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WILLIAM TYTLER.
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a common table. Nearly thirty years after this, Mr Thomas Arthurlie bequeathed to the university another tenement adjoining to the college. By this time the students consisted generally of the youth of the nation, whose education was of the utmost importance to the public. They were distinguished according to their rank into sons of noblemen, of gentlemen, and those of meaner rank, and, with a degree of consideration which in modern times has been lost sight of, for the expense of their education were taxed accordingly. Such is the early history of the university of Glasgow, founded by bishop Turnbull, probably in imitation of that established by bishop Wardlaw at St Andrews. Neither of those bishops, it may be remarked, bestowed any or their funds upon the colleges they were the means of establishing, and in this respect came far short of bishop Elphinston of Aberdeen, who not only procured the foundation of a college in that city, but contributed largely to its endowment. Bishop Turnbull also obtained from James II. a charter erecting the town and patrimonies of the bishopric of Glasgow into a regality, and after he had done many acts highly beneficial to the age in which he lived, and worthy to be remembered by posterity, died at Rome, on the 3rd day of September, 1454. His death was universally regretted; and his name must always bear a conspicuous place among the more worthy and useful clergy of the elder establishment in Scotland.

TYTLER, William, of Woodhouselee, an eminent antiquarian writer, was born in Edinburgh on the 12th October, 1711. His father, Alexander Tytlcr, was a writer by profession in the same city. His mother was daughter of Mr William Leslie, merchant in Aberdeen, and grand-daughter of Sir Patrick Leslie of Iden.

The subject of this memoir received his education at the High School and university of his native city, and in both distinguished himself by assiduity in his studies, and by an early and more than ordinary proficiency in classical learning. Having added to his other acquirements a competent knowledge of municipal law, which he studied under Mr Alexander Bryce, professor of that science in the university of Edinburgh, he was, in 1744, admitted into the Society of Writers to his majesty's Signet, in which capacity he practised with increasing success till his death.

Mr Tytler's first appearance as an author took place in 1759, when he published an "Inquiry, historical and critical, into the Evidence against Mary, Queen of Scots, and an Examination of the Histories of Dr Robertson and Mr Hume with respect to that Evidence." In this work Mr Tytler warmly espoused the cause of the unfortunate princess, and brought a force of argument, and an acuteness and precision of reasoning to the discussion of the interesting question of her innocence or guilt, which had never been employed on it before. It was the first appeal in behalf of the Scottish queen which made any impression on the public mind, or which excited any feeling of particular interest in the charges which had been brought against her moral character. A similar attempt with this of Mr Tytler's, had been made some years previously by Walter Goodal, one of the under keepers of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, but it was so indifferently written, and its matter so unskilfully arranged, that it

entirely failed to attract any share of the public attention. Mr Tytler, however, found it a useful assistant. He adopted many of Goodal's arguments, but he arranged them anew, and gave them that consistency and force which is so essential to efficiency. The first edition of the Inquiry was published in a single octavo volume; another, considerably enlarged, particularly in the historical part, soon afterwards appeared, and in 1790, a fourth edition was published in two volumes.