Though these notes from Alston’s lectures seem only worthy of a medicine-man, there was yet throughout the university an awakening spirit of life and of enquiry. The Royal Medical Society, which Cullen had founded in 1735, and which John Gregory attended in 1742, was the scene of the most lively debates upon every subject in medicine and philosophy. Little was taken for granted, and everything was questioned. In Gregory’s year its charm was greatly enhanced by the presence of Mark Akenside, who was a member, and the best company possible. Amusing, poetical, his oratory drew many persons to the Society. Robertson, the historian, came every night when Akenside was going to speak, and the racy talk was enjoyed by him almost as much as it was by the speakers. Gregory spent three years in Edinburgh at this time, and then went to Leyden to study under Albinus, Gaubius, and Van Royen. Albinus was an anatomist. His engravings were much clearer than those procured by anyone else at that time, but he was not a great lecturer, only painstaking and observant. In Gaubius, however, the university had a strong man, a vivid teacher, and an original thinker, and if Gregory had needed inspiration, he would have found it in his teaching. To John Gregory Holland was delightful country when contrasted with the cold east of Scotland, where even the roads were almost impassable in bad weather. In Holland he made his way along sunlit canals, through villages gay with gardens, and when he reached Leyden his enjoyment was complete. Full of delight he went about the quiet squares of the university town, along the banks of the old Rhine, and round the path on the top of the wall. Everything was new, and everything was foreign. He chose rooms for himself at a well-known lodging on the Long Bridge. Mademoiselle van der Tasse arranged her house especially for English-men. It paid her better, and besides, the fat little French-woman could talk English, and knew how to please, and her coffee was famous in the town. Gregory’s companions in Leyden were Alexander Carlyle, afterwards minister of Inveresk, Dr Nicholas Monckly, Charles Townshend, John Wilkes, and a few Scotsmen. Some of them were studying law, some divinity, and the others medicine. But alas for the great fame of Albinus and Van Royen. ‘I asked Gregory,’ wrote Alexander Carlyle, ‘why he did not attend the lectures,’ which he answered by asking in his turn why I did not attend the divinity professors. ‘Having heard all they could say in a much better form at home, we went but rarely, and for form’s sake only to hear the Dutchmen.’ So after all it was not the Professors of Leyden that taught John Gregory so much. Albinus was no doubt worthy, but in his portrait he looks a little dead, a little like a mummy. He looks as if he had forgotten that men were anything more than bones.