SKETCH OF SIR DAVID BREW STUB. 551 



in his friend Dalton, and on which he wrote an article for the " North 

 British Review." In church matters, he made one of the first sugges- 

 tions that led to the formation of the Evangelical Alliance ; he took a 

 prominent part in the disruption of the Church of Scotland, and was 

 one of the founders of the Free Church — at the cost of much tribula- 

 tion and an unsuccessful suit to eject him from his chair as Principal 

 of St. Andrews ; and throughout his life he stoutly upheld the har- 

 mony between the results of scientific investigation and his orthodox 

 religious faith. Then we find him a warm believer in the authen- 

 ticity of Mr. Macpherson's " Poems of Ossian " ; an interested spec- 

 tator of the beginnings of the electric telegraph ; putting aside his 

 dislike to prominent positions to act as President of the Peace Con- 

 gress in 1851 ; discussing the doctrine of the plurality of worlds ; 

 investigating the spirit-rappings; and finally inquiring into every 

 new phenomenon, and busying himself with everything that could 

 contribute to the advancement of knowledge or the benefit of 

 mankind. 



The reform of abuses was one of the passions of his life. For 

 three years he lived at Belleville, on the estate of his wife's sister, and 

 had a full field for gratifying it on a property which had been for 

 many years " too indulgently superintended." He " awakened a warm 

 and abiding attachment among the majority of the Highland ten- 

 antry, who anticipated with delight the time, which never came, when 

 he might be their landlord in very deed. They were proud of his sci- 

 entific fame, which indeed spread far and near, I remember four 

 working-men coming a considerable distance from Strathspey, with the 

 petition that they might see the stars through his telescope ; while on 

 another occasion a poor man brought his cow a weary long journey 

 over the hills, that the great optician might examine her eyes, and pre- 

 scribe for her deficiencies of sight ; and all, as was ever his wont, were 

 received courteously, and had their questions not only answered, but 

 answered so clearly and pat.iently that the subjects were made per- 

 fectly intelligible and interesting." 



" All who knew him," says Miss Forbes, afterward the wife of the 

 Rev. Canon Harford Battersby, " will, I am sure, unite in testifying to 

 his readiness to explain, it might be, the simplest principles of a sci- 

 ence to some insignificant person, and the wonderful enjoyment he 

 seemed to find in so doing — quite as much, indeed, as in talking of 

 some of his latest discoveries to the most learned — if only his listener 

 were thoroughly interested and anxious to learn." One person, " him- 

 self the possessor of genial gifts and genius," is quoted as having re- 

 marked, " When I have been with other great men, I go away saying, 

 ' What clever fellows they are ! ' but when I am with Sir David Brew- 

 ster, I say, ' What a clever fellow Z am ! ' " Miss Horsbrugh, whose 

 tutor he was from 1799 to 1804, gives a pleasant picture of him as a 

 great favorite with the children, especially with those who could enter 



