352 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



rated. ''And did not you attend Professor Cheape's lectures, as well 

 as his excellent dinners ?" is a question that some persons may ask. 

 Not I, indeed. No human bein^, as I have read, ever loved, for its own 

 sake, the study of Scotch law, however time may beget a fondness for 

 it ; and I remember what Hume (not Joey) said of Lord Kames's 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 compo- 

 sition, 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 represent 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, however, 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 pre- 

 serve 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 T am to the prac- 

 tice of it, there was a professor of another science in Edinburgh, whom I 

 did not fail making the acquaintance 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 having 



