tion of comparative merit in all the departments of study during the curriculum; and at the same time received a degree as Master of Arts.
In the winter of 1828–29, Mr. Simpson attended the divinity class of the same college. He had, while thus engaged, a repetition of an offer — which had been pressed upon him in 1826, and declined—to join Mr. (now Sir George) Simpson, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories in America.
The change which had been gradually going on for several years in his temperament and constitution was now complete: from a delicate, timid boy, he had sprung up a strong, brawny youth, with the sanguine disposition generally accompanying a state of high bodily health.
On a review of his position and prospects, he saw that, to obtain a settlement as a parochial clergyman of the Church of Scotland, he might require to wait for many years, during which he must support himself by the usual resource of probationers of that Church—public or private tuition. His active and energetic mind, which, as a clergyman, would have found an adequate sphere in a zealous discharge of his functions, could but ill brook the irksome and monotonous labour of tuition; he had high
