hical sketch of him would form an appropriate
introduction to this posthumous volume. The particulars woven together
in the following narrative have been collected from various sources,
some of them having been furnished by members of his own family.

Alexander Ferrier Mitchell was born on 10th September 1822 in the old
ecclesiastical city of Brechin, with which his ancestors had had an
honourable connection for several generations. His grandfather,
Alexander Mitchell, and his father, David Mitchell, were both known as
Convener Mitchell, probably as having succeeded each other in the
convenership of the local guilds. On the maternal side he was descended
from another Brechin family, some of the members of which had in their
day served in various capacities abroad, one of his granduncles,
Alexander Ferrier, after whom he was named, having been a doctor in
India, and another, Captain David Ferrier, "a brave and bold
sailor,"--in memory of whom there is a tablet on the east door of the
old Cathedral,--having made a voyage round the world in the Dolphin, in
which also he ran the blockade in time of war into some of the French
ports. Elizabeth, daughter of James Ferrier at Broadmyre, the
Professor's mother, was a woman of good judgment and deep piety, and
from her he seems to have inherited some of the most prominent features
of his character. He was one of a family of three, his brother and
sister having died, the former at Bloemfontein in South Africa, many
years ago. In childhood he had a narrow escape, a cart having run over
his body. He was picked up and carried home by the minister of the
Episcopal church. As a boy he passed through more than one severe
illness, and when taken for a change to Glenesk one summer he was
described by a sympathetic friend as "a deein' laddie." To a mother's
unwearied care and attention he owed, under the divine blessing, the
recovery of his health, and to a mother's religious training he owed in
no small degree that knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and that pious
disposition by which he was distinguished from his earliest years. His
elementary education he received at the grammar-school of his native
town, and when fifteen years of age he proceeded to St Andrews to
prosecute his studies with a view to the Christian ministry.

In those days the journey thither was not made with the comfort and
facility with which it is now accomplished; and the Professor himself
has told how, on landing fr