Hume resigned his librarianship in favour of Ferguson, but alone thought his magnum opus ill-advised. Ferguson met Voltaire while travelling in Europe (his friends Hume and Adam meanwhile covering his back in Edinburgh). Gibbon wrote to him praising their mutual friend Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’, and his relative Black sold him his house. Hutton was among the Scottish Enlightenment circle gathered in Edinburgh, a member (with Ferguson, Hume, Smith, Black and others) of the influential ‘Poker Club.’ Ferguson was among those who lionised Burns (who met the young Scott in Ferguson’s house, a regular meeting-place for Edinburgh literati).