the improvements which we expect to find in a modern town. 'On being placed in the civic chair, he had found the streets unpaved, uneven, overgrown with weeds, and dirty; the ruins of the time-honoured Cathedral and Castle used as a quarry for greedy and sacrilegious builders, and the University buildings falling into disrepair; and he had resolved to change all this. With persistency almost unexampled, he had employed all the arts of persuasion and compulsion upon those who had the power to remedy these abuses. He had dunned, he had coaxed, he had bantered, he had bargained, he had borrowed, he had begged; and he had been successful. In 1851 the streets were paved and clean, the fine old ruins were declared sacred, and the dilapidated parts of the University buildings had been replaced by a new edifice. And he—the Major, as he was called—a little man, white-haired, shaggy-eyebrowed, blue-eyed, red-faced, with his hat cocked on the side of his head, and a stout cane in his hand, walked about in triumph, the uncrowned king of the place.'[1]
Of this same renovating provost, it is told that one day he dropped in to see the Moral Philosophy Professor, who, however deeply engaged with his books, was always ready to receive his visitors. 'Well, Major, I have just completed the great work of my life. In this book I claim to make philosophy intelligible to the meanest understanding.' Playfair at once requested to hear some of it read aloud. Ferrier reluctantly started to read in his slow, emphatic way, till the Major became fidgety; still he went on, till Playfair started to his feet. 'I say, Ferrier, do you mean to say this is intelligible to the meanest understanding?' 'Do you understand
- ↑ Pleasant Memories, by David Pryde, LL.D.
