had workmen employed in improving its fortifications at the time when he was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner of which Knox has given what he himfelf calls a merry narrative.

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of fullen fcrupuloufnefs and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness refigned to their own thoughts, and who, converfing only with each other, fuffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was lang tranfmitted in its full ftrength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not fufficiently inftructed to find the middle point, too easily fhelter themfelves from rigour and restraint.

The

و

The city of St. Andrews, when it had loft its archiepifcopal preeminence, gra dually decayed: One of its ftreers is now loft; and in thofe that remain, there is the filence and folitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulatian.,

The univerfity, within a few years, confifted of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college of St. Leonard being lately diffolved by the fale of its buildings and the appropriation of its revenues to the profeffors of the two others. The chapel of the alienated college is yet ftanding, a fabrick not inelegant of external ftructure; but I was always, by fome civil excufe, hindred from entering it. A decent attempt, as I was fince told, has been made to convert it into a kind of green-house, by planting its area with fhrubs. This new method of gardening is unfuccefsful; the plants do not hitherto profper. To what use it will next be put I have no pleafure

B 5

pleasure in conjecturing. It is fomething that its present ftate is at least not oftentatiously displayed. Where there is yet fhame, there may in time be virtue.

The diffolution of St. Leonard's college was doubtless neceffary; but of that neceffity there is reafon to complain. It is furely not without juft reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth encreafing, denies any participation of its profperity to its literary focieties; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, fuf. fers its univerfities to moulder into duft.

Of the two colleges yet ftanding, one is by the inftitution of its founder appropriated to Divinity. It is faid to be capable of containing fifty ftudents; but more than one must occupy a chamber. The library, which is of late erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and luminous.

The

The doctor, by whom it was fhewn, hoped to irritate or fubdue my English vanity by telling me, that we had no fuch repofitory of books in England.

Saint Andrews seems to be a place emi nently adapted to ftudy and education, being fituated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and expofing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and diffolutenefs of a capital city, nor to the grofs luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the defire of knowledge eafily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to the love of money.

The ftudents however are reprefented as at this time not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be fome obttruction to their increase that there is no epifcopal chapel in the place. I faw no

reafon

1

reafon for imputing their paucity to the prefent profeffors; nor can the expence of an academical education be very reafonably objected. A student of the higheft clafs may keep his annual feffion, or as the English call it, his term, which lafts feven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for lefs than ten ; in which board, lodging, and inftruction are all included.

The chief magiftrate refident in the univerfity, answering to our vice-chancellor, and to the rector magnificus on the continent, had commonly the title of Lord Rector; but being addreffed only as Mr. Rector in an inauguratory speech by the prefent chancellor, he has fallen from his former dignity of ftyle. Lordfhip was very liberally annexed by our ancestors to any station or character of dignity: They, faid, the Lord General, and Lord Ambaffador; fo we ftill fay, my Lord, to the judge upon the

circuit,