Bagehot, Walter. “Adam Smith as a Person.” The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot 3 (1876): 113–19.

Excerpt:

“Of Adam Smith’s Political Economy almost an infinite quantity has been said, but very little has been said as to Adam Smith himself. And yet not only was he one of the most curious of human beings, but his books can hardly be understood without having some notion of what manner of man he was. There certainly are economical treatises that go straight on, and that might have been written by a calculating machine. But The Wealth of Nations is not one of these. Any one who would explain what is in it, and what is not in it, must apply the “historical method,” and state what was the experience of its author and how he worked up that experience. Perhaps, therefore, now that there is a sort of centenary of Adam Smith, it may not be amiss to give a slight sketch of him and of his life, and especially of the peculiar points in them that led him to write the book which still in its effects, even more than in its theory, occupies mankind.”

Online:
Library of Economics and Liberty