where the tendency was towards attractive lecturing. So entirely did the teacher's duty at last absorb his faculties, that the phenomenon was compared to the provisions in nature for compensating the loss by special weaknesses or deficiencies, and that the scholar, conscious that his own days of working were limited, instinctively felt that in imparting his stores to others who would distribute them after he was gone, he was making the most valuable use of his acquirements. It was a mighty satisfaction to old friends in Edinburgh to hear that Spalding had condescended to seek, and that he had found, that blessed refuge of the overworked and the infirm, called a hobby. He was no sportsman. The illustrious Golfing links of St Andrews were spread before him in vain, though their attractions induced many a man to pitch his tabernacle on their border, and it was sometimes consolatorily said of Professors relegated to this arid social region, that they were reconciling themselves to Golf. The days were long past for mounting the knapsack and striding over the Apennines or even the Grampians. Spalding's hobby was a simple one, but akin to the instincts of his cultivated taste; it was exercised in his flower-garden. We may be sure that he did not debase himself to the example of the stupid floriculturist, the grand ambition of whose life is successfully to nourish some prize monster in the shape of tulip or pansy. He allied his gentle task of a cultivator of beautiful flowers, with high science, in botany and vegetable physiology. Besides such lighter alleviations, he had all the consolations that the most satisfactory domestic conditions can administer to the sufferer. In his later days he became afflicted with painful rheumatic attacks, and the terrible symptoms of confirmed heart-disease. He died on the 16th of November, 1859. FOOTNOTES: [xvii-1] Aberdeen Magazine, II., 350. [xix-1] Blackwood's Mag., Nov. 1835, p. 669. [xxi-1] The following list of her father's contributions, drawn up by Miss Mary Spalding, is believed to be complete. No. 144. July 1840. Recent Shaksperian literature. (Books by Collier, Brown, De Quincey, Dyce, Courtenay, C. Knight, Mrs Jameson, Coleridge, Hallam, &c.) No. 145. October 1840. Introduction to the Literature of Europe, by Henry Hallam. No. 147. April 1841. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. With an Introduction. By George Darley. No. 164. April 1845. 1. The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare. Edited by Charles Knight.--2. The Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems of William Shakespeare. Edited by Charles Knight.--3. The Works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an entirely new collation of the old editions; with the various Readings, Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the English Stage. By J. Payne Collier, Esquire, F.S.A. No. 173. July 1847. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. By the Rev. Alexander Dyce.