me of the chief executioner in these scenes.
Detested by his pupils, he was a victim to every sort of petty
persecution from them, so that cruelty acted and reacted between him and
them. On one memorable occasion he flogged John Burton with such
violence as to cause to himself an internal rupture.

The offence which led to this unmeasured punishment was "looking
impudent!"--and the look of supposed impudence was produced by a
temporarily swollen lip; but the swollen lip was the effect of a single
combat with a schoolfellow; and fighting was so rife, and so severely
repressed, that it appeared less dangerous to meet the consequences of
the supposed impertinent face than those of the battle. The unfortunate
pupil of course continued to grimace, and the wretched schoolmaster to
flog, till the pupil streamed with blood, and the master sat down from
sheer exhaustion and an injury from which he never recovered.

Before John Hill Burton had completed his course at the grammar school
he gained a bursary by competition, and began his studies at Marischal
College. The open competition for bursaries at Aberdeen was a subject
on which he delighted to talk, often with tears of enthusiasm in his
eyes. The entire impartiality, the complete openness of these
competitions to the whole world, the spectacle of high learning freely
offered to whoever could by merit earn it, seemed to Dr Burton, to his
life's end, as fine a subject of contemplation as any the world could
offer. During his last illness, a friend, who knew his strong interest
in his Alma Mater, presented him with Mr M'Lean's 'Life at a Northern
University.' He read it with the utmost delight, often reading passages
aloud with great emotion, on account of the vivid picture they presented
of the scenes of his youth. It was a rough hard life that of an Aberdeen
College student fifty or sixty years ago.

Mr M'Lean says of his fellow-students: "As the most of them came from
the country--generally from the Highlands and Western Islands of
Scotland--they brought with them all their native roughness and
coarseness of manners. The great majority of those who had spent their
lives in town frequented the neighbouring university,[1] where the
entrance and other examinations were not nearly so severe. In general,
the great bulk of the students were far behind in good manners, and that
polish which a large town always gives. Their secluded habits when at
college, and their intercourse on