CHAPTER IV
I GO TO THE COLLEGE AT GLASGOW
By this time I had grown a great stalwart lad, little above the middle height, but broad and sinewy. I had made progress in all manly sports and could fling the hammer almost as far as the Manor blacksmith, while in leaping and running I had few rivals among lads of my age. Also I was no bad swordsman, but could stand my own against all the wiles of Tam Todd, and once even disarmed him to his own unspeakable disgust. In my studies, which I pursued as diligently as I could with no teachers and not over-many books, I had made some little advance, having read through most of the Greek tragedians and advanced some distance in the study of Plato; while in the Latin tongue I had become such an adept that I could both read and write it with ease.
When I had reached the mature age of eighteen, who should come up into our parts but my famous relative, Master Gilbert Burnet, the preacher at St. Clement's in London, of whom I have already spoken. He was making a journey to Edinburgh and had turned out of his way to revive an old acquaintance. My father was overjoyed to see him and treated him to the best the house could produce. He stayed with us two days, and I remember him still as he sat in a great armchair opposite my father, with his broad velvet cap and grey, peaked beard, and weighty brows. Yet when he willed, though for ordinary a silent man, he could talk as gaily and wittily as any town gallant; so much indeed that my father, who was somewhat hard to please, declared him the best companion he ever remembered.
Before he left, Master Burnet examined me on my progress in polite learning, and finding me well advanced, he would have it that I should be sent forthwith to Glasgow College. He exacted a promise from my father to see to this, and left behind him, when he departed, letters of introduction to many of the folk there, for he himself had, at one time, been professor of divinity in the place. As for myself, I was nothing loth to go, and see places beyond Tweeddale and add to my stock of learning; for about this time a great enthusiasm for letters had seized me (which I suppose happens at some time or other to most men), and I conceived my proper vocation in life to be that of the scholar. I have found in an old manuscript book a list of the titles of imaginary works, editions, poems, treatises, all with my unworthy name subscribed as the author. So it was settled that I should ride to Glasgow and take lodgings in the town for the sake of the college classes.
I set out one November morning, riding Maisie alone, for no student was allowed to have a servant, nor any one below the degree of Master of Arts. The air was keen and frosty, and I rode in high fettle by the towns of Biggar and Lanark to the valley of the Clyde. I lay all night at Crossford in the house of a distant relative. Thence the next day I rode to Hamilton and in the evening came to the bridge of the Clyde at Glasgow. Then I presented myself to the Principal and Regents of the college and was duly admitted, putting on the red gown, the badge of the student class, than which I believe there is no more hideous habiliment.
The college in those days was poor enough, having been well-nigh ruined by the extortions of Lord Middleton and his drunken crew; and it had not yet benefited by the rich donations of the Reverend Zachary Boyd of the Barony Kirk. Still, the standard of learning in the place was extraordinarily high, especially in dialectic and philosophy – a standard which had been set by the famous Andrew Melville when he was a professor in the place. I have heard disputations there in the evenings between the schoolmen and the new philosophers, the like of which could scarcely be got from the length and breadth of the land.
Across the High Street were the college gardens and green pleasant orchards where the professors were wont to walk and the scholars to have their games. Through the middle ran the clear Molendinar Burn, so called by the old Romans, and here I loved to watch the trout and young salmon leaping. There was a severe rule against scholars fishing in the stream, so I was fain to content myself with the sight. For soon a violent fit of home-sickness seized me, and I longed for the rush of Tweed and the pleasant sweep of Manor; so it was one of my greatest consolations to look at this water and fancy myself far away from the town. One other lad who came from Perthshire used to come and stand with me and tell me great tales of his fishing exploits; and I did likewise with him till we became great companions. Many afternoons I spent here, sometimes with a book and sometimes without one; in the fine weather I would lie on the grass and dream, and in rough, boisterous winter days I loved to watch the Molendinar, flooded and angry, fling its red waters against the old stones of the bridge.
No one of us was permitted to carry arms of any kind, so I had to sell my sword on my first coming to the town. This was a great hardship to me, for whereas when I carried a weapon I had some sense of my own importance, now I felt no better than the rest of the unarmed crowd about me. Yet it was a wise precaution, for in other places where scholars are allowed to strut like cavaliers there are fights and duels all the day long, so that the place looks less like an abode of the Muses than a disorderly tavern. Nevertheless, there were many manly exercises to be had, for in the greens in the garden we had trials of skill at archery and golf and many other games of the kind. At the first mentioned I soon became a great master, for I had a keen eye from much living among woods and hills, and soon there was no one who could come near me at the game. As for golf, I utterly failed to excel; and indeed it seems to me that golf is like the divine art of poetry, the gift for which is implanted in man at his birth or not at all. Be that as it may, I never struck a golf-ball fairly in my life, and I misdoubt I never shall.
As for my studies, for which I came to the place, I think I made great progress. For after my first fit of home-sickness was over, I fell in with the ways of the college, and acquired such a vast liking for the pursuit of learning that I felt more convinced than ever that Providence had made me for a scholar. In my classes I won the commendation of both professors; especially in the class of dialectic, where an analysis of Aristotle's method was highly praised by Master Sandeman, the professor. This fine scholar and accomplished gentleman helped me in many ways, and for nigh two months, when he was sick of the fever, I lectured to his class in his stead. We were all obliged to talk in the Latin tongue and at first my speech was stiff and awkward enough, but by and by I fell into the way of it and learned to patter it as glibly as a Spanish monk.
It may be of interest to those of my house that I should give some account of my progress in the several studies, to show that our family is not wholly a soldiering one. In Greek I studied above others the works of Plato, delighting especially in his Phaedo, which I had almost by heart; Aristotle likewise, though I read but little of him in his own tongue. I completed a translation of the first part of Plato's Republic into Latin, which Master Sandeman was pleased to say was nigh as elegant as George Buchanan's. Also I was privileged to discover certain notable emendations in the text of this work, which I sent in manuscript to the famous Schookius of Groningen, who incorporated them in his edition then in preparation, but after the fashion of Dutchmen sent me no thanks.
As regards philosophy, which I hold the most divine of all studies, I was in my first year a most earnest Platonic; nay, I went farther than the master himself, as is the way of all little minds when they seek to comprehend a great one. In those days I went about in sober attire and strove in all things to order my life according to the rules of philosophy, seeking to free myself from all disturbing outside powers and live the life of pure contemplation. I looked back with unutterable contempt on my past as a turbid and confused medley, nor did I seek anything better in life than quiet and leisure for thought and study. In such a condition I spent the first month of my stay at Glasgow.
Then the Platonic fit left me and I was all for Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Here, at last, thought I, have I got the siccum lumen, which Heraclitus spoke of: and his distinct and subtle reasoning seemed to me to be above doubt. And indeed I have never wondered at the schoolmen and others who looked upon Aristotle as having reached the height of human wisdom, for his method is so all-embracing and satisfying that it breeds wonder in the heart of any man; and it affords so sure a bottom for thought that men become Aristotelians.
In the midsummer months I went down to Tweeddale again, where I astonished my father and all in the place with my new learning, and also grieved them. For I had no love for fishing or shooting; I would scarce ride two miles for the pleasure of it; my father's tales, in which I delighted before, had grown tiresome; and I had no liking for anything save bending over books.