A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland | Page 5

yet
shame, there may in time be virtue.
The dissolution of St. Leonard's college was doubtless necessary; but of
that necessity there is reason to complain. It is surely not without just
reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and
the wealth encreasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to its
literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising
palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.
Of the two colleges yet standing, one is by the institution of its founder
appropriated to Divinity. It is said to be capable of containing fifty
students; but more than one must occupy a chamber. The library, which
is of late erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and luminous.
The doctor, by whom it was shewn, hoped to irritate or subdue my
English vanity by telling me, that we had no such repository of books
in England.
Saint Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and
education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and
exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and
dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of
commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire
of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other,
is in danger of yielding to the love of money.
The students however are represented as at this time not exceeding a
hundred. Perhaps it may be some obstruction to their increase that there
is no episcopal chapel in the place. I saw no reason for imputing their

paucity to the present professors; nor can the expence of an academical
education be very reasonably objected. A student of the highest class
may keep his annual session, or as the English call it, his term, which
lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for
less than ten; in which board, lodging, and instruction are all included.
The chief magistrate resident in the university, answering to our
vice-chancellor, and to the rector magnificus on the continent, had
commonly the title of Lord Rector; but being addressed only as Mr.
Rector in an inauguratory speech by the present chancellor, he has
fallen from his former dignity of style. Lordship was very liberally
annexed by our ancestors to any station or character of dignity: They
said, the Lord General, and Lord Ambassador; so we still say, my Lord,
to the judge upon the circuit, and yet retain in our Liturgy the Lords of
the Council.
In walking among the ruins of religious buildings, we came to two
vaults over which had formerly stood the house of the sub-prior. One of
the vaults was inhabited by an old woman, who claimed the right of
abode there, as the widow of a man whose ancestors had possessed the
same gloomy mansion for no less than four generations. The right,
however it began, was considered as established by legal prescription,
and the old woman lives undisturbed. She thinks however that she has a
claim to something more than sufferance; for as her husband's name
was Bruce, she is allied to royalty, and told Mr. Boswell that when
there were persons of quality in the place, she was distinguished by
some notice; that indeed she is now neglected, but she spins a thread,
has the company of her cat, and is troublesome to nobody.
Having now seen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiosity, we
left it with good wishes, having reason to be highly pleased with the
attention that was paid us. But whoever surveys the world must see
many things that give him pain. The kindness of the professors did not
contribute to abate the uneasy remembrance of an university declining,
a college alienated, and a church profaned and hastening to the ground.
St. Andrews indeed has formerly suffered more atrocious ravages and
more extensive destruction, but recent evils affect with greater force.
We were reconciled to the sight of archiepiscopal ruins. The distance of
a calamity from the present time seems to preclude the mind from
contact or sympathy. Events long past are barely known; they are not

considered. We read with as little emotion the violence of Knox and his
followers, as the irruptions of Alaric and the Goths. Had the university
been destroyed two centuries ago, we should not have regretted it; but
to see it pining in decay and struggling for life, fills the mind with
mournful images and ineffectual wishes.

ABERBROTHICK

As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to
mind our way. The roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the
traveller, who seldom sees himself either encountered or overtaken, and
who