He contributed largely to the North British Review.  In 1855 he published ‘Horae Subsceivae,’ which contained, among medical biography and medico-literary papers, the immortal Scotch idyl, ‘Rab and his Friends.’  Up to this time the unique personality of the doctor, with its delightful mixture of humor and sympathy, was known only to his own circle.  The appearance of ‘Rab and his Friends’ revealed it to the world.  Brief as it is in form, and simple in outline, Scotland has produced nothing so full of pure, pathetic genius since Scott.

Another volume of ‘Horae Subsceivae’ appeared two years after, and some selections from it, and others from unpublished manuscript, were printed separately in the volume entitled ‘Spare Hours.’  They met with instant and unprecedented success.  In a short time ten thousand copies of ‘Minchmoor’ and ‘James the Doorkeeper’ were sold, fifteen thousand copies of ‘Pet Marjorie,’ and ‘Rab’ had reached its fiftieth thousand.  With all this success and praise, and constantly besought by publishers for his work, he could not be persuaded that his writings were of any permanent value, and was reluctant to publish.  In 1882 appeared a third volume of the ‘Horae Subsceivae,’ which included all his writings.  A few weeks after its publication he died.

The Doctor’s medical essays, which are replete with humor, are written in defense of his special theory, the distinction between the active and the speculative mind.  He thought there was too much science and too little intuitive sagacity in the world, and looked back longingly to the old-time common-sense, which he believed modern science had driven away.  His own mind was anti-speculative, although he paid just tributes to philosophy and science and admired their achievements.  He stigmatized the speculations of the day as the “lust of innovation.”  But the reader cares little for the opinions of Dr. Brown as arguments:  his subject is of little consequence if he will but talk.  By the charm of his story-telling these dead Scotch doctors are made to live again.  The death-bed of Syme, for instance, is as pathetic as the wonderful paper on Thackeray’s death; and to-day many a heart is sore for ’Pet Marjorie,’ the ten-year-old child who died in Scotland almost a hundred years ago.

As an essayist, Dr. Brown belongs to the followers of Addison and Charles Lamb, and he blends humor, pathos, and quiet hopefulness with a grave and earnest dignity.  He delighted, not like Lamb “in the habitable parts of the earth,” but in the lonely moorlands and pastoral hills, over which his silent, stalwart shepherds walked with swinging stride.  He had a keen appreciation for anything he felt to be excellent:  his usual question concerning a stranger, either in literature or life, was “Has he wecht, sir?”—­quoting Dr. Chalmers; and when he wanted to give the highest praise, he said certain writing was “strong meat.”  He had a warm enthusiasm for the work of other literary