ABERDEEN

We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had

some difficulty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell 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 Sir Alexander Gordon,

whom I had formerly known in London, and after a cessation of all

intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of physic in the

King's College. Such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may be numbered

among the most pleasing incidents of life.

The knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the rest,

and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there

was any thing which I desired to see, and entertained at once with the

novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication.

To write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of

geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered

coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; yet as Scotland

is little known to the greater part of those who may read these

observations, it is not superfluous to relate, that under the name of

Aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a mile distant from each

other, but governed, I think, by the same magistrates.

Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to be seen

the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in decay,

having been situated in times when commerce was yet unstudied, with very

little attention to the commodities of the harbour.

New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of

increasing opulence. It is built by the water-side. 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

easily. It is beautiful and must be very lasting.

What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants

of Aberdeen, I have 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 stricter language, an

university; for in both there are professors of the same parts of

learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer degrees

separately, with total independence of one on the other.

In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first president

was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the

revivers of elegant learning. When he studied at Paris, he was

acquainted with Erasmus, who afterwards gave him a public testimony of

his esteem, by inscribing to him a catalogue of his works. The stile of

Boethius, though, perhaps, not always rigorously pure, is formed with

great diligence upon ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monastic

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 rising on the world; but ages so long

accustomed to darkness, were too much dazzled with its light to see any

thing distinctly. 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 studious of elegance than of

truth. The contemporaries of Boethius thought it sufficient to know what

the ancients had delivered. The examination of tenets and of facts was

reserved for another generation.

* * * * *

Boethius, as president of the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty

Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling

money. In the present 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 suppose four and forty shillings a year, an

honourable stipend; 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 Ascham,

as a reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a year.

The other, called the Marischal College, is in the new town. The hall is

large and well lighted. 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 shewn some curiosities; 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

transcribers, for Aretinus died but about twenty years before typography

was invented. This version has been printed, and may be found in

libraries, but is little read; for the same books have been since

translated 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 smoothing it.

In both these colleges the methods of instruction are nearly the same;

the lectures differing only by the accidental difference of diligence, or

ability in the professors. The students wear scarlet gowns and the

professors black, which is, I believe, the academical dress in all the

Scottish universities, except that of Edinburgh, where the scholars are

not distinguished by any particular habit. In the King's College there

is kept a public table, but the scholars of the Marischal College are

boarded in the town. The expence of living is here, according to the

information that I could obtain, somewhat more than at St. Andrews.

The course of education is extended to four years, at the end of which

those who take a degree, who are not many, become masters of arts, and

whoever is a master may, if he pleases, immediately commence doctor. The

title of doctor, however, was for a considerable time bestowed only on

physicians. The advocates are examined and approved by their own body;

the ministers were not ambitious of titles, or were afraid of being

censured for ambition; and the doctorate in every faculty was commonly

given or sold into other countries. The ministers are now reconciled to

distinction, and as it must always happen that some will excel others,

have thought graduation a proper testimony of uncommon abilities or

acquisitions.

The indiscriminate collation of degrees has justly taken away that

respect which they originally claimed as stamps, by which the literary

value of men so distinguished was authoritatively denoted. That

academical honours, or any others should be conferred with exact

proportion to merit, is more than human judgment or human integrity have

given reason to expect. Perhaps degrees in universities cannot be better

adjusted by any general rule than by the length of time passed in the

public profession of learning. An English or Irish doctorate cannot be

obtained by a very young man, and it is reasonable to suppose, what is

likewise by experience commonly found true, that he who is by age

qualified to be a doctor, has in so much time gained learning sufficient

not to disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to desire it.

The Scotch universities hold but one term or session in the year. That

of St. Andrews continues eight months, that of Aberdeen only five, from

the first of November to the first of April.

In Aberdeen there is an English Chapel, in which the congregation was

numerous and splendid. The form of public worship used by the church of

England is in Scotland legally practised in licensed chapels served by

clergymen of English or Irish ordination, and by tacit connivance quietly

permitted in separate congregations supplied with ministers by the

successors of the bishops who were deprived at the Revolution.

We came to Aberdeen on Saturday August 21. On Monday we were invited

into the town-hall, where I had the freedom of the city given me by the

Lord Provost. The honour conferred had all the decorations that

politeness could add, and what I am afraid I should not have had to say

of any city south of the Tweed, I found no petty officer bowing for a

fee.

The parchment containing the record of admission is, with the seal

appending, fastened to a riband and worn for one day by the new citizen

in his hat.

By a lady who saw us at the chapel, the Earl of Errol was informed of our

arrival, and we had the honour of an invitation to his seat, called

Slanes Castle, as I am told, improperly, from the castle of that name,

which once stood at a place not far distant.

The road beyond Aberdeen grew more stony, and continued equally naked of

all vegetable decoration. We travelled over a tract of ground near the

sea, which, not long ago, suffered a very uncommon, and unexpected

calamity. The sand of the shore was raised by a tempest in such

quantities, and carried to such a distance, that an estate was

overwhelmed and lost. Such and so hopeless was the barrenness

superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax,

desired rather to resign the ground.