Besides the genial Blackie, the Senate of Edinburgh University, when I was a member of it, contained some other less vociferous but extremely clubbable professors. Two of them deserve special mention here--Christison and Maclagan. Sir Robert Christison was excellent company, with his ample fund of reminiscence and anecdote. At the club-dinners Sir Douglas Maclagan never failed to regale us with one of his inimitable songs. He had a good voice, and sang with much expression and humour. His ‘Battle of Glen Tilt’ was a source of endless pleasure to his friends, and he entered so thoroughly into the spirit of it that one could almost see the scene between the duke and his gillies on the one side, and the botany professor and his students on the other. Some of the touches in that ditty are full of sly fun, such, for example, as the description of the botanising: Some folk’ll tak’ a heap o’ fash For unco little en’, man; An’ meikle time an’ meikle cash For nocht ava’ they’ll spen’, man. Thae chaps had come a hunder’ mile For what was hardly worth their while; ’Twas a’ to poo Some gerse that grew On Ben M‘Dhu That ne’er a coo Would care to pit her mouth till. On rare occasions Christison and Maclagan sang a humorous duet in the most dolorous tones, acting the character of two distressed seamen begging on the street. It was comical beyond description. Another of the luminaries in the Edinburgh University was Lyon Playfair, professor of chemistry, who, after quitting his chair and entering parliament, devoted himself mainly to politics, and was finally raised to the peerage. He too was a true Scot, though most of his life was passed in England. He enjoyed and could tell a good story, and relished it none the less if it bore against himself. In his later years he used to pay a yearly visit to America, and from one of these journeys he brought back the account of an experience he had met with among the Rocky Mountains of Canada, and which he would tell with great vivacity. He had halted at some station on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in the course of a stroll had made his way to the foot of a heap of material that had been tumbled down from the mouth of a mine. He was poking out some of the pieces of stone with his stick, when a voice saluted him from the top of the bank, and the following conversation ensued: [Sidenote: CHALMERS AND THE DENTIST] ‘Hey! what are ye daein’ there?’ ‘I am looking at some of these bits of stone.’ ‘But there’s nae allooance here.’ ‘Is there not? I think you must be a Scotsman like me.’ ‘Ay! man, and are ye frae Scotland? And what’s your name?’ ‘My name is Playfair.’ ‘Maybe ye’ll be Lyon.’ ‘Yes, that’s my name. How do you come to know it?’ ‘Od, man, your name has travelt far faurer nor thae wee legs’ll ever carry yoursell.’ [Sidenote: CHALMERS AND THE DENTIST]