'I report this from memory; of course it is not quite accurate in words, but you will find a tolerable report of it in the Caledonian Mercury of Saturday. This declaration was received with loud and long applause; as this was gradually subsiding, the Baillie (Mackay)* exclaims in character, "Ma conscience, if my Father the Deacon had been alive, etc., which, as you may suppose, had a most excellent effect.'

Whenever he could get a few days' leave, his chief delight was in making excursions over Scotland, which he seems to have explored pretty thoroughly from Galloway to Aberdeen, and from Arran to St Andrews, all the time making careful notes of antiquities and places of historical interest, but above all of geological and mineralogical features. During his sojourn in Edinburgh he made at least three close and lifelong friendships with Allen Thomson, the son of his host and tutor, with Torrie, a nephew of Professor Jameson, and with Copland. In company with one or other of the two last named he made many of his subsequent prolonged excursions on the Continent.

On leaving Edinburgh he was destined to begin serious work in his father's office, but, according to his invariable custom, he sought and obtained permission to make a circuitous journey home, in order that he might inspect some remarkable prehistoric foot-prints of animals in the sandstone at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire, and afterwards made his first acquaintance with the English Lakes. These same foot-prints caused no little stir among the geologists of the day; and the following letter gives an amusing account of one of the experiments made to explain their origin :

Jan. 23, 1828.

'I went on Saturday last to a party at Mr Murchison's house, assembled to behold tortoises in the act of walking upon dough. Prof. Buckland acted as master of the ceremonies. There were present many other geologists and savants, among them Dr Wollaston. At first the beasts took it into their heads to be refractory and to stand still. Hereupon the ingenuity of the professor was called forth in order to make them move. This he endeavoured to do by applying

* Mackay, the actor, who had made a hit in the part.

sundry flips with his fingers upon their tails; deil a bit however would they stir; and no wonder, for on endeavouring to take them up it was found that they had stuck so fast to the pie-crust as only to be removed with half a pound of dough sticking to each foot. This being the case it was found necessary to employ a rolling pin, and to knead the paste afresh; nor did geological fingers disdain the culinary offices. It was really a glorious scene to behold all the philosophers, flour-besmeared, working away with tucked-up sleeves. Their exertions, I am happy to say, were at length crowned with success; a proper consistency of paste was attained, and the animals walked over the course in a very satisfactory manner; insomuch that many who came to scoff returned rather better disposed towards believing.'

From Keswick he rode round Derwentwater on horseback, and arrived in London near the end of the year 1827. In 1828 he spent his first summer holiday in Scotland and made notes on Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire for Mr Moore, who was then engaged in writing Byron's Life. He was now fairly launched on his business career, and never relaxed his steady application to work until within a few days of his death in 1892; but from 1829 to 1884 all his holidays were saved up for travel.

There can be no doubt that the need of good guidebooks for travellers had taken firm hold of his mind in his student days; and by sheer hard personal labour he built up a series which held the field against all competitors till the time when cheap travel introduced the vast horde of travellers who cared little for intellectual information, and required a totally different class of vade mecum-travellers to whom where to feed was a more important question than what to see.

The influence of the Red Books used to be shown by various interesting incidents. One of the points invariably insisted on by my Father was the sanitary conditions and arrangements in hotels and cities; and I have no doubt that the vast improvement which has taken place in this respect in the succeeding years was more due to him than to any other individual. He used to receive accusations and threats from hotel-keepers and syndics, and always replied that, if they would furnish proof of amendment, he would alter his remarks, but not otherwise.

On one occasion I remember Mr John Delane, the famous Editor of the Times,' on his return from a journey abroad, telling my father that he had been present when an altercation was going on between a landlord and a man who claimed special privileges on the ground that he was Mr Murray of the Hand-Books. Mr Delane intervened and said, Mr Murray happens to be a friend of mine, and you are not he.' He therefore assisted in turning the impostor out of the house. Henry Reeve, in his Memoirs, writes,

'My stay at Vienna displeased me mightily; but the last two days of it were rendered more agreeable by the very welcome company of John Murray fils. I wish he had arrived sooner, for he is a very agreeable person, and the most thoroughgoing sightseer who ever trod the deck of a packet-boat.'

My father himself wrote so charming an account of the origin of the Hand-Books that I only venture to add a few details as to his early journeys. In 1829 he visited the chief places of interest in Holland and Belgium; in 1830, Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux and Central France; in 1831, with Torrie as companion, he went to Milan, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, etc., but on this occasion he was prevented from reaching Vienna by an outbreak of cholera. In 1836 he made his longest journey-down the Danube to the borders of Turkey and Wallachia. On one of these occasions he visited Goethe, of whom he writes:

'On reaching Weimar, having been favoured with an introduction to Goethe, I had the honour and pleasure of a personal interview with the hale old man, who received me in his studio (decorated with casts of the Elgin Marbles and other works of Greek art), attired in a brown dressing-gown, beneath which shone the brilliant whiteness of a clean shirt a refinement not usual among German philosophers. On this occasion I had the honour of presenting to Goethe the MS. of Byron's dedication of Werner to him.'

In 1837 he travelled with his two sisters up the Rhine, and through Switzerland to Milan; and in 1841 he explored the Pyrenees with his friend Brockedon, the well-known artist, doing much mountain-climbing in the days before that became a popular pastime. He was an early member of the Alpine Club, being elected in 1858.

Throughout these years he was busy writing and

publishing his Hand-Books, of which I have the original MSS. in his own handwriting. He wrote to his father, 'To the best of my belief I have not borrowed one sentence from any English author nor materially from any foreign one.'

Even in the midst of his work he found opportunities to attend scientific meetings in Great Britain. Here is an account of a meeting at Oxford in July 1833.

At the Oxford meeting almost the only representatives of Scottish Science were Sir David Brewster, and one Forbes. Cambridge sent forth as her champions Airy, Babbage, Whewell, and Sedgwick. Deputies came from almost every provincial Society. The venerable Dalton from Manchester (much to the credit of Oxford; a symptom of waning prejudice, you will style it) was honoured by the Doctor's degree, along with Brewster, a Presbyterian, and Faraday, a Sandemanian. Imagine however the Quaker Sages, decked out in Cardinal-like robes of scarlet, and even appearing and listening to a Sermon at the Cathedral on Sunday, in the seat of the Doctors and in the aforesaid robes. Even the science of Botany Bay was not left unrepresented-Sir Thomas Brisbane, the founder of the Observatory there, being present. Buckland was the life and soul of the meeting, of which he was president. The session continued for a week. On one of the days he gave an equestrian lecture on the geology of the neighbourhood. The class à cheval amounted to about 200-a capital troop of cavalry to scour over the plain-with the learned Professor, hammer in hand, at their head. A loud blast from his whistle announced the scene of action, and the whole party clustered round him in a few moments. He is a capital lecturer, with much power of lucid illustration. He combines so much fun as to render any subject interesting, however abstruse. He really was great upon the subject of a gigantic skeleton of the Megatherium recently arrived from Buenos Ayres.'

Edinburgh held for him another attraction besides the friends and associations of his student days. During his residence there he had seen a very charming little girl dancing at a children's party, and in 1847 he returned to be married to her. This was Marion, third daughter of Alexander Smith, an Edinburgh banker, who met his death in a curious way. He was inspecting the contents of Lord Elgin's house in Edinburgh prior to a sale by

auction when, owing to the crowd, a floor gave way and the hearthstone fell into the room below and killed him.

My father and mother were a most devoted couple, and until near the end, when illness confined her to the house, and he made his last journey to Italy with his daughters and younger son, I do not believe they were ever separated for more than a few days. To those who knew her as she was, Sir George Richmond's portrait recalls her refined graceful personality, but to others no words of mine can convey the gentle and sympathetic charm which endeared her to all who ever came within her influence.

Thus far I have confined my account mainly to my father's education and recreations, I must now turn to the business side of his life. It is not my intention, nor would it be possible within the limits of an article, to give a continuous and detailed account of my father's life. My object is to place on record a few incidents of his career in illustration of his character. I think it must have been during his journey in Bohemia in 1831 or '32 that he first made the acquaintance of Prince Metternich, whose family seat at Königswart he then visited. When Prince Metternich was a refugee in England, about the year 1850, my father went to visit him at Brighton; and the old statesman read him a chapter of his reminiscences-the account of his famous interview with Napoleon at Dresden when the Emperor, pacing up and down the room in a rage, threw down his hat and passed and repassed it lying on the floor, in the expectation that Metternich would pick it up for him. Metternich however paid no attention; and in the end the Emperor had to pick it up himself. My father was so impressed by this description that he offered the Prince a large sum (I think 3000l. or 4000l.) to be allowed to publish the Memoirs, but the Prince would not consent-it was too soon. Many years afterwards, when these records were made public, my father eagerly read the book, but found that the Dresden scene was by far the best plum of the whole; and he considered that he had had a fortunate escape.

In the course of business my father was brought into close relations with John Wilson Croker, a man who