Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/135

Rh giving him freedom and facility in committing his thoughts to paper. He likewise co-operated with a number of young men of similar habits and pursuits to his own, in establishing a weekly club, which they termed the, and which included the names of president Blair, Dr Hunter, Dr Blacklock, Dr Buchan, (author of the Domestic Medicine,) Dr Adam, and many others who afterwards became celebrated in their respective walks in life. After the discontinuance of this society, another was instituted in 1778, called the Newtonian Club, of which Mr Smellie was unanimously chosen secretary. This latter institution comprised the names of Dr Duncan, Dr Gregory, Dugald Stewart, professor Russell, Dr Wardrope, in short the whole senatus of the university, with many other illustrious individuals. Mr Smellie had a decided preference to the study of natural history, especially of botany, and about the year 1760, collected an extensive Hortus Siccus from the fields around Edinburgh, which he afterwards presented to Dr Hope, professor of botany in the university. He likewise in the same year, gained the honorary gold medal given by the professor for the best botanical dissertation; and soon afterwards wrote various other discourses on vegetation, generation, &c., all of which were subsequently published in a large work solely written by himself, entitled the "Philosophy of Natural History." He was besides no mean chemist, at a time when chemistry had scarcely been reduced to a science, and was generally held as alike visionary and vain. Upon the publication of the Essays of the celebrated David Hume, printed by Mr Smellie, an extended correspondence took place between them, in which the latter contested with great logical force and acumen many of the heterodox doctrines advanced by the former; particularly that respecting the credibility of miracles. Mr Smellie afterwards drew up, in a masterly manner, an abstract of the arguments for and against that principle of our religious faith, for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and which was published in the first edition of that work.

Mr Smellie lived in terms of great intimacy with Dr William Buchan, author of the well-known "Domestic Medicine." That work passed through the press in Messrs Murray and Cochrane's printing office, and entirely under Mr Smellie's superintendence, Dr Buchan himself then residing in England. It is well ascertained that Mr Smellie contributed materially, both by his medical and philological knowledge, to the value and celebrity of the publication; and from the fact, indeed, of his having re-written the whole of it for the printers, he was very generally considered at the time, in Edinburgh, to be the sole author of it. The work has now naturally become almost obsolete from the rapid progress in the medical and other sciences therewith connected, since its composition; but the fact of its having passed through between twenty and thirty editions, ere superseded, fully establishes the claim of the author, or rather authors, to a reputation of no mean note. It appears, by their correspondence, that Dr Buchan was particularly anxious that Mr Smellie should qualify himself as M.D., and share his fortunes in England, in the capacity of assistant; but, with his constitutional prudence, the latter declined the invitation. The correspondence, however, induced him to give a marked attention to the practice and theory of medicine, as well as to stimulate him in his favourite study of natural history; thus qualifying himself for the excellent translation of Buffon, which he subsequently executed.

In 1763, being then only twenty-three years of age, Mr Smellie married a Miss Robertson, who was very respectably connected. By this marriage he Lad thirteen children, many of whom he lost by death. In 1765, upon the conclusion of his engagement with Messrs Murray and Cochrane, he commenced business as a master-printer, in conjunction with a Mr Auld, Mr Smellie's pe-