xii.] LIFE IN ST. ANDREWS. 397 



Scotland's system of education, and naming the three 

 then existing Universities for that of Edinburgh had 

 not yet appeared speaks of ' the First University and 

 Principal, viz. S. Androes.' The primacy which Knox 

 attributed to it, St. Andrews then undoubtedly held, not 

 only by right of antiquity, but also of mental and theo- 

 logical eminence. In the interval between Knox's time 

 ;m<l our own, the Universities of Scotland, like all other 

 things, have greatly changed. The three younger Univer- 



3, owing to their situation in the heart of large and 

 rapidly increasing populations, have far outgrown in size 

 and number of students their elder sister, placed as she 

 is apart from throngs of men, and amid a stationary com- 

 munity. But during these three centuries St. Andrews 



not failed to contribute to the service of her country 

 an amount of ability and trained intellect out of ^all 

 proportion to her comparative numbers. In the gene- 

 ration just gone, three distinguished contemporaries, 

 one, the greatest preacher and divine which Scotland 

 during this century, produced ; another, the Lord 

 Chancellor of England; and a third, the Lord Justice- 

 General of Scotland, were all alumni of the United 

 ( Yllege. 



These historic details are not out of place in this 

 account of the life of Forbes. For him the ancient 

 records, monuments, and traditions of his newly adopted 

 University j.oss. s> <! a peculiar charm, and called out 

 be which had hitherto lain dormant 

 within him, only because it had nothing to feed on. 

 Among the predecessors of Principal Forbes for more 

 than a century, no distinguished name is to be found 

 till we n-aeli that of the venerable I )r. Hunter, famous 

 in his day as a .-dmlar and philologist, who, after tilling 

 with great success the Humanity chair for nearly sixty 

 year inwards the close of his long life, raised to the 



Prii ip of his College. Him followed, after a brief 



interval, Sir l)avid J 1 , r, who, during his twenty 



years' tenure of the ntlicc, if any remains of the family 



d them vhat tuilm- 



