nd sympathy, was known only to his own
circle. The appearance of 'Rab and his Friends' revealed it to the
world. Brief as it is in form, and simple in outline, Scotland has
produced nothing so full of pure, pathetic genius since Scott.

Another volume of 'Horae Subsceivae' appeared two years after, and some
selections from it, and others from unpublished manuscript, were printed
separately in the volume entitled 'Spare Hours.' They met with instant
and unprecedented success. In a short time ten thousand copies of
'Minchmoor' and 'James the Doorkeeper' were sold, fifteen thousand
copies of 'Pet Marjorie,' and 'Rab' had reached its fiftieth thousand.
With all this success and praise, and constantly besought by publishers
for his work, he could not be persuaded that his writings were of any
permanent value, and was reluctant to publish. In 1882 appeared a third
volume of the 'Horae Subsceivae,' which included all his writings. A few
weeks after its publication he died.

The Doctor's medical essays, which are replete with humor, are written
in defense of his special theory, the distinction between the active and
the speculative mind. He thought there was too much science and too
little intuitive sagacity in the world, and looked back longingly to the
old-time common-sense, which he believed modern science had driven away.
His own mind was anti-speculative, although he paid just tributes to
philosophy and science and admired their achievements. He stigmatized
the speculations of the day as the "lust of innovation." But the reader
cares little for the opinions of Dr. Brown as arguments: his subject is
of little consequence if he will but talk. By the charm of his
story-telling these dead Scotch doctors are made to live again. The
death-bed of Syme, for instance, is as pathetic as the wonderful paper
on Thackeray's death; and to-day many a heart is sore for 'Pet
Marjorie,' the ten-year-old child who died in Scotland almost a hundred
years ago.

As an essayist, Dr. Brown belongs to the followers of Addison and
Charles Lamb, and he blends humor, pathos, and quiet hopefulness with a
grave and earnest dignity. He delighted, not like Lamb "in the habitable
parts of the earth," but in the lonely moorlands and pastoral hills,
over which his silent, stalwart shepherds walked with swinging stride.
He had a keen appreciation for anything he felt to be excellent: his
usual question concerning a stranger, either in literature or life, w