128 . TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



and resonance, thrilling his hearers when probing the depths of 

 the Great Bard's overpowering tragedies, or rousing intense mirth 

 when dealing with such lighter themes in his literature course, as 

 Chaucer, Lydgate, or Sir David Lyndsay. In his academic robes 

 he was a dignified and impressive figure, moving with an old-time 

 stateliness, and yet never shewing even a tendency to austerity or 

 over-bearing authority. He filled his pupils with a reverence almost 

 approaching awe, and the order maintained in the "ancient Logic 

 Class-room, " was hardly equalled in any other lecture room in the 

 University, yet in many respects the genial Professor made it the 

 brightest and most attractive, in spite of the student's innate 

 hatred of Logic and Metaphysics. Rarely a day passed as I have 

 said that some comic incident was not fully utilized by Professor 

 Baynes to relieve the tedium of the day's tasks. Often in the 

 midst of some penetrating exposition of Thales or Locke or Ham- 

 ilton, there would be heard the mournful but thrilling blast of a 

 local baker's trumpet announcing his daily delivery of bread, and 

 Professor Baynes would stop with an irresistible twinkle in his 

 eye, and remark that Thales or Locke or Hamilton must give way 

 to the baker's trumpet-tongued philosophy of bread. At other 

 times dogs fighting in an adjoining wynd or the City Crier's drum 

 would interrupt the lecture in like manner, and give occasion for 

 witty sallies. I have been privileged in the course of a somewhat 

 varied academic and scientific career, to know an exceptional 

 number of notable men, men refined cultured and noble, men of 

 vast learning; but I do not recall one that precisely filled the niche 

 which Professor Spencer Baynes so splendidly filled. If the Ninth 

 Edition was unique, and unsurpassed in all the long line of ency- 

 clopaedias, he is unique and alone in the choice company of the 

 world's encyclopaedia editors. He was a gifted scholar and critic, 

 one of the most encyclopaedic of intellects — scholarly and exact 

 yet full of genial human nature, large-hearted and sympathetic — - 

 an all-round man, in every sense. In my daily personal contact 

 with Professor Baynes I had many opportunities of realising what 

 unsuspected stores of knowledge he possessed. His Shakespeare 

 scholarship, his profound acquaintance with Breton and early 

 Norman literature and with Anglo-Saxon, and with mediaeval 

 Latin letters was very unusual. He was a metaphysician and a 

 logician of uncommon powers, and even of biological and physical 

 science he had an exceptional knowledge. Once discussing with 

 me the functions of the brain and the views of Dr. Noble of Man- 



