' A man almost always
finds some excuse for deficiency; and I have one involving a philosophy
which I think few will be disposed to do otherwise than acquiesce
in--namely, that it is a happy arrangement in the creation and history
of man, that all minds are not so constituted as to have the same
predilections, or to follow the same bent. Considering that I had
started at a rather late hour of life to travel in the paths of
learning, and having so many things, interesting and important, to
attend to by the way, it was perhaps less remarkable that I should be
one who 'neither kenn'd nor cared' much about lines that had no breadth,
and points which were without either breadth or length, than that I
should have felt gratified to find on my arrival some of my simple
strains sung in a city famed for its scientific acquirements.

"The ruins which intermingle with the scenery and happy homes of St
Andrews, like gray hairs among those of another hue, rendered venerable
the general aspect of the place. But I did not feel only the city
interesting, but the whole of Fifeshire. By excursions made on the
monthly holidays then as well as subsequently, when in after-years I
returned to visit friends in the royal realm, I acquainted myself with a
goodly number of those haunts and scenes which history and tradition
have rendered attractive. A land, however, or any department of it,
whatever may be its other advantages, is most to be valued in respect of
the intelligence or worth of its inhabitants. And if so, then I am proud
to aver that in Fife I came to possess many intelligent and excellent
friends. Many of these have gone to another land--'the land o' the
leal,' leaving the places which now know them no more, the more
regretfully endeared to recollection. Of those friends who survive, I
cannot forbear an especial mention of one, who is now a professor in the
college in which he was then only a student. A man cannot be truly great
unless he also be good, and I do not alone value him on the colder and
statelier eminence of high intellectual powers and scientific
acquirements, but also, if not much rather, for his generous worth and
his benevolent feeling. My friend is one in whom these qualities are
combined, and as I sincerely think, I will likewise freely say, that
those will assuredly find a time, sooner or later, greatly to rejoice,
whose fate has been so favourable as to place them under the range and
influence of his tuition.