86 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



nervousness would have unfitted him from being a 

 successful lecturer. There was still another element 

 seldom wanting in such cases, and in this contest more 

 than usually prominent. It was the day of the Beform 

 Bill, and the spirit of party was then running very high 

 in Edinburgh as elsewhere. One still more embittering 

 ingredient, however, which has since then been added 

 to these professorial elections, church partisanship, was 

 not then present. It might then have had some effect 

 on the decision whether a candidate was a Tory or 

 a Whig ; it was not then inquired whether he belonged 

 to the Episcopalian or Established Church, whether he 

 was a Free Churchman or a United Presbyterian. How 

 far political feeling may have influenced the choice which 

 the electors made I cannot say. It was the last of the 

 unreformed Town Councils of Edinburgh with whom the 

 election lay, and it was the last time in which they had 

 to exercise their prerogative. 



After a more than usually excited contest the election 

 took place on the 30th January, 1833, when the choice fell 

 on James Forbes by a majority of twenty-seven to nine. 



Likely enough the electors may have been glad to see 

 in the field a young candidate so highly gifted, sprung 

 from an ancient family, long and honourably identified 

 with the Tory party in Scotland. But, politics apart, of 

 the many qualities which may be taken into account in 

 the choice of a professor, though they cannot figure in 

 testimonials, few candidates ever had a larger share than 

 James Forbes. If, in addition to high scientific genius, 

 a finely cultivated literary taste and style, natural powers 

 of eloquence perfected by the best aids of art, a dignified 

 and commanding presence, gentle and refined manners, 

 and these all wielded by a will of rare strength, purity, 

 and elevation if gifts such as these enhance a man's 

 claim to such a chair, then the claim of James Forbes 

 was of the highest order. 



AYhatever reflections may at the time have been made 

 on this preference of the young man's promise to tjir 



