The Marquess of Bute, Lord Rector of St. Andrews University, 1892-1897
A letter written in March, 1895, just after the death of Professor Blackie, gives a thumbnail sketch of that eccentric scholar, who was as unconventional in dress as in everything else:
The last time I met him (by invitation) he was dressed in a long velvet gown bound with a bright cherry-coloured sash, and a big sombrero hat. There was a middle-aged lady present, to whom he introduced me, and whom he insisted on my kissing. I think we kissed to please him. His accent (pronunciation) was so vile in Greek, and I believe in Gaelic, as almost to argue a physical defect of ear.
In this same spring Bute visited Sanquhar, where he had lately bought back the ancient Crichton Peel tower, which the first Earl of Dumfries had sold to the Buccleuch family in 1639. "The Duke," he notes, "had allowed the tower to fall almost completely down. I bought some mugs here—'Presents from Sanquhar'—for the children, and found on investigation that they were made in Germany!"
An interesting little bit of Fife folk-lore is noted on April 6:
I found the children of Falkland rolling Easter eggs downhill, calling the day "Pace (Pasch) Saturday." It was a week too soon, according to the Kalendar; but one little girl said that Pace Saturday was always the first Saturday in April.
1895, Lord Acton
Bute received this summer a letter, which pleased him much, from the eminent historian Lord Acton, a recently "capped" doctor of St. Andrews University, to whom Bute had presented a hood made in the mediæval fashion.[[6]]
The Athenæum,
July 5, 1895.
DEAR LORD BUTE,