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