1 Not to be confused with the job of laboratory technician or “mechanical assistant”.

2 Cambridge University Library, Add. Mss 7449, D70.

3 In Brother Scots (1927) p.68: “Robert Louis Stevenson … a pupil who regarded the physical laboratory as a suitable forum for theological discussion”.

4“Some College memories” (1886), in Memories and Portraits (Skerryvore edn., vol. xxv., p,18) where RLS describes himself as “a certain lean, ugly, idle, unpopular student”.

5 Ib., p.20.

6 To use Stevenson’s description of himself, both were “intelligent and sickly” (”Memoirs of himself”, in Other Essays: Skerryvore edn, vol.xxv, p.220).

7 William Pirie Smith (WRS’s father) supplemented a meagre income by accepting boarding pupils at the manse of Keig and there exist at Cambridge University Library several manuscript accounts written by former pupils which vividly illustrate the breadth and brilliance of the father’s teaching style.

8 “Memoirs of himself” (op.cit.) p.224.

9 Smith (1927) p.29.

10 Cf. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

11 “Selections from his note book”; Skerryvore edn, vol.xxv, p.270.

12 Baynes (1823-1887) was Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at St Andrews.

13 “Prefatory Notice”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edn) 1875, p.v.

14 RLS met Francis Sitwell fortuitously in the summer of 1873, when both were guests at Cockfield Rectory in Suffolk, the home of his cousin, Maud Babington.

15 Colvin’s articles for the EB include “Art”, “Botticelli” and “Leonardo”.

16 Tait was president of Section A (Mathematics and Physics) at the B.A. conference held at Edinburgh in 1871 and played host (with Smith’s help) to a variety of visiting scientists, including Heinrich Helmholtz — almost the only contemporary German scientist of whom he was not deeply jealous.

17 McLennan wrote in September to Smith (who was back in Aberdeen) describing a convivial “gathering of philosophers” at St Andrew’s: the party included Baynes, Huxley, and Tait. (C.U.L. Add. Mss 7449 D451). Tait as well as McLennan would have sung Robertson Smith’s praises loudly.

18 EB (9th edn) vol. iii, pp.581f.

19 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson (ed. Booth and Mehew: 1994) vol.ii, p.144 (21.06.75).

20 Ib., p.149 (07.07.75).

21 Ib., p.156 (22.08.75).

22 The last volume, the Index, came out early in 1889.

23 The probability that Stevenson had subsequent articles for the EB in mind is indicated by his beginning work in 1875 on “Charles of Orleans”: cf. Letters, vol.ii, p.159 (to Colvin): “I have written a very mean thing about Béranger; but I am going to write a capital article about Charles d’Orleans - a sort of thing that people don’t get every day”. Of course, it never appeared in the EB, only as an essay in Familiar Studies of Men and Books. The encyclopaedia article on Charles d’Orleans was eventually written by George Saintsbury, appearing under “Orleans, Charles d’ ”.

24 RLS wrote to Colvin in November: “No — my ‘Burns’ is not done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish it … And then again, to be plain, I shirk the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man shirks a long jump. It is awful to have to express and differentiate Burns, in a column or two. O golly, I say you know, it can’t be done at the money” (Letters, vol.ii, p.165).

25 Ib., p.173.

26 Ib., pp.174f.

27 Baynes, in effect, gave a curate’s egg judgment: it was very good in parts and could be accepted perhaps with some amendment; but he felt the article lacked “enthusiasm” and placed too much emphasis on Burns’ weaknesses. RLS did not of course take up the suggestion that he rewrite the article.

28 Ib., p.175 (18.06.75).

29 First published in the Cornhill Magazine, October, 1879 but included in Familiar Studies of Men and Books (Skerryvore edn, vol.xxiii, pp.29-65).

30 Ib., p.30.

31 Ib., p.47.

32 Ib., p. 50.

33 Ib., p. 53.

34 Ib., p.61.

35 There is unanimous agreement, however, that the author of the review was A.H. Charteris, Professor of Biblical Criticism at Edinburgh University and a pillar of the Established Church.

36 Edinburgh Courant (15.04.76): “The New Encyclopaedia Britannica on Theology”.

37 Ibid. Smith was doubly misquoted by the reviewer. The article actually said, “There is no reason to think that a prophet ever received a revelation which was not spoken directly and pointedly to his own time”.

38 Ibid.

39 CUL Add. Mss 7449 F90 (11.6.1877)

40 In a fragment entitled “Diogenes at the Savile Club”, RLS gives a whimsical but revealing description of the Club: “Here gather daily those young eaglets, the swordsmen of the pen, who are the pride and wonder of the world, and the effete pensionnaires of the Atenaeum. They are all young … and they are all Rising.” (Skerryvore edn, vol.xiv, p.349.)

41 Stevenson and Smith both wrote frequently to correspondents from the Savile Club — Stevenson from 1875 and Smith from 1879.

42 Letters, vol.ii, p.327.

43 CUL Add. Mss 7449 C99 (11.05.1868).

44 Underwoods xii (said by Fanny Stevenson to have been written in 1880).

45 The Scots Observer, May 25, 1889. Henley had been an editorial assistant for some time with the Encyclopaedia Britannica and was jealous of Smith’s success, as he was of Stevenson’s.

46 Pall-Mall Magazine, vol..25 (1901) pp.505-514: quoted by McLynn (1993) p.510.

47 The Scots Observer (25.5.1889). Henley went on to claim of Smith’s editorial work for the Encyclopaedia Britannica that: “… no such vast heap of valuable stuff could have been worse arranged, or proportioned with less art”.

48 McLynn (op.cit.) ad.loc.