The birthplace of our author is unknown; for though the castle of Cromartie was the official residence of the sheriffs, Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, is known to have had several other manor-houses, one of which was Fisherie,[11] in the parish of King-Edward, Aberdeenshire, in which he resided from time to time. It is probable that the future translator of Rabelais laid the foundation of the erudition by which in after years he was distinguished, in Banff,[12] which then possessed a grammar-school, rather than in the more northern town which is associated with his name. Sir Thomas was only eleven years old when, in 1622, he entered the University of Aberdeen,[13] but there is no reason to believe that the average age of the "men" of his year would be in excess of his own. Donne was the same age as Urquhart when he entered Oxford. The famous Crichton went up to St Andrews at the age of ten, though up to that time he had not given evidence of any extraordinary precocity. A generation before, Montaigne had already completed his collegiate course when he attained his thirteenth year. It seems strange to us that boys of such tender age should have been found able to pass through a university curriculum; and we are forced to conclude either that the boys of those days were intellectually superior to those with whom we are familiar, or that the studies which occupied them were less deep and severe than those which are now pursued in seats of learning. The latter is probably the true explanation of the matter. University education in Scotland had been remodelled, and adapted to the requirements of the time and of a Protestant society in the previous generation, and in this work Andrew Melville had a very notable part. In 1583 a new constitution had been drawn up for the University of Aberdeen, and the arrangements prescribed by it may have existed there when our author was a student. The Principal, according to this constitution, was Professor of Theology, as well as incumbent of the parish of Old Machar, and was responsible for the government and discipline of the college.[14] Under him were four Regents, one of whom was Sub-Principal, and to them was assigned the duty of training students in various departments of learning. Thus physiology, geography, astrology, history, and Hebrew were assigned to the Sub-Principal. Another Regent explained "the principles of reasoning from the best Greek and Latin authors, with practice in writing and speaking"; while a third lectured upon Greek, and read the more elementary Latin and Greek authors. The fourth Regent taught arithmetic and geometry, and, along with them, a portion of Aristotle's _Organon, Ethics, and Politics_, and Cicero's _De Officiis_. This attempt to assign special departments to the various regents respectively, was a marked improvement upon the older system, under which they were each responsible for teaching all the subjects included in the curriculum.