INTRODUCTION". jcvii
diftrict, by the Society for propagating the Chriftian religion. In molt of the
larje towns there are academies eftablifhed on liberal plans, for pupils of a
more advanced age, where the different branches of mathematics and phytic
are taught. Scotland has five Univerfities, viz. St. Andrews, King's Col-
lege in Old Aberdeen, Marischal College in New Aberdeen, Edin-
burgh, ancK Glasgow ; of which an account will be found in the Gazet-
teer, under each article. As the fees in the parochial fchools, academies, and
univerfities, are comparatively cheaper than thofe of England, it is to this
caufe that we may, no doubt, attribute the ample materials for the next ar-
ticle.
LITERATURE.
For this article, we may refer to the literary hiftory of Europe for upwards
of 1400 years back. During the third and fourth centuries, when Europe
was almoft overrun by the ignorance and barbarity of the Goths and Vandals,
learning found a retreat in the remote Weftern Ifles of Scotland, in the far-
famed ifland of I-colm-kill. From that feminary a number of men arofe,
eminent in literature, whofe very names would make a long article. The
writings of Adamannus, and other authors, who were eleves of the feminary
of I-colm-kill, and lived before, or at the time of the Roman invafion, are
fpecimens of their great erudition. The Emperor Charlemagne unquestion-
ably held a correfpondence with the Scottifh kings, with whom he alfo formed
a famous alliance. That monarch alfo employed Scotfmen in planning, fettling,
and eftablifhing his favourite univerfities, and other feminaries of learning in
Germany, Italy, and France. It can hardly be questioned, that the univerfity
of Paris, one of the mod ancient and celebrated in Europe, was founded by
Scotfmen ; and that in confequence thereof, the Scots enjoyed privileges
greater than the natives of any other ftate, even than thofe of Picardy and
Normandy, though feudal fubje&s to the crown of France. It is an un-
doubted truth, though apparently a paradoxical fact, that Barbour, a Scottifh
poet, philofopher, and hiftorian, who flourifhed in 1388, prior to the time of
Chaucer, wrote, according to modern ideas, as pure Englifh as that Englifh
bard ; and his verfification is perhaps more harmonious. The deftruclion of
the early Scottifh annals has caufed a confiderable deficiency in the .literary
hiftory ; and there is every reafon to fuppofe, that many monuments of
Scottifh learning have been loft during the civil wars, and the frequent inva-
sions which harafied the kingdom. The ftyle of the hiftorical and philo-