In the year 1750 Adam Smith was appointed professor of logic and, being rather unexpectedly called to discharge the duties of his office he found it necessary to read to his pupils in the English language, a course of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, which he had formerly delivered in Edinburgh. It was only during one session however, that he gave these lectures, for at the end of it, he was elected professor of moral philosophy and it was on the occasion of this vacancy in the logic chair that Edmund Burke whose genius led him afterwards to shine in a more exalted sphere was thought of, by some of the electors, as a proper person to fill it. He did not, however, actually come forwurd as a candidate, and the gentleman who was appointed to succeed Dr. Smith, without introducing any change as to the subjects formerly taught in the logic class, followed the example of his illustrious predecessor in giving his prelections in English.—Outlines of Philosophical Education Illustrated by the Method of Teaching the Logic class in the University of Glasgow, pp. 20-21, Glasgow 182.—Ed.]
[The office of principal of the University of Glasgow was disjoined from the cure of the parish of Govan, in 1621, and the immediate predecessor of Binning was Mr. William Wilkie, who was deposed by the synod on the 29th of April, 1649. “Mr. William Wilkie, I thought,” says Principal Baillie “was unjustly put out of Govan, albeit his very evil carriage since, has declared more of his sins.” (MS Letters, vol. iii., p. 849, in Bib. Col. Glas.)
There are certain extracts from the letters of Mr. William Wilkie to Dr. Balcanqubal, dean of Rochester, published in Lord Hailes's Memorials and Letters (vol. ii pp. 47, 48). The learned judge, however, has mistaken the name Wilkie for Willie. Not knowing, therefore, who the writer of the letter was, he says, in a note, “This Willie appears to have been a sort of ecclesiastical spy employed by Balcanqubal the great confident of Charles I. in every thing relating to Scotland” (Ibid.). In his preface, Lord Hailes acknowledges that the letters he has published were “chiefly transcribed from the manuscripts, amassed with indefatigable industry by the late Mr. Robert Wodrow.” But Wodrow himself states, in his Life of Dr. Strang (Wodrow MSS, vol. xiii, pp. 4, 5, in Bib. Coll. Glasg.), that he was possessed of six original letters, which had been written by Mr. William Wilkie, minister of Govan, during the sitting of the famous Glasgow Assembly in 1638, and addressed to Dr. Balcanqubal, who had come down to Scotland with the Marquis of Hamilton, the Lord Commissioner, and was then residing in Hamilton palace. He also informs us that these and some other letters were discovered “after Naseby encounter, or some other, where Dr. Balcanqubal happened to be, in a trunk found among the baggage, which fell into the hands of the parliament's army.” Wilkie's letters contained an account of the proceedings of the Assembly, Wodrow says, not very favourable to the majority there. And he then adds it was “from these and such other informations upon the one side, Doctor Balcanqubal drew up The Large Declaration, under the Kings name, in 1642.” At the time of the Glasgow Assembly, Mr. William Wilkie was one of the regents of the university.
Since this was written, Wilkie's letters have been printed, without abridgment in the Appendix to vol. of a new edition of Ballie's Letters, published at Edinburgh by the Bannatyne club.
“The originals of all these letters are contained in folio vol. xxv. of the Wodrow manuscripts, which is now preserved among the Archives of the Church of Scotland.”—Id. p. 481.—Ed.]
[The estate of Trochrigg which is one of the largest in the parish of Girvan, in the county of Ayr, is now the property of John Hutchieson Fergusson Esq. It was sold by the descendants of the ancient proprietors about the year 1782. It was to his paternal residence at Brodrigg that Principal Boyd retired with his family in 1621, when he resigned his office as Principal of the University of Glasgow, and it was in this retreat he wrote the Latin poem entitled, Ad Christum Servatorem Hecatombe. This beautiful poem has been justly described to be, cannon totius fere Christianæ Religionis, seu evangeli æ doctrinæ medullam, vel compendium verius, cultissians dul tissimisque versibus, ex intimoque Latio petitis, stropbarum Sopphicarum centuria lectori ob oculos proponens, “a song embracing almost the whole of the Christian religion, or placing before the eyes of the reader in a hundred Sapphic stanzas, the marrow, or rather a compend of evangelical doctrine, in the most polished and mellifluent verses and in language taken from that of the Augustan age.” (Poet. Scot. Musa. Sacræ, p. 198, præfætio, vol. vi., Edin., 1739. Life of Boyd, Wodrow MSS., vol. xv. p. 123 in Bib. Coll. Glas.).
The commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Roberts Bodn, A frocheregia Scoti, In Epistolam ad Ephesios Prælectiones, fol. pp. 1236. London, 1652) contains the substance of the Lectures, which Boyd delivered, when he was a professor of theology in the University of Saumur. This is attested by his cousin Mr. Zachary Boyd, who was one of the Regents at Saumur, and attended the delivery of them (harum prelectionum assidutis tuit auditor). Some time after the death of the learned and pious author, a copy of the Prælectiones was transmitted to Holland to his friend Andreas Rivetus, that he might superintend the printing of it. As Chouet, a well known Genevese printer, happened to be in Holland at the time, Rivetus parted with the manuscripts to him, that they might be put to press immediately on his return to Switzerland. But, unfortunately, the vessel in which the manuscripts were shipped was taken by another vessel from Dunkirk, and having thus fallen into the hands of some Jesuits they never could be recovered. Rivetus consoled himself with the reflection that the original manuscripts, in the author's own hand writing, were safe in Scotland in the keeping of the family. The church and the nation, however, being at this period in such a distracted state, the work was not given to the world till the year 1652, when it was published by the London Stationers Company, (Andrea Riveti Epistoli de vita, scriptis, moribus, et feliei exitu Roberti Bodn, ante Prelectiones Bodn) though the General Assembly had passed numerous acts, and entered into arrangements with different printers for the purpose. See Index of Unprinted Acts for the years 1645, 1646 and 1647.—Ed.]
[When the Presbytery of Glasgow had met on the 22d August 1649, “The parochineris of Govane gave in ane supplicatione shewing that whereas you are destitute of ane minister, and being certanelie informed of the qualifications of Mr. Hew Binnen, one of ye regents of ye colledge of Glasgow, for ye work of ye ministrie,” they were unanimously desirous he should be sent to preach to them, “so soone as he shall have past his tryels.” The presbytery, in consequence of this supplication, “ordaines Mr. Patrik Gillespie, moderator of the presbyterie to wrytt to ye said Mr. Hew, to acquaint him wt the desyre of the parochineris of Govane, and to repar to the presbytery to undertake his tryels for ye effect forsaid.” Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow.
On the 5th September, 1649, “Mr. Robert Ramsay reported Mr. Hew Binnen had exercised on the text prescribed, and had geven the brethrene full satisfaction. He is ordained to handle the contraversie scientia media, and to give in theses thereupon.” Id.
“Sept 19, 1649—The qlk daye Mr. Hew Binnen gave in theses upon the contraversie prescribed unto him, de scientia media, to be sustenit by him, he presbyterie appoint him to handle this contraversie this daye eight dayes at nyne houres.” Id.