express his personal
convictions.

What struck one most in Robertson Smith's writings was the easy
command wherewith he handled his materials. His generalisations were
based on an endlessly patient and careful study of details, a study in
which he never lost sight of guiding principles. With perfect lucidity
and an unstrained natural vigour, there was a sense of abounding and
overflowing knowledge which inspired confidence in the reader, making
him feel he was in the hands of a master. On all that pertained to the
languages and literature of the Arabic branch of the Semitic races,
ancient and modern (for he did not claim to be an Assyriologist), his
knowledge was accurate no less than comprehensive. Full of deference
to the great scholars--no one spoke with a warmer admiration of
Noeldeke, Wellhausen, and Lagarde than he did--he was a stringent
critic of unscientific work in the sphere of history and physics as
well as in that of philology, quick to expose the uncritical
assumptions or loose hypotheses of less careful though more
pretentious students. He used to say that when he had disposed of the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, he might undertake a "Dictionary of
European Impostors." Oriental lore was only one of many subjects in
which he might have achieved distinction. His mathematical talents
were remarkable, and during two sessions he taught with conspicuous
success the class of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh
as assistant professor. He had a competent acquaintance with not a few
other practical arts, including navigation, and once, when the
compasses of the vessel on which he was sailing in the Red Sea got out
of order, he proved to be the person on board most competent to set
them right. In metaphysics and theology, in ancient history and many
departments of modern history, he was thoroughly at home. Few, indeed,
were the subjects that came up in the course of conversation on which
he was not able to throw light, for the range of his acquirements was
not more striking than the swiftness and precision with which he
brought knowledge to bear wherever it was wanted.

There was hardly a line of practical life in which he might not have
attained a brilliant success. But the passion for knowledge made him
prefer the life of a scholar, and seemed to have quenched any desire
even for literary fame.

Learning is commonly thought of as a weight to be carried, which makes
men dull, heavy, or pedantic. Wit