Excerpt from Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Vol. 6: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge; Humber to Malta Next year, in 1702, appeared his Political Dis courses. Here, again, he made an era in literature, for in this little work he announced those principles of political economy, comprehending the doctrine of free trade, which it fell to his friend Adam Smith niore fully and comprehensively to develop. He was appointed at this time keeper of the Advocates' Library, with a very surall salary, which Ire devoted to a charitable purpose. It was here that, sur rounded with books, he formed the design of writing the history of England. In 1754 he issued a quarto volume of the History of the Stuarts, con talvrtng the Reigns of James I. And Charles L, and presently completed this portion of the work in a second volume, bringing it down to the Revolution. The second volume attracted more notice than the first had done. He then went backwards through the House of Tudor, and completed the work from the Roman period downwards in 1762. \vhile so employed he published F our Dissertations: the Natural History of Religion; of the Passions; of Tragedy; of the Standard of Taste Two other dissertations, intended to accompany these, were cancelled by him after they were printed they are On Suicide and T he Immortality of the Soul, and were subsequently printed in his works. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.