The Universities of Scotland page 2

Edinburgh University, therefore, came into a picture already framed for it by the long history of the capital, and, spacious as it has become, it does not convey the same sense of an academic quarter as St. Andrews or Old Aberdeen. Yet its spiritual effect on the capital has been enormous, largely along the same traditional lines as the other Scots universities, which so completely interpret the life of the people of Scotland.

If the university was later in arriving, it perhaps made more continuous progress than the other three, largely because it was in complete sympathy with the new trend of life in the country. The site itself has undergone many changes to make way for expansion, though, splendid as much of that has been, especially in the work of Robert Adams and Playfair, the whole area was already too crowded to give the university the same imposing appearance as at the other three universities, not least Glasgow, which, though new, strikes the imagination from its isolated position.