42 
MEMOIR OF DR. WALKER. 
were not filled with the sons and the grandsons 
of baillies and deacons : 
“ but there’s a Providence 
That shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” 
and to this is to be attributed the elevated station 
which the university of Edinburgh, in her scientific 
classes, still bears among the institutions of Europe, 
sustained, however, in no small degree, by the ex- 
cellence of many of the private lecturers, and the 
salaries of the professors being in general too small 
to allow them to disregard the number or estimation 
of the students. We hope now a better mom begins 
to dawn, whether it shall produce a more brilliant 
day we venture not to prognosticate ; in the words 
of our old reformer, “ time will try meanwhile it 
may not be amiss to recal a little of the manoeuvring 
which took place upon the present occasion, as a 
picture of former days. 
Dr. Ramsay, the Professor of Natural History, 
having been prevented from lecturing regularly for 
some time before his death, Lord Kames, who was 
well acquainted with Mr. William Smellie, then 
in the prime of life and expectation, and to wdioso 
attainments in the study of natural history he was 
no stranger, proposed to him, in the year 1774, 
to deliver a series of lectures on the philosophy and 
general economy of nature, leaving the regular 
scientific treatment of the subject to the public 
professor. This plan met with Dr. Ramsay s entire 
concurrence, who afforded every assistance in books 
and advice, and it w T ould have been carried into 
