i82 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



sented by at least one expert, flourished greatly 

 in the late seventies. Legal talent was well to 

 the fore in the persons of Lord Neaves, a man of 

 high literary culture, Lord Gifford, whose memory 

 is immortalised in the Natural Theology Lecture- 

 ships he founded, and Lord Young, of whom it 

 has been said that there were " few who did not 

 fear and none who did not admire " his biting 

 wit. Other members were Professor Blackie, 

 eccentric, sensational, and somewhat bizarre, but 

 withal a striking personality ; Professor Masson, 

 whose classes Murray had attended ; Sir Daniel 

 Macnee, President of the Scottish Academy, a 

 brilliant raconteur ; Robertson Smith, keen as a 

 rapier and delighting in controversy ; Thomas 

 Stevenson, the father of the novelist grim and 

 resolute. Besides Smith, Dr. Davidson and Mr. 

 Lindsay stood for the Free Church, and two other 

 well-known Edinburgh figures at the time were 

 in the Club Mr. Alexander Gibson, the Advo- 

 cate, and Sheriff Nicolson, a great singer of songs 

 and teller of stories, who occasionally, like Silas 

 Wegg, " dropped into poetry." J. F. M'Lennan, 

 too, must not be forgotten, for then he was just 

 coming into his own as an original and thoughtful 

 writer on anthropological subjects. There were 



