At the customary age he was sent to the University of Glasgow; and no doubt, as it would likely be his first visit, gazed with wonder on such buildings as were there to be seen. The place was then very different from what it has since become. But to a boy, who hitherto had witnessed no scene more striking than a rural fair, who had only dreamt of greater things while reposing on a summer’s day by the margin of some haunted and murmuring streamlet, or while driving the cows in the gloaming to the modest grange, the venerable precincts of the college and of the ancient cathedral, described with so much felicity in the pages of “Rob Roy;” the battlemented mansion, that had lately been the residence of an archbishop; the tall masts of the vessels that had brought colonial produce to an extending market; and last, though not least, the Exchange, whose covered pavement was traversed by those proud “Virginians”――the aristocracy of tobacco――who wrapped themselves closer in their red cloaks, shook their flowing wigs, grasped more firmly their long gold-headed canes, and raised their eyes with haughty stare, when any inquisitive stranger approached the scene of their operations, must have seemed grand indeed. Hunter now commenced his theological studies; and the sagacious sire rejoiced in the prospect of seeing his son “wagging his head in a pulpit.” But after a term of five years an obstacle to pursuing his course occurred, which could not be overcome without outraging his conscientious convictions. In fact, he entertained an insuperable repugnance to some of the articles of faith to which he was required to assent; and, sacrificing whatever prospects of preferment he had on the shrine of duty, he resolved to venture upon a new field, and make medicine and the art of healing the study and occupation of his life. He was still a boy, “showing a maiden chin,” without that wisdom which is commonly, but not seldom erroneously, supposed to lurk about the beard; and it can not be questioned but that hope would extravagantly gild any future that his fancy might conjure up. Yet, strongly as he might have felt within him the spirit and the faculty to ascend the hill of life, and wave his cocked hat in triumph from its summit, he could hardly contemplate such enviable success as it was his good fortune to seek and find. Little, it may be well conceived, could he foresee how rapidly he was to emerge from obscurity, and be recognized as one of the most celebrated votaries to a profession at once delicate and laborious in that illimitable city of which, at his father’s hearth, he had heard wondrous tales and accounts exciting curiosity.