This was wonderful! (From Reason's travel issue)
Romanticized wonders of the Scottish Enlightenment (I'm sure it wasn't that great):
The former tavern where Smith hosted the weekly gatherings (attended by the likes of David Hume and Benjamin Franklin) is located a couple blocks from his statue in Old Town. Smith was not just a thinker but a taste-maker. A founding member of the Oyster Club, he gathered the Scottish literati every Friday night for conversations that shaped an age of genius and, by natural extension, America's founding. According to member John Playfair, the club welcomed "strangers who visited Edinburgh from any object connected with art or with science….The conversation was always free, often scientific, but never didactic or disputatious."
My only complaint is the downplaying of Glasgow; Smith was a Glasgow man, indeed, living/working/studying there for decades of his life (#1021163, #847595). BUT FINE, my beating Glasgow heart will allow it.
Also, we need this tradition back (#1040658):
From architecture to mechanical engineering and from moral philosophy to history, Scotland's capital city earned the nickname Athens of the North. With an unrivaled tradition of inquiry, the fringes of an empire launched modernity and updated Western Civilization with a decidedly Scottish accent. It was Smith's home and a place for anyone interested in a rich, varied, and liberal life