d, from any in
whom he recognised the attributes of a common nature, saying to him,
'See that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh.'

"My last year's attendance at the College Philosophical Classes was at
St Andrews. I had a craving to acquaint myself with a city noted in
story, and I could not, under the canopy of my native sky, have planted
the step among scenes more closely interwoven with past national
transactions, or fraught with more interesting associations. In
attending the Natural Philosophy Class, not being proficient in
mathematic lore, I derived less advantage than had otherwise been the
case with me. Yet I did not sit wholly in the shade, notwithstanding
that the light which shone upon me did not come from that which Campbell
says yielded 'the lyre of Heaven another string.' 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