long enough to fhew us how much we loft at feparation.

As we croffed the FRITH of FORTH, our curiofity was attracted by INCH KEITH, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever vifited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives folicited their notice. Here, by climbing with 1ome difficulty over shattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coafts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grafs, and fertile of thiftles. A fmall herd of cows grazes annually upon it in the fummer. It seems never to have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation.

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We found only the ruins of a small fort, not fo injured by time but that it might be eafily restored to its former ftate. It feems never to have been intended as a place of ftrength, nor was built to endure a fiege, but merely to afford cover to a few foldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or were stationed to give fignals of approaching danger. There is therefore no provifion of water within the walls, though the fpring is fo near, that it might have been cafily enclosed. One of the stones had this infcription: "Maria Reg. 1564." It has probably been neglected from the time that the whole island had the fame king.

We left this little ifland with our thoughts employed a while on the different appearance that it would

would have made, if it had been placed at the fame distance from London, with the fame facility of approach; with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchased, and with what expensive industry they would have been cultivated and adorned.

When we landed, we found our chaife ready, and paffed through KINGHORN, KIRKALDY, and COWPAR, places not unlike the fmall or fraggling market-towns in England, where commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence.

Though we were yet in the most populous part of Scotland, and at fo fmall a diftance from the capital, we met few paffengers.

The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a southern stranger a new kind of pleasure to travel fo commodioufly without the interruption of toll-gates. Where the bottom is rocky, as it feems commonly to be in Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are neceffary, the ground once confolidated is rarely broken; for the inland cominerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often tranfported otherwife than by water. The carriages in common use are small carts, drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive fome degree of dignity and importance from the reputation of poffeffing a two-horse cart.

St ANDREWS.

Át an hour fomewhat late we came to St Andrews, a city once archiepifcopal; where that university fill fubfifts in which philofophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whofe name has as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the inftability of vernacular languages admits.

We found, that by the interpofition of some invifible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the house of one of the profeffors, whofe eafy civility quickly made us forget that we were ftrangers; and in the whole time of our ftay we were gratified by every mode of kindnefs, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hofpitality.

In the morning we rofe to perambulate a city, which only history fhews to have once flourished, and furveyed the ruins of ancient magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless fome care be taken to preferve them; and where is the pleasure of preferving fuch mournful memorials? They have been till very lately fo much neglected, that every man carried away the ftones who fancied that he wanted them.

The Cathedral, of which the foundations may be ftill traced, and a fmall part of the wall is ftanding, appears to have been a fpacious and majestic building, not unfuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor remains

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can hardly exhibit, even to an artift, a fufficient fpecimen. It was demolished, as is well known, in the tumult and violence of Knox's reformation.

Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of the water, ftands a fragment of the caftle, in which the archbishop anciently refided. It was never very large, and was built with more attention to fecurity than pleasure. Cardinal Beatoun is faid to have had workmen employed in improving its fortifications at the time when he was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner of which Knox has given what he himself calls a merry narrative.

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthufiafm, compounded of fullen scrupuloufnefs and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idlenefs refigned to their own thoughts, and who converfing only with each other, fuffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full ftrength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourfe with England, is now vifibly abating, and giving way too faft to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not fufficiently inftructed to find the middle point, too eafily fhelter themselves from rigour and constraint.

The city of St Andrews, when it had loft its. archiepifcopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now loft; and in thofe that

remain, there is the filence and folitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation..

The univerfity, within a few years, confifted of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college of St Leonard being lately diffolved by the fale of its buildings and the appropriation of its revenues to the profeffors of the two others. The chapel of the alienated college is yet ftanding, a fabrick not inelegant, of external structure; but I was always, by fome civil. excufe, hindered from entering it. A decent attempt, as I was fince told, has been made to convert it into a kind of greenhouse, by planting its area with shrubs. This new me thod of gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto profper. To what use it will next be put I have no pleasure in conjecturing. It is fome. thing that its prefent ftate is at leaft not oftentati oufly difplayed. Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue.

The diffolution of St Leonard's College was doubtlefs neceffary, but of that neceflity there is reafon to complain. It is furely not without just reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing, derries any participation of its profperity to its literary focieties; and while its merchants or its nobles are raifing palaces, fuffers its univerfities to moulder into duft.

Of the two colleges yet ftanding, one is by the inftitution of its founder appropriated to divinity.