Towns > Dundee > 1822 - Dundee delineated; or, A history and description of that town, its institutions, manufactures and commerce

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About this time it may be observed, that educa-
tion was acquired at very little expence ; but the
communication of it must have been as lucrative for
learned and eminent men in this town as in the Uni-
versities : for in 1616 Mr James Gleg left his chair
as Professor in St. Salvator's College, St. Andrew's,
to be chosen Rector of the Dundee Grammar School,
with a salary of £16 13s. 4d. yearly; the quarterly
fees of the scholars being only 6|d.
Sir George M'Kenzie was a native of Dundee ;
and lived in the seventeenth century. He was co-
temporary with Dryden ; who is said to have own-
ed that from Sir George he learned the soundest
principles of versification. Sir George was an ex-
cellent lawyer, and a man of extensive literature.*
After the melancholy disaster in 1651, in the
time when Dundee was at a very low ebb, the per-
son of the greatest ingenuity who appears is John
Marr, probably the grandson of the former. He is
well known for his accurate chart of the North Sea,
and of the mouth of Tay and passage up the river,
to which even at this day nothing of importance
has been added. It is a curious circumstance with
regard to this chart, that, at the time of its con
struction, the line of no variation of the mariner's
compass passed over Dundee ; and the whole chart
is dedicated to the Magistrates of Aberdeen, though
Mr Marr was born and educated in Dundee, and
remained there ; for his name appears in many
places of the Seamen's record, as one of their fra
ternity ; and in 1681 he is mentioned in the register
as master of the only vessel that arrived from Hol-
land that year.
* See Appendix.