26 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University.
Among the first bequests we may mention that
of 8,000 nierks, or the wadsett of the lands ol
Strathnaver, granted by Robert Reid, Prior 01
? Beaulieu and last Catholic Bishop of Orkney, to
build a college in Edinburgh, having three schools,
one for bairns in grammar, another for those that
learn poetry and oratory, with chambers for the
regent?s hall, and the third for the civil and canon
law, and which is recorded by the Privy Council 01
Scotland (1569-1578) ?as greatly for the common
weal and policy of the realm.? Robert Reid was a
man far in advance of his time, and it is to him
that Edinburgh owes its famous university.
The patronage of James VI. and private benefactions
enabled it to advance in consequence. Sir
William Nisbet, Bart., of Dean, provost of the city
in 1669, gave LI,OOO Scots towards the maintenance
of a chair of theology; and on the 20th
hfarch in the following year, according to Stark,
the Common Council nominated professors for that
Faculty and for Physic.
In 1663 General Andrew, Earl of Teviot, Governorof
Dunkirk, and commander of the British troops
in Tangiers (where, in the following year he was
slain in battle by the Moors), bequeathed a sum
to build eight rooms ?? in the college of Edinburgh,
where he had been educated.? William 111.
bestowed upon it an annuity of A300 sterling,
which cost hhn nothing, as it was paid out of the
?bishops? rents in Scotland. Part of this was withdrawn
by his successor Queen Anne, and thus a
?professor and fifteen students were lost to the
university. Curiously enough this endowment
was recovered quite recently. It does not appear
that there are now any ? I bishops? rents ? forthconiing,
and when the chair of Intefnational Law was
re-founded in 1862, a salary of A250 a year was
attached to it, out of funds voted by Parliament.
But in an action in the Scottish Courts, Lord
Rutherfurd-Clark held that the new professorship
was identical with the old, and that Professor
Lorirner, its present holder, was entitled to receive
in the future the additional sum of A150 from the
Crown, though not any arrears.
One of the handsomest of recent bequests was
that of General John Reid, colonel of the 88th
Regiment, whose obituzry notice appears thus in
the Scots Magazine, under date February 6th, 1807 :
?? He was eighty years of age, and has left above
~50,000. Three gentlemen are named executors
to whom he has left LIOO each ; the remainder of
his property in trust to be life-rented by an only
daughter (who married without his consent), whom
failing, to the College of Edinburgh. When it
takes that destination he desires his executors to
apply it to the college imjrinzis, to institute a professor
of music, with a salary of not less than A500 a
year ; in other respects to be applied to the purchase
of a library, or laid out in such manner as
the principal and professors may think proper.?
Thus the chair of music was instituted, and
with it the yearly musical Reid festival, at which
the first air always played by the orchestra is
?The Garb of Old Gaul,? a stirring march of
the General?s own composition.
By the bequest of Henry George Watson,
accountant in Edinburgh, AI 1,000 was bestowed
on the University in I 880, to found the ?? Watson-
Gordon Professorship of Fine Art,? in honour of
his brother, the late well-known Sir John Watson-
Gordon, President of the Scottish Academy ; and
in the same year, Dr. Vans Dunlop of Rutland
Square, Edinburgh, left to the University A50,ooo
for educational purposes ; and by the last lines of
his will, Thomas Carlyle, in 1880, bequeathed
property worth about A300 a year to the University,
to found ten bursaries for the benefit of
the poorer students j and the document concludes
with the expression of his wish that ?the small
bequest might run forever, a thread of pure water
from the Scottish rocks, trickling into its little basin
by the thirsty wayside for those whom it veritably
belongs to.?:
By an Act I and 2 Vic. cap. 55, (?the various
sums of money mortified in the hands of the
Town Council, for the support of the University,
amounting to A I ~ , I I ~ were discharged, and an
annual payment of L2,500 (since reduced to
A2,170) secured upon the revenues of Leith
Docks,? is assigned to the purposes of the earlier
bequests for bursaries, Src.
The total income of the university, as given in
the calendar, averages above ~24,000 yearly.
The library is a noble hall 198 feet long by
50 in width, and originated in 1580 in a bequest
by Mr. Clement Little, Commissary of Edinburgh,
a learned citizen (and brother of the Provost
Little of Over-Liberton), who bequeathed his
library to the city ?and the Kirk of God.? This
collection amounted to about 300 volumes, chiefly
theological, and remained in an edifice near St.
Giles?s churchyard till it was removed to the old
college about 1582. There were originally two
libraries belonging to the university; but one consisted
mostly of books of divinity appropriated
solely to the use of students of theology.
The library was largely augmented by donations
From citizens, from the alurnni of the University,
znd the yearly contributions of those who graduated
in arts. Drummond of Hawthornden, the cele
