A tribute to David Pae by the novelist William C. Honeyman, published in the Dundee Advertiser, May 14 1884, the day after the funeral, and later republished in Eustace the Outcast. William Crawford Honeyman is best remembered for his Traced and Tracked dectective stories published under the pseudonym James M'Govan.

Only a few, like the writer, knew the man in all his heartiness, generosity, tenderness, and unselfish devotion to every one within his reach. His active brain seemed to know no rest; his strong spirit seemed a very rock to lean upon for advice or consolation; and largely was that massive strength and solidity taken advantage of by the wide literary circle drawn around him. A bright and shining light, he was great in what he did, but greater in what he helped others to do. All he did in this way will never be known, for he did good and spoke not; but many, very many, who read these lines will instantly be struck with the thought, "He did indeed - he did it to me;" and a long series of painstaking hints, and sagacious advice, and actual assistance and beautifying interpolations, extending over many years, will rise in their memories.

When quite a youth he went to Edinburgh, where he became engaged in the service of Mr. Grant, bookseller and publisher, who was afterwards to become the publisher of "Jessie Melville." The eager literary spririt sprang into life, and, like hundreds of other young authors, the boy would write a play. With his head full of the romance of theatrical life, and also of other faculties which go to form the successful playwright, he wrote his drama, but was at a loss how to get it produced. At that time there was on the Mound a wooden theatre, in which the celebrated Scottish comedian Gourlay was either the chief actor or the proprietor. One day when the actors were chatting about the door of this place, Gourlay was surprised to be addressed by young Pae, who offered him his manuscript play. The answer of the actor was rather sharp and rough, and to the effect that they did not in produce any but the plays of well-known authors; and the youth went away rather humbled, with the MS. in his hands. Little did either of them think that the time was to come when Gourlay should be indebted to the genius of that lad for the one success of his life, "Mrs. Macgregor's Levee," which was entirely the work of David Pae, and with which Gourlay and his family travelled the whole world over, much in the style of the Kennedy Family. For this successful play and inimitable portraiture of Scottish character Mr. Pae received the munificent sum of £5! Such characters as Needle Tam had only to be once seen and heard to be remembered for ever.

The writer once chanced to express to Mr. Pae surprise that he had not adopted the Church rather than literature as his profession, when he quickly replied that he had a larger audience weekly than any clergyman, but added that he had written sermons which were preached, though not by him. He then produced a volume of these, and, taking the book with us, we went together to an old churchyard, where, seated on a green mound marking one of the graves, the writer read one of these sermons aloud. It was a calm, sunny Sabbath evening, and the place lovely and secluded, so the sermon was finished without interruption, and when the last page was reached the red light of the setting sun was falling on the book. "A glory gilds the sacred page," was the writer's remark, as with deep emotion he closed the volume, and it was the truest criticism he could think of on what he had read. Looking back on the peaceful scene now through a soft mist of tears he would not have the words altered or improved.