They then touched on Sir John Sinclair, of whom Smith spoke disparagingly in certain aspects, but said that he never knew a man who was in earnest and did not do something at last.  Before leaving to return to his hotel Rogers seems to have asked Smith if he knew Mrs. Piozzi, who was then living there, and had called upon Rogers after learning from the landlord that Smith and Robertson had left cards for him, and Smith said he did not know her, but believed she was spoiled by keeping company with odd people.  Smith then invited his visitor to dine with him next day at the usual Friday dinner of the Oyster Club, and Rogers came away delighted with the interview, and with the illustrious philosopher’s genuine kindness of heart.

On Friday, as appointed, Rogers dined with the Oyster Club as Smith’s guest, but he has made no specific entry of the event in his journal, and no record of the conversation.  Black and Playfair seem to have been there, and possibly other men of eminence; but the whole talk was usurped by a commonplace member, and Smith felt—­and possibly Rogers too—­that the day was lost.  For next time they met Smith asked Rogers how he liked the club, and said, “That Bogle, I was sorry he talked so much; he spoiled our evening.”  That Bogle was the Laird of Daldowie, on the Clyde.  His father had been Rector of Glasgow University in Smith’s professorial days, and one of his brothers, George Bogle, attained some eminence through the embassy on which he was sent by Warren Hastings to the Llama of Thibet, and his account of which has been published quite recently; and the offender himself was a man of ability and knowledge, who had been a West India merchant for many years, was well versed in economic and commercial subjects, and very fond of writing to the Government of the day long communications on those subjects, which seem to have been generally read, and sometimes even acted upon.  In society, as we are told by one of his relations, Mr. Morehead, he was generally considered very “tedious, from the long lectures on mercantile and political subjects (for he did not converse when he entered on these, but rather declaimed) which he was in the habit of delivering in the most humdrum and monotonous manner."[350] His tedious lectures must, however, have had more in them than ordinary hearers appreciated, for Smith thought so highly of Bogle’s conversation that when he invited Rogers to the club on this particular occasion he mentioned that Bogle, a very clever person, was to be there, and said “I must go and hear Bogle talk."[351]