VI 
Proceedings of Poyal Society of Edinburgh . 
Professor John Stuart Blackie. 
By the llev. Waiter C. Smith, D.D., LL.D. 
(Read February 3, 1896.) 
John Stuart Blackie was certainly the most outstanding figure 
in Scotland as the 19th century drew to its close. His fine 
features and plaided form were familiar to Scotchmen all the 
world over, recognisable also by Englishmen and Germans who 
took any interest in the literature of our country. We were all 
proud of the veteran scholar and author ; but our love for the 
man was more than our pride in his attainments, for his was 
a character that attracted the affection of all who knew him 
intimately. In spite of a strong fighting propensity, leading him 
to denounce snobs and West-ends, and to run tilt at our self- 
satisfied ignorance, and in general to hit out at anything, however 
respectable, which he did not approve of, yet essentially his was a 
very loving nature, and he was in consequence very greatly loved. 
It is not inconsistent with this that he sometimes, in the heat of 
the moment, unthinkingly touched men’s sore points, and pained 
them, when he did not mean it. But he never deliberately 
wounded any one, or spoke a word inconsistent with “ the charity 
that thinketh no evil.” His singular purity of mind also was 
almost feminine in its sweetness and delicacy ; yet there was 
nothing effeminate about him : he was every inch a Man. His 
patriotism was perhaps, at times, somewhat effusive, yet it was not 
blinded by prejudice, for he could see, and did not spare, the 
faults of his countrymen ; and if he loved a Scottish song above all 
others, he was not without a good reason for his preference. 
Altogether, he was a frank, outspoken, right-hearted Scot, whose 
virtues and blemishes were both equally manifest; but the former 
were of high excellence, and the latter, at the worst, were but the 
follies of a rather “ old boy,” as he was wont to call himself. 
It is not easy exactly to define what were the grounds of the 
