About the same early period, Dr Lee came to be for some time connected with the late Sir John Lowther Johnstone of Westerhall, in the capacity of tutor or guardian, and was thus brought into contact with several eminent public men, with whom Sir John was on familiar terms. I have heard that Sir John made to Dr Lee two offers, either of which, if accepted, would have materially altered his future course in life. One was, to bring him into Parliament for one of Sir John's burghs; the other, to procure him a commission in the Guards. These offers, if made, were certainly declined; but he retained his ward's friendship and respect, and, from his gratitude, derived, during life, a pension of L.100 a year, which Sir John settled on him.

After taking his medical degree, he seems to have entertained some idea of following medicine as a profession; and he has been heard to say, that at one time, when a young man, he had three medical appointments in his possession or power; one, as assistant surgeon to a regiment; another, as surgeon's mate on board a ship; and a third, as a surgeon in the East India Company's Service. Finally he rejected all thoughts of the medical profession, and fixed upon the Church as the field to which he should dedicate his life.

In 1807 Dr Lee became minister of a Scotch Chapel in London, and, in the same year, he was presented to the parish of Peebles. He continued there till 1812, when he became Professor of Church History in St Mary's College, St Andrews, where he remained till 1821. A portion of the lectures he then delivered, embracing the History of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, is now announced for publication, and cannot fail to excite a lively and general interest.

In 1820, before quitting his chair at St Andrews, he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen, where he lectured for one session, chiefly by a deputy, to whom he transmitted his lectures daily by post. He speedily resigned his chair at Aberdeen, and in 1821 was removed to the charge of the parish of Canongate, Edinburgh; and thereafter, he successively held the other charges of Lady Yester's Church, and the Old Church Parish, in this city.

In 1824 he was named one of the Royal Commissioners for visiting the Scotch Universities. In 1827 he became Principal Clerk of the General Assembly. In 1837 he was appointed Principal of the United College of St Andrews, but did not long retain the appointment. In 1838 he was offered, but declined, the appointment of Secretary to the Bible Board, then newly constituted.

In 1840 he was elected Principal, and in 1843 he was appointed Professor of Divinity, in the University of Edinburgh. Previously, during the session of 1827-28, he had taught gratuitously the Divinity class, and afterwards, during the session of 1851-52, he taught gratuitously, again, the Moral Philosophy class, and in

1853-54, the Church History class, in the College of Edinburgh, during vacancies in those chairs occasioned by the death or the illness of their Professors.

He held the appointments of Chaplain to the Queen, of Dean of the Chapel Royal, of Chaplain to the Royal Academy, and to the Convention of Royal Burghs, and he was at his death one of the Vice-Presidents of this Society.

I have ventured to say that he was one of the most learned men of his time, and in some departments of National and Church History, particularly in all that concerns the civil and ecclesiastical affairs, as well as the manners and habits of the people of Scotland, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, his knowledge was most minute and accurate. He was also at home in the cognate subject of the History of the Puritans during the same period. We have lately witnessed in this city the exposure to sale of a portion of his library, consisting of upwards of 20,000 volumes, some of them of the most rare and curious description; and I believe that there was not one of his books with which he was not familiar, and of which he did not know, as well as it could be known, the authorship, the occasion, the object, and the import. The subject of Bibliography had been from his early years a favourite study; and his habits of assiduity and perseverance, as well as his capacious and retentive memory, enabled him to prosecute it with singular success. Nor was his intellectual power overlaid or paralysed by the immense mass of his acquired knowledge. His opinions on all subjects, and particularly on those to which he had directed his special attention, were clear and comprehensive; while, at the same time, they were marked by that candour and moderation, which I believe to be universally produced by the thorough and accurate study of any branch of knowledge or portion of history.

As in the case of many men of learning and talent, his published works are but an imperfect indication of his actual powers. Principal Lee, however, has left some things behind him, such as the "Memorial for the Bible Societies," and the "Pastoral Addresses" composed by him for the General Assembly, which show at once the force of his understanding, the variety and accuracy of his information, the rectitude of his feelings, and the purity of his taste. His stores of learning also were always at the service of those who wished to make use of them, and his ready aid has been repeatedly acknowledged as having given additional value to some of the most important works of our time on ecclesiastical or antiquarian subjects. I would fain hope that, among his numerous papers, much may yet be found that deserves and demands publication.

Dr Lee's health had never been robust, and was probably injured in early life by habits of abstinence and excessive study. But it was wonderful with what energy and vigour he discharged his duties and followed out his favourite pursuits. He died on 2d May 1859, in the 80th year of his age, and in circumstances which had a

melancholy connection with the death of a dear son just returning from India.

No man could be more universally regretted; he had not an enemy or an ill-wisher in the world. The numerous appointments which he successively and simultaneously held are a proof of the esteem and respect with which he was regarded by all; but those only who knew him well can speak to his amiable disposition, to his cheerful and genial habits, and to the charity and Christian kindness which he extended to all men of worth and merit, of whatever opinions or whatever persuasion. An account of Dr Lee, indeed, would be very inadequate if it did not prominently bring forward what I have thus alluded to-his highly amiable and affectionate character. In early life he earned on all sides the love as well as the respect of those who knew him. In his ministerial charge at Peebles, he was long remembered for his quiet and unostentatious, but most faithful discharge of his pastoral duties, for his ready and hearty sympathy with all who needed it, for his consolatory tenderness to the sick, and his great liberality to the poor. Nor were these qualities of the heart extinguished or impaired by the long life of labour and study which he afterwards led; on the contrary, they continued to the end. He was ever ready to relax into a playful cheerfulness and pleasantry in society; while his attention to such of his friends as from sorrow or suffering had more serious claims upon him was unremitting and invaluable.

In consequence, perhaps, of some defect of manner, Dr Lee was not sought after as an attractive preacher. But his sermons were excellent, both in matter and in style, and some of his earlier ones, when read in manuscript, had reached and obtained the approbation of Royalty itself. In other respects he was all that a minister of the gospel ought to be. Orthodox in doctrine, evangelical in sentiment, and blameless in conduct, he had a frankness and freedom from professional pedantry or clerical rigour which are rarely met with in men of his learning and condition. We shall not soon see Piety, zeal, eloquence,

his like again, if we ever do so in our day. and assiduity will not be wanting to the Church; but the combination of these with the learning, the wide range of information and sympathy, and the knowledge of the world which he possessed, will not readily be found again.

The next name I have to record among those who have been taken from us, is that of William Pulteney Alison, who was also, at his death, a Vice-President of the Society. Dr Alison was the eldest son of a most amiable and excellent man, the Rev. Archibald Alison, long an Episcopal minister in this city, well known for his elegant published sermons, and for his Essay on Taste, in which he explained with much success his views of the influence of association in producing or heightening the sense of beauty, a theory which, within moderate limits, is founded on truth, but which has been brought into discredit by the extravagant length to which it was

unfortunately carried in Lord Jeffrey's dissertations on the same subject.

Dr Alison in early life had the advantage of the best society which Edinburgh could boast of, and of which his father was a cherished and distinguished ornament. His education and connections led him to bestow much attention upon the subject of mental philosophy, which he cultivated with great success. Bnt he ultimately adopted medicine as his profession, to which he was probably drawn by the example and influence of his distinguished relative the late Dr James Gregory, and in which he was destined to find an appropriate career for his talents, acquirements, and virtues.

It would be idle in me to detail or dilate upon the particulars of his professional life, which was in all respects eminently successful, and in the course of which he came to hold a high place both as a teacher of medical science and as a practising physician. The notice of him which has lately appeared in the "Medical Journal" is so full and complete as to leave nothing to be desired in this respect; and if I were to attempt to abridge it, I should only weaken its effect, and probably fall into errors from which no unprofessional man can easily keep free. Neither can it be necessary to inform any one here present of the valuable contributions which Dr Alison made to the theory of medicine, or of the great skill, the indefatigable. patience, and the unfailing benevolence by which, as a physician, he was uniformly distinguished. His published works are generally regarded as entitling him to a high place as an expounder of the philosophy of medicine, and his powers as an oral teacher were peculiarly efficient, and exercised a marked influence on the progress of medical science. The time, the strength, and the resources which he bestowed upon the sick poor were almost incredible, and such as no one could have given who to vigour of bodily frame had not added the impulse of the warmest benevolence and the highest principle. As a practical philanthropist, his name deserves to be placed not far behind that of Howard himself.

It would be a serious omission in any notice of this excellent man if his views and exertions, with reference to the Poor Laws of the country, were not in some degree commemorated. Two theories upon that subject, diametrically opposed to each other, were at one time advocated by two distinguished men in Scotland— Dr Chalmers and Dr Alison. Chalmers, misled, I think, by the enthusiasm of his own genius, and overlooking the peculiar powers which he himself possessed, conceived the romantic idea, that a compulsory or legal provision for the poor might be altogether dispensed with. He maintained, that even the great towns, if they were duly subdivided and furnished with a certain amount of religious machinery and superintendence, might be so purified and elevated in the scale of moral and physical wellbeing, that any pauperism which they might still produce could easily be relieved by the voluntary NEW SERIES.-VOL. XI. NO. II.-APRIL 1860.

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bounty of Christian benevolence. For this purpose he made the rather startling demand, that at least twenty new parishes and churches should be established in Glasgow. He was gratified to the extent of having one new church erected and assigned to him for the trial of his great experiment; and it is possible that by his own unwearied diligence and unrivalled influence, together with the auxiliary exertions of another most remarkable man, Edward Irving, who was given him as his assistant, the pauperism of his district may have been kept within manageable bounds, and sufficiently relieved by the spontaneous offerings of the wealthier parishioners. But it was obviously impossible that any such system could be established over the whole country; and even if such machinery had been provided, nothing short of a miracle could have supplied men like Chalmers and Irving in every district to carry out the plan. At the commencement of the attempt, doubts were raised by judicious thinkers as to its probable success; and subsequent reflection and experience soon converted those doubts into certainties, and produced a general conviction that the scheme was Utopian.

The views of Dr Alison on this important subject were essentially different. Indulging in no chimerical anticipations, better suited to a prophetical millennium than to the everyday state of actual things, he looked earnestly to the evils that were immediately operating or impending, and sought anxiously to remedy or avert them. He maintained that a compulsory contribution for the poor was indispensable. It was the only way of interesting the selfish portion of the rich in the welfare of their poorer brethren, by inducing them to take measures for diminishing pauperism, so as to save themselves from taxation. He contended that the relief of destitution could not be safely left to the precarious care of voluntary charity, but should at all hazards be provided for so as to keep up the general tone of society, and save it from moral and physical evils of the first magnitude. Destitution, he conceived, when without regular relief, tended to lower the standard of subsistence among the poor to an alarming degree, and to make them forget that there was any better state of things which it was worth their while as Christians, or as human beings, to aspire to. Destitution, he further asserted, and his assertion seemed to be proved by his medical experience, was one of the most fertile sources of disease, and particularly of disease of an epidemic character. It was at once, particularly in great towns, a predisposing cause to every form of pestilence; and by depressing vitality, it interposed the greatest obstacles to a cure. He thus endeavoured to demonstrate that the administration of adequate relief to paupers was indispensable for the public good, and a necessary measure of sanitary precaution.

These principles were, over a series of years, reiterated by Dr Alison, and pressed upon the public attention with all the fervour of deep conviction and ardent benevolence; and they were seconded