It is superfluous to say that nothing resulted from that conference, which might exasperate, but could not convince. For some years the Lords of the Congregation and the General Assemblies were occupied with more pressing matters; but, in 1569, they found leisure to purge' the University of Aberdeen. "Our Generall Assemblys took a particular inspection of the state of Universitys, especially after they had the countenance of the good Regent the Earle of Murray. Saint Andrews was pretty soon looked after, and some purgation made under Mr. John Douglas, Rector. That of Glasgow was extremely low every way, till Mr. Andrew Melvil was sent to it. In Aberdeen, a good many of the Popish masters made a shift to continow in their places. Several complaints were made by Mr. Adam Herriot, first minister at Aberdeen. After the Assembly, in the year 1569, commission was given to the Laird of Dun to visit that bounds, and particularly the University, with some others adjoyned to him. In July, the Regent, after he had settled the North and Highlands in peace, came to Aberdeen, and, with the council, joyned with the Superintendant and those in commission with him, and effectually purged that nursery of learning." They called before them Mr. Alexander Anderson, now principal, Mr. Alexander Galloway, subprincipal, Mr. Andrew Anderson, Mr. Thomas Owsten, Mr. Duncan Norie, fessor; qui cum coram multis proceribus in Domo civica sisterentur, atque a Johanne Knoxio, Joan. Villoxio ac Gudmanno Anglo Calvini ministris rogarentur; post rationem fidei a singulis redditam, et constantissimam Catholicæ religionis professionem factam, tandem de Eucharistiæ sacrificiique altaris veritate et ritibus, Alexander Andersonus tam docte, constanter, et pie respondit, ut catholicos confirmarit, ac hæreticos ita perculerit, ut post id tempus, de gravioribus religionis mysteriis cum illo, aut quovis alio catholico, nunquam sectarii in pulverem voluerint descendere; ergo ea pœna his 1 1 Wodrow's Life of John Erskine of Dun, p. 22. www regents, and required them to subscribe articles approving the Confession of Faith, and adhering to the true kirk; and they, most obstinately contemning his Grace's most godly admonitions, and refusing to subscribe the articles,' were deprived and removed.' We have seen that the principal, Alexander Anderson, was highly esteemed by those of his own persuasion. He is said, on insufficient authority, to have dilapidated the University and College, wishing that they should perish rather than breed heresy.' On the other hand, the tradition of the College records a cause of gratitude to him which will not be disputed. When the mob from the Mearns, who had torn the lead from the Cathedral roof, were gathered with the same intention against the College buildings, the Principal resisted, and was fortunate enough to resist successfully.? We learn nothing of him, after his deprivation, but his death in 1577, "excommunicatt contrayr the religione and at the kyngis horne."4 1 66 Upon the purging of the College," says Wodrow, "Mr. James The formal sentence of deprivation is dated ult. June, 1569.-Booke of the Kirk, p. 142. Sacris Romanis perdite addictus erat; vir ceteroquin doctus et probus: cumque animo præcepisset gymnasium novorum sacrorum seminarium futurum si superesset, omni ope annixus est ut secum desineret. Supellectilem pretiosissimam abalienavit et intervertit, fundos et decimas damnosis infeodationibus et elocationibus prodegit; academiæ. archiva tabularia censuales et diplomata seu chartas quas vocant quantum in ipso fuit, suppressit et celavit, omnem denique rem nostram, prope erat, delapidavit et decoxit. -And. Strachani Panegyricus inauguralis. Aberdoniis, Edwardus Rabanus, 1631, p. 26. Of Anderson's wilful dilapidation there is no evidence. The present collection from the University Archives, of itself, disproves part of what is laid to his charge, and as he lived for some time, without being called to account for embezzlement, though under church censure and at the King's horn,' we may indulge the hope that a man so respected was not a common plunderer. "Alexander Andersonus ultimus Collegii Regii Principalis ante instauratam religionem, cum plebs Merniensis ecclesiam cathedralem Aberdonensem tecto plumbeo spoliatam diripuisset, et continuo ad templum Collegii Regii reliquasque ædes Musis sacratas diripiendas devolaret, forti manu vim vi repellere nititur; audacem fortuna juvante, integra et intacta huc usque manent augusta Musarum tecta.-Donaides, Auct. Joanne Ker, 1725, p. 17. * Cullen's Obituary, Spald. Misc. II., 44. Lowson was made subprincipal, and Mr. Alexander Arbuthnot, and many other shining lights in this church, taught in that University." We know not the fate of the teachers outed at the Reformation. They were mostly in church orders. Some may have found shelter among the great families who still adhered to the old faith others probably sought employment among the bands of Scotch scholars, who were already numerous in all the continental Universities. Indeed, long before the definite era of the Reformation, the disturbed state of the country, and the tumult in men's minds, had rendered Scotland no country for philosophical education. There was more pressing work to do, before the attention of the Reformers could be cast so far forward, or devoted to the peaceful and unexciting business of training a new generation. If the civil power, and still more, if churchmen in power (of either party) interfered, it was generally to pull down rather than to build up-to persecute a popular adversary rather than to encourage an orthodox teacher. Even this state of public affairs and of public feeling will not, of itself, account for the remarkable state of the Scotch scholar life of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The want of employment, the insecurity, the poverty at home, only in part explain the crowd of expatriated Scotchmen, who were, during those centuries, teaching science and letters in every school of Europe. There was something in it of the adventurous spirit of the country-something of the same knight-errantry which led their unlettered brothers to take service wherever a gallant captain gave hope of distinction and prize money. It was not enough for one of those peripatetic scholars to find a comfortable niche in a University, where he might teach and gain friends and some money for his old age. The whole fraternity was inconceivably 'Life of John Erskine-p. 25, restless, and successful teachers migrated from college to college, from Paris to Louvain, from Orleans to Angers, from Padua to Bologna, as men in later times completed their education by the Grand Tour. The University feeling and the universal language of that day conduced somewhat to this effect. A graduate of one University was 'free' of all. His qualifications were on the surface too, and easily tested. A single conference settled a man's character, where ready Latin and subtle or vigorous disputation were the essential points. But whatever were the causes, the student of the history of those centuries must be struck with the facts. The same period which saw Florence Wilson, Scrymger, the elder Barclay, received among the foremost scholars of Europe, in its most learned age, witnessed also three Scotsmen professors at Sedan' at one and the same time, and two, if not three, together at Leyden.' John Cameron, admirably learned, lecturing everywhere, everywhere admired, moved, in 1600, from Glasgow to Bergerac, from Bergerac to Sedan, from Sedan to Paris, from Paris to Bordeaux, to Geneva, to Heidelberg, to Saumur, to Glasgow, again to Saumur, to Montauban, there to rest at last. But the type of the class was Thomas Dempster, a man of proved learning and ability, but whose adventures in love and arms, while actually regenting at Paris, at Tournay, at Toulouse, at Nimes, in Spain, in England, at Pisa, at Bologna, were as romantic as those of the admirable Crichton, or Cervantes' hero. Incidentally to his own history, Dempster makes us acquainted with four Scotchmen of letters, whom he met at Louvain. He visited James Cheyne, a Scotch doctor at Tournay; succeeded David Sinclair as Regent in the college of Navarre at Paris, and was invited by Professors Adam Abernethy, and Andrew Currie, to join them at Montpellier.3 'Walter Donaldson, professor of Greek and principal, Andrew Melville, John Smith. 2 Gilbert Jack, James Ramsay, John Murdison, in 1603, or a little earlier. It is much to be regretted that Dr. M'Crie did not find room for his notes of the Scotch teachers in the Protestant academies of France in the time of Andrew Melville: Of those expatriated Scots, scattered through the Universities of the continent, Aberdeen had produced her share. Florence Wilson, who describes his native scenes by the banks of the Lossy, under the towers of Elgin, was equal to his friend Buchanan in easy graceful Latinity. He was a Greek scholar also, and taught Greek in 1540. But that part of his education could hardly be got at his native University. William Barclay, the great jurist-father of John, the author of the admirable romance the Argenis-David Chalmers of Ormond, besides multitudes of mere professors, kept up the reputation of King's College abroad, while there were not wanting at home men of high name in literature, who owed their instruction to the Northern University. The depression, which is visible at the visitation of 1549, continued during the actual storm of the Reformation. In 1562, when Queen Mary made her northern progress, accompanied by the English ambassador, Randolph wrote from Aberdeen: "The Quene, in her progresse, is now come as far as Olde Aberdine, the Bishop's seat, and where also the Universitie is, or at the least, one college with fiftene or sixteen scollers." 1 We shall form a high opinion of the reformed University, if we judge of it by the first Principal of its College. Alexander Arbuthnot, "a gentleman born of the house of Arbuthnot in Mearns, being trained up in the study of letters, and having passed "The number of Scotchmen, he says, who taught in these seminaries was great. They were to be found in all the Universities and Colleges; in several of them they held the honourable situation of Principal, and in others they amounted to a third part of the Professors."-Life of Melville, 2d edit., p. 279. A list of these, with such biographical notices as could be gathered, and a similar list of the Scotch scholars, then and a little earlier, driven out for their attachment to the Roman Catholic tenets, would form an exceedingly interesting chapter of Scotch literary history. It must be remembered too that there was a class of Universities where no 'test' was in use, and in Italy especially, the learned man was encouraged to teach in his peculiar province without exclusion of creed or country.-Sir W. Hamiton's " discussions on philosophy," p. 359. 1To Cecil, 31 Aug., 1562, in Chalmers' Life of Ruddiman, p. 7-note. 2 He was the son of Andrew Arbuthnott in Pitcarles, by his wife Elizabeth Strachan |