Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

sists in which philosophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whose name has as fair a claim to immortality as

e of the professors, whose easy civility quickly made us forget that we were strangers; and in the whole time of o

e, of which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless some care be taken to preserve them; and where is the pleasure of preserving such m

ious and majestick building, not unsuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor remains can hardly exhibi

large, and was built with more attention to security than pleasure. Cardinal Beatoun is said to have had workmen employed in improving its fortifica

ho, conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is

radually decayed: One of its streets is now lost; and in those that remain,

ollege is yet standing, a fabrick not inelegant of external structure; but I was always, by some civil excuse, hindred from entering it. A decent attempt, as I was since told, has been made to convert it into a kind of green-house, by planting its area with shrubs. This new

ut just reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth encreasing, denies any participation of its pros

inity. It is said to be capable of containing fifty students; but more than one must occupy a

ate or subdue my English vanity by telling me, t

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 unpropit

son 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 sessio

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

he 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’

e 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

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