Clow been the successful competitor in 1751 as the
successor to Adam Smith in the chair of Logic. 'Mr. Clow has acquired a
curious title to fame, from the greatness of the man to whom he
succeeded, and of those over whom he was triumphant.' J.H. Burton's
_Hume_, i. 351.
[992] Dr. Reid, the author of the _Inquiry into the Human Mind_, had in
1763 succeeded Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy. Dugald
Stewart was his pupil the winter before Johnson's visit. Stewart's
_Reid_, ed. 1802, p. 38.
[993] See _ante_, iv. 186.
[994] Mr. Boswell has chosen to omit, for reasons which will be
presently obvious, that Johnson and Adam Smith met at Glasgow; but I
have been assured by Professor John Miller that they did so, and that
Smith, leaving the party in which he had met Johnson, happened to come
to another company _where Miller was_. Knowing that Smith had been in
Johnson's society, they were anxious to know what had passed, and the
more so as Dr. Smith's temper seemed much ruffled. At first Smith would
only answer, 'He's a brute--he's a brute;' but on closer examination, it
appeared that Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he attacked him for some
point of his famous letter on the death of Hume (_ante_, p. 30). Smith
vindicated the truth of his statement. 'What did Johnson say?' was the
universal inquiry. 'Why, he said,' replied Smith, with the deepest
impression of resentment, 'he said, _you lie!_' 'And what did you
reply?' 'I said, you are a son of a------!' On such terms did these two
great moralists meet and part, and such was the classical dialogue
between two great teachers of philosophy.
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