XXX Proceedings of Royal Soeiety of Edinhurgh. 
absent from, the annual tour of the Committee for the Inspection of 
the Scottish Lighthouses. On the death of Mr James Crichton, 
Sheriff of the Lothians, he was unanimously chosen by his brethren 
Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. He never restricted him- 
self jealously to his profession, as is now deemed by some lawyers 
indispensable to success in the profession of an advocate. He pre- 
ferred the example of those who have thought that a profession 
calling itself liberal and learned, warrants, and even requires, the 
continuance in manhood of the liberal studies of youth. He was 
distinguished by the variety of his tastes, and the catholic spirit 
with which he cultivated them. If this variety prevented the attain- 
ment of excellence in any single subject, it at least saved him from 
the prejudices and bigotry sometimes associated with more concen- 
trated intellects. An amateur in astronomy and physical science, 
he used to recall with pleasure that, through his acquaintance with 
Mrs Somerville, he had the good fortune to be present at the memor- 
able dinner given to Sir John Herschell in 1836, when that philo- 
sopher returned after his splendid observations at the Cape of Good 
Hope. In later years he was a frequent visitor at the observatory at 
Dunecht, where his friends and neighbours, the late and present Earls 
of Crawford, aided by Professor Copeland and other astronomers, were 
advancing a science too much neglected in Scotland since the days 
when George Buchanan celebrated the triumphs, and James VI. 
visited the observatory of Tycho Brahe. He was one of the pro- 
fessional gentlemen of Edinburgh who invited Professor Tait to 
give lectures to them and their friends on the latest wonders of 
physical science. But he did not, like some students of physics, 
despise mental philosophy, or, like some lawyers, the philosophy of 
law, of which his friend. Professor Lorimer, was almost the solitary 
representative at this period in Great Britain. 
Mr Irvine was by conviction, as well as by hereditary prepossession, 
a Scottish High Churchman, and he took a deep interest in the theo- 
logical and liturgical studies of Bishop Eorbes of Brechin, one of the 
most valued of an unusually large circle of friends. But this did 
not prevent him from sympathising with the valiant stand made by 
Mr Eobertson Smith for freedom in linguistic and historical science 
as applied to biblical criticism, when that scholar was opposed by 
the conservative forces of all the churches, and deprived of the 
