Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/134

270 SMELLIE,, an eminent naturalist, and useful miscellaneous writer, was born in Edinburgh, about tlie year 1740, being the sun of Mr Alexander Smellie, a builder, who belonged to the stricter order of presbyterians, and was the constructor of the martyrs' tomb in the Greyfriars' church-yard. William Mnellie received the rudiments of his education at the parish school of Duddingston, and, though destined for a handicraft profession, was afterwards for some time at the High School of Edinburgh. His father at first wished to apprentice him to a stay-maker, but the business of a printer was ultimately preferred, and he was indentured to Messrs Hamilton, Balfour, and Neil, then eminent pro- fessors of that art in the Scottish capital. While yet very young, he had the misfortune to lose his father; but the exemplary conduct of the young printer soon placed him above the necessity of depending upon others for his subsistence. Every leisure moment was devoted to study, or literary pursuits; and only a few years of his apprenticeship had elapsed, when he was appointed by his employers to the responsible office of corrector of the press, with a weekly allowance of ten shillings, instead of his stipulated wages of three shillings. Instead of wasting his earnings on frivolity or dissipation, young Smellie took the opportunity of attending a regular course of the university classes. The result of this was soon evidenced, by his producing an edition of Terence, in duodecimo, wholly set up and corrected by himself; which Harwood, the philologist, declares to be "an immaculate edition;" and which gained to his masters an honorary prize, offered by the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, for the best edition of a Latin classic. Upon the expiry of his indentures, Mr Smellie, then only nineteen years of age, accepted employment from Messrs Murray and Cochrane, printers in Edinburgh, as corrector of their press, and conductor of the Scots Magazine, a work published by them, and which kept a conspicuous station in the literary world, from 1739, up to a recent period. For these duties, besides setting types and keeping accounts "in cases of hurry," Mr Smellie at first received the sum of sixteen shillings per week. Notwithstanding, however, his severe professional labours, he still prosecuted his classical studies with great ardour; and nothing, perhaps, can better illustrate the self-tasking nature of Mr Smellie's mind, than the fact, that he instructed himself in the Hebrew language, solely that he might be thereby fitted for superintending the printing of a grammar of that tongue, then about to be published by professor Robertson. It appears that about this time he was strongly disposed to renounce his mechanical employment, and adopt one of the learned professions, having already almost fitted himself either for that of medicine or theology. But prudential motives, induced by the certainty of a fixed source of emolument, determined him to adhere to the business of a printer, which he did throughout life. It is here worthy of notice, that, during his engagement with Messrs Murray and Cochrane, a dispute having arisen between the masters and journeymen printers of Edinburgh, respecting the proper mode of calculating the value of manual labour by the latter; Mr Smellie devised a plan for regulating the prices of setting up types, on fixed principles, being in proportion to the number of letters, of differently sized types, in a certain space. This useful plan has since been almost universally adopted throughout the kingdom.

Mr Smellie continued in the employment of the above gentlemen for six years; that is to say, until the year 1765, during which time we find him steadily advancing himself in life, extending his acquaintance amongst the literati of the day, and improving himself by every means within his reach. One plan for the latter purpose which he adopted, was that of entering largely into an epistolary correspondence with his acquaintances, with the view of