is now visibly abating, and giving way too faft to that laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not fufficiently inftructed to find the middle point, too easily 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 university, 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 fabrick not inelegant of external structure; 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 fhrubs.. This new method of gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto profper. To what use it will next be put, I have no pleasure in conjecturing. It is fomething, that its prefent 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 doubtlefs 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 increafing, denies any participation of its profperity to its literary focieties;

and

and while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, fuffers 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 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 Englih vanity, by telling me, that we had no fuch repofitory of books in England.

St. Andrews seems 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 diffoluteness 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 students however are reprefented as at this time not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be fome obftruction to their increase 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 session, or as the English call it, his term, which lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for less than ten; in which, board, lodging, and instruction are all included.

The chief magiftrate refident in the univerfity, 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 still 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 stood 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 less than four generations. The right, however it began, was confidered as established by legal prescription, 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, fhe was diftinguished by fome notice; that indeed fhe is now neglected, but the spins a thread, has the company of a cat, and is troublesome to nobody.

Having now seen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiofity, we left it with good wifhes, having reason to be highly pleased with the attention. that was paid us. But whoever furveys the world VOL. X.

Y

must

must see many things that give him pain. The kindness of the profeffors did not contribute to abate the uneasy remembrance of an university declining, a college alienated, and a church profaned and haftening to the ground.

St. Andrews indeed has formerly fuffered more atrocious ravages and more extenfive deftruction, but recent evils affect with greater force. We were reconciled to the fight of archiepifcopal ruins. The distance of a calamity from the prefent time feems to preclude the mind from contact or fympathy. Events long paft are barely known; they are not confidered. We read with as little emotion the violence of Knox and his followers, as the irruptions of Alaric and the Goths. Had the univerfity been destroyed two centuries ago, we fhould not have regretted it; but to fee it pining in decay, and struggling for life, fills the mind with mournful images and ineffectual wishes.

ABERBROTHICK.

As we knew forrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind our way. The roads of Scotland afford little diverfion to the traveller, who feldom fees himfelf either encountered or overtaken, and who has nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries, or are feparated by walls of loofe ftone. From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never feen a fingle tree, which I did not believe to have grown up far within the prefent century. Now and then about a gentleman's house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a policy, but of these there are few, and those

few all very young. The variety of fun and shade is here utterly unknown. There is no tree for either fhelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger, and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in the road between Kirkeldy and Cowpar, I paffed for a few yards between two hedges. A tree might be a fhow in Scotland as a horfe in Venice. At St. Andrews Mr. Bofwell found only one, and recom mended it to my notice; I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought fo. This, faid he, is nothing to another a few miles off. I was ftill lefs delighted to hear that another tree was not to be feen nearer. Nay, faid a gentleman that stood by, I know but of this and that tree in the county.

The Lowlands of Scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods with other countries. Forefts are every where gradually diminished, as architecture and cultivation prevail by the increase of people and the introduction of arts. But I be lieve few regions have been denuded like this, where many centuries must have paffed in wafte without the least thought of future fupply. Davies obferves in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had ever planted an orchard. For that negligence fome excufe might be drawn from an unfettled ftate of life, and the inftability of property; but in Scotland poffeffion has long been fecure, and inheritance regular, yet it may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever fet a tree.