1 N^ ' k-; ■ :•^^^^<■^^^^^^^\■'' K^» ^\\^^^'^^\^^^^^^^^^\^^\■^\:^\^^\x..^\^w^>^>^^^^^\w :^^ I THE LIBRARY OF THE OF LOS UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA ANGELES ■7 /A-7 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. PRINTED FOB PRIVATE CIRCULATION. EDINBURGH 1876. NOTE. This repriui. is solely of the nature of a scrap-book of news- paper extracts. The members of Mr Eussel's family were anxious to possess in a collected form copies of the tributes which the newspaper press had paid to his memory ; and, as the ref^uirements could not be fully met otherwise, it has been thought advisable to print the notices in this way. They are given with scarcely any attempt at arrangement or at editing. In addition to the notices here printed, there were many more, dealing chiefly with biographical details, which, being more or less similar to those given, have not been included in the collection. o 6297GS ALEXANDEB EUSSEL. THE SCOTSMAN, July 19, 1876. With feelings of regret to which we are quite unable to give adequate expression, and which we cannot doubt will be shared in almost universally throughout the country, we have to announce the death of Mr Alexander Eussel, for a period of thirty-one years editor of this journal. The sadness of this event is deepened by its having come unexpectedly. Four years ago Mr Eussel was attacked with heart disease, which compelled him to take a less active part than he had previously done in the general work of the Scotsman. For two months in 1873 he was on the Continent by the advice of his physician, endeavouring by rest to overcome the malady with which he had been assailed. Though he derived much benefit from this holiday, it did not accomplish all that had been desired, and Mr Eussel continued subject to occasional sharp attacks, which made more rest necessary, and seriously alarmed his friends. Towards the close of last year the spasms became more numer- ous, and they recurred at shorter intervals, until a fortnight ago. Then, following close upon one of them, came an attack of pleurisy, which brought on complete prostration. Mr Eussel, however, seemed to be recovering from this illness, when, on Tuesday morning shortly after nine o'clock, another seizure occurred, under which he rapidly sank, and died within about ten minutes. The son of a solicitor practising in Edinburgh, Alexander Eussel was born in this city on 10th December 1814. His mother, who died about twelve years ago, was a woman of remarkable vigour of character. To her sole care he was left A 2 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. by bis t'atbei-'s early deatb ; and to ber be owed mucb of bis mental idiosyncrasy. His grandfather by the motber's side was Jobn Somerville, wbo occupied tbe post of clerk in the jury court presided over by Lord Cbief-Comniissioner Adam, and, if a tendency towards politics can be considered bereditary, it may be assumed tbat it was from tins stauncb old gentleman tbe future editor inberited bis marked predilection in tliis direc- tion. Mr Somerville was mixed up in a quiet way witb all tbe leading political movements of bis time, and bis grandson used to relate many anecdotes of bis activity and zeal on bebalf of tbe Liberal cause. He received tbe rudiments of education at various scbools in Eclinburgb, including a classi- cal seminary tben conducted by tbe liev. Eoss Kennedy in St James' Square. It may, bowever, be said tbat be was really, in tbe fullest sense of tbe word, a self-educated man. From boybood be was an ardent reader of almost all kinds of books, and he began betimes to use an inborn faculty of keen observation of men in all circumstances and conditions, and of events and tbeir bearings. From bis youtb be bad a passion- ate love for country life and things, not merely as connected witb field sports, but for tbeir own sakes, and as they were hallowed by poetic association. Sturdy independence of view in matters of opinion, ecclesiastical as well as general, was also an early developed feature of bis character. While bis mother and brothers attended an Established Church, he attached him- self to the ministry of tbe late Dr Jobn Brown, and regularly went to Broughton Place Church to listen to that venerable divine. The lad made bis first acquaintance witb practical life in being apprenticed to tbe printing trade with Mr John Johnstone, the predecessor of Dr Carrutbers in the editorship of the Inverness Courier, and still remembered also as editor of tbe Schoolmaster, a publication which may be considered tbe jiioneer of that class of sound, yet light, popular literature since more fvdly developed in such serials as Chambers' Journal and the Penny Magazine. In Mr Johnstone he found a good friend, and no less so in that gentleman's wife, who, besides editing Tait's Magazine, was known in tbe literary world as the author of " Clan Albyn" and other novels. To Mrs Johnstone, a woman of taste and culture, is perhaps due the THE SCOTSMAN. 3 credit of first recognising Russel's literary ability ; hers at any rate was the merit of encouraging the obvious bent of his mind towards a literary career, and through her he was led into con- tributing to Tail's Magazine and other periodicals ; while at the same time, born politician as he was, he had been taking a keen interest in the great reform contest then acjitatin" the country, and acquiring by diligent reading that knowledge of political and historical matters which he was soon to turn to good account. Mr Eussel was still a very young man when he obtained the post of editor of the Berwick Advertiser. In this position he remained for a few years, and then removed to Cupar to take tlie editorship of the Fife Herald, which he continued to hold till about the end of 1844. In those early stages of his jour- nalistic career he was of coursa involved in all the miscellane- ous drudgery exacted of provincial editors in those days. On his shoulders lay the whole burden of getting up the paper — a task involving, besides editorial functions properly so-called, a good deal of merely manual labour, and, along with such de- scriptive writing as might be called for, the reporting of all sorts of local and other meetings. He had qualified himself for the last mentioned duty by acquiring in boyhood considerable ex- pertness as a shorthand writer, and this accomplishment, after he had ceased to use it for reporting purposes, stood him in good stead through life as affording a means of rapidly noting the gist of his reading, and giving their first rough form to his writings. The practice of making shorthand notes from the books he read was adopted in early life, and he had many volumes of such extracts. Both at Berwick and at Cupar Mr Eussel was naturally thrown into contact with the leaders of the Liberal party. While resident on the Border he formed, among other acquaintanceships, that of Mr Eobertson of Ladykirk, afterwards Lord Marjoribauks, and along with that gentleman took an active part in certain electioneering contests in North Northumberland. In Fifeshire he became connected with, among others. Admiral Wemyss, the late Eight Hon. Edward EUice, and bis son, the present member for the St Andrews Burghs, with both of whom he subsequently main- tained a close and confidential correspondence on public affairs. 4 ALEXANDER KUSSEL. One of j\Ir Riissel's most intimate associates in Cupar was James Bruce, the editor of the Fife Journal^ and author of several biographical works which still hold a place in literature. Mr Bruce, a man of considerable classical learning and of ready literary faculty, was endowed with a keen sense of humour, fully appreciated and stimulated by the genial brother journa- list with whom he was ten years afterwards associated fur some time as assistant in the editorship of the Scotsman. Towards the close of 1844, Mr Eussel was induced to (j[uit Cui)ar and take charge of a Liberal paper started at Kilmar- nock. By this time he had attracted attention as a political writer, and after spending only a few months in Ayrshire, he was invited by Mr John Pdtchie, late proprietor of the Scotsman, to become assistant to the late Mr Charles Maclaren in the editorship of that newspaper. To form such a connec- tion with what was even then recognised as the first political journal in Scotland had, Mr Paissel frankly confessed, long- been the chief object of liis ambition, and accordingly he gladly, in Marcli 1845, returned to his native city. For INlr Maclaren's writings and character he had lung cherished a warm admiration, and he proved to him a most devoted and zealous colleague. With characteristic candour the veteran editor at once recognised and admitted Mr Eussel's extraor- dinary readiness, the masculine grasp he took of every subject, and his varied and extensive knov^^ledge of political topics and of public men. In point of fact, Mr Maclaren, towards the close of 1845, ceased to act as editor, except in so far as he took charge in his colleague's occasional absence, or advised Milh liim as to the conduct of the paper. His formal renunciation of the editorship did not, however, take place till January 1849 ; and its announcement even at that time was dictated solely by his reluctance to continue taking credit to which lie felt he was not entitled, and in spite of ]\Ir liussel's solicitations that he should retain at least the honorary position of editor. About the time of his joining the Scotsman, Mr Eussel had attracted the notice of ]\Ir Cobden and other leaders of the Anti-Corn Law agitation. His pen was employed on several occasions in furtlierance of the objects of the League ; and so valuable was his advo'cacy considered that overtures were THE SC0T8MAX. made to bini, which, however, he did not feel himself free to accept, to become intimately associated with the active and able men engaged in that enterprise. One of the first subjects in regard to which the Scotsman, under his care, made its mark, was the question of Highland destitution, about which much \vas being said in 1847. Not content to accept the ordinary, and, as they might be styled traditional and hereditary statements of the case, Mr E-ussel set about an examination of the actual facts and their causes, aud it is not too much to say that his arguments and investiga- tions, to which publicity was given, not only in newspaper articles, but in one if not two papers in the JEclinhurgh Bevieio, afforded such an accession of knowledge alike as to existing evils and their remedies, as stayed the ever-recurrent plague, with the consequent appeals for lowland subscriptions and Government relief to a famine-stricken population. The same year witnessed the defeat of Mr Macaulay in his candidature for Edinburgh, which to the parties who had had charge of the Liberal organisation in the city came very much in the nature of a surprise. It was not so, however, to Mr Russel, who, in his conferences with the leaders, had at an early stage in the contest discerned that their hopes were too sanguine and their arrangements insufficient. Another notable local contest in which Mr Eussel took special interest, was that of 1856, on the final retirement of Mr ]\Iacaulay, and which resulted in the return of the late Mr Adam Black. On the part which the Scotsman took in that contest — a fierce struggle, in which it may be said to have fought single-handed — it is not necessary here to dwell Nor is it, perhaps, now desirable to do more than allude to the action for damages raised by Mr Duncan IM'Laren, a leading promoter of the can- didature of Mr Brown-Douglas, in reference to articles that had appeared in the course of that election, or to the handsome public subscription which was raised to defray for the Scotsman the expenses of that action and the £400 damages which the jury awarded to the pursuer. Among other matters to which in subsequent years Mr Russel lent the weight of his advocacy was that of the Burns' Centenary, contributing in no small degree to the success of the celebration. 6 ALEXANDER KUSSEL. On the change in the Newspaper Stamp Act, which took effect in June 1855, the Scotsman, which up to that time had been puhlished twice a-week, began to appear also as a daily paper. This of necessity entailed an enormous increase of work upon the editor ; but, with many ditticulties to contend against, Mr Eussel never failed to meet the daily-recurring requirements of the paper ; and for three or lour months scarcely a day passed on which he did not write one or more articles — seventy leading articles having been written by him, we believe, day after day. If this extreme pressure on his energies and resources caused any deterioration in the quality of his work, it was certainly less obvious to his readers than to himself It would be difficult, as well as tedious, to attempt to recount the public occasions or public questions on which Mr Eussel's pen was brought into requisition during his career of over thirty years of editorial life in Edinburgh. No political topic, general or local, of any magnitude was left untouched ; nor was any taken up but to be handled with trenchant vigour. In his practical sagacity, his political wisdom, his intimate and extensive knowledge of men and their relations to parties and shades of opinion, the leaders of the Liberal cause had the most profound confidence ; and as a natural consequence, his influence in election movements and the like was not confined to Scotland. It need hardly be added — for his action has been all along before the public — that this influence was employed solely for public purposes, and in promotion of what he believed to be the worthiest ends, and that no personal motive or consideration ever biassed his views or guided his course in dealing even with the most complicated and difficult of such matters. Of course all this brought Mr liussel into intimate connection with the leading political men of his time, and in his visits to London — at one period of his life almost annual — be was a welcome guest in the highest social circles, not only among men of his own side, but with many whose political opinions were entirely opposed to his. There, as in his home sphere, his brilliant social qualities were highly appreciated, and his acquaintance was sought by almost every man of mark in literature and science as well as in politics. Among his literaiy acquaintances THE SCOTtiMAX. 7 meation may be made of Thackeray, whose peculiar genius the Scotsman was one of the earliest journals to recognise, and who thoroughly reciprocated Ilussel's cordial admiration when they became acquainted on the novelist's first visiting Edinburgh in 1851; and as the latest example of his friendships among scientific men, we may cite the intimacy which within the last two years grew up between him and Professor Huxley. A typical man in politics as well as in literature and science. Lord Brougham may be named as a friend with whom he lived in constant correspondence for a period of ten or twelve years. Another close friend was the first Lord Dunfermline, formerly speaker of the House of Commons, who gave him the benefit of his intimacy, counsel, and support ; and their mutual friend- ship and confidence remained unimpaired to the end of Lord Dunfermline's long and honoured life. This connection he originally owed, along with many other good offices, to Dr John Hill Burton, whose early and cordial friendship Mr liussel higlily appreciated, and never failed to enjoy. In 1859, the public services to which reference has been made met with gratifying public acknowledgment. At a meeting held in Edinburgh in May of that year, it was moved, by Sir W. Gibson-Craig, seconded by Mr James Moncreiff (now Lord Moncreiff), and unanimously resolved that Mr Eussel, " by his able, consistent, and powerful advocacy of enlightened political principles, having largely contributed to the diffusion of sound Liberal opinions in Scotland, a testimonial be presented to him in recognition of these services to the community, and as a mark of respect for his honourable and independent conduct in public and private life." The long list of subscribers to the proposed testimonial included the names of the Eight. Hon. W. P. Adam of Blair Adam, M.P. ; the Marquis of Breadalbane ; the Pdght. Hon. E. P. Bouverie, M.P. ; Mr Adam Black, M.P. ; Mr Walter Buchanan, M.P. ; Rev. Thomas Barclay, D.D., Principal of Glasgow Univer- sity ; Lord Belhaven, Viscount Dalrymple, Lord Dunfermline, Sir William Dunbar, Bart., M.P. ; Sir F. H. Davie, Bart., M.P. ; Mr Robert Dalgleish, M.P. ; the Right Hon. Edward Ellice M.P. ; Mr Edward Ellice, jun., M.P. ; Mr William Ewart, M.P.; Colonel Ferguson of Raith, M.P. ; Rev. Robert Lee, D.D. ; Earl 8 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. of Minto (late), Lord Macaulay, Viscoimt Melgund (Earl of Minto), Lady Murray, Mr Dudley C. Marjoribanks, MP. ; Lord l*anmure, the Duke of Eoxburghe, Earl of EoseLeiry, Mr David Eobertsou of Ladykirk, M.T. ; the Earl of Stair, Professor Simpson, IVIr H. E. Hope Vere of Craigiehall, Mr J. H. Erskine Wemyss, M.P., of Wemyss Castle ; Mr George Young, advocate. The sum subscribed amounted to £1770, and the testimonial took the form of a presentation of silver plate, which was publicly made at the Waterloo Eooms. Still more flattering was the compliment lately paid by what may be considered as the central organisation of the Liberal party, in the spontaneous election of Mr Paissel as a member of the Eeform Club. This graceful act was performed in April 1875, and in the intimation of it by Mr James Caird, on whose motion it had been done, mention was made that the committee of the club had power to elect two members every year, but had not exercised the privilege since 1873 — the gentlemen heretofore elected being— 1869, Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville ; 1870, Lord Hartington and Lord Spencer; 1871, Lord Lansdowne and Mr Card we 11 ; 1872, the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of West- minster ; 1873, Lord Odo Eussell. In the minds of many people the name of Mr Eussel was intimately associated with the sport of angling. His predilec- tion for this engaging pursuit, in which he found an invaluable relaxation from professional toil, may be said to have been inherited from his father. While yet a child he was intro- duced to the pastoral scenes and charming waters of the St Mary's Loch district, where he came a good deal in contact with James Hogg, the " Ettrick Shepherd," and formed associa- tions which were cultivated in after years in frequent visits to Tibbie Shiels'. As a boy, he was wont to make frequent fishing excursions to the Pentland Hills, as also to the banks of the Almond and the Water of Leith, not then as now an eye- sorrow to the angler, but streams affording excellent sport. His subsequent residence in Berwick and in Cupar afforded continued opportunities for indulging what had by tliat time become a sort of passion ; and after his return to Edinburgh he spent many a day's hardly-earned absence from work on the Vianks of the Whittader, the Gala, and the Tweed. In course THE SCOTSMAN. V of years Mr Russel naturally acquired an extensive acquaint- ance with the angling waters of Scotland, as well as with their tenants— from the humble burn trout to the IcH-dly salmon. AVith the Tweed in particular he was as familiar and of it as fond as Sir Walter Scott. Its praises were constant in his mouth, and he had ready store of quotation for illustration of its many charms. He knew, it may almost be said, every foot of its beautiful banks from Berwick to Tweedsmuir, not to speak of its numerous tributary streams. In this, as in other matters, Mr Eussel was ever prompt to turn the knowledge he had acquired to practical account. The habits of the salmon had especially engaged his attention, and the results of his in- quiries into that mysterious subject, besides being from time to time given to the world in the columns of the Scotsman, were embodied in an elaborate article in the Quarterly Eevicw, which was subsequently expanded into a good-sized volume. Other papers on angling matters, including a " Saunter in Sutherlandshire," in which the rod came in for its due share of attention, were contributed to Blackicood's Magazine. The reputation which Mr Russel thus acquired as an authority on fishing led to his being repeatedly examined before parliament- ary commissions, and his evidence, as well as the arguments he had placed before the public in his various writings on the sub- ject, undoubtedly influenced subsequent legislation, more par- ticularly with reference to his favourite Tweed. "With Mr Russel, as with other genial men, angling served to foster, if it did not originate, highly valued friendships. He was one of the band of chosen spirits who formed the Edinburgh Angling Club, an association of whose early days at " The Nest," bright with the feast of reason and the flow of soul, there are, if we mistake not, but two original members now left to tell. While finding in the rod a never-failing means of recreation, Mr Russel from time to time sought relief from arduous labour in somewhat extensive excursions. In 1847 he paid a visit to Skye,in which he accomplished the double object of gaining health and investigating the phenomena of Highland destitu- tion. Some three years later, in company M'ith his intimate friend Mr Hill Burton, he made a short tour in Ireland ; and in 1S63 he first made acouaintance of the Continent in a visit 10 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. to Brussels and other well-known tourist haunts. The winter of 1869 afforded him an opportunity of visiting Egypt to wit- ness the opening of the Suez Canal ; and in November 1872, after his first serious illness, he made a long journey in the south of Europe, in the course of which, after spending some time at Arcachon, near Bordeaux, he visited several places in Portugal, Spain, and Northern Italy. Of most of these excur- sions interesting notes were published in the Scotsman, from which it appeared that if political disquisition and controversial argument had mainly exercised his pen, it was not less quali- fied to excel in descriptive writing. Mr Eussel was twice married, and leaves a widow, sons, and daughters. Any attempt on our part to say what Mr Paissel was to the world and to his friends is rendered supremely difficult, not only by the stun and suddenness of the blow that has taken him from us, but by the perplexity that arises in trying to decide at what point of his character to begin. He was a man of so many brilliant and really noble qualities, both of brain and heart, that it is hardly possible to fix upon any one in par- ticular, and say of it, here was the central and essential element of his nature. Even the physical energy, elasticity, and capacity of endurance by which, until almost the last, he was distinguished, would have set up a reputation for many of those to whom eminence in such gifts by itself is regarded as something to be coveted. None but his own many-sided powers of observation and graphic pen could, with due leisure, have paid in anything like just measure that tribute to the marvellous combination of faculties that was in him, which, amidst the great sadness of this unexpected moment, it is our duty to try as best we may to offer to his memory. Regarded on the side of general intellectual power, his mind presented a union of strengtli, swiftness, and subtlety, rare even in the comparatively narrow circle of those who might be entitled to be called his peers. He had comprehensiveness enough to span the widest, power enough to take up the weightiest, and grasp enough to fix down the most elusive subjects of thought ; THE SCOTSMAN. 11 while no distinction could be so fine as to escape the keenness of his analysis. It was not merely that nothing to which the mind of a literary man can be directed ever presented any serious difficulty to his mastering it, or as much of it as was possible and necessary, but that he could do this with a rapidity that is so much oftener absent than present in men of real calibre and thoroughness. He was one of those readers who seem to possess a special faculty of pouncing at once upon those parts of a book that are necessary for knowing what is really in it. Two or three volumes, stiff enough to employ average readers for a week, would be got through by him and marked for reference, and often significantly annotated, in a night ; and long political or ecclesiastical debates, that probably killed the best part of a day in many a country mansion or country manse, had such substance as might be in them taken out and laid past for use in so incredibly brief a space of time that, were we to mention it, there might be doubt of its possi- bility, and it certainly would not be relished as a compliment by sundry laborious orators. Besides, he could read men as well as books, and just as quickly and thoroughly. He very soon distinguished the man who was worth talking to from the man who was not, and speedily extracted from him whatever speciality of ideas or information he had to give. It did not matter very much what the subject was. It might be science, theology, art, literature, politics, law, trade, travel, field sports or other amusements, antiquarian or contemporary history, or merely the ordinary personal news and particulars of town and country, he found out at once where his man was strong, and distilled the essential contents of him into his own mind. He had a wonderful power of disentangling the general principles and central facts that were worth preserving, from the mass of details with which men of special information are always apt and often anxious to load their communications. We are nut exaggerating when we say that in an hour's conversation with an expert, or man of original research or speculation, he could draw out the marrow of half a lifetime's application or discovery. Then the tenacity of his memory was quite upon a par with his omnivorous and rapid power of intellectual assimilation. In several respects his memory was a very 12 ALEXANDEK IIUSSEL, remarkable one. Some great memories have been oppressively and confoundiugly, as well as extensively, retentive, bringing np to the thoughts of their possessors experiences that would liave better fallen into oblivion. But Mr Ilussel's was apparently what may be called a discriminative memory. He did not absolutely remember everything that had come before his mind, but he seldom failed to recollect whatever it was not advantageous to forget. If he did not recall exactly what it was, he knew where to find it. And this remarkable power of reproduction extended not merely to facts and ideas, but to phraseology as well. An epigram, an eloquent or brilliant sentence, or a striking passage in a poem, could be brought up verbatim and with facility, months, and even years, after it had arrested his attention for the moment. Materials of the most multifarious character — bluebooks and poetry, Isaac Walton and the Shorter Catechism, the intricacies of European diplomacy and the intrigues of the Town Council, — were all pigeon-holed away, and within easy reach, in the recesses of that capacious recollection, ready to be produced when wanted. Many a time in daily debate this fiiculty lias stood its possessor in good stead, and effected the ready demolition of an adversary, when some act or utterance of his, long ago forgotten perhaps by himself, or, at all events, supposed by him to be forgotten by others, has been fished up from the murky depths of the past, and furbished into a bright and fatal weapon of the " Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee" order. As a consequence of the action of these great and varied powers over a vast range of literature, and throughout a long and endlessly changing social intercourse with representatives of every phase of thought and knowledge, his mind was an almost unique magazine of the class of principles and facts immediately wanted for the purposes of contemporary discus- sion in its numberless ramifications, — a store-house not more remarkable for the amplitude of its contents than for the ready command of them continually maintained by its possessor. Of the powerful and brilliant fashion in which these resources were turned to account for the purposes of his vocation, no one who has kept his eye upon the current of Scottish public life at any time during the last thirty years THE SCOTSMAN. 13 requires to be informed. Strong, condensed, incisive, spark- ling, his style may be described as a structure of closely cemented argument, based upon an earnest purpose of reason, softened in its outline by a ubiquitous humour, and flashing from foundation to pinnacle with points of wit. Like all vigorous natures that have sought their sphere of action among ideas, he despised falsehood and folly, not only on their own account and for their contrariety to what is alone of value in thought, but also for the weakness which is in most cases the source of them. Accordiugly, he never argued except in behalf of what seemed to him to be a reality and truth worth arguing for, and which we are free to say very generally was so. He was perfectly incapable of spinning sentences without sincerity and without aim, as the manner of too many of his profession is. He could not have done it had he tried ; but he never tried. He fought only for what he believed in ; and whatever feeling of anger or anguish might be experienced by the adversary who might happen to be the object of assault, he would not complain that he had been trilled with, or dealt with otherwise than became a critic who seriously regarded him as an offence to be argumentatively suppressed. Beyond doubt it was the moral inspiration derived from this fundamental veracity and impatience of unreality, falsehood, and cant of all kinds — literary, political, or ecclesiastical — that made the one-half of his strength and of his success. No man can hold on who not backed by his own consciousness of veracity and the desire to serve it ; and it is only the blunder of the superficial and the stupid to suppose that there is no depth of genuine moral pur- pose beneath a light and playful form of expression. It is often just because it is so deep that they are unable to see it Without the power derived from this consciousness of fighting for something true and valuable, the subject of this notice could not have maintained the up-hill struggle with a various and bitter opposition, ecclesiastical as well as political, which marked the earlier periotl of his journalistic career. Nowhere was the truth of this more signally illustrated than in the stand which he made on the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. Here he took the clear position dictated by fairness and good sense, which is now the merest commonplace of political action, but 14 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. which was then shrunk from in terror by people who were afraid to be just because fanatics might call them Papists. Friends vacillated, scores of subscribers gave him up ; but he persevered, relying on the simple conviction of rectitude, and when the Act turned out a dead letter, his subscribers came back with a body of recruits in their train. This same quality of argumentative earnestness was really the characteristic and the backbone of Mr Russel's literary style. We need not dwell upon the well-known attractions of his writing, the compact, always graphic, often racy state- ment, the apposite quotation, the sudden surprising wit, the mirth-moving irresistible exuberance of humour, which made the leading articles that came from his own pen a literary honne louche for all his fellow-countrymen not destitute of the national mental characteristics, and which have created a small host of well-meaning but not over-successful imitators. What is of more importance to point out is that, easy as was Mr Russel's command of these means of popularity, his mind never yielded to the temptation of parading them simply for their own sakes. Not a few writers, with a little fun in them, lug in a sort of dummy argument to show off their fun upon. The fun, in fact, with them is the serious part of the business ; the argument is a mere joke. But with Mr Russel there was none of this trick and mockery. It was all honest work. The charm of his wit lay in its spontaneity, in its bubbling up, naturally, out of the soil of tlie subject that was in question. What he really wanted to do was to prove his point ; the amusement came out entirely by the way, in a sort of inevitable manner, as if it could not possibly be helped. The sparks and flashes that were struck out as he went along were really not planned by him ; they were the mere mechanical result of the blows dealt by his logical hammer on the stocks and stones through which he had to pursue his argumentative course. For the same reason his humour was essentially genial and sympathetic, not biting and acrimonious. It was of course, occasionally, personal enough, but never malignantly so. It was ideas not persons, " measures not men," that he was earnest for or against. If a particular individual happened to connect himself with an obnoxious idea, more especially if he THE SCOTSMAN. 15 happened to stand in front of it, in an apparently defensive, not to say ostentatiously pugilistic attitude, and if he caught the full force of a blow that was really and ultimately intended for the idea, all that could be said was that he had no business to be there. But the malignant persecution of a person merely for personal reasons formed no part of his system as a writer. The stiletto and the poisoned arrow were absent from his armoury. His style is thus properly describable as serious appeal, chemically interpenetrated, not mechanically overlaid with brilliancy, and hence it was often happiest in its briefest statements. Some of the most effective things he ever wrote were the notes, frequently a single sentence, added by way of reply to self-complacent and aggressive correspondents. In such cases the rash assailant found himself not seldom tripped up and danced upon by the same foot, in the same moment. And owing to this inartificial and unforced character of the leading grace of his style, he could, albeit not given to the melting mood, glide without effort into simple, tender, or pathetic statement when it was wanted. Obituary notices, from his own hand, even of opponents, were generous, if by nothing else, by their absence of unpleasant reflection, and of friends, often touching in an extreme degree to those who can understand how much feeling may be condensed into a few graceful strokes. Of the undeniably powerful and widespread influence exer- cised by Mr Eussel upon the mind of his contemporaries in his own country, and which in its more immediate and popular aspect was certainly unsurpassed, if it was equalled, by that of any other public man, the larger share was, as might have been expected, achieved in his special and professional capacity as a journalist. To edit a newspaper, so as to make it at once a great attraction and a great power, is as much an art as to paint a picture that will sell, or to build a ship that will outsail or sink its rivals ; and if success be any criterion of artistic power, Mr Eussel was undoubtedly a great artist. That the Scotsman is the sole representative of Scottish public opinion in England and abroad, and that it represents it so that that opinion does not need to hang its head on the arena of cosmopolitan discussion, is largely due to the independence 16 ALEXANDER UUSSEL. of spirit, the tact, the discernment of character, and the unflag- ging energy, as well as the literary genius by which Mr llussel imparted a dignity to the work of editing a newspaper, which it can hardly be said to have possessed in his own country before his time. It need scarcely be said that this was not effected witli- out incessant vigilance and labour. Undoubtedly the native power which enabled him to throw off his work with an almost incredible ease and rapidity, and the exact menioiy which enabled him to venture on statements of fact in the heat and hurry of composition, whose accuracy was scarcely ever shaken in any appreciable degree by the subsequent researches of opponents, were both powerfully contributing elements to his professional success ; but his anxious and unremitting attention to all parts of his calling was not less so. The literature — the news— the correspondence — before he was stricken with dis- ease his eye was on them all, continually on the watch to get m all that was worth public attention, and to keep out what was not. In the more strictly didactic part of his work, in his leading articles, he was continually devising how he might educate public opinion up to what seemed to him the correct view of things, and it will not be denied by any that in many ways he was successful ; and not seldom he was most widely awake, when his opponents thought they had caught him napping. As a politician, Mr Eussel's peculiar place in his party in this country will not be readily supplied. His long experience, his perfect acquaintance with the history of imperial politics, not only for the past thirty years, but as far back as it is necessary for us of the present day to go, his minute knowledge of the lie of local events and attitude of local magnates all over Scotland, and the influence which he could exercise through the leading columns of his journal, necessarily gave him a commanding influence in the counsels of that political party with which he was identified by conviction and associated in fortune. His personal influence on politics was scarcely less than his public, and many an aspirant to the political career, as well as not a few actually engaged in it, from the House of Commons down to the municipal ward, will miss the useful advice and information which were so readily supplied by the veteran advocate of enlightened Liberalism. THE SCOTSMAN. 1 / There was a sense in which Mr llussel might be called an ecclesiastic, and no uninterested or uninfluential one. Under- standing perfectly the power of the ecclesiastical element iu the daily feeling and life of his countrymen — a feature of it totally unintelligible to the majority of strangers — he rightly assigned to it an important place in his discussions of public affairs. But he most carefully limited himself to the ecclesiastical as distinguished from the theological or religious sphere. As a journalist, he would neither be religious nor irreligious, neither theological nor anti-theological ; he attacked no article of orthodoxy, and vindicated no position of heresy ; he took his stand and made his remarks on the line that separates the Church from ordinary social or political life. And even here he declined either to advocate or oppose any special ecclesiastical organisation or type of life. He confined himself to the task of vindicating freedom of conscience, and consequent conscientious action, and of suppressing, as far as he could, intolerance, Pharisaism, inconsistency, and pure nonsense, and to the promotion of liberty, honesty, and charity ; with what success the ineffectual anger of a consider- able body of baffled bigots is the best testimony. As a member of private society, Mr Eussel was not less of a power than on the field of public controversy, although, certainly, in a very different way. It is difficult to say whether he w^as more liked or admired. His great conversa- tional ability, his mastery of multifarious information, his ready, exquisite, and inexhaustible wit and humour, his boundless fund of anecdote, always fresh and always appro- priate, his watchful consideration for the feelings of others, and his amazing and ceaseless flow of animal spirits, which nothing but disease or grief could check, made him an irresistible com- panion to all in whom the social instinct was not entirely dead ; while the wide range of his sympathy placed him at once sympathetically en rapport with all kinds and classes of people that had anything in them to sympathise with — with savans and salmon fishers, bishops and graziers, intellectual women and Highland gillies. But it was in a more sacred, if a narrower, circle still that what are probably the best parts of any man's nature found in his case full scope for their exercise. B 18 ALEXANDEK KUSSEL. No truer friend to those who were his friends, no kinsman more tender-hearted to those hound to him hy the ties of natural affection ever breathed, than he whose qualities this nutice has attempted to delineate. The hand which the one hour had been felling an ecclesiastical oppressor or a political pretender, would be found the next caressing with the touch of a feather the tresses of a little child, or giving the grasp of condolence to afflicted friendship, or doing the secret deed of kindness. But on these things we may not dwell. Nor can we venture to intrude with a merely inquisitive aim into that holiest region of the spirit where man's relation to the Eternal and the Unseen, — his religion, — has its seat. Suffice it here to record the fact that, while certaiidy devoid of every form of the " preaching cant," and indignantly opposed to sham religion of any kind, he was to the last a member and supporter of the Church of his childhood, a regular worshipper in the parish church of the Greyfriars, to which he had been attracted by the ministrations of the late Dr Eobert Lee, and where he remained during the ministry of his successor, the present incumbent. Take him all in all, we who have been associated with him in the work which he did with so much power, courage, and justice, but in which his place must henceforth be empty for evermore, do not expect to look upon his like again. The earth which has closed over him has received the dust of few who have done their special work to better effect, or with a braver or gentler heart. THE SCOTSMAN, July 22, 1876. The funeral of the late Mr Alexander Paissel, editor of the Scotsman, took place yesterday afternoon, the interment being made in the family burying-ground. Dean Cemetery, At two o'clock the friends invited to take part in the obsequies assembled at the residence of the deceased, 9 Chester Street, where a religious service was conducted by the Rev. Dr Wallace, minister of Old Greyfriars. Among those present were : — THE SCOTSMAN. 19 The Eight Hon. the Eaii of Miiito, the Eight Hon. tlie Eaii of Eoseberry, the Eight Hon. Lord Lindsay, the Eight Hon. Lord Young, the Hon. Lord Deas, the Hon. Lord iShand, Sheriff Mcolson, the Eev. Dr Sandford, Eev. H. G. Graham, ISTenthorn : Captain Maynard, Professor Fraser, Dr Potts, Fettes College ; Dr Balfour, Walker Street ; Dr Foulis, George Harrison, Dr Findlater, W. Brodie, E.S.A. ; James Hay, Leith ; Charles Morton, W.S. ; Walter Grindlay, Fettes College ; George Menzies, Seafield ; L. La Cour, Inverleith Eow ; J. Lindsay Bennett, London ; James Dundas of Dundas, W. Scott Dalgleish, James Hay, jun., of Whitmuir ; J. E. Findlay, Scotsman ; James Law, Scotsman ; Charles Henderson, S.S.C. ; C. C. Cotterill, Fettes College ; James Black, Atholl Crescent ; P. Cameron, Eegent Terrace ; C. Jenner, J. T. Brown, J. Irvine Smith, Thomas Knox, Dr Eichardson, Advertiser Office, Berwick; James Steel, Carlisle Journal; David Douglas, W. A. Brown, advocate ; T. C. Hanna, C.A. ; D. Crawford, advocate ; Dr Mackenzie, Kelso ; James T. Smith, Duloch ; W. Law, Chester Street ; John Black, Burnbrae ; and the staff of The Scotsman. The compositors and other employes of the Scotsman Office had meanwhile assembled in Chester Street ; and when the funeral cortege started, they walked in procession in front of the hearse, which was followed by a number of mourning coaches and private carriages. On reaching the cemetery, the mourners on foot ranged themselves on either side of the central walk, and stood uncovered as the hearse passed through, when they followed up to swell the crowd round the grave. The last sad rites were performed with the usual simplicity of Scottish funerals, the pall-bearers being J. S. Eussel and Patrick Eussel (sons of the deceased), Eobert C. Eussel (brother), George W. Gordon INI'Hallie of Corsmalzie (nephew), James INIurray and A. E. Henderson, advocate (sons-in-law), James Somerville, S.S.C, and Colonel Grindlay (relatives). The funeral arrange- ments were conducted by Messrs John Taylor & Son. 20 ALEXANDER KUSSEL. FUNERAL SERMON EY DR WALLACE. (From tlie Scotsman of July 24, 1876.) Yesterday, at tlio afternoon diet of worship, the liev. Dr Wallace, of Old Greyfriars Church, preached a special sermon in reference to the death of Mr Alexander llussel, who had been a member of that church for many years. There was a very large congregation. Tlie lleverend Doctor took for liis text Proverbs xxii. 29 — " Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men/' — and concluded as follows : — " The truth of these simple, but not the less valuable, principles of practical life has seldom received a more conspicuous illustration than in the career of a member of this congregation, who during the past week has been numbered with the dead, and whose memory I cannot, for many reasons, refrain from recalling on the present occasion. As a rule, I am averse to the preaching of what are called funeral sermons, because when habitual it is apt to degenerate into certain very obvious abuses ; and you are aware that I have not preached such a sermon during all the years I have been minister of tliis church. But the death of the conductor of the greatest of Scottish and not the least of I'ritish journals may well, I think, be treated as an exceptional case. The voice of the country, with an unanimity of regret, in which affection seems to combine in equal measure with admiration, assures us that in the late MrEussel, Scotland has lost one of its brightest ornaments, and its public life an inliuence unique as it was vast. In the case of one of such admitted and exceptional distinction there is little danger of false or unworthy panegyric, and in the place where his form was for so many years familiar to us all, and where he was wont to bow his head along with us in the most sacred of all human acts, — the public adoration of God, — it seems only natural to linger for a moment of farewell upon his memory before it becomes a mere tradition of the past, and to point the lesson of his career to those for whom it is most fitted to be useful. It is for others to dwell upon the characteristics that made him great ; the acquisitions and the native power that enabled him to mould to issues of innnense practical conse- TIIR SCOTSMAN. 21 quence the thouglits of a wiJe circle of his fellow-countrymen ; the inexhaustible and genial brillianc}'" that made his presence everywhere a spring of high and peculiar social happiness ; the deep tenderness and fidelity of nature that linked his heart in an indissoluble tie to the hearts of his friends. I wish to point out the commentary which his life conveys on the method by which men rise to true distinction, valuable influence, and an honourable name. He stood before kings, not before mean men, — and this happened simply because he was " diligent in his business ;" because he found out what his real business in the world was, because he did it with all his might, because he was satisfied with doing it, and sought for nothing more. The business which he found for himself is, in the true conception of it, one of the highest and most im- portant in modern times — the history and criticism of the contemporary life of the world in all its multiform aspects. The daily newspaper, one of the greatest triumphs of the scientific discovery and invention of the present era of human progress, is not less renjarkable in its relations to the moral education of the race. It is the glass in which the world may statedly see itself, and consider how the faults of its appearance may be amended. It is the school of the individual, the unit of the race, in which he can to-day hear the voice and see the example of the world of yesterday, can get instruction from its wisdom and warning from its folly, and be made less self- centred by repetition of the feeling that his own life is a part of the great life of humanity. To present this historical portraiture rightly, to give all of the history that deserves to be known and no more, to bring out all the parts of it in the due proportion of their importance, to pass judgment on the salient faults and merits of the picture as it passes on in its ceaseless panoramic march, is a work demanding a very peculiar combination both of moral appreciativeness and intellectual readiness and skill. That Mr Eussel possessed this capacity in an unsurpassed degree seems to be admitted by all competent judges, besides that it is witnessed to by the facts of his career. What I desire, however, mainly to emphasise is the fact that having this peculiar grouping of faculties, he gave them to the work for M'hich they were 22 ALEXANDER EI'SSEL. suited. Amidst a hundred possible Ctarcers, he made his way into his natural calling, and made it not seldom amidst cir- cumstances that seemed calculated to cast him back. In any other sphere of activity, — on an excliange, in a bank, in a laboratory of science, in a pulpit, at the bar, — we can hardly imagine him as being what he was in journalism, His merit lay in knowing what he was fit for, and shaping his life accordingly. Not the least part of any man's faithfulness is to be faithful to himself. Then next, having found his true business in the world, he was ' diligent ' in it. The whole country is a witness to the energy by which he communicated an interest that was ever fresh to his diurnal narrative of the world and its ways ; to the fulness with which he threw his whole heart into the discharge of his function of critic of the various phases of life, especially of life among ourselves ; to the almost lavish prodigality with which he expended the riches of his literary genius in popularising his views of whatever question stirred the hour. Of the vigilance with which he discharged the moral responsibility devolving on the critic of contemporary events, so as to stand free of any charge of abetting injustice, hypocrisy, ))igotry, pretence, tyranny, or spite, or of pandering to base, impure, or unworthy tastes existing in any G[uarter of the public mind, the public voice has itself spoken with sufhcient emphasis. What may be called without offence Pharisaism of the unconscious kind (of the other I decline to speak) may sometimes have complained that in exposing the mockeries and falsehoods that wished to speak in the name and with the authority of religious truth, he impaired the reverence that was due to Ood ; but it is a com- mon and a perfectly explicable confusion of this type of spirit to construe the exposure of themselves and their errors into an attack upon Heaven and what is truly venerable. Others of a different spirit have been of opinion that he cleared a large space of action for a valuable religious freedom, promoted comprehensiveness in the Church and toleration everywhere; while all must acknowledge that at least he did not spare himself in his contendings. He worked with a will, and postponed his work to nothing else. Though fitted in an unusual degree to take in the happiness that comes to man THE SCOTSMAN. 23 from nature and society, as well as to be himself a source of happiness to others, he was not one of those who sacrificed labour to enjoyment. His work was with him the first thing in life ; everything else was a secondary consideration. Had it been otherwise he could never have become what he was. And then, further, he was satisfied with doing the business he found to do, and sought no further glory. To some whose eyes are apt to be dazzled by the glittering and the remote, it may have seemed that powers so great and varied were comparatively thrown away upon the work of a journal, and that they might have been turned to greater account for mankind, and have purchased a wider and more lasting reputation for their possessor, had they been devoted to the construction of some work of permanent interest. And I have heard from himself words which showed me that the visitings of such thoughts were not altogether foreign to his mind, and that he sometimes had dreamt of some abiding literary achievement with which his name might have been associated, had it not been his fate, as he phrased it, to live intellectually ' from hand to mouth.' But such words on his part were not words of complaint ; they only showed that he had thought the matter over, and that he had come to the conclusion that must be come to by every nature that can identify resignation with wisdom — the con- clusion that it is better to do well the work that we can get at, and not sigh after the inaccessible, or permit ourselves to be distracted from the present by visions, however alluring, of achievement or renown which destiny has foreclosed. It is not necessary that a man should be famous, it is only necessary that he should be faithful. Often it is not the most glorious, but only the most vain-glorious power that transmits its name to the future. In the great intellectual callings of this country, to say nothing of its departments of moral and religious enter- prise, in the senate, in all the professional and scientific callings, there is daily expended by multitudes of men who will never be heard of, power in no way inferior to that whose memory in other cases is emblazoned on monuments, perpetuated in biographies, or embalmed in mausoleums voluminously piled in their own lifetime by those whom they commemorate. But who will say that such ephemeral power is wasted, that such 24 ALEXANDER RUSSEL. anonymous lives are in vain? As well say tliat the daily sunshine, Hung with Inoad and radiant liberality over plain and sea, is lost and in vain, because when night has come its presence and its very image have perished amid the darkness. Uut the instructed know better ; they know that not a pvdsation of its power has been lost ; that it has been caught up and taken in by millions of organisms, and that it will still work its marvels in the world, though in a different form and under another name than its original. And so the true worker is chiefly desirous that his work should be good at the time of its being done ; certain that if good it will not perish, though the author should be forgotten; and as far as any judgment of the future is concerned, satisfied to feel that " his witness is above, and that his record is on higli." These are the reflections that have occurred to me in connection with the memory to which I trust you will think I have been justified in trying to pay a sad tribute of honour in this place. For their substantial truth I venture to appeal to the older part of my audience, who may have known the subject of them, and who like myself counted it no mean privilege to be numbered among his friends, and for many of whom I know that the extinction of his life will be an irreparable blank in their hearts, and cause them to walk in shadow for many a day. To the younger portion of my audience, before whom the main part of life's race still seems to lie, I venture to commend the observations I have made as valuable lessons for the construction of a true career, lessons on which they may possibly improve, but which they may not safely despise, and which, if obeyed, will surely lead to eminence or success in some degree — a success whose value is not merely that it commands the applause of men, but that it communicates the firm if unexpressed and secret consciousness of the approbation of the Eternal Judge. And now it only remains that we bid adieu to the memory of our former fellow-worslii[)p6r as it retreats silently down the already growing vista of the past. As two days ago I stood in the beautiful cemetery where they laid beneath the turf the silent clay that had once given bodily presence to such an amplitude of energy and brightness, while nature around was green, living, and vocal, and the blue distant firmament seemed THE SCOTSMAN. 25 to speak of the iufinite repose that encompasses all human sorrow and toil, the refrain of the ancient HebrcAv dirge not unnaturally came back to recollection — ' How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished.' Yet that wail of despair does not echo the feeling with which we should bend our steps from our brother's tomb back into that work of the world where he played his part so valiantly while it was his day. Not in the dull hopelessness of those who regard them- selves as mere clods of the valley mysteriously galvanised into a transient state of motion, but with the immortal longings of those who recognise in their own conscious being a spiritual essence eternally transcending its material organ, and believing that the Christian hope is justified that descries, amid the darkness and perplexity around us, the intimations of a higher destiny and an everlasting home, let us give ourselves in cheerfuhiess and resolution to whatever work may lie to our band, seeking to bear our burdens with patience and accept our griefs without rebellion, ready at the call of the Eternal Word to lay down this earthly form of our existence, and return into the bosom of Him beneath whose fatherly rule we trust that no real being perishes, no righteous aspiration is mocked, 110 pure afiection is in vain." THE KEY. Dll WALTER C. SMITH IN THE FREE HIGH CHURCH. (From, the Scots)aan of July 24, 1876.) Yesterday forenoon, the Eev\ Dr AValter C. Smith, of Free High Church, after preaching from Isaiah xlv. 22, " Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ends of the earth," said — *' I cannot close this service without, at least, a brief allusion to the great loss which our city, and, indeed, the whole country, has suffered this week in the death of one of the foremost and ablest of our fellow-townsmen — one to whom we have all often looked for words of shrewd counsel in many emergencies. At a time when the newspaper press was to become a leading power in the land, both for guiding the opinion of the people and shaping the action of the legislature, it fell to the lot of 2G ALEXANDER RUSSEL. two remarkablo men, both of them in a way seli'-eclucate