This email of Hume is quite important by its date: it implies apparently that the first edition of Wealth of Nations did not circulate in the UK prior to March 1776 while the work was finished well before that: Hume certainly received one of the first, if not the first, copies and I seem
to remember that his reaction is the first recorded one.  How Turgot obtained a section of the book against ‘corporations’, which was translated in French by Morellet in January 1776 if I remember well, but which did not circulate in France as it was prohibited by the French censorship (acting on earlier orders of …Turgot, who had blocked any publication on the topic promoted by Turgot and Smith in the translated section), has never been explained; details e.g. in the Morellet correspondence. As usual in his translations, Morellet had altered the arrangement of Smith but this is irrelevant. 

Gabriel Sabbagh

Le 19 janv. 2022 à 13:49, Humberto Barreto <[log in to unmask]> a écrit :

I thought "Euge" was a typo and I'm guessing others on this list might not get the subtle reference which Nicholas shared with me:

EUGE! BELLE! DEAR MR. SMITH—I am much pleased with your performance, and the perusal of it has taken me from a state of great anxiety. It was a work of so much expectation, by yourself, by your friends, and by the public, that I trembled for its appearance, but am now much relieved.
Hume to Adam Smith EDINBURGH, 1st April 1776.On the Wealth of Nations

And in further correspondence he explained that "euge" is Greek, "eu" is well and "ge" for emphasis (fingers crossed that Greek characters make it through):.

εὖγε or εὖ γε , Adv.
A.well, rightly, in replies confirming or approving what has been said: as σοὶ γὰρ χαρίζομαι. Answ. “εὖγε σὺ ποιῶν” Pl. R.351c; “εὖγ᾽, εὖγε ποιήσαντες” Ar.Pax285; “εὖγε, εὖγε, ὦ κύνες, ἕπεσθε” X.Cyn.6.19: iron., “εὖ γοῦν θίγοις ἂν χερνίβων” E.Or.1602; “εὖγε μέντἂν διετέθην” Ar.Av.1692.
2. without a Verb, good! well said! well done! Pl.Grg.494c, al.; doubled “εὖγ᾽, εὖγε” Ar.Eq.470; εὖγ᾽, “εὖγε, νὴ Δἴ, εὖγε” Id.Ec.213; “εὖγ᾽, ὅτι ἐπείσθης” Id.Nu.866: c. gen., “εὖγε τῆς προαιρέσεως” Luc.Vit.Auct.8.

You may now move about the cabin . . .

Humberto Barreto





On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 7:34 AM Nicholas Theocarakis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Belle! Euge Steve 

On Tue, 18 Jan 2022 at 5:02 PM, Bruce Caldwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear SHOE–list,
 
It is my pleasure to inform the list that Dean Valerie Ashby of Trinity College, Duke University, has just named our colleague Steve Medema as the inaugural recipient of a new endowed chair. Steve’s new title is the George Family Research Professor of Economics. Please join me in offering him our congratulations.
 
Best,
Bruce
 
 
 
Bruce Caldwell
Research Professor of Economics
Director, Center for the History of Political Economy

"To discover a reference has often taken hours of labour, to fail to discover one has often taken days." Edwin Cannan, on editing  Smith's Wealth of Nations

Address:
Department of Economics
Duke University
Box 90097
Durham, N.C. 27708

Office: Room 07G Social Sciences Building
Phone: 919-660-6896
Center website: http://hope.econ.duke.edu
Personal Website: http://econ.duke.edu/~bjc18/

View my recent research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=627226