Accordingly, though in times past, and not very long past, there have been found, in sundry chairs of the Athenian university, men who would have done honour to any college in any country, I looked for a continuation of men of the same talents and eminence; but though I looked for them, I found them not. The time has not long gone by, when the principal of that university was numbered, if not with the most learned and profound, at least with the most elegant of historians; but I should be glad to be informed of what person, or thing, or circumstance, the being that I found holding the supreme sway in the Athenian university, and in its metropolitan name, presenting himself before the King, as a specimen and representative of all the universities of Scotland, could write the history. It is true, that the office of this person is not much else than a sinecure, as he seldom comes before the public, except when his name stands rubric to a diploma; but, if an image is found with a wooden head, people are apt to turn away, without any very much examination of the limbs. It is said, more wittily than wisely perhaps, among the fledglings at the seats of science in the south, that “whatever may be the walls, the heads of houses are most commonly of lead;” and the saying might be carried to the Athens, if it were worth the trouble. I was told that, if at some former point of Athenian history, this personage had not been a bachelor, and the daughter of a quondam provost of the Athens a damsel to be wooed, the college of the Athens might have gone all unprincipaled for him; but the Athenians are so prone to drill holes in the glory of each other, that one never knows how much of their story to believe. Still, if the nomination of the masters of Eton and Winchester, and the doctors of Isis and Cam, were deputed to the corporation of London, England would tremble for her learned fame; and yet no one can deny that the court of aldermen, notwithstanding the mental and corporeal obesity of which they are accused, are far more promising patrons for such purposes, than the town-council of the Athens. Their own election depends upon a greater number of persons, and before they can carry it, they must have some superiority over the freemen of their ward,--the means of flattering and bribing them, if nothing else; but, in the Athens, there is not the smallest test of talent previous to a man’s being chosen an elector of professors; and, therefore, no pledge that he either will or can exercise that function in a proper manner. The “_avisamentum eorum ministrorum_” has no tendency to amend the matter; for the advice which these worthies are most likely to give, is, that themselves are the fittest of all possible professors,--a proposition, of which the theoretical doubts are great, and they are not lessened by experience.