Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/15

 dustriously by their opportunities of education: in both an inclination early shewed itself for the sacred office of the ministry: both were energetic; and their energies were directed enthusiastically to the discoveries in which they were engaged: and both were alike regardless of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and danger in the prosecution of these discoveries.

In pursuance of the design of educating him for the Church of Scotland, Mr. Simpson was sent in his seventeenth year to King's College, Aberdeen. Here he pursued his studies for four winters: the remaining months of each year he spent in his native town, preparing himself for the succeeding winter's labours; or with his friends in the neighbourhood, to all of whom his pleasing address made him an acceptable visitor.

The distinctions to be gained at this northern institution are not, I am well aware, of equal value with those to be won at the more celebrated colleges of southern Scotland, or at the Universities of England; yet the attainment of the highest of them is, at least, a proof of a young man's pre-eminence among his fellow-students. At the end of his four years' curriculum Mr. Simpson carried off the "Huttonian" prize,—the highest given at King's College,—on an examina-