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84 College of Edinburgh. Happily Robertson was spared to play his part on that great clay. Preceded by the Mace, with the Professor of Divinity on his right hand, and the Professor of Church History on his left, followed by the rest of his colleagues according to seniority, and by the students, each man wearing a sprig of green laurel in his hat, he headed the procession of the University.

However mean were the buildings in general, with the library Johnson was much pleased. Fifty years earlier a traveller had noticed that "the books in it were cloistered with doors of wire which none could open but the keeper, more commodious than the multitude of chains used in the English libraries." I was surprised to find that so late as 1723 the use of chains was generally continued in England. Yet about that time one of the Scotch exhibitioners at Balliol College reported that the knives and forks were chained to the tables in the Hall, so that it was likely that at least as great care was taken with books of value. Johnson's attention does not seem to have been drawn to an inscription over one of the doors, which the French traveller, Saint-Fond, read with surprise— Had he noticed it, it would scarcely have failed to draw forth some remark.

From the College the party went on to the Royal Infirmary. In the Bodleian Library I have found a copy of the History and Statutes of that institution printed in 1749. In it is given a table of the three kinds of diet which the patients were to have—"low, middle, and full." The only vegetable food allowed was oatmeal and barley-meal, rice and panado. There was no tea, coffee, or cocoa. The only drink was ale, but in "low diet" it was not to be taken. It is to be hoped that the Infirmary was not under the