What is likewise by experience
commonly found true, that he who is by age qualified to be a
doctor, has in so much time gained learning sufficient not to
disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to desire it.
The Scotch universities hold but one term or session in the year.
That of St. Andrews continues eight months, that of Aberdeen only
five, from the first of November to the first of April.
In Aberdeen there is an English Chapel, in which the congregation
was numerous and splendid. The form of public worship used by the
church of England is in Scotland legally practised in licensed
chapels served by clergymen of English or Irish ordination, and by
tacit connivance quietly permitted in separate congregations
supplied with ministers by the successors of the bishops who were
deprived at the Revolution.
We came to Aberdeen on Saturday August 21. On Monday we were
invited into the town-hall, where I had the freedom of the city
given me by the Lord Provost. The honour conferred had all the
decorations that politeness could add, and what I am afraid I
should not have had to say of any city south of the Tweed, I found
no petty officer bowing for a fee.
