vacant, for a trial of their comparative merits; and the one reported by the examiners to be the best qualified, is to receive a presentation from the officers of the town. The annual value of each bursary is 91. sterling. In one of the deeds which conferred this benefit on indigent students, 150l. were devised to the hospital of St. Nicholas in Glasgow, for two poor men of good report. Three paupers are now enjoying the benefit of this legacy, which produces 41. 10s. annually for each pensioner. To the diocese of Dunblane, which was ill provided with books, he bequeathed his valuable library; and after his removal thence, he made over for the benefit of the poor a considerable sum of money, due to him from a gentleman of that place, which money was afterwards paid, and appropriated agreeably to the intentions of the benefactor. It is not easy to ascertain the precise amount of his income when he was Bishop of Dunblane. Most likely the revenues of the see, together with the salary accruing from the Chapel Royal at Stirling, of which the diocesan of Dunblane was Dean by right of office, did not exceed 2007. That bishopric was the poorest in Scotland, except those of Caithness and Argyle. Shortly after the Reformation, its rental was taken at 3131. per annum in money, besides a stated allowance of grain; but then there were several livings annexed to it. In the valuation book of Aberdeenshire, the bishop of Dunblane is styled Parson of Monimusk, the reason of which is, that at Monimusk there was formerly a priory, the proceeds of which were assigned by James the Sixth in 1617 to the see of Dunblane. It was this Prince who augmented it with the deanery of the Chapel Royal, which was considerably lucrative; and he superadded the abbey of Cross-raguel, in Ayrshire. If all these golden rivulets poured into Dunblane, when Leighton was its diocesan, he would be sufficiently opulent. But it is more than probable that several of them were dried up, or intercepted, and that only a small proportion of the nominal rental flowed into the episcopal reservoir. This proportion would be further diminished by the excessive indulgence, with which he always listened to defaulters, who pleaded poverty in excuse for not making good their payments. Vol. I. m |