Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/39

 nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to its literary societies; and, while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.

Of the two colleges yet standing, one is, by the institution of its founder, appropriated to divinity. It is said to be capable of containing fifty students; but more than one must occupy a chamber. The library, which is of late erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and luminous.

The doctor, by whom it was shown, hoped to irritate or subdue my English vanity, by telling me, that we had no such repository of books in England.

St. Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one, the desire of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to the love of money.

The students, however, are represented as, at this time, not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be some obstruction to their increase that there is no episcopal chapel in the place. I saw no reason for imputing their paucity to the present professors; nor can the expense of an academical education be very reasonably objected. A student of the highest class may keep his annual session, or, as the English call it, his term, which lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for less than ten; in which, board, lodging, and instruction are all included.

The chief magistrate resident in the university, answering to our vicechancellor, and to the rector magnificus on the continent, had commonly the title of lord rector; but, being addressed only as Mr. rector, in an inauguratory