their names. delighted to possess books which any of them might have held in their hands, on which they had written He had a number of these, some very curious; among others, that wild soldier, man of fashion and wit among the reformers, Ulric von Hütten's autograph on Erasmus' beautiful folio Greek Testament, and John Howe's (spelt How) on the first edition of Milton's Speech on Unlicensed Printing.1 He began collecting books when he was twelve, and he was collecting up to his last hours. He cared least for merely fine books, though he enjoyed, no one more so, fine type, good binding, and all the niceties of the book-fancier. What he liked were such books as were directly useful in his work, and such as he liked to live in the midst of; such, also, Erasmus (very like 'Uncle Ebenezer')-John Knox-Dr. Waugh-John Milton (three, all framed)-Dr. Dick-Dr. Hall -Luther (two)-Dr. Heugh-Dr. Mitchell-Dr. Balmer-Dr. Henderson-Dr. Wardlaw-Shakspere (a small oil painting which he had since ever I remember)—Dugald Stewart-Dr. Innes-Dr. Smith, Biggar—the two Erskines and Mr. FisherDr. John Taylor of Toronto-Dr. Chalmers - Mr. William Ellis, Rev. James Elles-J. B. Patterson-Vinet-Archibald M'Lean-Dr. John Erskine-Tholuck-John Pym-Gesenius -Professor Finlayson-Richard Baxter-Dr. Lawson-Dr. Peddie (two, and a copy of Joseph's noble bust); and they were thus all about him for no other reason than that he liked to look at and think of them through their countenances. 1 In a copy of Baxter's Life and Times, which he picked up at Maurice Ogle's shop in Glasgow, which had belonged to Anna, Countess of Argyll, besides her autograph, there is a most affecting and interesting note in that venerable lady's handwrit D as illustrated any great philosophical, historical, or ecclesiastical epoch. His collection of Greek Testaments was, considering his means, of great extent and value, and he had a quite singular series of books, pamphlets, and documents, referring not merely to his own body-the Secession, with all its subdivisions and reunions-but to Nonconformity and Dissent everywhere, and, indeed, to human liberty, civil and religious, in every form, for this, after the great truths, duties, and expectations of his faith, was the one master passion of his life-liberty in its greatest sense, the largest extent of individual and public spontaneity consistent with virtue and safety. He was in this as intense, persistent in his devotion, ing. It occurs on the page where Baxter brings a charge of want of veracity against her eldest and name-daughter who was perverted to Popery. They are in a hand tremulous with age and feeling :-"I can say wt truth I neuer in all my lyff did hear hir ly, and what she said, if it was not trew, it was by others sugested to hir, as yt she wold embak on Wedensday. She belived she wold, bot thy took hir, alles! from me who never did sie her mor. The minester of Cuper, Mr. John Magill, did sie hir at Paris in the convent. Said she was a knowing and vertuous person, and hed retined the living principels of our relidgon, which made him say it was good to grund young persons weel in ther religion, as she was one it appired weel grunded. The following is Lord Lindsay's letter, on seeing this remarkable marginal note :- EDINBURGH, DOUGLAS' HOTEL, MY DEAR SIR,-I owe you my sincerest thanks for your as Sydney, Locke, or old Hollis. For instance, his admiration of Lord Macaulay as a writer and a man of letters, an orator and a statesman, great as it was, was as nothing to his gratitude to him for having placed permanently on record, beyond all risk of obscuration or doubt, the doctrine of 1688-the right and power of the English people to be their own lawgivers, and to appoint their own magistrates, of whom the sovereign is the chief. His conviction of the sole right of God to be Lord of the conscience, and his sense of his own absolute religious independence of every one but his Maker, were the two elements in building up his beliefs on all church matters; they were twin beliefs. Hence the simplicity and thoroughness of his principles. kindness in favouring me with a sight of the volume of Baxter's Life, which formerly belonged to my ancestrix, Anna, Countess of Argyll. The MS. note inserted by her in it respecting her daughter is extremely interesting. I had always been under the impression that the daughter had died very shortly after her removal to France, but the contrary appears from Lady Argyll's memorandum. That memorandum throws also a pleasing light on the later life of Lady Anna, and forcibly illustrates the undying love and tenderness of the aged mother, who must have been very old when she penned it, the book having been printed as late as 1696. I am extremely obliged to you for communicating to me this new and very interesting information.—Believe me, my dear Sir, your much obliged and faithful servant, JOHN BROWN, ESQ, M.D. LINDSAY. Sitting in the centre, he commanded the circumference. But I am straying out of my parish into yours. I only add to what you have said, that the longer he lived, the more did he insist upon it being not less true and not less important, that the Church must not intermeddle with the State, than that the State must not intermeddle with the Church. He used to say, 'Go down into the world, with all its complications and confusions, with this double-edged weapon, and you can cut all the composite knots of Church and State.' The element of God and of eternity predominates in the religious more than in the civil affairs of men, and thus far transcends them; but the principle of mutual independence is equally applicable to each. All that statesmen, as such, have to do with religion, is to be themselves under its power; all that Christians, as such, have to do with the State, is to be good citizens. The fourth epoch of his personal life I would date from his second marriage. As I said before, no man was ever happier in his wives. They had much alike in nature, only one could see the Divine wisdom of his first wife being his first, and his second his second; each did best in her own place and time. His marriage with Miss Crum was a source of great happiness and good not only to himself, but to us his first children. She had been intimately known to us for many years, and was endeared to us long before we saw her, by her having been, as a child and girl, a great favourite of our own mother. The families of my grandfather Nimmo, and of the Crums, Ewings, and Maclaes, were very intimate. I have heard my father tell, that being out at Thornliebank with my mother, he asked her to take a walk with him to the Rouken, a romantic waterfall and glen up the burn. My mother thought they might take 'Miss Margaret' with them, and so save appearances, and with Miss Crum, then a child of ten, holding my father's hand, away the three went! So you may see that no one could be nearer to being our mother; and she was curiously ingenious, and completely successful in gaining our affection and regard. I have, as a boy, a peculiarly pleasant remembrance of her, having been at Thornliebank when about fourteen, and getting that impression of her gentle, kind, wise, calm, and happy nature— her entire loveableness-which it was our privilege to see ministering so much to my father's comfort. That fortnight in 1824 or 1825 is still to me like the memory of some happy dream; the old library, the big chair in which I huddled myself up for hours with the New Arabian Nights, and all the oldfashioned and unforgotten books I found there, the ample old garden, the wonders of machinery and skill going on in 'the works,' the large waterwheel going its stately rounds in the midst of its |