1 Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, p. 231.

2 Fragments of College and Pastoral Life, pp. 24-25.

3 Life and Letters, pp. 94-95.

4 It would appear that it was not an uncommon custom in Scotland in former times to have family worship immediately after a death. Perhaps, too, this verse from the 107th Psalm was the one usually sung on such occasions. There may be a reminiscence of this, due to its author's Seceder training, in a passage in Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, where, after describing the Protector's death, and the grief of his daughter Lady Fauconberg, he goes on to say, "Husht poor weeping Mary! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not

5 Afterwards author of a learned but fantastic Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Biesenthal had an enthusiastic reverence for what in the hands of others were the dry details of Hebrew Grammar. "Herr Doctor," a dense pupil once asked him, "ought there not to be a Daghesh in that Tau?" "God forbid!" was the horrified reply.

6 Some words are very hard to pronounce with a burr in one's throat. Dr. Cairns used to tell that on one occasion, long after he had got well used to the sound of the Berwick speech, he was under the belief that a man with whom he was conversing was talking about a boy until he discovered from the context that his theme was a brewery.

7 Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, pp. 299-301.

8 Macmillan's Magazine, December 1864, p. 139.

9 Recent British Philosophy, pp. 265-66.

10 See above, pp. 44-45.

11 Life and Letters, p. 307.

12 Fragments of College and Pastoral Life, pp. 38-40.

13 Life and Letters, p. 295.

14 His eldest brother, Thomas, had died from the effects of an accident in 1856.

15 In accordance with the old Scottish custom, Dr. Cairns wore gloves during the "preliminary exercises," but took them off before beginning the sermon. On the Sunday after a funeral he discarded his Geneva gown in the forenoon, and, as a mark of respect to the deceased, wore over his swallow-tail coat the huge black silk sash which it was then customary in Berwick to send to the minister on such occasions.

16 Life and Letters, p. 560.

17 "All fair things be thine."

18 Life and Letters, p. 661.

19 In the following year (1882) he received the degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University.

20 Life and Letters, p. 743.

21 Life and Letters, p, 769.

22 Six years later the sister who had so long lived with him was laid in the same grave. William Cairns sleeps with his kindred in Cockburnspath churchyard.