the company of each other as well riding in the chaife, as fitting at an inn. The night and the day are equally folitary and equally fafe; for where there are fo few travellers, why should there be robbers?

ABERDEEN.

We came fomewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn fo full, that we had fome difficulty in obtaining admiffion, till Mr. Bofwell made himself known: His name overpowered all objection, and we found a very good house and civil treatment.

I received the next day a very kind letter from Alexander Gordon, whom I had formerly known in London, and after a ceffation of all intercourfe for near twenty years found here profeffor of phyfic in the King's College. Such unexpected reneivals of acquaintance may be numbered among the most pleasing incidents of life.

The knowledge of one profeffor foon procured me the notice of the reft, and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there was any thing which I defired to fee, and entertained at once with the novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication.

To

To write of the cities of our own island with the folemnity of geographical description, as if we had been caft upon a newly discovered coaft, has the appearance of very frivolous oftentation; yet as Scotland is little known to the greater part of those who may read thefe obfervations, it is not fuperfluous to relate, that under the name of Aberdeen are comprised two towns ftanding about a mile diftant from each other, but governed, I think, by the fame magiftrates.

Old Aberdeen is the ancient epifcopal city, in which are ftill to be feen the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in decay, being built in times when commerce was yet unftudied, with very little attention to the commodities of the harbour.

New Aberdeen has all the bustle of profperous trade, and all the fhew of increafing opulence. It is built by the water-fide. The houses are large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean. They build almost wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of London, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it eafily. It is beautiful and must be very lasting.

What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants of Aberdeen, I have

not

not inquired. The manufacture which forces itself upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-stockings, on which the women of the lower class are visibly employed.

In each of these towns there is a college, or in ftri&ter language, an university; for in both there are profeffors of the fame parts of learning, and the colleges hold their feffions and confer degrees feparately, with total independence of one on the other.

In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first prefident was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced one of the revivers of elegant learning. When he studied at Paris, he was acquainted with Erafmus, who afterwards gave him a public testimony of his esteem, by inscribing to him a catalogue of his works. The ftile of Boethius, though, perhaps, not always rigorously pure, is formed with great diligence upon ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monaftic barbarity. His history is written with elegance and vigour, but his fabulousness and credulity are justly blamed. His fabulousness, if he was the author of the fictions, is a fault for which no apology can be made; but his credulity may be excused in an age, when all men were credulous. Learning was then rifing

оп

on the world; but ages fo long accustomed to darkness, were too much dazzled with its light to see any thing diftin&tly. The first race of scholars, in the fifteenth century, and some time after, were, for the most part, learning to speak, rather than to think, and were therefore more ftudious of elegance than of truth. The contemporaries of Boethius thought it fufficient to know what the ancients had delivered. The examination of tenets and of facts was reserved for an other generation.

Boethius, as prefident of the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four fhillings and fix-pence of sterling money. In the prefent age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to fuppofe four and forty fhillings a year, an honourable ftipend; yet it was probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more than five to one, and it is known that Henry the eighth, among whose faults avarice was never reckoned, granted to Roger Afcham, as a reward of his learning, a penfion of ten pounds a year.

The other, called the Marifchal College, is in the new town. The hall is large and well lighted.

One

One of its ornaments is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan,

In the library I was fhewn fome curiofities; a Hebrew manuscript of exquisite penmanship, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's Politicks by Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman character with nicety and beauty, which, as the art of printing has made them no longer necessary, are not now to be found. This was one of the latest performances of the tranfcribers, for Aretinus died but about twenty years before typography was invented. This verfion has been printed, and may be found in libraries, but is little read; for the fame books have been fince tranflated both by Victorius and Lambinus, who lived in an age more cultivated, but perhaps owed in part to Aretinus that they were able to excel him. Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of fmoothing it.

In both these colleges the methods of instruction are nearly the fame; the lectures differing only by the accidental difference of diligence, or ability in the profeffors. The ftudents wear scarlet gowns and the profeffors black, which is, I believe, the academical dress in all the Scottish uni

verfities,