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In the contest for Westminster in 1784, the beautiful duchess of Devonshire canvassed with great zeal for Mr. Fox, who was opposed by Sir Cecil Wray. Fox was 318 behind his rival, when the charms of his lovely friend so completely fascinated the voters, that they very gallantly yielded to so impressive an advocate; persuasion sparkled in the eyes and dimpled in the smiles of the beautiful duchess, pleading for her brother whig!

I could not help thinking of Mrs. Heidelberg, in the Clandestine Marriage, whose husband "lost his election because she would not demean herself to be slobbered about by drunken shoemakers, beastly cheesemongers, and greasy butchers and tallow-chandlers."

I leave town to morrow in the public stage, for Edinburgh. As I intend passing a few months in London during the summer, I will

sum from the brewer. After his vote was solicited, the cooper addressing himself to Mellish, who attended the party, said, "Sir, on the corn bill or the bullion committee, you might have known better than I did, and I bow to your better judgment; but as to the grant of 10,000l. a year to the Duke of York, for visiting his afflicted father, that is a simple question, easily understood by every father and son; and let the consequence, as respecting Mr. 's business be what it may, damn me if I will give my vote in favour of any man who could disgrace himself by forwarding so infamous a grant!"

The Middlesex struggle cost Mellish nearly 20000 pounds!. (300 guineas every day for 13 days, to hire coaches to drag up the voters to Brenton,) and, after every exertion of government influence, bribery and coercion, the ministerial hireling" aspira á descendre," and was obliged to retire. The friends of Mr. Whitbread spent little in comparison, not more than 25001.; a very great proportion of his voters walked to the hustings! Such is the triumph of liberty over corruption and influence!

defer till then any further observations on this tand of rotten boroughs and contested elections, of popular licentiousness and ministerial despotism, of press gangs and yeomanry cavalry!

LETTER XI.

to

I am convinced, Yorick, that there is a North-west passage the intellectual world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in furnishing itself with knowledge and instrucTristram Shandy. tion, than we generally take with it.

TO DR, CALDWELL.

Edinburgh, March 17th, 1819.

THE buildings which compose the University of Edinburgh are grouped together in the most obscure corner of this magnificent city; and perhaps that is one reason why this institution presents so few attractions to strangers. There is no academical dress; the members of the University do not reside within the college, as in the great English seminaries of learning; they live in various parts of the city, and go during the day to hear the different lectures, but have no other connection whatever with the locale of the college.

The students receive the first rudiments of education at this University; for they enter it at an early age, without any of that preliminary knowledge, which is found indispensable for admission in Oxford and Cambridge; so that

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the professors, as Lockart observes, are schoolmasters in the strictest sense of the word, since they lay the lowest part of the foundation on which a superstructure of erudition is to be raised. The expenses of education here are not very great; the students are generally very poor: any young man, (says the author just quoted,) who can afford to wear a decent coat, and live in a garret upon porridge and herrings, may, if he pleases, come to Edinburgh, and pass through his academical career! Many poor fellows who might have lived comfortably by agricultural pursuits or mechanical trades, prefer to starve with a little learning in their heads. An indigent father will submit to any privations to afford his son an University education, which seldom procures the means of fortune or subsistence in this country. Many a young man of talents and education,

"Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar,

In life's low vale remote has pined alone,

Then dropt into the grave unpitied and unknown!"

A great number of the poor alumni of the Scotch colleges embrace the clerical profession, which affords but a scanty subsistence, widely different from the otium cum dignitate of the English and Irish clergy. Others live as tutors in the houses of the rich, where they "keep the noiseless tenor of their way" along the sequestered vale of life.

In "Guy Mannering" we are presented with

remarkable example of this, in the person of Dominie Sampson. The University of Edinurgh has all the disadvantages of a recent intitution: it has not the venerable appearance which antiquity gives, and is not possessed of hose lucrative rights of patronage, and of the xtensive landed and other property, which give such splendour and importance to Oxford ind Cambridge.

Before the commencement of the 18th cenury, the healing art was in a perfect state of degradation in this country. Like the surgeons of St. Côme at Paris, those of Edinburgh did the business of barbers: by the laws of the incorporation, the same men who performed the operations of surgery, "had the sole right to shave beards and sell whiskey in the gude toun!" This noble trade continued till a much later period, since we find Mercier exposing it to ridicule in his Tableau de Paris. The picture which he presents of a surgeon-barber's shop is so ludicrous, that I cannot resist the temptation of giving it to you in an English garb. "The panes of glass, covered with pomatum and powder, prevent the light from coming in at the window; dirty soap-suds have discoloured and undermined the brick floor; spiders hang dead from their whitened webs, having been smothered by the eternal volcano of hair-powder! Among the men at work, a surgeon's mate is distinguished; he has just left the dissecting room, where he was up to the elbows in human intestines, his hands still

exhale the cadaverous smell of rotten carcasses -in spite of which, he handles all the noses and chins in the room, and afterwards washes and dresses himself for dinner and the amusements of the evening!!"

At the same time, there were no laws against quacks, who gave physic and advice with about as much success as certain dealers in

Indian specifics and panaceas do among us, The regular practitioners distinguished themselves by their Hippocratic gravity and peculiarity of dress in Scotland, as well as in France, where they were exposed to the sarcasms of the wits. Moliere draws a lively picture of the doctors of his time, in the personages Diafoirus and Purgon; Le Sage exposed them to ridicule in his immortal novels, and Montesquieu and J. J. Rousseau are very witty at the expense of physicians of a still later period. The writers of the age were not permitted to attack the absurdities in government and religion, and were very glad to have such copious food for their ridicule, as the members of a learned profession.

The rapid progress of the Medical School of Edinburgh, is perhaps without a parallel in the history of any other institution. All the chairs were filled by professors of eminent abilities: Monro, Gregory, Cullen and Black were equally distinguished by their profession

* "Un médecin ne serait plus ridicule si ses habits étaient moins lugubres, et s'il tuait ses malades en badinant." *Lettres Persanes.

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