LEARNED MEN. — ROYAL DONATIONS. 101 



we may cite the names of Andrew Ramsay, an elegant Latin poet,* and 

 John Adamson, principal of the college, and contemporary with Drummond of 

 Hawthornden. After the Restoration, also, the Rev. Dr. Monro— (a name with 

 which, in later times, the fame of its medical school has become so closely iden- 

 tified) — was principal of the college, and had a conge d'elire in his favour for the 

 see of Argyll. The chairs of the different departments continued to be filled by 

 men eminently qualified for their office during the Commonwealth ; and among 

 these was the celebrated Robert Leighton, afterwards archbishop of Glasgow, 

 whose moderation and dignified composure in the midst of popular excitement 

 gave him a lasting title to respect and veneration.f 



During this stormy period, when the calm pursuits of literature were so often 

 interrupted and chilled by political dissension or party violence, Cromwell, to 

 evince the interest which he felt in the prosperity of the University, endowed it 

 with an annuity of two hundred pounds sterling. This munificent example was 

 followed by William, prince of Orange, in an additional grant of three hundred 

 pounds, to be paid out of his treasury and bishops' rents in Scotland; but 

 this bounty being cancelled by the policy of his successor. Queen Anne, a 

 professor and fifteen poor students were thereby left destitute, and discharged 

 from the short-lived benefaction. 



" And why ? That courtly sycophants might reap 

 The sage's mite — and friendless merit weep !" 



Having thus given a general coup-d'osil to the rise and progress of the 

 University,J we need not prosecute the subject further, nor attempt to show 

 how, in modern times, it has accumulated strength, and wisdom, and honour — 

 shone preeminent in all the departments of literature and science, and jus- 

 tified its proud title as the throne of an intellectual city — " Urbs addicta 

 Minervae." 



His poem on the " Creation" is that from which — according to Lauder, in his " Essay on Milton's 

 Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost" — the " divine bard so liberally culled the loveliest 

 flowers to adorn the garland wliich shades his venerable temples." 



t Wlien it was proposed to him by some of his friends that certain topics of a political tendency — and 

 particularly, " the solemn League and Covenant" — should be more generally dwelt upon, and commended in 

 addresses from the pulpit, he replied, that everyone might insist on that matter as they should be directed; 

 but that for his part, and so far as God should enable him, his main scope should be to preach " Christ 

 crucified." — It were well if " political" pastors would profit by such an example. 



X The University comprises thirty-one professors; and with a magnificent and richly stored museum, 

 a library of more than fifty thousand volumes, and the buildings now completed in a noble and classic 

 style of architecture, is one of the most sumptuous temples of learning in Europe. 



D D 



