106 NOCTES LOTHIAN^E. 



George Wilson, who possessed a fine susceptibility 

 of the humorous ; there. Dobie, the artist and designer 

 of the beautiful " Oineromathic " emblem given on 

 a previous page, enjoyed the Punch-like cartoons 

 of natural history by the arch-magus; there Dr. 

 Samuel Brown, with his bright, penetrating, and trans- 

 mutative character, had his outpourings of wondrous 

 talk, charming to listen to, along with his analysis of 

 the new chemical philosophy then dawning upon his 

 brain — a philosophy of which everybody believed he 

 was one day to be its high priest ; there John Reid, 

 in rubicund glow and fun, chaffed Harry Goodsir for 

 assuming to have made the discovery of a separate 

 sexual system in the barnacle, when both the male 

 and female animals knew the fact, and had enjoyed 

 the loves pertaining to the fact, thousands of years 

 ago! 



The Nodes Amhrosiance — fiction or fact — found an 

 historian of bold utterances who amused the readers 

 of Blackivood with political gossip and fierce partisan- 

 ship ; the Nodes Lothiance were of bond fide character, 

 and breathed less of the oracular and denouncing, and 

 more of the rational and philosophic. Forbes, writing 

 from London, might well revert to the "tranquil, 

 merry, and philosophical days and nights," spent in 

 " Our Palace," and long to sing his favourite songs to 

 an applauding audience. The writer, with his feeble 

 pen, has no pretensions to record the Memorabilia of 

 these Goodsir and Forbes " Noctes," he can but take a 

 glance at those inspiriting scenes in which he played a 



