460 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
to serve all the purposes which he had in view. But I think the 
books that he most loved were those that gratified best that chival- 
rous feeling that lay so deep in his heart. I remember as if it 
were yesterday hearing him read, fifty years ago, in an Italian society 
to which we belonged, the concluding character of Sir Lancelot, 
given in Malory’s translation of the Morte d’ Arthur, which runs 
in these striking terms “ And now, I dare say, that, Sir Lancelot, 
there thou lyest; thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s 
hands. Add thou wert the curteist knight that ever bare shielde. 
And thou wert the truest friende to thy lover that ever bestrode 
horse. And thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever 
loved woman. And thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke 
with swerde. And thou wert the goodliest person that ever came 
amonge prece (press) of knights. And thou were the meekest man 
and the gentillest that ever eate in hal among ladies. And thou 
were the sternest knight to thy mortale foe that ever put spere in 
the rest !” 
Mr Innes read these words with the greatest effect, but in that 
peculiar tone for which I think his reading was remarkable. He 
never read rhetorically, or in a declamatory style, but with rather 
a cold and dry manner, which, however, had the strange effect of 
leaving on his hearers a deep impression of his earnestness, and a 
thorough belief in wfflat he said. It was impossible so to hear him 
without feeling convinced, as I then and ever w r as, that his own 
character involved in it many of those noble traits that the romancer 
described as forming the bright side of his hero. 
Mr Innes’s death was sudden, and took place at a distance from 
home, but it was calm and painless, and he^was attended at the 
time by his wife and his only unmarried daughter. It is right to 
mention that in the later years of his life he enjoyed the advantage 
of a considerable accession of fortune, which came to Mrs Innes, 
and which placed them in comparative affluence. At the time he 
was taken away, his daughter was engaged under very happy 
auspices to the gentleman who has since become her husband, so 
that his departure took place amid circumstances that brought 
many consolations, and left little more in life to be desired. 
