126 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



lectic one, being unwilling to trench on the business of the 

 Logic chair. 



" We set out with the fundamental law, that the farther in you 

 go, the more quietness, thought, and study you find. There is one 

 square table at the door, with magnificent mahogany chairs, in 

 the same style of costly decoration as the rest of the gorgeous 

 apartment, where, "to the best of our knowledge, a new idea was 

 never picked up, it being the rendezvous of a set of raffs, who loll 

 on the chairs, lay their accoutrements on the table, and bravely 

 bid defiance to the demon of ennui. At the other end of the 

 room a different set are seen. We generally find, about the 

 second divan, some two of Forbes' crack students, unravelling 

 the mysteries of the last week's problem, now with head bent 

 over, tracing the course of their mathematical hieroglyphics, and 

 anon, when some debatable point arises, talking with a loud- 

 ness and energy sufficient to square the circle, though it were as 

 large as Ducrow's amphitheatre. A little farther on sit arm-in- 

 arm, most lovingly, their debate being over, two neophyte Aris- 

 totles, fresh from the logic class, diving deep into the subtleties 

 of innate ideas, concepts, correlates, and the like these, we 

 need scarcely say, are disciples of the Academic school : the 

 philosophers of the Porch, a much larger body, will be found 

 clustered round the College gates, studying human nature on the 

 great scale ; and the Peripatetics, by far the most numerous 

 body, oscillate between the North Bridge and Princes Street, 

 unless the weather be wet, when they join their rivals of the 

 porch, or, along with them, mingle with the Academics ; the 

 Epicureans, an equally large-body, are spread over the many tem- 

 ples of their order situated in the neighbourhood, among which 

 we may particularize one, having marked on its walls the mystic 

 words DOULL, SINCLAIR, AND WHITE, which, according to the learned 

 Greek Professor, indicate the names of the ministering hiero- 

 phants within ; the Stoics in our University a distinct branch 

 from the disciples of the porch, a mere handful, will be found in 

 an adjoining edifice, sacred to their order, eating hard biscuits 

 and drinking water. But to return : we can only indicate the 

 more prominent characters of the room, and we draw attention 

 to a species, individuals of which are to be found at every table. 



