is indebted for removing the unseemly excrescence which served the purpose of a library and a jewel-house, and generally for the state of decent though untasteful repair in which its buildings are

Besides their modest buildings, their books (now amounting to 50,000 volumes) and the charters and records which have furnished the materials of the present volume, the University and College which

have gone through so many different fortunes, have not much to recall the past stages of their existence.

In spite of the neglect of old art common to all Scotland, there are still preserved, in the Hall and Senatus room, a few interesting pictures. Among these is the portrait of the founder, with all the marks of a genuine and contemporary portrait,' and a fine head of the venerable Bishop Patrick Forbes, by Jamiesone.

The Mace of the University is of silver, manufactured in Aberdeen; perhaps in imitation of the old mace, enumerated in 1542 among the Rectorial ornaments-baculus Rectoris argenti cum armis Regis et fundatoris." The Royal arms, with the date of 1650, suggest that it must have been provided to do honour to the visit which Charles II. made to Aberdeen, 7th July, 1650, or on the 25th February following, while he was still King in Scotland. The common seal of the University is a silver stamp, the work of the seventeenth century, perhaps taken from an older one. The cognizance (not on a shield), is the pot of lilies, the emblem of the Virgin; on the front of the pot, three fishes, crossing fret-wise. Above, a hand extends downwards an open book. The legendSIGILLUM COMMUNE COLLEGII BEATE MARIE UNIVERSITATIS ABERDONENSIS.

The frontispiece to this volume gives it in fac-simile from a careful drawing by Mr. Giles.

Round the staff is inscribed "Walterus Melvil fecit anno 1650." On the top under the crown and emblems of royalty are the arms, quarterly, of Scotland, England, Ireland, and Scotland (again) within the garter; above, the Scotch motto, In defence; under, God save the King. On the sides are the arms of Elphinstone-a cheveron between three boars' heads-and the cognizance of the University, the pot of lilies, (the emblem of the Virgin) but without the three fishes.

An impression, certainly of this stamp, occurs at a deed of 1658.-Laing's "Ancient Scot. Seals," No. 975. Edinburgh, 1850. The cognizance occurs in a wood-cut used by the University printers, before the Restora. tion, with the words-"ex bibliotheca collegii regalis Aberdonensis." The same device, without the hand and book, has been sculptured as a coat armorial on the Townhouse of Old Aberdeen, with the mottoCONCORDIA RES PARVE CRESCUNT, and the date of 1721.

It is to be feared that all the bells of the campanile, which the old members of the College name with such affection and pride, the five great bells-TRINITY, MARY, MICHAEL, GABRIEL, and RAPHAEL and the five small ones for marking the half hours, have disappeared, as well as the three little bells used in the church for the high altar and the altars of St. German and St. Mary, either to be re-cast in Monsieur Gelly's' melting-pot, or for worse purposes. St. Mary of the Snows has not better protected her two bells which boasted the names of Schochtmadony and Skellat.2

The old practice of presenting a spoon on laureation has left its trace in a collection of thirty-five common silver table spoons.3 Some richer graduates increased the offering. A silver cup without name or date, with handle and cover, but of poor workmanship, has only the College arms upon it. Two cups of silver bear to have been presented by foreign students, who, after studying perhaps for a short time, probably received honorary degrees."

The poculum caritatis-a low silver cup, with handles and cover, bears to be the gift of the munificent benefactor of the University, Dr. James Fraser.

It is not very easy to ascertain the causes which regulate the increase or decrease of students. A favourite Regent might

3

1 Infra, p. 438.

2 Infra, p. 47.

They are all of the same stamp" C. A.— A. B. D."-and each engraved "C. R."

These cups are nearly alike. The one is inscribed "Almæ universitati Aberdonensi in amoris sui tesseram donavit Petrus Specht Borussus, in eadem laurea donatus anno 1643." On the other is "Andreas Thomsonus Scoto-borussus coll. Reg. Aberd. ibid. educat. dono dedit, 1643." It is remarkable that though both names occur among the matriculations of 1641, (p. 464.) neither is found among the graduates. Perhaps the degrees were conferred extra ordinem, with

out the requisite previous study, and not to be registered among the bona fide laureates. 5 It has the arms of Fraser on one side, and those of the University on the other. Round the brim is inscribed-"Poculum hoc almæ suæ matri Coll. Reg. Aberdon. dono dedit Jacobus Fraser D. U. J." This cup"in celebrioribus Academiæ conventibus utendum" (Frasereides)—is now produced only at the Professors' breakfast on the day of commencement of Session, when toasts are drunk to each Professor and his class; and finally a health—

Benefactoribus et benefacturis!

of old account for a large class; but there are periods of fullness and others of decrease which we cannot explain. The average number of intrants, of the first ten years of the seventeenth century, did not exceed nineteen. Before the restoration it had increased to thirty. For the decade succeeding the restoration, 1660, the average amounted to seventy. In the middle of the last century, the attendance had fallen off so much, that for the ten years following 1756 it amounted to only twenty-nine. Since that time the University has gradually recovered, and the average number of intrants for the last ten years may be stated at ninety.

From these numbers, it is evident that the University of Elphinstone and Forbes, the school which has been taught by the Gregories and Reid, has not decayed; and, while the present principle of election is maintained, which fills each vacant chair with the candidate conscientiously believed to be the fittest for it, the University will flourish.

The thesis of the " magistrandus," to be maintained against all impugners, the last shred of the old scholastic disputation, has been long abandoned by all the Scotch, as well as by the English Universities, and but for its old associations, it is not seriously to be regretted. Another innovation is much more questionable. In Aberdeen, as in other Scotch Universities, the degrees of Bachelor and Licenciate have disappeared; to the evident loss of a system of teaching depending so much on sustained emulation and public competition. But, in giving Master's degrees, which rank with the A.B. degree of England, without special examination, the University has evidently abandoned a valuable test of general Academic study and advancement.

Elphinstone's constitution, originally less popular than was usual and almost necessary in the older Universities, has not grown more liberal. There is no evidence of a single convocation or meeting of all members of the University since the Reformation. Even the

Rector is not, as elsewhere, elected by the whole body. And the election of the masters by the masters is a solecism only to be defended by the two reasons—that it is not easy to constitute a good electoral body; and secondly, that the present system, administered as it now is, works very well.

We have seen how the influence of one good Prelate and his learned associates was felt for some time to refine the society of the Town of Aberdeen and neighbouring country. It is too much to suppose that influence still continues; but if, as it has been thought, the citizens of Aberdeen, are superior in cultivation and intelligence to those of other provincial towns, it is without doubt owing to the means of higher education brought within the reach of the middle class, and yet more to the academic element which pervades the upper classes of the great and energetic commercial city'

I have thought it allowable for one unconnected with the district, but who has necessarily become acquainted with the constitution and past history of the University, to point to some changes which seem in themselves desirable, and capable of being effected without external aid, while most of them are more practicable here than in Universities situated in great towns. But the greatest

and most evident of all academic reforms in Aberdeen is the union of the sister Colleges. The trifling inconvenience that may be felt by some of the citizens is hardly to be named in comparison with the great advantages that would result from such a measure. If the law and medical lectures were carried on in the Town building, in

'It would not be easy to point to a better proof of this generally diffused cultivation than the maintenance and continued prosperity of the Spalding Club-a body which has already done much to supply the defect, general throughout Scotland, of works of local antiquities and history, and which

seems peculiarly well placed in the country of Straloch and James Gordon. The Metropolis and the great city of Glasgow have similar societies; but no other provincial district of Scotland has even attempted an institution having in view objects of such intelligence, and requiring such extended sympathy.