threaded the high-walled gardens of a few substantial
houses. In one of these Adam Smith wrote the
Wealth of Nations, and probably in one of these he
was born. The father, who died a few weeks before
the birth of his only child, had been a leading towns-
man. Adam Smith the elder was a man of note in his
own day. From 1707 to his death he was a Writer, ¹
i.e. solicitor, and Judge Advocate for Scotland. He
had acted as private secretary to Lord Loudon, then
Minister for Scotland; and Loudon, on leaving office
in 1713, obtained for his secretary the Comptroller-
ship of Customs at Kirkcaldy -- a post worth about
£100 a year.

His widow lived to a great age, and saw her boy
rise step by step to the fulness of fame. She is said
to have been an over-indulgent mother; but her
devotion was repaid by the life-long love of a most
tender son. Mrs. Smith's maiden name was Margaret
Douglas, and she was the daughter of the Laird of
Strathendry, in the county of Fife. At Strathendry
the future economist had a narrow escape; for one
day as he played at the door he was picked up and
carried off by a party of vagrant tinkers. Luckily he
was soon missed, pursued, and overtaken in Leslie
Wood; and thus, in the grandiose dialect of Dugald
Stewart, there was preserved to the world "a genius,
which was destined, not only to extend the boundaries
of science, but to enlighten and reform the commercial
policy of Europe."

The next landmark in the boy's history is a copy
of Eutropius, on the fly-leaf of which is inscribed

-2-