An incident in the history of a wandering Scotsman, though but a petty affair in itself, illustrates the sort of feudal power possessed by the authorities of a university. Thomas Dempster, the author of _Etruria Regalis_, and of a work better known than esteemed in Scottish Biography, in the course of his Continental wanderings found himself in possession of power—as sub-principal, it has been said, of the college of Beauvais, in the university of Paris. Taking umbrage at one of the students for fighting a duel—one of the enjoyments of life which Dempster desired to monopolise to himself—he caused the young gentleman’s points to be untrussed, and proceeded to exercise discipline in the primitive dorsal fashion. The aggrieved youth had powerful relations, and an armed attack was made on the college to avenge his insults. But Dempster armed his students and fortified the college walls so effectively that he was enabled, not only to hold his post, but to capture some of his assailants, and commit them as prisoners to the belfry. It appears, however, that like many other bold actions this was more immediately successful than strictly legal, and certain ugly demonstrations in the court of the Chatelain suggested to Dempster the necessity of retreating to some other establishment in the vast literary republic of which he was a distinguished ornament—welcome wherever he appeared. He had come of a race not much accustomed to fear consequences or stand in awe of the opinion of society. His elder brother had, among other ethical eccentricities—or, as they would now be justly deemed, enormities—taken unto himself for wife his father’s cast-off mistress; and when the venerable parent, old Dempster of Muiresk, intimated his disapproval of the connection, he was fiercely attacked by a band of the Gordon Highlanders, headed by his hopeful son. Defeated and put to flight with some casualties, the heir hoisted the standard of an independent adventurer in Orkney, where, setting fire to the bishop’s palace, he rendered the surrounding atmosphere too hot for him. He made his final exit in the Netherlands; and his conduct there must have been, to say the least of it, questionable, since his affectionate brother, whose conduct in Paris is the more immediate object of our notice, records that his doom was to be torn to pieces by wild horses. In such a family, flagellation would have little chance of being condemned as a degrading punishment, inconsistent with the natural dignity of man. Indeed, to admit the plain honest truth, the records of the Scottish universities prove to us that this pristine discipline was inflicted on its junior members; and it is especially assigned in Glasgow as the appropriate punishment for carrying arms. Local peculiarities of costume gave facilities for it in some instances, which were not so readily afforded by the padded trunk-hose and countless ribbon-points of the Parisian “swells” of Louis XIII.’s day. The Parisian aristocracy took