"Chatty and discursive, rather than elaborate, the interest in 'Loch Creran' is well maintained throughout, and the book appeals to the general reader, by whom it will doubtless be perused with greater pleasure than a more highly scientific disquisition."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"He is a charming companion. His descriptions are vivid and true to nature—whether he makes us shiver and feel glad of the shelter of the house, as he tells us of winter's storms and floods, or whether he fills our hearts with a longing for the freshness and gladness of spring as he notes the signs of its advent on the shores of Loch Creran."—Glasgow Herald.
OLD CHURCH LIFE IN SCOTLAND: Lectures on Kirk-Session and Presbytery Records. Second Series. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. Demy 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. Post free.
"Antiquaries may welcome the minister of Mauchline as an elder brother of their craft. We have not seen the first series of lectures, but certainly these contain much that is queer and quaint. Odd people, these Scotch folks; but there is a homeliness and a reverence about them which we greatly value. Our author is evidently of the Established Church, and knows most about the old customs of that body, of which he writes with a twinkle in his eye which causes our eye to twinkle also. The grim want of humour in some of the proceedings is about the same thing as the presence of humour: you may laugh till you cry, and cry till you laugh; between the tremendously solemn and the ridiculous there is but a step. We have been so interested with the lectures that we must get the former volume. What times those must have been when guests at a funeral began to meet at ten in the morning, though the body might not be moved till three or four! Five or six hours! How did they spin them out? No marvel that the Kirk-Session had to hear charges of drunkenness. Such books as these are the best of history, leading us indeed into byways and lone paths which the general historian never traces."—C. H. Spurgeon.
MY COLLEGE DAYS: The Autobiography of an Old Student. Edited by R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A., Author of "Rambles in the Far North," &c. 8vo, cloth, 5s. Post free.
"Mr. Fergusson, either as author or as editor, has well earned our gratitude by giving us a volume which all may read with enjoyment and pleasure.... Space and its limits will not allow us to dwell on many other points of interest to be found in this entertaining volume; but we cannot pass without mentioning the worthy dame who said, in praise of her preacher: 'There's ae thing aboot yon man—he's a grand roarer.' Nor must we forget the careful landlady who was always anxious to know if her student-lodger was as yet an unengaged man, or, to use her own graphic phrase, was 'a bund sack set by.'..."—Literary World.
"We own to a suspicion that in this instance Mr. Fergusson has been his own literary executor. Whether this be the case or not, he has no reason to be ashamed of the bequest. The sketches have a pleasant grace of literary style, and a good deal of power in description of character-sketching, while there is in the writer a subtle under-strain of pawky humour, and he has brought together and put permanently on record a number of traditions of University life in Edinburgh and St. Andrews that are well worth preservation.... Our old student's reminiscences of St. Andrews, where he took the theological course after graduating in arts at Edinburgh, are not less lively or interesting than those he sets down respecting his Alma Mater; and his book is likely to take a place both on the shelves and in the enduring regard of many readers who have had similar experiences and tasted similar pleasures. A word of praise is due to the excellence of its typography and get-up."—Scottish Leader.
"We think the verdict will be that Mr. Fergusson has done well in publishing this thoughtful book. It abounds in vigorous, and, in many cases, eloquent delineations of University life; it is sympathetic in its spirit and catholic in its tone, especially when dealing with such subjects as the stage, so frequently abused. Its author was a student of the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Oxford, his reminiscences of which are often humorous, and always interesting. Some of the anecdotes recorded in this volume regarding the Edinburgh Professors are exceedingly entertaining.... We venture to predict for this autobiography a wide circulation."—Dundee Advertiser.
"The book is eminently readable, very quiet for the most part, but not without a few touches of gaiety and sprightly humour; and it betokens no little culture together with a strong poetic tendency. The contents are almost entirely confined to sketches of life at Scottish Universities, with some playful personal satire, of which various Professors, some mentioned by name and others denoted by initials, are the objects in chief, although the peculiarities of certain landladies whose province it is, or was, to let lodgings to students at Edinburgh or elsewhere, come in for their share of more or less satirical delineation. But there is nothing spiteful, nothing bitter, nothing cynical in the mode of treatment. Two chapters are devoted to a sketch, brief but graphic and sympathetic, of academic Oxford, whither the author went to sojourn and to study for two months."—Illustrated London News.
"This is a delightful book, calculated to afford much pleasurable amusement of a quiet kind. It is written in a light sparkling style.... The book itself is an enjoyable one, and perhaps none will read it with greater relish than the old fogies who see in it much of what they themselves passed through, and who, by the perusal are led to recall, with mingled feelings, the aspirations, the freshness, and the frolic of their own College days."—Perthshire Constitutional.