Aberdeen is the fifth chapter of Samuel Johnson's book Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, about a trip he took in 1773. The previous chapter was Montrose and the next is Slanes Castle and The Buller of Buchan.
We came somewhat
late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that
we had some difficulty in obtaining
admission, till
Mr. Boswell
made himself known:
His name overpowered all objection, and we
found a very good house and
civil treatment.
I received the next day a very kind letter from Sir Alexander
Gordon, whom I had formerly known in London, and after a cessation
of all intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of
physic in the King's College. Such unexpected renewals of
acquaintance may be numbered among the most pleasing incidents of
life.
The knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the
rest, and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted
wherever there was any thing which I desired to see, and
entertained at once with the novelty of the place, and the kindness
of communication.
To write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of
geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly
discovered coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation;
yet as Scotland is little known to the greater part of those who
may read these observations, it is not superfluous to relate, that
under the name of Aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a
mile distant from each other, but governed, I think, by the same
magistrates.
Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to
be seen the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a
town in decay, having been situated in times when commerce was yet
unstudied, with very little attention to the commodities of the
harbour.
New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the
show of increasing opulence. It is built by the water-side. The
houses are large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean.
They build almost wholly with the granite used in the new pavement
of the streets of London, which is well known not to want hardness,
yet they shape it easily. It is beautiful and must be very
lasting.
What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the
merchants of Aberdeen, I have not inquired. The manufacture which
forces itself upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-stockings, on
which the women of the lower class are visibly employed.
In each of these towns there is a college, or in stricter language,
an university; for in both there are professors of the same parts
of learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer
degrees separately, with total independence of one on the other.
In Old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first
president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly
reverenced as one of the revivers of elegant learning. When he
studied at Paris, he was acquainted with Erasmus, who afterwards
gave him a public testimony of his esteem, by inscribing to him a
catalogue of his works. The stile of Boethius, though, perhaps,
not always rigorously pure, is formed with great diligence upon
ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monastic barbarity. His
history is written with elegance and vigour, but his fabulousness
and credulity are justly blamed. His fabulousness, if he was the
author of the fictions, is a fault for which no apology can be
made; but his credulity may be excused in an age, when all men were
credulous. Learning was then rising on the world; but ages so long
accustomed to darkness, were too much dazzled with its light to see
any thing distinctly. The first race of scholars, in the fifteenth century, and some time after, were, for the most part, learning to
speak, rather than to think, and were therefore more studious of
elegance than of truth. The contemporaries of Boethius thought it
sufficient to know what the ancients had delivered. The
examination of tenets and of facts was reserved for another
generation.
Boethius, as president of the university, enjoyed a revenue of
forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence
of sterling money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is
difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money,
or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty
shillings a year, an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal,
not only to the needs, but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of
England was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more than five to one,
and it is known that Henry the eighth, among whose faults avarice
was never reckoned, granted to Roger Ascham, as a reward of his
learning, a pension of ten pounds a year.
The other, called the Marischal College, is in the new town. The
hall is large and well lighted. One of its ornaments is the
picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and
who holds among the Latin poets of Scotland the next place to the
elegant Buchanan.
In the library I was shown some curiosities; a Hebrew manuscript of
exquisite penmanship, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's
Politicks by Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman character
with nicety and beauty, which, as the art of printing has made them
no longer necessary, are not now to be found. This was one of the
latest performances of the transcribers, for Aretinus died but
about twenty years before typography was invented. This version
has been printed, and may be found in libraries, but is little
read; for the same books have been since translated both by
Victorius and Lambinus, who lived in an age more cultivated, but
perhaps owed in part to Aretinus that they were able to excel him.
Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left
only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
In both these colleges the methods of instruction are nearly the
same; the lectures differing only by the accidental difference of
diligence, or ability in the professors. The students wear scarlet
gowns and the professors black, which is, I believe, the academical
dress in all the Scottish universities, except that of Edinburgh,
where the scholars are not distinguished by any particular habit.
In the King's College there is kept a public table, but the
scholars of the Marischal College are boarded in the town. The
expense of living is here, according to the information that I
could obtain, somewhat more than at St. Andrews.
The course of education is extended to four years, at the end of
which those who take a degree, who are not many, become masters of
arts, and whoever is a master may, if he pleases, immediately
commence doctor. The title of doctor, however, was for a
considerable time bestowed only on physicians. The advocates are
examined and approved by their own body; the ministers were not
ambitious of titles, or were afraid of being censured for ambition;
and the doctorate in every faculty was commonly given or sold into
other countries. The ministers are now reconciled to distinction,
and as it must always happen that some will excel others, have
thought graduation a proper testimony of uncommon abilities or
acquisitions.
The indiscriminate collation of degrees has justly taken away that
respect which they originally claimed as stamps, by which the
literary value of men so distinguished was authoritatively denoted.
That academical honours, or any others should be conferred with
exact proportion to merit, is more than human judgment or human
integrity have given reason to expect. Perhaps degrees in
universities cannot be better adjusted by any general rule than by
the length of time passed in the public profession of learning. An
English or Irish doctorate cannot be obtained by a very young man,
and it is reasonable to suppose, what is likewise by experience
commonly found true, that he who is by age qualified to be a
doctor, has in so much time gained learning sufficient not to
disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to desire it.
The Scotch universities hold but one term or session in the year.
That of St. Andrews continues eight months, that of Aberdeen only
five, from the first of November to the first of April.
In Aberdeen there is an English Chapel, in which the congregation
was numerous and splendid. The form of public worship used by the
church of England is in Scotland legally practised in licensed
chapels served by clergymen of English or Irish ordination, and by
tacit connivance quietly permitted in separate congregations
supplied with ministers by the successors of the bishops who were
deprived at the Revolution.
We came to Aberdeen on Saturday August 21. On Monday we were
invited into the town-hall, where I had the freedom of the city
given me by the Lord Provost. The honour conferred had all the
decorations that politeness could add, and what I am afraid I
should not have had to say of any city south of the Tweed, I found
no petty officer bowing for a fee.
The parchment containing the record of admission is, with the seal
appending, fastened to a riband and worn for one day by the new
citizen in his hat.
By a lady who saw us at the chapel, the Earl of Errol was informed
of our arrival, and we had the honour of an invitation to his seat,
called Slanes Castle, as I am told, improperly, from the castle of
that name, which once stood at a place not far distant.
The road beyond Aberdeen grew more stony, and continued equally
naked of all vegetable decoration. We travelled over a tract of
ground near the sea, which, not long ago, suffered a very uncommon,
and unexpected calamity. The sand of the shore was raised by a
tempest in such quantities, and carried to such a distance, that an
estate was overwhelmed and lost. Such and so hopeless was the
barrenness superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to
pay the usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground.