My own self

When The Wealth of Nations was first published in March 1776 David Hume wrote to his old friend in terms of the greatest praise, while qualifying his hopes by remarking that 'the reading of it necessarily requires so much attention, and the public is disposed to give so little, that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at first very popular'. Strahan, Smith's publisher, wrote very much in the same vein when commenting that the sales of the book had been much more 'than I could have expected from a work that requires so much thought and reflection (qualities that do not abound among modern readers) to peruse to any purpose'.