KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN.

No other building in Scotland exhibits the same cloister-like repose as this old college, whether its pinnacles be seen from a distance clustering over the trees, or the footsteps tread its echoing court. For five months of the year it is indeed the noisy resort of a student crowd, whose scarlet robes, worn with more ease than dignity, give a fantastic gaiety to the scene, strangely in contrast with its original solemnity; but when this mob has taken flight early in spring, nothing can be more sweetly silent than the old carved chapel and the deserted courtyard. The architecture is peculiar. A line of buildings, adjoining to the tower and facing the street, is a modern addition, which, unfortunately, has been raised in the English perpendicular style, instead of that which was common in Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The features of the original building have been derived from an observation of French architecture, yet are decidedly national. The retention of the semicircular arch, observable in Scotland at the time when the pointed or ogee form was almost exclusively used in England, is here a remarkable characteristic. The lantern of crossed rib arches, springing from a tower, which the northern architects appear to have derived from edifices in the style and character of the tower of Antwerp Cathedral, is here exhibited in more marked and stern simplicity than either at Newcastle or Edinburgh, where the specimens partake more of the spiral character. The royal crown perched on the meeting keystones adjusts an imitation of reality with great felicity to the tone of Gothic architecture. But the interest of this building is not entirely confined to the more conspicuous parts. In wandering about its precincts, one enters mouldering courtyards or old cloistered neuks, which more forcibly bring us back to the Scotland of the Stuarts, than they would were they either more ruinous, or kept in more distinctly high repair.

The great glory of King's College, however, is the wood-work of its chapel. Its main features are a double row of canopied stalls, with miserere seats and a lofty open screen, now somewhat injured in its effect by a wall which partitions off the nave of the chapel as a library. The carving throughout is of the most gorgeous and delicate kind, and it is as clean and sharp as if it were fresh from the knife. The diversities of the traceried panels are infinite in variety, and their extreme delicacy is relieved not inharmoniously by the massiveness and boldness of the projections. The predominating tone of the designs is architectural, and they all tend to support the observations made in connexion with the tomb of Archbishop Kennedy at St Andrews about the predominance of architecture over the other arts of the middle ages, and the mere ancillary character of carving, painting, and other decorative arts. In fact, these panels contain a multitude of rich designs for Gothic windows, the French flamboyant style chiefly preponderating through them. A pulpit of the seventeenth century, not in itself a discreditable piece of work, shows how wood-carving degenerated when the Gothic models were abandoned. On the whole, it may be stated that there is no wood-work in Scotland capable of a moment's comparison with the stalls of King's College, nor will many English specimens rival them. Such productions are chiefly to be seen in the Flemish churches; and perhaps the excellence of the wood-work in Aberdeen and in Belgium may be attributed to one and the same cause-the costliness of stone decorations. KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN, 1-4.

This arises, in Aberdeen, not from the absolute, but the relative want of material. There is abundance of granite in the district; but, at the time when the college was built, it was not considered capable of being applied to decoration, though it had been so used a century or two earlier, and has been very richly worked within the past few years. Freestone, which must have been conveyed from a considerable distance, is the material of the chapel and tower; and it is probable that its absence on the spot made the Aberdeen workmen less capable of its decoration than those who raised Roslin or Melrose.

The general state of the preservation of this fine carved work is creditable to the district, when it is remembered that the edifice has, for more than three hundred years, been devoted to the services of a considerable body of young men. One observes, however, with regret, that the beautiful crossed tracery on the roof is suffering from damp, especially that portion of it which covers the library. Unless those in charge be successful in obtaining funds to meet the expense of an effective repair, it is clear that a considerable collection of books, and some fine specimens of mediæval art, will be exposed to great danger.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

This university and college was erected in 1494 by a bull of Pope Alexander VI., and partly owed its erection to the worthy zeal of James IV. for the enlightenment of the northern part of his dominions. The bull, in the usual terms, instituted a general study, or university, for teaching theology, canon and civil law, medicine, and polite literature, with all the privileges enjoyed by the Universities of Paris and Bologna. It was not, however, until the year 1505 that the foundation or constitution was drawn up by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, an enlightened patron of learning. It was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary. "It was to comprehend thirty-six ordinary members, the chief of whom was to be a master of theology, if one could be obtained, or, failing this, a licentiate of that faculty, who within a year was to take his degree, and who was to be styled principal, all the members of the university yielding obedience to him. After him were the doctors of canon and civil law, and of medicine, or licentiates in these respective faculties. The fifth member was to be a master of arts, to be called a regent, and constituted sub-principal; and the sixth was another master of arts, whose province it was to teach the elements of literature. These seem to have been the permanent members of the college; and, with the exception of the doctor of medicine, they were to be ecclesiastics. Five masters of arts, who were to study theology, and who were also in holy orders, were appointed, but they were to hold their situations only for a certain number of years; as were also, although for a different period, thirteen poor scholars of respectable talents and proficiency in the speculative sciences, who were to be elected as students of arts."* Such was the meagre commencement of the system intended to enlighten the intellectual darkness of the distant and barbarous north. It is worthy of remark that, to this day, although there is a parallel institution, only a mile distant, in Marischal College, Bishop Elphinstone's foundation performs its original function of diffusing education through distant and semi-barbarous districts. While the young men of Aberdeen and its vicinity chiefly frequent Marischal College, those who

* Report of Commissioners on the Scottish Universities, p. 305.