244 N1MRG&S NORTHERN TOUR. 



law tracts : " A man may as well think of making a fine sauce," 

 said the historian, " by a mixture of wormwood and aloes, as an 

 agreeable composition, by joining metaphysics and Scotch law." 

 But the old proverb, " damnat, quod non intelligit," applies here 

 to me. 



It would be unbecoming of me to pass over the name of 

 Blackwood, when speaking of the hospitality of Edinburgh. The 

 recent decease of the father of the two gentlemen who now re- 

 present him in George Street, prevented them from showing me 

 those marks of their attention which they assured me it would 

 otherwise have given them pleasure to have done. I have, how- 

 ever, one interesting fact to mention with relation to the late Mr. 

 Blackwood. Previously to my arrival in Scotland, I received 

 from him nearly the last letter he ever wrote, dated from a sick 

 Bed ; and on my showing it to Mr. Burn Callander, he requested 

 permission to preserve it, as a trifling memorial of a person for 

 whom he had the highest regard. 



Even with the wisest of men, nothing is beneath their notice 

 that tends to utility ; but it is natural to suppose that, attached 

 as I am to the practice of it, there was a professor of another 

 science in Edinburgh, whom I did not fail making the acquaint- 

 ance of. This was Mr. Dick, professor of the Edinburgh 

 Veterinary School, and one of the editors of that most useful 

 periodical, the Veterinarian. Although I passed through his 

 school, I did not hear him lecture, my engagements on that day 

 Saving prevented me ; but I had some very interesting conver- 

 sation with him, on matters connected with his art, and he 

 showed me a cart load of dissections, models, and so forth. He 

 also told me what, I must say, surprised me. It was the fact of 

 an old farrier, of the old school, being at that time one of his 

 pupils, and in constant attendance on his lectures. This is a rare 

 instance of ignorance and prejudice yielding to a clearer light, 

 and also a proof that practice itself, how extensive soever it may 

 be, cannot keep pace with knowledge. Mr. Dick had been lec- 

 turing on the viscera of a horse, which still lay on the floor of 

 his school, and he could not have selected many better subjects, 

 from the curious and complicated structure of the parts, the di- 

 seases to which they are subject, and the vile treatment which 

 they formerly met with from ignorance. But the sight of those 

 intestines, and the association of them with the old farrier, 

 brought to my recollection that, in days still older than our own, 

 something worse than ignorance stood in the way of knowledge 

 of the medical and veterinary art ; the dissection of a beast was 

 once considered an act of contempt of the works of God ! Demo- 

 eritus, I believe, was the man who prevailed over this very 

 absurd superstition of his countrymen, and his answer to Hippo- 



