and to begin with such a subject as Scottish Literature at this hour of the night is, I can assure you, a great responsibility, and I must ask you to be lenient. I cannot attempt to deal with the whole subject, but with your permission I will take a few stepping stones, and if they are marked to some extent with my own personal experiences, I would beg you to bear with me. For nearly half a century my business has led me to deal with biography. I have been in at the birth, I have conducted them through life, and, too often, I have attended at the obsequies of many biographies. But I maintain that biography is one of the most inexhaustible and unending sources of human interest. I want you to recognise that among biographies there are two which have been pre-eminent, not only in the English tongue, but in the whole of literature. I have spoken to eminent men, statesmen, literary men, and others, and I have asked them to say, What do you consider the two great biographies of the world?"--and without exception they have named two, and I think you will guess which they are. Now, why are those great books? Because the writers of them were in intimate communication and association with their subjects; because they were men who loved their subjects and had made constant notes of their habits and sayings; because they were distinguished literary men, and, above all, because they were Scotsmen. Those two biographies are Boswell's Life of Johnson, and Lockhart's Life of Scott. You must pardon me if I repeat a story that some of you have heard before. My distinguished namesake, the editor of the great English dictionary, told a friend that he had had a remarkable dream. He said, I dreamt that, Dr Johnson came back to Oxford, and the great men of the place were leading him about and showing him the changes that had taken place since his time. 'Here, Dr Johnson, is this, and here is that. Dr Johnson, do you know that, for the first time, your dictionary has been superseded, and the editor of the new book is a Scotsman ?' Dr Johnson said, 'Sir, in order to be facetious, it is not necessary to be absolutely indecent.'' (Loud laughter.) The idea of a Scotsman editing his book was far too much for him! read aloud Sir Walter Scott's life from the beginning to the end? I defy any man or woman who has, as an old Scottish aunt of mine used to say, bowels of tender mercies, not made of tenpenny nails," to read that last touching volume, when Scott was wearing himself to the death in body and in mind to wipe off debts which, through the indiscretions of a friend, he had been led into. It is one of the most wonderful books of all generations. There is another Scotsman who comes not far off-Thomas Carlyle. He, too, reminds me of the old story of the judge who, addressing a perverse witness, said, "You have a mind so twisted that if a nail could be got into

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one side of your head, I am convinced it would come out a screw at the other side." (Loud laughter.) Carlyle had that quality, and about him I will also mention a little incident which happened to an old friend of mine. His son came up to London, and he said to him, "I am going to take you to see the two greatest men of the day." He took him to see Herbert Spencer, and he saw an elderly man, looking like a gardener in his Sunday clothes, lying on his sofa, and he said nothing this young man could carry away. Then he took him to Cheyne Walk and introduced him to Carlyle. He told Carlyle the same story—“I have brought my son to see the two greatest men of the day." Carlyle said, Wha is the ither man ?" When he was told, "Herbert Spencer," Carlyle answered, "Herbert Spencer ! an immeasureable ass !" (Loud laughter.) So much for biography. Mention of Scott leads us to poetry, and here again, I think, we may claim for our brother Scots the highest place. We may call Byron a Scotsman, for was he not brought up in Aberdeen, and was not his mother a Scotswoman? I have been reminded when thinking of her, of the saying, with which you may have been familiar, of many Americans, when they say that such and such a thing is very good of its kind, "but a damned bad kind." I would say of Byron's mother that she was a very bad instance of a damn good thing, for there are very few Scottish mothers who were as she was. Byron was stung, and he came to his own by the Edinburgh Review. It was Scotland that stung him, and it was that that brought out first of all his " Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which he made an attack on Scott. My grandfather, when he read it, knowing both men, said: "I will not rest until I have brought those two men together, because I know that when they become acquainted, Byron will never say that again and will repent of it." I still inhabit the house, and the very rooms, where those two men were introduced by my grandfather in 1815, and from that moment they became the firmest of friends. I have also the book, a copy of Byron's own English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, annotated in his own handwriting and characteristic style. "This is much too severe (says the annotation); this will never do." "It is only the fact that this book belongs to another man that prevents me from committing this miserable instance of juvenile acrimony to the flames." From that day onwards Byron and Scott never ceased to be the warmest friends. (Loud applause.)

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English

Burns I hardly dare mention, after all that has been said. I should say Burns and Horace stand highest in the world as the writers of lyrics. They invested the everyday things of life with a humanity and reality that can never die, and Burns and Horace will always stand at the head of the great lyrical poets. (Applause.)

I hold in my hand a book that has a very curious history. It is a diary of Burns, and in view of what Sir Ian Hamilton has said, I will venture to read you a few lines, because it is characteristic. Burns was staying at Dumfries with some friends and he wrote in his diary, Miss- seems very well pleased with my bardship's distinguishing her, and after some slight qualms which I could easily mark, she sets the titter round at defiance, and kindly allows me to keep my hold; and when parted by the ceremony of my introduction to Mr Somerville, she met me half, to resume my situation. Nota Bene.-The Poet within a point and a half of being damnably in love--I am afraid my bosom is still nearly as much tinder as ever." (Laughter.) I ask you, is that not a characteristic touch of Burns?

Were there time I should like to talk about Stevenson and others, but I must mention two whom this war has brought to light, Mrs Jacob, with her Songs of Angus, and Sergeant Lee, who comes from Dundee. (Applause.) He is not only a poet but an artist, and he has illustrated his own book. He began as a private. Then he was taken prisoner, and whether or not he softened the hearts of his captors with the bagpipes, like Orpheus with his lyre, he has now returned, and to a lieutenant's commission. Among the editors of newspapers there are also eminent names. For instance, M'Culloch, editor of the Scotsman. Years ago he was asked to speak at the Literary Fund dinner, and he said: "Why am I

I

asked to respond to this toast? I am not a man of letters. would never have had anything to do with books if it had not been for three letters of the alphabet, and these are £ s. d."

Alexander Russel, you know, was the eminent editor of the Scotsman, and a man of great humour. He was one night walking through the office, and saw a young man writing away hard, and he said, "What are you writing there?" The young man said: "Oh! sir, I was just writing an obituary notice of Bailie M.” Is he dead?" said Russel, 'I knew him; he was a damned fool." The man said, "Yes, sir, he was, and I was just bringing that oot in the paragraph." (Laughter.) Another story, if I am not offending the ladies. Years ago when first the question of women's suffrage was agitated, Russel was asked: "What line will you take in the Scotsman ?" and he said: Ah, well, I would not give the votes to the women, because if you give them a vote they will never rest until they get into the House of Commons, and my experience is that a woman can never have the feelings of a gentleman." (Loud laughter.) Among astronomers, I suppose Sir David Gill took really the first place of his day-kindest of friends, keenest of sportsmen, and most eager about his work. He said: "I

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was at one time lecturing to the Society of Naval Engineers, and one of the points of my lecture was the marvellous accuracy to which astronomical instruments had been brought. I told them that with an instrument I possessed, I could measure the disc of a threepenny piece a hundred miles off." At the dinner which followed, the chairman, who was a very distinguished man, proposed Sir David's health, and said : "If we had had any doubt as to the nationality of our good friend the lecturer to-day, before his lecture, we clearly can have none now, because I am quite sure that nobody but a Scot would pay the slightest attention to a threepenny piece a hundred miles away!" (Loud laughter.) Another familiar name to you all is James Nasmyth. I was his executor. He was one of the most charming of companions-engineer, inventor, astronomer, horticulturist, artist, and a man full of curious oldfashioned Scottish humour. I remember him saying to me : "Mr Murray, to the best of my knowledge I've never killed anybody in ma life, and I would not like to kill anybody after I am deid. If I was buried in the ground, I feel sure I'll get into somebody's well and poison him, and so you have just got to get me cremated." (Laughter.) And cremated he was. I suppose I am one of the few living now who knew that wonderful man, David Livingstone. He used to come to dinner at my father's house. Pioneer, missionary, naturalist, sportsman, sailor, he will live for all time as one of the greatest writers of travel. (Applause.) Then there was Mrs Somerville, the greatest lady mathematician, who my father and mother saw making point lace without the aid of spectacles at the age of 89 in Naples. I might go on showing you lines of literature in which Scotsmen have been pre-eminent. I dare not venture

to speak to you to-night of those distinguished men who have risen in literature during the war. You see them here, and you have heard them, and it would be presumptuous for me to say more, but I would venture to ask you on this occasion to class amongst distinguished Scottish authors another. We have a general who has commanded armies larger than Napoleon and Wellington together ever commanded, and who has conducted to a successful issue such a war as the world has never known before. He has shown by his recent despatch that if his vocation in life had been to wield the pen and not the sword he would have been prominent in letters. I ask you with me to acclaim Sir Douglas Haig. (Loud applause.) To what is this wonderful pre-eminence of our countrymen due? I think it is due to two things--independence of mind, and to a curious, strange, originality, in the way of looking at ordinary things. Please drink with me to the toast Scottish Literature." (Loud applause.)

Lieutenant-Colonel John Buchan, responding to the toast, was heartily cheered on rising. He said:

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen,-I am greatly honoured at being asked to reply to the toast which has been so felicitously and amusingly proposed by my friend, Mr John Murray. At this hour of the evening you will not expect from me any kind of a speech. It is a toast well worthy of drinking, for Scottish literature is one of the many grounds we Scotsmen have for particular pride. We have produced great writers in every branch of literature, and in Burns and Sir Walter Scott we have produced two of the dozen greatest writers in the history of the world. (Applause.) It seems to me rather piquant and paradoxical that this toast should be proposed by one publisher and replied to by another. (Laughter.) For we publishers have been held occasionally to bear rather a bad reputation by men of letters. There was a time when we

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now I am led to believe We earn our precarious

were a kind of whipping-boy of literature; that that position is taken by the politician. profits by acting as the brokers of genius and, like other brokers, we charge our small fee. It is not an easy task, and I would beg of you not to judge us harshly. You remember that David Balfour told Alan Breck that he intended to become an advocate, and Alan replied: Man, Davie, that's but a weary trade and a blackguard yin forbye." (Laughter.) I am afraid that the author in his haste is sometimes apt to make that condemnation of the publisher. I think it is too harsh. I believe that the publisher is as honest and amiable a man as other people, and in proof I would recall the fact that as a rule he bears a Scottish name. I would like to be allowed to say one thing before I sit down. A large part of our

I cannot call it a language, akin to

Scottish literature is written in the vernacular. dialect. It is far more, it is a great and true English but different from it. (Applause.) A language with an extraordinary quality of incisiveness, a language with great structural beauty, of the richest idiom, a language which has been made classic by great writers. Are we to allow that to decay? Are we to contemplate some time in the future when a large part of the treasure of our literature will be shut to the ordinary reader? I am afraid that to-day there are very few people, even in Scotland, who know and speak pure Scots. Even in the country districts the old words and idioms are dying on the lips of men, and in the cities the language is becoming a barbarous jargon where there is much more American and Cockney slang than the pure Doric. (Hear, hear.) For that there are many reasons, one of them I am afraid, being a kind of preverse genteelness working among our people. I have known well-to-do men and women in Scotland, whose fathers have run bare-foot, who thought it unbecoming to