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LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.

After Mr C

and Mr D are supposed

to have given their pupils as much Latin and Greek as people of sense ought to be troubled with, they are transferred to the Professor of Logic, and recorded in the books of the University, as students of philosophy. The style used by their new professor would, however, convey to a stranger a very erroneous notion of the duties in reality allotted to him. Logic, according to our acceptation of the word, is one of the least and last of the things which he is supposed to teach. His true business is to inform the minds of his pupils with some first faint ideas of the Scotch systems of metaphysics and morals-to explain to them the rudiments of the great vocabulary of Reid and Stewart, and fit them, in

some measure, for plunging next year into the midst of all the light and all the darkness scattered over the favourite science of this country, by the Professor of Moral Philosophy, Dr T

B

I could not find leisure for attending the prælections of all the Edinburgh professors; but I was resolved to hear, at least, one discourse of the last mentioned celebrated person. So I went one morning in good time, and took my place in a convenient corner of that class-room, to which the rising metaphysicians of the north resort with so much eagerness. Before the professor arrived, I amused myself with surveying the well-covered rows of benches with which the area of the large room was occupied, I thought I could distinguish the various descriptions of speculative young men come thither from the different quarters of Scotland, fresh from the first zealous study of Hume, Berkeley, and Locke, and quite sceptical whether the timber upon which they sat had any real existence, or whether there was such a thing as heat in the grate which was blazing before them. On one side might be seen, perhaps, a Pyrrhonist from Inverness-shire, deeply marked with the small-pox, and ruminating upon our not seeing double with two eyes. The

gaunt and sinewy frame of this meditative mountaineer-his hard legs set wide asunder, as if to take full advantage of their more usual integument, the philabeg—his features, bearing so many marks of the imperfect civilization and nomadic existence of his progenitors-all together could not fail to strike me as rather out of place in such a situation as this. On the other side might be remarked one, who seemed to be an embryo clergyman, waiting anxiously for some new lights, which he expected the coming lecture would throw upon the great system of Cause and Effect, and feeling rather qualmish after having read that morning Hume's Sceptical Solution of Sceptical Doubts, Nearer the professor's table was probably a crack member of some crack debating-club, with a grin of incorrigible self-complacency shining through his assumed frown of profound reflection-looking, as the French say, as grave as a pot-de-chambre --and longing, above all things, for seven o'clock in the evening, when he hoped himself to assume a conspicuous position behind a green table, with a couple of candles upon it, and fully refute the objections of his honourable and eloquent friend who spoke last. A little farther to the right might be observed a fine, healthy, well-thriven

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lad from Haddington-shire, but without the slightest trace of metaphysics in his countenance -one who would have thought himself much better employed in shooting crows on Leith sands, and in whom the distinction between Sensation and Volition excited nothing but chagrin and disgust.

Throughout the whole of this motley assemblage, there was a prodigious mending of pens, and folding of paper, every one, as it appeared, having arrived with the determination to carry away the Dicta Magistri, not in his head only, but in his note-book. Some, after having completed their preparations for the business of this day, seemed to be conning over the monuments of their yesterday's exertion, and getting as firm a grapple as possible of the last links of the chain, whereof a new series was about to be expanded before them. There was a very care-worn kind of hollowness in many of their eyes, as if they had been rather over-worked in the business of staring upon stenography; and not a few of their noses were pinched and sharpened, as it were, with the habitual throes and agonies of extreme hesitation. As the hour began to strike, there arose a simultaneous clamour of coughing and spitting, and blowing of noses, as if all were pre

pared for listening long to the lecturer, without disturbing him or their neighbours; and such was the infectiousness of their zeal, that I caught myself fidgetting upon my seat, and clearing out for action like the rest. At last, in came the professor, with a pleasant smile upon his face, arrayed in a black Geneva cloak, over a snuffcoloured coat and buff waistcoat. He mounted to his elbow-chair, and laid his papers on the desk before him, and in a moment all was still as the Tomb of the Capulets-every eye filled with earnestness, and every pen filled with ink.

Doctor B has a physiognomy very expressive of mildness and quiet contemplativeness; but when he got fairly into the middle of his subject, his features kindled amazingly, and he went through some very subtle and abstruse disquisitions, with great keenness and animation. I have seen few persons who pursued the intellectual chace with so much ardour; but, as I observed before, it did not appear as if all his pupils were sufficiently well mounted or equipped to be able to keep up with him. His elocution is distinct and elegant, and in those parts of his subject which admitted of being tastefully han dled, there was a flow of beautiful language, as