this constitution, was Professor of Theology, as well as incumbent of the parish of Old Machar, and was responsible for the government and discipline of the college.[14] Under him were four Regents, one of whom was Sub-Principal, and to them was assigned the duty of training students in various departments of learning. Thus physiology, geography, astrology, history, and Hebrew were assigned to the Sub-Principal. Another Regent explained "the principles of reasoning from the best Greek and Latin authors, with practice in writing and speaking"; while a third lectured upon Greek, and read the more elementary Latin and Greek authors. The fourth Regent taught arithmetic and geometry, and, along with them, a portion of Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, and Politics, and Cicero's De Officiis. This attempt to assign special departments to the various regents respectively, was a marked improvement upon the older system, under which they were each responsible for teaching all the subjects included in the curriculum.

The students paid fees, which varied in amount according to their social standing. On entering the university they were required to take an oath of loyalty to the Reformed religion. None were allowed to carry arms, or to converse in any other tongue than Greek or Latin. Perhaps, however, this latter rule was merely an attempt to restrain the measureless tide of human speech. And in order that nothing might interfere with the progress of the students, the Nova Fundatio, or new constitution of Aberdeen University, abolished all holidays ("omnes consuetas olim a studiis vacationes aboleri penitus").[15]

Sir Thomas Urquhart's name does not appear in the list of graduates in 1626, so that there are no means of determining from the records of King's College how many years he spent there. For the city in which he had received his education he ever afterwards had a high regard. Thus he says of it: "For honesty, good fashions, and learning, Aberdeen surpasseth as far all other cities and towns in Scotland, as London doth for greatness, wealth, and magnificence, the smallest hamlet or village in England."[16]

He gives unmeasured praise to some of those eminent men who were associated with the fame of Aberdeen University in what has been called its "Augustan age"—the first four or five decades of the seventeenth century. Thus, according to him, William Lesley, D.D.,[17] was "one of the most profound and universal scholars then living"—like Socrates in having published no works, but, unfortunately, unlike that philosopher in not having among his disciples a Plato and an Aristotle to receive their master's knowledge and transmit it to future generations.[18] Of his successor in the principalship, Dr William Guild, he says: "He deserveth by himself to be remembered, both for that he hath committed to the press many good books, tending to the edification of the soul, and bettering of the minde; and that of all the divines that have lived in Scotland these hundred yeers, he hath been the most charitable, and who bestowed most of his own to publike uses."[19] At the time when he wrote these estimates of the sages at whose feet he had sat as a student, some of his old friends were under a cloud, and he had to be careful not to compromise them by his praise. And so he says of "Master William [?] Seaton," who had been his tutor, "[he was] a very able preacher truly, and good scholar, and [one] whom I would extoll yet higher, but that being under the consistorian lash, some critick Presbyters may do him injury, by pretending his dislike of them, for being praised by him who idolizeth not their authority."[20]

At the time of the marriage of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, Lord Elphinstone, who was fully acquainted with the prosperous condition of his son-in-law's affairs, made him pledge himself to manage his property so that it might descend to his heir as he had himself received it. Unfortunately this pledge was not fulfilled. Through mismanagement and neglect his affairs got into disorder, and the later years of his life were troubled by pecuniary difficulties.[21] His son says of him: "Of all men living [he was] the justest, equallest, and most honest in his dealings, [and] his humour was, rather than to break his word, to lose all he had, and stand to his most undeliberate promises, what ever they might cost; which too strict adherence to the austerest principles of veracity, proved oftentimes dammageable to him in his negotiations with many cunning sharks, who knew with what profitable odds they could scrue themselves in upon the windings of so good a nature.... By the unfaithfulnes, on the one side, of some of his menial servants, in filching from him much of his personal estate, and falsehood of several chamberlains and bayliffs to whom he had intrusted the managing of his rents, in the unconscionable discharge of their receits, by giving up one account thrice, and of such accounts many; and, on the other part, by the frequency of disadvantagious bargains, which the slieness of the subtil merchant did involve him in, his loss came unawares upon him, and irresistibly, like an armed man; too great trust to the one, and facility in behalf of the other, occasioning so grievous a misfortune, which nevertheless did not proceed from want of knowledge or abilitie in natural parts, for in the business of other men he would have given a very sound advice, and was surpassing dextrous in arbitrements, upon any reference submitted to him, but that hee thought it did derogate from the nobility of his house and reputation of his person, to look to petty things in matter of his own affairs."[22]

One of the ways in which the elder Sir Thomas succeeded in impoverishing himself and his family was in becoming bail for people who absconded; so, at least, we would infer from an entry in the Court-book of the Burgh of Banff under date of 21st April, 1629, in which we find that "Sir Thomas Urquhurt of Cromarty, having become caution for the appearance of Alexander Forbes, merchant in Balvenye, alleged forestaller, and the said Alexander not