He continues:--'The only inconvenience is, that few Scotsmen that have had an English education have ever settled cordially in their own country; and they have been commonly lost ever after to their friends.' J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 403.
[38] He wrote to Temple on Nov. 28, 1789:--'My eldest son has been at Eton since the 15th of October. You cannot imagine how miserable he has been; he wrote to me for some time as if from the galleys, and intreated me to come to him.' Letters of Boswell, p. 314. On July 21, 1790, he wrote of his second son who was at home ill:--'I am in great concern what should be done with him, for he is so oppressed at Westminster School by the big boys that I am almost afraid to send him thither.' Ib. p. 327. On April 6, 1791, he wrote:--'Your little friend James is quite reconciled to Westminster.' Ib. p. 337. Southey, who was at Westminster with young Boswell, describes 'the capricious and dangerous tyranny' under which he himself had suffered. Southey's Life, i. 138.
[39] Horace, Satires, i. 6. 65-88.
[40] Dr. Adam Smith, who was for some time a Professor in the University of Glasgow, has uttered, in his Wealth of Nations [v. I, iii. 2], some reflections upon this subject which are certainly not well founded, and seem to be invidious. BOSWELL.
[41] See ante, ii. 98.
[42] Gibbon denied this. 'The diligence of the tutors is voluntary, and will consequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change,' Misc. Works, i. 54. Of one of his tutors he wrote:--'He well remembered that he had a salary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform.' Ib. p. 58. Boswell, post, end of Nov. 1784, blames Dr. Knox for 'ungraciously attacking his venerable Alma Mater.' Knox, who was a Fellow of St. John's, left Oxford in 1778. In his Liberal Education, published in 1781, he wrote:--'I saw immorality, habitual drunkenness, idleness and ignorance, boastingly obtruding themselves on public view.' Knox's Works, iv. 138. 'The general tendency of the universities is favourable to the diffusion of ignorance, idleness, vice, and infidelity among young men.' Ib. p. 147. 'In no part of the kingdom will you meet with more licentious practices and sentiments, and with less learning than in some colleges.' Ib. p. 179. 'The tutors give what are called lectures. The boys construe a classic, the jolly young tutor lolls in his elbow-chair, and seldom gives himself the trouble of interrupting the greatest dunce.' Ib. p. 199. 'Some societies would have been glad to shut themselves up by themselves, and enjoy the good things of the cook and manciple, without the intrusion of commoners who come for education.' Ib. p. 200. 'The principal thing required is external respect from the juniors. However ignorant or unworthy a senior fellow may be, yet the slightest disrespect is treated as the greatest crime of which an academic can be guilty.' Ib. p. 201. The Proctors gave far 'more frequent reprimands to the want of a band, or to the hair tied in queue, than to important irregularities. A man might be a drunkard, a debauchee, and yet long escape the Proctor's animadversion; but no virtue could protect you if you walked on Christ-church meadow or the High Street with a band tied too low, or with no band at all; with a pig-tail, or with a green or scarlet coat.' Ib. p. 159. Only thirteen weeks' residence a year was required. Ib. p. 172. The degree was conferred without examination. Ib. p. 189. After taking it 'a man offers himself as a candidate for orders. He is examined by the Bishop's chaplain. He construes a few verses in the Greek testament, and translates one of the articles from Latin into English. His testimonial being received he comes from his jolly companions to the care of a large parish.' Ib. p. 197. Bishop Law gave in 1781 a different account of Cambridge. There, he complains, such was the devotion to mathematics, that 'young men often sacrifice their whole stock of strength and spirits, and so entirely devote most of their first few years to what is called taking a good degree, as to be hardly good for anything else.' Preface to Archbishop King's Essay on the Origin of Evil, p. xx.
[43] According to Adam Smith this is true only of the Protestant countries. In Roman Catholic countries and England where benefices are rich, the church is continually draining the universities of all their ablest members. In Scotland and Protestant countries abroad, where a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than a benefice, by far the greater part of the most eminent men of letters have been professors. Wealth of Nations, v. i. iii. 3.
[44] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773.
[45] Dr. Goldsmith was dead before Mr. Maclaurin discovered the ludicrous errour. But Mr. Nourse, the bookseller, who was the proprietor of the work, upon being applied to by Sir John Pringle, agreed very handsomely to have the leaf on which it was contained cancelled, and re-printed without it, at his own expence.