He found himself seated in the Scottish metropolis, in a cheap but snug and comfortable lodging, and encompassed by other sights and sounds than those which he had been accustomed to. The change struck on his heart with a low deep feeling of despondency, which a little time, conjoined with the urbanity and kindness of all around him, was sufficient to dissipate. The immense mass of lofty and majestic buildings, exhibiting their roofs in widening circles around him, and stretching far away, like the broken billows of an ocean, created thoughts of tumult, discord, and perplexity, when contrasted with the serene beauty of the calm pastoral district which he had left; and, amid the nightly crowd of population which engirded him, a sense of his own individual insignificance fell, with a crushing weight, on his spirit. The deeply engrafted strength of virtue and religion, however, at length prevailed, restoring to his mind its usual buoyancy; and he began to see objects in the same degree of relative value, but with a widely enlarged scope of sensation. He set about his studies with vigour and alacrity; and, keeping in recollection the circumstances of his relatives, he determined not only to avoid all unnecessary expense, but to exercise the most rigid economy. Few hours were allowed to sleep, and almost no time allotted to exercise and recreation. The hopes his father entertained he determined should not be frustrated, nor the confidence they reposed in him be shown erroneous, by any negligence on his part; while, by persevering with assiduity and ardour, he trusted, sooner than they expected, to relieve them of the burthen of his support--a burthen which, he knew, could not fail to press heavy on them all, however cheerfully supported. In a course of the utmost economy, sobriety, and temperance, anxiously endeavouring to allow no opportunity of improvement to pass by unimproved, the winter session wore through, and left behind on his heart very few causes for self-disapprobation. Towards the end of April, the pale student returned to the cottage of his father. Worn out by unwearied and unremitting studies, the vernal gales of the country came like a balsam to reanimate his flagging spirits; and the hopes that the object of so much exertion and care would be ultimately crowned with success, gained a strong hold on the mind it had threatened almost to forsake. In the crowd of the city he felt too deeply his own insignificance--an isolated stranger, poor and unknown of all, striving with a feverish hope, at rewards most likely to be carried away by more powerful interests. But here he felt a grain of self-importance return to elevate his fallen thoughts. The budding hawthorn, the singing birds, and the blue sky, were all delightful; and he began to lose his own bosom fears in the general exultation of nature.