MEMOIR OF JOHN BARCLAY. 19 



of Hebrew in the University when young Barclay 

 entered it; and I cannot think an inquiring mind 

 like his, would be either unnoticed or unassisted by 

 so kind and benevolent a teacher as I have always 

 understood that excellent professor to have been. 



A delightful anecdote of young Barclay, in re- 

 ference to this period, is preserved by Sir George 

 Ballingall, which I use the liberty of copying in- 

 his own words. " Having set out upon a visit to 

 his relations in Perthshire, during the Christmas 

 holidays, he was benighted and overtaken by a storm, 

 at the small village of Lindores, near Newburgh 

 in Fife. Here he sought shelter in the house of a 

 poor man of the name of Wilson, who, with his wife, 

 received our traveller at first with some degree of 

 suspicion ; but, being overcome with his frankness 

 and affability, soon became more kindly disposed, 

 and treated him with all the hospitality which 

 their little cottage afforded. The writer had the 

 pleasure, at the distance of nearly thirty years 

 afterwards, of accompanying the doctor in search of 

 his benefactors, and of witnessing the very gratifying 

 recognition on both sides, the doctor giving them 

 substantial proofs of his recollection of their kind- 

 ness." * 



Barclay's views had hitherto been directed to the 

 Church ; and accordingly, after having finished his 

 studies at the University, and gone through the 

 usual course of trial, he was licensed as a " proba- 



* In his life of Dr. Barclay, prefixed to his Introductory 

 Lectures to a course of Anatomy, &c. Edinburgh, 1827. 



