13 AUGUST 1898, Page 24

David Brown, D.D., LL.D. : a Memoir. By William Garden

Blaikie, D D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) —Dr. Blaikie occupies too much space, perhaps, in telling the story of the late Principal Brown, of the Free Church College, Aberdeen, whose life extended from 1803 to 1897; but that story was worth telling. For Dr. Brown was a typical Presbyterian "pastor" of the scholarly order who, after doing well as a country minister of the Church of Scotland," came out at the Disruption" of 1843, became a Free Church minister in Glasgow, and finally Professor and princ, Simmons, B.Sc., - 4seirdsen. The most notable even! n Mathematics :—An Introduction to Atgeo. cps " heresy case ital, M.A. (A. and C. Black.)—Professor ChrisIa' -re the o-.:If as an exponent, at least in a tentative way, of reformed shar emetics. What he says about the old text-books contains so Blail nillustration that we cannot refrain from quoting it :—" If ewmired at all, they were usually ally huddled very well have acted differ' tsr of 'Miscellaneous Theorems,'—an The most interesting portions of thisbook, nOweier, are tes,s of which he treats of Dr. Brown's singularly happy domestic life, or his hard work as a pastor and teacher, and of his diligence in literary production. Dr. Brown was a man not of profouni but of very nimble intelligence ; and, although pronouncedly Evangelical in his views, he was on good terms with such very different men among his greater contemporaries as Cardinal Newman and Dr. Martineau. In a letter written in the end of last year to Dr. Brown's daughter, Dr. Martineau, after an allusion to the deaths of Mr. F. W. Newman and Mr. R. H. Hutton, the latter of whom he describes as " my most beloved of pupils —never more beloved than when he found a better teacher," writes : " I more and more am conscious of being but a lingerer here, yet, as spectator, if not as actor, I retain unabated my interest in the scene, and my faith, deepening every day, that the former things' were not better than these.' " Dr. Blaikie writes well, and his biography is certain to be much appreciated in Scotland.