IKopal institution of Creat ISritain* 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, January 22, 1892. 



Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart. D.C.L. F.R.S. Hon. Secretary 

 and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Eight Hon. Lori> Ratleigh, M.A. D.C.L. LL.D. F.R.S. 

 MM.!. Professor of Natural Philosophy, R.I. 



The Composition of Water. 



[No Abstract.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 29, 1892. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. Vice-President 

 and Treasurer, in the Chair. 



Sir George Douglas, Bart. M.A. 



Tales of the Scottish Peasantry. 



It is only within comparatively recent years that the homely stories 

 in the mouths of the common people have been constituted a branch 

 of learning, and have had applied to them, as such, the methods and 

 the terminology of science. A noteworthy gain to knowledge has, 

 beyond a doubt, resulted from this treatment ; but, side by side with 

 this gain to knowledge, is there not involved in the said method of 

 treatment a loss to the stories themselves? Classified, tabulated, 

 scientifically named, they are no longer the wild free product of 

 Nature that we knew : — no doubt they are still very interesting — the 

 study of them is full of instruction ; but their poetry, their brightness, 

 the fragrance which clung about them in their native air, their native 

 soil, is gone. So that, — with all due recognition of the value of the 

 labours of the scientific folk-lorist, the comparative mythologist, — 

 there yet remains room, I believe, to regard these stories from another 

 point of view, namely, the literary, or critical one. I hope the time 

 has not yet come when the old tales shall have entirely ceased to 

 charm ; and I believe that there are persons in existence who would 

 regard it as a real and personal loss could they be made to believe 

 that the ideal hero of their childhood, as he falls in a bloody battle 

 wounded to the death, is in reality a myth, or figure, for the setting 

 of the sun ; and who would even feel themselves aggrieved could they 

 Vol. XIII. (No. 86.) 2 l 



