fragment on the history of astronomy.  When the sixteen volumes of manuscript were burnt Smith’s mind seemed to be greatly relieved.  It appears to have been on a Sunday, and when his friends came, as they were accustomed to do, on the Sunday evening to supper—­and they seem to have mustered strongly on this particular evening—­he was able to receive them with something of his usual cheerfulness.  He would even have stayed up and sat with them had they allowed him, but they pressed him not to do so, and he retired to bed about half-past nine.  As he left the room he turned and said, “I love your company, gentlemen, but I believe I must leave you to go to another world.”  These are the words as reported by Henry Mackenzie, who was present, in giving Samuel Rogers an account of Smith’s death during a visit he paid to London in the course of the following year.[371] But Hutton, in the account he gave Stewart of the incident, employs the slightly different form of expression, “I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place.”  Possibly both sentences were used by Smith, for both are needed for the complete expression of the parting consolation he obviously meant to convey—­that death is not a final separation, but only an adjournment of the meeting.

That was his last meeting with them in the earthly meeting-place.  He had gone to the other world before the next Sunday came round, having died on Saturday the 17th of July 1790.  He was buried in the Canongate churchyard, near by the simple stone which Burns placed on the grave of Fergusson, and not far from the statelier tomb which later on received the remains of his friend Dugald Stewart.  The grave is marked by an unpretending monument, stating that Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of Nations, lies buried there.

His death made less stir or rumour in the world than many of his admirers expected.  Sir Samuel Romilly, for example, writing on the 20th of August to a French lady who had wanted a copy of the new edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, says:  “I have been surprised and, I own, a little indignant to observe how little impression his death has made here.  Scarce any notice has been taken of it, while for above a year together after the death of Dr. Johnson nothing was to be heard of but panegyrics of him,—­lives, letters, and anecdotes,—­and even at this moment there are two more lives of him to start into existence.  Indeed, one ought not perhaps to be very much surprised that the public does not do justice to the works of A. Smith since he did not do justice to them himself, but always considered his Theory of Moral Sentiments a much superior work to his Wealth of Nations."[372] Even in Edinburgh it seemed to make less impression than the death of a bustling divine would have made—­certainly considerably less than the death of the excellent but far less illustrious Dugald Stewart a generation later.  The newspapers had an obituary notice of two small