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the death of Professor John Joseph Bell, he succeeded to the chair 
of Scots Law in the' University of Edinburgh. It would be unbe- 
coming, in one not a lawyer, to pretend giving a judgment on the 
merits of a professor’s teaching of law. But that he performed his 
work under a solemn sense of duty — that he spared no pains to 
make his class understand the principles and the details of a science 
which he had diligently and successfully studied himself, is a matter 
of general notoriety, and the public papers, at the time of his death, 
all bore testimony to his merits as a professor. One feature of his 
professional work was very remarkable, and attested by every hard- 
working student, I mean the unwearied pains he took in going over 
their papers, and the careful manner in which he corrected the 
essays sent in to him. There may be something animating and at- 
tractive in looking over the exercises and theses of Scots law students, 
I am unable to judge of this, but I should think, in general, such 
examinations must be a dreary portion of any professor’s labours. 
But Professor More never seemed to weary, tie never intermitted 
his care, and seemed always fresh for doing, and doing kindly, what 
he considered an act of duty by his pupils. Professor More, in 
fact, made his studies, and everything connected with his profession, 
a part of his daily and ordinary life. He enjoyed books, because he 
made good use of them, and he had collected a library of upwards of 
15,000 volumes. These books were his delight — his companions in 
solitude, his comfort in the tedium of hours of sickness. He could 
turn at once to the volume he wanted, and to the passage he desired 
to recall. When I say his books were his companions, I might 
rather have said the authors were his companions. In a letter to 
one of his family, shortly before his death, he draws in himself a 
pleasing picture of an old man in his study surrounded by his books, 
and holding converse with his favourite authors : — 
“ While reading Leighton quietly in my own room, it struck me 
that the old man was really sitting with me, and conversing fami- 
liarly upon those topics which so entirely engrossed his own mind ; 
and it is a curious reflection that, with such books, I have been con- 
versing as truly with Horsley, Hooker, and Leighton as if they had 
risen from their graves and sat by me.” 
Whilst I remark the Professor’s liberality of feeling in naming as 
his favourites three authors who w r ere not members of his own 
Church, I think my hearers will excuse some personal feelings of 
