St ANDREWS.

At an hour fomewhat late we came to St Andrews, a city once archiepifcopal; where that univerfity ftill fubfifts in which philofophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whofe name has as fair а claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the inftabi lity of vernacular languages admits.

We found, that by the interpofition of fome invifible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the house of one of the profeffors, whose easy civility quickly made us forget that we were strangers; and in the whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality.

In the morning we rose to perambulate a city, which only history fhews to have once flourished, and farveyed the ruins of ancient magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless fome care be taken to preferve them; and where is the pleasure of preferving fuch mournful memorials? They have been till very lately fo much neglected, that every man carried away the ftones. who fancied that he wanted them.

The Cathedral, of which the foundations may be ftill traced, and a fmall part of the wall is ftanding, appears to have been a fpacious and majeftic building, not unfuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor remains.

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can hardly exhibit, even to an artist, a fufficient fpecimen. It was demolished, as is well known, in the tumult and violence of Knox's reformation..

Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of the water, stands a fragment of the caftle, in which the archbishop anciently refided. It was never very large, and was built with more attention to fecurity than pleasure. Cardinal Beatoun is faid to have 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 himself calls a. merry narrative.

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthufi afm, compounded of fullen fcrupulousness 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. long tranfmitted in its full ftrength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourfe with England, is now vifibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, nat fufficiently instruc

ted to find the middle point, too eafily fhelter themselves from rigour and constraint.

The city of St Andrews, when it had loft its archiepifcopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now loft; and in those that

remain, there is the filence and folitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation.

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 standing, a fa brick not inelegant, of external ftructure; but I was always, by fome civil excufe, hindered from. entering it. A decent attempt, as I was fince told, has been made to convert it into a kind of greenhouse, by planting its area with shrubs. This new method of gardening is unfuccefs ful; the plants do not hitherto profper. To what ufe it will next be put I have no pleafure in conjecturing.. It is fome. thing that its prefent ftate is at least not oftentatioufly difplayed. 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 reason to complain. It is furely not without juft reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing, derties any participation of its profperity to its literary focieties; and while its merchants or its nobles are raifing palaces, fuffers its univerfities to moulder into dust.

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

Saint Andrews feems to be a place eminently adapted to study 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 natu❤. rally unpropitious to learning; in one, the defire 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 ftudents however are reprefented as at this. time not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be fome obftruction to their increafe that there is no epifcopal chapel in the place. I faw no reason for imputing their paucity to the present profeffors; nor can the expence of an academical. education be very reasonably objected. A ftudent of the highest class 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 instruction, are all included.

The chief magiftrate resident in the university,

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anfwering 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 fpeech by the prefent chancellor, he has fallen from his former dignity of ftyle. Lordship 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, 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 ftood the house of the fub-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 poffeffed the fame gloomy manfion for no lefs than four generations. The right, however it began, was confidered as eftablished by legal prefcription, and the old woman lives undisturbed. She thinks, however, that fhe has a claim to fomething more than fufferance; for, as her husband's name was Bruce, fhe is allied to royalty, and told Mr Bofwell, that when there were perfons of quality in the place, she was diftinguished by fome notice; that indeed the is now neglected, but the fpins a thread, has the company of her cat, and is troublesome to nobody. Having now feen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiofity, we left it with good wishes,