4 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinhiirgh. [sess. 
may be destined to disappear {ahsit omen), but if our Scotch should 
perish as a spoken tongue, it will hold its own as a classical 
language, until the author of the Gentle Shepherd, the tender 
addresser of the Field Mouse and the Daisy and the rollicking 
narrator of the adventures of Tam O’Shanter, with the creator of 
Edie Ochiltree and Caleb Balderston, have become merely names 
belonging to a remote antiquity. 
Professor Blackie has often insisted in this room that the best 
way of learning Greek is to reside for several months at Athens 
and learn it conversationally. It must be a great satisfaction to him 
to know that one young man at least is now going out to Athens to 
put to a practical test the method of instruction in the classical, but 
still living, language Avhich he has so persistently advocated. There 
is a remarkable confirmation of this view in the case of John 
Basingstoke, who flourished in the first half of the 13th century, 
dying in 1252, and which has not been noticed by Professor 
Blackie. Basingstoke while in Athens became acquainted with a 
remarkable girl, the daughter of the Athenian Archbishop, and by 
conversing and reading with her he declared he learned more Greek 
in three months than he had done in the University of Paris in 
four years. This young lady, though not conversant with modern 
sanitary science and the relation between the violation of its rules 
and disease, could foretell the occurrence of pestilence ; and. though 
living long previous to the foundation of Ben Nevis Observatory, 
could predict storms ; and though she had not studied the works of 
Kepler, Newton, or La Place, could foretell eclipses; while she 
proved herself to be a seismologist of the first order by foretelling 
the occurrence of earthquakes with unerring certainty. I give 
these statements on the authority of Matthew Paris in his Chronica 
Majora, though they make a rather heavy demand on our faith as 
to the accomplishments of this phenomenal damsel. I will only 
express the hope, for the credit of her escutcheon, that her father 
the Archbishop had been legitimately married before he was con- 
secrated. 
It is not incumbent on, nor would it be proper for me, to offer 
any commentaries on, or criticism of, the papers which were read 
before us during last Session, but I venture to make three excep- 
tions, including Professor Blackie’s, 
