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visited Scotland about the year 1778, says: "I have heard a reverend old divine say that he has read the English liturgy so repeatedly over to only four that frequently by evening he has scarce been able to speak to be heard."^[1] The persecutions had come to an end by the time of Johnson's visit. The nonjuring ministers were, he says, "by tacit connivance quietly permitted in separate congregations." On the death of the young Pretender on January 31st, 1788, the nonjuring bishops met at Aberdeen and directed that, beginning with Sunday, May 25th, King George should be prayed for by name. His Majesty was graciously pleased to notify his approbation.^[2] Even a tutor or "pedagogue" in a gentleman's family was required to take the oaths. This difficulty, however, was easily surmounted. They could be engaged "under the name of factor, or clerk, or comrade," as the Bishop of Moray pointed out in a letter written in 1754.^[3]

In Aberdeen there were two Colleges, or rather two Universities, for each had professors of the same parts of learning and each conferred degrees. In 1860 they were incorporated into one body. In old Aberdeen stood King's College. The Chapel and its "Crowned Tower," founded by James IV. who fell at Flodden, has survived time and restorers. They are much as Johnson saw them. Of their architectural beauty and of the ancient richly carved oak screen he makes no mention: "He had not come to Scotland," he said, "to see fine places, of which there were enough in England; but wild objects—peculiar manners; in short, things which he had not seen before." The discipline of the Universities and the method and cost of instruction he examined with attention. In Scotch universities the students generally lived as they live at present in lodgings in the town, scarcely under even the pretence of control except in the hours in which they attended lectures. But in King's College a few years earlier the English system had been introduced. Dr. Thomas Reid, the famous Professor of Moral Philosophy, in a letter written in 1755 gives an interesting account of the change which had been made:

"The students have lately been compelled to live within the college. We need but look out at our windows to see when they rise and when they go to bed. They are seen nine or ten times throughout the day statedly by one or other of the masters—at public prayers, school hours, meals, and in their rooms, besides occasional visits

1. G. M. Berkeley's Poems, p. dxxxviii.
2. Scots Magazine for 1788, pp. 250, 357.
3. Dunbar's Social Life in Former Days, i. 10.