The Chair of Divinity was in the gift of the Town-Council of Aberdeen. To Dr. Black's appointment there was no opposition worthy of notice. In a pecuniary point of view it involved a very considerable sacrifice on the Doctor's part. The salary was very small, but he sought not to supplement it by that of any other appointment. He had some private means, and with these he was content. Never, like some smaller men, did he clamour for more money. He probably considered his new sphere more congenial than that which he had quitted.

The Doctor continued to discharge his professorial duties in his usual serene, punctual, and methodical way, commanding universal respect, although not mixing much in society. At the Disruption conscientious conviction pointed out a certain path of duty on which he readily entered and calmly pursued; his placid and primitive spirit passing unruffled and unscathed by the heats and animosities of the stormy crisis. The record of his further labours is left for others.

People who think there is nothing of what they call fame without more or less of book-making, will probably set down Dr. Black as one of the viri obscuriores. They seem to hold with the Dutchman, that a man is nobody, unless he has written "a book as thick as all that!" To chasten this fond fancy, let them only step over the way to the

library of King's College, and there meditate on the fate of many a ponderous tome, clad in armour of leather, vellum, and brass, which the painful and overweening author considered panoply of proof against all the attacks of time. But oblivion has fallen upon them. One would just as soon think of disturbing the dust of the authors as that which covers their works. Yet were they mighty men in their day; but that day has passed away for ever. How much better had their lives been devoted to the useful duties of active life than to the fabrication of all that useless lumber! A like fate, indeed, seems to involve many works of the most incontestible merit-the fashion of this world ever passing away.

That our erudite Doctor, therefore, never wrote a book, impairs not the credit which is justly his due on the score of his having devoted himself to the faithful discharge of the duties of life. He was naturally more acquisitive than communicative; he was modest, shy, and retiring. He was too learned to think much of anything he could do himself. He had no notion of making money by literature or anything else; and there was that in his character which fixed his ambition on the immortality secured by the inscription of his name in a BOOK where "neither moth nor rust doth corrupt."

DR. FALCONER.

To the memory of this distinguished Oriental scholar a more extended reference seems due than that which was briefly made in our last obituary,* although our materials for this purpose are by no means so ample as we could wish.

Dr. Falconer was born in this city in the year 1805. He was the youngest, and latterly the only surviving, son of the late Mr. Gilbert Falconer, for many years the much-esteemed master of the English Burgh School. Having completed his studies at our Grammar School, under the care of Messrs. Forbes and Cromar, he became first competition bursar at Marischal College, gained the silver pen in the Greek class, and all but divided the honour of mathematical bursar. On leaving College he prosecuted the study of Latin and Greek with great assiduity and success. The former language he wrote with much ease and elegance. Of his skill in the latter he gave a few specimens in some metrical translations from the

* Vide Aberdeen Herald, 19th November 1853.

Greek Anthology, which appeared, but without his name, in one of our leading periodicals.

Before he had attained his twentieth year, he evinced a strong predilection for the study of the languages of the East. He attended the Hebrew classes of the late Professor Bentley, but owed his progress chiefly to indomitable perseverance in private study. In this way he acquired an extensive and accurate knowledge of Hebrew and its cognate dialects; and, although entirely self-taught, made considerable progress in Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani, His enthusiasm for these studies increasing with his advancement in them, he resolved to avail himself of the instructions of the most able Continental Orientalists. With this view he proceeded to Paris, where, for nearly two years, he attended the prelections of the celebrated Baron de Sacy, of M. Garçin de Tassy, and of M. Caussin de Perceval. Under those able teachers he made rapid progress; and so high was de Sacy's opinion of his acquirements, that, before he had completed his twenty-fifth year, he was elected a member of the Asiatic Society of Paris, on the special recommendation of that illustrious scholar. At a subsequent period, Mr. Falconer attended the classes of some of the great German Orientalists.

Returning to his native city, he made it his residence for a short time; but ultimately left it for London about the end of 1832. In the metro

polis he established himself as a teacher of Persian and Hindustani; prosecuted the critical study of these and of other Eastern languages; and gradually secured the intimacy and friendship of all the leading Orientalists of the day. He was speedily elected a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and from time to time published in its Transactions translations from the Persian poets. On the establishment of the London University, he presented an application for the chair of Oriental Languages. On this occasion he trusted entirely to his testimonials and to the proofs he had given of his fitness for the office aspired to; for, bashful even to a weakness, he recoiled from all personal canvassing with an intensity of nervous horror, which, to his intimate friends, was perhaps as much a source of amusement as of regret. To use a homely but expressive phrase, the Oriental Chair did not take; it was found impossible to form a public class, and endowment there was none. So, finding that he could be of no use as a Professor, and his increasing reputation gaining him numerous private pupils— besides employment as a translator of official documents for the East India Company-he retired from the College. Latterly, the Directors of the Company assigned to him apartments in the India House for the reception of such pupils as found it most convenient to attend there. In the year 1839, when he had just completed his thirty-fourth year,