History of Aberdeen and Banff
Chapter XIV

Characteristics of the people—Influences of race, history, and physical circumstances — Teuton and Celt: "Natural selection"— Success of the early immigrants—Land and people—Situation unfavourable to international commerce : Aberdonian enterprise in shipping, foreign and colonial trade, and banking—Former extensive participation in the trade of the West Indies—Aberdonians in foreign armies: The soldiers of fortune and their great success—In the British service : Empire makers—Lumsden, - Outram, Sir William M'Gregor, General Gordon—Naval officers —Statesmanship and administration—Jurists and judges—Ecclesiastics—Medical men—Travellers—Inventors—Gifted families and hereditary genius: The Gregorys, Reids, Fordyces, &c.—Aberdeen society in the eighteenth century—Principal Campbell and his contemporaries — "The Wise Club" — English students: Burney, Colman—Hall and Mackintosh—Dr Johnson's visit— Honorary burgess-ship—Aberdeenshire poets and men of letters —Burns and Skinner—Byron—Criticism—Philosophy : Aberdeen the birthplace of the Scottish school—The association philosophy —History a speciality—Journalism: Perry, Gordon Bennett, Douglass Cook, &c.—Artists and architects—Aberdeen scholars : Latinists, Hellenists, and Orientalists—The influence of education.

Throughout this long course of years there are apparent certain characteristics of the people of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, the result partly of race and partly of environment, which differentiate them from their fellow-countrymen, and to some extent explain the distinctive part they have played as local communities or as individual participants in the world's affairs. These characteristics had their earliest historical manifestations in the territorial lords, who were the political administrators and military leaders of the province, and in some of the great churchmen. It was the fortune of this north-eastern region, in its comparative isolation between the Grampians and the sea, to be under the influence at an early date of some of the most enlightened and widely experienced of Scottish statesmen—such as David Earl of Huntingdon and the Garioch, acting through his Leslie deputy, and successive heads of the great houses of Cumyn, Durward, Byset, and Cheyne—who had their part in national as well as provincial affairs, and were imbued with the culture and chivalry of their time. But influences of a deeper character are to be traced from the early history of these counties. Scandinavians, Anglo - Saxons, and Flemings came in and possessed the land, absorbing the Celtic remnant and forming a new population in which all these elements were blended. The rulers were for the most part of Norman-French descent, but in the main the several Teutonic streams arrived in their native force unmodified by softening strains acquired in their progress hither. The rude strength of the Scandinavian Vikings sufficed for the conquest of the Scottish islands and much of the mainland ; but neither in itself nor with native Celtic admixture has it exercised a commanding influence on the destinies of the country. In Aberdeenshire it was soon united with more practical elements derived from German and Flemish sources. The strongly marked peculiarities of the north - eastern dialect bear witness still to the special form of the early Teutonic predominance in these counties. One of the writers in Sir John Sinclair's ' Statistical Account of Scotland' remarks of the people of Buchan that they seem to differ considerably from those of other parts of the country : he thought them wanting in the liveliness of imagination and warmth of feeling that existed elsewhere, and remarks that in their phlegmatic type of character they are more akin to Dutchmen than to the other inhabitants of Scotland. With this temperament we may associate the caution here so markedly observable in the average mind, of which illustrations are seen in some of the most characteristic phases of Aberdeenshire history — such as the early resistance to agricultural improvement or the disfavour shown to ecclesiastical change. William Meston d'd not belie their characteristics when he wrote of the inhabitants of Aberdeenshire as a people who "live quietly and pay their cesses," loving " a creed that's short and sound," and who "are not fond of innovations, Nor covet much new Reformations ; They are not for new paths, but rather Each one jogs after his old father ; In other things discreet and sober, Their zeal no warmer than October."

This constitutional aversion to newfangled ways is distinguishable, however, from mere slothful indifference : it has always been accompanied by a readiness to uphold with boundless zeal and energy the cause believed to be right and beneficial, or to give effect to innovations that have commended themselves to the general mind and conscience.

A severe process of " natural selection " was early brought to bear on the character of the Aberdeenshire population. While part of the former inhabitants remained on the land as bondmen and were ultimately absorbed, another part were driven into the upland and mountainous districts, from which they long continued to carry on a guerilla of reprisal stimulated by poverty. For weak or timid men, accordingly, there could be no place among the pioneers of the Teutonic colonisation. The Cumyn and Durward statesmen of Scotland had to face in their territorial spheres and withstand from their fortress-castles the resentment and lawlessness of an old population displaced by strangers, and either reduced to a condition of bondage or driven into the Highland glens to become the progenitors of "caterans," who regarded the cattle and goods of the low country as 'their lawful prey. The immigrants were of hardy stocks, and their environment kept in exercise the qualities that make for self-preservation, and developed potentialities that were to bear fruit many centuries afterwards when the men of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire became again the pioneers of empire and administrators of law among subject or barbarous peoples. Among these qualities a prominent place must be assigned to what may be broadly generalised under the name of governing capacity. Great military expeditions to the north, like those of Malcolm Canmore, Malcolm the Maiden, and the first Alexander, drove back the Celts and planted new settlers on the land. The new barons, to whom these territories were granted as rewards of military service, and often as the direct fruits of conquest, must have been men of nerve, prepared at any moment to defend their possessions. But other qualities than military prowess and courage were called forth. The hardy adventurers who thus laid hold of the land, and fought when necessary in assertion of their new rights, combined with their vigour in repressive action a tactful attention to the arts of peace and skill in dealing with the conditions under which they found themselves placed. The Cumyns not only ruled in Buchan but established themselves among the Celtic population of Badenoch, and the Gordons exercised great influence over the large body of Celts under their sway in Banffshire, Strathbogie, and Deeside. Though feuds between families were frequent in the Lowland parts, we hear little of race conflict except where raiders from within the Highland line made irruptions into the low country; and this significant fact must be attributed in part to the success with which the new lords cultivated the arts of peace among the remnants of the old population on their domains.

The physical a'spects of the counties have affected in no small degree the character and history of their people. This has been seen in comparatively recent times in the case of land reclamation carried out at an almost incredible cost in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen by a comparatively wealthy class, and over a large part of the two counties by the toil and self-sacrifice of the small farmers and crofters. Not only was the land in itself difficult to bring under cultivation, but the irregular and hilly contour of much of the country rendered it permanently difficult to work, and the crops which it bore were in upland places meagre and uncertain. These untoward conditions served to bring into exercise some of the distinctive traits of character inherited by Aberdeenshire men, who on the whole had marvellous success in this conflict with the forces of nature. When we pass from agriculture to commerce, the effects of physical and geographical circumstances are equally manifest. Nature has not endowed the north-east with the mineral resources or other economic advantages from which arise the great seats of commerce, manufacture, and thriving population. "Merchant princes" must accordingly be looked for elsewhere, and Aberdonians who have attained to that rank have in general begun by transferring themselves and their endowments to some more advantageously situated sphere of action. Two important lines of steamships, the one trading with Australia and the other with Natal and South-east Africa, are registered and owned in Aberdeen,1 each being called "the Aberdeen line"; but all their sailings are from London, which also is their home destination. Before the days of iron steamships in long-voyage ocean transit these two lines were represented by fleets of the swift-sailing vessels known all over the world as the " Aberdeen Clippers "—a class of ocean-racers built on the Dee which were long supreme in the China tea trade as well as in the rapidly growing commerce of Australia.1 Nor is it irrelevant to remark that of the two men chiefly instrumental in building the longest railway in the British Empire—the Canadian Pacific—the one, Lord Mount Stephen, was born on the eastern bank of the Spey, and began the work of life in Aberdeen ; while the other, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, sprang from the region immediately beyond that river, and is of the same north-eastern stock. Both went in early life to the British empire beyond the sea, and in colonial commerce acquired the wealth and developed the practical foresight that enabled them to carry out this great enterprise.

In former days the Dutch and Baltic or Polish trades afforded a sufficient sphere for the merchant Forbeses, Aedies, Skenes, and Farquhars; at a later period other Forbeses founded and carried on the great mercantile and banking house in Bombay known by their name; while John Farquhar, the successor of Beckford in the ownership of Font-hill, amassed his wealth as an army contractor and merchant in India. The cautious temperament and shrewdness of the Aberdonian have achieved marked success in the departments of banking and finance ; and it is noteworthy that the first provincial bank in Scotland was projected in the northeastern city, while of the ten joint-stock corporations in whose hands all Scottish banking is now concentrated two have their headquarters there. Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo was head of the most important of the Scottish private banks, which was ultimately united with a joint-stock establishment to form the Union Bank of Scotland; and of the London bankers, the Farquhars are descendants of Provost Sir Robert Farquhar; the great banking-house of Barclay & Company was founded, and, in the second century of its existence, is still directed by descendants of the Quaker Apologist and neighbour of Aberdeen; and the Couttses were of an Aberdeenshire stock which migrated southward by stages to London. Robert Arbuthnot of Paris and David Gregory of Dunkirk were Aberdeenshire bankers carrying on business in France in the eighteenth century; and the development of commerce in the nineteenth century has placed in the local or general management of eastern and colonial banks many responsible officers who began life in the north-east of Scotland.

The same spirit of enterprise, finding larger scope for itself than these counties afforded within their own limits, has been shown in other directions. It is surprising how many landed estates in Aberdeenshire and the adjacent counties were purchased by means of fortunes acquired in the trade of the West Indies. Some of the new proprietors, as Sir John Gladstone (whose Kincardineshire estates extended into the basin of the Dee), were strangers to the north-east; but the West Indian Gordons, Farquharsons, Shands, Leith-Lumsdens, Allardyces, and Towers went out as at least comparatively poor men from the district in the land of which they ultimately acquired a stake. That Aberdeen itself was for a time deeply concerned in the prosperity of the West Indies, and even had a direct shipping trade with that part of the world, is a half-forgotten fact of local history of which a memento survives in " Sugarhouse Lane," and a second sugar refinery was erected by James Moir, the Jacobite laird of Stonywood, near his residence in Lower Donside. Apart from those who acquired considerable landed estates in the north-eastern counties, a number of retired planters and others who had spent part of their lives in the West Indies became possessors of residential properties in the suburbs or vicinity of the city. In such records as the college lists, the obituaries in the old files of the local newspapers, and the inscriptions on tombstones, a remarkably large number of Aberdeenshire names connected with the West Indies are met with. Medical practitioners were supplied by Aberdeen for their unhealthy climate, and from many a parish manse young men, equipped with little riches beyond their own talents and a sound practical education, went to the West Indies a century ago in quest of a career, just as in later times young men of the same class have gone to India and the Far East or to the British colonies and possessions in other parts of the world.

Aberdeenshire early became too narrow a sphere for the activities of its people, and patrician cadets, weary of the dull life of " kindly tenants" on their brothers' estates, sought employment in the armies of France, Sweden, the Empire, and Muscovy. From the early part of the fifteenth century, when the Earl of Buchan and Scottish valour won the battle of Beauge, a Scottish force was permanently enrolled in France; and when the second Marquis of Huntly was in command of this force, before his accession to the Marquisate, he had five Gordon cadets and two Forbeses among his officers. In the prospect of permanent tranquillity at home after the urn on of the crowns, north-eastern soldiers of fortune flocked across the North Sea to seek employment under the Governments engaged in the Thirty Years' War. Prominent in the armies of Gustavus Adolphus were Alexander and David Leslie, who afterwards commanded in our own civil wars and founded peerages, and amongst the officers of his Scottish regiments were Sir James King (Lord Eythin\ Colonel David Barclay of Ury, and numerous young men of the various landed families of Aberdeenshire. Alexander Leslie, who, according to Spalding, " conquest fra nocht honour and wealth in great abundance," 1 rose to the rank of field-marshal in the Swedish service, in which he was engaged for thirty years, returning home with great prestige in the early days of the Covenant. In the military counsels of the Covenanters " such was the wisdom and authority of that old, little, crooked soldier " that the proud nobility of Scotland "gave over themselves to be guided by him as if he had been Great Solyman."  Under Tilly and Wallenstein fought Colonel John Gordon, of a younger branch of the Gight family, and Walter Leslie, son of the tenth Baron of Balquhain, whorwere prisoners together in the hands of Gustavus and afterwards contrivers together of Wallenstein's death. Both received the emperor's immediate reward, and were placed on the highroad of promotion, Gordon attaining to a marquisate of the empire and the office of high chamberlain, while Leslie was created a count, received the lordship of Neustadt, and was appointed a field-marshal, governor of Sclavonia, Knight of the Golden Fleece, and ambassador at Constantinople, to which city he proceeded with a retinue of unprecedented splendour and magnitude. The second Count Leslie of the Holy Roman Empire defeated the Turks in twenty pitched battles, recovering the greater part of Hungary from their domination. Contemporary with Count Walter was his distant kinsman, Sir Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul, a general in the Muscovite service and governor of Smolensko, in whose time there were in the same service many officers of the name of Leslie.1 A typical Dalgetty of the period was Sir John Urrie, or Hurry, of Pitfichie, in Monymusk, who on his return from the Continent fought in the wars of the Covenant, and was always an effective warrior on the side that engaged his services.

But there is no more famous name in the long list of soldiers of fortune than that of Patrick Gordon of Auch-leuchries, who fought on the Swedish and Polish side according as he was taken prisoner by the one or the other, agreed to enter the Austrian service but did not, and ultimately transferred his sword and energies to Russia, where the highest promotion awaited him, and Peter the Great watched and wept by his deathbed. Probably no son of Aberdeenshire was ever buried with such pomp as attended the interment of Patrick Gordon before the high altar of his chapel in Moscow. His diary preserves the names of many of his compatriots and kinsmen who did their part in, the battles of Eastern Europe, including his son-in-law and biographer. Alexander Gordon of Auchintoul, who was Lieutenant-General of the Jacobite army of 1715. Among other Aberdeenshire men in the Russian service were William Guild, Andrew Burnett, George Keith, Thomas Menzies of Bal-gownie, and Paul, son of Sir Gilbert Menzies of Pitfodels, who had been a student for the priesthood at Douai, served in the Polish and Muscovite armies, and was envoy of Russia to the Republic of Venice. James Keith, the brother of the last Earl Marischal, served in Russia for nineteen years before he entered the service of Frederick the Great, under whom he attained to the highest military rank, contributed to the early victories of the Seven Years' War, conducted the retreat from Olmiitz, and fell in the battle of Hochkirch while for the third time charging the enemy. Among the last Aberdonians leading in foreign armies, and he was an Aberdonian only by descent, was Prince Barclay de lolly,1 who organised the tactics by which Napoleon's Moscow expedition was overwhelmed in disaster. Another was General John Forbes of Skellater, field-marshal in Portugal, who married a princess of the blood royal and emigrated with the Court to Brazil.

Such are a few of the Aberdonians of martial renown who threw their energies into the service of foreign states, before their own empire afforded sufficient scope for the talents and ambitions of its people. These counties have never been without their roll of worthy soldiers in every rank. In the Peninsular War distinguished and prominent service was rendered by the sixteenth Lord Saltoun and the fourth Earl of Fife; and in its Forbeses, Gordons, Leiths, and Le'th-Hays, amongst others, Aberdeenshire has furnished the army of the empire with soldiers who in responsible commands have upheld and added to its renown. To the rank and file the north-east has also yielded its quota of brave and vigorous men. When the Black Watch, afterwards one of the most renowned regiments of the line, was called into existence in 1730 by Duncan Forbes, then Lord Advocate, and afterwards the great Lord President, it consisted of six companies of local militia for checking Highland raids. A few years later these companies were consolidated into a regiment of 1000 men, many of whom had been enrolled at Braemar. The regiment, after part of it had tried to take the law into its own hands and escape foreign service, had its first serious engagement in the battle of Fontenoy, where its chaplain, Adam Ferguson, son of a former minister of Crathie, grandson of a Gordon laird of Hallhead, and endowed with the martial energy of his race, graduated in arms in the thick of the fight ere he passed on to his chair in Edinburgh and his part among the literary giants of that city. The rising of 1745 was followed in a few years by the response to Lord Chatham's call for recruiting in the Highlands, when Keith's regiment was raised in Braemar and x\thole, and the first Gordon regiment was formed chiefly from the duke's estates in Banffshire and Aberdeenshire. Social and economic changes that followed in the wake of the abolition of the clan system led, after a time, to an almost entire stoppage of Highland recruiting ; but in 1794 the popularity and influence of the heir to the dukedom of Gordon sufficed to raise in the northeastern counties in a few weeks the famous regiment of Gordon Highlanders, which established in Sir Ralph Aber-cromby's expedition to Egypt a military prestige which was to be confirmed and enhanced by its career in the Peninsula, at Waterloo (its twenty-sixth battle), in the Indian Mutiny, in Afghanistan, in South Africa and Egypt, and at Dargai.

In the work of empire-making in India and elsewhere Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, through their sons, have borne perhaps a still more notable part than in the sphere of general military service. There are several instances of remarkable success in enlisting the goodwill and zealous co-operation of men of alien blood and sympathies, and in converting resentful foes into faithful friends and upholders of the new and better rule. A singular mastery over men in this sense is shown in the career of Sir Harry Burnett I/umsden, who, out of the most daring freebooters of the north-west frontier, formed the famous Corps of Guides; of Sir James Outram, " the Bayard of India," who, in the memorable words of Colonel Yule on the base of his statue at Calcutta, in early manhood " reclaimed wild races by winning their hearts "— fit prelude to his great and knightly career as soldier and ruler; of Sir" William M'Gregor, the first administrator of British New Guinea, to whose extraordinary success in introducing the beginnings of law and civilisation among a barbarous and unruly people the strongest testimony has been borne2 by the Queensland authorities and the Imperial Government; and of General Charles George Gordon, the hero, of Aberdeenshire descent, who, perhaps more than any other in recent times, has touched the public imagination— who rose to military renown as leader of the Ever-Victorious army of China, and was pioneer of humane rule in the Sudan, while never were great qualities more memorably displayed than when he went back to lay down his life at Khartum in single-handed conflict with insurgent fanaticism, his last great achievement being to organise the escape of thousands of helpless refugees. General Gordon had no compeer, and may have no successor, but the work of Outram and Sir Harry and Sir Peter Lumsden has been upheld by many an able and true-hearted officer from these counties; and in Field-Marshal Sir Donald Stewart the military heroism of Banffshire has at present its most illustrious representative.

Comparatively few naval officers have emanated from this province. In the early days Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, fought by sea as well as by land, and Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, the famous Scottish admiral, had his hereditary as well as acquired connections with Aberdeen. Of later Aberdeenshire admirals there have been three members of the Gordon family, one Duff, Sir Arthur Farquhar (father and son), and Sir George Nares, the naval head of the Challenger voyage of scientific research, and commander of the last great Polar expedition. The elder Farquhar, by his gallant defence of the Acheron against overwhelming odds, did much to justify the remark attributed to Nelson concerning him, that he would not hesitate to board a frigate though he commanded but a cock - boat. The gallant Viscount Keith, remotely connected with these parts, carried into many a sea-fight of the American and French wars his inheritance of the martial spirit so strongly manifested in his grand-uncle who fell at Hochkirch.

In men of distinction in statesmanship and the higher walks of the public service the great governing families of the north-east have been fairly prolific. From a single branch of the Gordons, the Earls of Aberdeen — and taking into account only the members in the direct succession and their sons—have sprung in the course of seven generations a Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Chancellor of Scotland, another Scottish judge, two admirals, two generals, and two other military officers holding important positions (one of them aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo), a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister, an ambassador of the first rank, a Colonial Governor of exceptionally wide experience, and a Viceroy of Ireland and Canada. Hereditary talents of a high order have been frequently manifested in the other territorial families, while many men from humbler ranks have shone in the spheres of arms and government. The profession of law attracted the same practical genius, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when a large number of the Scottish judges were Aberdeenshire men or alumni of the University. Of " jurists" there were William Barclay of Pont-a-Mousson and Angers (father of the author of " Ar-genis"), Sir Thomas Craig, Sir John Skene, and Irvine of Lynturk; and of judges Chancellor Seton, David Chalmers (Lord Ormond), Robert Burnet (Lord Crimond), the first Earl of Aberdeen, Richard Maitland (Lord Pittrichie), George Nicolson (Lord Kemnay), James Scougall (Lord Whithill), David Dalrymple (Lord Westhall), Sir Alexander Seton (Lord Pitmeddenj, Sir Francis Grant (Lord Cullen), William Grant (Lord Prestongrange), Alexander Fraser (Lord Strichen), James Ferguson (Lord Pitfour), and James Burnett (Lord Monboddo). Of ecclesiastical rulers and men of note, besides Bishop Patrick Forbes and the Doctors, there have been several distinguished prelates of the Forbes and Leslie connections; and in their several ways Archbishop Sharp, Bishop Gilbert Burnet, and the Presbyterian Andrew Cant all played a great part in the affairs of their time. Bishop Elphinstone was an immigrant from the south, but Bishop Dunbar, in common with Cheyne, Lichtoun, and others of his predecessors, was a son of the soil, and the attachment of the north-east to Episcopacy, formerly represented by the Forbeses and Skinners, has been exemplified in these latter days by Archbishop Tait, who came of Buchan ancestry; by Bishop Ewing of Argyle, the son of an Aberdeen lawyer who founded one of the local banks and one of the insurance offices ; by the genial Dean Ramsay, who has so delightfully illustrated north-eastern life and character; and by a succession of Colonial bishops, as Bishop Strachan of Toronto, Bishop Maclean of Saskatchewan, and the present Primates of Canada and New Zealand, Archbishop Machray and Bishop Cowie. The scholarly and saintly Henry Scougal, son of the Restoration bishop, inspired the Wesleys and Whitefield by his writings, and so connects Aberdeen with the great Methodist movement of England and America.5 In the Presbyterian Church the north-east has had no such pre-eminence, but the powerful personalities of Craig and Cant, Campbell and Reid, count for much; Professors Fordyce, Gerard, and Mearns were men of fame and influence in their day; Dr James Fordyce had few compeers as a popular preacher; Dr James Robertson, of Ellon and Edinburgh, and Principal Pirie, were well known as church leaders ; and among distinguished men in the Free Church there have been Principal David Brown, Dr Walter C. Smith, Dr Garden Blaikie, Principal Salmond, and Professor A. B. Davidson.

Of all the learned professions, however, it is in that of medicine that Aberdeen men have most excelled. The long roll of eminent physicians and surgeons born or educated here includes a considerable number of court physicians, many men of administrative eminence in the army and the Indian service, and many renowned teachers and practitioners. Chronologically the list is headed by Donald Bannerman, physician to King David II., whose services to the king and the Church were recompensed by gifts of lands in the vicinity of Aberdeen.6 Walter Prendergist, " medicus," was admitted to honorary burgess-ship in 1444, and William Urquhart, chirurgeon, was similarly honoured about a century later " for his gratuitous service to the town." 7 Principal Boece, as we have seen, possessed among his other accomplishments a knowledge of the healing art; and his colleague, James Cumyne, the first "mediciner" of King's College, occupied the medical chair created by Bishop Elphinstone, which survives in changed form as the oldest British foundation for instruction in medicine.8 To Cumyne succeeded Robert Gray, "salubris medicinse bachalarius," whose successor was Gilbert Skene, author of a tract on " The Pest," 9 who afterwards settled in Edinburgh, and was " own physician" to James VI. William Barclay, the student of Lipsius at Louvain and Professor of Humanity in Paris, was a medical practitioner in Aberdeen and Nantes, and author of ' Nepenthes' (a panegyric on the virtues of tobacco), ' Callirhoe,' commonly called the "Well of Spa" (in Aberdeen), Latin poems, and other works. From the list may also be cited the names of Duncan Liddel, physician to the Duke of Brunswick, prime luminary of the University of Helmstadt, and early benefactor of Marischal College; Gilbert Jack, who practised medicine and taught philosophy at Leyden and elsewhere; Walter Donaldson, the Aberdeen physician-professor of Sedan; Arthur Johnston, who, after his academic career abroad, cultivated the muses in Aberdeen, and acted as physician at the English Court of Charles I., which also had the professional services of the Latin Secretary's brother, Alexander Reid, the pioneer of scientific medical education among the " barber-surgeons " of London ; Robert Morison, the great botanist of his day, who returned from official service under the king of France to become botanical professor at Oxford, and physician to the second Charles, in which last oifice he had two other Aberdeen physicians as his colleagues —namely, Alexander Fraser and Thomas Burnet, the latter of whom survived and practised through the following reigns down to and including that of Queen Anne. The succession is continued by John Arbuthnot, the wit and physician of Anne's Court ; Sir Patrick Dun, the founder and first president of the Dublin College of Physicians; Charles Maitland, who introduced inoculation into England; George Cheyne of London and Bath, the "apostle of abstinence," and popular medical writer, reputed the foremost physician of his day ; the medical Gregorys, including the Aberdeen professors, and Drs John and James of Edinburgh; Sir William and Dr George Fordyce of London, the one a fashionable practitioner, and the other famous also as a scientific teacher; Sir Walter Farquhar, son of a minister of Peterhead and Chapel of Garioch, who attended George III., and was consulting physician to the Prince Regent; Dr John Abercrombie, another " son of the manse," who went to Edinburgh and became head of the profession and first physician to the king; Sir James Clark, physician-in-ordinary to the royal household in the early years of Queen Victoria; the equally famous Sir Andrew Clark, foremost among London physicians in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and President of the Royal College of Physicians; the brothers George Skene Keith and Thomas Keith of Edinburgh, the latter identified with a beneficent advance in surgery; and James Matthews Duncan, the contemporary of the Keiths at school and college in Aberdeen and in practice in Edinburgh —"a man of genuine capacity and worth," as was said by Dr John Brown, " strong-brained, right-minded, true-hearted." 1 Of medical men of eminence in Aberdeen there were successive Skenes, Livingstones, Williamsons, and Dyces, with two surgeons of note, William Keith and Professor Pirrie, and a physician long the acknowledged head of the profession in the north, Dr Alexander Kilgour. Dr Neil Arnott, a contemporary of Byron at the Grammar-School, received the first part of his medical education in Aberdeen, where he was also a student of natural philosophy under Professor Patrick Copland, an eminent and inspiring teacher. While pursuing the career of a successful London physician, Dr Arnott, who was one of the founders of the University of London, continued to cultivate natural philosophy with the enthusiasm of genius, and became, in his famous treatise on " Physics," one of its most luminous and popular expositors. Among the otficers of marked distinction which the Aberdeen medical school has furnished to the public service was Sir James M'Grigor, to whose memory the large obelisk in the quadrangle of Marischal College is erected, and who, before leaving the city, was the founder of its still flourishing Medico-Chirurgical Society. One of the first manifestations of the energy with \vh;ch he organised victory over disease and mortality in the army was seen at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, where he converted the church into his first hospital for the sick and wounded, and by careful nursing effected a vast improvement in the lot of the disabled soldier and the prospects of his recovery. From the Low Countries he passed to India, and there, as afterwards on the home establishment, he displayed the qualities of mind and character that designated him for the great office of chief of the medical staff of the allied armies under Wellington in the Peninsula, where, with the co-operation of a staff on which were several zealous and effective officers from the north-east of Scotland, the great work of his life was performed. Sir James M'Grigor may indeed be regarded as the representative and chief of a numerous body of departmental officers in the military, naval, and Indian services whose early days were spent in the district between the Dee and the Spey, and whose preparatory training, at least its earlier stages, was carried through in Aberdeen.

The union of scientific with professional eminence seen in Dr Neil Arnott is also illustrated by Dr David Ferrier, whose brilliant academic career was followed by his remarkable series of experimental researches into the localisation of cerebral functions; by Dr Andrew Leith Adams (son of the scholarly Dr Francis Adams of Banchory x), who to distinction as an army surgeon added the pursuits of an observant naturalist, and after his retirement was professor of natural history in one-of the Irish colleges; and by Sir George King, who, while a member of the army medical service, carried out in India his great work in the sphere of economic botany. In the natural sciences have been enlisted Dr Alexander Garden, of Charleston, the correspondent of Linnaeus; Dr Robert Brown, the botanist; and an inspiring teacher of Marischal College, Professor William Macgillivray, the ornithologist.

Among travellers in recent times Aberdeen or its University has sent out the brothers Gerard to Central Asia and the Himalayas, Colonel James Augustus Grant to Africa, and Mr Henry Ogg Forbes the naturalist-explorer of New Guinea and the Eastern Archipelago. In the cultivation of the mathematical and physical sciences, passing over men temporarily holding office in either University, such as Colin Maclaurin and Clerk Maxwell, these counties and their seat of learning are represented by Dr Thomas Bower, Dr Robert Hamilton, and Professor Chrystal; by a stream of men who have taken high places in the Cambridge mathematical tripos, including four senior wranglers in the ten years 1858-1867; by James Ferguson, the self-taught astronomer, and Dr David Gill, head of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. The practicality predominant in the genius of Aberdeenshire has resulted in the inventions of the breech - loading rifle by Patrick Ferguson, and the percussion cap by Dr Alexander John Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie; in the numerous and ingenious contrivances by which Sir John Anderson of Woolwich improved the instruments of warfare and accelerated their production in the Government factories; and in the inventions of Dr Neil Arnott, including those by which he applied the true principles of heating and ventilation and his hydrostatic bed.

No part of the country has produced more remarkable examples of intellectual gifts of a high order running in the same families from generation to generation. During the first quarter of the seventeenth century there were living n Aberdeen two men destined to be the common ancestors of a famous group than whom no more brilliant illustration of hereditary genius is known. One was James Gregory, a saddler who had been admitted a burgess in 1505, but of whom little more is known except that his son, John Gregory, parson of Drumuak, who was persecuted by the Covenanters, was served heir to him in 1623. The other was David Anderson, described by the parson of Rothiemay as "the most skilful mechanic that lived in Scotland in his time,"1 known among his fellow-citizens as " Davie Do-a'-Things," from his skill in engineering and constructive work, and applauded by Baillie Alexander Skene as the "ingenious and virtuous citizen," who by means of floats and the force of the rising tide raised and transported out of the way a great stone that blocked the entrance to the harbour.2 David Anderson was a near relative of Alexander Anderson the Paris mathematician, and uncle of Jamesone the painter; and his wife was a sister of Dr William Guild, the Principal of King's College. Janet Anderson, daughter of " Davie Do-a'-Things," and niece of Guild, became the wife of the parson of Drumoak, and mother of David Gregory, who prospered as a merchant,. acquired the estate of Kinnairdy, in Lower Banffshire, and cultivated science; and of James Gregory, the inventor of the reflecting telescope and Professor of Mathematics in St Andrews and Edinburgh. David Gregory had three sons who became respectively Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Oxford and Professors of Mathematics in Edinburgh and St Andrews, and two daughters from whom descended two Aberdeen professors, one of them Dr Thomas Reid. A son of the Savilian professor occupied the chair of modern history in Oxford; the St Andrews professor was succeeded by his son ; and the descendants of the inventcr of the reflecting telescope for four generations were professors of medicine and chemistry in the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Altogether, at least fourteen descendants of Parson Gregory have been professors in British Universities.

The Reids are worthy of being named along with the Gregorys, and similar, if not quite so conspicuous, ability descended amongst the Johnstons. The Fordyces were another family of various talent, and besides Professor David Fordyce, who in his day gave fame to Marischal College, it produced two leadmg physicians, an eloquent preacher, and a city banker—three brothers and a nephew—all occupying prominent positions in London at the same time. The Burnetts and Fergusons have yielded several men of note in the walks of learning, law, and affairs; and of no ordinary eminence in many directions have been the Forbeses, who, while inferior to the Gordons in political influence, have excelled them in learning and range of aptitude, and have given several bishops to the church, more than one distinguished judge to the bench, several sagacious and successful men to commerce and finance, some notable men of science and scholarship to the academic world, and a goodly number to the work of administration and arms.

The brilliant epochs of Bishop Elphinstone, the founding of Marischal College, and the Aberdeen Doctors have been discussed in preceding chapters. After the dreary period of literary barrenness inaugurated by "The Troubles" came a marked revival of learning and culture in the eighteenth century. One of its leaders was Thomas Blackwell, the younger, a professor and afterwards Principal of Marischal College, who restored the effective study of Greek literature, infused new life into the University, and was mainly instrumental in procuring the final overthrow of the system of " regents," and the restoration of professors who each confined himself to one branch of knowledge.1 The reputation of the University at this time was enhanced by his relative and colleague, David Fordyce, to whose eloquence as a preacher and lecturer the strongest testimony is borne by his contemporary, Dr Thomas Reid. Reid himself, a man worthy of his brilliant kith and kin on both sides, was a graduate and librarian of Marischal College, minister of Newmachar, and professor for thirteen years (1751-1764) in King's College.

The Aberdeenshire clergy, in the days when Reid adorned their ranks, had a reputation for learning and manners superior to that of their brethren in other parts of the country. They were generally "Moderates," and acquired the respect and confidence of the classes which had formerly sympathised with Episcopacy. For many years the ecclesiastical leader in the north-east was Dr George Campbell, Principal of Marischal College. Besides being an eminent ecclesiastic, Campbell had a high reputation in the world of letters. His dissertation on Miracles, in answer to Hume, had much celebrity, and was translated into several European languages : more enduring, however, has been the vogue of his ' Philosophy of Rhetoric,' which is to a large extent a treatise on psychology, and is pointed to by so eminent an authority as Archbishop Whately as the most important modern work on its subject, its merit lying " not only in depth of thought and ingenious original research, but also in practical utility to the student." Of considerable fame likewise was Dr Alexander Gerard, Professor of Divinity and author of several philosophical essays and dissertations. The ultimate reputation of their illustrious colleague, Thomas Reid, was, however, destined to be very much greater than that of either of these able men. Another of the group was James Beattie, whose contemporary fame exceeded that of his compeers.

In his student days Campbell founded a Theological Club, which included John Skinner, the poet, and William Trail, afterwards Bishop of Down and Connor. A more important and widely celebrated body, which had no small influence on Scottish thought, was the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen, or "Wise Club," formed in 1758 by Reid and Dr John Gregory—among its members being Campbell, Gerard, Beattie, the medical Skenes, and the mathematical professor John Stewart. The Society met fortnightly in a tavern, and from the minutes, which are still extant, it may be gathered that much of the published writings of its more prominent members was first submitted to its criticism.

As a seat of learning Aberdeen, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, began to attract students from England. One was Charles Burney, the Greek scholar, brother of Madame D'Arblay and son of the historian of music and friend of Johnson. Burney took his degree as Master of Arts at King's College in 1781, at which date there was among the undergraduates an Englishman of very different style in the person of George Colman " the younger," sent north by his father to be away from the scenes of dissipation in London and at Christ Church, Oxford, and committed to the care of Professor Roderick Macleod, afterwards Principal. The contrast between the Aberdeen " parks" and those of Colman's imagination was not greater than that which he found between the professor, with his unprctent: )us Scottish speech, and the heavy dons of Oxford; the humble lodgings of the students presented another contrast to his mind, and instead of the severe discipline of his expectadon he found almost unlimited freedom; but he left Aberdeen with regret, after having voluntarily acquired at King's College, as he confessed, a great deal more classical knowledge n two years than he had been taught in more than five times as long at Marylebone, Westminster, and Oxford.1 Two other students at this period, both of whom bear unqualified testimony to the stimulating and invigorating character of their studies and intercourse in Aberdeen, were Sir James Mackintosh and Robert Hall. Mackintosh graduated at King's College in 1784, and Hall in the following year. The two were assiduous students of Greek and philosophy and joint luminaries of a college literary society; and it is on record that their friendly disputations were carried on with great animation not only in their rooms but in frequent walks on the Links and sea-beach and along the banks of the Don. From these undergraduate discussions and studies Sir James Mackintosh, by his own testimony, learnt more "as to principles" than from all the books he ever read.

A passing event in the literary life of Aberdeen was the visit of Dr Johnson, to whom the freedom of the city was presented "with a good grace" by Provost Jopp. Johnson made a genial reply; and he testifies in his account of the journey to the Hebrides that " the honour conferred had all the decorations 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 ! " Just before he left London he had written to Boswell, who was to be his companion in the journey, that Beattie was there, but was " so caressed and invited, and treated, and liked, and flattered by the great," that there was reason to hope he would be " well provided for," in which event they would " live upon him at Marischal College without pity or modesty." Beattie, however, had not returned, and when the travellers arrived the New Inn was full and unwilling to receive them until the disclosure of Boswell's hereditary influence mellowed the host. Boswell had some acquaintances among the learned society of Aberdeen ; and Sir Alexander Gordon of Lebinoir, the Professor of Medicine in King's College, whom Johnson had met in London, introduced him to the academic and other notabilities of the city. The "Ossian" controversy, in which Johnson bore so vigorous a part, was at its height, and at a dinner-party at Sir Alexander Gordon's he proposed that Mac-pherson, who had been a student in Aberdeen not many years before, should deposit in one of the colleges the manuscript of the poems which he said he translated, and f the professors certified its authenticity there would be an end of the matter, while a refusal to take this obvious and easy course would confirm the doubt for which there was so much a priori ground. Utterances of this sort in the course of the tour reached Macpherson, who wrote the letter to Johnson which elicited the famous reply, that he was not to be deterred from detecting a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. But the talk was mainly on Johnson's side, and he found the conversational powers of the Aberdonians greatly inferior to those of Lord Monboddo, by whom he had been entertained in passing through Kincardineshire. From Aberdeen the travellers passed to Slains Castle, Banff, and westward. The situation of Slains was declared by Johnson to be " the noblest" he had ever seen, better even than Mount-Edgecumbe, and "if he had any malice against a walking spirit he would condemn him to reside in the Buller of Buchan."

Young Colman also received the freedom of the city, the honour having previously been bestowed on two other English students; and his just reflection on the circumstance is that bestowing upon "three such raw subjects" the same honour as had been conferred upon Dr Johnson could only be considered as an intended compliment to the English in general.

But honorary burgess-ship was not thrown about indiscriminately. Campbell and Beattie, two of the most eminent citizens, had received it a few years before ; it was conferred on Skinner a few years later; and among other honorary burgesses created about this time were Sir John Sinclair, Walter Scott (in 1796, the year of his first appearance in authorship with the Burger translations), Sir John Rennie, the engineer, who had done much to develop the granite trade, and Sir Ralph Abercromby and Sir David Baird of military renown.

In respect of literature no Scottish county has a longer record than Aberdeenshire. Barbour, its first great author, stands alone in early Scottish literature, but as time advances there are no north-eastern names to compare with Henryson and Dunbar, Sir David Lyndsay, and Drummond of Haw-thornden. Gavin Douglas had his origin among the southern spurs of the eastern Grampians, and his clerical career began at Monymusk, but his connection with Aberdeenshire was of short duration. Principal Arbuthnot came north and remained ; and Arthur Johnston, as scholar, teacher, physician, and poet, an Aberdonian of the Aberdonians, is of permanent repute; but on the whole the record of the north-east is one of comparative barrenness of poetical genius—a barrenness, however, which was shared by the rest of Scotland in the long period of ecclesiastical and civil contention. It can hardly be said to have been relieved by the Hudibrastic verse of Meston, a characteristic product of the early years of the eighteenth century. Among the brilliant wits and satirists of Queen Anne's court, however, another Jacobite alumnus of Marischal College had his place in the person of Dr John Arbuthnot, who achieved the rare distinction of imitating Swift so successfully that the understudy is sometimes not recognisable from the great original. High merit is found at the dawn of the new day of Scottish poetry, in the anonymous patriotic poem "Albania," published in London in 1737 as the work of a deceased Scottish clergyman. From internal evidence afforded by the poem itself, the author appears to have been an Aberdonian ; and Aaron Hill, who was much in the north in connection with the York Buildings Company's enterprises, speaks of him as "known though unnamed." The poem, which has descriptive power, and is instinct with poetic spirit, strongly commended itself to Sir Walter Scott; and- Dr Leyden, who had drawn Scott's attention to it, made diligent inquiry concerning it in Aberdeen, but as two-thirds of a century had elapsed he could learn nothing, and the author remains unidentified.

Alexander Ross, long schoolmaster of the secluded par.sh of Lochlee, in the heart of the eastern Grampians, who was born in Deeside and educated at Marischal College, wrote " Helenore; or the Fortunate Shepherdess," which ranks with Allan Ramsay's work of similar name as one of the two best pastoral poems produced in Scotland. Besides painting nature with deftness and rehearsing the litde drama of the hills in the days of the cateran raids, it is of incidental ;nter-est as preserving the local dialect of the times. Burns wrote to Skinner of Ross as a " * ild warlock " and " oar true brother " ; but he is far from being their equal, though his songs retain their place in Scottish collections. Robert Fergusson, the precursor of Burns, was the child of Aberdeenshire parents, but was born and nurtured elsewhere; and Burns himself was of a well-rooted north-eastern stock, his father and all his paternal ancestry for centuries having been born in Kincardineshire, within a few miles of the Dee. Beattie, a son of the Mearns, who was associated with Aberdeen through all his active life, may not rank very high as a poet, but the " Minstrel," with its pleasingly descriptive strain and its touch of poetic emotion, survives in literature when his prose writings, which had so much celebrity in their day, have for the most part passed into oblivion. Racier of the northeastern soil is John Skinner, a poet of truest note, whose extant writings in verse are all comprehended in a small volume of less than a hundred pages.

Burns visited the two shires during his Highland tour of 1787. Reversing the course of Johnson, he crossed the Spey eastward at Fochabers, and was hospitably received by the accomplished Duchess of Gordon, who had seen him in Edinburgh, and had "never met with a man whose conversation so completely carried her off her feet."1 The Duke made Burns happier " than ever great man did," during the brief dinner - hour they were together • the Duchess was " charming, witty, kind, and sensible," and they pressed him to remain at the castle for a time. How the poet was dragged away by his travelling-companion is well known. Gordon Castle lingered in his memory, and he sent back a poem or two in its praise, but a more notable fruit of this part of the tour is his stirring " Macpherson's Farewell." On calling in Aberdeen at the printing-office of Mr James Chalmers, Burns met Bishop Skinner, the son of the poet. " On Mr Chalmers mentioning that I was the son of ' Tullochgorum,'" the bishop wrote to his father, " there was no help but I must step into the inn hard by and drink a glass with him and the printer"; and poet, prelate, and printer sit together for an hour " most agreeably," discussing Scottish song. The bishop's account of the interview elicited from Skinner an epistle in verse which Burns considered " by far the finest poetic compliment he ever got"; and a correspondence followed in which Burns reiterated his regret that when in the north he had missed paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the author of the best Scotch song.

Dr John Ogilvie, minister of Midmar, an able and learned man, son of the minister of St Nicholas who had extended a welcome to Whitefield and Wesley, wrote voluminous epi :s and allegories, and a treatise on the theology of Plato. Johnson, at the instance of Boswell, agreed to see him in London, but on condition that he should " give us none of his poetry" ! In the legion of minor " bards of Bon-Accord," one of more than local fame is William Thom, the hapless weaver-poet of Inverurie and author of touching lyric verse. The brilliant and versatile John Stuart Blackie was an Aberdonian by nurture if not by nature, and Sir Theodore Martin is one by descent. Aberdonian in the fullest sense is Dr Walter Chalmers Smith, the richly reflective, imaginative, and lyrically gifted preacher-poet of our time.

The greatest of poets connected with Aberdeenshire, Lord Byron, used to boast that he was " half a Scot by birth, and bred a whole one "; and he tells again and again how h's early impressions of Deeside scenery remained with him through all his experiences and wanderings. Of Lochnagar and Mor-ven he sang in memorable verse, though topographically inexact, extolling them in comparison with Alps and Apennines, and he tells how he thought of them as he gazed on the Phrygian Ida and reflected on Troy. Nor were these the only Aberdeenshire memories that lived with him.

"My heart flies to my head As ' Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and all,— Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgownie's brig's black wall, All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall Like Banquo's offspring."

If in launching the shafts of his satire against certain reviewers he "railed at Scots," the cherished feelings of his youthful days, and what he called " the Scotchman in his blood," inevitably reasserted themselves. His scapegrace and spendthrift English father had married Miss Catherine Gordon, the proud and emotional heiress of Gight, and quickly dissipated her fortune, so that in two years the estate was sold and only ^150 a-year remained for her. The only child of this unfortunate marriage, the future poet, was brought in early infancy to Scotland, and his mother settled in a comparatively humble way in Aberdeen. Here Byron had as teachers John Bower, who taught him to repeat certain monosyllables by rote; Ross, the " devout and clever little clergyman," who instructed him in Roman history, and whose teaching was remembered by him long afterwards as he looked down from the heights of Tusculum on Lake Regillus; the nurse who filled his mind with stories and legends, and through whose care he had read much of the Old Testament before he was eight years of age, and had some of the Psalms committed to memory; and his tutor, Joseph Paterson, afterwards for sixty years minister of Montrose, from whom, with a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, he passed to the Grammar-School, where he " threaded all the classes to the fourth," or highest but one. It was when in his ninth year, during convalescence from scarlet fever, and while residing at Ballatrich near Ballater, that the scenery of Deeside produced its great influence on his susceptible mind. Byron was only in his eleventh year when, on succeeding to his uncle's peerage and estates, he left for England; but his Aberdeen education may be said to have been resumed for two years at the boarding-school at Dulwich under the direction of Dr William Glennie, from which he went to Harrow.

In prose imaginative literature one or two Aberdeenshire men have attained to eminence if not to the highest rank. Of Dr George MacDonald's many writings, the most salient are those which relate to his native district of Strathbogie and to college life in Aberdeen, especially two of the earliest, ' David Elginbrod' and ' Alec Forbes of Howglen.' Matchless as an accurate representation of the life and language of rural Aberdeenshire is the ' Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk' of Dr "William Alexander; historical and descriptive matter concerning Buchan is set forth with much literary felicity in 'The Crookit Meg' of Sir John Skelton, whose early connection with Peterhead gives him some title to be ranked among north-eastern authors; and a fourth writer of fict'on who has done his part in portraying the life of the northeast is Mr Allardyce, whose 'Balmoral,5 a vivid romance of the days of Jacobite struggle, is one of the distinctive books of Aberdeenshire.

But it is not in the sphere of imaginative literature, verse or prose, that the genius of Aberdeenshire has chiefly shown itself, and the great Scottish names in these departments of literary production belong to more southern latitudes. Burns was an Ayrshire bard of Kincardineshire descent, and Byron, in spite of his protestation, is a doubtful asset of Aberdeenshire; Sir Walter Scott was wholly of Lothian, as Lothian was understood when Celtic passed into feudal Scotland; Tobias Smollett obtained his honorary medical degree in Aberdeen, but little of his literary inspiration ; and other parts of Scotland have their Thomson, Allan Ramsay, and Thomas Campbell, their " modern Athenians " and Carlyle, their Miss Ferrier, John Gait, and Mrs Oliphant, not to mention recent " schools " of novelists. The intellectual aptitudes of these counties have been mainly in other directions. Criticism, philosophy, and historical literature are among their specialities.

In the field of criticism there are few writers who have rendered a service to English literature at all comparable in extent or value with that of Alexander Dyce in his scholarly edition of the English dramatists and poets. As a great critic and the most painstaking of editors, he did wonders in rectifying textual corruptions and elucidating obscurities and allusions in the works of the Elizabethan writers. Of several professors of English literature whom Aberdeen has given to British universities and colleges, one of the most eminent is Dr David Masson, in whose monumental work on Milton the offices of biographer, historian, and critic are combined. Professor William Minto, who graduated with academic "honours" in three departments of study, made several notable contributions to the esthetic criticism of English literature, and was one of the most extensive contributors on literary subjects to the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica."

The great distinction of Aberdeen at the time of high intellectual activity in the eighteenth century, when the " Wise Club " was holding its symposia, and one of the most salient facts in its history, is that it became the birthplace of the national system of thought known as the Scottish Philosophy. The reaction against the philosophical scepticism of Hume, in which the Aberdeen philosophers took the lead, gave their chief employment for years to the best-known members of this academic coterie; but it was the genius of Thomas Reid, in pursuance of this counter-movement, that created the Scottish school of philosophy, based on the reality of knowledge, and that gave to the world the epoch - making ' Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common-Sense.' Reid's great work was accomplished, and the ' Inquiry,' containing the whole gist of his philosophy, passed through the press during his professoriate in King's College, though it was after his removal to Glasgow, as successor of Adam Smith in the Chair of Moral Philosophy there, that he rose to the full height of his reputation and influence; and it was in Glasgow that he had among his students Dugald Stewart, who was to be his philosophical heir, and, as the successor of Adam Ferguson in Edinburgh, to give to the Scottish school its w:dest celebrity. Of this school, and educated in Aberdeen, though after Reid's time, was Sir James Mackintosh, whose strength, however, was greater in law and polity than in his philosophical dissertations; and Dr John Abercrombie, whose treatises on the intellectual powers and the moral feelings had great contemporary popularity, and passed through many editions.

But Reid and the Scottish School, which he founded and inspired, represent only part of the large contribution made by this part of the country to the history and course of philosophic thought. The genealogical interest of Aberdeenshire in the economics and sociology of Adam Smith and Ferguson, and still more in the critical philosophy of Kant, is at best but one element in the case, and the nurture as well as the family-tree of these philosophers has to be recognised. Much, however, of the work of a second great and characteristic school is unquestionably derived from the north-east of Scotland. Little more than the ridge of the Cairn-a-Mounth separates the birthplace of James Mill, on the North Esk, from that of Thomas Reid, on the Feugh.13 Mill's great mental endowments were exercised in the spheres of history, economics, and polity, as well as in that of metaphysics, and were in large measure inherited and applied in similar directions by his more famous son, John Stuart Mill; and father and son together were chief exponents of the association school of psychology, which for many years had its most eminent representative in Professor Bain, the first professor of logic in his native city of Aberdeen, and author of the treatises containing the most complete analytical exposition of the mind.1 Another Aberdonian representative of this school was Professor Croom Robertson of London, who organised and edited the quarterly review of psychology and philosophy called ' Mind.' The association psychology of the Mills and Bain, as well as the common-sense philosophy of Thomas Reid, may therefore be said to be an intellectual product of the north-east of Scotland. Mention may also be made of Mr Leslie Stephen, the historian of the utilitarianism of Bentham and the Mills and of English thought in the eighteenth century, who, himself in the front rank of literary essayists, is a member of a family group, of Aberdeen descent, remarkable for its achievements in the spheres of law, history, philosophy, and literature.

History has always had strong attractions for Aberdonians and Aberdeen alumni, and the list of those of them by whom it has been successfully cultivated is surprisingly long. At the head of this list stands the name of John Barbour, the author of the national epic; while of the Scottish chroniclers Wyntoun had Aberdeenshire connections,2 and John of Fordun was a canon of the Cathedral of St Machar. The fourth name, not only for Aberdeen but for Scotland, is that of Hector Boece, the first Principal of the University, who, in retailing unauthenticated tradition and giving rein to patriotic imagination, shared in the common infirmity of the early historians, but who is an authority for the events of his own time.

To the next generation belongs John Leslie (or Lesley), Bishop of Ross, the champion of Queen Mary and principal Catholic historian of Scotland. Leslie's ' History,' written in Latin, with an incomplete version in the vernacular for Mary's use, while not rejecting the fabulous tales and genealogies, is careful and exact from the point at which it becomes historical, though limited in perspective and stopping short just at the point where it would have been invaluable as an offset to the racy English and brilliant Latin of the partisan histories of Knox and Buchanan. A more famous name in historical literature as in scholarship is that of Thomas Dempster, the most voluminous writer of his time, and author of the erudite and untrustworthy ' Historia Ecclesiastica Gent's Scotorum';1 but of far greater service to histoi c truth were Sir John Skene,2 and, in their different ways, Robert Gordon of Stralocb,3 the antiquarian writer and cartographer, and his son James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay and historian of the first years of the " Troubles," the fuller record of which, however, is to be found in the vivid pages of John Spalding, the quaint Commissary of Aberdeen.

Bishop Gilbert Burnet, the historian of the Reformation and of ' His Own Time,' was a student of Marischal College at ten and a graduate at fourteen. From Marischal College also proceeded Bishop Robert Keith, the ecclesiastical historian. Few indeed are the writers whose real services to Scottish history are equal to those of Father Thomas Innes, as embodied in his ' Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland' and in his ' Civil and Ecclesiast* History'; and with him Patrick Abercromby, the eulogist of Scottish martial achievements, Adam Anderson, the historian of commerce, and George Chalmers, the author of ' Caledonia,' all proceeded from the country between the Dee and the Spey, as also did the philosophical historian, Dr Adam Ferguson. The ' Ecclesiastical History of Scotland' of John Skinner, the poet, is of value as an account of the Jacobite period and the Scottish non-jurors; and Alexander Chalmers, in the next generation, was a diligent historian and biographer. Walter Cullen in the sixteenth century, Provost Jaffray and Baillie Alexander Skene in the seventeenth, and James Man, Walter Thom, and William Kennedy in the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth, with other writers whose names will be found in the bibliography appended to this volume, have contributed in their several degrees to the local annals either as contemporary chroniclers or as collectors of data. Invaluable work in the sphere of history and literary antiquities has been rendered by the group of antiquaries who founded the Spalding Club in 1839, and edited its great collection of the authentic documents of north-eastern history, topography, and genealogy. Dr Joseph Robertson and Dr John Stuart, the two originators of the Club, and Professors Cosmo Innes and George Grub, who were associated with them in its work, combined with their tireless industry and passion for accuracy in details a breadth of historical perspective and an insight into the operation of general causes which raise them to a far higher status than that of dryasdust antiquaries. Of the Aberdeen school likewise are the last three historiographers-royal of Scotland, John Hill Burton, William Forbes Skene, and David Masson, together with Canon Craigie Robertson, the latest considerable exponent of ecclesiastical history, and Dr George Burnett, a diligent and able worker who has contributed much to the eluc:datJon of particular parts of Scottish history. The second or " New" Spalding Club continues the work of its predecessor, and has issued a series of important works in north-eastern history, genealogy, and literature.

To journalism, again — the history of our time from day to day — no part of the country has given so many successful and highly-skilled experts and organisers. Some of them have contributed much to the development of the newspaper press. The Aberdonian James Perry, already the wonder and envy of the 'ournalists of his day for the excellence and amplitude of his reports of public proceedings, introduced a new era by organising Parliamentary reporting by relays of note-takers and publishing in the morning the debates of the preceding night. A still more remarkable man in his way was James Gordon Bennett, a native of Lower Banffshire, who, after entering as a student at the Roman Catholic College at Aquhorthies (afterwards removed to Blairs), emigrated to America, and from small beginnings built up the ' New York Herald,' as proprietor and editor of which he was long at the head of American journalism. A third notability of the newspaper press was John Douglass Cook, the projector and first editor of the 'Saturday Review.' Starting as a contributor to an Aberdeen paper, he acquired, chiefly in London, the experience which enabled him to become one of the most successful of editors, and not only to enlist the co-operation of many of the keenest intellects and most brilliant writers of the time for his weekly review, the scheme of which was his own and largely a novelty in journalism, but to select wisely from among them as occasion required, to elicit their best work, to avoid the numerous pitfalls besetting his path, and to impart to his journal its characteristic and pervasive unity. The strength of Perry, Gordon Bennett, and, on a higher plane, Douglass Cook, lay principally in organisation and in practical udgment as to aims and men. One of the most accomplished writers for the newspaper press was James Macdonell, a member of the ' Times' staff, of whom, at the time of his premature decease, one of the best judges — the editor of the ' Spectator'—justly remarked that in addition to unusual breadth of culture and special knowledge he " possessed almost in their perfection the faculties of the modern journalist," and on some subjects "a most unusual brilliancy of expression." Another representative man, foremost in his own special department of war correspondent, and trained in the army as well as the university, is Archibald Forbes, who in successive campaigns performed unexampled feats of comprehensive observation, rapid and copious description, and swift transmission, sometimes at the cost of great physical exertion and endurance, as in his famous ride of no miles in fifteen hours with the news of the battle of Ulundi. The northeastern newspapers have been served by several men of note and modest eminence, the chief among them being William M'Combie, founder and first editor of the ' Aberdeen Free Press,' who was also a practical agriculturist, the author of several volumes of profound essays (' Hours of Thought,' ' Unity and Schism,' ' Education,' ' Modern Civilisation,' ' Memoir of Alexander Bethune,' &c.), and a man of much personal influence and weight among the more thoughtful of the community. Others that may be named are Dr William Alexander,3 James Adam, William Forsyth (author of the ' Martyrdom of Kelavane' — a poem, ' Idylls and Lyrics,' and frequent contributions in prose and verse to leading periodicals), and Dr Alexander Ramsay (editor of the 'Banffshire Journal'). The pioneer of Aberdeen journalism and founder of the first newspaper published north of Edinburgh was James Chalmers, who had gone to Oxford as a student and perfected himself in the art of printing by the side of Benjamin Franklin in London. Returning to Aberdeen, he obtained the appointments of printer to the town and university, and shortly after the suppression of the last Jacobite rebellion, by which, as a prominent loyalist, he suffered at the hands of the rebels, he started the ' Aberdeen Journal,' which for three generations was carried on by his descendants, with the literary and editorial co-operation, at different times, of John Ramsay,1 a scholarly and talented writer and minor poet, and William Forsyth. S.r Hugh Gilzean Reid, first president of the Institute of Journalists, edited a journal in his native district of Aberdeenshire, and Dr Joseph Robertson and Professors Masson and Alinto were engaged for a time in this characteristic occupat.'on of Aberdeenshire men, the two first-named in Aberdeen itself. At least half a dozen of the daily newspapers of London and provincial England are under the control of editors from these counties, few of the great ournals are without the assistance of Aberdonians in responsible positions, and special and technical journalism is largely manned from the same unfailing source. Journalism, in short, draws its recruits to an exceptional extent from these counties and the north-eastern temperament and aptitudes lend themselves readily to its exacting demands. From the University a remarkable number of young graduates pass into this sphere, which seems to have become increasingly attractive in recent years.

Conditions in the north-east have not been favourable to the cultivation of the higher forms of art either literary or pictorial. The only painter of wide celebrity who permanently settled in Aberdeen was Jamesone, and that was during a time when Aberdeen was the chief seat of learning and culture in Scotland. The genius of the counties is on the whole scholarly and practical rather than emotional or artistic, yet they have not been barren of men in whom these latter qualities have received development under the more genial influences prevailing in the south. In art the most prominent examples are William Dyce and John Phillip " of Spain " among painters, and Sir John Steell and William Brodie among sculptors. In Dyce it may be said indeed that Scottish art attained its loftiest elevation, and his paintings and frescoes rank among the finest products of British artistic genius. Sir George Reid, the President of the Royal Scottish Academy, is another migrant to the south. Artists of distinction who have sprung from these counties are comparatively numerous, and in recent years the hope has been raised by the indications first seen in Giles, Cassie, and others, of the foundation of a distinctive school of painting in Aberdeen. Architecture had some significant illustrations, ecclesiastical and baronial, at an early date. After Galloway's day the architect of greatest celebrity is James Gibbs, who, under the patronage of the Earl of Mar, Secretary of State and rebel leader, and with an artistic and professional education improved by foreign study, established himself in London in the latter days of Sir Christopher Wren, from whom, as would appear, he derived some inspiration. Several important works bear testimony to Gibbs's powers, including the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, which has been described as the grandest feature in the grandest of English architectural landscapes, the "additional buildings" at King's College, Cambridge, the London churches of St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Mary-in-the-Strand, and, among many other ecclesiastical buildings in town and country, the West Church of St Nicholas in his native city. After a period of depraved taste an architectural revival was led in Aberdeen in the first half of the nineteenth century by Archibald Simpson, by whom many public buildings, including those of what is now the older portion of Marischal College, were designed; and in the hands of John and William Smith (the latter being the designer of Balmoral Castle;, James Matthews, and others, a great improvement in the general aspect of Aberdeen was effected, which has been continued and enhanced by their successors in recent years.

If the wandering scholars of three hundred years ago were largely a professional class like the soldiers of fortune, the northern seat of learning has reared a goodly band of men of note in the walks of erudition. John Vaus, alumnus of Aberdeen and first humanist in its university, was the earliest Scottish grammarian ; Wedderburn of the Grammar-School, and Reid the Latin secretary, were among the foremost Latinists of their time; and the scholarship of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries hod three of its brightest representatives in Arthur Johnston, Thomas Ruddiman, and James Melvin—the first a rival of Buchanan in Buchanan's own sphere of Latin poetry; the second being the greatest Scottish editor of classical authors, and author of the text-book from which successive generations derived their systematic knowledge of the Latin tongue ; and the third a great teacher, whose scholarship and character gave him an influence that has rarely been equalled. High in the bead-roll must also be inscribed the name of Melvin's contemporary, Dr Francis Adams of Banchory, author of 'Arundines Devae,' who, in the obscurity of a country medical practice, rose to fame as " the finest Greek scholar in Scotland," and as a compeer of Buchanan and Johnston in Latin verse. It may be added that the traditions of Aberdeen scholarship continue to be worthily represented at different seats of learning, and that it is not confined to classical literature. Prominent among Orientalists have been such Aberdonians as Dr Matthew Lumsden, Canon Nicoll of Oxford, and Professor Forbes Falconer of London. The greatest of Anglo-Chinese scholars was Dr James Legge, Professor of Chinese in Oxford, who went from Aberdeen to the missionary college at Malacca (afterwards Hong - Kong) founde'd by Dr William Milne, himself one of a number of able and zealous men who have gone from the north-east of Scotland as pioneers of Christianity. Eminent likewise in Oriental as in other scholarship was Dr William Robertson Smith, deposed after much controversy from his professorship of Hebrew in the Free Church College of Aberdeen on account of the alleged " dangerous and unsettling tendency" of his articles on Old Testament subjects in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' and afterwards editor of the Encyclopaedia, and librarian and Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. Mention must also be made of the great tasks of permanent utility accomplished by two other Aberdonians, Dr John Ogilvie, editor of the ' Imperial Dictionary,' and Alexander Cruden, compiler of the ' Concordance.'

The preceding pages have made apparent the remarkable extent to which the intellectual potentialities of these counties have asserted themselves in concrete form and in practical achievement. Nothing in this history is more striking than the immense influence which their exceptionally efficient system of education has exerted upon the fortunes of the people. Some men, almost entirely self-taught, have risen to distinction in science or literature, and success in business or industry has often been attained without much aid from schools or books. But to an incalculable extent the far-reaching initiative of Bishop Elphinstone and the fifth Earl Marischal has shaped the destinies of this sturdy breed of men. The eighteenth century was indeed in progress before all parts of the province had their full equipment of parish schools, but the two colleges had established an educational ideal and opened wide the portals of the learned professions; and when the scarcity of ministers which prevailed for some generations after the Reformation was at last supplied, many graduates in arts became schoolmasters in the hope of ultimately obtaining a presentation to the incumbency of some vacant parish. In this way the north-eastern parish schools were provided with a body of well-educated teachers from the universities, many of them licentiates in divinity, who played an important part in the educational economy. Elsewhere in Scotland the university graduate and church licentiate, once not uncommon in the schools, had disappeared from them generations before the passing of the Education Act, but in Aberdeenshire and Banffshire this class of teacher still continued to flourish. The too meagre public provision for the remuneration of the parish schoolmaster was latterly reinforced in these counties by the Dick and Milne Bequests —the former conferring an endowment of substantial amount on teachers who passed satisfactorily an examination in the university subjects of Latin, Greek, and mathemat :s; while the latter had the twofold object of raising the status of the Aberdeenshire schoolmasters and giving free education to the poor. The Royal Commission which in 1875 inquired into the effects of these endowments found that 85 per cent of the teachers were masters of arts, while elsewhere not one in fifty was a graduate; that there were few schools in which the higher branches of education were not well taught, and that thus the steady flow of youthful ability from the country schools into the university, and from the university into the learned professions, including that of parish schoolmaster, had been greatly promoted.

The ambition for university education was more widely prevalent in the north-east than elsewhere, and the means of giving effect to it existed in the parish schools and the bursary system, which was more fully developed in Aberdeen than at the other seats of learning. In the University of Aberdeen at the present time the bursaries, scholarships, fellowships, and prizes, exclusive of the ordinary class prizes, number about 350, their annual value being nearly £8000. Sons of citizens had their grammar-school, at which country boys whose parents could afford it likewise attended for a time to prepare for the university; but many went direct from the parish school to the bursary competition. It was no unusual thing, in the days before roads were made or public conveyances existed, for the student to walk to Aberdeen at the beginning of the college session and to return home again on foot at its close—a distance, it might be, of fifty or a hundred miles. Thomas Ruddiman, for instance, walked from his native parish of Boyndie, in Lower Banffshire, to the King's College competition of 1690, falling among gipsies, it is said, by the way, and, to the surprise of those who judged by appearances, he obtained the highest place. How little circumstances have changed in regard to the influence of the university and its bursary system was shown at a recent gathering of Aberdeen graduates in London, where a well-known colonial statesman acknowledged that he owed everything to the university, without which he and others of them might have been following the plough, working at a country handicraft, or keeping a village shop.1 In cases innumerable the university has given a passport to success in life, and it has done so with entire impartiality. Beyond this has had an important leavening effect on public sentiment. The Scottish Universities Commission of 1826-30 reported specially of the two Aberdeen colleges that "they have silently and unostentatiously raised the intellectual state of Scotland."

Education may accordingly be regarded as the most distinctive of the industries of Aberdeen, and the yearly output of disciplined minds as the most important of its products. The two universities were united from 1640 till after the Restoration, and four different schemes of reun'on, with the view of improving the position of the professors and providing for the teaching of new subjects, were pio-jected in the eighteenth century; but it was not till 1859, after much local opposition, that their " fusion" was finally effected. New professorships and lectureships are gradually being added, and a great scheme of building extension is in progress at Marischal College, now the seat of the faculties of science, medicine, and law. There are also in Aberdeen two training colleges for teachers and a Free Church College or Divinity Hall, besides the Roman Catholic College at Blairs, a few miles from the city, at which sixty or seventy students undergo their preliminary training for the priesthood. In the eighteenth century the Scottish seminary for this purpose was at Scalan, an obscure place in the remote district of Glenlivet; then for thirty years it was at Aquhorthies ; and in 1829 the college of Blairs was established on a small estate gifted to the Church by the last Menzies of Pitfodels. Secondary or intermediate education is provided for at the Grammar-School and Robert Gordon's College and at several centres in the two counties, Banff and Keith being two that have notably contributed successful competitors to the bursary tournament. Thus, with the School Board system highly developed, including " continuation" and evening schools, a complete provision is made for classical, scientific, and technical instruction, as well as for the elementary branches. And thus it is as true to-day as it was five or six generations ago, that the " natural ingenuity" of the inhabitants is "improved by education," at once accessible and effective, along the whole line from the elementary to the higher academic stages; and the shires of Aberdeen and Banff continue to send far more than their proportionate number of men into the learned professions and the higher grades of the public service throughout the empire.

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