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the things that interested him most were some new preparations of fossil skulls in the University Museum, and a technical discussion on Weismann's views on heredity.

English Literature had so small a place in the curriculum for the degree of M. A. that Professor Minto could only give us twenty-five lectures on it. But in that brief space he so introduced us to the writers of our own tongue that their books became friends to us for life. In my own case, and in that of many others, I know that the most permanent impression we got at the University of Aberdeen was the love of English books, not for purposes of future analytic study, but simply as our friends throughout life. Recently, when we were talking about the proposed institution of a final honors school of English Literature at Oxford, I told him of what I had got from his own short course in Aberdeen. He said in reply-what is specially worth remembering, now that so many schools of English Literature are practically accomplished facts: "I agree with those who think that English Literature might be made quite as severe an intellectual discipline as Greek or as Russian; but the point most easily lost sight of, when it is turned into a discipline, is that it is the readiest friend and the greatest comfort to the many who get their discipline in other subjects. You can get intellectual discipline from any thing, but most people don't get much pleasure out of the things that were used to train their minds."

Not only was Professor Minto constantly accessible, and most ready to help and advise his students in every way, but he kept up friendly relations with many of them, and he was interested in them all, in their subsequent careers. The warm admiration I had for him while I was a student continued after I left the University; and I had the great good fortune to see him subsequently, on terms more intimate than are possible

between teacher and pupil. It is perhaps only given to poets adequately to memorialize their dead friends. Nature makes other mortals more reticent, though reticence may be selfish ; but I wish to say two things about Professor Minto. I wish to record the intense friendliness of his character. I do not only mean that he was the readiest of men to do good turns to others. All who knew him know that. But he had the rare virtue of seeing and believing only the best of other people. "What continually impresses me," he would say, "are what good fellows people are!" I have known no instance like him of the "charity that thinketh no evil." It was really difficult for him to believe that any of his acquaintances would do a mean thing, or an ill-natured thing, purposely. Of one or two people who had obviously done him an ill turn I have heard him say : "Yes, I suppose he doesn't like me, but, you know, he is really a good fellow at heart;" and then he would give some practical instance of conduct to his credit.

The last thing I wish to set down is this: In no case, while I was a student, did I ever hear Professor Minto, in class or in private, touch upon any theological topic. Afterward, even in intimate talk, he rarely spoke of ultimate questions of metaphysic or belief. He had not the Scottish habit of strengthening his convictions by measuring them against those of others. But in my rooms at Oxford, the last evening he was with me, and the last time I saw him, he took a book from my shelves and said: "One person I have to make good-viz., myself; but my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy, if I may."

Mr. John H. Lobban, who acted as Professor Minto's assistant in his latest years at the University, has sent me an appreciative estimate, which many Aberdeen students will be glad to read:

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In Mill's rectorial address to the students of St. Andrews there is a passage which might, with great fitness, be applied to Professor Minto's work at the University of Aberdeen. "There is nothing," said Mill, "which spreads more contagiously from teacher to pupil than elevation of sentiment: often and often have students caught from the influence of a professor a contempt for mean and selfish objects, and a noble ambition to leave the world better than they found it, which they have carried with them throughout life." The tributes already paid by students are abundant evidence that Professor Minto exercised such an influence; but few students could have been fully aware of the thoroughness and scrupulous fairness with which he performed his duties as professor and examiner.

These qualities his assistants had necessarily excellent opportunities of observing, and I recollect how forcibly I was impressed by them when I had first to examine university papers under his supervision. In the case of one examination, where the time for correction was so limited that he divided the papers with me, Professor Minto had arranged a scheme of marking with such precision that, after doing a number of papers together, the possibility of a discrepancy between our respective estimates was reduced to a minimum. It was only after having tested some of my results that he felt justified, in fairness to the students, in leaving a number of papers entirely in my hands. One other instance of the same desire for scrupulous fairness I may record. One of a number of essays that I had to value was so atrociously written and marred by emendations that, actuated, no doubt, by a not unnatural impatience, I had marked it rather hardly. Although one of more than a hundred essays, it did not pass the professor's eye; for when soon after I went to discuss them with him, he asked me with characteristic humor and courtesy if I would allow him to read an essay to me. As read by him it

certainly was more than an average production, and as I saw the lesson he meant so courteously to convey, I owned my error and suggested a higher value, which he agreed to. He then laughingly told me that he had generally to impress his assistants with the moral that the matter of a student's paper should not be taxed for any blemish in its outward form.

As a lecturer Professor Minto had a horror of "talk

ing at large." When using his lecture notes, I was

struck with the endless erasures and corrections in the manuscript. This was due to his passionate desire for clear thinking and clear expression. He once told me that, whenever he noticed any general inability on the part of his class to follow him, he at once reconsidered the passage, and strove with all his powers of language to put it in a way that would admit of no dispute. This was the explanation of the countless erasures, the explanation, too, I imagine, of the unique way in which he could compel the unbroken interest of his students, no matter what the subject on hand. He desired, he told me, that his students should always get hold of something definite in every lecture, but few who reaped the advantage of that simplicity and clearness had any idea of the infinite pains and literary skill that produced them.

Of the thoroughness that permeated all his work I may adduce one example that fell under my notice. About a month before the Christmas vacation he had to deliver a historical lecture to a country audience. As he was loaded with other work, and even at that time far from strong, I suggested that he might save himself so much research by using some of his plentiful old material, which, I argued, would have been quite as acceptable to his audience. He humorously rebuked me for my base advice, saying that he had "still some regard for his literary conscience," and that he had become so interested in his subject that he had ceased

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to view it as a task. This I found to be no idle assertion, for in a conversation some days later, when talking over the subject of his lecture, he cited dates and quoted extensive passages from history with such absolute ease that I am convinced that, though as yet he had not put a word on paper, I got the bulk of the lecture, delivered with as much. accuracy and grace of expression as did the audience. that heard it read.

It is, however, of the period of his last illness that I can hope to add any thing of interest to what has been already said by others. It seemed to me characteristic of Professor Minto that, when he was suddenly prostrated and unable to conduct his two classes, he did not bid me, or even ask me, to fill the breach. When summoned by him to consider what was to be done in the emergency, he suggested his proposal with the utmost delicacy; and it was only after I had expressed my willingness to try the work that he accepted as a favor what he would obviously have been justified in regarding as a privilege conferred. During the whole of his illness it is no hyperbole to say that he exhibited an extraordinary triumph of will. It was his express wish that he should know exactly what I lectured on from day to day, and, though racked with pain, he discussed the work of both classes with all his usual ardor. It was sometimes hard for me to realize the extent of his illness while he impressed upon me the important points of some development in literature which he desired me to emphasize. His rare powers of memory never failed him, and I recollect how, while propped up in bed, he would quote illustrations for the English lectures from Chaucer or Pope, unravel one of Marlowe's or Shakespeare's plots, or explain some far-fetched conceit in Donne. It seemed to me infinitely pathetic to hear him in broken words, but feigning something of that joyous ring of voice with which his students will always associate their