This learned and accomplished gentleman was born in 1776. He was educated for the Scottish bar, to which he was called in the year 1797. Within a year or two after he was enrolled as a member of the Faculty, he produced his first quarto, _Fragments of Scottish History_. This was followed, in the year 1801, by a collection of _Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century_, in two octavo volumes. In 1809 appeared a _Tract chiefly relative to Monastic Antiquities, with some Account of a recent Search for the Remains of the Scottish Kings interred in the Abbey of Dunfermline_, the first of four or five thin octavos, in which Mr. Graham Dalyell called attention to those ecclesiastical records of the north, so many of which have since been printed by the Bannatyne, Maitland, and Spalding Clubs, under the editorial care of Mr. Cosmo Innes. A later and more laborious work was his _Essay on the Darker Superstitions of Scotland_; a performance which embodies the fruit of much patient study in rare and little read works, and affords many curious glimpses of the popular mythology of the north. The long list of the productions of Sir John Graham Dalyell closes with his _Musical Memoirs of Scotland_, published little more than a twelvemonth ago. The deceased baronet was distinguished also by his acquaintance with mechanical science, and still more by his knowledge of Natural History. Of the zeal with which he prosecuted this last pursuit, he has left a signal monument in his _Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland_. Sir John succeeded to the family title and estates, as sixth baronet, on the death of his elder brother, Sir James Dalyell, on February 1, 1841. He had previously been advanced to the honours of knighthood, by patent under the Great Seal, in the year 1836. He had been for some time in infirm health, and died at his residence, Great King Street, Edinburgh, on May 17, 1851, in his seventy-fourth year. Dying unmarried, he is succeeded by his younger brother, now Sir William Cunningham Cavendish Dalyell, of Binns, baronet, Commander R.N., Royal Hospital, Greenwich. ABERDENIENSIS. APPROPRIATION OF A THOUGHT--OLDHAM, DRYDEN, AND BYRON.--THE STATE OF MIND IN THE PROGRESS OF COMPOSITION. "How when the Fancy, lab'ring for a birth, With unfelt Throws brings its rude issue forth: How after, when imperfect, shapeless thought Is by the judgment into Fashion wrought, When at first search I traverse o'er my mind, Nought but a dark and empty void I find: Some little hints at length like sparks break thence, _And glimmering thoughts just dawning into sense: Confus'd awhile the mixt ideas lie, With nought of mark to be discover'd by, Like colours undistinguish'd in the night, Till the dusk images, moved to the light, Teach the discerning Faculty to choose Which it had best adopt and which refuse._" "Some New Pieces" in Oldham's Works, pp. 126-27., 1684.