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GEORG

1506 - 1906

l>\

MEMORIAL

THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GEORGE BUCHANAN:

A Memorial.

"ROM A CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT PRESERVED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

PRINTED BY
W. C. HENDERSON & SON,

AT THE

UNIVERSITY PRESS, ST. ANDREWS.

JAMES DONALDSON, ESQ., M.A., LL.D.,

VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRINCIPAL,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED

BY THE
STUDENTS OF ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY,

WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD

AND IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS

SYMPATHETIC ZEAL FOR THEIR INTERESTS.

PREFACED

THIS volume is the result of the request specially made that
there should be some permanent memento of the reverence paid
by the University of St. Andrews to the memory of one of her
greatest alumni. It was considered by some of those who
inspired the Quater-Centenary Celebrations held in St. Andrews
in July, that the students of the present day should play their
part in acknowledging the greatness of him who was imbued
with ' the St. Andrews spirit ' and, in the words of Gibbon,
celebrated with elegance the unviolated independence of his
native country. It was further suggested that their acknow-
ledgment be made in the form of a Festschrift. These pages then
form their contribution, which is offered to the public in the
year when the Quater-Centenary should have been held. Many
difficulties stood in the way of anything serviceable being
produced ; now that these have been overcome, it is to be hoped
that the work involved has not been in vain or valueless.

After such a work as that of Professor Hume Brown, it
seemed at first impossible to say anything more on the subject ;
nevertheless the enthusiasm shown in Scotland by the Quater-
Ceutenary Celebrations held here and at Glasgow have somewhat
roused the bulk of the Scottish people to inquire into the real
work and genius of Buchanan. Hitherto his name and
reputation have been shrouded in the native mist, and the
thrust has often been made — " The Scots are more given to
boast of Buchanan's name than to read his writings." The
main object of this volume has been to enable Scotsmen to
deflect this, and to give them — what has hitherto been difficult to
obtain — an insight not merely into Buchanan's life and habits,
but into the times in which he lived and the part he played in
the light of Scottish history and European thought. There is
also given a taste, if but a taste, of Buchanan's poetic genius,
and it is hoped that Part II. of the volume will prove of interest

viii. Preface

not only to scholars, but to all who were prevented by
Buchanan's Latinity from estimating his gifts.

Some of the translations may not be of great poetic merit,
while there may be some unnecessary repetition of translations.
It is to be remembered, however, that some of these have been
made by students in their few odd moments, while the Steele
Prize Translations were generally of equal merit. Other
translations, however, seem of great value, and testify to much
talent.

Another purpose maintained in the compilation has been to
penetrate to the truth about Buchanan, and to enable readers
to estimate his real position in the Scotland and Europe of his
age. For that purpose, various distinguished writers kindly
undertook to discuss the aspects of Buchanan's life and work
which were pointed out as worthy of emphasis, and for such
kind compliance 1 am greatly indebted. There may at times
seem incongruities in this treatment, but it is to be remembered
that the truth was only sought. Not after all are there any real
collisions of opinion, nor has it been denied that he who took
all Latin for his province, who made fewer mistakes than
modern Latin scholars (although great emphasis has been laid
in some of these pages on the very few he did make), had the
learning of Erasmus and the humour of Rabelais. Though in
virtue of his poetic instinct and gift of verse he excelled both,
yet with these and other Humanists he sought to substitute
scholarship for scholasticism. The force of his personality was
revealed to Scotsmen in his advocacy of political liberty, and
consequently he is one of the greatest characters in the national
history. All these points and more have been brought out in
the following pages. There are one or two other aspects which
have been more fully dwelt upon than in other biographies of
Buchanan. It was my intention to insert a chapter on
" Buchanan as an Educational Reformer," but Lord Reay has,
in the Oration which was printed in the Appendix to this volume,
dwelt at length upon the main facts of Buchanan's educational
work. Nevertheless there are to be found throughout his
writings many other truths and hints which could be appreci-
ated by teachers and disciplinarians, and which have not here
been set forth.

In a work on Buchanan it has not been deemed inappropriate
that some of the contributions should be written in French — a

Preface ix.

language which he must have known well. The chapters
written by a successor of Buchanan at Bordeaux — Professor De
la Ville de Mirmont — formed part of a memoir written for the
benefit of the two or three thousand members of the " Societe
Philomathique de Bordeaux," and afterwards printed in the
Revue Philomathique } 1906. Permission was readily given to
me by Professor De la Ville de Mirmont to abridge this memoir
and to adapt it so that two very interesting chapters are added
to this volume. To the learned Professor' I am further obliged
for his aid in securing the two photographs of old Bordeaux.

Some new biographical matter is furnished by the contribu-
tion of Senhor G. J. C. Henriques of Carnota, whose sympathy
in this work has been manifest. His researches among the
Inquisition records have proved successful, and in this volume
all that has recently been discovered is set forth. Great
assistance in this matter has also been given by Rev. R. M.
Lithgow of Lisbon. In securing the photographs of the
Inquisition papers, Mr. Lithgow's services were invaluable, and
necessitated months of correspondence and endless trouble in
interviewing Government officials. It is, however, to Lord
Guthrie that I am mainly indebted for the use of these
photographs, as it was only his enthusiasm that prompted the
securing of them. Likewise in this same work the good offices
of Sir Maurice de Bunsen and H. O. Beaumont, Esq., are
recognised as of value. To C. L. Chandler, Esq., who
discovered the excised passages in the copy of Buchanan's Works
in the Library of the Royal Palace (see Appendix I. c), and to
M. Bettencourt who allowed Mr. Lithgow to copy them out,
there is due much gratitude.

In the production of this volume I stand in great debt to
many. Mr. D. Leslie Hatten of Kingston Hall, Surrey, has
very kindly added the artistic touches, the cover-designs
especially requiring some time. Through the courtesy of
Messrs. T. C. and E. C. Jack, Edinburgh, I have been able to
print the frontispiece from a photogravure plate of the portrait
which, on the authority of Mr. J. L. Caw of the National
Portrait Gallery, is authentic. To Messrs. Oliphant, Anderson dz
Ferrier, Edinburgh ; Mr. Henderson, Maybole ; Mr. Middleton,
Curator of the Wallace Monument ; to all those publishers and to
Messrs. Valentine & Sons, Ltd., Dundee, who have given
the use of portrait blocks and permitted me to use their

x. Preface

photographs, my thanks are due. Various contributors to
the volume who have interested themselves in the work
have given assistance and advice which have lightened
the labour : to them and especially to Miss L. P. Steele-
Hutton, M.A., London, J. Maitland Anderson, Esq., Librarian
to St Andrews University, Mr. A. S. Ferguson, Univ. Coll.,
Oxford, and J. W. Munro, Esq., B.A., H.M.T.S., Dundee,
my best gratitude is extended. Tn the work of revising
the proof-sheets valuable help has been rendered by Mr. C.
Outline Cooper, M.A., St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and
Mr. A. Cassels, M.A., Lincoln College, Oxford. The whole
work has, however, been inspired by Dr. Steele of Florence,
whose learning and enthusiasm have been exhibited in his zeal
to pay homage to his great compatriot and TTumanist, George
Buchanan, while our respected Rector — Dr. Carnegie — has
sympathised with this work of his constituents.

The nature of this publication has led to some variety in
method — some contributors demanding their own methods on
the subject prescribed — but an endeavour has been made as far
as possible to secure uniformity. In Part II. and Appendix the
introductions and footnotes have been inserted, so that the
variants in the text of Buchanan's poems may be seen, and his
compositions be understood in a clear and strong light.

Apart from its being a souvenir of a great occasion and of
a memorable scene in St. Andrews, this volume is put forth
in the hope that Buchanan's versatility and genius may be more
fully recognised than hitherto. He is placed on no special
platform, — his disposition and temperament prevent that, —
but it is at least believed that his fame will remain
along with the memory of the Latin language and the
Scottish nation. This work will serve its purpose if it helps in
some way to bring all Scotsmen as well as St. Andrews students
to realise that Buchanan was not mainly a Latinist, but more-
over a poet, a wit, a statesman, a churchman, an educationist:
for of him who held all knowledge in reverence, it may truly
be said in Chaucer's words —

" And gladlie wolde he lerne and gladlie teche."

D M

ST. ANDREWS,

February 1907.

ERRATA.

P. xviii., Illustration of " Ruins of Palais Gallien, Bordeaux," on
p. 44, not p. 51.

P. 1 9, line 20, read paedagogia for paedogogia.
P. 71, line 18, read gadezim for dadezim.

CONTENTS.

Introductory.

AD GEORGIUM BUCHANANUM.

by J. P. STEEL R, B. A., M.D., LL.D., Florence, 1

PART I.

T. SOME NOTES ON BUCHANAN'S ANCESTRY,

by Sir ARCHIBALD C. LAWRIE, LL.D., Editor
of Early Scottish Charters, ... 4

II. EARLY SURROUNDINGS AND ASSOCIATIONS,

by llev. ROBERT MUNRO, B.D., F.S.A.ScoT.,
F.R.S.E., Old Kil patrick, . . 7

III. BUCHANAN'S STUDENT-DAYS,

by WILLIAM BAYNK, Lecturer in KngKsh,
University of St. Andrews, . . 19

IV. BUCHANAN AND CONTINENTAL THOUGHT,

by Rev. T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., Principal of
U.F. College, Glasgow, ... 25

V. BUCHANAN A BORDEAUX,

by H. DE LA VILLE DE MiRMONT, Professor
of Latin, University of Bordeaux, . . 35

VI. BUCHANAN AND THE FRANCISCANS,

by Rev. Professor JOHN HEKKLESS, D.D.,
University of St. Andrews, . . 53

VII. BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL,

by Senhor G. J. C. HENRIQUES, Legal Ad-
viser to British Embassy, Lisbon, . . 60
VIII. BUCHANAN AND MARY,

by A. II. MILLAR, F.S.A.Scot., author of

Mary, Queen of »S'co£.s' : Her Lifr-Xtory, 79

xii. Contents

IX. BUCHANAN AND CROSSRAGURL ABBEY,

by Rev. KIRKWOOD HEWAT, M.A., F.S.A.,
Prestwick, ..... 86

X. KNOX AND BUCHANAN : A STUDY IN METHODS,
by Rev. Professor H. M. B. REID, D.D.,

University of Glasgow, . . . 91

XI. BUCHANAN AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER,

by JAMES MACKINNON, M. A., Ph.D., Lecturer
in Modern History, St. Andrews University,
and author of A History of Modern Liberty, 96

XII. BUCHANAN AS A HISTORIAN,

by J. A. BALPOUR, F.R.Hist.S., . 105

XIII. LES TRAGEDIES RELIGIEUSES DE BUCHANAN,

by Professor H. DE LA VILLE DE MIRMONT, 115

XIV. BUCHANAN'S " BAPTISTES," — WAS IT TRANSLATED

BY MILTON?

by WILLIAM BAYNE, . . . 130

XV. BUCHANAN'S " PSALMS " : AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CONTROVERSY,

by Rev. Professor ALLAN MENZIES, D.D.,

University of St. Andrews, . . . 136

XVI. BUCHANAN'S EROTIC VERSE,

by Rev. R. MENZIES FERGUSSON, D.D., Logie, 143

XVII. HUMANISM AND SCIENCE : BUCHANAN'S " DE

SPHAERA,"

by J. W. MUNRO, B.A., H.M.I.S., . . 150

XVIII. THE WRITINGS OF BUCHANAN,

by J. MAITLAND ANDERSON, Librarian to
University of St. Andrews, . . 166

XfX BUCHANAN'S INFLUENCE ON HIS CONTEMPORARIES,
by OLIPHANT SMEATON, M.A., F.S.A.ScoT.,
author of The Medicii and the Italian Re-
naissance and English Satires and Satirists, 186

XX. THE HUMANIST : A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY,

by Miss L. P. STEELE-HUTTON, MA., London

School of Political and Economic Science, 194

Contents xiii.

XXI. BUCHANAN AS A LATIN SCHOLAR,

by Professor W. M. LINDSAY, M.A., LL.D.,

University of St. Andrews, . . . 204

XXII. BUCHANAN : WIT AND HUMORIST,

by WILLIAM HARVKY, F.S.A.ScoT., author
of Scottish Chapbook Literature and Scottish
Life and Character, . . . 212

XXIII. THE PORTRAITS OF BUCHANAN,

by J. MAITLAND ANDERSON . . 225

XXIV. BUCHANAN MEMORIALS,

by the EDITOR, .... 235

Epilogue.

To GEORGE BUCHANAN, by Rev. ARCHIBALD BROWN,
Legerwood, author of the Sacred Dramas of
Georye Buchanan, . . . . 245

PART II.

I. ELEGIA I. Quam misera sit coriditio docentium

literas humaniores Lutetiae. . . 249

Translation by T. D. ROBB, M.A., Paisley,
author of Stecle Prize Essay on Sixteenth
Century Humanism as illustrated by the Life
and Work of George Buchanan, . . 253

French Translation by JOACHIM Du BELLAY

(1525-1560), .... 257

II. SOMNIUM, ...... 264

HOW DUNBAR WAS DESYRED TO BE ANE FRIER

of which the Somnium is a free Translation, 262

Translation of Somnium by W. MACFARLANE,

M.A., 1799, ..... 265

III. AD JUVENTUTEM BuRDEGALENSEM, . . 266

English Translation by RICHMOND S. CHARLES,

University of St. Andrews, . . . 268

French Translation by R. DE LA VAISSIERE
DE LAVERGNE, University of Bordeaux, —
(Steele Prize), . . . . 269

IV. CALENDAE MAIAE, .... 270

Translation by LIONEL. S. CHARLES, Uni-
versity of St. Andrews, — (Steefe Prize — 1st
Equal), . ... 272

xiv. Contents

Translation by VICTOR F. MURRAY, University

of St. Andrews,— (Steel* Prize - 1st Equal}, 273

V. DESIDERIUM LUTETIAE, .... 274

Translation by A. L. TAYLOR, M.A., High

School, Glasgow, . . . . 276

VI. ADVENTUS IN GALLIAM, .... 281

French Translation by ANDREE WALTZ,

University of Bordeaux, — (Steels Prize}, . 282

English Translation by T. D. ROHB, M.A.,

Paisley, . 283

VII. AD INVICTISSIMUM FRANCIAE REOEM HENRICUM

IT., POST VICTOS CALETES, . . . 285

French Translation by HENRI BONNEVIE,
L.-ES-L., University of Paris, — (Steele
Prize— lat Equal), .... 289

English Translation by Father PROUT, (1866), . 292

French Translation by HENRI PKTITMANCIN,
University of Paris, — (8tf.de Prize — 1st
Equal], . .... 995

VIII. FRANCISCI VALESII FT MARIAE STUARTAE, REOUM

FRANCIAE ET SCOTIAE EPITHALAMIUM, . 299

Translation by LIONEL S. CHARLES, — (Steel?

Prize), ..... 307

IX. JOANNIS CALVINI EPICEDIUM, . . . 316

Translation by LIONEL S. CHARLES, — (Steele

Prize— 1st), . . . . . 318

Translation by REGINALD K. WINTER, Uni-
versity of St. Andrews, — (Steele Prize — 2nd), 321

X. GENETHLIACON JACOBI SEXTI REGIS SCOTORUM . . . 324

Translation by JOHN LONGMUIR, LL.D., Aber-
deen, 1871, . . . . . 327
XT. Miscellaneous Poems and Translations.

HYMNUS MATUTINUS AD CHRISTUM, . . 333

Translation by Rev. A. GORDON MITCHELL,

D.D., Killearn, .... 333

IN AULUM, ..... 334

Translation reprinted from Notes and Queries.

1850, 334

Contents xv.

COENA GAVINI ARCHIEPISCOPI GLASCUENSIS, . 335

Translation by T. D. ROBB, M.A., Paisley, . 336

IN DOLETUM, ..... 337
Translation by J. O. W. H. in Notes and

Queries, 1850, .... 337
JOANNI ARESKINO, COMITI MARRIAE, SCOTORUM

PROREGI, .... 337

Translation by Rev. Dr. A. GORDON MITCHELL, 337

AD ALISAM E MORBO PALLIDAM ET MACILENTAM . 338
Translation by T. D. in Blackwood's Mayazine,

1822, ..... 339

PATRICIO BUCHANANO PRATRI, . . . 341

Translation by Rev. Dr. GORDON MITCHELL, . 341

PETRO PLANCIO PARISIENSI, . . . 341
French Translation by HENRI BONNEVIE,
L.-ES-L., University of Paris — (Stwle Prize —

lnt Prize), ..... 342
English Translation by W. H. HAMILTON,

University of St. Andrews, . . . 344
French Translation by HENKI PETITMANGIN,
University of Paris, — (Steele Prize— 1st
Equal), ..... 345
IN CASTITATEM, ... . 34G
Translation by Rev. Dr. GORDON MITCHELL, . 346
DE EQUO ELOGIUM, .... 347
Translation by J. LONGMUIR, LL.D., Aber-
deen, 1871, ..... 347
HYMNUS IN CHRISTI ASCENSIONEM, . . 348
Translation by Rev. Dr. GORDON MITCHELL, . 349
XII. SELECTIONS FROM THE " BAPTISTES," with Transla-
tions by Lionel 8. Charles — (Steele Prize),
Scene III. — Queen Herodias incites Herod to

slay John, ..... 352

Translation, . . . . .352

Scene V. — The Appeal of the Chorus to Heaven, 353

Translation, . . . . . 354

Scene X.-- John's Speech and Reply of Chorus, 356

Translation, ..... 357

xvi. Contents.

Scene XIII. — The Chorus on God's judgment of

the wicked, ..... 358

Translation, ..... 359

Scene XIV. — Messenger's Speech and Chorus . 360

Translation, . . . . .361

XIII. PARAPHRASE OF THE PSALMS : —
PSALM cxxxvu.,

(1) by GEORGE BUCHANAN, . . 365

Translation into English Verse by

JOHN EADIK, 1836, . . 366

(2) by LORD GKKNVILLE in Antholoym

Oxoniensis, 1846, — (verses i.-vi.), . 368

PSALM cxxi.,

(1) by GEORGE BUCHANAN, . . . 368

Translation by JOHN EADIE, . . 369

(2) by M. ANTONIO FLAMINIO, 1559, 370
PSALM civ. (xiii.-xxvii.),

(1) by GEORGE BUCHANAN,. . . 371

Translation by JOHN EADIE, . 372

(2) by GEORGE EGLISHAM, M.D., 1618, . 374
PSALM xxvii. (ix.-xiv.),

(1) by GEORGE BUCHANAN, . . . 375

Translation by JOHN EADIE, . . 376

;2) by ARTHUR JOHNSTON, M.D., 1637, . 378

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX I. A. Buchanan's Defence in the Lisbon
Inquisition as written by himself, —
Edited, with Notes, . . . 381

B. Inventory of the Books of Costa and
Buchanan when imprisoned in Por-
tugal, . . . .402
c. List of passages, phrases, and single
words deleted by the Inquisition in
Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum His-
toria, ..... 403
APPENDIX II. Statement concerning the earliest known
translation of the first part of the De
Jure Regui, .... 406

Contents

xvn.

APPENDIX III.

APPENDIX IV.

APPENDIX V.

APPENDIX VI.

APPENDIX VII.
APPENDIX VIII,
APPENDIX IX.

INDEX,

A. List of Books presented by Buchanan

to the University of St. Andrews, . 407

B. List of Books presented to the Univer-

sity of Glasgow, . . . 409

" Mr. George Buchanan's opinion anent
the Reformation of the Vniversity of
St. Andros,"— (from a MS. in the
Advocates' Library), . . . 410

Some Notes on MSS. Translations of
Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum His-
toria, . , . . .421

Letter from Buchanan to Monsieur de
Sigongues, Governor of Dieppe — (the
only instance found of Buchanan's
writings in French), . . . 422

Buchanan's Testament Dative, . . 423

Buchanan's Scottish Residences, . 424

George Buchanan Quater-Centenary Cele-
brations, St. Andrews, 6th and 7th
July 1906, .... 427

(a) Chapel Service, . . . 427

(b) Lord Reay's Oration, . . 428

(d) Quater-Centenary Dinner, . . 462

(e) Buchanan Exhibition of Books and

Portraits, . . .484

(f) Garden Party, . . .485

486

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

George Buchanan, . . . Photogravure Frontispiece.

The Moss, near Killearn, .... Facing page 8

George Buchanan's " Ludging," Stirling, . . . 14

Old College, Glasgow, . . . . . 16

St. Leonard's College in 1767, .... 24

Gateway of St. Eloi, Bordeaux, . . . . 44

Ruins of " Palais Gallien," Bordeaux, . . . 51
University of Coimbra, ... .60

Facsimile, Last page of record of Buchanan's Trial, . 69

,, First page of Buchanan's Defence, . . 70

„ Last page of Buchanan's Defence, . . 71

,, MS. containing the Sentence of the Inquisition, 73

„ Intimation of Release, . . . . 74

Convent of St. Bento, Lisbon (Front Vieiv), . . 76

„ ,, ,, (Back View), . . 76
Mary, Queen of Scots (from Engraving in Vol. II. of

1722 Edition of Buchanan's l History' ), . . 80

Ruins of Crossraguel Abbey, ... 86

John Knox (from the Bust in the Wallace Monument), . 92
James I. (from Engraving in Vol. I. of 1722 edition of

Buchanan's ' History '), . . . . 1 04

Arthur Johnston, M.D., ..... 138

Andrew Melville, ...... 191

George Buchanan (Facsimile of Woodcut in " Les Portraits

des IJommes Illustres," 1673), . . . . 227

Collection of Portraits of Buchanan, . . . 229

George Buchanan (from Boissard), . . . 230

,, (from Pourbus), .... 232

List of Illustrations xix.

George Buchanan (from the Painting in the National

Portrait Gallery, London), .... 234

Buchanan Monument at Killearn, .... 236

Memorial Window in Old Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, . 238

Monument in Greyfriars Churchyard, . . . 240

George Buchanan (from the Biist in Wallace Monument), . 242

Gateway of St. Salvator's Chapel, St. Andrews, . . 428

The Right Hon. Lord Reay, G. C.S.I., LL.D, . . 452

Principal Donaldson, M.A., LL.D . . 462

J. P. Steele, B.A. M.D., LL.D., Florence, . . 474

St. Leonard's Chapel (Exterior), .... 484

St. Salvator's Tower, from the Quadrangle, . . 485

GEORGIUM BUCIIANANUM

SCOTUM
POETARUM SUI SAECULI FACILE PRINCIPEM

SALVE, Georgi ! Romuleas ferunt1
Olim Severn sub duco copias, —
Sootis triumphatis tuaque

Heu patria bimari subacta, —

Munimen illucl nobilc Termino
Sacrare, et artes Indigenis bonas
Inferre moresque, ac latentem
Pectoribus Genium ciere,

Cum quo, capaci mentis idoneae
Ad summa, snmmos gens superat tua,
Princepsque (is cultus Latini
Discipulus simul ct magister.

Quid si, Georgi, stirpe sato tibi
Leviniana saecula quattuor

Longinqua fluxerunt? Per ora
Vivis adhuc hominum venusta,

1 Vitlusis Bucliaiiiini Her. Scot. Hist. IV ',*,", -8 <-t Silv. IV 1 «.)<).
B

Georgium Buchananum

Vivesque semper, donoc habebore
Dis carus ipsis, utpotc qui plus
Priscas retractaris salubri
Arto tua ingonioque Musas,

Quao to fovondum sic vice niutua
Curant, ut adsfcos aede nova silii
Gratus sacerdos, non honorom
Tempore depositurus ullo.

Nee to sccundat Melpomono magis
Oustode Clio praeteritae roi,

Per quam, redintegrans tropaea
Scotigenis Patavina nervis,

Nostros labores inilitiae et donii
Motusque miros ceu tabula refers
Spiran to verum, qua fruetur
Posteritas animosque pascet

In niajus auctos, dum manet Arx tui
Britannoduni se speculo videns
Clotae gubernatoris undae
Imbrifera regione natae.

Sed cur, Georgi, tot tua tantaque
Incepta dicam semper ad exitus
Perdueta claros, cum vel ipsae
Marte gcrunt dubio Camenae

Certamen, an te plus decoret stilus
Magnum tyrannis iniciens metuin,
An grata testudo, an supellex
Qua simul Uraniae propinquas

Simplex amator? Nos potius juvat,
Hac luce festa, te veteris loqui
Virtutis auctorem decusque
Grande, Caledoniaequc semper

Pubi colcndum, quippe domabilom
Nullis Palati laudibus aut minis
Sicisve, dum, justi Catonis
Instar, agis sine labe vitam.

Georgium Buchananum

Tu, sivo potes Sequanam et Orbili

Fungare duro munere ; seu valens

Praelector ad latum Garumnam

Vasconidas renoves Athenas ;

Seu Lusitanae de cathedra Scholae
Pulsus maligno crimine, carceris
Sub nocte prospectes in horas
Supplicium nece pejus ipsa ;

Seu propter undas Eridani ducem
Gallum sequaris Palladaque inferas
In castra Mavortis, remixtis
Carminibus lituo strepenti ;

Seu missus Aulae nuntius Anglicae,
Regis ve doctor sis vigil alite
Nati sinistra ; seu Supremo
Concilio moderere Cleri ;

Tu semper idem, nee pede devio
Rectum relinquens, dotibus uteris
Sic mentis ut, vultu sereno,
./Equus eas per iniqua rerum.

Si mordearis dentibus aulicas
Partes tucntum spe sine, quid tua
Refert, Georgia Te minorem
Dis Patriis geris ; hinc resurgens

Vili tyranno major et asseclis
Quicumque malunt utile quam bonum,
Securus exspectas ab aevo

In inelius properante lauruin.

J. P. S.

Notes on Buchanan's Ancestry.

Biographers1 claim for Buchanan descent from Sir Walter
Buchanan of that Ilk who, they say, married a daughter of
Murdoch, Duke of Albany, by his wife Isobel — the co-heir of her
father, the last Earl of Lennox of the old creation. To this
relationship some have ascribed the historian's approbation of
the conduct of the Regent Lennox, his sympathy with Darnley,
and his antagonism to the rival house of Hamilton. The claim,
however, to the royal and Lennox descent made by his bio-
graphers for George Buchanan is not supported by anything he
himself wrote, and is erroneous.

Murdoch, Duke of Albany, married Tsobel, the eldest of the
three daughters of Duncan, Earl of Lennox. The Duke and his
father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, were suspected by James I. of
treason, and were executed in Stirling in 1425. The widowed
Duchess died about thirty years later, and on her death, the
Lennox was partitioned between the descendants of her two
sisters. It is plain from the record of the partition that
the Duchess left no legitimate grandchildren. If she had a
daughter who had been married to Buchanan of that
Ilk, that daughter must have predeceased her mother
without issue. Patrick, the son and heir of Sir Walter
Buchanan, did not claim to be one of the co-heirs of the
Earldom of Lennox : it was not suggested that he was the
grandson of the Duchess of Albany. It is therefore right
that George Buchanan should be absolved from the charge of
having been actuated by the pride and prejudice of family when
he fearlessly and honestly took the side of the Earl of Lennox
and exposed the crime of the murderers of Darnley.

In the middle of the fifteenth century a Thomas Buchanan —
a brother of Patrick Buchanan of that Ilk, who was the

1 Buchanan of Auchmar in his E*f>ny, fiuthrio Smith in Strathf.ndricl;, and
Hume Brown in his Biography of Buehanan.

Notes on Buchanan's Ancestry 5

grandson of Sir Walter — bought a considerable number of
estates in Stirlingshire and Perthshire. Guthrie Smith says,1
' a charter in his favour, granted by Patrick Buchanan of that
ilk of the lands of Gartincaber .... is dated at Buchanan
1461.' He had also a charter dated at Torphichen, 3rd Feby.,
1461-62, of the Temple Lands of Letter. On the 2nd October,
1472 . . . the bailie of Halden of Gleneagles gave sasine to
' Thomas Buchanan and Robert Makcalpyn of the lands of
Ballvol and Camquhele.' In 1476 he purchased from Haldane of
Gleneagles the lands of ' Kepdory, Carbeth, Ballawoul,' etc. In
1482 he conveyed Carbeth to his son Thomas, ' Ballyvow ' to his
son Walter, and Kepdory to Robert —his eldest son and heir ap-
parent. In 1477 he acquired the Temple lands of Ballikinrain,
in 1484 he had a charter from William, Lord Graham of Middle
Ledlewan (the Moss). Besides these lands he bought Drum-
ikil, half of which he gave to his son Robert in 1496. These
charters and others prove that Thomas Buchanan was a success-
ful money-making man.

Though he was a brother of the Laird of Buchanan, there is
some reason for believing that he was illegitimate. There is a
Crown charter of 14632 confirming an entail of the lands of
Buchanan on Patrick Buchanan of that Ilk and on Patrick's
son, Walter, whom failing, on the Buchanan of Leny and
his six sons in succession, failing all of whom, on the brother of
Buchanan of Leny. Thomas Buchanan (though the brother of
Patrick, the laird of Buchanan) is not mentioned. If legitimate,
lie would have been the next heir after Patrick's issue, but
he was passed over in favour of Buchanan of Leny, — a cousin.
The inference that Thomas was illegitimate is, I think, irresist-
ible. Robert Buchanan, to whom his father gave Kepdory,
half of Drurnikil, and probably Middle Ledlewan, was ex-
travagant and insolvent. His son Thomas lived at the Moss,
married Agnes Heriot, but died while still a young man, leaving
a family of five sons and three daughters. The famous George
Buchanan was the fifth son. He says he was born about the
1st of February, 1506. The year then began on the 25th March,
and the 1st of February, 1506, corresponds to 1st February,
1507. Perhaps the quater-centenary should not have been
held until next year.

1 Slrathendrick, p. 309. - Reg. Mag. Big., No. 761, p. 162.

3 Vita Stta — "anno salutis Christianae millesiuio quingentesimo sexto,
circa Kalendas Februarias."

6 Notes on Buchanan's Ancestry

Agnes Heriot, George Buchanan's mother, is said by all his
biographers — but on slight authority — -to have been a daughter
of Heriot of Trabroun, East Lothian, and so related to
George Heriot who is well-known as the founder of Heriot's
Hospital in Edinburgh. On her husband's death she left the
Moss, and in 1513 she took a lease of a farm in Menteith making
all her boys (including George, not yet eight years old) joint
tenants. The year in which they got that lease in Menteith was
the fatal year of Flodden, when most of the great men of the
Lennox fell. Mathew, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of
Moutrose, Edmondstone of Duntreath, one of the Buchanans of
Leny, Napier, one of the co-heirs of Lennox, and others were
killed, and a new generation, who had not known George
Buchanan's father, succeeded to their titles and estates. A few
years afterwards George Buchanan went to France. Though as
" Magister Georgius " he appears in 1531 as a joint tenant with
his mother and brothers of the Perthshire farm, his connection
with the Lennox ceased so early in his life that he could
impartially estimate the worth of the Earl of Lennox and
others who played great parts in the history which Buchanan
afterwards wrote.

It may seem invidious and ungracious to say that there is no
evidence that the great historian was descended from the royal
house of Stewart and the old Earls of Lennox, and still more
ungracious to throw doubt on the legitimacy of his great-grand-
father, but George Buchanan would have disdained to be credited
with a false pedigree, and it is right to try to be accurate, even
in such matters.

A. C. L.

II.

Early Surroundings and Associations.

GEOUGB BUCHANAN, though a native of Lennox, and a kins-
man of its hereditary lords, spent the best part of his life in
other lands. It was in France, Portugal, and Italy, that he
won reputation as the enlightened champion of education, and
" the first poet of his age." With the exception of what he
owed to his early home, to his schools, and to the University of
St. Andrews, where he took the degree of Bachelor, his own
land, with its Cardinal and Cordeliers, did not greatly help him
on the road to fame. Buchanan was too patriotic either to
remember the bitternesses of the past or to forget the claims of
the present. He finally returned to Scotland during the chaos
of the Reforming struggles ; and, for the last twenty years of
his life, devoted himself unweariedly to the national service. In
this respect he presents a notable contrast to some other Scottish
scholars of the time. Wilson, Alane, Scrymger, and, possibly,
Turnbull and Holywood, went abroad, disguised their names
under Latin forms, won fortune and fame, and never returned.
The public services which Buchanan rendered to his country
are well known ; for they form part of the history of the new era
which he and others helped to create. Not so much, however,
can be said of his private and personal life during this closing
period in his career. He had no biographer among his contem-
poraries. In this, it seems, Peter Young missed his chance of
immortality: missed it, too, with his eyes open. He had been
urged by Sir Thomas Randolph, who may have been a former
pupil of Buchanan, to write a life of the celebrated scholar, —
" beinge a thinge so common unto all famous Personnes, and
most peculiar to the best learnid."1 The advice was not taken;

1 Letter of Thomas Randolphe to the right worshipfull Maister Peter
Yonge, 1579. Epistola 23, Georgii Buchanani Opera, vol. 1.

Early Surroundings and Associations

and much in the public and private life of Buchanan, while at
Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Stirling, and elsewhere, has gone into
the void, possibly beyond recovery.

This paper is chiefly concerned with the earlier and later stages
of Buchanan's connection with the West of Scotland. After
four hundred years facts do not lie about like leaves in autumn.
Yet one or two references have been found which arc certainly
not without interest ; and may ultimately lead to a solution of
some of the disputed points in the personal history of the dis-
tinguished Scottish humanist and reformer.

George Buchanan's birthplace was the old mansion-house of
the Moss, pleasantly situated on the Blane, near Killearn, in
Stirlingshire. It was an unpretentious building, thatched with
straw, and stood somewhat nearer the river than the present
modern building. Wodrow, writing in 1732, describes it as "a
little house, still remaining, in a mossy ground, in the parish
of Killearn."1 A table and chair, made from the oak beams of
the original house, are all that now remain to connect us directly
with the venerable dwelling where Buchanan first saw the light.
The lands of Moss, then called Middle Ledlewan, came into the
possession of the family through the grant given, in 1484, by
William, Lord Graham, to Thomas Buchanan of Bultoune — the
founder of the Drumikil branch — " in virtue of counsel, assist-
ance and services cheerfully rendered in times past." A condi-
tion of tenure stipulated that " the said Thomas Buchanan, his
heirs and assignees should, if asked, pay annually, at the feast
of Pentecost, to Lord Graham, at his three head courts of the
lands of Mugdock, a silver penny, in the name of blanch farm."

It was while farming Moss — a 40 shilling land of old extent,
or a property of about 104 acres- -that Thomas Buchanan, eldest
son of Robert, the second of Drumikil, and grandson of the
above mentioned Thomas of Bultoune, married Agnes Heriot.
She is supposed to have been one of the Heriots of Trabroun.
William Buchanan of Auchmar, not always too reliable, was the
first to give currency to the view.3 It is known that James
Heriot, Canon of Ross, and Justiciar of Lothian died in 1522 ;
the year in which George's maternal uncle and benefactor died.4

1 Wodrow's M.S. Life of Buchanan, vol. 16.
- Cross Buchanan Writs.

3 Historical and (lenoalogical Essay, p. 70.

4 Selections from the Old Records regarding the Heriots of Trabroun, by
W. G. B. ; printed at Haddington, 1894, for private circulation, pp. 11-19.

Early Surroundings and Associations 9

Auchmar could scarcely have been aware of this fact. Yet, as
there were Ileriots in the West as well as in the East, the
Trabroun descent rests, meantime, on a somewhat slight basis.
Better, however, than any Trabroun lineage is the reference
by her sou George : ' ' such was the frugal care of his
mother, Agnes Heriot, that she brought up her five boys and
three girls to the estate of manhood and womanhood,"1 — clearly
a shrewd, capable woman, who fought bravely the battle
against adverse circumstances. Buchanan, always reticent, and
no sentimentalist, certainly owed more to her than is expressed
in the self-restrained, if appreciative, words that have immortal-
ized her name.

Although nothing definite is known regarding the daughters
of Thomas Buchanan and Agnes Heriot the genealogists have
tried to fill in the lacunae with picturesque details ; which need
not here be mentioned. One of them, it may be inferred,
became the wife of a certain Mr. Morison ; for it is known that
an Alexander Morison published an edition of his uncle's
paraphrase of the psalms.2 As to the sons, Robert succeeded
his father at the Moss in 1513 ; and, three years later, became,
on his grandfather's death, laird of Drumikil. Robert died
before 1525. 3 He is said to have been succeeded by his brother
Thomas ; but this has not been conclusively established. If, for
example, Thomas were the second son, it is curious that while
his name does not appear in the lease of the lands of Olleron of
Gartladdirnack, in Cardross of Menteith, granted in 1513, to
Agnes Heriot and her sons Patrick, Alexander and George, it
does appear in the renewal of the lease in 1531. He was then,
presumably, laird of Drumikil ; yet his name comes last on the
list : the order being, Alexander, Patrick, Mr George and
Thomas.1 Alexander, better known as of Ibert, apparently
went to the Moss when his brother Robert died, or sometime
later. The name of " Alexander Balquliannen in Mos " appears
as a witness to a deed of date 21st October, 1553. 5 Patrick

1 Vita iSua.

- This ed. (1582-1010?) not known in Scotland, or to the British Museum.
Jos. Scaliger wrote an ode in its praise, Opuacula, p. 287. Paris 1010.
:i Acta Dom. Cone., vol. XXXVI., fol. 91.

4 Erskino of Cardross Charters. An abstract of the deeds relating to
Buchanan is given in Mr. J. Guthrie Smith's Mrathendrick.

5 Protocol" of (,'la«</on; vol. I., protocol 1GG.

10 Early Surroundings and Associations

became a scholar, whose fame would have been considerable
had it not been eclipsed by his still more famous brother George.

The Moss is about one and three-quarter miles south-west of
Killcarn. For some time, up till the age of seven, Buchanan
may have attended the village school. His family, " never too
prosperous, had," as he tells us, " been reduced almost to
extremity of want " ;' and it is not likely that he, a lad of five
or six, should be sent to a school outside the parish. Killearn,
then a prebend in the Chapter of Glasgow, had been annexed,
in lf>OG, by the Archbishop to " the College of his University."
Patrick Graham, brother of the Earl of Montrose, was, from
1504, rector of the parish, and Canon of the Metropolitan
Church. In 1513, and during the two following years, he was
Rector of the Glasgow University.3 Though the parson of
Killearn took no direct part in teaching, his influence, as a man
of culture and of birth, must have had some educative effect on
the school. Yet, whatever the efficiency of the Killearn school,
it could have done little for Buchanan : for we know that his
family left the Moss for Offeron when he was in his seventh
year.

Mr. A. F. Hutchison, M.A., late Rector of the Stirling High
School, suggests that his next school was at Stirling.3 The old
pro-Reformation Grammar School, in that ancient burgh, was
the nearest, of any consequence, to his new home in Menteith ;
and had, at that time, a master of some repute. As early as
1732, though Mr. Hutchison was seemingly unaware of the fact,
Wodrow made the same suggestion. " It is probable," he wrote,
" that Buchanan was initiated in the Latin tongue in the
Grammar School of Stirling, that lying near the place where he
was born ; unless his uncle Trabroun carried him somewhere
else."1 An objection that is fatal to this view is the fact that
Yule, the personal friend of Buchanan, and a former master of
the Stirling Grammar School, makes no mention of George's
name in connection with that school, even when enumerating
some of the celebrated men who were educated there.5

1 Vita Sun — " familia ante tennis pene ad extroimun inopiani est redacta."
" Afunimtnla Univcrxitatix Glasyiienia, vol. 2, pp. 42, 127-9 ; also
Diocesan L'egixters of Otamjom, vol. 2, p. 76, etc.

3 The High School of Stirling, pp. 273-5.

4 Wodrow MS., vol. 1C.

5 Ecphraain Paraphraseo* Cfeorgii Duchanani, Dedic. Epist. London,
1620. The ecphrasis, Yule says, was partly sketched by Buchanan.

Early Surroundings and Associations 11

If Killearn and Cardross of Menteith did not greatly contri-
bute to Buchanan's mental culture, they did much for him in
another way; they made him acquainted, from his youth, with
the Gaelic tongue, and the traditions and romance of the High-
lauds. He might bewail that he was born " amidst the British
mountains, in a land and an age that was unlearned " ; but even
these conditions had their compensations. He was drawing,
unconsciously it may be, from the fine hills of Perthshire and
the west ; from the exquisite beauties of Loch Lomond ; and the
splendid statuary of the Firth of Clyde, that inspiration which
helped to build up the future poet of the age. From the people,
too, he was learning, as a youth can only learn, their ancient
tongue, and its wealth of old world and imaginative lore. We
know from the History that he spoke Gaelic when a child.1 He
was, from the first, bilingual ; and that, in itself, implies a mental
discipline of no mean order. Even after he knew, and could
speak, many languages he did not forget the old Celtic speech
and the light it can throw on the place names of Europe. His
ethnological and philological investigations, in the first two books
of the History, are still interesting ; not only as showing his
native insight and sagacity, but the thoroughness of his
acquaintance with the language and customs of the Celts. His
work here has, in great part, been superseded ; but, at the time,
and for long after, it was the first intelligent attempt in that
direction.

The early home surroundings and education could not thus
have had much direct significance in building up the mental
structure and equipment of George Buchanan. The true centre
of educational influence must be sought for elsewhere. On the
somewhat slender authority of Mackenzie it has been asserted
that the Dumbarton Grammar School was the institution where
he received his first real academic training.2 The records of
Dumbarton, which have been repeatedly searched, have yielded
not the slightest reference. No doubt, Buchanan's knowledge
of the rock, and especially of its magnetic properties, does seem
to indicate that intimate acquaintance that is associated with
the intelligent schoolboy. But it is not safe to draw conclusions
from such evidence. Buchanan knew about many things that

1 Re/rum Scoticarum Hiatoria, 1, 8.

2 Lives and Characters of the most eminent urriters of the Scotf Nation,
vol. 3, p. 156.

12 Early Surroundings and Associations

few, eveu now, know : as, for instance, the wall of Scverus and
the marble deposits of Sutherland. All that one is justified in
inferring from special lore of this kind is the accuracy and range
of Buchanan's marvellous knowledge. Mackenzie may have mis-
taken Cardross, near Dumbarton, for Cardross, in Perthshire ;
and may, thus unwittingly, have helped to perpetuate an error
which has since obtained the currency of a fact.

Principal Robert Baillie, in a letter written, May 23, 1GGO,
to Professor William Douglas, Aberdeen, says that Buchanan
was educated at Glasgow : " George Buchanan, born in Strath-
blaiie (Killern), seven miles from Glasgow, bred in our Grammar
School, much conversing in our College, the chief instrument to
purchase our rents from Queen Mary and King James."1

These statements of Baillie are of lirst-rate importance, lie
was born at Glasgow twenty years after Buchanan's death, and
was educated at the City Grammar School, and the University
of which he afterwards became professor and Principal. As a
chronicler of the time he is observant and trustworthy. It is
true that the Moss is more than seven miles from Glasgow.
Wodrow, writing seventy-two years later, gives the distance as
ten miles. In those days, land measurements, even in charters,
were indicated somewhat loosely. When, however, he says that
Buchanan was " bred in our Grammar School " he stands on
different ground. He is giving expression to what was then a
living tradition about which there could be no uncertainty.
Andrew Melville, Yule, and others, who enjoyed the friendship
of Buchanan, were stiil alive when Baillie was a student at
Glasgow. He may have got his information from them ; or from
sources that have now ceased to exist. Nor is the fact, other-
wise, unlikely. Patrick Graham, the parson of Killearn, was a
Canon of the Cathedral; and, from 1513 to 1516, Rector of the
University. He would naturally be interested in the clever lad
whom he knew at the Moss ; and it may, possibly, have been
through his influence that he was helped to study at the chief
educational institution in the West of Scotland.

The Glasgow Grammar School, originally situated near where
the buildings of the Central Fire Brigade now are, grew up
under the care of the city and the Cathedral. After the 14th
century it is frequently mentioned ; but it existed long anterior

1 Ltttr.r* ami Journal* of Robert Baillie, A.M., 1841-2, vol. 3, p. 402
This letter was first published in the 1830 edition of McUro's History of
Qlatyow, p. 3G3.

Early Surroundings and Associations 13

to that date. It was, according to the custom of the time, under
the immediate supervision of the Chancellor of the Diocese.1 In
early youth, King James IV. was created a Canon of Glasgow;
and, it would seem, as if his zeal for education had imparted
itself to the school. The famous Act of 1496, passed in his
reign, ordained " that all barons and freeholders that are of
substance put their eldest sons and heirs to the schules fra they
be six or nine yeirs of age, and till remaine at the Grammar
Schools, quhill they be competentlie founded and have perfite
Latine." Hallam thinks that this Act must have been inopera-
tive because it was too vague for execution.2 On a point like
this, Heeren is, perhaps, a more reliable guide when he asserts
that " the need of public instruction and the betterment of the
same were felt earlier and more keenly in Scotland than in
England."3 No one claims that, during Buchanan's school
days, any Scottish scholar wrote or spoke perfect Latin— such
Latin, for example, as was spoken and written by Bembo or
Sadoleto. Yet the language was known, taught, and written
with more or less elegance. In the best schools much care was
bestowed on its teaching. The teachers spoke in Latin ; and the
scholars, even while at play, were compelled, under severe
penalties, to make use of that tongue as the medium of their
thoughts. French was also taught and spoken; and, in some of
the Scottish schools, pupils had the option of speaking either
French or Latin during play hours.4

Unfortunately no records known to me give the scheme of
lessons then taught at the Glasgow City School. Thomas Jack,
who was favoured with the friendship of Buchanan, and who
afterwards became minister of Eastwood and of Montgomery, is
one of the most noted of its headmasters. He tells of a visit he
paid to the aged scholar in the hope he might revise the MS. of
his Onomasticon Poetici/m, and of the kindness he received,
then, as on former occasions. " I found him," he says, " in the
royal palace of Stirling, diligently engaged in writing his
History of Scotland. He was so far from being displeased with
my interruption that he cheerfully took my work into his hands,
and after continuing to read two or three pages of it, ho collected

1 Munimenta, vol. 1, p. 37; Reg. Kpixcop. Gfasrf., pp. 490-1.

2 Lit. of Europe, in the Middle Aye*, vol. 1, p. 273.

:l Qeschif'hte der Ki'insle und Wixsewtchaften, vol. 2, p. 139.
4 McCrie's notes on Liven of Knox and Me.JriUa, Grant's Burgh Schools of
Scotluiui, and P. Hume Tirown's Buchanan,

14 Early Surroundings and Associations

together his own papers, which were scattered on the table and
said that he would desist from his undertaking till he had done
what I wished. This promise he accurately performed ; and,
within a few days, gave me a paper written with his own hand,
and containing such corrections as he thought necessary." It
may, perhaps, be too much to construe this incident as if it were
an act of homage done by a former pupil of the Grammar School
to its then headmaster. In any case, it is a proof of his unfail-
ing courtesy and kindness.

In Buchanan's time the school seems to have been in a
flourishing condition. One of its masters, then, was Matthew
Reid, M.A. He is first mentioned in 1511, among the incorpor-
ati of the University. Incorporates, in this sense, may mean a
student who matriculates for the first time ; or, one who, having
studied elsewhere, desires to continue his studies at the College
of which he becomes a member. Reid was evidently appointed
to the mastership of the school as soon as he took the higher
degree; for, in 1520, he was, as a man of whose discretion and
capabilities the faculty had some experience, elected Treasurer
of the University. Two years later, he was chosen one of the
deputies of the Rector1 — perhaps the first time this honour was
conferred on a schoolmaster.

Buchanan was from the first a scholar. It was his early apti-
tude and skill in the Latin tongue which, as he tells us, he
" learned with much pains in boyhood," that appealed with such
good results to his uncle and benefactor. At fourteen, when he
left school, he must have known much, at least in the matter of
Latin, that Matthew Reid could teach him. At the age of six-
teen, Melanchthon lectured on the classical authors of antiquity.
At fourteen, Andrew Melville, fresh from the Greek School at
Montrose, entered the College of St. Mary, in the University of
St. Andrews, and astonished, not a little, the professors there
by using the Greek text in his study of Aristotle. Buchanan,
with all his capacity and diligence, was no prodigy ; yet, we can
well believe that when he started for the University of Paris, in
1520, he knew and spoke the languages of old Rome and fair
France as well as any who had ever left our shores for that
famous seat of learning. The glory of being the first thus to lay
the foundations of that Latinity in which he afterwards so
greatly excelled, and to foster in him the real love of knowledge,
1 Munimenla, vol. 2, pp. 126, 139, 149.

SHfrS5l$

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Early Surroundings and Associations 15

must, perhaps, be assigned to the Scottish schoolmaster, Matthew
Reid, whose name has lain, for nearly four centuries, hidden
but not unhonoured, in the annals and muniments of his Alma
Mater.

The " parcel of good books," which Buchanan presented to the
College Library consisted of twenty volumes, all written in
Greek : possibly it was a compliment to his friend Andrew Mel-
ville, an accomplished Greek scholar, and then head of the Glas-
gow University. The books still exist, with the exception of a
volume of Plutarch's works, which is amissing. They were
given to the University, in 1578 — the year of the ' Erectio
Regia '- " ex dono viri optimi et doctissimi Georgii Buchanani,
regii magistri."1 George's name does not appear on any of the
volumes. That of his brother, " Patricius Buchanan," is neatly
written on the title page of Strabo's Geography. Above this
signature is that of Jacobus Goupylus, presumably a former
owner of the book ; for the name is slightly scored through by
the same pen that wrote " Patricius Buchanan." In this folio
there are numerous jottings, which consist, chiefly, of a kind of
index of the names occuring in the text. These were not made
by Buchanan. A few notes, of an explanatory kind, as at pages
344, 352, are, almost certainly, in his handwriting. He makes
frequent use of Strabo, in the opening chapters of the History;
and many of the names there given, on the authority of Strabo,
are underlined in the body of the original, or written on the
margin. Five of the volumes: the works of Demosthenes, the
Aryonautica of Apollonius, the Commentary on Aristotle1 s
Rhetoric, and volumes two and three of the Commentary on the
Iliad and Odys&e,y by Eustathius : have no notes of any kind. In
Euclid one note occurs; but it is not in Buchanan's hand. The
remaining volumes contain many notes in different types of cali-
graphy. Alexander Tral appends his name to one in Greek, and
there is another in shorthand. Those which can be said to be by
Buchanan are few. Annotations in volume one of Eustathius'
Commentary are certainly in his handwriting (v. pp. 32,
79, 80, 83, 123). This is a specimen of the marginal references:

'ATroAXwv dictus a?™ TOT avroAewv TOI»S ev Karo^r) KaKO)rrf(DV.
Plato's works have many titles and references, such as " anima

1 Munimontn, vol. 3, p. 407. Irving gives tho list in his Memoirs of
Bnclmnnn, pp. 393-4.

16 Early Surroundings and Associations

pura," " anima contagio corporis infccta," " philosophia nihil
melius a diis data," " oculorum utilitas," " origio justiciae "•
which appear to be by Buchanan. Some slight corrections of the
text, different readings and allusions are written on the margin
of Stephanus of Byzantium, Manuel Moschopulus, Aristophanes
and Basil. They are of the same general type as those referred
to, and betray the hand of the practised scholar — a feature
which is not so apparent in the insertions by other writers. An
interesting, if modern, entry, in fine, clear caligraphy— given in
Basil's works, at page 5 — is in Greek and Hebrew.

Of the sixteen Greek authors whose works Buchanan pre-
sented to the Glasgow University five, at least, are familiarly
referred to by him in the History. The inquiries of Plato, in
the Crntylus, as to the origin of words, are criticised in a
sentence; Stephanus of Byzantium, "Concerning Towns and
Peoples"; and Suidas, "no mean grammarian among the
Greeks," are quoted once ; while Strabo, as already indicated, is
often quoted. Plutarch is mentioned in connection with the
opinion that the word Cimbri was not the name of a nation but
of a pursuit or employment, because robbers were so designated
by the Germans. Here the reference is to be found in Plutarch's
Ifarhis, and suggests the inference that Buchanan was
acqtiainted with the Lives as well as the Moralia of that enter-
taining and philosophic writer.1 The pseudo-Plutarch — " he
who wrote the small treatise on rivers " — is also referred to
in the History.2 In a letter, written by Gifanius to Buchanan,
mention is made of Lycophron — another of the authors
in the list of gifted books — in a way to indicate that
the Scottish scholar was familiar with that obscure poet.
It is also noteworthy that, in 1578, the year of the donation
to the University, Serranus sent to Buchanan a copy of his
fine edition of Plato, in three volumes.'1 It would thus seem
that, apart from his translations of Medea, and AI rest is, and
epigrams from the poets, Buchanan's knowledge of Greek
literature was much more extensive than is generally supposed.

What Baillie says about Buchanan's relation to the Glasgow
College is also deeply interesting as suggesting the part he acted
1 Missing vol. of Plat. — the. Live* — found since above in print. On fly-
leaf, in Buchanan's hand, is the motto: " Oninia mca inecuin porto." This
saying of Bias is recorded in Cir-ero's Fnrado.va, I. S.
a Rer. Scot, Hist. 1,3: 2, 31, 45, 33.
;; Kpistolao 4 and 19, f>iii:hn>irini <>jnrn, vnl. 1.

Early Surroundings and Associations 17

in procuring certain grants and foundations from the Crown and
the Magistrates. The Reformation threatened the extinction of
the Western University. Its revenues were unjustly seized or
alienated. New professors could not be appointed owing to the
lack of funds. The College buildings were in an unfinished
state; so that the institution resembled more "the decay of a
University than an established foundation." This disorganiza-
tion and impoverishment must have grieved the soul of the
enthusiastic educationist. It has, therefore, not unreasonably
been inferred that the gift of Mary, the grant by the Town
Council of Glasgow in 1572, and the new foundation, known as
' Erectio Regia,' were obtained mainly through his influence.1
We know that Buchanan was in the Queen's retinue, during her
stay at Glasgow; when, on the 13th of July, 1563, she granted
to the University, under her Privy Seal, certain lands and
revenues of the Preaching Friars of the city for the support of
five poor scholars during the time of their education. On the
very day of the Queen's gift Mr. George Buchanan, "within the
house of James Graham, dwelling in Glasgow, resigned in favour
of John M'Lawchtlane and Katherine Galbrayth, spouses, the
half of the lands of Auchintroige, extending to a two merkland,
of old extent, with the pertinents, lying in the Earldom of
Levenax."2 The M'Lauchlans had been, for centuries, in posses-
sion of Auchintroige — there is a confirmation of one of their
charters in 1394 — and, it is probable, as Mr. Robert Renwick,
the learned editor of the Protocols, suggests, that Buchanan's
interest in the lands may have been of the nature of a wadset or
mortgage.

Buchanan's connection with the lands of Auchintroige raises
a further point of some importance in the same relation. The
date of his final return to Scotland has not been definitely ascer-
tained. Strangely enough the first reference to him, after his
return, is in a charter granted, at Glasgow, 8th Nov. 1561, by
William Cunninghame of Craigends, by which he acquired an
annual rent of 20 mcrks payable out of the lands of Yoker. On
the following day John Galbrayth in Balgair, as attorney for,
and on behalf of Magister Georgiiis HnchquJiannen, appeared at
Yoker, and took sasine on behalf of his principal.3 That the

1 P. Hume Brown's George Buchanan, pp. 242-3.

2 Protocol* of Glaxyou-, vol. 3, protocol 756.

3 Ibid, vol. 5, prot. 1420.
C

18 Early Surroundings and Associations

famous scholar was then in Scotland is certain. He may have
come back even earlier ; for the deed of assignation by which he
held part of the Auchintroige lands, whether as wadset or
otherwise, has not yet been discovered. The Yoker annual rent
which may have been held in security for a temporary
loan, was resigned, on the 10th November 1563, by
William Gilbrayth, " acting as procurator for Mr. George
Buchquhannen."1

That Buchanan was thus much "conversing" in Glasgow
and the western shires is evident. He was, above all, a man of
public spirit, exerting himself in every kind of way to advance
the real interests of the nation. Nor is there lack of evidence
as to his personal and social influence. Contemporaries like
Queen Mary : of scholarly tastes and brilliant conversational
powers : Julius Caesar Scaliger, Hubert Languet, and Sir
James Melville, were even more profoundly impressed by the
charm of his manner and conversation than by the range and
depth of his consummate knowledge. Self-revelation was not
much in Buchanan's line ; although he does occasionally draw
aside the veil. A fine, if curious, epigram on the Entertain-
ment given by Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, is as
creditable to his social instincts as it is worthy of his honoured
and learned host. In the West of Scotland, at least, the
influence of George Buchanan, in public and private, is a
pleasant memory, an eternal possession, which all the years,
with their unslumbering antagonisms, can neither depreciate
nor take away. " Est primum sapientis officium, bene sentire,
ut sibi vivat ; proximum, bene loqui, ut patriae vivat."

R. M.

1 I/ml. vol. 3, prut. 7H1.

III.

Buchanan's Student Days.

THE natural step for a youth from the banks of the Blane, where,
according to a poetical eulogist, Buchanan early conned his
" metred book," would have been to enrol himself as a
student of Glasgow University. But Glasgow University during
the first quarter of the sixteenth century was at the lowest ebb
of its fortunes ; and James Heriot, Buchanan's uncle, resolved
to send him to the University of Paris, a place of study which
was attracting some of the ablest Scottish youth. Indeed ever
since a Scots College had been founded in Paris in 1325, Scottish
youths regarded attendance at Paris University as an essential
means of attaining intellectual culture. It is probable that he
had student companions on the journey ; at that date youths
proceeding to Cambridge University from the remoter districts
of England went in a body under the care of a " f etcher ";
so Prof. Hume Brown's surmise that some such arrangement
may have existed in Scotland in connection with France is quite
reasonable.

At the University of Paris, where Buchanan entered as a
student in 1520, the students were mainly resident within the
colleges, or they might board at paedoyogki (better known as
pensionnafs') ; those who were less wealthy lived in private
lodgings, and were known as martinets. In all likelihood
Buchanan was a non-resident student, and it is thus possible
that he associated with the German Nation, which section had
been well-equipped with schools at one time at the University.

He tells us himself that his favourite study during his stay at
Paris was the composition of Latin verse. " Partly of his own
choice," he says, " and partly of compulsion, the writing of
Latin verse, then the one subject prescribed for boys, made the
chief part of his literary studies."1 One illustrioiis teacher

1 Vita Una.

'20 Buchanan's Student Days

graced the French University about this time— Lefevre
d'fttaples, esteemed especially as an expositor of philosophy and
theology. Buchanan lauded him in later years as a leader
in mental enlightenment. "Breadth and intelligence were
the outshining eharaet eristics of Lcfevre's teaching. These
qualities of so admirable a teacher, which were the talk
of all the schools, would have their own partic\ilar effect
upon Buchanan, whose mind was inherently receptive
of rational opinion. Tt looks somewhat incongruous that,
after experiencing the influence of so progressive a thinker
as Lefevre, he should have been attracted to St. Andrews
by Major, a prominent representative of the decaying scholas-
ticism. But so it was. The conclusion is fair that in doing
so he was paying a concession to the fashionable cult of dialectic,
an art in which Major was a recognised adept.

John Major, although a schoolman, also to incur the ridicule
of Buchanan as formerly he had been visited with the satire of
Rabelais, was a man of European reputation as a teacher of
logic. As a regent in the University of Paris, he had enjoyed
much fame among the learned. Distinguished pupils award him
cordial praise. Louis Coronel speaks of him as one " whose
learning will commend him not only to posterity but to eternity."
Robert Senalis calls him " that incomparable master in Arts
and Philosophy." It has been surmised that he owed his trans-
ference to a Scottish chair to Oavin Douglas, who, during an
official visit to Paris, prevailed upon him to accept a post in a
Scottish University. Tt was to the University of Glasgow that
he was first to devote his ability. Tn 1518, Major was incorpor-
ated principal regent of the College and Paedagogium of Glas-
gow. The promotion of James Beaton from the Western see
led to Major's removal to the University of St. Andrews.

Tt is noteworthy that Patrick Hamilton, a representative
of the New Learning, was incorporated into the University
on the same day (9th Jiine 1523) as Major, a repre-
sentative of the old learning. Major presided over the Paeda-
gogium, and lectured on Logic and Theology, his favourite
subjects. A special theme was the philosophy of Aristotle. He
is admitted to have discussed with vigour the important argu-
ments of Aristotle's philosophy : but he also applied himself
with zest to the marvellously futile speculations beloved of the
schoolmen. This element, to judge from Buchanan's summary

Buchanan's Student Days 21

of his teaching, unduly predominated in his prelections. " John
Major," he remarks, " at that time taught Dialectic, or rather
Sophistic, in extreme old age at St. Andrews." And his
epigram is yet more scathing : —

Cum scateat nugis solo cognominc Major,

Nee sit in immense pugina sana libro,

Non mirum, titulis quod se veraeibus orriat ;

Nee semper mendax fingerc Greta solet.1

When he proclaims himself thus elearly
As " Major" by cognomen merely,
Since trifles through the book abound,
And scarce a page of sense is found,
Full credit sure the word acquires,
For Cretans are not always liars !

Major is said to have been one of those who, in 1539, accused
Buchanan of heresy because of his having persuaded James V. to
break the Lenten fast ; and this may have increased the bitter-
ness of the pupil's scorn. But, despite such sarcasm, Major's
influence upon Buchanan had, it appears certain, a good deal of
weight. The careful marshalling of the factors of discussion in
his philosophical treatise, DK Jure Reyni api/d Scotos, bears
every evidence of an insight derived no less from training than
from original discrimination. And doubtless the very opinion
embodied in this powerful political pamphlet had a stimulus
from Major, to whose idea of a state its pronouncement has an
interesting resemblance. Major's name and fame became more
and more known ; and, after a second residence at Paris, he
returned in 1529 to St. Andrews as Principal of St. Salvator's
College, and continued in that charge until his death.
Buchanan matriculated as a student at St. Andrews at the
beginning of the session of 1525. 2 His name on the register of
the Paedagogium is written beside that of his brother Patrick.
After the names of many of the seventy-six students who became
Cives Unirersitatis at this date is written the word pauper,
which implies that they were unable to pay the usual fee.
Buchanan, however, was not now reckoned pauper, because,
according to Prof. Hume Brown, he paid the matriculation

1 Epigrammata, I. -41.

2 Buchanan states in Vita fitm that after having been two years in
Paris he had, on account of ill-health and the cessation of supplies on the
death of his uncle, to return home — intra bimnium avunculo mortuo, tt ip*e
gram morho correptua, nc intrliqtte inopia circumvenfu-i, reilire ad suos coactus.
He spent a year of convalescence, probably at Cardross.

"2"2 Buchanan's Student Days

fee of sixpence. It seems that students in those days, more
fortunate than their successors, paid in keeping with their
means, for others paid eight-pence.

The Paedagogium stood on the site now occupied either by the
University Library or St. Mary's College, and was only erected
after some trouble had been occasioned regarding the unsettled
state of the young University. The first building which formed
1 lie nucleus of the University had been granted in 1418 by Robert
of Mont rose as a College of Theology and Arts, and was dedicated
to St. John. Bishop Wardlaw, however, gifted another tene-
ment in 1'KH), and this was so planned that the system should
be "residential." Hitherto hostels had been opened; but the
same difficulties arose as in the Paedagogia at Paris, students
breaking the laws by continually removing from hostel to hostel,
and by otherwise indulging in conduct which would now be
characterised as "unworthy of a student and a gentleman."
The tenement which Bishop Wardlaw gave was to be a common
hall or paedagogium, but did not quite correspond to the institu-
tion of tltis name in which Buchanan studied at Paris. There-
after peace may have been within the walls of learning at St.
Andrews ; but this could merely have lasted until St. Salvator's
College was founded in 1450, for the study of Theology and Arts.
The Arts students and masters in the Paedagogium considered
the new college as a rival ; and the struggle between them to
attract students was for some time keen. But ere long
the fame of the older institution diminished, and it was finally
superseded, when, in 1537, Cardinal David Beaton and Arch-
bishop Hamilton completed the work of Cardinal James Beaton
by raising on the site of the Paedagogium a new college under
the title of " The Blessed Mary of the Assumption." Thus in
Buchanan's time the Paedagogium must have been in a poor and
languishing condition— -it certainly was not at its best — and it
would have been more fitting to associate Buchanan with the
new college of St. Leonard's, which was founded in 1512, and
which was more in sympathy with the New Learning.

Buchanan's student days at St. Andrews were not many. In
October 1525 he graduated with what might be called
" Second Class Honours," his distaste for Major's logic no
doubt affecting his examination results. Nevertheless, along
with most of his fellow-graduates, he escaped the payment of the
registration fee. This evasion was not to go unnoticed, for the

Buchanan's Student Days 23

word pauper was placed opposite the names of these struggling
graduates.

Soon Buchanan was to return to France to continue his studies.
He followed thither his former teacher, Major, and sought as
that scholar had once done to take his final degree to qualify for a
professional certificate. So far, by taking his Bachelor's degree,
he had completed only a part of his training in order to become
a Regent. He required to take the Master's degree before such
an appointment could be secured, and with this object in view
he would doubtless never have broken his course of study at
Paris, had not indifferent health and ultimately Major's
European fame attracted him to St. Andrews in order to study
the subject of Logic— then alone necessary to him for the
Bachelor's degree. Under the existing conditions this was
possible, for the studies and the degrees of the University were
recognised by all other universities.

At the Scots College, Paris, Buchanan renewed his academic
studies in France. He owed his nomination as a bursar to Major
--a circumstance which has sometimes been pointed to as hardly
appreciated by Buchanan, if his severe criticisms of his teacher
are rightly to be weighed against it. The two facts are, at least,
not inconsistent. Although as a bursar he would receive his
board and education free, he tells us that the first two years of
his life were passed in " hard struggle with untoward fortune."1
Very obviously he shared the somewhat unpleasant lot of the
majority of the students at the Paris Colleges. The accommoda-
tion was small and ill-provided ; the food meagre and not of the
best description. To add to the troubles of mere living, the
amount of study requisite was very exacting. Early morning
saw the students at work, and, after the mid-day interval, they
were equally engrossed throughout the afternoon. Buchanan
took his Master's degree in March 1528, and was thereupon
appointed a Regent in one of the most successful Paris Colleges,
that of St. Barbc. There, during a residency of three years, he
became, as he was to be to the last, a teacher of exceptional power.

A pleasing corollary to Buchanan's career as a student at St.
Andrews was his later association with this University. Forty-
one years after his studentship he was appointed Principal of
St. Leonard's College, a post which he held for four years.
During the time of his office as principal Buchanan's person-
1 Vita Sua.

1>4 Buchanan's Student Days

ality stamped itself upon the history of St. Andrews. At that
period his own character was of significant and distinctive note;
while several of the events with which his career as principal is
hound up were of very great interest. Then it was that the
Stephenses published at Paris two new editions of some of the
best of his verse ; the one including his Eleyia, Silvte, and
llciulrra&yUabi, the other the same pieces, with the addition of
the Frtnicmranns; and still greater matters, matters of national
importance, distinguished his official life at St. Andrews. Then
he was Moderator of the General Assembly. Then he consulted
at York as a fellow-commissioner with Moray in regard to the
reception which Queen Elizabeth ought to give to Mary, Queen
of Scots, a fugitive from Langside. And, above all, he then
wrote his Utttctio Marut Hcyiiuz Scotorum, one of the most
notable and effective indictments ever written as the medium of
a momentous constitutional charge. The St. Andrews Town
and University records are singularly destitute of references to
Buchanan. Professor Lee's researches into these, contributed
to the second edition of Irving's Memoirs of Buchanan, remain
the sole authority for details of his sojourn in the city.

It is not hard to think of Buchanan, both as a student and
principal, as an appreciative inhabitant of St. Andrews. A
willing exile in France, he not only admired and sang the fair
scenery of the land of his adoption, but also its excellent learn-
ing, especially as evinced at the University of Paris. Enthusiastic
as is his praise of the smiling meadow-lands and noble rivers of
France, their attraction perceptibly fades beside the glory of the
halls of learning at Paris, the Lutetia and the Amaryllis of his
verse. The pastural sweetness of hill and dale round St.
Andrews, the Hashing estuary of the Eden at full tide, the
unrivalled traceries of sunset above the autumn-tinted Fife hills,
were not indeed perfect amends for absence from " Ligeris
formosus," and its accompanying splendours: —

Francigenas inU-r Ligeris pulcherrimua junnis.

But they might, though faintly, be reminiscent. The University
of St. Andrews, situated brightly, if not so enchantiugly as that
of the Lutetia of his " fond imagination " would of itself, with
its conjoined accomplishments of admirable learning and earnest
thinking, well sustain the charm which France had had for him,
a charm hardly equalled by that of his own land.

W. B.

IV,

Buchanan and Continental Thought.

THE poor little backward kingdom of Scotland, a century or
two behind central and southern Europe in civilisation, felt the
throb of a three-fold influence during the sixteenth century,
and the impulsion came naturally from France. For the small
northern land had been for centuries a satellite of its great
neighbour beyond the sea. The French alliance had been the
most stable element in its shifting political life ; the Scottish
body-guard of the kings of France had attracted the younger
sons of the turbulent Scottish barons for generations; and to
reach the University of Paris, to settle there as a student,
whether as an inmate of the Scots' College or as a lodger in
an obscure room in the Rue d' Jficnsse, was the ambition of every
young Scot of pregnant parts who longed to live a scholar's life.

France of the sixteenth century was seething with new ideas.

There was a movement for the reformation of the Church
and of the religious life, which passed through three stages.
The first has been called Ic protestantisnie fabrisicn, and began
with the publication, in 1512, of notes on the Pauline Epistles
by Jacques Lefcvre d'Etaples (Faber Stapulensis) and received
a great impulse from the same author's translation of the
Scriptures into French — the New Testament in 1523 and the
whole Bible in 1525. It is inseparably associated with
Marguerite d'Angouleme, Bri9onnet and with the " group
of Meaux." Marguerite, writing to Bri9onnet in 1521,
could say that her brother and mother (Francis I. and Louise
of Savoy) were keenly interested in the spread of the knowledge
of the Holy Scriptures and in the hope of a reformation of the
Church.1 The second was caused by the diffusion of Luther's
writings throughout France. As early as May 1519 we read

1 Herminjard, Correspoiidance dos Rcformateurs dans les pays do langue
franyaise, i., 78, 84.

26 Buchanan and Continental Thought

of the eagerness with which Luther's books were welcomed there
by all scholars, " even the least enlightened," and on to 1537
the common name for all advanced reformers in France was
Lutherans.1 The third began in 1537, when the whole of the
French Protestants rallied round the young Calvin and
accepted his Institutio (1536) as a manifesto, which was for
them a scheme of doctrine, a code of morals, and a mode of
worship.

The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. (1494-5) dates the
beginning of the second infusion of new ideas. Italy conquered
its invaders and held them captive by a thousand dainty spells.
The French troops returned to their own land laden with books,
pictures, objects of art of all kinds. Charles brought with him
to Paris Italian scholars, artists, architects, artificers, men
skilled in perfumery, even tailors. The French Renaissance
came to maturity almost at a leap. From the first it inspired
men and women alike. Anne of Brittany, the queen of Louis
XII., was a constant patron of artists and men of letters and
strove to cultivate herself in order to be able to understand
sympathetically their work. Marguerite d'Angouleme, in her
own person, carried this movement of the end of the 15th
century into the 16th, and set the fashion for the learned ladies
who came after her. This French Renaissance was a curious
combination of old French artistic feeling, with that of Italy
and the revived spirit of classical antiquity. It developed into
something quite national, which France has never lost. The
leading spirits of the time, men and women, were intoxicated
with a new sense of beauty of form and colour, which appeared
not only in painting, architecture and gardening, but in
household decoration and even in dress. The movement was
naturally aristocratic, and clung to the royal court and to the
courts of the great princes scattered over France. It had no
sympathy with the democratic fervour of the religious
reformation.

In its company came the New Learning, producing erudite
Frenchmen. From the first it had a character of its own.
Its inspiration came from Germany and the Low Countries
as well as from Italy ; and it was comparatively free
from the elegant trifling into which the latter Italian
Humanism had degenerated. If some date the beginnings of

1 Ibid., i., 47.

Buchanan and Continental Thought 27

the New Learning in France from the journey of Lefevre to
Florence, Padua, Rome and Venice (1488-89), it must be
remembered that Erasmus had made several visits to Paris,
that Beatus Rhenanus had expounded the political writings of
Aristotle there in 1502, and that scholars from Germany and
the Low Countries had taught in many of the colleges in Paris.
From the beginning Frenchmen put the New Learning to
modern uses. They applied themselves to the study of Roman
jurisprudence and they cultivated the art of writing history.
Of course almost all the men of the New Learning wrote what
were called Juvenilia — short Latin poems after the fashion of
Horace, Ovid, Catullus, etc. But these were acknowledged to
be trifles, of value only in practising the authors in their use
of classical latinity.

All three influences came to Scotland from France during
the 16th century. John Knox represents for us the first;
Mary Stuart the second; and George Buchanan the third. All
remain with us as part of our national heritage, and our land
would be much poorer than it is to-day had it failed to receive
any one of them.

Buchanan spent a great part of his life in France. He was
sent there in 1520— a boy of fourteen — and did not finally leave
the country until he was a man of fifty-five. It is scarcely
likely that the lad, whose time, as he himself informs us, was
chiefly occupied in constructing Latin verses, and who no doubt
lived in some obscure garret,1 knew much about the intellectual
movements which were stirring France; but he could not avoid
hearing the cries of the hawkers who went through all the
streets, especially in the students' quarter, selling a pamphlet
entitled Advcrsus ftiriosum Parisiensium Theologastrorum
decretum Philippi M tlanchthonis pro Luthero Apologia. This
was in 1521. The Elector of Saxony had asked the Sorbonne
(the Theological Faculty of the University of Paris) to give him
their opinion upon the theology of Luther. Noel Beda, the
strenuous supporter of mediaeval theology and the bitter
antagonist of the New Learning, had been asked by his

1 Rents in Paris were comparatively very high. Jacques Dryander says
that he had to pay more for one room — small and dirty— in Paris than was
needed for the whole expenses of a student who lived luxuriously at Louvain :
cf. liluatrium et darorum virorum, Epitstolae . . . scriptae vel a Belgia vel ad
Belgas (1617), pp. 60-61.

28 Buchanan and Continental Thought

colleagues to report on the request, and the result was a
furious condemnation, in which Luther was called another
Mahomet and in which it was declared that the fire and sword
were the only arguments to be used against him. Melanchthon
wrote a sarcastic reply, which was rapturously received in
Paris. The Parlement had come to the help of the Sorbonne,
and had interdicted the publication and sale of any book not
authorised (June 13th), with the effect of greatly stimulating
the sale of Melanchthon's pamphlet : impune enim pro-
clamitari libellum Philippi M elanchthonis pro Martina
Luthero.1 The most incurious lad could scarcely avoid hearing
a good deal about Luther and Melanchthon through such an
incident as this.

Buchanan's two years in Paris, devoted, as he tells us, to
the acquisition of facility in the composition of Latin verses,
saw the beginning of the training which made him one of the
most distinguished Humanists of his generation. He was
distinctively a Humanist, and nothing more. For we must
always distinguish between the Renaissance and Humanism.
The former was the revival of the ideas, the spirit and the
decadence of Imperial Rome ; while Humanism was the
appreciation of the precision and linguistic delicacies of ancient
classical literature. A man steeped in the spirit of the
Renaissance did not need to be a Humanist. Rabelais was not.
Still less was it necessary for a Humanist to surrender himself
to the Renaissance movement. Neither Erasmus nor Buchanan
did. Humanism displayed itself in the care to imitate the
best models of ancient literary excellence, to acquire a supreme
command over the art of literary expression as that was
exhibited in the great classical authors, frequently to apply to
modern uses the old classical modes of composition — epigram,
ode, letter, etc. The genuine Humanists used this literary
instrument to express whatever ideas they wished to share with
their fellow men. Erasmus, the greatest of the Humanists,
put the ancient vehicle of expression to thoroughly modern
uses. He employed it to depict all sorts and conditions of men
and women — theologians, jurists and philosophers, monks and
parish priests, wives, nuns and courtesans, pilgrims and pardon-
sellers, peasants, artizans and vagrants — and his vehicle was

1 Herminjard, Correspondance des Rtformateurs, etc., i., 70.

Buchanan and Continental Thought 29

Latin prose. Buchanan has nothing of his range, keeps more
strictly to his classical models, and uses Latin verse. But both
were typical Humanists.

Humanism created a literature in the 16th century which
was that of a coterie and had almost nothing national about it,
powerful within its own limited area, but of small effect upon
the masses. Buchanan had all the strength and the limitations
of Humanism. During the first half -century of his life he did
not belong to the Renaissance as did Rabelais ; nor to the
Reform movement as did Calvin ; he was simply a Humanist,
whose love for antiquity consisted in his admiration of its
literature, or rather of its forms of literary expression, who
could belong to any or none of the new movements which were
disturbing the time, but who hated to loathing the bad latinity
and the endless arguments about trifles which seemed to him
to be the sum of Scholastic Theology.

Leaving France, partly from ill-health and partly from
lack of means to support himself, he spent four years in
Scotland. Having attended with little profit and with less
enthusiasm the lectures of John Major — one of the most
distinguished of the later scholastic teachers— Buchanan in
1526 was back in Paris determined to be a scholar and a man
of learning, — nothing more. He graduated probably in 1528,
and his appointment soon after to the teaching staff of Ste
Barbe — one of the most liberal colleges attached to the
University of Paris — proves that his marked abilities had been
recognised by discerning persons. Having become procurator
of the " German Nation,"1 he was chosen in the following year
the representative of his Nation in the election of the Rector of
the University.

For some years after he led the life of a wandering
tutor. In 1542 or 1543 Buchanan was again in Paris,

1 In the sixteenth century the University of Paris had four faculties — of
Theology (the Sorbonne), of Medicine, of Law, and of Arts. The students
belonging. to the faculties of Law and Medicine were comparatively few. The
first three faculties were ruled by Deans ; the fourth, the faculty of Arts, was
divided into four nations — the nation of France (students from the Midi and
from a large part of Europe), the nation of Germany which included students
from England and Scotland, the nation of Normandy, and the nation of
Picardy. At the head of each nation was, not a Dean, but a Procurator who
was appointed for one month only, but who might be re-appointed. Buchanan
was Procurator four successive times.

30 Buchanan and Continental Thought

a regent, Mr. Hume Brown conjectures, at the College
du Cardinal Lemoine. We next hear of him accompanying
Andre de Gouvea, his old Principal at Bordeaux, when the
great Portuguese Humanist, at the command of John III. of
Portugal, organised a college at Coimbra on humanist
principles. The new college started with fair prospects, which
were soon clouded. The great reactionary Society of Jesus had
by this time been firmly established and was everywhere
engaged in combating not only the Reformation, but all
learning which was not avowedly subservient to the Roman
See. On the death of Gouvea, the Jesuits gained possession of
the College. Some of the professors were seized by the
Inquisition and endured long confinement, among them being
Buchanan. It was during his long confinement that he made
his celebrated translation of the Psalms into Latin verse.
Soon after his release he made his way to England, then to
France. He may have become regent in one of the colleges at
Paris; he was certainly protected by influential persons.1

During all these years Buchanan's fame as a Humanist was
increasing. From the first his power of writing Latin verse
was manifest. His biting epigrams on obscurantist teachers
made him known, feared and disliked. As the years passed his
fame grew steadily. The elder Scaliger declared that in poetry
Buchanan left all Europe behind. The learned French
printers, Henri and Robert Estienne, said that he was the first
of the poets of the age. His translation — transformation
perhaps it should be called — of the Psalms of David into odes
after the fashion of Horace made him famous in every
European land.

The life which Buchanan led abroad, wandering from
college to college, varied by engagements as tutor or private
secretary, was a common one among the Humanists of the 16th
century. The greater educational prizes were beyond their
reach unless they succeeded in obtaining an ecclesiastical
position within the Roman Catholic Church — a thing which

1 Marguerite d'Angouleme was probably one. She was an assiduous pro-
tector both of Humanists and Reformers, and frequently enrolled learned men
among her ' valets-de-chambre ' to give them the security of her household :
" les voyant a 1'entour de ceste bonne dame, tu eusses dit d'elle que c'estoit une
poulle, qui soigneusement appelle et assemble ses petite poulets et couvre de
ses ailea." (Genin, LeMres de Marguerite <F Angoideme, p. 51.)

Buchanan and Continental Thought 31

had become increasingly difficult after 1530, when that Church
had awakened to the danger which threatened it from erudition
and free enquiry. In France it was perhaps more difficult
than elsewhere, owing to the influence of the Sorbonne and the
conservatism of the Parlement of Paris, which was always ready
to support the decisions of the great theological Faculty.

The Sorbonne, during the greater portion of Buchanan's
life in France was practically ruled by Noel Beda. This
extraordinary man, of no great intellectual capacities, who
hated everything which seemed to menace mediaeval theology,
was able by his profound conviction that he was in the right,
by his determination, by his unexampled courage, to wage a
pitiless war against both the New Learning and every
appearance of religious reform. Francis I., partly because he
liked new ideas, partly influenced by his sister, Marguerite
d'Angouleme, partly because he had a grudge against the
Sorbonne for its action in the matter of the concordat of 1516,
favoured the New Learning and even gave his protection to
such advocates of a religious reform as Lefevre and his
followers. He was by taste and training a man of the
Renaissance ; it pleased him to be called and to imagine himself
to be the patron of men of letters. At the same time he felt
galled and irritated by the real power which the Sorbonne
possessed and which he felt to be an infringement on his kingly
prerogative. He was at heart an anti-sorbonnist, who feared
the Sorbonne. He had long dreamed of a College de France,
a free association of learned men, who could teach the New
Learning and form a counterpoise to the Sorbonne, which
dominated the University. The project took many forms and
never came to fruition until long after Francis' time, but the
very thought of it was sufficient to irritate the Sorbonne and
determine them to resist all such innovations. Noel Beda,
whose whole struggle against the New Learning and Reform,
was an anticipation of the later League, brought all the
resources of fanaticism to bear against the resolve of the king.
The consequence was that all throughout the years of
Buchanan's residence in France there was an embittered
quarrel between the Sorbonnists and the students who sided
with the New Learning. The conservatives made little or no
distinction between a Humanist and a Reformer, between a
follower of Erasmus and a disciple of Luther. A knowledge

32 Buchanan and Continental Thought

of Greek was a mark of heresy ; to discard Alexander de
Villedieu's Latin Grammar and to teach from Linacre's
awakened suspicion. The Sorbonnist students went about
singing :

Prions tous le Roi de Gloire

Qu'il confonde ces chiens mauldicts,

Afin qu'il n'en soit plus memoire,

Non plus que de vielz os pourris.

Au feu, au feu ! c'est leur repere !

Fais-en justice ! Dieu 1'a permys.

The others replied in the famous song:

La Sainte Ecriture toute
Purement se preschera,
Et toute doctrine sotte
Des hommes on oubliera.

La Sorbonne la bigotte,

La Sorbonne se taira.

It was almost inevitable that in such circumstances
Humanists like Buchanan and reformers who were the disciples
of Luther, or who had been taught to think by his writings,
should be drawn together although the former had not adopted
the views of the latter. Humanists naturally associated with
those whom Buchanan calls " Lutheran sectaries," and the
intimacy did not imply that they had embraced the cause of the
reformation. They both rejoiced in the influence which
Marguerite d'Angouleme exercised over her volatile brother, in
the almost unvarying confidence which Francis had in the
great French Humanist Guillaume Bude, who, though never a
" royal lecturer " himself, was nevertheless mainly instrumental
in securing the appointment of the distinguished scholars,
" liseurs du Roi en 1'Universite de Paris" — Danes, Toussain,
Vatable, Oronce Fine, and others. They both thought of the
discomfiture of the Sorbonne when they read, posted on the
University boards by royal command, such intimations as,
" To-morrow at 7 o'clock, Agathias Guidacerius will, at the
College de Cambrai, continue his lectures on the Psalms by
commenting on Psalm XX."; or, "P. Danes, royal professor
of Greek, will, on Monday at 2 o'clock, continue his commenting
on Aristotle." They jubilated when Beda, after his daring
attack on Marguerite's book, le Miroir de I'dme pecheresse, was
banished, recalled, and prosecuted for lese-majeste ; or when
the Parlement of Paris refused the interdict which Beda had

Buchanan and Continental Thought 33

asked to prevent Danes and Vatable expounding the Holy
Scriptures within the University without having first received
the permission of the Sorbonne. Everything combined to link
together Reformers and Humanists in the days of Francis I.
The Reformers as well as the Humanists enjoyed the biting
Latin epigrams which the young Scotch regent circulated
attacking the Sorbonne, its teachers and its antiquated methods,
which were alone supposed to be orthodox. There is no need
to suppose that because Buchanan consorted with " Lutheran
sectaries," that he had adopted the tenets of the Reformation,
or that he had seriously studied the principles involved. But
from the year 1556 the indifference was exchanged for an
earnest endeavour to know the truth lying in the contending
claims of the mediaeval Church and the Reformation.
Buchanan began to study the Scriptures carefully. He
repeated in his experience what many a distinguished Humanist
had done in Germany forty years earlier. Eobanus Hessus,
crowned poet-king, had abandoned his Horace for the
Erfchiridion of Erasmus and the Holy Scriptures; Jodocus
Koch of Nordlingen (Justus Jonas) had forsaken classical
Greek to busy himself with the Epistles to the Corinthians;
and even the wicked satirist Curicius Cordus had betaken
himself to the New Testament. So Buchanan, leaving his
latinity, devoted his time to the study of the Holy Scriptures
" that he might be able to arrive at a more definite opinion on
the controversies which were then distracting the greater part
of mankind." The result was that when he returned finally to
Scotland in 1561, he joined the Reformed Church. It is
interesting to note that no period was more dangerous for
" those of the religion " (as Protestants were called in France)
than the years when Buchanan slowly, as became a scholar,
resolved to take the side of the Reformation. Protestantism
in France was no longer a Christian mysticism supplemented by
a careful study of the Holy Scriptures ; it had advanced
beyond the stage of individual followers of Luther or Zwingli ;
it had become united, a solid phalanx rallied round a manifesto,
the Institutio Christianae Religionis, and obedient to a leader,
the young Calvin. On the other side the vacillating policy of
Francis I. had given place to the steadfast determination of
Henry II. to crush the Reformation. The young king himself,
his all-powerful mistress, Diane de Poitiers, the great Constable

34 Buchanan and Continental Thought

de Montmorency, the Guises — all the king's favourite
councillors— were strong supporters of Romanism and were
resolute to destroy the growing Protestantism of France.
Their declared policy was to slay the Reformation by attacking
its partisans through every form of legal oppression that could
be devised. All the repressive measures introduced during the
latter years of Francis I. were retained, and a series of new
edicts, culminating in the Edict of Chateaubriand, were
published, which aimed at uniting all the forces of the kingdom
to extirpate the reformed faith. A second court, the Chambre
Ardente, had been added to the Farlement of Paris to deal
with cases of heresy. Armed with this legislation, aided by a
numerous body of ecclesiastical police, the work of hunting out
all suspected of holding the new doctrines was strenuously
carried on. Certain prisons were specially reserved for the
Protestant martyrs — the Conciergerie and the Grand Chatelet —
and they soon overflowed. The cells of the one were below the
level of the Seine and water oozed in through the walls ; the
Grand Chatelet was noted for its terrible dungeons, so small
that the prisoners could neither stand upright nor lie at full
length on the floor. Diseases decimated the victims; the
plague slew sixty in one year in the Grand Chatelet alone.
Few were acquitted ; almost all, once arrested, suffered torture
and death. It was in the midst of these surroundings that
Buchanan, an unprotected scholar, resolved to adhere to the
Reformation.

T. M. L.

V.
George Buchanan i Bordeaux,

IL semble que Buchanan, qui redigeait ses souvenirs en 1580,
deux ans avant sa mort, se trompe sur la duree de son sejour
a Bordeaux : il dut y demeurer plus de trois ans.

On salt que, vers la fin de 1539, Fra^ois I. avait offert a
Charles-Quint de passer par la France pour aller d'Espagne aux
Pays-Bas reduire la sedition de Gand. Le 20 novembre,
1'empereur traversa la Bidassoa; il fut salue a Bayonne par le
dauphin, le due d'Orleans et le connetable de Montmorency,
qui avaient mission de 1'escorter clans son voyage. Ordre etait
donne a toutes les villes de recevoir Charles, " comme on re9oit
les rois de France a leur joyeux avenement." Bordeaux lui
rendit, le 1 ddcembre, les honneurs souverains que la plure
seule contraria ; les jurats lui presentment les clefs de la ville
travaillees en argent ; il delivra des prisonniers et tint dans la
cathedrale le chapitre de la toison d'or.1

Le College de Guyenne vint offrir ses hommages et ses vceux
a 1'empereur. En decembre 1539, Buchanan avait deja dans
1'etablissement une place assez importante pour etre charge de
haranguer et de complimenter Charles-Quint en vers latins au
nom de la " Schola Burdegalensis." On trouve dans le recueil
de ses Silvce une piece de soixante-dix hexametres dont
1'eloquence un peu emphatique fait moins penser aux Silves de
Stace qu'aux Panegyriques de Claudien : le poete dit combien
Bordeaux s'enorgueillit de recevoir un note aussi illustre; il
conjure 1'empereur de ne pas mepriser 1'hospitalite bordelaise,
quelque mesquine qu'elle puisse lui sembler ; dans le palais
d'aucun roi, il ne trouvera pareil devouement, pareille fidelite.2

1 Henri Martin, Histoire de France, Paris (Edition de 1857), t. VIII. , p.
258-259.— C. Jullian, Histoire de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, 1895, p. 334.

2 Ad Carolum V Imperatorem, Burdegalw hospitio publico susceptum,
nomine Scholw Burdegalensis, anno M.T). xxxix. (Buchanani Opera omnia,
Mit. de 1725, t. II., p. 324-326.

Cf. v. 19 : Burdegalam tamen ille tuam, tua tecta, Garumna
Ingens hospes init.

36 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

La CJironique de Gabriel de Lurbe rapporte que Fran9ois
I. s'arreta a Bordeaux, en 1542, alors qu'il allait apaiser la
revolte de La Rochelle.1 Nous ne voyons pas qu'on lui ait
rendu les honneurs qui avaient ete rendus trois ans auparavant
a Charles-Quint traversant la France pour aller reduire la
rebellion de Gand. Nous ne trouvons dans les oeuvres de
Buchanan aucune Silva " ad Franciscum I Regem." Mais le
professeur ecossais etait encore a Bordeaux quand Fra^ois I.
y passa ; il appartenait encore au College de Guyenne quand il
apprit que le roi Jacques V etait mort, le 16 decembre 1542.
Cette mort, qui le delivrait de tout sujet de crainte de la part
du cardinal Beaton,2 lui permettait de rester sans danger dans
notre ville. II assista, sans doute, au succes de sa seconde
piece, la Medee, qui fut jouee au College de Guyenne en 1543, 3
puisque c'est ce succes qui 1'incita a donner encore plus de soin
a la composition du Jephthe et de I'Alceste qu'il ecrivit aussi a
Bordeaux.

Buchanan dit, dans son autobiographic, qu'il a compose ses
tragedies pour detourner la jeunesse des allegories ou la France
prenait alors un plaisir extreme. Depuis que le Roman de la
Rose avait donne la vie a des personnages appeles Jalousie,
Fau.r-Semblant et Bel-Accueil, ces personnages s'etaient intro-

v. 50 : Burdegalse exiguos ne dedignere penates

Hospitio sancire tuo : quse dispare quamvis
Fortunae splendore tuo, parvoque paratu
Te capit hospitio, studio in te forte fideli
Atque animo Regum ingentes sequaverit aulas.

1 Burdigalensium rerum Chronicon, auetore Gab. Lurlreo. Bordeaux,
Millanges, 2e edit., 1590, recto du feuillet 23.

2 Nous n'avons aucun renseignement sur la peste qui, d'apres la Vita,
aurait envahi 1'Aquitaine au moment de la mort de Jacques V., c'est-a-dire a
la fin de 1542 ou au commencement de 1543. La Chronique de Gabriel de
Lurbe mentionne aeulement a la date de 1546 une peste dont les progres
forcerent le Parlement & se refugier a Libourne, pendant les mois de septembre
et d'octobre.

3 La Bibliotheque municipale de Bordeaux possede un exemplaire de
Pedition de 1543 : MEDEA Euripidis poetw tragici Oeorgio Buchanano Scoto
interprete. PARISITS. Ex Ojficina Michaelis Vascosani, in via qua> est ad
divum lacobum, sub Fonti* insigni. M.D. XLIII. cum privilegio. Le privilege
est date de "Parisiis, xv. Calend. Maii M.D. XLIII." Au verso du feuillet
32 et dernier du volume, on lit: " Acta fuit Burdegalse. an M.D. XLIII."
Dans la Preface adressee au tres illustre Prince Jean de Luxembourg, abbe
d'lvry (ad Iflustrissimum Principem Joannem a Lucf.mburgo, Iveriaci abbatem),
1'auteur s'excuse modestement d'avoir ose, apres P]rasme, mettre en latin les
pieces d'Euripide.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 37

duits au theatre avec les Moralites. Le public s'amusait aux
subtilites naives des allegories; il goutait fort les disco urs
contradictoires de Bien-advise et de Mai-advise, de Bonne-Fin
et de Male-Fin. Nous ignorons quels etaient les proverbes
pedagogiques dont le College de Guyenne faisait ses delices au
moment ou Buchanan fut appele a y enseigner ; mais nous
savons que, des ses origines, il se preoccupait de representa-
tions theatrales.

Le 9 avril 1526, en 1'honneur du passage de Fra^ois I.
a Bordeaux, on offrait au roi, sur un theatre eleve au fond de
la place de 1'Ombriere, le spectacle d'une piece allegorique,
ceuvre de quelque professeur du College des Arts, qui mettait
en scene les Vertus theologales.1

Quand le College des Arts, qui vegetait depuis 1441, fut
remplace par le College de Guyenne, le premier principal du
nouvel etablissement, Jehan de Tartas, exigea que les regents
fussent capables de " composer et prononcer oraisons, haran-
gues, dialogues et comedies." II parait que les representations
que Ton organisait alors eurent peu de succes.2

Gouvea, qui estimait que le theatre scolaire etait un element
indispensable de 1'education de la jeunesse, excita Buchanan
a ecrire des pieces a 1'usage des eleves du College de Guyenne.
Peut-etre, pour prouver aux lettres de Bordeaux que des tra-
gedies savantes composees a 1'imitation des modeles classiques
remplaceraient avantageusement les pieces vulgaires ou la
populace s'empressait, Baptistes sive Calumnia fut-il represente
au College, le 24 juin, en ce jour de la fete de saint Jean-
Baptiste ou les tonneliers se promenaient en cortege a travers
la ville, celebrant sur des theatres eleves en divers quartiers
les mysteres du bapteme de Jesus, " a la grande joie du popu-
laire qui accourait en foule."3 L'anniversaire de la Nativite de
saint Jean-Baptiste etait au nombre des jours feries ou, suivant
les statuts du College de Guyenne, rediges par Andre de
Gouvea, les classes et les travaux etaient interrompus.4

Malgre le merite des oeuvres theatrales de Buchanan et, sans
doute, aussi de celles des autres regents qui ecrivaient comme
lui des tragedies antiques, la vogue des representations classi-

1 Gaullieur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, p. 20.

2 Gaullieur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, p. 253-254.

3 Jullian, Histoire de Bordeaux, p. 356.

* Schola Aquitanica, 6dit. de L. Massebieau, Paris, 1886, p. 44.

38 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

ques, toujours restreinte dans les murs du College de Guyenne,
n'y fut pas de longue duree.

Montaigne nous dit son succes comme acteur des tragedies
latines qui se donnaient au College de Guyenne vers 1545 :

Mettray-ie en compte cctte faculte de moil enfance : vne asseurance de
visage, et soupplesse de voix et fie geste, a m'appliquer aux rolles que fentre-
prenois ? Car, auaut 1'aage,

Alter ab vndecinio turn me vix ceperat aimns,

i'ai soustenu les premiers personnages es tragedies latines de Bucanan, de
Guerente1 et de Muret,2 qui se representairent en nostre college de Guienne
auec dignite. En cela Andreas Goueanus, nostre principal, comme en Unites
autres parties de sa charge, fut sans comparaison le plus grand principal de
France ; et m'en tenoit-on maistre ouurier. s

Ce passage des Essais refute 1'opinion de Patin qui affirme,
sans preuves, que Buchanan eut, " au College de Bordeaux,
Montaigne pour ecolier sinon pour acteur."4 Montaigne a ete
1'acteur des pieces de Buchanan ; il a ete son ecolier, sinon
1'eleve de la classe qui etait dirigee par 1'humaniste ecossais et
qui correspoudait a ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui la " rheto
rique superieure." Le plan d'etudes de la Schola Aquitanica
indique 1'existence de dix classes regulieres depuis le decimus
ordo, ou Ton apprenait a lire, jusqu'au primus ordo, ou Ton
declamait en particulier et publiquement. Ces classes furent au
nombre de douze pendant la periode de grande prosperite du
College ou il avait ete necessaire, a cause de 1'affluence des

1 Le rouennais Guillaume de Guerente, compatriote, condisciple et ami de
Nicolas de Grouchy, avait commence par exercer la medecine. Quand Grouchy
quitta Rouen pour aller professer a Sainte-Barbe, Guerente le suivitet enseigna
dans le meme college d'oii Gouvea les amena tous les deux a Bordeaux, en
1534. Grouchy fut professeur de dialectique a la Schola Aquitanica; Guerente,
professeur d'humanites : nous ne savons rien de ses tragedies.

2 Marc Antoine Muret n'a ete professeur au College de Guyenne que sous
le principalat de Gelida, vers 1548. C'est, sans doute, dans le Julius Ccesar,
qu'il composa en 1543 ou en 1544, etant professeur a Auch, que Montaigne a
soutenu le premier pt-rsonnage. II est probable que. les collegues de Buchanan
ne se conformaient pas aussi exactement que lui aux prieres de Gouvea, qui
reolamait de chacun de ses regents une tragedie par annee, puisque Ton devait
recourir aux pieces d'un humaniste etranger au College. — Ou trouve dans
1'edition des Juvenilia de Muret, publiee a Paris, en 1553, cinq distiques
^legiaques de Buchanan, tr6s elogieux, in Julium Civsarem, Iragcediam M.
Antonii Alureti. Cf. Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II., p. 169.

3 Montaigne, Etmais, I. , xxvi.

4 Patin, Etudes eur la tragidit grecque, vol. III., p. 221.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 39

eleves, de subdiviser en deux sections le septimus et le sextus
urdu.1

Montaigne nous donne les dates de sa naissance et de son
entree au College de Guyenne :

le nasquis entre vnze heures et midi le dernier iour de Feburier mil cinq
ccns trente trois. 2

Feu mon pere . . . m'enuoya, cnuiron mes six ans, au College de Guienne,
tres-florissant pour lors, et le meilleur de France. Et la, il n'est possible de
riun adiouster au soing qu'il eut, et in me choisir dcs precept/ours de chambre
suffisans, et a toutes les autres circonstances de ma nourriture, en laquelle il
reserua plusieurs famous particulieres contro 1'vsage des colleges.3

Entre en 1539 au College de Guyenne d'ou il devait sortir en
1546, Montaigne n'a pu evidemment avoir pour professeur de
Rhetoriquc Buchanan qui n'appartenait plus au personnel de
la Schula Aquitanica quand il arriva lui-meme au primus ordo.
Mais 1'auteur des Essais cite en termes precis Buchanan parmi
les " precepteurs de chambre" que son pere lui avait donnes,
" reseruant plusieurs fa9ons particulieres contre 1'vsage des
colleges." II se vante, en effet, de son habilete a " latiniser,"
habilete qui lui venait de sa premiere education domestique,
et qui etait admiree par les regents du College :

Nicolas Groucchi, qui a escrit "de comitiis Romanorum,"* Guillaume
Guerente, qui a commente Aristote,5 George Bucanan, ce grand poete
escossois, Marc Antoine Muret que la France et 1'Italie reconoit pour le
meillur oratur du temps, mes precepteurs domestiques, m'ont diet souuent que
i'auois ce langage, en mon enfance, si prest et si a main, qu'ils craingnoient
a m'accoster. Bucanan, que ie vis depuis a la suite de feu monsieur le
Mareschal de Brissac,8 me dit qu'il estoit apres a escrire de 1'institution des

1 Schola Aquitanica, p. 4-24, note 9 de la p. 58.

2 Montaigne, Essais, I. xx.

3 Montaigne, Essais, I. xxvi.

4 De comitiis Romanorum libri tres, Paris, 1553. Le resum6 de 1'enseigne-
ment que Grouchy donna au College de Guyenne pendant treize ans (1534-1547)
est conterm dans son livre de PrcKceptiones dialecticae (Paris, 1552), que Vinet
appn'-eiait et recommandait. Cf. Schola Aquitanica, p. 26.

5 Guerente n'a pas commente Aristote. " On a de lui un avis au lecteur
en tete d'un ouvrage de Grouchy sur la Logique d' Aristote, et, dans le meme
volume, une piece de vers adressee par Guereute a son ami." (Gaullieur,
Histoire. du CoUcye de Guyenne, p. 91.)

"Buchanan fut prccepteur de Tiinole"on de Biissac, de 1554 a 1560.
Lieutenant general du roi en Piemont du 9 juillet 1550 au 31 mars 1559,
le marechal de Brissac ne vint a la cour que pendant Tannce 1556. A partir
de 1559, il fut gouverneur de Picardie. Montaigne quitta, en 1559, Bordeaux,
oil il etait conseiller au Parlement, pour faire un grand voyage a la cour.
C'est pendant ce voyage qu'il retrouva son ancien "precepteur de chambre" a
la suite du marechal de Brissac, gouverneur de Picardie. Nous ne connaissons
pas d' ouvrage de Buchanan sur " 1'institution des enfans."

40 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

t-ii fans, et, qu'il preuoit exemplaire de la mienne : car il auoit lore en charge ce
Comte de Brissac quo nous auons veu depuis si valeureux et si braue. l

On salt ce qu'il faut entendre par "precepteurs de chambre"
ou " precepteurs domestiques." Les colleges du xvie siecle
possedaient, en meme temps que les boursiers et les portionistes
ou pensionnaires, un certain nombre de cameristes, jeunes gens
riches qui etaient en chambre, se nourrissant a leurs frais et
travaillant sous la direction d'un pedagogue ou precepteur
particulier.2 Les regents amelioraient ainsi leur situation
pecuniaire qui etait fort mediocre,3 en se faisant les " precep-
teurs de chambre " de cameristes qui pouvaient ne pas
appartenir a leur classe. C'est ainsi que Montaigne cut pour
" precepteurs domestiques," au meme titre que 1'humaniste
Guerente, dont il fut sans doute 1'eleve, Buchanan dont il ne
fut pas le disciple dans le primus ordo, et Muret, qui etait
probablement autorise a se charger d'educations particulieres
avant d'etre pourvu d'une nomination officielle de professeur.

Trompe par 1'expression " precepteur domestique," dont il
ne comprend pas le sens exactement, Th. Ruddiman suppose
que Buchanan, qui, d'apres son autobiographie, aurait enseigne
trois ans seulement au College de Guyenne, fut, de 1542 a
1544, precepteur de Montaigne dans sa famille.4

Cette hypothese a servi de pretexte a Gaullieur pour imagi-
ner un petit roman qui a passe dans la plupart des ouvrages de
seconde main ou, depuis une trentaine d'annees, on s'est
occupe de la biographic de Montaigne. L'auteur de I'Histoire
du College de Guyenne pretend que, effraye par les persecutions
dont les lutheriens etaient 1'objet a Bordeaux, en 1541,
Buchanan prit la f uite :

Tl trouva d'abord un asile dans la famille de 1'un des plus jeunes eleves du
College de Guyenne, dont le pere possedait £ quelques lieues de la ville, sur
les bords de la Dordogne, une propriete seigneuriale appelee Montaiyne, qui
relevait de 1'archeveque de Bordeaux, "au debvoir d'uu baiser sur la joue."

1 Montaigne, Essais, I. , xxvi.

2 J. Quicherat, Histoire de Sainte-Barbe, t, I., p. .74.

3 Gaullieur cite (Hist, du College de Quyenne, p. 82), un arrete de la
Jurade qui fixe les traitements annuels des professeurs £ des sommes variant
entre soixante et trente livres tournois. En 1548, les appointements d'un
regent de premiere, loge et nourri, etaient au College de Guyenne, de trente
ecus i la couronne. Un edit de 1533 avait fix6 & quarante sous et six deniers
la valeur de 1'ecu a la couronne. Voir R. Dezeimeris, De la Renaissance des
Lettres a Bordeaux au XVI<> siecle, Bordeaux, 1864, note 5 de la p. 34.

4 BucAanani Opera omnia, edit de 1725, t. I., note 40 de la Vita.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 41

Ainsi, chose singulicre, ce fut sur lea terres de Charles de Grammont que
Buchanan chercha d'abord un refuge centre les poursuites de ce prtSlat.

. . . II ne dut rester que peu de temps chez le p6re de son 616ve dont la
maison seigneuriale etait trop voisiue de Bordeaux : il quitta 1'asile dans
lequel, en ces temps difficiles, il avait trouve une genereuse hospitalite, et
partit pour Paris. C'est la que le retrouva, en 1542, son ami Elie Vinet. 1

En 1542, Buchanan n'etait pas a Paris : c'est a Bordeaux
qu'il apprit que le roi Jacques V etait mort, le 16 decembre
1542. Son sejour se prolongea au College de Guyenne, puisque
c'est a la suite de sa Medee, jouee en 1543, qu'il travailla avec
soin son Alceste et son Jephthe. II ne quitta Bordeaux qu'apres
y avoir ecrit ces deux pieces dont la composition dut lui
couter un certain temps. II n'avait aucune raison de se dero-
ber aux poursuites de I'archeveque de Bordeaux, qui 1'avait
protege centre les persecutions du cardinal Beaton. Charles de
Grammont mourut en 1544 : c'est probablement apres la mort
de son protecteur, au moment ou les Jurats donnaient a son
ami Andre de Gouvea 1'autorisation de quitter la Schola
Aquitanica, que Buchanan partit lui-meme pour Paris. Et,
quand il eut cesse d'appartenir au College de Guyenne, on
continua d'y representer ses tragedies, puisque c'est a Tage de
douze ans — c'est-a-dire en 1545 — que son ancien cameriste,
Michel de Montaigne, soutenait " les premiers personnages es
tragedies latines de Bucanan."

Buchanan ne parle jamais de Montaigne, qui fut son " eleve
de chambre " et 1'un des principaux acteurs de ses tragedies.
Aucune des nombreuses pieces, petites ou grandes, legeres ou
serieuses, qui composent les divers recueils des Elegies, des
Stives, des Hendecasyllabes, des lambes, des Epigrammes et des
Misccllanees n'est dediee a 1'auteur des Essais. Le regent du
primus ordo ne nomme, d'ailleurs, nulle part aucun des ecoliers
du College de Guyenne qui furent eleves dans sa classe ou qui
tinrent un role dans ses pieces.

Pendant qu'il enseignait a Sainte-Barbe, le poete ecossais se
consolait des ennuis et des servitudes des professeurs parisiens
en les racontant en jolis vers latins ; plus heureux, sans doute,
a Bordeaux, Buchanan ne consacre aucune elegie a deplorer
la condition des regents du College de Guyenne.

II se conformait, sans murmurer, au programme etabli par

1 Histovre du College de Guyenne, p. 164-165. Gaullieur ne cite pas le
passage de Ruddiman auquel il a du emprunter le theme de cette amplifica-
tion.

42 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

Andre de Gouvea. Le matin, a huit heures, il commentait
devant ses eleves du primus ordo les preceptes de 1'art oratoire
d'apres Ciceron et Quintilien. A neuf heures, il faisait
expliquer un discours de Ciceron, pour confirmer ces preceptes
par la pratique des anciens. A midi, il enseignait 1'histoire des
Grecs et des Remains d'apres Tite-Live, Justin, Seneque,
Eutrope et Pomponius Mela. Le soir a trois heures, il
presidait a 1'etude de la poetique latine d'apres Virgile, d'abord,
puis d'apres Lucain et Perse, enfin d'apres Horace, Ovide,
Juvenal, dans les passages de ces auteurs assez convenables pour
etre mis sous les yeux des jeunes gens. A cinq heures, le
maitre dictait le sujet d'une courte piece de vers latins qui
devait etre composee et remise avant la fin de la classe.

Le lendemain, les eleves portaient la redaction de ce qui
avait ete enseigne la veille et recitaient les passages qui avaient
etc expliques aux Ie9ons du matin et du soir. Us " decla-
maient " leurs compositions litteraires en particulier, dans leur
classe, le samedi matin; en public, dans 1' " aula," devant tout
le college reuni au son de la cloche, chaque dimanche, a une
heure de raprcs-midi, a partir du 1 novembre.

La declamation etait le seul exercice du dimanche ; le lundi,
le mercredi, le vendredi et le samedi, il y avait classe de huit
a dix heures du matin, de midi a une heure, et, le soir, de trois
a cinq ; le mardi et le jeudi, il n'y avait classe que de trois
a quatre heures. Les jours feries de la ville de Bordeaux — festi
dies civitatis Hiirdeyalensis, — qui etaient au nombre de qua-
rante-trois, on interrompait les Ie9ons. Les vacances propre-
ment dites etaient fort courtes : les conges de Paques
commen9aient le mercredi matin de la semaine sainte et se
terminaient le soir du mardi qui suit le dimanche de la
Quasimodo ; les conges d'automne duraient du 20 septembre au
soir au 1 octobre. Pendant ces dix jours, les eleves etaieut
envoyes chez eux pour les vendanges : pueri dimittuntur
vindcmiatiiri.1 Et alors, dit Buchanan, dans un de ses poemes,
" quand les vacances des vendanges ferment les ecoles, les
jeunes gens regagnent les penates paternels ; en ville, c'est la
solitude ; dans les demeures, uu morne silence."2 Aucune

1 Schola Aquitanica, p. 24 ; p. 42, 44, 46 ; p. 34.

- lambon liber, v. (Buchanani Optra omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II., p. 352).
es pieces ii.-v. du livre des lambes ont etc cornposees a Coimbre (cf. ii., v.
29-30). Gouvea mettait en usage dans le college portugais les reglements qu'il
avait rediges pour la Schola Aquitanica.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 43

distribution de couronnes scolaires ne precedait ces vacances de
septembre. " Ce n'est que beaucoup plus tard, et par imitation
de ce qui se pratiquait chez les jesuites, que 1'Universite
consacra la solennite des prix annuels dans les colleges."1

Buchanan ne fait allusion dans ses poemes a aucun episode
de sa vie scolaire a Bordeaux. Les Miscellanies contiennent
une tres belle ode de huit strophes saphiques dans le gout
d'Horace, qui merite d'etre comptee parmi celles de ses pieces
lyriques que le pere Rapin jugeait " dignes de I'antiquite."2
Cette ode, adressee a la jeunesse bordelaise, fut peut-etre lue
a la solennite des Ludovicalia, qui reunissait le 25 aout, jour
de la fete de Saint-Louis, au College, dont la grande cour etait
ornee de tapisseries, la foule accourue de tous les quartiers de
Bordeaux, et, au premier rang, Messieurs du Parlement et de
la Jurade, personnages graves et doctes.3 Le poete, apres
avoir chante, a la maniere du choeur de YCEdipe a Colone, les
louanges de la Gascogne, mere des heros, productrice du vin
excellent, favorisee de Pallas, rappelle aux ecoliers que, seul, le
culte des lettres donne a une ville 1'immortalite :

Si tu n'honores pas les doctes Muses, si tu ne donnes pas im noin fidele
aux bonnes lettres, c'est en vain que tes esperances tendent vers 1'avenir.

. . . Seuls les monuments des savants poetes echappent & 1'empire de la
severe destinee ; seuls, ils dedaignent le Phlegethon et les droits du tyrannique
Orcus. *

" II serait difficile," dit avec raison M. Dezeimeris, " de
montrer plus elegamment comment on doit imiter Horace."5

Ces vcrs sont les seuls dont on puisse affirmer avec certitude
qu'ils ont ete composes par Buchanan a Bordeaux, pour le
College de Guycnne. II ne se plaint nulle part d'avoir
retrouve sur les banes de la Schola Aquitanica des eleves
semblables a ceux qui faisaient son desespoir a Paris, ou les
uns manquaient la classe, les autres, qui se prescntaient sans
bas ou en souliers perces, ronflaient, se plaignaient d'etre
malades, ecrivaient a leurs parents, au lieu d'ecouter le maitre.6

1 J. Quicherat, Hixtoire de Saintp.-Barbe, t. L, p. 91.

2 Rapin, R&ftexion» xur la Poetique d' 'Ariatote, Paris, 1674, '2° partie, p.
166 : " Bucanan a des Odes dignes de FAntiquit6."

3 Sckofa Aquitanica, p. 32.

4 Miscdlaneorum liber, ix. Ad Juventutem Burdtgalenvem, v. 9-12, 29-32
(Suchanani Ofwra omiiia, edit, de 1725, t. II. , p. 414).

5 R. Dezeimeris, De la Renaissance . . . , note 5 de la p. 25.

6 Elegiarum liber, i., v. 49-54 (Buchtmani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t.
II., p. 302).

44 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

Buchanan sc plait a celebrer dans ses vers latins les calendes
de mai, ce moment de 1'annee ou le ciel est degage des nuages,
ou la brise murmure dans les feuilles nouvelles des arbres, ou
il est bon de faire sortir des tenebres de la cave le vin genereux
que les grappes donnent au sol sablonneux de la Gascogne.1
Le I iaai, on plantait un pin devant la porte des ecoles ; le
poete ecrit des Epigrammes en 1'bonneur de cet arbre sacre:2
il ne nous dit pas si ses vers lui sont inspires par le pin plante
devant les classes du College de Guyenne.

En fait d'arbres du College, nous ne connaissons que les
douze ormes qu'Elie Vinet, pendant son principalat, planta de
ses propres mains dans la grande cour de la Schola Aquitanica.3
C'est dans cette " area," qui n'etait pas encore ombragee par
les arbres de Vinet, que, du temps qu'il enseignait a Bordeaux,
Buchanan se promenait avec ses collegues apres le repas du
matin. Cette promenade fut interrompue un jour par la visite
d'un secretaire de 1'eveque d'Angouleme, qui se presentait dans
la cour, porteur d'une inscription grecque gravee sur une
plaque de plomb. Le prelat, incapable de la dechiffrer, avait
recours a 1'erudition des regents du College de Guyenne.
George Buchanan et Elie Vinet, alors charge de I'enseignement
des humanites et des mathematiques, reussirent a lire et a
traduire les sept lignes dont 1' interpretation etait reclamee.4

C'est a Elie Vinet que nous devons ce renseignement, le seul
qui, a notre connaissance, se rapporte a la vie de Buchanan
dans la Schola Aquitanica. Nous ignorons si les eleves du
College de Guyenne, devant lesquels il expliquait, a la seconde

1 Eleijiarum liber, ii. , Maice Calender (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de
1725, t. IL, p. 304-308), v. 45 et suiv.

Cf. v. 101 : Nee tenebris claudat generosum cella Lyamm

Quern dat arenoso Vasconis uva solo.

MisceUaneorum liber, xi., Calendcu MajcK (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit.
de!725, t. II., p. 415):

V. i. : Salvete, sacris deliciis sacrae

Majse Calendae, laetitia; et mero,
Ludisque dicatae, jocisque.

2 Epigrammatum liber I. vii., viii. In pinum jrro foribus ncholartim
Calend. Majis — erectam. — In eandem (Bucluanani Optra omnia, edit, de 1725, t
IL, p. 361).

3 " Duodecim ulmox, ijuce yingvlari commodo et ornamenlo sunt loco, in area,
ma manu plantamt." (Vita El'wx Vineti, ii la fin des Auaonii Opera, edition
bordelaise de 1590.)

4 Elias Vinetus in Ausonii Epiatolam xi. (Ausonii Opera, edition borde-
laisu de 1590, section 463 F).

1 1

s5 --^

"S. ^

II I

111

S ^s

"o £ o

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 45

classe du matin, 1'un des discours de Ciceron, eurent la primeur
de cette correction au texte du Pro Caecina que Lambin
adoptait, " Georgii Buchanani, Scoti, viri cum omni doctrina
prcestantis, firm Poetce optimi auctoritatem secutus."1 Nous
ignorons si c'est alors qu'Antoine de Gouvea, frere du principal,
et Jacques de Teyves etaient ses collegues a Bordeaux qu'il leur
adressa la piece des Hendecasyllabes que J. Quicherat qualifie
de " jeu d'esprit charmant."2 Une etroite amitie, qui devait
durer toute la vie, s'etait formee a Sainte-Barbe entre George
Buchanan, Antoine de Gouvea et Jacques de Teyves. Ce
dernier, — Diono da Teyva, en latin Jacobus Tevius, — originaire
de Braga, en Portugal, avait ete, en 1534, amene au College de
Guyenne par Andre de Gouvea qu'il suivit plus tard a
Coi'mbre ou il devait lui succeder comme principal.

Si le regent du primus ordo ne nous revele rien de sa vie
de professeur a Bordeaux, il nous donne, par contre, dans ses
poemes, de nombreuses indications sur ses actes en dehors des
murs du College de Guyenne et sur ses relations avec les
personnages notables de la societe bordelaise. Pendant tout le
temps de son sejour a Bordeaux, Buchanan eut 1'honneur de
porter la parole au nom de ses collegues. A peine faisait-il
partie du personnel du College, on le chargeait d'adresser des
vers de bienvenue a 1'empereur Charles Quint, le 1 decembre
1539. Au moment ou il allait quitter definitivement les bords
de la Garonne, on lui confiait encore, en 1544, la mission de se
faire 1'interprete des doleances du College aupres du chancelier
de Prance.

Mais, durant ces cinq annees de vie bordelaise, Buchanan ne
se contente pas d'etre le poete scolaire et officiel, uniquement
occupe a traduire du grec ou a composer des tragedies qui
seront jouees par les eleves du College, a mettre en vers
eloquents ou ingenieux une Silve qu'il declamera lui-meme
devant 1'empereur Charles-Quint, une Elegie et une Ode ou le
chancelier de France trouvera 1'expression tres litteraire des
justes plaintes, et ensuite celle de la gratitude du savant maitre
de la Schola Aquitanica.

Les classes faites aux ecoliers du primus ordo n'occupent pas
toute la journee ; et, a 1'heure de la recreation qui suit le repas
du matin, les amis de la maison et des regents franchissent

1 Buchanani Opera omnia, £dit. de 1725, t. II. , p. 170.

2 J. Quicherat, Histoire de Sainte-Barbe, t. I., p. 135.

46 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

sous \e regard protecteur du concierge, surveillant impitoyable
des allants et des venants, le seuil de la porte unique dont les
reglements voulaient que fussent perces les murs du College,1
a la Schola Aqiiitavica, comme a Sainte-Barbe.

To us ceux des notables de Bordeaux qui ont le culte de
1'antiquite — membres du Parlement, avocats, medecins ou
Jurats — penetrent dans cette cour ou le secretaire de 1'eveque
d'Angouleme portait son inscription grecque pour en obtenir la
traduction. Us prennent part a la promenade des regents et
s'entretiennent avec eux doctement. Les jours f cries, qui sont
nombreux, c'est le tour des professeurs du College d'aller, par
les rues etroites qui environnent leur maison, rendre visite
aux hotels des parlementaires ou aux logis plus modestes des
medecins et des avocats. Un commerce assidu de poesie latine
unit tous ces philologues de la Renaissance, professionals et
amateurs, qui rivalisent d'habilete dans 1'art, si apprecie au
xvie siecle, de composer de nobles hexametres ou de tourner
une fine epigramme.

On s'etonne de trouver parmi ces pieces une epitaphe
qui n'est qu'un long jeu de mots, depourvu de grace et
de mesure, dont le nom d'Innocent de la Fontaine fait
tous les frais. Ne le jour des saints Innocents, envoye
a Paris en mission, il a etc 1'hote de la paroisse des
Innocents ; il y est mort le jour des Innocents ; son corps
fut enterre dans 1'eglise des Innocents, pres de la fontaine
des Innocents. Comme sa vie s'ecoula dans 1'innocence, son
ame habite le ciel au milieu de celles des Innocents.2

Innocent de la Fontaine etait un avocat bordelais, ami du
College de Guyenne.3 Nous ne savons pas si le Conseil de
Ville, dont il faisait partie, le chargea d'une mission a Paris,
au cours de laquelle il serait mort et aurait ete enterre dans
Teglise des Innocents : il semble qu'en ce cas Buchanan lui
aurait consacre une epitaphe serieuse et emue, comme il fit
pour Belcier et pour Briand de Vallee. II est permis de
supposer que les vers " Innocentio Fontano Burdegalensi
Poetae et Caussidico " sont un simple Indus — quelque peu lourd,
suivant notre gout moderne qui le qualifierait volontiers de
*cie — declame par 1'auteur dans une intime reunion de

1 J. Quicherat, Hixtoire de Sainte-Barbe, t. L, p. 78.

2 Epifjrammatum, liber II. , xix. (Suchanani Opera omnia, £dit. de 1725,
t. II. , p. 381.)

3 Gaullieur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, p. 133.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 47

latinistes, regents et hommes de loi, en presence du destinataire
dispose a rire tout le premier de sa bizarre oraison funebre.
Les austeres sourcils de Buchanan ne restaient pas toujours
fronces, et sa physionomie, rude a 1'ordinaire,1 s'egayait
volontiers a des plaisanteries qui nous paraissent excessives.

En 1544, apres avoir cesse d'etre professeur au College de
Guyenne, Buchanan avait passe au College du Cardinal-
Lemoine a Paris ; il y tomba malade. Alors qu'il souffrait
cruellement de douleurs rhumatismales, triste, decourage, il
ecrivait dans une EUc/ie adressee a deux de ses amis de
Bordeaux :

0 Ptol6mee, toi qui es une partie de mon amo, 6 Jacques de Teyves, toi
qui en es 1'autro, vous desirez tons les deux savoir ce que jo deviens. Je vis ;
si Ton peut dire que Ton vit, quand on n'est plus autre chose qu'un corps,
poids inerte, dont 1'esprit a fui. 2

Si Jacques de Teyves est bien connu, il semble, d'autre part,
trcs difficile d'etablir quel etait 1'autre destinataire de YElegie.
Du temps qu'il etait encore professeur au College de Guyenne,
Buchanan envoyait a ce " Ptolemaeus Luxius Tastgeus " une
StJve. qui lui disait tous les regrets causes par son absence,3
qui lui reprochait de s'attarder au milieu des pierres et des
broussailles du Poitou, loin de la Garonne, fleuve de sa patrie,4
et de ne plus se soucier des collegues qui habitaient la meme
maison que lui et s'occupaient du meme troupeau.5 Ce Tastaeus
etait done un Bordelais habitant le College de Guyenne, comme
Buchanan, et charge, comme lui, de diriger les eleves de la
ScJiola Aquitanica. Nous ne trouvons dans les listes de regents
donnees par Gaullieur aucun nom tel que Tastes, de Tastes,

1 David Buchananus, De Claris doctrina Scotis (Buchanani Opera omnia,
M. de 1725, t. I., Testimonia). " Erat austero supercilio, et toto corporis
halrilu (imo moribus hie noster) nulmgrwtis."

2 EJegiarum liber, iv. Ad PtokmcKum Luxium Tastceum et Jacobum
Tevium, cum articnlari morbo laboraret. M.D. XLIV. (Buchanani Opera
omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II., p. 314-316), v. 1-4.

3 Silvce, ii. Desiderium Ptolenuri Luxii Tasted (Buchanani Opera omnia,
Mit. de 1725, t. II. , p. 326-329).

4 Silvce, ii. , v. 1 :

Usque adeo patrii sordet tibi ripa Garumnae,
Pictones ut scopulos, atque horrida tesqua frutetis
Durus ames ?

5 Silvce, Ii., v. 3 :

. . . neo te socium pecorisque larisque
Cura tenet.

48 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

Tastet ou La Taste, dont \e mot latin Tastteus puisse etre la
traduction.

Entre 1548 et 1554, Jehan Gelida, charge de la direction du
College de Guyenne, ou il avait etc professeur en 1536, adresse
de nombreuses lettres a un jeune Bordelais nomme Jehan La
Taste, qui faisait ses etudes de medecine a Paris et que le
principal chargeait de recruter des maitres pour son etablisse-
ment.1 Le 15 decembre 1554, de retour apres sept annees
d'etudes, Jehan La Taste passait, conformement aux statuts,
son examen devant les jurats de Bordeaux ; il repondait aux
questions posees par quatre medecins. A la suite de cette
epreuve, soutenue avec succes, il recevait 1'autorisation d'exercer
la medecine dans sa ville natale.2 Peut-etre le jeune medecin
bordelais, qui debutait a la fin de 1554, est-il le fils du professeur
bordelais " Ptolemaeus Luxius Tastaeus," qui avait ete le
collegue de Buchanan entre 1539 et 1544. Mais nous devons
repeter ce que disait Ruddiman, en 1725: " Quis hie fuerit
Ptolemaeus Luxius Tastaeus indagare nondum potui."3

Dans cette Elegie, ou il depeint d'une maniere saisissante ses
souffrances physiques et ses angoisses morales, Buchanan parle
avec reconnaissance des soins et de 1'affection dont 1'entourent
le medecin Charles Estienne, fils du premier Henri Estienne,
et ses collegues du College du Cardinal-Lemoine, Gelida et
Turnebe.4 Mais ses amis de Bordeaux ne sont pas aupres de
lui ; et plusieurs des noms de ceux dont il regrette 1'absence
nous sont inconnus.

Jusqu'a sa mort, Buchanan entretient des relations avec
la ville ou il a enseigne pendant sa jeunesse. Le plus
illustre des anciens eleves du College de Guyenne, Montaigne,
n'oublie pas son ancien " precepteur de chambre." Vinet,
principal du College depuis 1556, entretient un commerce de
lettres avec le collegue qui a debute dans la maison la meme
annee que lui, en 1539.

II a deja ete rappele que Montaigne, pendant le voyage qu'il
fit a Paris en 1559, cut 1'occasion de voir Buchanan, qui etait
alors " a la suite de feu Monsieur le Mareschal de Brissac."5
Les Essais prouvent qu'il s'inquietait de lire les ouvrages

1 Voir R. Dezeimeris, De la Reiiaiftsance . . . , p. 34-35.

2 Gaullieur, Hitloire du College de Guyenne, p. 222, n. 2.

3 Buchanani Opera omnia, 6dit. de 1725, t. II., p. 314, n. 1.

4 Elegia iv., v. 65-70.
5 Essais, I., xxvi.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 49

publics apres 1559 par 1'auteur de Baptistes et de Jephthes.
II le met au nombre des plus grands poetes latins contem-
porains :

II me semblo aussi do la poesie qu'olle a eu sa vogue en nostre siecle.
Nousauons foison do bons artisans do co meatier la : d'Aurat, Beze, Buchanan,
L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus. J

II cite, inexactement d'ailleurs, un passage du Francis-
camis :

Pauvre vaiaseau que les flots, les vents et le pilotte tirassent & si contraires
desseina !

In tarn diversa, magister,
Ventus et unda trahunt. 2

II ne se contente pas de lire les poemes: il s'interesse aussi
aux traites politiques de Buchanan. A propos du metier de roi,
qui lui semble " le plus aspre et difficile du monde," il ecrit:

Je feuilletois, il n'y a paa un mois, deux liures Escossois se combattans
sur ce subject : le populaire rend le roy de pire condition qu'un charretier ; le
monarchique le loge quelques brasses au dessus de Dieu en puissance et
souverainete. 3

L'un des ' ' deux liures Escossois " est le Dialogus de Jure
Regni * publie en 1579. Montaigne devait se plaire a la lecture
de cet ouvrage elegant et bien ecrit, dont 1'auteur semble etre
un eleve de Platon, d'Aristote et de Ciceron, anime de 1'esprit
philosophique et litteraire de la Renaissance, plutot qu'un
disciple de Calvin ou de Knox, esclave des austeres doctrines de
la Reforme.5 En novembre 1579, Daniel Rogers, dans une
lettre a 1'auteur du De Jure Regni exprimait 1'admiration que
Ton eprouvait a voir avec quelle dexterite un vieillard parvenu

1 Essais, II. , xvii.

2 Essais, III., x.— On lit dans le Franciscanus :

V. 12 : Non secus ac navis lato jactata prof undo,

Quam venti, violensque sestus, canusque magister

In diversa trahunt.

Boileau semble a'etre souvenu du commencement de ce poeme.
V. 1 : Unde novus rigor in vultu ? tristisque severis

Frons caperata minis, tardique modestia gressus ?
Satires, III., v. 1 :

Quel sujet inconnu vous trouble et vous altere ?

D'ou vous vient aujourd'hui cet air sombre et severe ?

3 Easais, III. , viii.

4 De Jure Regni apud Scofos, Dialogus. Auctore Georgio Buchanano,
Scoto ; 62 pagea a la fin du tome I. de 1'edition de 1725.

5 Voir sur le De Jure Rtgni, Paul Janet, Hintoire de la science politique,
Paris, 1872, t. II., p. 173.

60 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

a 1'hiver de la vie maniait le dialogue platonicien.1 Buchanan
se donne, en effet, quelque chose de la bonhomie de Socrate et
aussi de 1'indulgente austerite que Ciceron attribue a Caton
dans aes dialogues philosophiques ; son jeune interlocuteur a
I'aimable ingenuite des adolescents que Platon montre tout
disposes a se laisser persuader par la parole et convaincre par
les raisonnements du maitre.

Nous ignorons quel est 1'autre des ' ' deux liures Escossois "
que Montaigne prenait plaisir a feuilleter. II ne peut etre
evidemment question du plus connu des essais de refutation des
theories de Buchanan, le De Regno et regali potentate adversns
BucJiananitm, Brutnm, Boucherium et reliqnos monarch omachos,
que le jurisconsulte ecossais William Barclay publia apres la
mort de 1'auteur des Essais. II s'agit probablement de
1' Apologia pro Regibus contra ftuchananitm, reuvre du
theologien ecossais Adam Blackwood.2

" M. de Thou — dit Bayle, dans son article sur Buchanan —
nous apprend (Thuanus, De Vita sua, lib. II., ad annum 1582)
que, tous les ans, Elie Vinet recevoit des Lettres de Buchanan
par les marchands Ecossois qui venoient charger du vin a
Bordeaux. Vinet montra ces Lettres a M. de Thou." De
1'abondante correspondance echangee pendant de longues annees
entre les deux amis, nous ne connaissons que trois lettres, une
de Buchanan, deux d'Elie Vinet, datees toutes les trois de 1581. 3

1 Epistolce, xxvi. (JSuchanani Opera omnia, 6dit. de 1725, t. II., p. 751).

2 Blackwood naquit ft Dunfermline en 1539 et mourut en 1613. Sea
oeuvres completes n'ont ete editees qu'en 1644, ft Paris, par les soins de Naucle.
Mais 1' Apologia, qui avait suivi de pres le De Jure Regni, etait evidemment
publie"e avant le troisieme livre des Essais, qui se trouve pour la premi6re
fois dans Petition de Montaigne de 1558. Dans une de ses lettres, Vinet
6crivait a Buchanan, le 9 juin 1581, qu'un conseiller de Poitiers se pre-
parait a publier une refutation du De Jure Regni. Apres avoir etudi£, puis
enseign6 la philosophie & Paris, Adam Blackwood 6tait, en 1581, conseiller au
presidial de Poitiers. Ruddiman (edit, de 1725, t. II., p. 767) dit que
I1 'Apologia pro Regibus fut publi6e a Poitiers, en 1581. La Prwfatio de
1'edition de 1725 des Opera omnia de Buchanan cite beaucoup de "liures
Escossois" composes pour r^futer le De Jure Regni, "tot libros a Blac-
vodaeo, Winzeto, Barclaio, Turnero, G. Burnetio, episcopo Sarisburiensi, D.
Mackenzaeo, aliisque popularibus suis adversus eum Dialogum conscript os."
La plupart d'entre eux sont post6rieurs ft la publication du troisieme livre
des Essais.

3 Epistolce, xxxvii., xxxviii., xl. (Huchanani Opera omnia, 6dit. de 1725, t.
II., p. 765, 766, 768). — Gaullieur, qui fait allusion ft la lettre xxxvii. (Hirt. du
College de Ouyenne, p. 361), dit, ft tort, qu'elle fut ecrite en 1582.

George Buchanan a Bordeaux 51

Mais 1'histoire du College de Guyenne pendant que Vinet
en etait le principal permet de comprendre quelle action
Buchanan exer9ait sur les progres de cette Schola Aquitanica
dont il avait ete Tun des regents et aux succes de laquelle son
affection pour Vinet 1'interessait non moins que ses souvenirs de
jeunesse.

II semble, en effet, que vers 1570 le College de Guyenne
comptait plusieurs ecoliers venus d'Ecosse. La plupart des
documents relatifs au College ayant ete detruits dans 1'incendie
des Archives municipales, le 13 juin 1862, nous n'avons aucune
indication precise a ce sujet. Mais, dans les actes de notaires
conserves aux Archives departementales, on trouve les noms
de divers " escolliers escossoys d' Aberdeen." L'un d'eux,
Guillaume Fergusson, prete de 1'argent a un marchand de
Bordeaux. Certains comme^ants d' Aberdeen, les Brown, les
Oulson, ont place leurs fils a la Schola Aquitanica.* II est
probable que Buchanan, dont 1'influence etait grande en Ecosse,
conseillait a ceux de ses compatriotes que leurs affaires
appelaient en France de mettre leurs enfants dans une maison
dirigee par un homme dont il se plaisait a recommander le
savoir et 1'honnetete. C'est au College de Guyenne que Ton
envoyait d' Aberdeen ou de Glascow les jeunes gens destines au
negoce, qui pouvaient se creer a Bordeaux d'utiles relations
commerciales. Certains meme n'attendaient pas d'avoir quitte
les banes de Pecole pour s'occuper d'affaires: tel ce Guillaume
Fergusson, " escollier escossoys," qui prete de 1'argent a un
marchand de Bordeaux par acte notarie en date du 16 aout 1568.

Vinet est, en quelque sorte, a Bordeaux, le charge d'affaires
et 1'homme de confiance des compatriotes de Buchanan. Le
pere de Guillaume Fergusson lui donne, en 1573, la mission
d'operer pour lui le recouvrement de creances importantes sur
des marchands bordelais. Le vieil erudit, malgre son extreme
bonte, juge que Ton abuse un peu de sa complaisance ; et il
repond " qu'il ne peut vacquer a la dite charge, tant a cause
de la malladye en laquelle il est detenu que aussi a cause que
la dite charge ne luy estoit convenable a cause de son estat de
regent2 au dit College de Guyenne, et autres considerations."3

1 Gaullienr, Histoire du College, de, Guyenne, p. 284.

2 Des 1570, absorb^ par la preparation de son Commentaire sur Ausone,
Vinet avait obtenu d'etre relev^ de ses fonctions do principal ; il n'etait plus
officiellement que regent.

3 Gaullicur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, p. 349.

52 George Buchanan a Bordeaux

C'est un compatriote de Fergusson, Andre MacRedor, qui
se chargea de recouvrer les creances. Ce personnage, que les
actes nomment Macrodor, Macredor ou Machredor, etait maitre
es arts et licencie en droit. Apres avoir fait ses etudes a 1'ecole
de medecine de Bordeaux, qui prenait une grande importance,
il s'etablit dans notre ville ou il parvint a une position officielle.
Le Registre de la Comptablie royale de Bordeaux, annee 1593,
enregistre un paiement fait a " Maitre Andre Macredor,
docteur en medecine et medecin ordinaire de la Geollerye de
Guyenne."1 A la fin du xvie siecle, une petite colonie ecossaise
prosperait a Bordeaux.

L'Universite de Bordeaux ne doit pas oublier que la
reputation legitime dont jouit le College de Guyenne en France
et a 1'etranger, pendant pres d'un siecle, de 1534 a 1627, est
due en grande partie aux professeurs ecossais qui avaient etc
attires dans notre ville par 1'exemple et souvent par les conseils
de George Buchanan.

H. DE LA V. DE M.

1 Gaullieur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, p. 351, n. 2.

VI.

Buchanan and the Franciscans.

" WHO will give me before I die to see the Church as it was in the
ancient days, when the apostles cast their nets to catch souls, not
silver and gold 1 " — these were the words of Bernard of Clairvaux
in his eagerness for a purified Church. In the century after Ber-
nard, who, though a monk, was also an ecclesiastic, there came in
Francis of Assisi, one who cared more for Christ than for the Church,
and more for obedience to His words than for the keeping of all the
commandments of Rome. Francis made the supreme renunciation
of the world, having not even where to lay his head ; arid from the
sacred era of the Incarnation, when Jesus walked in Galilee and
suffered in Jerusalem, to the opening years of the thirteenth century,
none more than Francis tried to be like unto his Lord, and to be as
the Christ made flesh again.

In the Mendicant Revival led by Francis there was no policy
to change papal Rome, and no scheme to reform the doctrine and
ritual of the Church ; but men and women were to be brought into
the presence of Christ and made better. Friars went forth from
Assisi to preach the gospel as it came from the lips of Christ, and
to lead the life which He had consecrated ; but before the tale of
many years was told, the professed followers of the Saint, in at least
one of the sections of the Order, fell away from his simplicity.
Again and again, however, in the history of the Franciscans re-
formers rising in their midst sought to go back to that simplicity
and to restore the primitive grace which adorned the first Poor Men
of Assisi. In the fifteenth century the Observants by their founda
tion witnessed to the search for a lost ideal ; and friars of their
reformation were settled in Edinburgh, while others were established
in St. Andrews by Bishop Kennedy, the founder of the College and
Church of the Holy Saviour, and were enriched by Patrick Graham,
the first Archbishop in the Scottish Church. The history of the
Franciscans, indeed, bears record of reforms within the Order ; yet

54 Buchanan and the Franciscans

the age of the Renascence witnessed Erasmus lashing the vices of
mendicants and monks, and mocking their ignorance and idleness,
as the age of the Reformation saw Buchanan exposing their folly
and hypocrisy.

Buchanan, where there was a straight road to trouble, knew how
to find it. During a residence in Scotland with Lord Cassilis, after
a sojourn at one of the Colleges of Paris, he adapted or imitated
Dunbar's poem with the title, How Dunbar was desyrit tu be ane
Fryer ; and giving it a Latin dress sent it forth under the name of
Somnium. Dunbar had been a Franciscan, but had thrown off the
habit of the Order before attacking the Brothers Minor. While he
did not enlist in the noble army of the martyrs, he encountered danger
by his scorn of hypocrites and his hatred of the tricks and frauds
of the religious life. His poems and satires were written in the
most excellent Scottish tongue of his day ; but fierce though his
attack on the friars was, it wrought little harm to them or to the
Church, for the day of the Reformation in Scotland was not yet.
When, however, Buchanan wrote, the Scottish Reformation was not
far off; and those in Scotland who bore St. Francis' name knew
that in other lands the sins of the Brothers had found them out.
The Latin form of the poem, on the other hand, appealed to the
world beyond Scotland, and the pride of the Order was lost.

The Somnium delighted at least one reader, and that man was
the King of Scotland. James V. hated the Franciscans, thinking
they had devised plots against him, and was ready to welcome the
enemy of his enemies. Moved by royal persuasion or commanded
by royal authority, Buchanan returned to the attack of the men
whose poverty was a pretence and whose humility was but hypocrisy.
The two poems, each styled Palinodia, are literary enigmas. He
wished to serve his king, and yet not further to provoke the
Franciscans. It may be that the poems as we have them are not in
their first forms, or it may be that he attributed to the friars an
ignorance passing the ignorance of even the monks and priests, and
counted that his words would not be understood. Yet to the insult
of the Somnium he added the injuries of the Palinodia,

The Franciscans were angry, and yet James was not satisfied
with the measure of their wrath. His word to the poet was that
he should prepare something " which should not only prick the skin,
but probe the vitals." Impelled once more to the attack, Buchanan
wrote Franciscanus, the most skilfully constructed of his poems

Buchanan and the Franciscans 55

and the fiercest of his satires. Wit, humour, raillery, banter,
sarcasm, irony were each pressed into the service of the satirist.
The vices of the spiritual criminals were recounted, and their base-
ness exposed.

But what of the weapon used in the attack ? Should the sword
or rapier of satire have been used in the battle of religion 1 There
is a nice ethical and also an aesthetic question regarding the right
of coarseness to find a place in satire. When men and their
manners are coarse are they to be painted with realistic details ?
Realism of this fashion will, indeed, do no hurt to those who for
their bad habits must be thrashed, but none the less the satirist
may be dealing in filthy communications which corrupt the good
manners of innocency and shock the prejudices of respectability.
History, however, must know how to be tolerant in its judgments,
and must not charge with indecency and condemn as injurious to
the public welfare satires which in their own day and generation
did not violate refinement. Buchanan, with his pictures of the
Franciscans, which in the twentieth century might perhaps have
dragged him before the bar of a police court, offended the taste of
none with wit to understand his Latin ; and history on its judg-
ment seat may dismiss him without a stain on his character.

Buchanan used satire and used it with brilliant literary effect.
Was he justified, since, by attacking an Order established within
the Church, he was really fighting an holy war 1 It is urged that
he himself, when he wrote his poems against the friars, was not
consumed with zeal for religion. None the less he was doing battle
for the things which belong to religion, and the question of his use
of satire remains. As an humanist he knew the attacks on men
and manners made by the satirists of the Roman world, whose
words were enshrined in the literature which appeared to the
scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the scripture
of a new revelation ; and a son of the Renascence Buchanan,
fascinated by the Latin satirists, followed their methods of attack,
even within the province of religion which they could not have
entered. He was but a boy when the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum
were published ; and, precocious though he was in his youth, there
is no incredible tale of his enjoyment of their fun. The cleverness
and wit, however, of these letters, which aided the enfranchisement
of learning, and helped to prepare the way of the New Faith in
Germany, were more than the joke and humour of an idle day, and

56 Buchanan and the Franciscans

he saw in their effects the uses to which satire could be put.
Erasmus, in the age before the spiritual passion of Luther trans-
formed the German Church, laughed at the folly and ridiculed the
ignorance of priests and monks and friars, and dared to blast the
memory even of a pope. His attacks on the priestly multitude were
openly confessed ; and though he repudiated the Julius Secundus
Exclusus, there was no other Erasmus with cleverness and skill to
write it. The greatest of all the humanists, through writings read
by the scholars of Europe, had made satire justified of her children ;
and if Buchanan required to shelter himself under high authority, he
could point to Erasmus as a master in satire who had not spared
the most illustrious as well as the meanest representative of the
Holy Roman Church.

One thing the Franciscans could not do in replying to Buchanan.
They could not give him the lie direct or indirect, and bid him go to
the poor and the outcast for a testimony of merciful service. In the
second canto of Franciscanus the poet had shown the beggar
standing at the door of the convent, haggard, weak, trembling,
distressed, forlorn, and wasted with grief. The suppliant, diseased
in limb, tells the tale of his distress to the comfortable friar who
laughs at disease and jokes at the ills of humanity. The friar who,
with a message of divine love to man, should make known the
precepts of Christ, who should clothe the naked and feed the hungry
and succour the stranger and visit the prisoner, is deaf to the stories
of sorrow and spurns the pauper from his door, and then, seeking
the comfort of his couch and placing the glass to his lips, tastes the
pleasures of the passing hour.

The Brothers Minor, even the Observants of the Franciscan
reformation, could not repudiate the poet's verse as a vile aspersion
on the fair fame of their Order. Francis dying, prostrated on the
bare earth for the last contest with the spiritual adversary, but with
face uplifted to heaven, said to his brethren ai'ound him, " I have
done my part : may Christ teach you to do yours." The centuries
passed and the friars of the last generations of the medieval Church
did not do the parts to which they had been consecrated in the
name of the Saint. The men who had taken that name had fallen
from the high estate in which their Order had been created. They
had become infidels to the spirit and strangers to the kindly
charities of their founder. Humility they had none, in which to
take as wholesome lessons the rebukes of satirists ; and never were

Buchanan and the Franciscans 57

the Scottish friars further away from the gentleness and meekness
of the Saint than they were on the day when they sought the aid of
Cardinal Beaton to destroy their enemy.

Fortunately for the cause of religious progress in Scotland there
was no Holy Office to superintend the extinction of heretics.
Laurence of Lindores, in the beginning of the fifteenth century,
had the title and held the office of Inquisitor ; but the Inquisition
as an organization was not established in Scotland. Pope Gregory
IX., in the year 1233, issued bulls which mark the foundation of
the Inquisition, and one of these bulls associated the Dominicans
with the machinery for protecting the dogma. The two chief
Mendicant Orders were ever jealous of each other, and in 1237
the privilege granted to the Dominicans were extended to the
Franciscans. Innocent IV., dividing the honours between the two
companies, parcelled out Italy as an arnea for the Inquisition,
giving one part to the Brothers Preachers and another to the
Brothers Minor. Eventually, however, the Preachers obtained con-
trol of the holy office ; but neither of the Orders succeeded in
establishing the Inquisition in Scotland, where, consequently, the
martyrs for the new faith were few. Yet Cardinal Beaton, Prince
of the Church, Legate a latere, Archbishop of St. Andrews, had
power to remove disturbers of the spiritual slumbers of priests or
monks or friars ; and Buchanan would have died like Patrick
Hamilton had not the royal authority interposed.

Tradition has been pitiless to the memory of Beaton. He was
the first and he was the last Scottish prelate who was elevated to
the rank of cardinal, and in an age when Germany and England
were delivering tragic blows, he was commissioned, as his title
shows, to protect Scotland from the assaults of the enemies of the
Ancient Faith. The old enmity between Scotland and England
was not dead in the first half of the sixteenth century; and had
there been no religious question at issue, the policy of Beaton, to
save his country from English domination, would have ranked him
among the patriots of his land. There was, however, the supreme
religious question ; and Beaton, an ecclesiastic with the pride and
immorality which have marked and stained so many of the prelates
of the unreformed Church, has been remembered, not as the advo-
cate of his country's political independence, but as the upholder of a
Church that had left undone many things that make for the welfare
of the people. The cardinal was a statesman, and neither religion
nor learning was his passion. Nothing in his history suggests that

58 Buchanan and the Franciscans

he could have been concerned with the grievances of the Franciscans
who sought his aid against Buchanan. What had this prince of the
Church in common with the idle and useless mendicants who served
no cause of religion and brought no distinction to the Church ?
He did listen to them ; and for the simple reason that they were in
peril within the Church, which was itself in danger, he turned to
their help. For Buchanan, on the other hand, he cared nothing.
There may be pardon for the statesman who had no leisure for the
Latin exercises of the Humanists, in the years when his Church and
his country's freedom were assailed ; and the prelate is not to be
blamed who did not turn from official duty to save a man of letters
who, to his thinking, was touching the Lord's anointed. Pius II.,
the Humanist Pope, would have discussed with Buchanan the metre
of the Somnium or criticized the epigrams of the Fraticiscanus, and
would then have sent him to the stake, not for the quality of his
Latin verse, but that the Holy Roman Church in any of its
members might suffer no injury. Beaton more than probably had
not the skill to read and the wit to enjoy the Latin of Buchanan.
He had, however, the eye to see in the poet an enemy of established
order and a disturber of the things which ought not to be shaken.

The Franciscans appealed to Beaton ; and Beaton turned to the
king for the authority which would enable him to seize Buchanan,
and add him to the number of the Church's victims. As the
cardinal was forced to seek the royal permission, it is evident that
the poet was under protection, and that Rome's representative, who
after the fashion of his kind was not wont to let the secular left
arm know what the spiritual right arm was doing, was loath to
thwart a king who might at any hour declare for the new Faith.
The later Stewart kings had persistently curbed the Papal power in
Scotland, grasping for the Crown the patronage of abuses which
had enriched the treasury in Rome ; and James V. was favouring
Sir David Lindsay with his Satire of the Three Estates, and had
incited Buchanan to attack the friars. Beaton knew, indeed, that
if James followed the example of Henry VIII., and defended a
Faith repudiated by the pope, the cause of Rome was lost in
Scotland. The king, on the other hand, who, unless he separated
from the Ancient Church, could not openly defy the cardinal's
request, had no mind to deliver the poet into the merciless hands of
the prelates. He accordingly devised the excellent plan of laying
hold of Buchanan and committing him to a prison, in which the
door or the window was defective as the door or the window of a

Buchanan and the Franciscans 59

house of detention. Buchanan, in the "consciousness of innocency or
the pride of offended dignity, made no protest about unmerited
punishment or illegal incarceration. Like a wise man he girt up
his loins, and fled by the way the royal providence had opened for
him. When well away he was pursued by the king's servants, and
was not taken.

Wandering to England and then to France Buchanan reached
Paris, where he learned that Cardinal Beaton was in the city. As
Beaton was not the prelate to forget or forgive, prudence induced
Buchanan to leave Paris and to accept the offer of a professorship in
the college at Bordeaux. He went to Bordeaux and remained in
the college for three years, and then, writing a poem on the enforced
entrance of girls into nunneries, he found himself in trouble with
his ecclesiastical masters. Beaton was still living and was powerful
in Scotland, and the fugitive from the Church's discipline could not
return to his own land. In course of time another professorship
was offered to him, and he taught for a short period in Coimbra in
Portugal. He and his colleagues, however, came under suspicion of
heresy, and the Jesuits, who obtained control of the university,
handed him over to the Inquisition. Charges were preferred which,
if proved, were sufficient to condemn him to death, and among these
was the accusation that he had written against the Franciscans.
Tins accusation he could not deny, though he was able to satisfy his
judge? that he was not guilty of the spiritual crimes alleged against
him. He was not able, however, to convince them that it was safe
to leave him without special aid in his religious life ; and he was
accordingly sent to a monastery, where he might obtain instruction
in theology.

After passing from the keeping of the monks Buchanan paid
special heed to the Bible, and a study of the sacred Book trans-
formed him into a Protestant. As a Protestant he returned to
Scotland in 1561, where the policy of Beaton was frustrated, where
the ancient Church was in ruins, and where the Franciscan friars
were no longer begging for bread they did not desire or for alms
they did not deserve.

J. H.

VIL
Buchanan in Portugal*

IN all the biographies of this celebrated Humanist and
Reformer, down to and including the one written by Professor
Hume Brown — George Euchanan, a Biography, Edinburgh
1890 — there is a period of five years about which very little is
said, because very little was known of it. It is stated that the
beginning of the year 1547 found him living in France,
supporting himself by teaching, and that proposals were then
made to him to go to Portugal as Professor in a new scholastic
establishment, called the ' Real Collegio "das Artes,' which had
been recently founded by the King of that country, Dom
John III., at the university city of Coimbra. He accepted
the offer and is supposed to have started for Portugal in
March 1547.

The only source of information which his biographers
possessed as to what took place while he resided in Portugal
was about one page octavo of a short autobiographical sketch
in Latin, supposed to have been written by him shortly before
his death, evidently in 1580. l In this sketch it is stated briefly
that he was imprisoned in the Lisbon Inquisiton for a year
and a half, and then detained in a monastery for some months,
so that he might be more accurately instructed by the monks
who did not prove to be unkind, though they were utterly
ignorant of religious truth. It was mainly at this time that
he translated the Psalms into various measures. After his
restoration to liberty, he asked permission to return to France;
but Dom John III. requested him to remain, and supplied him
with means sufficient for his daily wants. Becoming sick of
delays and of uncertain hopes, he embarked in a Cretan ship
at Lisbon, and sailed for England.

1 Sir Thomas Randolphe's letter to Sir Peter Young in 1579 was,
according to Ruddiman, the cause that prompted Buchanan to write this
account of his own life.

P3
pq

Jz;

Buchanan in Portugal 61

The scantiness of these details is explainable in two ways :
first, that owing to the secrecy with which the Holy Office
surrounded its proceedings Buchanan himself knew but little
of the causes of his imprisonment, and, secondly, that old age
and his experience of the power of that dread Tribunal may
have led him to speak with prudent brevity of its treatment of
him.

In one thing he seems to have been mistaken, and that was
in attributing to Joannes Ferrerius1 and Joannes Tolpinus,2 as
he does in the said sketch, any active part in his misfortunes.
Their testimony against him was comparatively unimportant.3

For some three hundred years Buchanan's experiences of
Portugal and its Inquisition remained buried in the Archives
of the Holy Office, together with those of many others of equal
or less importance. It is strange that those Archives should
have been preserved for so long a period in spite of the
ravages of time and of such a terrible catastrophe as the great
Earthquake of 1755; but they were so, and when the
establishment of constitutional liberty brought about the
extinction of the Inquisition, the secrets were laid bare, and
some 36,000 records of the proceedings against the unfortunate
victims were taken to the National Archives, where they have
been inventoried and preserved, and some of the important ones
have been published in a more or less complete form.

A short time before the publication of Professor Hume
Brown's biography of Buchanan, while I was examining the
records of the proceedings against Damian de Goes, Father
Gabriel de Malagrida, and other victims of the pitiless
Tribunal, I came across the Records of George Buchanan's
trial and caused a copy to be made of them, without having
any definite object in view. Hearing that the Biography had
been published, I called the attention of its talented author to
the fact of their existence, and forwarded to him a translation
of them which supplied the material for an article published
by him in the Scottish Review, No. xlii., April 1893.

Since then the sentence passed upon Buchanan has appeared

1 Ferrerius was a native of Liguria and had at one time visited Scotland.
He was connected with the monastery of Kinloss, and was well-known as the
author of many books. — Dr. Irving's Memoirs, Page 72.

8 " Talpin was a native of Normandy, and is the author of various works
in the French language." — Irving's Memoirs, page 72.

3 See Appendix I. (a) — footnotes.

62 Buchanan in Portugal

in a Portuguese work, Docitmentos para a Tlistoria dos Jesuifas
em Portugal, Coimbra 1899, by Dr. Antonio Jose Teixeira;
and the entire Records have been published in the monthly
magazine 0 Archivo Historico, owned and edited by Senhor
Anse'mo Braamcamp Freire who, for many years, has devoted
his talent and fortune to the publication of the documents of
historical interest which, almost unknown, abound in the
Archives of his country.

At the time when I first drew the attention of Professor
Hume Brown to the proceedings against Buchanan in the
Inquisition, the Records struck me as being incomplete, for,
although they commenced with the delivery of the prisoner in
the Prison of the Holy Office, there was no order for his
capture or any ground for the proceedings. In other Records,
the proceedings are based upon a species of " finding of a true
Bill " against the culprit, such finding being the consequence
of an information more or less secretly given against him by
some one and preliminary testimony taken thereon.

Further investigation shewed me that, simultaneously with
Buchanan, the Principal of the College at Coimbra, Joam da
Costa, and another of its Professors — Diogo (or Jacobus) de
Teive, had also been tried by the Inquisition with precisely
similar results. An examination of the proceedings against
these prisoners supplied the missing documents and many
interesting details.

Commencing with Buchanan's departure from France, we
learn that it was in consequence of the high terms in which
Friar Jeronymo de Padilha and Friar Jorge de Santiago spoke
to the King of Portugal of the College at Bordeaux, upon their
return from a visit there, that His Majesty resolved to send for
the Professors. They came from Bordeaux to Portugal, by
land, in two groups. The first was composed of the four
foreigners — Masters Nicolas Gruchy, Guillaume Garante,1 George
Buchanan, and Fabricius ; the second consisted of Costa, Teive,
Elias Vinetus, and Antonio Mendes.

They appear to have rested a short time at Salamanca, and
there was committed one of the most important of the offences
with which Buchanan was charged : he and his fellow travellers
ate meat upon certain days of abstinence, their excuse being

1 Professor Hume Brown gives the name as "Guillaume Gaerente,"
whilst Buchanan in Vita Sua gives "Gulielmus Garentalus."

Buchanan in Portugal 63

that they were all more or less suffering internally, and that the
Spanish bread disagreed with them. Upon arriving in
Portugal they went first to Almeirim, a town some forty-seven
miles to the north-east of Lisbon, where the Court was then
staying; and from thence we may presume that the Professors
went to the College at Coimbra where Buchanan appears to
have boarded with the Principal Costa — if he did not actually
live under the same roof.

As regards the period of his residence at Coimbra it is worthy
of note that in no part of the Records do we read the
slightest insinuation against Buchanan's secular character. No
one accused him of immorality, turbulence, or any other of the
vices which, it is plain, were prevalent among the Professors.
He was only accused of a leaning towards the doctrines of
Luther, and of the disobedience to the Church of Rome which
was the consequence of that tendency.

It is most pleasing to be able to assert this when we consider
the nature of his surroundings. Very interesting details of the
habits, customs and morality, — both of the regents and the
students — at the Scots College and Sainte Barbe have been given ;
but the state of affairs at Coimbra was, in some respects, worse.

Buchanan said nothing against any one in his defence, but
his1 fellow prisoners, Costa and Teive, were not sparing of their
denunciations against every one to whom, rightly or wrongly,
they attributed their imprisonment; and from the Records of
their trials we glean the following information.

Buchanan, it appears, was succeeded in the First Class at
Bordeaux, which was the highest, by one Langlois, a
Frenchman. Costa states that he turned him out " because
the students were not satisfied with him, and because he did
not deserve that Class. And because Master Diogo de Teive
was put in his place and a brother of mine was a pupil of that
Class, this Professor said that I, together with Teive, and by
means of my said brother, turned the students against him
and made them discontented, so that I might have an excuse
for discharging him and putting Teive in his place. He had a
law-suit with me, and said a thousand bad things of me."

Of Professor Dr. Eusebio, Costa says that he turned him out
of the College at Coimbra because he was addicted to evil
practices ; and a youth named Brandao, a brother of the wife of
Balthazar de Faria (who was, at that time, Portuguese

64 Buchanan in Portugal

Ambassador at Rome), and who boarded and lodged with
Eusebio, had found it necessary to quit the house and go to
live with a relation in Coimbra. Eventually he entered the
Jesuits' College. Costa alleges that, upon hearing of this, he
severely reprimanded Eusebio and discharged him. The latter
was again accused of a similar crime, and was summoned before
the ecclesiastical authorities.

Manoel de Mesquita, the Chaplain of the Royal College, was
said by the Principal to be "a perfect plague, as all in
Coimbra know."

Another Professor, Master Belchior Beliagoa, was given
to falsehoods. At Paris he had acquired the nick-name of
" Maquignon " — the horse dealer. Costa had taken from his
house and care the Duke de Aveiro's son who boarded with
him, and had reprimanded him for taking the students out of
bounds without the permission of the Principal, which he was
bound by the King's Regulations to obtain. This Beliagoa had
spread a rumour in Coimbra, that the French Professors who
had left that city to return to France went straight on to
Geneva. The report reached the King's ears, and when His
Majesty appointed Costa to be Principal, he asked him how far
it was true. Costa denied that this had happened, — and, in
truth, it had not. Beliagoa then told people that the said
French Professors had written to the King, denouncing Diogo
de Gouvea, and had so brought about the dismissal of the aged
Professor, — which was also false. In short, Beliagoa was
so utterly bad, that he was known in Coimbra by the nick-name
of "Belial."

Jorge de Sa, another Professor at the College, when teaching
his Class, carried a sword under his gown, telling people that
it was for the purpose of murdering the Principal.
Master Antonio Calado was known at Coimbra by a nick-
name, the translation of which is " Mouth of Hell."
Alvaro Lobato, a Dominician, who lectured on Cato to the
students, had been reprimanded several times by Principal
Costa on account of improper conduct and because he used to
buy the scholars' clothes which they sold to him in order to
obtain money for gambling and other forms of vice. He was
their Father Confessor.

Both Principal Costa and Diogo de Teive had fought duels
in their time.

Buchanan in Portugal 65

Teive accuses a certain Manoel de Araujo, who appears to
have been connected with the College, of stealing a sword and
its hangings from him, and goes on to say that under the
pretext of calling to see Master George and himself, Araujo was
endeavouring to seduce a visitor of theirs, the daughter of a
Scotsman and a relation of Buchanan. One day he left in
her hands a purse containing ten cruzados, and withdrew.
She complained to her husband whose name was Robert
Granjoun, and he spoke to Teive and Buchanan about it.
Teive also accused Master Jean Talpin, Antoine Langlois, and
Antoine Leclerc of being seditious and bad, and for that reason
they were expelled. " I fought with them many times,"
naively adds Master Diogo de Teive.

Marcial de Gouvea, another teacher, went repeatedly to the
Class-rooms, sword in hand, to prevent Costa and Teive from
teaching. A similar course was taken by Diogo de Gouvea, the
Elder, to obstruct his nephew Andre (then Principal) and his
friend Costa in the teaching of their Classes.

These were the persons with whom Buchanan was in contact,
and whose enmity he was most liable to incur. According to
Teive, the professors, who had originally taught Humanities at
Coimbra before the new men came, were furious at their
coming and at their being so well treated by the King who
allowed them mules as well as servants, and gave them much
more power and authority than their predecessors had. The latter
separated themselves entirely from the recent arrivals,
adopting the name of ' Parisiens ' and calling the others
' Burdegalenses.'

Unfortunately Buchanan himself heedlessly supplied them
with the means of satisfying their hatred. Apart from the
fact of his being a foreigner, and his past life having caused
him to be suspected in religious matters, he was careless in his
acts and speech and in the selection of his friends, — all of which
was carefully scored up against him.

Manoel de Mesquita, of whom I have just spoken, asserted
that he had heard a relation of Teive say that a certain
Countess or Duchess, in the Lutheran country, had sent for
Teive and Buchanan, and had remitted money for their
travelling expenses with an allowance of five hundred
cruzados (£50) for each of them. Mesquita said that he had
seen Buchanan playing at bowls and eating and drinking before

66 Buchanan in Portugal

Mass. Others had seen him eat meat on days when it was
prohibited by the Church of Rome.

Antonio de Cabedo, the Bishop of Tangier's nephew,
deposed that, about two years before, he had borrowed of
Master George Buchanan a book of verses from which to copy
some lines which he had written upon one of the Psalms of
David. He found in the book certain written matter, but
he could not swear whether it was in the handwriting of Buchanan
or not. It was as follows: — Vix datus est tumulus Codrum si
re-re fuisse forte Lutheranum falere pauper erat. Accord-
ing to Cabedo the meaning of this was: — "If thou
thinkest that Codrum was refused burial because he was a
Lutheran, thou art mistaken ; he was refused it because he was
poor."

By the discussing of these petty details publicly and privately
at Coimbra and in Lisbon, a feeling was created against
the Professors who had been engaged in France, and it is
probable that the development of that feeling was fostered by
the Jesuits, although they did not take any openly antagonistic
action. They had a College of their own at Coimbra, and it
answered their purpose that the orthodoxy of the professors of
the Royal College should be questioned so that they might have
a plausible argument for inducing wealthy parents to withdraw
their children from that school and place them in theirs.

At last the storm burst, — but it was brought on by means
unsuspected until these Records were discovered, and not by
the direct action of the Religious Orders as has been supposed.
Doctor Diogo de Gouvea, called the " Elder" to distinguish
him from a learned nephew of the same name, after having
been a Professor at the University of Paris, Principal of Sainte
Barbe and latterly of the College of Bordeaux, was made
Principal of the Royal College at Coimbra. Later on he was
deprived by Dom John III. of that office, and was succeeded by
Andre de Gouvea,— another of his nephews. Diogo de Gouvea
was most irascible and withal a very cunning man. He
resolved to be revenged upon his nephew, but, to avoid the
imputation of bringing his own flesh and blood to disgrace, he
seems to have resolved to work destruction secretly, viz., by
means of the Inquisition which was at that time beginning to
extend its power and influence. Diogo spread reports that
Andre had Lutheran tendencies, and probably had succeeded

Buchanan in Portugal 67

in arousing the suspicions of the Holy Office, when Andre died,
after a few days' illness, without the Sacraments of the Roman
Catholic Church. Andre was succeeded as Principal by his
friend, Joam da Costa, who, in consequence, inherited the
enmity which Diogo had been unable to assuage upon his
nephew.

Costa had already incurred the hatred of a Dominican,
Friar Joam Pinheiro, by having, years before at Bordeaux,
publicly flogged him after he had attained to manhood, — for
which flogging the young man had sworn to be revenged.
Pinheiro was then at a Convent of his Order at Paris, and
Diogo de Gouvea was also living at that city. How the action
of the Holy Office was immediately brought about is not made
clear. Costa and Teive both attribute it to Diogo de Gouvea
in the first instance, and assert that Friar Joam Pinheiro was
only his instrument. What we know took place was as
follows: — On the 17th of October, 1549, a Commission was
issued by order of the Cardinal Prince, Dom Henrique, as
Inquisitor General, and signed by him (although it does not
necessarily follow that it originated with him) by which the
Judge of the Lisbon Court of Appeal, the Licentiate — Braz
d'Alvide, and Friar Duarte — an Augustine Priest, were ordered
to examine a certain witness, then in Paris, together with such
other witnesses as he might suggest, with regard to the
characters of the Portuguese and the foreign Professors who
were then teaching in the Royal College at Coimbra.

The Inquest was opened on the 22nd of the following
November in the apartments of Braz d'Alvide who acted as
Registrar, Friar Duarte being the Examiner. The Licentiate
appears to have been sent specially to France for the purpose.

The first witness examined and the only one mentioned in
the Commission was Friar Joam Pinheiro. Owing to his
evidence, Diogo de Gouvea, the Elder, was summoned, and,
after them, in consequence of their depositions, Joannes
Ferrerius, Simon Simson, Joannes Talpinus, Alvaro da
Fonseca and Sebastian Rodrigues were heard. The last
witness was examined on the 21st of December, 1549;
but it was only six months later, on the 27th of June,
1550, that the Notary at the Lisbon Inquisition forwarded the
Depositions to the Cardinal Prince who, with others of the
Supreme Council of the Holy Office, signed the finding of a

68 Buchanan in Portugal

true bill against all of the accused, with which the Records
were returned to the lower Court on the 1st of August.

The proceedings then went rapidly forward. Joam da Costa
was captured in Lisbon where he then was, having either gone
to the Capital upon business, or having been sent for purposely.
Teive and Buchanan were arrested at Coimbra, on the 10th of
August. They were requested to attend at the Bishop's
Palace, and were there detained by one of the high dignitaries
of the Lisbon Court who had been sent for the purpose. They
were called upon to give up their keys, their rooms and boxes
were searched, and they were handed over to an inferior officer
who accompanied them to Lisbon. The Minutes of the search
at their lodgings give some curious details of their books and
pecuniary possessions. Buchanan was even allowed to retain
his money and valuables without any record of their amount
being kept ; and permission was granted him to leave part of his
goods in the possession of his friend, Nicholas Grouchy.

It has been supposed that Cardinal Beaton was the cause of
Buchanan falling into the clutches of the Holy Office, but the
evidence of Joannes Ferrerius shews that this was not so. It
was brief and, without quoting any positive facts, simply, to
the effect that he held Buchanan to be a Lutheran at heart.1
That he was not directly influenced by Cardinal Beaton is
shewn by Braz d'Alvide's preface to his evidence, when he
speaks of Ferrerius as being, at that time, tutor to the nephews
of the Cardinal of Scotland, " a quern Deos haja — to whom may
God be merciful," — implying that he was already dead. Simon
Simson, a Scotsman, deposed, briefly, to the same effect.

These witnesses did not present themselves voluntarily. They
were called upon to give evidence in consequence of the
reference made to them by the first two witnesses.
Consequently, I cannot but think that Cardinal Beaton
contributed very little to the misfortune which fell upon
Buchanan after his (the Cardinal's) death, however great may
have been the ill-will which he bore him while living.
The Franciscans, also, had little or no responsibility in the

1 Buchanan seems to have been informed many years afterwards of the
nature of the evidence of both Talpin and Ferrerius : — "dixeruat se ex pluribus
hominibns fide dignis audivisse, Buchananum de Romana religione perperam
sentire " ( Vita, Sua).

BUCHAXAX IX PORTUGAL-PLATE I.

La,it page of the record of the firxt examination of Buchanan when on trial.

Buchanan in Portugal 69

matter. Nothing of any importance was deposed by any
Franciscan witness against Buchanan, either in the preliminary
proceedings or afterwards.

On the 15th of August, 1550, Master George Buchanan was
delivered by the officer, who had brought him from Coimbra,
to Ignatius Nunes, Chief Gaoler of the Lisbon Inquisition.
Three days later he was examined for the first time by the
Bishop of Angra1 and Friar Jerome Oleaster.2 The only item of
importance in the deposition is his declaration that he was
about fifty-five years of age.

On the 21st of the month he was again examined at great
length by Jerome Oleaster, Dr. Emmanuel, and Friar
Ambrosiua Campello. He then asked that writing materials
should be given him that he might write out a full statement
as to the various matters upon which they had examined him.
His request, which was granted, is contained in the concluding
sentences of the record of his examination, drawn up by the
Notary or Registrar of the Court.3 The official caligraphy of
the sixteenth century is so peculiar that, to the unpractised eye,
it may be and has been taken for short-hand. Its meaning in
English is : —

"... but he has no recollection of any articles in particular; he only
remembers that, when he heard some Catholic preacher, the Faith of the
Chnrch appeared to him to be the right one, and when, later on, he again
heard some Lutheran, the opinions of Luther seemed to him to be correct ;
and he was in these doubts all the time he was in England, which was five or
six months. Items: — Being examined upon some other Articles and also
upon some things which were necessary for the explanation of that which he
has said, he replied that, as he could not now narrate those things in their
proper order, he begged them to order paper and ink to be given to him, to
enable him to draw up his confession in an orderly way : and they ordered
them to be given to him, admonishing him, by the Love of our Lord, to
thoroughly unburden his conscience and ask pardon for all, because, if he did
so, he would be received with much mercy. I, Antonio Rodrigues, wrote it.
= Friar Hieronimo d'Azambuja — Manuel docteur4 — Georgius Buchananu8=
Ambrosius."

1 Bishop of Angra or Azores was a deputy of the Inquisition.

2 This is the same person as signs himself "Friar Hieronimo d'Azambuja."
9 See Plate I. Buchanan also refers to his treatment by the Inquisition in

Vita Sua : "In Buchananum certe acerbissime insultabant, ut qui peregrinus
esset, et qui miiu'me multos illic haberet qui incolumitate gauderent, aut
dolori ingemiscerent, aut injuriam ulcisci conarentur. "

4 Doctor Emmanuel (or Manuel) Antunes and Doctor Ambrosius Cam-
pello were deputies of the Inquisition, the former being an Apostolic notary.

70 Buchanan in Portugal

On the 23rd of August he, on oath, affirmed the truth of the
statements contained in a Defence,1 written in Latin, which he
then placed in the hands of Oleaster and the Licentiate Jorge
Gonsalves Ribeiro.2 In order to show the clearness of Buchanan's
hand-writing at this period, the first page of the manuscript of
this Defence, ending with the words " et qui a veteru institutis
destiuissent," has been reproduced by photography (Plate II.)
and is here given in English:3—

"I, George Buchanan, by nationality a Scot, of the diocese of Glasgow,
say as follows : —

When criminal proceedings were ordered against the Lutherans in 1539,
I had some fear for myself on several accounts. In the first place, nearly two
years before, I had a dispute with a certain Franciscan as to the Scots form of
process in capital offences, specially heresy. As I had recently returned from
France and was better acquainted with the practice of French courts, I
expressed my surprise that in Scotland men were liable to be condemned on
testimony given by persons who were not disclosed to them, and sometimes
even by their personal enemies. No one, however innocent, could escape
being entrapped, if he had enviers or enemies. I had in my mind a recent
example. An accused merchant had craved his judges to reject certain
persons who were his deadly enemies, but his plea had been disallowed.

As the Franciscan's conduct of this discussion failed to satisfy those who
were present, he began to scatter many injurious suspicions of me among the
common people. By way of retaliation, I translated into Latin verse an old
Scots epigram, the meaning of which I have already explained. After that
we fought it out on both sides with hatred and abuse, and many insults were
bandied to and fro, but without any attack on anything which touched
religion.

Meanwhile it happened that a conspiracy at Court was being investigated,
and the king made up his mind that the Franciscans were in its secrets. In
his anger against them, not ignorant of the footing of hostility on which they
and I stood, he commanded and, as some most eminent persons well know,
and the Franciscans themselves are well aware, compelled me to write a
satire against them. As the Franciscans had never ceased from traducing
me in all manner of ways, I made my satire somewhat more sharp than I had
intended, but I certainly cast no reflection on the Christian religion, and I
expressly protested that against the Order or against good Franciscans of the
type of older times I said nothing, but attacked only the dissolute members
of the Order who had broken away from the ancient rule."

1 The whole Defence is to bo found in Appendix I. of this volume.

2 Friar Jorge Gonsalves Ribeiro was connected as assessor with the Holy
Office in Lisbon for thirty years.

3 The following translations of parts of the Defence are by Professor
Kennedy of Aberdeen.

BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL-PLATE II.

frwifcmt tfWHtfim eif ft

fit

tiTLA rr a.ttit .'*

we *i/.r /ir*

t.ipi, Ctffy

, w

' " /• -i no,.

fiYii,r,'t Ifc

" '

First page of Buchanan's first statement of his DEFENCE to the Inquisiton.

BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL-PLATE III.

La*f pane of Buchanans first statement of his DEFENCE to the Inquisition.

Buchanan in Portugal 71

The last page of the same Defence, beginning at the words
" petunt ea quae a deo peti debent," is also reproduced (Plate
III.) and has been translated as follows: —

[" Of prayers to Saints, according to ancient custom, in which we either
entreat them to intercede for us, or in remembrance of them ask anything of
God, I have always approved. But many of these prayers seemed to me
superstitious, in which those who pray] ask from the Saints alone what ought
to be asked of God, — things which are supposed to be a remedy against various
evils, for example, wounds and fever.

1 In England I saw pictures of various kinds, which I sometimes explained,
while in France, to those who asked about them. Some of these I had seen
in Scotland, which the Ambassador from England, the Bishop of St. David's,
had brought with him, and which disturbed the minds of not a few.

With regard to Images, I approved of what I saw being done in England,
namely, that such Images as were being worshipped superstitiously (for
example, an image of the Crucified One,2 which went through the motions of
nodding, laughing, and expressing other feelings, and the image darvr.l
dadtzim s) should be removed, but that all others should remain, and that at
least four times a year the priest should explain to the people the true mean-
ing and use of Images and other ceremonies which were deemed necessary
for the people.

Of Judaism I have not thought at all. As to the sect of Anabaptists, I
do not yet know what it is.

Epicureans I have always, in every society, testified agaiast, not only in
converse, but by my poems.

As to books, I have none which are not old. There is nothing which, in
every place, I have been more careful to impress upon my scholars than that
they should abstain from reading new books in any department of knowledge
until they have first thoroughly perused the old.

That by Babylon and by the woman in the Apocalypse, Rome is signified,
I was at one time inclined to think. But when I reflected with myself that
all interpretations of prophetic references to the future were dangerous, and
that for the most part these could not be understood until the event made
them clear, I instantly suspended my judgment and was easily content, like
many others, to remain, on this point, in ignorance. —I, George Buchanan,
have with my own hand written and subscribed."

On the 1st of September 1550 he was again examined at
great length by Jerome and Ambrosius Campello as to his
religious doubts and errors, the result being that he filed an
Appendix to his first statement. 4

1 Omitted here is the translation of a passage which it is difficult to fit
into its proper place. It refers to certain pictures.

2 Probably the Crucifix of Boxley in Kent.

3 Probably the famous image at Dovercourt in Suffolk.

4 See Appendix I.

72 Buchanan in Portugal

Ten days later Oleaster and Jorge Gonsalves Ribeiro again
sent for him and sought to persuade him to accuse other
persons. They repeated their efforts on the 17th of September,
but each time without result, and then he was left in peace
until the llth of October when he underwent a short
examination by the same Judges, as to eating meat on days of
abstinence.

Two other examinations took place, on the 12th of December
1550 and the 7th of January 1551, the first before Ambrosius
Campello, and the second before Friar Jorge de Santiago, but
the prisoner was again left to his reflections until the 15th May
1551, in the interval and without his knowledge some evidence
being taken with reference to a pardon from the Pope, of which
he alleged that he had availed himself when in France.
Eventually, at the suggestion of one of the Judges — the Bishop
of Angra, he withdrew his claim to this Pardon, a copy of
which the Inquisitors appear to have obtained, as it is filed on
the Records. It is manifestly only a secular pardon from
Francis, King of France.

In July 1551 sentence was pronounced upon Buchanan,
condemning him to make public abjuration of his errors before
the Inquisitors and their Officers, and to be confined during the
pleasure of the former in a Convent which they would appoint,
where he was to occupy himself in things for the good of his
salvation.

This sentence, of the latter part of which a facsimile is given
in Plate IV., has been fully translated from the Portuguese:1 —

" The Commissioners of the Holy Inquisition and the (Judge) Ordinary
concur, that, whereas having seen how by these documents and the confession
of the culprit, Master George Buchanan, a Scotsman, it is shewn that he, a
Christian, was departing from our Holy Catholic Faith and from the Holy
Mother Church, hesitating and doubting in matters of faith for the space of
three years, frequently resting in Lutheran opinions, holding that the body of
our Lord was not present in the Sacrament of the Mass, except as a symbol
and not in reality, and often doubting and wavering in regard to this, doubt-
ing also as to the Mass being any sacrifice, and also doubting and hesitating
in the Article of Purgatory, holding, as it were, that we are justified by faith
alone, holding also and believing that it was no sin if one did not confess at
the seasons appointed by the Holy Mother Church, there being no offence in
this, and holding that the Ordinance of Confession was human and not divine,

1 This has been translated by Rev. R. M. Lithgow of Lisbon, whose kind
services in securing the photographs of the documents necessitated much time
and trouble.

BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL-PLATE IV.

. •• :. ' -

<^3S5»"9E #>%$P$**

*tt™Jvm£is&x£ai- !««<••

„ ^ ~^; irf'trh'm M><? Iff^e ^

^^~,

Last page of ..VS. containing the sentence of the Inquisition on Buchanan.

Buchanan in Portugal 73

and that it surely was no sin to disobey human laws, there not being any
offence or injury to another in this ; it also seeming to him that he need not
obey the ordinance of the Church in regard to abstention from meat on the
forbidden days, and that it was better to go direct to God than to the saints,
all which errors are disallowed as Lutheran heresies and condemned by Holy
Mother Church. Seeing all which, with what more is set forth in the docu-
ments, and seeing besides how he, the culprit, moved by true and sound
counsel, came at length to recognise his errors and, with many signs of
repentance, to beseech for them pardon of our Lord and the mercy of the
Holy Mother Church, with whatever else appears from the said documents —
the culprit, Master George, be received to the Reconciliation, Union, and
Mercy of Holy Mother Church as he requests, and that he be required in
penance to make public formal abjuration of his errors before the Inquisitors
and their Officers at an audience, and to stay within the convent prescribed as
his prison for such time as appears good to the said Inquisitors, where he
shall occupy himself in certain devotional exercises and things necessary for
his salvation, and they decree that this shall bo made absolute in the ecclesi-
astical form of excommunication which has been incurred.

THE BISHOP OF ANGRA. AMBKOSIUS, DOCTOR.

FRIAR GEOROIUS SANCTI JACOBI. FRIAR HIERONYMUS D'AZAMBUJA.
IMAXUKL, DOCTOR. FRIAR JORGE GONSALVES RIBEIRO

MARTIN LOPEZ LOBO." *

On the 29th of that month he made abjuration, and was
absolved from the Excommunication which he had incurred.

The first monks who were requested to receive the
Scottish Humanist excused themselves on the ground
that the only accommodation they could offer was poor.
The Convent selected for his period of penance was that of
Saint Bento, belonging to the Secular Canons of Saint John
the Evangelist, in the locality formerly known as Xabregas,
but now called Beato Antonio. After the extinction of the
Religious Orders, it was converted into a steam flour mill
owned by Senhor Joam de Brito. Friar Peter of Saint John,
the Prior of that House, expressed in the following letter to one
of the Inquisitors his willingness to receive and lodge the peni-
tent to the best of his ability : —

' ' REVEREND FATHER, — Your Reverence must not be surprised if the
accommodation for this penitent is not very comfortable, as the House itself
and the division thereof will allow of no better. As your Reverence assures
that his residence will not be for long, the monks and myself have agreed to
obey the Cardinal Infante and your good selves, and to do what you have

1 Martin Lopez Lobo was a deputy of the Inquisition, and an assessor to
the Court.

74 Buchanan in Portugal

ordered. You can send him whenever you like, and he will have to put up
with whatever there is in the way of lodging because we can do no more for
our Lord."

Buchanan was sent there, where he remained until the 17th of
December 1551. That day Friar Jorge de Santiago went to the
Convent and informed him that the Cardinal Prince had been
pleased to grant him permission to reside in Lisbon, but that
he was not to leave the city. On the last day of February
1552, Buchanan attended at the Inquisition to receive his final
order of freedom. The letter, signed by the Cardinal Prince,
in which Master Friar Jorge de Santiago was ordered to
acquaint Buchanan that he was to be allowed to leave the
Convent, can be seen (Plate V.). It reads, when rendered into
English, as follows : —

" Master Friar Jorge de Santiago,

The Cardinal Prince sends you much greeting.

It is my pleasure to release Master Joham da Costa and Master George
Buchanan, so that they may quit the monasteries in which they now are, and
go to the city ; but they will not leave it without my further orders. I
therefore charge you to make this known, and to cause that it be so done.
Should you and the other Deputies think fit to release them, and allow them
to leave the City, you may order the permits to be drawn up in such form as
you think best, and send them to me to be signed.

Written at Evora, on the 13th of December, Joham de Sande did this in

THE CARDINAL PRIHOK."

The Final Warrant for Release, which is among the
documents, is thus expressed : l—

"On the last day of February, 1552, at Lisbon, in the Despatch House of
the Inquisition, there being present the Reverend Senhor the Master-Priest,
Friar George de Santiago, Inquisitor, and the Deputies of the Inquisition,
they ordered Master George Buchanan to be brought, and told him that the
Senhor Cardinal Prince, Inquisitor General, had seen fit to grant him a full
dispensation, so that he might go away ; and they recommended him that
ever in his work he should associate with good and pious Christians, and
should confess himself often, and so live to our Lord as a good Christian ;
and he said that he would do so.

AMTONIO RIAZ, Secretary."2

The conclusions at which I arrive, after a careful
examination of the three Records, are that the Inquisition, in
view of the evidence sent from Pans and the reports which

1 Translated from the Portugxiese by Rev. R. M. Lithgow.

2 Antonio Riaz was an Apostolic notary.

BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL— PLATE V

I A> / /- / e^i c-/^ , L jr.*

Intimation of Jiefeaxc.

Buchanan in Portugal 75

had undoubtedly reached the Judges, both from Coimbra and
Lisbon, had sufficient grounds (according to the usages of that
period) for proceeding against the three professors.
Buchanan's nationality did not influence his Judges against
him, for his sentence was precisely the same as those of the
other two defendants ; and it cannot be said that it was severe.
From the standpoint of the Inquisition his own confessions
were sufficient to condemn him ; but the fact of his confessing
rendered him more deserving of mercy.

The Records of Buchanan's trial shew that his behaviour
throughout that painful period was prudent and proper.
Compared with his earlier imprudences, it even creates the
impression that some one privately advised him as to the best
course to follow. He acted properly because, from the first
examination to the last and in spite of all the efforts which, as
was the custom, were made to induce him to denounce others to
the Court, he steadfastly declined to do so.

He was prudent because he, at the outset, disarmed the
prosecution by confessing how he had doubted and wavered,
and how he had strengthened himself in the Faith, and
obtained pardon for his errors, before coming to Portugal. All
through the proceedings, he gave proof of admirable coolness,
astuteness and courage. He compromised neither friend nor
enemy. He did not bluster at the commencement — as Costa
did, or abjectly pray for mercy afterwards — as both Costa
and Teive did. Either he had great courage or he had reason
to believe that the Inquisition was favourably disposed towards
him, and that the most he had to fear was detention for a
longer or shorter term.

It is said that Buchanan asked for and received a promise
from the King of Portugal that he would protect him while in
his dominions ; but I presume that no proof of this exists. He
alleged nothing of the kind in his pleadings. In fact, the
Royal Authority, in any Catholic country, could only avail him
as regarded the pains and penalties of the Civil Law ; the King
of Portugal was as powerless as the King of Scotland in

ecclesiastical matters.

* # * #

As a fitting conclusion to this chapter, a short notice of
Buchanan's fellow-prisoners and of the Inquisitor who took the
most active part in his trial will be of some interest.

76 Buchanan in Portugal

JOAM DA COSTA was born at Villa Nova de Portimao. He
made abjuration of his errors on the same day as the others,
the 29th of July 1551 ; he obtained permission to leave the
Convent of Saint Eloy, in Lisbon, on the 17th of December
1551, and was finally released on the 4th of February 1552.
At the time of his decease which took place a short time before
the battle of Alcacer-Kibir, fought on the 4th of August 1578,
he was Prior of the Mother Church of the town of Aveiro,
dedicated to Saint Michael.

DIOGO DE TEIVE abjured on the 29th of July 1551, entered
the Convent of Belem near Lisbon on the 31st of that month to
perform his penance, left it on the 14th of the following Sep-
tember, by permission of the Cardinal Prince granted in con-
sideration of his state of health and because the monks required
the room which he was occupying, and was finally set
free on the 22nd of September. Eventually he seems to have
returned to the Royal College of Coimbra, for it was to him,
as Principal, that Dom John III. addressed, on the 10th of
September 1555, the Order to hand over that establishment to
Diogo Mirao — the Provincial of the Jesuits.

He was a native of Braga, — the ' Bracara Augusta ' of the
Romans. He wrote several works in Latin, a collection of
which, edited by Jose Caetano de Mesquita, was published at
Paris in 1762. In a short biography with which Mesquita
prefaced his book he says : ' ' Jacobus Tevius Bracarae
Augustae in Lusitania natus, humanioribus litteris et Jure
civili instituendus Parisios se contulit ; ubi quantum in his
studiis profecerit vividi elegantisque ingenii adolescens, facile
ex eo intelligitur, quod Burdigalenses suam in urbem eum
adsciverint, ut una cum Mureto et Buchanano (quibus viris!)
humaniores litteras publice profiteretur." It was upon one of
Teive's works, the Commentarius de Rebus apud Dium gestis,
Buchanan wrote these lines : —

Cum tua sceptra Asiae gens Europaeque timeret,

Et tremeret fasces terra Lybissa tuos :
Jamque jugi patiens Indus, nee turpe putaret

A Domino Ganges poscere jura Tago :
Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque

Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem :
Et quaecumque vago se circumvolrit Olympo,

Luceret ratibus flamnia ministra tuis :
Gaudebat tibi devictus, sibi redditus orbis,

Nosse suos fines, justitiamque tuam.

CONVENT OF SAINT BENTO, XABREGAS, LISBON.
(Where Buchanan was imprisoned).

FRONT VIEW.

BACK VIEW.

Buchanan in Portugal 77

Una aberatque oberatque tuis Mors saeva triumphis,

Carpere victricem scilicet ausa manum.
Et comes huic tenebris niaa est oblivio caecis

Fortia magnanimum condere facta ducum ;
Donee Apollineis se Tevius induit armis,

Et spolia e victa Morte superba tulit ;
Victurisque jubet chartis juvenescere vitae

Prodiga pro Patriae pectora laude suae,
Proque aevi paucis, quos Mors praeciderat, annis

Reddit ab aeterna posteritate decus.
Jure ergo invictus Bex es : quando omnia vincens

Accessit titulis Mors quoque victa tuis.1

The CARDINAL INFANTE or CARDINAL PRINCE HENRY was a
younger son of Emmanuel, King of Portugal (1495-1521),
brother of that King John III. (1521-1557) who to the ruin
of his country set up the Inquisition in it, and uncle of
Sebastian (1557-1578), upon whose death in Africa on an
expedition against the Moors, this Henry succeeded as last
King of Portugal (1578-1580) prior to the Spanish usurpation
under Philip II. The Cardinal was Grand Inquisitor during
the reigns of his brother and nephew, and only succeeded to
the throne when an old dotard.

FRIAR HIERONIMO D'AZAMBUJA, the Judge most often
referred to in the Records, is known to foreign writers as
Jerome Oleaster, the latter name being the Latin equivalent of
his surname of Azambuja — ' the wild Olive tree ' — but which
really is the name of the place at which he is said to have been
born. A curious point of this monk's parentage was discussed
by me in Vol II. of my Ineditos Goesianos, page 183 et seq.

He was a Dominician and took the vows of that Order, in
the Batalha Monastery on the 6th of October 1520. Having
shewn signs of exceptional ability, he was admitted to the
College of St. Thomas in Coimbra on the 8th of December
1525, to teach Humanities and Theology in which he held the
Degree of Doctor. Having been selected by Dom John III to
take part in the Council of Trent, he arrived there on the 19th
of December 1545, and created some sensation at the sitting
which was held on the 7th of the following January. Upon his
return he was offered the See of St. Thomas, but declined
it. In 1551 he was unanimously elected Provincial of his

1 Those verses are to be found in Opera Buchanani Tome II. , P. 102, —
there included in the Poemata Fragmenta "quae nunquam an tea cum aliis ejus
operibus edita fuerant."

78 Buchanan in Portugal

Order, but was requested by his Royal Master not to accept the
post. The following year, while Prior of the Batalha Convent,
he was named by the Cardinal Prince to be Inquisitor of the
Holy Office of Evora, which post he occupied from the 2nd of
September, 1552, until the llth of October, 1555, when he passed
to the Lisbon Inquisition with the same rank. The documents
of Buchanan's trial and, in fact, many others shew that he
acted as Inquisitor in Lisbon long before that year. On the
llth of June, 1557, he had the honour, with an Augustine
Monk, of putting the shroud upon the mortal remains of his
King and master; and, in 1560, he was again elected
Provincial of his Order for two years. He died at the
beginning of 1563, in the Lisbon Convent of Saint Dominic.

Herculano, the celebrated author of the Historia da Origem
e Estabelecimento da Znquisifdo em Portugal, says of him, in
Vol. III., page 329:-

"As a matter of fact, the converted Jews were not only taken prisoners,
but were put to the torture without sufficient prima facie evidence. The
celebrated Oleaster, or Friar Jerome of Azambuja, a man of high literary
reputation, had distinguished himself in this species of rigour, and disputed
with Joam de Mello the palm of cruelty. So great had been his excesses,
that the Prince found himself forced to dismiss him. Dom Henrique con-
fessed to the Nuncio that Oleaster had gone beyond all bounds of moderation."

This was the man who, according to Buchanan, took some
pains to instruct him in religious matters.

Edited from the MS. of G. J. C. H.

VIII.

Buchanan and Mary.

THE relationship which existed between Buchanan and Mary has
puzzled nearly every biographer of the Queen. During her early
days in Scotland the poems and epigrams addressed by Buchanan
to Mary imply the tender solicitude of a teacher towards his
pupil, who was dear to him as much because of her personal
qualities as her exalted rank. Then came the tragic incident of
the murder of Darnley, and at once the loving pedagogue
became the virulent accuser, not over-scrupulous in his assertions
of her guilt, and even, as Sir James Melville states, " cairless "
as to the truth of the facts which he boldly alleged against her.
This change of front — almost as great as any inconsistency which
he alleged against Lethington in The (Jhamcdeon, has divided
Buchanan's critics into opposing camps. There are those who
maintain that only overwhelming evidence of Mary's duplicity
and turpitude could have effected such a change ; and the mere
fact of her old friend Buchanan turning against her is advanced
as a convincing proof of her guilt. But there are also those who
allege that Buchanan was a mercenary time-server, ready to
place his venal pen at the command of the highest bidder, and
with a decided preference for the cause of his feudal chief,
the Earl of Lennox. Probably the truth lies between these
extremes. To reconcile the eulogistic verses of Buchanan,
addressed to Queen Mary before and after her marriage to
Darnley, with the vitriolic spleen against her displayed in the
Detectio, one must carefully consider the positions of the two
parties. Buchanan was a humanist of wide experience, in touch
with the leaders of thought on the Continent, and able to hold
his own among the most learned. But, as John Hill Burton
remarks, " his rich genial mind was coated with a sort of crust
of austerity. It was not in his nature to be a fanatic, but he
took to the Presbyterian side as the opponent of royal preroga-

80 Buchanan and Mary

tive and a vainglorious hierarchy." More than this is necessary
to explain Buchanan's apparent animosity to Queen Mary.
Beneath all his culture there was the old Scottish notion of the
absolute duty of fidelity to his feudal chief. This was engrained
in the Scottish spirit of the time ; and by its predominance alone
can Buchanan's revulsion from Queen Mary be explained.

Fundamentally, Buchanan accepted the Athenian doctrine of
the right of the people to remove by violence an obnoxious ruler ;
yet he did not perceive that the thraldom of a vassal to his
superior, or of a clansman to his chief, involved a far worse form
of tyranny than could be exercised by a crowned head. And to
that thraldom, with eminently human inconsistency, Buchanan
was himself enslaved. Admitting the existing fact of Mary's
hereditary right to rule, yet somewhat subdued from active
opposition by her mental gifts and the graces of her charming
personality, he did not raise his voice directly against her when
he returned to Scotland ; nay, he wrote numerous eulogies upon
her, never once hinting at the Republican notions that lay at the
back of his brain. As a Protestant, Buchanan theoretically
should have been as violently opposed to Mary's marriage with
Darnley as was Knox and the Lords of the Congregation. To
them the proposed union appeared as a prelude to the restora-
tion of Catholicism and the destruction of the Protestant Refor-
mation. Why did Buchanan not join with them in denouncing
this marriage as hateful to the people, and perilous as threaten-
ing their eternal welfare ? True, he had celebrated her marriage
with the Dauphin in the famous Epithalamium, which is one of
the memorable examples of Scottish Latinity of the time ; but
that was in a Catholic country, and addressed to fervent
Catholics. Here, in Scotland, when Catholicism had been
deposed (with Buchanan's aid), from its proud pre-eminence,
it seemed like treachery to the Protestant cause for him to
commend the union in similarly deathless strains. Why did he do so ?
Professor Hume Brown has caught a glimpse of the only
reasonable explanation, though he has not carried out the
argument to its conclusion. He writes: — "There was a
reason, which must have had a weight of its own in determining
the view which Buchanan took of Mary's second marriage.
Darnley was the son of the head of the Clan Lennox, and in
his exaltation to the throne Buchanan would see the glorification
of the clan to which he himself belonged. Buchanan would

QUEEN MA11Y.

(From (he engraving in Volume. II. of the. 17 ~ 2 edition of Buchanan*
' History.' )

Buchanan and Mary 81

have been no good Scotsman had he not been susceptible to
such feelings, and Buchanan was a Scotsman to the core." No
doubt this is true, and largely accounts for the poet's apparent
inconsistency. But it has not occurred to Professor Hume
Brown that this very clan-instinct, which made Buchanan
approve of the elevation of the chief's son to the throne, was
equally potent in turning Buchanan's devotion to the Queen
into violent and unreasoning animosity at a later stage. He
saw Darnley raised to eminence, and he joyfully approved.
Possibly he did not know, as we do, how utterly unworthy
Darnley was of the position, or he was blinded by clan-partial-
ity to the defects of the young chief, as many a gallant High-
lander was at Sheriffmuir and Culloden. Buchanan must have
known of the bickerings in the royal household, and probably
blamed the Queen rather than his own kinsman. And when the
tragic episode of Darnley's murder occurred, with all the mystery
by which it was surrounded, Buchanan's first thought was that
it was the outcome of an old clan-feud by which the Hamiltons
sought to remove Darnley, slay the Queen and the infant Prince,
and clear the way for their own succession to the throne. A
careful examination of Buchanan's partisan pamphlet A ne
Admonitioiin direct to the Trew Lordis maintenars of Justice
and obedience to the Kingis Grace, first published in 1571, will
show the progress of his reflection upon the incident of the
murder. Finding that his "Hamilton" theory did not fully
explain the murder, and hearing the false rumour that the
Queen had attempted to poison her infant son at Stirling,
Buchanan plainly began to suspect Mary of the double crime,
and asociated Both well with her as an accomplice.

Another circumstance which must have weighed with Buchanan
in turning him against the Queen was the outspoken animosity
of his chief the Earl of Lennox, and of Mary's kinswoman, the
Countess of Lennox, against their daughter-in-law. Here the
clanship influence became predominant. As a vassal, it was no
part of Buchanan's duty to question the wisdom of his chief; it
was his to make no reply, but to devote all his literary powers to-
wards the avenging of the murder of his young master. It is
not necesary to suppose that a bribe was offered to purchase his
pen. For Buchanan it was enough that his dream of Darnley's
kingly position had been dispelled, and it was his duty to save
Darnley's son — his own possible chief — from the dangers that
G

82 Buchanan and Mary

threatened. He believed that could best be done by proving
that the Queen had consented to the murder of Darnley, and was
therefore no fit person to be entrusted with the care of Darnley's
son. Here the Republican notions which he had suppressed
during his personal intimacy with Mary broke forth in full force.
His Detcctioun of the Doingis of Marie, Qnene of Scots, as
the first translation of his Latin pamphlet is called, was an
attempt to vindicate the deposition of the Queen as a murderess
and adulteress, and plainly claims the right to remove such a
ruler from power. By a strange and wilful blindness, Buchanan
did not see that he was confuted by his own arguments. If Mary
should be removed with violence because of murder and adultery,
then surely Darnley, the murderer of Riccio and one of the
worst libertines in a dissolute Court was equally worthy of death.
But the Earl of Lennox thought differently, and Buchanan
followed his chief. Without agreeing with Mr. Hosack in his
denunciation of Buchanan as " the prince of literary prosti-
tutes," or believing, with him, that Buchanan, was " first the
sycophant and then the slanderer of his Sovereign, his pen was
ever at the service of the highest bidder," one may admit that
there is some truth in Hosack's remark that " Nothing can be
more finished than some of his laudatory verses upon Mary ;
nothing can be more ridiculous than the gross exaggerations of
the ' Detection.' ' These, after all, are merely further proofs that
perfect consistency is not to be expected from any human being.
The marriage of Mary and Francis, the Dauphin of France,
took place at Paris in January, 1558-9. At that time Buchanan
was tutor to the son of the Marechal de Brissac, and was pro-
bably in Paris ; indeed, it has been asserted that some of the
inscriptions on the wedding-banners were written by him. His
famous Epithalamium while extolling the bold and hardy
Scottish race, revives the memory of the traditional alliance with
France which dated from the time of Charlemagne ; and claims
that the Scots had ever maintained their freedom : —

So was it, when of old each land,
A prey to every spoiler's hand,
Its ancient laws and rulers lost,
The Scot alone could freedom boast !
The Goth, the Saxon, and the Dane
Poured on the Scot their powers in vain ;
And the proud Norman met a foe
Who gave him equal blow for blow.

Buchanan and Mary 83

At this period Buchanan was a supporter of Catholicism. In a
few years he returned to Scotland, joined the Protestant party,
and did his best to break up the French Alliance which he had
so strongly commended. When Buchanan's name next appears
in connection with Mary, in January 1561-2, she was a young
widow on her ancestral Scottish throne, and he was acting as her
tutor, reading Livy with her daily, as Randolph, the English
resident at the Scottish Court, declares. It was quite natural
that Mary should be attracted towards Buchanan, though he
was then over fifty-five years old, and somewhat ill-favoured.
Buchanan had long been in touch with the best literary circles
of France and Italy ; he could discourse upon literature, ancient
and modern, could write graceful and complimentary verses to
the Queen and her Four Maries, and supplied a link with her
happy early days in France. Her own poetic gifts, inherited
from her ancestor, James I., were not to be despised, even when
some of the poems wrongly assigned to her are deducted. French
was the language of her childhood, and she learned Italian at
the Court of Katherine de Medici, and could indite verses in
both tongues, while Latin was familiar to her. It has been
suggested that, at a later date, the secret of Bothwell's success
with Mary was his knowledge of French literature and customs.
Buchanan, therefore, could take a much wider range, and from
the literary side was more desirable than the bold Earl.
Certainly, Buchanan was on the best of terms with the Queen
and Court.

It has been urged against Buchanan that he was a mercenary
poet, measuring out his lines according to the gold paid for
them. This accusation is hardly fair. He certainly wrote
begging poems; but so did Dunbar to James IV., and Sir David
Lyndesay to James V. It was the fashion of the time; and, in-
deed, the formal Dedications of books, which survived till the
beginning of last century, were simply a dignified form of
begging.

Two emotions acted upon Buchanan when he wrote his poem
on the baptism of James VI. in December, 1566, — his respect for
the Queen, and his feudal duty to the infant grandson of his
chief, the Earl of Lennox. These feelings had already brought
forth his more impassioned poem on the birth of that Prince, in
which he plainly declared the duty of the King as the ensample
to his people. But the finest and best known of Buchanan's

84 Buchanan and Mary

poems addressed to Queen Mary is the dedication which he pre-
fixed to his Latin version of the Psalms of David, the first edition
of which was printed in Paris about 1565. The opening lines
and the expressive translation, by Dr. Hutchison, Rector of the
High School, Glasgow, are as follows : —

Nympha, Caledoniae quae nunc felioitor orae

Missa per innumeros sceptra tueris avos ;
Quae sortem antevenis meritis, virtutibus annos,

Sexum animis, morum nobilitate genus,
Accipe (sed facilis) cultu donata Latino

Carmina, fatidici nobile regis opus.

0 Lady of an ancient race,

Who Scotia's throne dost nobly grace,

Surpassing by thy merits great

Thy royal dignity of state :

Thy virtues far beyond thy years,

Thy mind above all woman's spheres,

And high as is thy royal birth,

How far beneath thy native worth !

Accept the noble gift I bring —

The Psalms of Israel's prophet- king

Set forth in numbers erewhile sung

By masters of the Latin tongue.

No polished odes from Grecian hand

Expect from this far northern land.

Yet ventured I not to disdain

The puny offspring of my brain :

Since thou hast pleasure found in these

My verses, me they'll not displease.

But though scant praise bestowed be

On graces of my poetry,

My verses still perchance will show

How much to a kind heart they owe.

Buchanan was not allowed to go unrewarded for his literary
labours at the Court of Queen Mary, though the poet — as is
often the case with members of that irritable genus — died in
poverty. If he sold his pen to the highest bidder, as some of
his detractors assert, and betrayed the Queen who had be-
friended him, then the price of his treachery was little profitable
to him. Whether he assisted John Wood in " faking the Casket
Letters " cannot definitely be known, though he certainly had a
share in preparing the so-called evidence against the Queen.
These later years of Buchanan's life are not attractive to some
people. More pleasant, however, is it to remember the learned

Buchanan and Mary 85

" Scot abroad " writing verses to the young Dauphiness in Paris;
or to picture the middle-aged scholar at St. Andrews, with his
queenly pupil, now deeply engaged in the study of Latin history,
and anon gaily capping verses with each other, and grinding
gerunds and irregular verbs into the form of epigrammatic gems
that have retained their lustre till the present day.

A. H. M.

IX.

George Buchanan and Crossraguel Abbey.

IN the muniments pertaining to the Abbey of Crossraguel, most
of which are in the Charter Chest of the Marquis of Ailsa at
Culzean, and were, through the courtesy of that nobleman, re-
produced twenty years ago in the publications of the Ayrshire
and Galloway Archaeological Association (an association now,
alas! defunct), there are several references to George Buchanan.
There is no evidence that he ever resided in that Ayrshire mon-
astery, but he was, as he styles himself, " Pensionarius de Cross-
raguel," and was practically owner of it. It was in the year
1564 that Queen Mary rewarded his great literary attainments,
and personal services to her, by this gift. The document
conferring it is interesting, and may be quoted in full : —

" Ane Lettre maid to Maistre George Buchquhannane, for all
the dayis of his liffe, of the Gift of an zeirlie pensionne of the
sowme of fyve hundreth pundis usuale money of this realme, to
be zeirlie uptakiu be him, his factoris and servitouris in his
name, at twa termes in the zeir, Whitsounday and Martimes in
Winter, be equale portionis, of the reddiest fruittis and emoli-
mentis of the Abbay of Corsragwell now vacand and being in hir
Majesties handis throw the deceis of umquhile Master Quintene
Kennedie last abbot thairof. And for payment of the said
zeirlie pensioun, assigns to him the haill temporalitie of the said
Abbay, with the place, manss, orchardis, mains, woodis, coil-
heuchis, and the pertinentis quhatsumevir pertaining thairto :
with power to him to set and rais the said temporalitie, outputt
and imputt the tennentis thairof, and otherwise to use the samyn
als frelie and in all sortis as the said umquhile abbote mycht
have in his liftyme. And gife the samyn sail not be fundin
sufficient and eneuch for zeirlie payment of the same soume of
fyve hundreth poundis, in that case hir Majestie assignis to
him sa mekle as he sail inlaik of the said temporalitie, of the

,***- fc

George Buchanan and Crossraguel Abbey 87

reddiest teyndis and fruitis of the spiritualitie of the said
Abbaye, viz., of the Kirkis of Girvane and Kirkoswald belang-
and thairto. And that the said Lettre, etc.

" At Halirud hous the nynt days of Octobre the zeir of God,
M.Vc Lxiv. zeris."

But George Buchanan, or " his factoris and servitouris,"
never saw much of the money involved here. Their first trouble
was with the Earl of Caesilis, the head of the great house of
Kennedy, whose relationship with the Abbey was close, not only
through his maternal descent from the Earl of Carrick, who
founded it, and because the last two Abbots, William and
Quentiu, were nearly related to him, but because his territory
lay all around it, and

" From Wigtown to the touu of Ayr,
Portpatrick to the cruives of Cree,
Man need not think for to bide there
Unless he court with Kennedie."

Buchanan was well acquainted with this family. He had been
tutor for several years to Earl Gilbert, resided with him in Paris
for some time, and later dwelt under his roof in Ayrshire, where
he wrote the S omnium. Buchanan had a high opinion of this
nobleman — he died in 1558 on his way home from the marriage
of Mary with the Dauphin, under strong suspicion of having
been poisoned by the Guises — and now it was his son he had to
contend with for the payment of his income. On October 16th,
1564, he brought an action or " complaint" against him before
the Privy Council, and won his case. We give here the
" Order " in his favour, a document interesting in itself, apart
from its connection with George Buchanan : —

" Apud Edinburgh, xvj Octobris, anno M.Vc Lxiiijo
Sederunt : Jacobus Moravie Comes, Archibaldus
Ergadie Comes, Jacobus Comes de Mortoun Cancellarius
Joannes Atholie Comes, Patricius dominus Ruthven,
Secretarius, Thesaurarius, Clericus Registri, Clericus
Justiciarie, Advocatus.

The quhilk day, anent the complaint maid be Maister George
Buchquhannan, makand mentioun that quhair he hes be gift of
our Sovrane Lady for all the dayis of his lyff, ane yeirlie
pensioun of the soum of Vc li to be yeirlie uptaken
of the frutis and emolumentis of the Abbay of Cora-

88 George Buchanan and Crossraguel Abbey

ragwell, and for payment thairof thair is assignit to him the
haill temporalitie of the said Abbay with the place, mania, wod,
and pertinentis thairof; nevertheles, Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis
hes, sen the deceis of the last Abbot of Corsragwell, entirit with-
in the place and abbay thairof, withholdis, and on na wayis will
deliver the samyn to the said Maister George, without he be
compellit, lyke as at mair lenth is contendit in the said com-
plaint. The saidis Erie of Cassilis and Maister George com-
perand bayth personallie, the Loidis of Secreit Counsall ordanis
lettres to be direct simpliciter to charge the said Gilbert Earl of
Cassilis to deliver the said abbay and place of Crosragwell, with
the orchartis and yardis thairof, to the said Maister George, or
ony in his name havand his power in his name to ressave the
samyn within six dayis nixt eftir the charge, undir the pane of
rebellioun: and gif he failze, the said six dayis being bipast, to
put him to the home. And as to the remanent pointis of the
said complaint, referris the samyn to the decisioun of the Lordis
of Counsal and Sessioun ; ordinand the said Maister George to
persew befoir thame or uther ordiner jugeis as he thinkis caus."
But soon another trouble emerged for Buchanan, for in July
1565 Queen Mary, in all likelihood annoyed at his Protestant-
ism— by this time he was a regular member of the General
Assembly and on important Committees there — revoked her deed
of gift by handing over Crossraguel to Allan Stewart, the son or
younger brother of James Stewart of Cardonald, a stout adherent
of hers, and of her mother, the Queen Dowager, before her. She
styles him in her deed " our lovit clerk, Maistre Allan Stewart,"
and though he is generally spoken of as the Commendator of
Crossraguel, it is also correct to speak of him as the Abbot. He
was not a layman, but a priest, and his Abbacy was confirmed
by the Archbishop of St. Andrews as Primate and Legate, and
further ratified by the Pope himself, Pius V. Still the grant
from the Queen was purely secular, and might with equal effect
have been made to a layman in conimendam. We need not say any-
thing further about this Commendator or Abbot, except that he
appears to have been a somewhat cantankerous man, and very
anxious to turn as much of his property as possible into ready
cash. He was at daggers drawn with the Earl of Cassilis, who
somehow the very next year obtained a lease of the Abbey from
the Queen and Darnley, and the bickerings between the Abbot
and the Earl led to the roasting of the former in the Black

George Buchanan and Crossraguel Abbey 89

Vault of Dunure, a method of torture adopted by the Earl to
get the Abbot to sign certain documents. Curiously enough
Buchanan himself was in danger of " roasting" or other rough
treatment from this ghoulish lord of Carrick, for in the narrative
of " The Imprisonment and Rescue of Abbot Allan from
Dunure " in Bannatyne's Memorial*!, we read that when the
Privy Council took the matter up and came to a decision they
" ordained and commanded Gilbert Erie Cassilis to find cautione

and sovcrtie that he or none that he may lett, sail invaid,

molest, nor persew the said Mr Allane Stewart in his bodie ; nor
yit meddle or iutromett with his place and leving of Crosraguell,
or uptak the fructis rentis proffeitis or dewiteis therof otherwayis
nor be ordour of law and iustice under the paine of two thow-
sand pundis. And also ordained the said Erie to find the lyk
cautione and sovertie, and under the same paine, to Mr. George
Buchquhannan pensioner of Crosraguell, being personallie
present, and cravit the same alsweile for his awin persone as his
pensione."

The disposal of the Abbey to Allan Stewart placed Buchanan
in a very awkward position, and he thought the best way out of
the difficulty would be to compromise with Stewart for a yearly
payment of £500, which was agreed to. But it does not appear
that this payment was ever made. Doubtless, as a means of
securing it, he assigned his rights in the property to the Earl of
Cassilis on the Earl agreeing to pay him 980 marks. That a
portion of that was paid is evident from a Discharge dated 12th
September 1569 in which we read: "Be it kend till all men be
thir present lettres the Maister George Buchquhannan, pensioner
of Crossraguel to haif tane and ressavit fra ane nobill and potent
Lord, Gilbert Earle of Cassilis, .... the soume of three
hundreth merkis usual money of Scotland in part payment " etc.
But in order to get more of the actual cash due him, Buchanan
must have sent a complaint to the Government, or at least applied
to those high in authority, for we read in a document of 1572 —
a letter of the Earl of Mar, Regent of the Kingdom, to the Earl
of Cassilis — " farder we pray your Lordship to remember Maister
George Buchanan, and to bring with you sumquhat for his satis-
faction of his pensioun." The Earl of Cassilis, though he had
fought at Langside for Queen Mary and was " put under waird"
for it, was now a warm adherent of the Regent's party. This
party was now somewhat depressed — the Castle of Edinburgh

90 George Buchanan and Crossraguel Abbey

and many other strongholds being in the hands of the Queen's
forces — and the Regent Mar writes the above letter from Leith
beseeching the Carrick Earl to come to his aid as speedily as
possible. Whether he brought with him a sum of money for
George Buchanan, history sayeth not. Eventually Buchanan
sold the pension to the Laird of Bargany for the annual sum of
£400. He would be glad to be relieved of the trouble and
expense of collecting it. It had been pretty much of a white
elephant to him. The grant originally might seem a splendid
one, for the Abbey of St. Mary, Crossraguel, was a great regality
extending over eight parishes, with temporalities such as farms
on the banks of the Girvan and the Doon, salmon-fishings,
collieries (" coalheughs " and "coal-pottis "), multures, brewings
(" brewlands " and "brew-houses"), timber sales (" wood-
hags," i.e., annual wood cuttings), and spiritualities such as
teinds and other revenues accruing from ecclesiastical dues ; but
the upheaval of the Reformation and the greed of the nobles —
with much local turbulence, especially in the " Kingdom of
Carrick," to which the long arm of the law scarcely reached —
left uncommonly little of this rich heritage for poor George
Buchanan.

K. H.

Knox and Buchanan : a Study in Method,

EXCLUDING from our view the work of Knox and Buchanan as
writers of history and political theorists, we find that Knox's
life still remains full of matter, but that of his great contempor-
ary Buchanan is comparatively uneventful and quiescent. The
activity of Knox was indeed essentially religious. If he
travelled into the sphere of historical and political discussion,
it was only as an interlude. His History) and his First Blast
of the Trumpet are alike parerga. His serious preoccupation
from the first was the formulation and dispersion of what he
deemed to be sound doctrine. Three things he considered to be
utterly corrupt in Scotland, — the preaching of the Word, the
administration of the Sacraments, and the regulation of morals
through Church discipline. The testimony of unbiassed wit-
nesses bears out his judgment in this respect. Preaching was
well-nigh extinct. The Sacraments were buried under a weight
of base and avaricious customs. The morals of the clergy and
people were alike licentious. In the Scots Confession, we can
trace Knox's hand at many points, but at none more certainly
than where, in describing the true Catholic Church, the Confession
boldly abandons the conventional "notes" of Unity, Holiness,
and the like, and substitutes the triad of a pure gospel, sacra-
ments, and discipline. In such a statement we may see revealed
the broad lines of Knox's purposes and methods as a religious
reformer. His great aim was to cleanse the morals of Scotland.
Knowing how vain, for that end, any merely civic or political
movements must prove, he put these in the background. It is
probable that he even regretted his former incursion into the
sphere of political argument, which had rather prejudiced than
helped the Reformation. What he had truly at heart was to
secure such free and Scriptural presentation of the truths of
religion, as would raise his countrymen out of the slough of error

92 Knox and Buchanan : a Study in Method

in opinions and corruption in morals for which the Scot was
notorious. It is not with him primarily a question of intel-
lectual enlightenment, but rather of spiritual and moral re-
generation. The religious passion which marked his utterances
is moved by moral obliquities, rather than by literary or political
solecisms. His methods were accordingly levelled to the
capacity of the general mind and heart.

It is as a great preacher of righteousnesss that Knox stands
out most clearly after 1560. As a theologian, his acquirements
were not small, and he had profited by personal intercourse with
Calvin and other leading thinkers. When time permitted, he
could draft a dogmatic monograph as well as most; in illustra-
tion, we have only to refer to his work on Predestination. But
neither his time nor his inclination led him to do the task of
the systematic theologian : it is possible also that the great spirit
of Calvin overshadowed him here ; for close contact with experts
often breeds a disinclination to venture into their special fields.
But as a preacher of doctrines which both Calvin and he found
in Scripture and in human nature, Knox stands unrivalled.
To this vocation he was loudly summoned by his natural
temperament and by the needs of his time. The orator stood
confessed in him who had borne the sword for Wishart, who had
burst into tears when called to preach in the Castle of St.
Andrews, and who to the last bade fair to " ding the pulpit in
blads and flee out of it." For such a man, publicity, utterance,
vehement passion, were a necessity. The scholar's patient toil
among ideas, calmly neglectful of the popular passion and bid-
ing his time in a future age, would never have contented Knox.
His nature was thrilling at all times to the contemporary
emotions ; and he found a needed vent for his pent-up fires in
the pulpit. It may be true that his sermons at last became
political forces ; certainly, he never shrank from preaching ' ' to
the times"; but in their fundamental motive they had the
didactic and practical ends of a Christian preacher. If he
appeared to have a hand in State affairs, it was as one who
represented no party or cabal, but the eternal righteousness
founded on the Word of God.

The accidental influence of Knox on political events may be
seen in the fact that, more than once, he was surprised by the
effect of his own words. He was not conscious of overstepping
the limits of the pulpit and the religious censor. In his inter-

JOHN KNOX.
(From the bust in Wallace Monument.)

By kind permimtinn of Mr. William iliddleton, Curator, Wallace Monument.

Knox and Buchanan : a Study in Method 93

views with Mary, we always note a certain ingenuous inability
to understand why the Queen should take umbrage. In ecclesi-
astical politics, Knox's aloofness and even inexperience may be
seen in such a clumsy arrangement as the Concordat of Leith.
Such a scheme betrays a prentice hand. Knox's real strength
lay not in administration or in the moulding of political forces
for a Churchly end, else the history of the Scottish Church would
have run far otherwise ; but in the application of a Bible system
of doctrine, worship, and discipline to the disorganised religious
life of Scotland. There were others who did the work, some-
times very shady and disreputable, of Scottish statecraft and
churchcraft, as these crafts then obtained. Knox ought to be
cleared of complicity in their " knaivish tricks," and he cannot
claim all the credit of their occasional successes. For him, the
one great office to be coveted and filled was that of being the
voice of the Righteous God resounding in the wilderness of
Scottish faith and morals.

Confronted with Buchanan, Knox bulks in popular life as a
figure overtopping the Scottish humanist. It is hardly possible
to represent Buchanan as a religious reformer in the same sense
as Knox. For Buchanan declined the battle of the Church, and
subsided into literary and philosophic pursuits, varied by the
exercise of a considerable poetic talent. Buchanan has no history
as a theologian or as a religious teacher. Politically and philo-
sophically he stood on the same ground as Knox ; but his
temperament restricted him to fields of study and taste.1 He
made no profound mark on the religious life of Scotsmen. He
came back to his native land as soon as it was safe for him to do
so, and casting in his lot with the Reformers he accepted such
administrative work as was offered him.2 He sat in General
Assemblies, and even presided over the Assembly of 1567, lay-
man as he was. But to be Moderator of the Assembly did not
necessarily mean absolute importance in the Church's counsels,
either then or now. Rather, a quiet and safe man was chosen,

1 Compare Hume Brown's Biography, p. 191. In method and discretion
Buchanan seemed to stand on an entirely different footing in the country
from Knox and the ministers of the congregation, — " they were reformers
and nothing ehe." — ED.

2 " Buchanan approved of the same cause ; but he had other interests, and
the memory of a life behind him which made genial intercourse possible with
those who differed most widely from himself on the deepest questions. "-
Hume Brown's Biography, p. 191.

94 Knox and Buchanan : a Study in Method

under whom the stronger spirits might exercise their wits. Al-
though Buchanan's name is found also on many Church com-
mittees, we do not hear that he was a commanding influence.
Knox himself speaks of him in terms which rather suggest a
kindly tolerance of one who was not regarded as a very pro-
minent ecclesiastic or a very zealous worker in religion. " This
notable man remains," he writes, " to this day, in the year of
God 1556 years, to the great glory of God, to the great honour
of the nation, and to the comfort of those who delight in letters
and virtue." It is not so that men describe a religious reformer.
At the same time, Buchanan had very early satisfied himself
that the position of Rome was untenable: he had attacked the
vices of the monks ; and by the time he finally returned home
from the Continent, he had made a prolonged study of the
points at issue between the Roman Church and the Reformers.
His decision was in favour of the latter ; but it is not in this
deliberate and intellectual mode that a Luther or a Knox is
made, and Buchanan remained to the last a cool and dispassion-
ate critic of both extremes.1 He took no prominent part in the
organisation of the doctrinal and religious life of Scotland. He
continued to be a silent member of the Reforming party. He
preached no rousing sermon against Court or Church iniquities,
although a layman like Erskine of Dun was held fit to be both
preacher and superintendent. To him, the Reformation was a
needed current helping on the Renaissance, clearing away
debris which hindered sound learning from advancing, and over-
throwing powers in Church and State which frowned on freedom
of thought.

It has been suggested by some writers that Buchanan's abstin-
ence from special religious activities was due to his superior
breadth and liberality of mind. He could not be an active
propagandist in spheres with which his scholarly culture and
broad learning unfitted him to sympathise. As a Humanist,
he loved freedom and gracious forms of culture more than creeds
or fervent religious expression ; and hence he avoided the
strenuous tasks of men like Knox who had to build up Confes-
sions and organise the Church. All this may be accepted as an
1 " He was the man to be a cautious, judicious reformer, not the man to
be an impetuous frantic destroyer, too rash and unrestrained to discriminate
between the entirely and partially unsound." — Dr. Campbell Smith in Dr.
Wallace's " George Buchanan," p. 141. The aesthetic was not lacking in
Buchanan, as in Knox.

Knox and Buchanan : a Study in Method 95

apology for Buchanan's comparative supineness as a reformer, if
it be also remembered that, for his own time, Knox was the man
who was needed, and he chose the better part. No doubt,
temperament should be taken into account. Knox was bold,
impulsive, and fond of publicity : Buchanan was a student and
a courtier, who preferred quiet and gentle ways and hated the
uproars of controversy. But temperaments must not be allowed
to obscure the facts of duty and patriotic faith. Knox recog-
nised these facts and faced them nobly ; Buchanan on the whole
took them coolly and with many grains of salt. He was " of
good religion for a poet," says Sir James Melville of Halhill.
The religious reformer is not made of such stuff. While
Buchanan has exercised influence on Scottish literature and on
political theories, he cannot fairly be described as a great force
in the Scottish Reformation. In his way, he offers the Human-
ist foil to Knox, as Erasmus did to Luther.

H. M. B. R.

Buchanan as a Political Philosopher.

DOES Buchanan deserve a place among political philosophers? —
was the question I asked myself on receiving the urgent request of
the editor to deal with this subject in this memorial volume. On
reflection, I had no difficulty in answering the question in the
affirmative,- with certain reservations. The influence as well as the
contents of his De Jure Regni apud Scotos amply justifies his
biographers in adding this to his other claims to distinction. The
De Jure is one of the few specimens of political reflection which was
as popular with the reading public of its time, and for several
generations afterwards, as is to-day a volume of Scott, Macaulay, or
Carlyle. It was, indeed, written in Latin, but it found several
translators, although it ran into numerous editions in the original ;
and, whether in its Latin or English form, it became, especially in
the seventeenth century, a Vade Mecuvn to those who in Scotland
and England were engaged in the struggle for political rights
against the Stewart kings. Mere popularity is not necessarily the
test of true distinction in an author, but it is at least significant of
the influence of his work, and from this point of view Buchanan
certainly merits a very distinguished place among writers who have
discussed the principles of politics. The De Jure was an inspiration
to political action, as well as a text-book of political science, to
several generations of Scotsmen and Englishmen. It furnished
both Covenanters and Puritans with theoretic arguments in vindica-
tion of the rights which they defended or the demands they made.
All through the Covenanting struggle it was quoted as a sort of
oracle by many a strenuous, though long-forgotten pamphleteer,
and even Milton has been accused, with exaggeration no doubt, of
stealing his Defence of the People of England from its pages.
On its publication in 1579 it was hailed by Buchanan's literary
friends both at home and abroad with enthusiastic commendations.
A still more emphatic evidence of its importance in the eyes of

Buchanan as a Political Philosopher 97

contemporaries is the depreciation which it earned in rich measure
from the champions of absolutism. Its author came in for a liberal
share of vituperation, as well as refutation, at their hands throughout
the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century. Nay, it
encountered the bitter hostility not only of James VI., for whose
benefit it was more particularly written, but of his three successors
on the Scottish throne down to the revolution of 1G88. It was
signalled out for condemnation in more than one Act of the Scottish

Parliament and Privy Council throughout these hundred years, and
from these Acts alone we might adduce sufficient proof both of the
eminence of its author as a political writer and the practical power
of his work. If only in view of this fact, Buchanan must be assigned
a place of honour in every history of modern political thought
alongside that of the author of the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos,
with whom, in respect of numerous editions and readers, he may
fairly compete.

Nevertheless, his place is not exactly beside that of Bodin or
Hobbes or Montesquieu. I have said that I think him entitled
to distinction as a political philosopher, — with certain reservations.
What reservations? He possessed neither the historic erudition
nor the scientific spirit of Bodin or Montesquieu ; he had not the
philosophic penetration or depth (or for the matter of that, the
sophistry) of Hobbes. Bodin, and especially Montesquieu, could
also rejoice in many editions. They were, like Buchanan, widely
read and extensively quoted, whilst Hobbes sank into a long and
undeserved obscurity. They, too, like Buchanan, exerted in their
own generation a powerful influence on political thought, even of
the practical kind. But their greatness as political thinkers was
entirely independent of the factor of many editions and readers.
They were great enough, in respect of originality and profundity,
to rank with these giants of thought who, like Hobbes and Spinoza,
were little read or ignored by an unsympathetic or conventional
age. Like them, they could afford to wait throughout the silence
and contempt of the centuries for that recognition of real grandeur,
which is sure to come sooner or later, but which is too often denied
to profound genius in its own day. To this kind of superlative
greatness in the domain of political thought Buchanan could lay no
claim. What he succeeded in doing was to provide a theoretic
vindication of the revolution of 1567, which had the fortune to
express in forcible language the strong points of the policy of a
certain party, and to contribute in this way to the assertion and the

98 Buchanan as a Political Philosopher

ultimate triumph of the principles which that party represented in
the struggle against the impossible rule of Queen Mary and the
equally impossible rule of Charles I., Charles II., and James VII.1
This was, indeed, a notable achievement, worthy of generous com-
memoration, and Buchanan is entitled to an enthusiastic tribute for
the message to Scotland and to humanity which enabled him, being
dead, to speak to generation after generation of his struggling
countrymen. But he was hardly an original genius in political
speculation. He was indebted to others for many of the thoughts
which he forcibly applied to the occasion, and which came to him
from the mediaeval thinkers through John Major. The schoolmen,
I suppose, he, as an emancipated humanist, had not the patience to
read, and no sane mortal, who values his time and hates mediaeval
dry-as-dustism, will blame him for this lack of patience. To Major
he seems to have been more directly indebted for the bold demo-
cratic ideas to which he gave so fearless and trenchant expression,
though it is to be regretted that he allowed his impatience of the
dry-as-dust lucubrations of his worthy St. Andrews professor to
make him forget the fact in his caustic pleasantries at his expense.
His performance has high merits, keeping in view the object of it.
It made a tremendous and long- sustained impression. It exposed,
in pointed and nervous argument, the fallacious Stuart assumption
that a people is bound to obey a ruler, even if he rules against its
interest and governs the nation to ruin, as Queen Mary, with her
impulsive temperament, threatened to do. But to assert that it did
more than this, as some of his panegyrists do, is to impair his
reputation by assuming a purpose which he himself would have
disowned. Dr. Irving, for instance, opines that the De Jure is "a
most profound and masterly compendium of political philosophy."
Nay, it is "an immortal production." To one who has studied
Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, Montesquieu, such judgments are
sheer extravagances. Moreover, they are unfair to Buchanan, who
would only have failed of his purpose had he attempted to write a
compendium of political philosophy, and who was bent mainly on
showing the untenableness and the absurdity of the theory which
assumes that the king is above the law and denies the right of the
subject to call him to account in case of tyranny. In this purpose
he succeeded admirably, for the De Jure, if not a monument of
political speculation, is one of the most effective working theories
ever penned. He himself in his prefatory epistle to King James is
1 i.e. James II. of England.

Buchanan as a Political Philosopher 99

careful to emphasise its practical character. "This treatise," he
says, "I have sent you not merely as a monitor, but also as an
importunate and even impudent dun, that in this critical time of life
it may guide you beyond the rocks of flattery, and not only give you
advice, but also keep you in the road which you so happily entered,
and in case of any deviation, replace you in the line of your duty."
In the exordium we learn that his purpose was, further, to excul-
pate his countrymen from the indignant aspersions of hostile foreign
critics by setting forth the principles underlying the action of the
revolutionists of 1567.

The De Jure bears evident traces of the humanist sympathies of
its author. It is not only the work of an elegant Latinist ; it is
inspired by the noblest traditions of ancient liberty. Buchanan
might be described as an enthusiastic champion of the political
rights of man, who, if he borrows many of his ideas from the
schoolmen, draws his inspiration largely from the classic writers.
He loves to hold up the picture of ancient simplicity in the midst of
what is to him the tinsel of a modern court. His model king is
taken from Claudian, while Cicero and Seneca, Plato and Aristotle
supply him with some of his arguments against tyrants. He thinks
as an ancient, and his thought is kindled by the noblest utterances
of the mighty literature which he has assimilated so sympathetically.
And yet he is sanely modern. Unlike many of MH fellow-humanists,
he does not despise or -under-rate the traditions and the history of
his own country. The legends of the obscure period of Scottish
history, in which he believes too credulously, furnish him indeed
with more forcible arguments against tyranny than even the his-
torians and philosophers of Greece or Rome. He is a humanist, but
he is a Scotsman as well, and he does not deem it beneath his
dignity to cite Robert Bruce as well as Philip of Macedon, or some
humble native chronicler, who wrote monk Latin, as well as Cicero,
to prove that the people is the virtual sovereign of the state.

The De Jure is in some respects a notable example of the
emancipating influence of the Renascence on political thought.
Though its author takes many of his ideas from the scholastic
writers and cannot, therefore, be regarded as an original thinker,
his horizon is by no means bounded by the middle ages. Like
Machiavelli and More, he has shaken himself free from the baneful
method of looking at politics through theological spectacles. The
schoolmen appealed largely to the Scriptures and to canon law in
their discussions of political questions. To them the Bible was a

100 Buchanan as a Political Philosopher

text-book of political science as well as a revelation. They assumed
that it was the supreme arbiter on questions of politics as well as
theology, and that history and reason were subordinate judges in
these matters. Even the Reformation did not materially affect this
assumption, and Protestant writers on politics, like the author of
the Vindiciae Contra Ti/rannos, continued to draw their arguments
in favour of the right of resisting a persecuting prince largely from
Scripture. Humanists like Machiavelli and More, on the other
hand, who wrote on politics, strove to emancipate themselves from
the scholastic conception which saw in the Bible what the Bible
does not profess to be — a criterion of political and philosophical
questions. In Buchanan, too, this free tendency is very marked.
Though, as I have said, he borrowed, evidently through Major, a
number of ideas from the schoolmen, he emancipated himself from
their narrowness and their pedantry. Like them, indeed, he is not
a strictly scientific political thinker in the sense of the more modern
historic school, of which his contemporary Bodin is the first great
representative. The first part of the De Jure is, for instance,
greatly weakened by an unfortunate proneness to substitute mere
analogy for scientific research. It is by way of analogy, not of
historic investigation, that he reaches the institution of the king-
ship. As the human body, reasons he, is liable to disease, so is the
body politic to dissolution, and to forestall this fate, it, like the
human body, requires the care of a physician. This is the function
of the king. Hence the kingship. Moreover the relation of king
and people is of the same nature as that of physician and patient,
and if we understand the business of a physician, we shall rightly
know the duty of a king. This may be good analogy ; it is very
lame political philosophy, and in this respect it must be admitted
that the argumentation of the De Jure is not convincing. Buchanan,
in fact, does not, in such reasonings, carry us one step beyond the
scholastic habit of merely philosophising or moralising on politics,
instead of investigating in accordance with the historic, truly
scientific method.

But this weakness is not preeminent, and as he proceeds he
displays the spirit of critical independence characteristic of Re-
nascence writers like Machiavelli and More! He gives full rein to
his reason, and his reasonings, though at times savouring of mere
syllogisms, are often acute and forcible. Space will not allow me
to enlarge on this point. Take, however, as an example of the
appeal to reason, — the tendency to subject traditional political dogma

Buchanan as a Political Philosopher 101

to the test of common sense, — the query whether a number of men,
in resolving to institute a king, could ever have been so mad as to
subject themselves to one man with unlimited power to do them
harm ; or take the query why good kings should resent the punish-
ment of a tyrant any more than a fraternity of craftsmen that of an
unworthy member.

Equally characteristic is the appeal to history. He does not,
indeed, systematically investigate and compare historic data, for his
purpose is not to write a scientific treatise on politics like the
Republic of Bodin, or the Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu. But
he does attempt to substantiate his arguments by appeals to history,
and in this respect he shows at least that he can discriminate be-
tween arguments based on analogy and arguments based on historic
fact. His early Scottish history may be to a certain extent fabulous,
but he is on the right track when he appeals to the old Scottish
chronicles to strengthen his argument that the early kingship was
elective and not hereditary, and that the power of the king was
"circumscribed and confined to fixed limits." And even if we must
strike off a good many of the Celtic kings from that bulky list which,
in his History of Scotland, enables him to boast of an origin of the
Scottish kingdom several centuries before Christ, we should not
forget that recent modern research has tended to substantiate his
contention that the primitive kingship among the Celts (or among
the Teutons or other Aryan peoples, for that matter) was, as a rule,
elective and strictly limited. As an example of his use of the
historic method, take the following passage in which he labours to
persuade Maitland of the truth of the grand thesis of his work, viz.,
that the king is interior to the law and, as the maker of the law and
the virtual sovereign of the state, is responsible to the people : " We
contend that the people, from whence our kings derive whatever
power they claim, is paramount to our kings ; and that the com-
monalty has the same jurisdiction over them which they have over
any individual of the commonalty. The usages of all nations that
live under legal kings are in our favour ; and all states that obey
kings of their own election in common adopt the opinion that what-
ever right the people may have granted to an individual, it may,
for just reason, also re-demand. For this is an inalienable privilege
that all communities must have always retained. Accordingly
Lentulus, for having conspired with Catiline to overturn the re-
public, was forced to resign the praetorship ; and the decemvirs, the
founders of the laws, though invested with the supreme magistracy,

102 Buchanan as a Political Philosopher

were degraded ; and some Venetian doges, and Chilperic, King of the
Franks, after being stripped of every imperial badge, grew old as
private persons in monasteries ; and not long ago, Christian, king
of the Danes, ended his life in prison twenty years after he had
been dethroned. Nay, even the dictatorship, which was a species
of despotism, was still subordinate to the power of the people. . . .
I could enumerate twelve or more of our kings, who, for their
villainy or flagitiousness, were either condemned to perpetual im-
prisonment or escaped the punishment due to their crimes by exile
or death. But that none may allege that I produce antique and
obsolete precedents, if I should mention the Calens, Ewens, and
Ferchars, I shall go back for a few examples no further than the
memory of our fathers. James III. was, in a public assembly of
all the orders, declared to have been justly slain for his extreme
cruelty to his relations, and for the enormous turpitude of his
life," etc.

Not less suggestive of the humanist spirit is the absence of the
theological element which mars the wearisome disquisitions of the
schoolmen. He does not altogether ignore the evidence of Scripture.
Maitland, for instance, appeals to the Bible as teaching that sub-
mission is due even to a tyrant, and instances Paul who commanded
Christians to pray even for such tyrants as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero.
Buchanan digresses in order to meet this objection. To pray for
even a bad prince, retorts he, does not oblige us not to resist him.
Besides Paul (and Milton subsequently borrows the argument) meant
not to inculcate submission to tyranny, but to controvert the
extreme views of those who denied that Christians owed allegiance
to the civil power. This might or might not be scientific exegesis.
It was at all events reasonable, and Buchanan, though he speaks
with reverence of the testimony of the sacred writers and takes
account of it, evidently does not believe that Scripture gives any
conclusive decision in such matters. At anyrate he rightly assumes
that it is at the bar of national history in the first place, and
general history in the second place that the true decision must be
sought, and the De Jure deserves the merit of being a skilful plea
from both these sources in favour of limited, legal government as
against tyranny.

Buchanan's unpardonable sin, in the eyes of his royalist op-
ponents, is his doctrine of tyrannicide. It was this that more
particularly excited the ire of James VI. and provoked the repeated
condemnation of the Scottish Parliament under Stuart auspices.

Buchanan as a Political Philosopher 103

1 1 is teaching on this point is indeed very explicit, but it was not
intended to justify anarchy or assassination. Buchanan in fact felt
a sincere reverence for monarchy, though he had no patience with
kingly ruisgovernment, or anything but the hottest indignation for
the slavish theory of divine right, irresponsible rule. He extols a
good king, whom he allows in some sort to represent the divine
majesty. He reveres his office, though he dislikes the extravagant
parade of royal pomp, and bids Maitland remember the kings of
Macedonia and Sparta who would not appear at a leve*e " dressed in
idle show, like a girl's doll, in all the colours of the rainbow." He
exalts in a passage of lofty eloquence the noble function of a truly
great monarch, who has nothing to fear from subjection to the laws,
which he administers for the people's interest, and gains thereby the
loyalty and affection of his subjects. In contrast to this model
ruler he pictures the tyrant, and, in his insistence on the right to
kill a tyrant, he conceives a ruler who drives his subjects to despera-
tion by his oppressions, and is, in fact, in a state of war with regard
to them. Granted the compact between ruler and subject, which
Buchanan, like all sixteenth and seventeenth century writers,
assumes, its systematic encroachment by a king who becomes a
tyrant frees the people from its obligation. This tyrant then
becomes an enemy, and the people are justified in waging war against
him. Nay, even the individual may kill him. His type of tyrant,
it must be borne in mind, was evidently a Caligula, a Nero — that is,
an incorrigible and infatuated oppressor. Maitland expostulates on
the dangerous import of this teaching, and adduces the evils of
anarchy. Legitimate kings, returns Buchanan, have nothing to fear
from this doctrine. " Besides," he adds, " I here explain how far our
power and duty extend by law, but do not advise the enforcement
of either." He was not, in fact, solely responsible for the doctrine,
for it had exponents in both ancient and mediaeval times. With
him tyrannicide is the theoretic remedy applicable to the con-
tingency of the flagitious contravention of the contract between
ruler and ruled, as exemplified by a Nero, a Caligula. In such a
case, the nation being in a state of war, the sooner the tyrant is
despatched the better. The party which Buchanan championed had
at all events stopped short at the deposition of their queen, and
James VI. need not have felt his life or his throne in jeopardy
because his old tutor taught that a Nero or a Caligula might
legitimately be put to death by an outraged people. The modern
dogma of the responsibility of ministers might have suggested a

104 Buchanan as a Political Philosopher

safer and an equally effective mode of procedure. The idea does not
seem to have suggested itself to him, for in this matter his mind
moved more in the realm of ancient than of modern thought.

A word in conclusion on the general tendency of the work as
indicative of the moral and mental elevation of the writer. No one
can read it without being thrilled by the fine spirit of independence,
the glowing appreciation of political liberty, the hatred of injustice,
the dislike of courtly sycophancy, the high sense of the importance
of the popular welfare, which breathe throughout its animated pages.
If this is a specimen of Buchanan's conversation on this high theme,
it must indeed have been a rare privilege to be counted among his
intimate friends. That James VI. did not relish it is not sur-
prising, but this lack of appreciation is to be attributed to the
Stuart tendency to resent constitutional control and even well-
meant advice, rather than to anything justly offensive to limited
monarchy in the book itself.

J. M.

JAMES I.

(From the. engraving in Volume, /. of tht 111.1 edition of Buchanan*
' l£i*tory. '}

XII.

Buchanan as a Historian.1

IF we expect to find in the pages of George Buchanan's History
the treatment of history after the manner of a Gibbon or a
Lecky, we shall most certainly be doomed to meet with dis-
appointment. We must bear in mind that in his day history
had not been converted into a science, and in all justice we
must make liberal allowances accordingly ; but in no disparaging
spirit, be it said, for we are ever conscious that we are regarding
the work of a great scholar.

Buchanan is more of the chronicler than the historian in the
present day acceptation. The value of his Rerum Scoticarum
Historia depends on its accuracy as a chronicle, and that is the
point of view from which we must regard it. In such a case
we have to take the character of the author into our considera-
tion ; granted an unwarrantable proceeding if applied to
modern historical work, where the personal equation should not
intrude. Here we have the most learned Scotsman of his day,
a man with a recognised European fame, the friend of most of
the outstanding men of the period at home and abroad, occupy-
ing an exalted position in his own land as the outcome of his
own worth. Is it not but just, under these circumstances, to
assume that he would in his History give the best of his
knowledge, and keep veracity full in his view, especially when
dealing with the period which fell within his own ken?
Buchanan must have been conscious that the eyes of Europe
would be directed to his work; in fact we can be sure of it
when he elected to write in Latin and not in the vernacular.
It has been said that Buchanan modelled his History upon that
of Livy and Sallust ; only to a limited extent is the statement
true, for Buchanan had distinctly his own style. Even Bishop

1 Where extracts have been given from the History, the Translation
by Aikman has been used.

106 Buchanan as a Historian

Burnet made the statement " that his style is so natural and
nervous, and his reflections on things so solid, that he is justly
reckoned the greatest and best of our modern authors."

The Epistle Dedicatory to King James the Sixth says: " I
have considered it my next duty to apply to that species of
writing, calculated to improve the mind, that I might, as much
as possible, supply my own deficiency, by sending to you
faithful monitors from history, whose counsel may be useful in
your deliberations, and their virtues patterns for imitation in
active life." It is interesting to observe the value Buchanan
placed upon history when he suggested that it was no uncertain
guide to those at the head of a state. This is in rather sharp
contrast with the recent attack on history by a distinguished
scientist who spoke with something akin to contempt of those
who ' still believing that the teaching and sayings of antiquity,
and the contemplation, not to say the detailed enumeration, of
the blunders and crimes of its ancestors, can furnish mankind
with the knowledge necessary for its future progress.' The
opinion of one who was a historian and also played his part in
the affairs of state commands greater respect.

The first book of Buchanan's History consists of a general
description of Scotland. This book has no doubt a marked
value through its being the personal observation of one who
has had his eyes opened by the view of other lands and is made
conscious of the particular features of his own. In the
description of the Western Isles, he states, he was assisted by
Donald Munroe, " a pious and diligent man." Some of the
passages in this book have a notable charm, — for instance, in the
reference to the Shetlanders' manner of living: — "They are
unacquainted with inebriety, but they invite each other, once
a month, to their houses, and spend these days cheerfully, and
moderately, without those quarrels, and other mischiefs, which
usually spring from drunkenness ; and they are persuaded, that
this custom tends to cherish and perpetuate mutual friendship.
An instance of their firm vigorous health was exhibited in our
own day, in the person of a man named Lawrence, who married
a wife in his hundredth year, and who, at the age of one
hundred and forty, braving the roughest sea, was accustomed
to go to the fishing in his own skiff. He died but lately, not
cut off by the stroke of any painful disease, but dismissed
gently by the gradual decay of old age."

Buchanan as a Historian 107

The second book deals with the problem of the origin of the
Scottish race. Perhaps Buchanan would never have written
this book in such detail if it had not been for his burning
desire "to slay with ink" the Welsh antiquary, Humphrey
Lloyd. The fight in our eyes now-a-days is most amusing; in
it Buchanan proved, whatever else he lacked, that he was
the master of invective. Subsequent history furnishes the
underlying purpose. Buchanan and Hector Boece and others
sought to prove the antiquity of their nation, as they desired
the reverence due to Age; they resented the claim of
their English neighbours to an origin as early. Buchanan in
the third book, by an appeal to classic authors, puts his enemies
to flight.

The fourth book starts the History proper. Here Buchanan
follows in the wake of Boece, but shews more discretion in
dealing with the long line of legendary kings of Scotland.
Much severe criticism has been expended on this list of kings,
but perhaps all that can be pronounced in way of a safe
verdict is " Not Proven." We have to remember that
Buchanan had doubtless access to manuscripts, of the existence
of which we know nothing to-day ; this also applies to other
parts of his work. How we would view the material used
by Buchanan in the present day is another matter, as it would
be rash to assert that he only borrowed from Fordun and Boece.
If, for instance, the MSS. of Adamnan concerning Saint
Columba had been lost, how gloriously sceptical some historians
would have been with regard to any tale about him, and in the
account of these kings how much is false, how much true, may
never be known.

We shall pass over the succeeding pages till we arrive at the
period of Wallace and Bruce. These great heroes lose nothing
of their greatness at this historian's hand. Their story is told
with vivid force. The hero-worship of Wallace and Bruce in
our own time is largely clue to the influence of Buchanan, who,
by his able pen, securely shrined them in the just affection of
their fellow-countrymen. His summing-up of the character of
Wallace and of Bruce will remain classic in the history of our
country. Of Wallace he writes: — "About the same time,
Wallace, betrayed by his own familiar friend, John Monteith,
who had been corrupted by English money, was taken in the
county of Lanark, where he then lurked, and sent to London,

108 Buchanan as a Historian

where, by the infamous command of Edward, he was quartered,
and his disjointed members hung up in the most remarkable
places of England and Scotland, as a terror to others. Such
was the end of a man, by far the most pre-eminent in the times
in which he lived, who for greatness of soul in undertaking, and
wisdom and fortitude in conducting perilous enterprises, may be
compared with the most illustrious leaders of antiquity. In love
of his country, inferior to none of the most eminent ancient
patriots, amid the general slavery, HE stood alone unsubdued
and free, and neither could rewards induce, nor terrors force
him to desert the public cause, which he had once undertaken,
and his death was the more grievous, because, unconquered by
his enemies, he fell, betrayed by those from whom it was least to
be expected." Of Bruce he says:— " Robert Bruce, to express
much in few words, was undoubtedly, in every point of view,
a great man, and one to whom, from the heroic ages even to
these times, we shall find few comparable in every species of
virtue. As he was brave in war, so he was moderate in peace ;
and although unexpected success, and a constant flow of victory,
after fortune was satiated, or rather fatigued with his
sufferings, elevated him to the most splendid pinnacle of glory,
yet, he appears to me far more admirable in adversity. What
strength of mind did he display, when, assailed at once by so
many misfortunes, he not only was not broken, but not even
bent ! Whose constancy would it not have shaken, to have had
a wife captive, four heroic brothers cruelly murdered, his
friends afflicted with every species of distress, they who escaped
death robbed and driven away, and he himself, not only stripped
of an ample patrimony, but of a kingdom, by the most power-
ful, active, and ablest prince of the age? Yet, beset with all
these calamities at once, and reduced to the extremity of want,
never did he despair, or do or say any thing unworthy of a
king. He neither, like Cato the younger, nor Marcus Brutus,
offered violence to himself, nor did he, like Marius, enraged by
his misfortunes, wreak his vengeance on his enemies. But
having recovered his pristine station, he behaved towards those
who had caused him so much travail, as if he only remembered
that he was now their sovereign, not that they had ever been
his enemies ; and at last, at the close of life, when a grievous
distemper was added to the troubles of old age, he retained so
much self-possession, that he arranged the present state of the

Buchanan as a Historian 109

kingdom, and consulted for the tranquillity of his posterity!
With justice was his death lamented by his people, not only as
that of an upright king, but of a loving father."

Reference has been made to the speeches Buchanan places to
the credit of some personages in his History; of this a very
notable instance may be found in the speech of Bishop Kennedy
to the nobles against the expediency of appointing the queen-
mother as the Regent during the minority of James III. The
oration consists of a lengthy reasoning why women are unfit to
govern a nation. He taunts the nobles with being mere flatterers
who desired the queen as Regent, and with concealing
their real sentiments. " To assist in the public deliberations of
parliament, to preside in the courts of justice, to enact or to
abrogate laws, these duties, although each important in itself,
yet form only a small portion of a public administration. Why,
therefore, do they not bring their wives to consult with us ? to
sit in judgment ? to draw up, or oppose our statutes ? Why
do they not stay at home themselves to manage their
domestic affairs, and send their ladies to the camp ? "
Kennedy ( ?) then proceeds to make it quite clear that he
speaks not of the queen in particular, but of her sex in general
to whom he pays a gallant tribute. " When I say a woman,
lest any should imagine I speak contumeliously, I mean one on
whom nature has bestowed many enchanting qualities, and
most delightful accomplishments, allayed, it is true, as all her
loveliest and most precious gifts are, by a delicate weakness,
which, rendering her less able to protect herself, doubles her
claims upon the protection of another, and, therefore, our laws,
in obedience to the dictates of nature, instead of burdening the
female with the fatigue of government, has intrusted her,
during life, to the successive care of fathers, brothers, and
husbands. Nor is this intended as a reproach, but as a relief;
for to be prevented from undertaking tasks for which they are
unfit, is a tribute paid to their modesty, not an affront
detracting from their honour." The learned Bishop then
proceeded to make an appeal to history, in support of his
various arguments. " If any of you imagine that I suppose a
fictitious case, let him recollect what disturbance the reign of
Joan lately occasioned at Naples. Look into ancient history —
I shall not mention Semiramis of Assyria, nor Laodice of
Cappadocia, these were monsters, and not women — see the

110 Buchanan as a Historian

celebrated Zenobia of Palmyra, victorious over the Parthians,
the rival of imperial Rome, at last vanquished, and carried in
triumph, and the kingdom which had been increased and
adorned by her husband Odenatus, overturned in a moment ! "
The deliverance seems to have borne fruit in the amicable
settlement of the question. Was this speech made for
Kennedy by Buchanan, and if so was it justifiable to do so?
As we look on things to-day, the answer must be an emphatic
' no.' There is justice, however, looking at the matter from
Buchanan's point of view. In the days of Kennedy there were
no press reporters, and Buchanan could argue the matter that
the facts were these : that the queen wanted to become Regent
in this and was supported by some of the nobles, the Archbishop
of St. Andrews made a speech against such an arrangement, his
line of argument must have been that the queen was unfit by
reason of her sex for the post. Then the speech was easy, — for
Buchanan. The strongest objection lies in the fact that the
address reflects too markedly the personal opinions of the
recorder. Buchanan shared the views of Knox regarding the
" Monstrous Regiment of Women " and their incapacity to rule.
Perhaps, four hundred years after the birth of Buchanan,
statesmen may be found inclined to pray that another Kennedy
of persuasive eloquence might arise.

When Buchanan's History reaches the period from the reign
of James IV., it holds for the reader a new interest, as it is,
more or less, a contemporary account of events with which the
writer was familiar ; it is the story of one of the most
momentous epochs in Scottish history.

Buchanan has given us a most interesting account of the
fatal Field of Flodden, which cost Scotland a king and the best
of her nobility; he was seven years old at the time, and would
most likely remember listening to the news of the disaster.
Often has the story of that day of woe been retold, in legend
and in song, but never with much more pride and sorrow, than
Buchanan evinced when he said: "Such was the celebrated
battle of Flodden, remarkable among the few overthrows of the
Scots, not so much for the number of the slain — for often double
the number perished in their battles — as for the destruction of
the king and the principal nobility, which left few remaining
capable of governing the multitude .... James, as he
was greatly beloved while alive, so when dead his memory was

Buchanan as a Historian 111

cherished with an affection beyond what I have ever read, or
heard of being entertained for any other king."

The charge has often been laid to Buchanan of being far too
partisan in his estimates of his contemporaries; Cardinal
Beaton is a favourite showpiece to prove the contention.
Buchanan was but human, and nothing else should be
claimed for him. Let a historian be driven from pillar to
post by a Jesuit ' gang ' and get a turn of the joys of the
Inquisition ; if he could write of the man that was responsible
for his troubles, as though they had not been, then we could
safely say of him ' he is a god and not a man.' Recent facts
which have come to light all tend to show that Buchanan was
not so frequently in error as his critics have often sought to
prove.

The chief point of interest in this history has always
centred round the account of the unhappy Mary Queen of
Scots. It is not to be looked for that this battle-ground will
soon be deserted, we might say never as long as Reformed and
Unreformed faiths remain. You cannot look for an apprecia-
tion of Buchanan's History from those who would fain hail her
as " St. Mary of Scotland, the Martyr," or yet, from those who
seem to regard the Reformation as a " sort of mistake," or
again, from sentimentalists whose enthusiasm for the " fair
qi'een " is usually in inverse ratio to their knowledge. Some
enlightened beings tell us that Buchanan by his History and
Detectio proved how basely ingrate he was to his queen. Why?
The question usually causes some confusion. Of a truth, he
read Latin with her and did some translating for the court;
it is reasonable to expect he would get payment. He got that
payment from the Abbey of Crossraguel to the amount of
four to five hundred pounds Scots (£41 13s 4d stg.) ; that
was due to him at least, but not always did he get it paid
to him. There is thus no evidence that Buchanan was under
any obligation to Mary.

Whatever faults Buchanan had, he was no time-server, and
what he wrote in his history, or in " ANE DETECTIOUN of
the DOINGIS of MARIE QUENE of Scottis, twiching The
Murther of hir Husband ; And hir Conspiracie, Adulterie, and
pretensit Mariage with the Erie Bothwell," he wrote what he
felt convinced was true. We cannot suspect Archbishop
Spottiswood of being unduly favourable to Buchanan, yet, his

112 Buchanan as a Historian

estimate is singularly just when he says: — " His bitterness also
in writing of the queen and troubles of that time all wise men
have disliked. But, otherwise no man did better merit of his
nation for learning, nor thereby did bring it to more glory."
The Archbishop is right ; it may be a question of manners, it is
not one of truth. The Detectio has been incorporated with the
History, and therefore falls within the scope of our subject.
A recent writer in Mack-wood's Magazine states: "A scholar
and a humanist should not stoop to collect the tittle-tattle of
the kitchen. He should not listen with an avid ear to the
voice of malice. It is consonant neither with learning nor
chivalry to insult a woman and a queen. The guilt or
innocence of Mary does not palliate or enhance the crime of
Buchanan." We take notice of this, as such statements regard-
ing Buchanan are frequently made, and the example given
furnishes the point of their usual trend and weakness also.
We have to measure the work in the light of, not the twentieth
century, but of the sixteenth century; most important of all
we must keep in mind the purpose of the book. The Detectio
was an official publication, and the relation of Buchanan to it
is that of a counsel for the prosecution ; therefore with equal
relevancy we may bring home the charge of ' malice,' lack of
' chivalry,' etc., to any counsel who strives to bring proof of
guilt against any woman, calling at the same time his carefully
reasoned indictment the ' tittle-tattle of the kitchen,' as though
he were responsible for the want of moral cleanness in the
charge. If Buchanan were unjust and biased against Mary,
why did he write the long, clear account of her dispatch to
France after her marriage to Bothwell, which forms the best
vindication of her in existence ?

With the death of the Regent Lennox, Buchanan's History
draws to a close. We could well wish that it had continued
into the time of Morton, as our historian would doubtless have
had something of note to say regarding that statesman.

We have endeavoured to give an account of the principal
features of Buchanan's work, and shall now strive to find its
place in the historical world. The History had not long seen
the light, when James the Sixth, of blessed memory, found it
necessary to publish an Act of Parliament regarding it, which
was as follows: — ". . . . Attoure, because it is understand
and to his Hienes, and to his three Estaites that the buikes of

Buchanan as a Historian 113

the Chronicle, and De jure regni apud Scotos, made umquhile,
Maistcr GEORGE BUCHANANE, and imprented sensine,
conteinis sindrie offensive matters, worthie to be deleete : IT IS
THEIRFORE statute and ordained, that the havers of the
saidis twa volumes in their handes, inbring, and deliver the
same to my Lord Secretare, or his deputes, within fourtie dayes,
after the publication hereof, to the effect, that the saidis
volumes may bee perused, and purged of the offensive, and
oxtraordinarie matters specified theirin, not meete to remaine
as Recordes of trueth to the posteritie, under the paine of twa
hundreth pundes, of everie person failzieing heirin. And
quhair ony ar not responsal to pay the said summe, to be
punished in their persones, at OUR SOVERAINE LORDIS
will. And to the effect, that this ordinance may cum to the
knawledge of all OUR SOVERAINE LORDIS Lieges,
ordainis publication to be maid heirof, at the mercat croce of
the head Burrowes of the Schires, and utheris places needeful,
That nane pretend ignorance theirof; And the penaltie
conteined theirin, to be executed with all rigour against the
havers of the saidis buikes, the said space of fourty dayes being
by-past, after the publication, and proclamation of the said
Act in every Schire, as said is." Government again took
notice of Buchanan's Writings in the year 1638, when in front
of Oxford University they were burnt by the common hangman ;
this must be regarded as an honour and a testimony to the
truth they contain ; kings and states do not give orders to have
books destroyed unless they have reason to fear the TRUTH.
Scotland may feel justly proud of two of her sons, George
Buchanan and Samuel Rutherford, who by their teaching
influenced the nation, and which ultimately led to the formation
of our present model British Constitution.

The testimony of nearly all Buchanan's contemporaries is one
of enthusiasm for his History, though an adverse criticism was
expressed by Sir James Melville in the words that ' in his
(Buchanan's) auld dayes he was become sleperie and cairless.'
The value of this judgment is answered by the History itself,
which does not show the alleged faults. In the generations
following, the principles embodied in the History had the warm
approval of such men as Milton and Dryden. It was but
natural that the succeeding years, in harmony with the spirit
of the age, should adopt a more critical standpoint with

114 Buchanan as a Historian

regard to the History. We find it therefore under a somewhat
severe review at the hands of such men as Lord Hailes and
Piukerton. The nineteenth century being par excellence the era
of critical research, the discriminating erudition of Tytler and
Burton was brought to bear on the subject without very much
astray being discerned. Burton, in his History of Scotland,
sums up his opinion thus : — " It has become the practice with
some writers to disbelieve everything said by Buchanan. Great
part of his History is doubtless fabulous, and when he comes
to the controversies in which he took part, he was too strong
a partisan to be impartial." We can well believe that the
shade of Buchanan, if speech were possible, would, not without
justice, apply to his critics the phrase he used to Lloyd :

Loripedem rectus derideat, ^thiopem alb us.

If historians in their judgments of other historians are not
generous, who should be?

We have now to try and form an estimate of the value of
Buchanan's History at the present year of grace. We have said
that last century was the period of criticism, and to that we
might add, of the desire for scientific exactness in all the various
forms of human thought and activity, — the application to Holy
Writ or to the life of a microbe. If we judge thus early of
what the temper of this century shall be, we might call it one
of precision, though we may be conscious that life may become
a soulless thing if we become too analytical in our modes of
thought. Pygmalion may carve the form so nearly divine, but
it requires the god to give it life. We may be able to construct
a history, a very exact history, from State Papers, but when it
is done, surely it will lack something — colour or life, shall
we call it? We cannot do without Buchanan's History, or any
other record which faithfully delineates the period which has
fallen under the recorder's personal knowledge; its worth lies
in the individual note which is struck and which nothing
impersonal can supply. In our age and in succeeding time,
Buchanan's History must find an honoured place, in so far as it
is the account of a great period of history seen through a great
man's eyes. He, doubtless, would be bold who asserted that the
History was without fault, for there are errors of chronology, a
want of due sense of proportion between detail and the main
theme, but, surely, we can overlook all that by reason of its
greatness otherwise.

J. A. B,

XIIL

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan.

BUCHANAN dit lui-meme, dans une de ses Lettres,1 qu'il avait
traduit la Medee d'Euripide, non pour la publier, mais pour
se perfectionner dans 1'etude du grec, et qu'il dut, pour ceder
aux importunes sollicitations de ses amis, la faire paraitre, alors
qu'il enseignait les lettres latines a Bordeaux et qu'il etait
force de fournir chaque annee une piece qui devait etre
representee par les eleves. II ajoute que, bon nombre de
negligences lui etant echappees, il remania sa tragedie quelques
annees plus tard, guerissant certaines blessures, mais de telle
sorte que les cicatrices paraissent encore $a et la (quvedam in
ea vulnera ita sanavi ut adhuc cicatrices alicubi appareant).
La Medee, corrigee, parut avec I'Alceste chez Henri Estienne,
en 1567.

1,'Alceste avait deja ete publiee seule, en 1557, chez Michel
Vascosan, precedee d'une preface tres laudative a 1'illustris-
sime princesse Marguerite, soeur d'Henri II., roi de France.
L'auteur ne dit rien de 1'annee ou I'Alceste fut representee au
College de Guyenne.

II n'est pas utile d'insister sur les deux tragedies empruntees
par Buchanan a Euripide : ce sont " d'elegantes traductions,"
dit Patin, bon juge en la matiere.2

Les pieces originales meritent qu'on s'y arrete plus longue-
ment. La premiere ceuvre de Buchanan, composee a Bordeaux
et jouee au College de Guyenne, ne fut publiee qu'en 1578.
Thomas Ruddiman, qui a procure 1'edition complete des oeuvres
de Buchanan donnee a Leyde en 1725, ne connait que le
Baptistes imprime a Edinburgh en 1578. 3 La Bibliotheque

1 Epislola xxvii. Georgius Buchananus Danieli Rogersio, Edinburgi, 9
Nov. 1579 (BucJianani Opera omnia, 6dit. de 1725, t. II., p. 755).

a Patin, Etudes nur les tragiques green, Paris, 6dit. de 1866, vol. III., p. 221.
3 Buchanani Opera omnia, 6dit. de 1725, t. I., note 36 de la Vita.

116 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

municipale de Bordeaux possede un exemplaire d'une edition
publiee a Londres la meme anuee.1 Dans une dedicace de
quelques lignes, ecrite a Stirling le ler novembre 1576, et
adressee au jeune Jacques VI., age de dix ans, dont il etait
alors le precepteur, Buchanan expliquait a son illustre eleve que
le Baptistes etait la premiere piece qu'il eut composee, jadis,
pour d'autres eleves, des jeunes gens qu'il s'agissait de ramener
a 1'imitation de 1'antiquite en ranimant chez eux les sentiments
d'une piete trcs attaquee en ce temps-la. II ajoutait que de
cette tragedie se degage un euseignement precieux pour un roi
qui ne doit pas s'abandonner a de mauvais conseillers.

En 1586, Brisset, sieur de Sauvage, faisait preuve de saine
critique litteraire en reunissant dans un meme volume de
traductions, publie a Tours, I'Hercule furitux, 1' Agamemnon et
le Thytste de Sencque, I'Octavie, oeuvre d'un imitateur inconnu
du poete philosophe, et le Baptiste de Buchanan. Cette
tragedie precede, en effet, aussi bien que I'Octavie, de la
maniere theatrale de Seneque.

Le spectateur voit, tout d'abord, s'avancer sur la scene un
personnage qui developpe les theories et expose les plaintes du
poete. C'est le Prologus, cet acteur que Terence chargeait de
defendre ses pieces ou il ne lui donnait aucun role. Dans ce
discours polemique, redige suivant la formule des prologues de
1'ecrivain latin, Buchanan se plaint aigrement des critiques,
plus clairvoyants que Lyncee a decouvrir les defauts de la
tragedie d'un auteur, incapables eux-memes d'en composer une.
Qu'on remette au theatre un sujet ancien, que Ton imagine une
fable nouvelle, les censeurs blament et desapprouvent toujours.
Dedaigneux de ces envieux sans loyaute, le poete s'adresse a
1' ' ' aestimator candidus " ; celui-ci pourra voir, a son gre, dans
Baptistes une piece moderne ou une piece antique; car, si
1'action de la tragedie se passe il y a bien des siecles, la
calomnie qui en fait le fond se renouvelle chaque jour.2

1 BAPTISTES, rive Calumnia, trayoedia, auctore Georgia BUCHANANO
Scoro, LONDINI. Et prostant Aitiwrpiae, apud lacobum Henricium,
MDLXXVIII. (64 pp. in- 16).

2 Baptises (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II., pp. 215-252).
V. 42:

Porro vocare fabulara veterem aut novam
Per me licehit cuique pro arbitrio suo . . .
V. 48:

Nam, donee homiuum genus erit, semper novae
Fraudes, novseque suppetent calumniae.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 117

Puis, entrent en scene les deux pharisiens Gamaliel et
Malchus, suivis du Choeur compose de Juifs. Malchus deplore
les malheurs du peuple d'Israel, accable par la tyrannic de
Rome, desole par une impiete nouvelle qui fera perir, qui fait
perir, qui a deja fait perir toute la saintete de la foi antique.1
L'auteur de ce desastre n'est autre que Jean-Baptiste, ce faux
prophete qui vit dans le desert, revetu d'un costume etrange,
qui a imagine le rite nouveau du bapteme, qui incite au
mepris de 1'ancienne religion ; il faut se defaire de cet homme
dangereux.

Gamaliel repond a cette violente diatribe avec une man-
suetude digne de Micion, le vieillard bienveillant des Adelphes
de Terence ; il preche le calme et la moderation : ne peut-on
pas accorder quelque indulgence a la temerite des jeunes
gens?2 Malchus ne veut rien entendre; les objections cour-
toises de Gamaliel ne font qu'exasperer 1'intransigeance de
son orthodoxie etroite. Comme Tomas de Torquemada, il
estime que la corde, le fer et le feu doivent avoir raison de
I'impiete; il regrette de ne pouvoir disposer de moyens de
torture plus cruels;3 et, puisqu'il ne trouve aucun appui
aupres des rabbins et des pharisiens, il aura recours au bras
seculier : il va demander 1'aide du roi Herode.4

Fort de 1'approbation du Choeur,5 Gamaliel developpe dans
un long monologue des considerations dignes d'un disciple de
Luther : il invoque le droit de chaque fidele au libre examen6
et fait responsable des progres de 1'impiete les pharisiens —

1 Baptiate*, v. 107 :

. . . ilia Celebris orbi sanctitas
Brevi peribit, imo perit, imo periit.

2 Baptistes, v. Ill :

Juvenum temeritati dari venia potest.

3 Baptistes, v. 190 :

Curanda non est ista plaga molliter,
Sed fane, ferro et igne ; vel si quid scias
Quod fune, ferro et igne sit crudelius.

4 Baptlstes, v. 215 :

Et quando apud vos nil reperio prsesidi,
Contra ruinam regium auxilium petam.

8 Baplifttes, v. 217 :

Recte Gamaliel admonet, me judice.

8 Baptises, v. 272 :

Interpretetur quisque pro ingenio, ut lubet.

118 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

ces Franciscains du temps de Jean-Baptiste — qui trompent
le peuple par 1'apparence de la saintete.1

Le Choeur deplore les malheurs auxquels sont exposes les
innocents, qui ne peuvent jamais etre a 1'abri des mechants.

Voici maintenant la reine qui reproche au roi de ne pas
faire acte de vigueur contre Jean-Baptiste — concitator iste vulgi
— et Herode qui repond par de nobles et vagues maximes sur
la miserable condition des rois reduits a craindre les
miserables.2 Peu satisfaite de ces sententiae, dignes d'un eleve
qui aurait mieux profite que Neron de 1'enseignement du
philosophe Seneque, la reine s'en va furieuse, en s'ecriant
qu'Herode n'a pas Tame d'un roi.

Celui-ci s'empresse de constater, comme un mari de comedie
que sa femme est reellement partie ;3 il profite de ce depart
opportun pour s'entretenir avec Jean-Baptiste qu'il a fait
mander: dans un discours tres amical, il prie le prophete
d'excuser les violences de langage d'une femme, d'une reine
outragee ;4 il lui rapelle 1'appui qu'il lui a toujours prete et
lui montre avec douceur tout ce qu'il y a de reprehensible
dans ses propres predications : promesse d'un royaume nouveau
qui excite les soldats a desobeir a leurs chefs, le peuple a
desobeir a Cesar ; attaques publiques contre le mariage du roi
lui-meme. Tout sera oublie, si Jean-Baptiste met un terme a
ses funestes declamations ; il obtiendra du roi tout ce qu'on
peut esperer d'un juge ami et bienveillant.s

Le Choeur approuve : en perseverant dans ces sentiments,
Herode continuera a etre cheri de son peuple ; sa moderation
le rendra illustre a jamais.

Mais le prophete est intraitable : il poursuivra son oeuvre ;
il a pour devoir de denoncer au grand jour les crime^s publics et
prives. Qu'Herode rentre en lui-meme: vaut-il mieux plaire

1 Baptistes, \. 228 :

Nostrique coetus vitium id est vel maximum
Qui sanctitatis plebem imagine fallimus.

2 Baptistes, v. 367 : Conditio regum misera, si miseros timet.

3 Baptistea, v. 404 : Jamne abiit ? Abiit.

4 Baptistes, v. 408 : . . . laesa mulier, nobilis, dives, potens,

Regina denique . . .

5 Baptistes, v. 440 : ... quicquid favor

Judicis amici et benevoli poterit dare,
Tribuetur a me liberaliter tibi.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 119

au roi que d'accomplir la volonte de Dieu ?1 Herode fait sortir
Jean-Baptiste ; le Choeur est plein d'inquietude ;2 et le roi
deplore — comme 1'CEdipe de Sophocle — les angoisses inseparables
de la fortune royale : 3 s'il decide la perte du prophete, il
s'aliene son peuple; s'il 1'epargne, il ruine son autorite et il
s'attire I'inimitie dangereuse de Malchus.

Le Choeur adresse une fervente invocation a 1'Eternel : que
le Dieu d'Israel n'abandonne pas son peuple !

Malchus a decide d'avoir un entretien definitif avec Jean-
Baptiste. Alors que tous hesitent, il saura, seul, venger la
dignite outragee des pharisiens. Dans un monologue passionne,
il resume la situation : le peuple adore le faux prophete ; les
rabbins murmurent ; le roi incline a 1'impiete ; les grands sont
indifferents.4 Reduit a ses seules forces, il va essayer de gagner
par de bonnes paroles cet homme dont il trompera sans peine
la simplicite — animi simplex homo — . S'il ne reussit pas, il le
fera perir et s'arrangera de maniere a ce que le peuple ne le
soup9onne pas de la mort de son prophete.

Mais, le voici lui-meme, escorte d'une foule de fideles, alors
que les rabbins sont abandonnes. Malchus se met a 1'ecart
pour ecouter ce que dira le prophete ; et il entend une
eloquente predication, qui commence par une action de graces
adressee a 1'Eternel, dont les bienfaits ne cessent de se repandre
sur ses creatures, et qui se continue par une attaque violente
centre le roi ennemi de Dieu — Malchus approuve en aparte5 — ,
contre le peuple infidele qui ose se dire le peuple de Dieu —
Malchus continue a approuver6 — , puis contre les hommes plus
coupables que le peuple, ces levites resplendissants dans leurs
longues robes blanches, ces docteurs de la loi gonfles de leur
science, ces vieillards hypocrites qui depouillent la veuve et
1'orphelin — Malchus furieux se contient a peine7 — , enfin contre
les rabbins, ces mauvais bergers du troupeau qui leur est

1 Baptistes, v. 492 : ... id ipse tecum cogita,

Utrum placere tibi sit aequius, an Deo ?

2 Baptistes, v. 523 : Sed ominari metuit animus quse timet.

3 Baptittes, v. 524 : Fortuaa regum quam misera sit et anxia,

Nee fando poterit explicare oratio,
Nee cogitando mentis acies assequi.

4 Baptistes, v. 660-662.

5 Baptist es, v. 718 : Principia recte sese habent tibi hactenus.
8 Baptisteii, v. 725 : Sane locutus cuncta vere es hactenus.

7 Baptistes, v. 734 : Disrumpor ira : tacitus hfec ut audiam ?

120 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

confie : ' ' Les loups hurlent autour des bergeries, et vous ne
les ecartez pas. Les loups, ai-je dit? Mais c'est vous qui etes
les loups; c'est vous qui devorez le troupeau. Sa laine vous
habille, son lait vous abreuve, sa chair vous rassasie. Vous ne
paissez pas le troupeau, vous vous en paissez ! * " Malchus ne
peut plus se contenir. II interpelle violemment Jean-Baptiste
dont les reponses calmes et dignes refutent ses injures
forcenees. Vaincu, fou de rage, le pharisien se retire en
annoi^ant que la mort punira sans retard les blasphemes
sacrileges de 1'impie.

Le chant indigne du Choeur fletrit 1'infamie des " severi
hypocrites."

Malchus s'est calme ; il peut apprecier les choses d'un esprit
plus rassis. Pour sevir contre 1'impie, il n'a rien a attendre du
peuple devoue a son prophete et du roi dont la faiblesse craint
d 'exciter la colere du peuple. Tout son espoir se fonde sur la
reine : depuis que Jean-Baptiste a blame publiquement son
union incestueuse et adultere avec Herode, elle ne cesse d'etre
en fureur comme une tigresse a qui on a enleve ses petits2 . . .
Mais elle arrive a propos.

Pendant que la reine s'approche, le Choeur se lamente :

Voici la flamme qui vient vers la flamme, le poison qui s'unit au poison.
Un peril extreme est instant.3

Malchus n'a pas de peine a exciter le courroux de la reine,
mais il sait le maitriser; il demontre — en multipliant les
maximes et les comparaisons a la maniere de Seneque — qu'il
f aut employer la patience et 1'adresse :

L'effort continu vient £ bout de ce que la violence ne peut accomplir. Le
chene eleve ne tombe pas du premier coup ; le belier dont on ae sert £ la
guerre ne ren verse pas les murs au premier choc.4

Que la reine use done de larmes et de prieres; qu'elle se
confie aux ruses perfides.

Le Choeur, qui pleurait la victoire des mechants sur le
" pius rates," interrompt son triste cantique. II a aper9u
Jean-Baptiste; il lui dit le danger qui le menace. Aux

1 Baptises, v. 750 : ... gregem non pascitis, vos pascitis.

Cf. Fenelon, Sacre de FElecteur de Cologne, ii. 2 : Us ne paissent point le
troupeau, c'est du troupeau qu'ils se paissent eur-memes.

2 Baptistes, v. 886 : Regina tigris orba ceu catulis furens.

3 Baptistes, v. 894-895.

4 Baptistes, v. 953-956.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 121

paroles affectueuses du Choeur, le prophets repond avec
1'heroisme enthousiaste d'un Saint-Genest ou d'un Polyeucte :
si le roi Herode le menace de mort, le roi des cieux lui dit de
ne pas craindre la mort et lui prepare sa recompense.1 Le
Choeur est persuade par 1'eloquence de Jean-Baptiste ; comme
lui, il aspire a s'evader de la prison de la vie pour jouir dans
le sejour celeste des felicites eternelles.

La reine a reussi : sa fille a charme par sa danse Herode,
qui s'est engage par serment a lui accorder ce qu'elle
demanderait. Elle a exige qua sa fille demandat au roi de lui
faire presenter sur un plat la tete de Jean-Baptiste. La
demande n'a pas encore ete faite. La reine redoute toujours
les indecisions de son mari. Elle le voit, anxieuse, s'avancer
avec jeune fille.

Dans une scene tres bien conduite,2 le roi rappelle sa pro-
messe ; apres lui avoir fait renouveler son serment, la jeune fille
exige la tete de Jean-Baptiste. Herode est frappe de stupeur ;
il essaie de pretexter qu'un pareil present ne convient pas a
une jeune fille; il dit quelle sera la colere du peuple. La fille
de la reine a reponse a tout ; la reine elle-meme a recours aux
pires maximes que les tyrans du theatre de Seneque se plaisent
a repeter pour prouver qu'un roi a le droit absolu de faire ce
qu'il lui plait. Herode est lie par son serment. II se resigne a
livrer le prophete aux deux femmes, en les suppliant de ne pas
le mettre a mort, en les avertissant que si elles le condamnent
a un chatiment cruel, toute 1'horreur de 1'acte qu'elles auront
commis retombera sur elles.

Le Chceur ne peut comprendre une telle barbaric. Le sang
des prophetes crie vengeance. Herode sera puni. . . Mais
voici un messager qui cherche les amis de Jean-Baptiste pour
leur annoncer une triste nouvelle. II a ete tue ; sa tete a ete
presentee a la fille de la reine ; mais a quoi bon les larmes ?
Qu'a-t-il a craindre de la mort, celui qui a bien vecu? . . .
Le Choeur cesse de se lamenter en reflechissant qu'une longue
vie n'est autre chose qu'une longue chaine de malheurs dont les
anneaux se terminent a la mort. . . Mais Timbecillite
humaine qui ne comprend pas la servitude de la vie a horreur
de la mort liberatrice.3

La tragedie de Buchanan met habilement en scene Pepisode

1 Baptistes, v. 1026-1030. 2 Baptistes, v. 1184-1263.

3 Baptistes, v. 1356-1360.

122 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

de la mort de Jean-Baptiste, tel qu'il est raconte dans 1'Evan-
gile selon Saint-Marc (vi., 17-28), ou il est egalement parle du
respect qu'Herode Antipas professait pour Jean, qu'il savait
etre un juste et un saint et qu'il consultait volontiers.

Mais les personnages de la piece semblent des contemporains
connus de 1'auteur du Franciscanus. Le pharisien Malchus
n'a aucun rapport avec le serviteur du souverain sacrificateur
Caiphe, ce Malchus a qui, dans son zele imprudent, Pierre
coupe 1'oreille d'un coup d'epee : J mais il ressemble comme un
frere au cardinal Beaton, dont les calomnies persecutaient le
poete de Baptistes sive Calumnia. Gamaliel, le rabbin pieux
et bienveillant qui protege Jean-Baptiste, peut etre a la rigueur
identifie avec le celebre pharisien Gamaliel dont saint Paul
s'honore d'avoir ete 1'eleve : 2 mais il nous fait penser a
Charles de Grammont, archeveque de Bordeaux de 1530 a
1544, gouverneur de la province de Guyenne en 1'absence du
lieutenant-general Henri de Navarre. Protecteur des lettres,
Charles de Grammont s'interessait particulierement au College
de Bordeaux; tres puissant — il fut pendant longtemps une
sorte de vice-roi de Guyenne3 — il pouvait proteger et il pro-
tegea efficacement Buchanan centre la haine du cardinal
Beaton.

Quant aux acteurs du drame qui ont joue reellement un
role dans 1'histoire des Juifs, les admirations ou les rancunes
de Buchanan doivent les avoir profondement modifies pour les
faire ressembler a des heros de 1'histoire d'Ecosse au XVIe
siecle.

Ce Jean-Baptiste, prophete enthousiaste et orateur habile,
comme un futur martyr qui aurait passe par les Universites
avant de monter sur le bucher, ne doit-il pas avoir pour type
Patrick Hamilton, le premier apotre de la Reforme en Ecosse ?
Ne a Glascow en 1503, etudiant a Paris et a Louvain, profes-
seur des 1523 a Saint-Andrews ou Buchanan, qui suivait les
cours de John Mair en 1524, dut le connaitre et 1'admirer,
Hamilton prechait les idees nouvelles avec une ardeur qui
attira 1'attention des pretres. Convaincu d'heresie dans un
conseil d'eveques preside par le cardinal Beaton, il fut con-
damne et mourut sur le bucher, en fevrier 1527. ~L'Histoire

1 Evangile selon Saint- Jean, xviii., 10-11.

2 Actes des Apdtre*, xxii., 3.

3 Jullian, Histoire de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, 1895, p. 334.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 123

d'Ecosse, redigee par Buchanan a la fin de sa carriere, rendait
un hommage emu a cette noble victime d'un complot
ecclesiastique — juvenis ingenio summo et ernditione singulari,
conjuration* sacerdotnm oppresses.1 II se peut que sa
premiere tragedie ait voulu faire revivre 1'apotre de 1'Ecosse en
la personne du Precurseur.

L'audace des allusions explique pourquoi 1'auteur de
Baptist es sive Calumnia retarda si longtemps la publication de
sa piece. En effet, sans pretendre assimiler a la femme
d'Herode Marie de Guise, 1'ennemie impitoyable de quiconque
etait suspect de lutheranisme, on ne peut s'empecher de
remarquer que bien des traits du caractere de ce pusillanime
roi des Juifs, qui a peur de sa femme et qui cherche par tous
les moyens a ne pas perdre 1'affection de son peuple, qui
respecte Jean-Baptiste et le laisse mettre a mort, conviennent
parfaitement au faible Jacques V., qui se consumait en efforts
continuels pour plaire au peuple et meriter le titre de " King
of Commons," qui abandonnait Buchanan aux coleres de
Beaton, apres lui avoir demande de composer une satire contre
les Franciscains, qui, docile aux instigations de la reine, faisait
bruler les heretiques a Glascow et a Edinburgh.

Tous les personnages de la tragedie sont bien vivants.
Jean-Baptiste parle avec une eloquence admirable et agit comme
Polyeucte. Malchus fait penser au Mathan d'Athalie et au
Narcisse de Britannicvs. L'empereur Claude est traite moins
durement dans le Ludus de Seneque le philosophe que le roi
Jacques V. dans le Baptist es de Buchanan. Herode n'est plus
meme Prusias, qui tremble devant sa femme Arsinoe et qui
a toujours peur de se brouiller avec les Romains ; c'est le bon-
homme Chrysale des Fe.mmes Savantes, qui sacrifie, tout en
plaignant la " pauvre enfant," Martine, la servante de cuisine,
aux indignations grammaticales de sa femme Philaminte et de
sa soeur Belise.

On peut, sans doute, reprocher a ce drame, si fort et si
interessant, bien des defauts qui precedent d'une imitation
trop attentive du theatre de Seneque. On note Tabus des
declamations et des monologues ; rien ne prepare et ne rend
necessaire 1'entree en scene des divers personnages. Les chants
du Choeur sont trop longs et leurs digressions s'eloignent

1 Rerum Scoticarum Hintoriae, lib. XIV. cap. xxxii. (Buchanani Opera
Omnia, Mit. de 1725, t. I., p. 489).

124 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

souvent beaucoup du sujet de la piece. II n'y a aucun souci
de la " couleur locale." L'erudition profane des Juifs con-
temporains d'Herode est parfois etrange. Le Choeur, qui
emprunte des comparaisons savantes a 1'ecole des declamateurs
dont Seneque a etc apres Ovide un brillant eleve, parle trop de
la flamme du Vesuve, des monstres nes sur les bords du Gange
et dans les antres du Caucase.1

Jean-Baptiste, qui connait lui aussi les frimas du Caucase,2
possede une science mythologique qui conviendrait mieux
a Patrick Hamilton qu'a un prophete hebreu: il disserte sur
les Eumenides a la chevelure de serpents, sur 1'avide Cerbere,
sur Tantale qui souffre toujours de la faim et de la soif, sur les
Sirenes puissantes par leurs charmes magiques.3

Mais il ne faut pas oublier que Buchanan ecrivait Baptistes
sive Calumnia pour les eleves du College de Guyenne; au
rvie siecle, toute cette mythologie avait droit de cite dans les
ecoles. II est interessant de noter que, dans la predication
ou il celebre, longtemps avant Racine et presque avec les
memes termes, la bonte de Dieu qtii commande au printemps
de parer la campagne de sa peinture de fleurs, a 1'ete de faire
naitre les fruits,4 Jean-Baptiste proclame que, conformement
aux ordres divins, Diane donne sa lumiere a la nuit, Phebus
sa lumiere au jour.5 Quand, dans sa traduction des Psaumes,
Buchanan parlera en son propre nom, il dira plus exactement :
" A toi est le jour, a toi est la nuit; c'est toi qui pares de
rayons d'or 1'eclat du soleil.6 "

Compose comme Baptist es sive Calumnia pour etre joue au
College de Guyenne, Jephthes sive Votum abonde lui aussi en
comparaisons mythologiques et en allusions geographiques peu
convenables au milieu ou 1'action se passe.7

1 Baptistes, v. 296, 320, 322.

2 Baptistes, v. 1087.

8 Baptistet, v. 1126-1129, v. 1133.

4 Baptistes, v. 701 : Jussu tuo ver pingit arva floribus,

Fruges dat aestas, fundit autumnus moruni.

Cf. Athalie, I., iv., v. 323 : II donne aux fleurs leur aimable peinture,
II fait naitre et murir les fruits.

5 Baptistes, v. 706 : Noctem Diana, Phoebus incendit diem.

6 Psalm., Ixxxiv., 16 (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II. , p. 83) :

Tuus dies est ; nox tua est ; solis jubar
Radiis adornas aureis.

7 Je me contente de citer ce passage ou le Chceur, compost de jeuues filles
Israelites, s'occupe des peuples qui boivent les eaux du Tage.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 125

Mais, si la forme des deux tragedies est la meme, puis-
qu'elles sont ecrites Tune et 1'autre suivant le modele fourni
par le theatre de Seneque, le fond est loin d'etre le meme.

Je ne crois pas que Ton puisse relever dans Jephthes rien
qui se rapporte a des personnages contemporains de 1'auteur;
le traducteur d'Alceste et de Medee emprunte beaucoup a
1'Iphigenie et a la Polyxene d'Euripide pour etablir le role de
la fille de Jephthe. II serait trop long de faire minutieusement
la liste de toutes ces imitations dont 1'analyse de Jephthes
donnera une idee.

Les deux sujets offrant beaucoup de traits communs, il n'est
pas etonnant que Ton trouve de nombreuses ressemblances
entre la tragedie latine de Buchanan et Abraham sacrifiant,
tragedie francoise de Theodore de Beze, qui fut imprimee en
1550. Buchanan connaissait Theodore de Beze: il lui
envoyait — nous ne savons a quelle epoque — ceux de ses poemes
qu'il avait composes en Ecosse, recommandes par une dedicace
tres modeste.1 Peut-etre, avant d'ecrire sa trayedie fran^oise,
1'auteur d' Abraham sacrifiant avait-il lu Jephthes sive Votum
en manuscrit.

On peut aussi trouver un certain nombre de ressemblances
entre le Jephthes et I'Iphigenie de Racine. Mais, comme les
deux pieces s'inspirent 1'une et 1'autre de la tragedie d'Euripide,
il est difficile de discerner si le poete d'Iphiyenie a parfois
imite directement le latin de Buchanan.2

~L'Evanyilc selon Saint-Marc donnait les evenements et les
heros du Baptistes; 1'auteur n'avait qu'a imaginer les person-
nages de Malchus et de Gamaliel. Pour le Jephthes sive
Votum, le chapitre xi. du Livre des Juges offrait plutot le sujet

V. 396 : ... quique bibit Tagum

Fulvo gurgile nobilem.

Ces vers n'auraient-ils pas ct<i ajoutes pour une representation de Jephthes
donnee au College des Arts de Coi'mbre, alors qui Buchanan y etait professeur ?

1 Hendecaxyllabon liber, x. (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II.,
p. 348). Ad Thfodorum Bezam.

V. 3 : Ad te carmina mitto, nee Latino

Nee Grajo sale tincta, sed Britannis
Nata in montibus horrida sub Areto.

2 Dans son edition classique A'lphiijenie (Paris, Delagrave, 1881), N. M.
r»:rnardin indique les passages de Jephthes qui se rapprochent le plus du texte
de la tragedie de Racine. Voir les notes 3 de la page 38, 3 de la page 70, 2 de
la page 105, 1 de la page 108, 2 et 3 de la page 111, 3 de la page 130, 2 de la
page 134.

126 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

d'un developpement epique ou elegiaque quo la matiere d'une
tragedie.

Au moment de passer dans le pays des Hammonites qu'il va
combattre, Jephthe promet a 1'Eternel que, s'il est vainqueur,
il lui offrira en holocauste ce qui, lorsqu'il reviendra de la
guerre, sortira des portes de sa maison au devant de lui.
Quand il rentre victorieux a Mitspa, en sa demeure, sa fille
unique s'avance a sa rencontre. Instruite du vceu imprudent
de son pere, elle se soumet et demande seulement qu'il lui soit
accorde d'aller pendant deux mois pleurer avec ses amies sa
virginite sur les montagnes. Au bout des deux mois, elle
retourne vers son pere qui la sacrifie, suivant le voeu qu'il
avait fait.

Le texte de la Bible ne donne que les deux personnages du
pere et de la fille. Buchanan a du imaginer ceux de la femme
et d'un confident de Jephthe ; il a eu 1'etrange idee de leur
imposer des noms grecs, — Storge et SymmacJivs — ainsi d'ail-
leurs qu'a la jeune fille qu'il appelle Iphis.

Le prologue explicatif est dit par un ange qui annonce le
sujet et les peripeties du drame : si 1'Eternel a decide de con-
traindre Jephthe a ce cruel sacrifice, c'est pour qu'il n'attribue
pas a son merite une victoire qui appartient a la puissance
divine, c'est pour que le succes n'enorgueillisse pas son coeur.

Storge entre en scene avec Iphis. La mere est accablee de
tristesse : elle a vu en songe un loup qui arrachait une jeune
brebis de ses bras pour la devorer ; si ce songe est un presage
funeste pour sa fille, que Dieu daigne la faire mourir elle-
meme avant qu'elle ait vu se produire le malheur qu'elle
redoute ! Iphis essaie de consoler sa mere : qu'elle attende
avec confiance le retour de Jephthe, victorieux de ses ennemis.
Storge ne veut pas se laisser rassurer ; depuis son enfance, elle
a ete temoin des miseres du peuple d'Israel ; il lui est impossible
de ne pas craindre quelque desastre plus affreux encore.

Le Choeur, compose de jeunes filles du pays, supplie Dieu
de mettre un terme a la servitude des Juifs soumis depuis
longtemps aux Hammonites. . . Mais les jeunes filles
aper9oivent au loin un messager qui arrive, sans doute, de
1'armee ; elles interrompent leurs chants, et attendent,
anxieuses. Le messager s'informe de la demeure de Jephthe.

— C'est ici la maison de Jephthe, et voici sa fille. Mais, si tu le peux,
dis-nous quelle esperance tu nous apportes !

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 127

— Je suis justemeut envoye pour faire le rtScit des evenements. Les
onnomis out ete disperses, mia eii fuite. C'est une grando victoire, une grande
gloire. Notre armee est saine et sauve. VoilA le resume do ce que j'avais a
annoncer.

— C'est beaucoup dire en peu de mots ! Mais explique-nous si tu connais
la aictoire par cnu-dire ou si tu Pas rue toi-meme.1

Le raessager s'empresse de faire un long recit de la bataille
a laquclle il a pris part. Le Chceur chante les louanges de
1'Eternel qui a permis aux enfauts d'Israel de vaincre les
Hammonites. Jephthe arrive. II commence par prononcer
une longue action de graces, abondante en pieuses maximes; il
s'engage de nouveau a tenir sa promesse envers Dieu, qui a
exauce sa priere et lui a donne la victoire. C'est alors qu'Iphis,
pleine de joie, vient se jeter dans les bras du vainqueur qui se
detourne d'elle. La scene entre le pere et la fille est tres bien
menee ; elle a une veritable grandeur tragique ; Buchanan se
souvient heureusement de l'Agamemnon et de 1'Iphigenie
d'Euripide. La jeune fille supplie son pore de songer au
sacrifice qu'il faut offrir a Dieu.

— Puisque le succes de ton expedition a et<5 si heureux, mon p6re, il con-
vient de prier et d'accomplir tes vceux.2

Jephthe essaie de congedier Iphis dont les paroles le mettent
a la torture :

Veille & ce que tout suit en bon ordre & la maison ; obeis & ton pere. Tu
reviendras bientot vers nous. Car il faut que tu assistes au sacrifice dans un
instant.3

II se retire lui-meme. Iphis ne peut comprendre la froideur
de son pere ; qu'a-t-il a lui reprocher, de quelle faute la soup-
9onne-t-il ? Mais le meilleur remede aux angoisses qui 1'etrei-
gnent, c'est de jouir d'une conscience pure.'1 " Bien parle,
digne fille d'un pere vainqueur et d'une chaste mere,5 " dit
Symmachus, qui vient feliciter son ami. Sur les instances du
Chceur, il promet qu'il aura vite fait d'apprendre le secret de la
tristesse de Jephthe et qu'il se hatera de le dire a Iphis.

Le Chceur deplore la severite des parents qui se laissent aller
a soup9onner injustement leurs enfants.6

1 Jephthea (Buchanani Opera omnia, edit, de 1725, t. II. , p. 173-213), v.
227-233.

3 Jephthea, v. 530-531. ;1 Jephthes, v. 546-549.

4 Jephthea, v. 567-568. 6 Jephthes, v. 569-570.

8 Jephthes, v. 593-617.

128 Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan

Symmachus a rencontre Jephthe ; il s'etonne de la desola-
tion de son ami en un jour ou sa victoire devrait le mettre au
comble de la joie. Apres avoir developpe de nombreux lieux
communs sur la " yrata sortis intimce securitas " et les malheurs
inseparables de la gloire que le vulgaire envie,1 le vainqueur
des Hammonites se decide a decouvrir la blessure qui le tue.
Symmachus essaie de lui prouver qu'il n'est pas engage par un
voeu temeraire. Le Choeur, qui comprend maintenant le motif
de la tristesse inquiete de Jephthe, le supplie d'etre docile aux
avis d'un sage conseiller, car le repentir accompagne les actes
accomplis a la legere.2

Restees seules, les jeunes filles expriment 1'espoir que leur
compagne echappera a la mort dont elle est menacee par
rimprudence de son pere.

Jephthe va consult er un pretre. Dieu, lui est-il declare,
ne dcmande pas le sang des victimes ; il exige comme offrande
un esprit pieux et une conscience pure.3 Existe-t-il, d'ailleurs,
une loi qui ordonne aux peres d'immoler leurs enfants? II en
existe une, replique le malheureux pere, qui ordonne d'accom-
plir les VCEUX auxquels on s'est engage.'1 La discussion est
longue et ardente; toute la casuistique du pretre, qui
argumente mieux que ne pourrait le faire un Franciscain,
echoue en face de la ferine resolution de Jephthe :

— II vous plait d'etre rcgardds comme les ministres de la sagesse. Quant
a moi, je prefere la simple, la brutale v6rite a toute cette science brillante du
fard de 1'impiete.5

Le Choeur se lamente sur le sort malheureux de Storge, qui
va voir perir Iphis.

La famille desolee entre en scene ; la mere pleure sur son
enfant. Jephthe est inebranlable.

— Seul, je suis force de commettre cetto action atroce et d'en souflfrir.

— Mais c'est volontairement, de ton plein gre, que tu te forces a la com-
mettre.6

Jephthe doit soutenir une discussion semblable a celle qu'il
a deja cue avec le pretre. La dialectique de Storge est faible;
mais son coeur maternel a des arguments irresistibles. Le pere

1 Jephthes, v. 649 : Praeclara dictu res honor, victoria,

Decus, triumphus, parta bello gloria.

a Jephthes, v. 782-783. 3 Jephthes, v. 898-899.

4 Jephthea, v. 910-911. 5 Jephthes, v. 1053-1055.

6 Jephthes, v. 1159-1160.

Les tragedies religieuses de Buchanan 129

doit repousser les supplications de sa fille qui ne veut pas
mourir. II prend sur lui toute la responsabilite du crime qu'il
doit commettre et qu'il commettra, puisqu'il s'y est engage
devant Dieu. Vaincue par cet heroi'sme, sure de la tendresse
profonde de son pcre qui la voue malgre lui a la mort, Iphis
se soumet aux consequences de la promesse temeraire de
Jephthe avec une sublime resignation qui excite 1'enthousiasme
du Choeur.

La mere voudrait esperer encore : un messager vient lui
faire un long recit de la mort heroi'que de sa fille ou elle doit
trouver une consolation.1 Storge repousse cette consolation:
le courage d'Iphis en face de la mort ne fait qu'exasperer la
douleur qui angoisse son ame.2

1 On voit que Buchanan se soumet par avance aux rigueurs de 1'unite de
temps, telles que le XVII6- siecle devait les imposer. La fille de son Jephthe
ne demande pas un delai de deux mois pour aller pleurer sur les montagnes.
Sa tragedie montre " en un jour un seul fait accompli." C'est sans raison que
Vossius (Inst. Poet. II., III.), lui reproche de prolonger Faction pendant une
duree de deux mois au moins.

8 Jephthes, v. 1445-1450.

H. DE LA V. DE M.

XIV.

Buchanan's " Baptistes " : Was it translated
by Milton?

The Rev. Francis Peck, Prebendary of Lincoln, made a
literary suggestion that was certainly apposite when he described
the translation of Buchanan's Baptistes which he edited as the
work of Milton. Milton and Buchanan had various literary
characteristics in common, and a work in which these character-
istics on the part of Buchanan were remarkably illustrated might
readily have induced Milton to render it into English. The
Prebendary also conveyed a sincere compliment to Buchanan in
the course of his researches on the subject. It was only after his
investigations were well advanced that he was led to consider the
original author to be Buchanan. He entered upon his scheme
of editorial exposition under the belief that the drama was an
original composition of Milton's. He elaborated his theory of
Milton's translation of the piece with an ingenuity great as his
prefatory boldness. Of this skilfulness it must be said that it
shows an uncommon innate faculty for conjecture. The con-
cluding link of his glistering chain of evidence may be regarded
as somewhat the most dazzling if not the strongest of the series.
Here he proceeds upon the daring assumption that it is fair to
think of Milton in the wholly new character of a literary juggler.
Regarding the words on the title-page of the pamphlet — And
presented to the Sing's Most Excellent Majesty by the Author —
which form a veiled summary of Buchanan's dedication to James
I., he speaks as follows: — " Which crafty trick of his makes the
translator to pass for an author; and, if he was found out,
furnished him with a very ready salvo, that it was the author
(Buchanan), and not him the translator (Milton) who presented
it to the King's most excellent majesty." The attitude here
depicted is quite un-Miltonic.

The appropriateness of Milton's acting as a translator of a
poem by Buchanan is undoubtedly considerable. Buchanan's

Buchanan's " Baptistes " 131

mind had two distinct phases : the one was in close affinity with
the genius of Dryden, the other had an equally intimate
resemblance to the genius of Milton. Like Dryden, he was
practical, witty, an expert critic of human folly. Like Milton,
he was austere, idyllic in thought, and also an accomplished
exponent of the inner meaning of words. The individual
examples of his mental similitude to Milton are striking. The
Mai(f Calender, of the "Elegies" almost at once suggests
L' Allegro. The outline of the elder poet's narrative has the
same vividness; the personages, the scenic effects, the true
pastoral fashion of its events, are all coloured with a natural
magic which re-appears in Milton's song of the earth's gladness.
And the festive burden of the story is handed on from the one
poet to the other : —

Carpe rosas et, ni carpas, peritura ligustra,
Et vitae oredas haec simulacra tuse.

Gather the rose, the privet's faery flower,
Emblems alike of man's too transient hour.

The structural art at work in Samson Agonistes is also that of
the Baptistes and Jephthes. Again, Milton pursued the general
argument of Buchanan's De Jiire Regni apnd Scotos when he
wrote the Defence of the People of England. And although the
detailed discussion is very dissimilar in the two treatises, there is
complete unison of thought on the subject at issue. The con-
junction of two such minds as those of Milton and Buchanan in
the rendering of the story of the Baptist would have been an
episode in our literature of rare interest. Unfortunately, there
seems good reason to think that the sole commendation of the
view is its character as a charming romance developed from the
brain of a zealous antiquary.

Mr. Peck gives an unvarnished account of the rendering
of the Baptistes which he published as Milton's. He says
that having become a keen student of both Cavalier and
Puritan pamphlets, he was brought to the discovery of this par-
ticular work. Its primary title was Tyrannical Government
Anatomized: or, a discourse concerning evil counselors, being
the fife and death of John the Baptist. The date was 1642.
The original form of the translation was singular enough. It
was printed as if it were prose. The fact that it was a poem
occurred to the editor, he says, before he had read six lines. The

132 Buchanan's "Baptistes"

perusal of ten lines more convinced him that it was a tragedy.
Not much further on he decided that before him lay a poetical
achievement by Milton. The peremptoriness of the verdict
affords a very appreciable contrast to the lengthened list of
reasons which he states on behalf of Milton's authorship of this
version of Buchanan's drama. The chief of these reasons are
concerned with comparisons drawn between Milton's style and
that of the Baptistes translator. External evidence is reduced
to a vanishing point: it takes shape only with the mention of
Milton's own projected poem on the subject of John the Baptist.
Certain items of the internal evidence also are curiously inept.
The editor seeks, for example, to support his plea by citing as
Milton's certain features that are actual constituents of the
original. Among such elements may be named these: — "The
Choice of the Heroes," " The bitter aversion for the Clergy of all
sorts discovered in it " ; and " The great spirit of Liberty which
runs through it." And to this sort of mistake there is added the
sweeping declaration that " there was no one else but he then
living (at least of that party) who could have done it in such a
masterly way as here we see it."

The only parts of the writer's argument which have pertinence
are those in which he sets forth various resemblances between
Milton's art and this translator's. They are three in all : —

1. The peculiar Way of Spelling.

2. The whole Manner and Turn of the Style.

3. The resemblance in structure between Samson Agonist eg
and the Baptistes.

As both Prof. Masson and Canon Beeching have perfectly
established, Milton had a system of spelling peculiarly his own.
But this system was not developed till the composition of Paradise
Lost. As a test instance under this head there may be taken
the spelling employed by Milton for the personal pronouns in e.
The spelling of these pronouns with a double e is frequent in
Paradise Lost; it occurs also from time to time in the Baptistes
translation attributed to him. But there are two definite
arguments against this usage in the translation being his. First,
the spelling of these words in C omits, which was written almost
contemporaneously with the English version of Buchanan's
drama under notice, i? totally unlike that of this translation,
being in fact, virtually conformed to modern usage. The

Buchanan's "Baptistes" 133

probability is that had Milton been the author of the
translation, the orthography adopted would have been the
orthography of Comus. Second, when Milton did write the
double e in the pronouns, he was carrying out a distinct
system, a system having some resemblance to the practice
of Habington in his Castara. He differentiates between
the spelling of these pronouns in such a way as to suggest
that emphasis was intended. The employment of the double
f by Buchanan's translator is indiscriminate, as it was by
the later Elizabethan prose writers. A well-defined instance
of Milton's practice regarding these pronouns is subjoined,
Paradise Lost, Book V., 11. 893-7: —

So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only hee,
Among innumerable false, unmov'd,
Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'd,
His Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale.

It may be urged that the pronoun orthography of the trans-
lation may mark a transition stage of Milton's system of spelling.
Such an idea would be far-fetched.

2. The contention that the whole turn of the style of this
Baptistes translation argues for Milton's workmanship is not
supported by any illustrations on the part of the editor. He
simply affirms it. The true Miltonic hall-marks do not stamp
the rendering. Four of these are of particular importance — the
character of Milton's blank verse, his use of inversion, the nature
of his language, and his use of particular metres. The quality
of the first of these is individual and alone. Keats despaired
of imitating it. In Milton's hand it maintained a uniform power.
Something of its fulness and wealth appears even in the
metrical fragments which he translated from Greek and Italian.
The blank verse of this Baptistes translation has never such a
richness of quality. While the epithets of one of our greatest
definitions of poetry — "deep, majestic, smooth, and strong "-
are admirably suitable to Milton's blank verse, only one of them,
and that the least significant, can be fairly applied to the blank
verse of the Buchanan translation imputed to him. The use of
inversion,1 too, is wanting in the metrical art of Buchanan's

JMr. Robert Bridges in his volume on "Milton'a Prosody" deals carefully
with the question of Milton's "Inversion of Rhythm." What he says on this
point tallies as proof with the result stated in the present article, where only
Milton's use of linguistic Inversion is considered.

134 Buchanan's " Baptistes "

anonymous translator. Inversion, like other literary devices,
Milton employed at greater length in his mature works than in
those of his early career. But Comus is occasionally marked by
it effectively. No parallel to the following example and others
is to be met with in this Baptistes translation : —

Against the opposing will and arm of heaven,
May never this just sword be lifted up.

The argument from diction is also adverse to Milton's author-
ship of this translation. The diction of the translation, though
always accurate and well-minted, compares but ill with the
phrasing of Milton. Comus is thus a splendid mosaic. It would
be fruitless to search the translation for lines comparable to
these : —

The grey- hooded Even
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weeds
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain.

Or to this: —

Storied of old in high immortal verse.

Further, there is in the piece a remarkable difference from
Milton's work in regard to peculiarities of metre. Both Comus
and Samson Agonistes — the second drama may here be fairly con-
sidered for the sake of fuller comparison — have metrical usages
altogether different from those of this Baptistes translation. The
set use of rhyme occurs in the lyrical passages of the earlier
work, and in the concluding lines of the later one. The practice
is opposed to the custom of Buchanan's translator. He
generally writes in blank verse, but concludes each important
speech with a rhymed couplet, exaggerating a fashion of the
Elizabethan dramatists. The mere fact that the lyrical
passages in Comus are all rhymed, whereas Buchanan's
translator keeps invariably to blank verse for his choruses,
militates against Milton's being held the translator. Samson
Agonistes, written on the same model as the Baptistes, has a
chorus. But here again the practice of Milton and that of the
unknown translator are at variance. Milton employed for
his choruses those irregular measures which, thoroughly
pleasing and successful, virtually introduced a new element into
English lyrical verse. Milton, it is true, wrote the peculiar

Buchanan's "Baptistes" 135

irregular measures of his Samson Agonistes in his later years.
But the absence from both his dramas of the use of the blank
verse in his lyrical monologues largely precludes the supposition
that he would at any time have selected blank verse as his
method of expression in choric writing.

3. That Milton in his Samson Agonistes imitated the struc-
ture of Buchanan's two dramas is no evidence of his having
translated the Baptistes. It proves that they were of one mind
on a point of literary art.; but it does not prove more than this.
It might be said with very similar justice that Pope had a hand
in the composition of The Medal because he wrote The
Dnnciad. Admiration Milton had for Buchanan, and he did
not hesitate to declare it. It may be also admitted that he to
some unimportant degree imitated Buchanan's dramatic work
when he composed his Samson Agonistes. But neither
admiration nor imitation implies that he actually translated one
of his dramas. The view that he did so from either motive
is practically baseless.

On the side of the advocate of Milton's authorship of
this translation, it must be granted that its general
literary merit is high. It is accurate yet imaginative,
while the verse has vigour as well as music. Its literary
excellence and its strange history unite to give it a
fascination which at the time of its discovery might well
have tended to deceive an observant student. Who the name-
less translator may have been, it were vain to attempt to settle.
A satire of much excellency long associated with the genius
of Dunbar is now recognised as the work of an unknown poet.
What is the record of Scottish lyrical verse before Burns but the
computing of nameless gifted writers ? Anonymous, too, must
be the work under discussion. To the admirer of Buchanan,
however, it is at all events of value that, while the rendering
cannot be Milton's, it is not unworthy of being regarded as his,
nor of the poetical fame of the great Scottish humanist.

W. B.

XV.

Buchanan's Psalms — An Eighteenth Century
Controversy.

MANY translations, of the Psalms into Latin verse were made in
the period of the Reformation and for a century after it ; and
these differed very much from each other. The Reformers who
took up this piece of work were more faithful to the original,
Beza's Psalms being based on the Hebrew, and accompanied by a
literal Latin translation thereof. The Humanists who translated
the Psalms seem to have worked from the Vulgate, and they
naturally treated their original with more freedom and aimed
at producing correct and elegant Latin verse. Thus treated the
versified Psalms of more than one Humanist became a school-
book, enjoying on the one hand the approval of leading
Reformers, and on the other qualified not at least to corrupt the
Latin of schoolboys. Buchanan's Psalms formed a schoolbook in
Scotland from the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the
nineteenth century. Principal Donaldson, as the readers of this
book know, has a lively memory of this feature of Scottish
education.1

It is curious to know that the pre-eminent excellence of
Buchanan's Psalms, acknowledged by many of the leaders of the
Reformation and by many great scholars in his own day has not
always been undisputed either in England or in Scotland. The
translation of the Psalms into Latin verse did not cease in Scot-
land with Buchanan. I have before me a number of volumes
belonging to the eighteenth century, which contain attempts of
the kind by a considerable number of Scottish scholars. And in
the middle of the eighteenth century a regular attack was made
on the use in schools of Buchanan's Latin Psalms, and another
book of Latin Psalms was proposed to be substituted for it, at

1 [See Appendix IX.— Ed.]

Buchanan's Psalms 137

least for the lower forms of schools. The version thus favoured
was that of Arthur Johnston ; and a controversy took place as to
the respective merits of Buchanan and Johnston, conducted with
considerable acrimony and on neither side very conclusively. Of
that controversy this volume may fittingly contain some short
account.

Arthur Johnston was a man of very great eminence in his day
and had a curious career. He was born at Keith Hall in Aber-
deenshire, in 1587, five years after the death of Buchanan, gave
very early strong evidence of talent and made his way to the
University of Aberdeen. After a course there in which he no
doubt attained great proficiency in Latin, he went abroad, travel-
led through Italy and took a course of medicine at the Univer-
sity of Padua, graduating M.D. there. He then passed through
other countries of Europe, especially Germany, Holland, and
France. In the last named he settled, being well received there
on account of his reputation as a poet, and liking the country as
Buchanan had done. In fact he married a French lady and
stayed in France twenty years. In 1632 he returned to his
native country, and at once took such a position that in 1637 he
was made Rector of Aberdeen University. It was the Professors
who elected him to that office. Nor was this the crowning act
of his history. He migrated to the English Court, where he
bocame physician to Charles I., and died in the year 1641.

Arthur Johnston's version of the Psalms became a popular
book and was printed several times. His Psalms are all written
in one metre, the elegiac hexameter and pentameter, except the
119th, which, as if to show that the writer did not require to
limit himself to the Ovidian stanza, is written in as many metres
as the Psalm has parts, viz., twenty-two. The translation
is closer on the whole to the original, and while the whole
work shows a very elegant command of Latin verse with much
true feeling, it is undoubtedly easier to read, as no doubt
it must have been to write, than Buchanan's. It is quite
intelligible how it came to be thought that Johnston's
Psalms were a better book than Buchanan's, at least for
beginners. It may also be the case that Buchanan was
altogether somewhat out of favour in the early eighteenth
century. Various attacks were at that time made on him
as a historian, and neither the high Tory politics nor the
strict orthodoxy of the day could incline men to the rugged old

138 Buchanan's Psalms

scholar. However that may be, the middle of the eighteenth
century saw the Assembly recommending Johnston's Psalms for
use in schools. In the Acts of Assembly of the year 1740, the
Assembly is found to have before it a petition of Mr. William
Lauder, Teacher (i.e., Professor) of Humanity in Edinburgh,
craving the Church's recommendation for having taught in
schools Dr. Arthur Johnston's Paraphrase of the Psalms of
David in Latin verse, etc. ; and this recommendation was after-
wards granted. This caused the friends of Buchanan's Psalms
to bestir themselves and to set to work to pick holes in John-
ston's Psalms in order to discredit them. The controversy thus
begun in Scotland soon crossed the border, and in 1741 Mr.
William Benson, one of the Auditors of the English Exchequer,
who had shortly before edited a new edition of Johnston's
Psalms, with a Prefatory Discourse on post-classical Latin
poetry — a somewhat pretentious and very inadequate treatment
of the subject — issued a Supplement to his Prefatory Discourse,
in which he throws aside all reserve — he had not formerly depre-
ciated Buchanan — and declares that " Johnston's translation of
the Psalms is in every respect greatly superior to Buchanan's."
This challenge was met with little delay by the great Latinist,
Thomas Ruddiman (writer of a Latin grammar, parts of which
perhaps still live in schools) then keeper of the Advocates'
Library in Edinburgh, who was in the best position to write on
the subject as he had edited and published handsome editions
both of Buchanan and of Johnston, a few years before.

Other contributions were made to the subject. Mr. John
Love, schoolmaster at Dalkeith, published, in 1740, Buchanan's
and Johnston's Paraphrase of the Psalms compared, and in the
same year appeared Calumny Displayed by Mr. William
Lauder, who also wrote a Preface to a volume of Scottish Musae
Sacrae (1739), containing Johnston's Psalms and other transla-
tions of parts of the Bible into Latin verse. The controversy,
however, is only fully developed in the writings above mentioned
of Benson and Ruddiman. Though I find it impossible now to
find any spark of heat in its ashes, it affords several matters of
interest to the historical student.

In the first place Johnston's friends appear to have done for
him what he had not dreamed of doing for himself, when they
compared him with Buchanan. In his Ad Lectorem Elegia, a
somewhat charming poem prefixed to his Psalms, he admits that

ARTHUR JOHNSTON, M.D.

(Physician to King Charles I.)
Who also translated the Psalms into Latin verse.

An Eighteenth Century Controversy 139

people may naturally be surprised at seeing a thing done again
which Buchanan had done so well and it might almost be thought
had done once for all.

"Cur ego Grampigenae relego vestigia Vatis
Cur Buchananaeae fila resume lyrae ? "

he asks, and he replies that he would not dream of comparing
himself with Buchanan who has shown himself as great a poet
as Homer or as Horace, and that he has translated the Psalms
in quite a different manner. Buchanan has treated David as
King and clothed him with royal robes, Johnston is to treat
him as prophet, and to set him forth in homelier dress, not by any
means comparing himself with so great a poet but hoping that
by his humbler labours the fame of Buchanan will shine all the
brighter. He had also, when in France, defended Buchanan
against the challenge of a would-be rival, a Dr. Eglisemius
(Eaglesham ?) physician to the King, who had asked the Paris
Medical Faculty to decide on the merits of his Paraphrase of
Psalm civ. as compared with that of Buchanan. On this
aspirant to poetic fame Johnston pours out some three hundred
lines of invective, exhausting the resources of the Latin language
in calling him fool, madman, and quack. The episode shows
clearly how high Buchanan's fame stood at that period. When
Johnston's Psalms were produced, however, they also found
warm admirers in various lands, being introduced into schools
in Holland and calling forth eloquent tributes in Latin verse
from scholars both at home and abroad. Johnston also came to
be called by men of eminence the facile princeps poet of his
day. That his Psalms were placed in competition with
Buchanan's as we have seen is not after all unnatural.

Auditor Benson goes more thoroughly to work than any other
of the writers in question in his disparagement of Buchanan's
Psalms ; and for one thing undertakes to show that the circum-
stances in which they were produced explain their inferiority.
Buchanan's own account of the matter in the Vita Sua is to the
effect that it was when he was shut up by the Inquisition for
several months in a monastery in Spain, at that time mainly, that
he translated the Psalms into various measures. He was thus
shut up in order that he might be more accurately instructed
by the monks who, he says, proved neither unkindly nor ill-dis-
posed, though they were utterly ignorant of religious truth.

140 Buchanan's Psalms

Benson amplifies this account of the matter, taking from Mac-
Kenzie,— a Scottish historian who wrote several volumes
called Lives of Scottish Writers, — the statement that the
translating of the Psalms was a penance imposed on Buchanan
ill the monastery. From this he infers that the translation was
done in great haste, as Buchanan was very anxious to get out of
prison. Ruddiman's answer to this is complete. He says that
MacKenzie, from whatever quarter he got this story which,
besides being unsupported, is on the face of it unlikely and in-
credible, was apt to be credulous.1 Buchanan does not say that
he finished his translation of the Psalms in the monastery, but
implies the contrary. Such men as the monks were would not
likely set him such a task ; and the Psalms were not published
for twelve or thirten years after the period in question. Ruddi-
man might have argued from the Psalms themselves that they
have not at all the appearance of a piece of taskwork either
unwillingly or hastily performed. He does not do this, but
spends most of the three hundred and ninety pages, to which
his vindication extends, in minute and detailed examination, first
of Johnston's Psalms then of Buchanan's, in respect of metre,
omissions, superfluous additions, inappropriate pagan allusions,
of words not classical or otherwise improperly used, of the pause
and its improper position or omission, etc., etc. Benson's
fifty-three pages had also been mainly occupied with
detailed criticism of such matters, and the reader of
this assailant of Buchanan soon sees that his strictures
are often unfair and strained and such as a little effort to under-
stand his author would have kept him from making. The same
is true, though perhaps in a somewhat less degree, of Ruddiman.
It was necessary perhaps that his book should be written; it is
by no means necessary or in any way to be recommended that it
should be read now, except perhaps by the professed historian
of modern Latin verse. There are certainly scholars connected
with our University and with our Buchanan celebration whose
opinion on this side of the controversy it would be interesting to
hear. Even a layman in Latin prosody, ho.wever, may read the
Psalms of Buchanan and of Johnston and may see some points in
them. The criticism displayed in the controversy, even by
Ruddiman, is somewhat narrow and technical; there is a want

1 Compare Hume Brown's George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, p.
259 — " MacKenzie is always to be taken with large reservations."

An Eighteenth Century Controversy 141

in it of broad literary appreciation, the whole matter remains,
in the hands of both combatants alike, one for grammarians.

What strikes the modern reader of these poems is that the
whole idea of turning the Psalms of David into correct Latin
verse was a somewhat absurd one, so that the debate as to the
mistakes made in such exercises by this scholar or that, and as
to which of them did it best, is lacking altogether in substance
and reality. The thing these scholars tried to do may be pro-
nounced impossible. The Psalms are made up originally of the
most concrete and direct and intense religious utterances. There
is art in their composition no doubt, but the matter outweighs
the form in them. The Psalmists wrote under a kind of compul-
sion; the new religious experiences and aspirations with which
their minds and the minds of their people were so fully charged
had to be put in metrical form in order to secure public
national utterance of them in the temple service. It
is their fulness of religious meaning that gives the
original songs their character ; it is a full and power-
ful religious faith that seeks in them the simplest and
straightest outlet. To clothe such outpourings in the ingenuities
and artificialities of classical Latin versification is really to alter
their character completely and to put something different in
their place. Beza's Latin Psalms do not give this impression.
They are done straight from the Hebrew and into the simplest
Latin verse. Buchanan on the other hand changes the Psalms
into great and powerful Latin poems. No one who reads these
poems of his will doubt that he had real religious feeling and
that the sentiment of the Psalms took strong hold of him. But
he was too full of Horace and Virgil and other ancient poets to
use any form but theirs for the expression of what the Psalms
gave him. His metres produce massive effects, often not present
in the original Psalms, and the religious spirit of the Old Testa-
ment spirit enters into a splendid amalgamation with the pride
and vigour of Humanism.

Johnston's Psalms are more of a translation than Buchanan's ;
his work, as he himself said, was of quite a different character
from that of the older scholar. His metre itself involved this,
as he said and as his readers have remarked. To drop every
second line into the pentameter keeps the verse from soaring.
Johnston follows his original more evenly on the whole and adds
less of his own. He is unequal to the grander passages, best in

142 Buchanan's Psalms

the contemplative and plaintive. On the whole one would judge
that Johnston's Psalms were better suited for beginners in the
schools, but that Buchanan's would do far more for boys of taste
and of ambition.

A great deal more light could no doubt be shed on this subject
by some one who could devote more time to it than I have been
able to give. One leaves it with a strong desire that the Latin
Psalms of Scotland which form so interesting a part of our
national inheritance may not be forgotten, and that the power
to appreciate them may not be diminished or lost in the country
which produced them.

A. M.

XVI.

Buchanan's Erotic Verse.

THE humanists of the Renaissance, following the example of
the classic poets of an earlier age, showed their common kinship
to humanity by writing erotic verse on similar lines. In many
instances, however, they allowed the tricks of style and felicities
of expression to lead them into licentiousness. The composition
of such love songs was part of the discipline of the scholars of the
period, who endeavoured to show off their facility in happy turns
of expression and clever play upon words. There was more of
the pride of skilful versifying than real sentiment of the heart.
Every poet, it may be said, falls a victim to Love, real or
imaginary, and lays the best offering of his wit on the altar of
Eros.

In the time of Buchanan, when Latin was the language of
culture and scholarship, almost every scholar who had any
pretensions to be considered a poet imitated the amatory verse
of such writers of antiquity as Ovid, Horace, Catullus or
Tibullus. A previous century saw the Italian poets exaggerat-
ing this kind of composition, and almost exhausting the entire
vocabulary of word and phrase in their desire to surpass one
another in absurdity, and often in obscenity. To write such
verses was the fashion of the time, and we are not surprised to
find Buchanan entering the lists, while he was resident in
Portugal, and inditing such tit-bits of Latin verse as the Ad
Neaeram, In Leonoram, In Gelliam, and Ad Briandum Vallium,
Senator em Burdegalensem, pro Lena Apologia. Some of these
literary intrusions into the region of feminine coquetry have
tended to create misgivings in the minds of some of his
friendly critics, and gave occasion to detractors to exhibit the
venom of their spleen. But the student of Buchanan who
understands the circumstances of his time and the occasions for
the penning of such erotic verse, need not disturb himself. The
laxity of expression, which such poets allowed themselves in
verses dealing with that evasive and illusive subject, woman, does
not imply that the writers were themselves lax in their morals.

144 Buchanan's Erotic Verse

There is the case of Beza, a great offender in this respect, who
solemnly assures us that though his Muse was lax his life was
chaste.1 On the other hand, Muret was so lax in morals that
the grossness of his verse forms a practical commentary upon the
manner of his life. Buchanan like Beza, was a man of pure life,
and his verse is much less objectionable. The elegy (Elegiarum
Liber III.} Ad Briandiim Vallium, etc., has puzzled many of
Buchanan's biographers, but its title reveals its purport. It is
a jen d' esprit, written in the ironic vein at the time and in the
country of Rabelais, when such poetical effusions were the pas-
time of the humanists. An amount of poetical licence was
assumed at this period which would not be permitted now. The
Councillor Briand de Vallee, to whom this remarkable elegy is
addressed, was a member of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and
founded a monthly lectureship on the Epistles of St. Paul. He
was considered by Rabelais one of his best friends, and is char-
acterised by him as the " tant bon, tant vertueux, tant docte, et
equitable president Briand de Vallee."2

When a selection of such pieces as the Elegiae, Silvae, etc.,
was published, in 1567, Buchanan says in an introductory
epistle to his friend Peter Daniel 3 " For my own part,
I was not extremely solicitous to recall them from perdition ;
for the subjects are generally of a trivial nature ; and
such as at this period of life are at once calculated
to inspire me with disgust and shame. But as Pierre
Montaure4 and some other friends, to whom I neither

1 The Latin Poets of the classical age made the same excuse.

Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
Ipsum ; versiculos nihil neeesse est. — Catullus.
Crede mihi ; mores distant a carmine nostro :
Vita verecunda est, Musa jocosa mihi. — Ovid.
Innocuos censura potest permittere lusus ;
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba. — Martial.

2 Rabelais, Liv. iv., Chap, xxxvii.

* Peter Daniel, a native of St. Benoist sur Loire, was an advocate living
principally in Orleans. He held the office of baitti of the Abbey of Fleuri.
Scioppius characterises him as a storehouse of every species of antiquities.
Scaliger and Turnebus acknowledge themselves indebted to him for the
communication of his manuscript treasures. He died in 1603. Irving's
Memoirs of George Buchanan, p. 213.

4 Pierre Montaur6 was Master of Requests, a Latin poet of some dis-
tinction, and skilled in mathematical science. He died at Sancerre sur Loire,
19th August 1570.

Buchanan's Erotic Verse 145

can nor ought to refuse any request, demanded them with such
earnestness, I have employed some of my leisure hours in collect-
ing a portion, and placing it in a state of arrangement. With
this specimen, which consists of one book of Elegies, another of
Miscellanies, and a third of hendecasyllables, I in the meantime
present you. When it shall suit your convenience, I beg you
will communicate them to Mantaure, Des Mesmes,1 and other
philological friends, without whose advice I trust you will not
adopt any measure relative to their publication. In a short
time, I propose sending a book of iambics, another of epigrams,
another of odes, and perhaps some other pieces of a similar
denomination : all these I wish to be at the disposal of my
friends, as I have finally determined to rely more on their judg-
ment than on my own."

Buchanan felt some doubt about publishing such effusions,
but relied more upon the judgment of his literary friends than
upon his own. It would have deprived the modern critic of a
glimpse into the large heart and versatile mind of such a poet
had he not left these specimens of his nimble wit and ready pen.
He was what the Scots call a ' buirdly ' man — too large for the
microscopical vision of narrow-minded men, who fail to see the
true man in their eagerness to detect the flaws in his character.
The late Dr. Robert Wallace takes a broader view.2 " One
biographer, a very competent authority on this period of Scottish
history, says, somewhat severely, that these pieces ought not to
have been written by the man who wrote Franciscanus — a power-
ful satire on the vices and hypocrisy of the monks. I must say
that, with every deference to a critic highly worthy of respect, I
am not able to see it. The Franciscanus was essentially an
exposure of dishonesty, not so much of the vices practised under
the cowl, as of the shameful trickery of using the cowl to cloak
them. As far as honesty and consistency go, there is no reason
why an honest and consistent man should not have written every
word of these ' Lena ' sketches. Even from an artistic point of
view they will stand inspection. The subject, of course, is a
revolting one, and so is Dame Quickly — but would any man of
average robustness of mind wish Dame Quickly unwritten ?

1 Henry des Mesmes, Master of Requests, derived his lineage from the
native country of Buchanan, and was a great encourager of learning. His
opinion in literary matters was deferred to by many. He died in August 1596.

2 George Buchanan, p. 106.
L

146 Buchanan's Erotic Verse

Many people seem to forget that while the real itself may be
unpleasant, the artistic image of the real may be a delight. We
should shrink from Caliban in the flesh, but Shakespeare throws
a charm over him ; Pandemonium is not, I believe, a sweet scene,
but Milton's account of it is sublime; Falstaff was disreputable,
but he makes an admirable stage figure ; a corpse is an unlovely
object, but Rembrandt's ' Dissectors ' has a fascination." Re-
ferring to Buchanan's Leonoras, Dr. Wallace goes on to say that
" in point of graphic power" they " are second only to the
Jolly Beggars, while their savage and even hideous realism, con-
trasting with the elegance of the Latin line, produce a piquant
effect from the mere point of view of art. But I demur to any
suggestion that these or any of Buchanan's so-called ' amorous '
poetry are corrupting or intended to be, or that they exhibit any
gloating over the degrading or the degraded on the part of the
writer. From references in them I believe they were satires
written for the warning of ' College ' youth, and resembled
certain passages in the Book of Proverbs and elsewhere in the
Bible, where certain counsels, highly necessary and practical, are
conveyed in language not deficient either in directness nor detail.
They could not possibly scandalise or tempt any one, being
written in Latin. Mr. Podsnap and the ' young person ' would
pass equally scathless, for they could not read them. Only men
who could construe and scan Horace could understand them, and
these might be trusted to see their true drift."

This view is, I think, a fair and reasonable position to take
up. With a few exceptions we find the love verses of Buchanan
in two sets, addressed to Leonora and Neaera. The series to
Leonora appear to be modelled on Horace's Ode (IV. 13.) to
Lyce — Audivere, Lyce, di mea vota — and the twenty poems
contain every imaginable kind of abuse. Leonora does not seem
to have been a real person, but merely a fictitious character
around whom the poet allows his fancy to play. Those addressed
to Neaera1 are much happier in theme and expression, showing

1 Neaera was the poetical mistress of Tibullus, Marullus, Secundus,
Bonefonius, and many other poets besides. Hence the allusion of Milton —

Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair ?

The question which Milton asks is whether it were not better to apply himself
to the composition of amatory pastorals or of love elegies.

Buchanan's Erotic Verse 147

the poet's aptitude for piquant turns of thought and delicate
phrasing. The beauty and the charm of Neaera afford the
theme of the epigrams, which contain little or no passion, but
rather simulated emotion. The best known of this series is the
thirty-first, De Neaera : —

Ilia mihi semper praesenti dura Neaera,

Me, quoties absum, semper abesse dolet :

Non desiderio nostri, non moeret amore,
Sed se non nostro posse dolore frui,

which may be freely rendered: —

Neaera is cold whene'er I appear,

But sighs at my absence again,
Not that she loves me, and so sheds a tear,

But desires to witness my paiii.

The translation of James Hannay runs thus : —

Neaera is harsh at our every greeting,

Whene'er I am absent she wants me again ;

'Tis not that she loves me or cares for our meeting,
She misses the pleasure of seeing my pain.

He adds that ' Menage used to say that he would have given his
best benefice to have written the lines — and Menage held some
fat ones.' Menage, who was an excellent philologer himself,
has given a rendering of these verses in one of his Italian
Madrigals, beginning,

Chi creduto 1'avrebbe,
L'empia, la cruda lole
Del mio partir si duole.

These epigrams of Buchanan are terse in diction, pungent in
thought, flexible and pointed. They were greeted with the well
deserved admiration of competent critics, and many have
imitated them. In his verses In Gelliam, he indulges in playful
satires upon those ladies who painted or adorned themselves by
wearing brass rings and glass gems. These could not possibly do
anything else than amuse the reader: there is no suggestion of
pruriency in any of them.

For the higher type of womanhood Buchanan had nothing but
praise and appreciation, as may be seen from his verses Ad
Mildredam Gulielmi Caecilii uxorem, matronam virtute et erudi-
tione praestanttm, or the Ad Camillam Morelliam. The latter
runs : —

148 Buchanan's Erotic Verse

Camilla, multu me mihi carior,
Aut si quid ipso est me mihi carius,
Camilla, doctorum parentum
Et patriae deems et voluptas :

Ni Gratiae te plus oculis ament,
Ni te Camoenae plus oculis ameut,
Nee Gratias gratas, nee ipsas
Esse rear lepidas Camoenas :

Quae virgo nondum nubilis, artibus
Doctis Minervam, pectine Apollinem,
Cantu Camoenas, et lepore

Vel superes Charites, vel aeques.

Hos ferre fructus, Utenhovi, decet
Laurum, vireto quae teneram comam
Nutrivit, et ramos refudit
Castalio saturata rore.

The tenderness of the poet's heart is revealed in these lines, and
he displays the gracefulness with which he could touch such
themes. The outlook of Buchanan was wide, and he felt that
the poet's dominion was bound only by man's environment. All
things interested him, and in his versatility we see the deep
veneration which he felt when thus standing in presence of the
mystery of God's marvellous universe.

There is an interesting reference to his erotic verse in the first
poem of the Iamb on Liber, addressed to William Haddon, one
of the Masters of the Court of Requests to Queen Elizabeth, who
was also a noted Latinist. It begins : —

Frustra senectam, Haddone, provocas mcam

Laeta ad juventae munia,
Musaaque longo desides silentio

Arenam in antiquam vocas.

{' These lines, moreover, deserve to be quoted," says Dr. Hume
Brown,1 " as they seem to place beyond doubt that Leonora and
Neaera were mere names on which he exercised his fancy.
Haddon, it appears, had called on his friend for a poem, such as
he had once known so well how to turn. But, Buchanan, now
on the verge of his sixtieth year, thus replies : : In vain you
challenge an old man to the sallies of his youth. Even in the
years when such trifling is more seemly, rarely did the Muse
visit me, born as I was in mountainous Britain, in a rude age,
among a rude people. Now when declining age has left me a

1 George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, p. 140.

Buchanan's Erotic Verse 149

few white hairs, when I have all but told the tale of three score
years, and all my spirits droop, Phoebus turns me a deaf ear, and
the Muses harken not to my call. It yields me no joy now to
sing how the golden hair of Phyllis is dearer to me than the locks
of Bacchus, or to indite stinging iambics on Neaera's heartless
want of faith.' ' The lines, the translation of which Dr. Hume
Brown has thus given in italics, are these : -

Nee Phyllidis me nunc juvat flavam comam

Praeferre Bacchi crinibus,
Nee in Neaerae perfidam superbiam

Saevos iambos stringere,

and may be freely rendered : —

It is not now a joy to me

To hold that Phyllis' golden hair
Is dearer than the locks I see

Around the head of Bacchus there ;
Nor do I care the perfidy

Of false Neaera to indite

In harsh iambics which I write.

The exercises of a more youthful period had now become
distasteful to the aging humanist, and while he was as able
as ever to display his deftness of touch in versification, he
had not the heart to simulate the passions he had ceased to
feel. As we have seen the examples of his erotic verse are
not unworthy of the reputation of one who was the foremost
Latinist of his time, and whose memory has been justly
honoured at the recent celebrations, held in the University
which he adorned.

R. M. F.

xvn.

Science and Humanism: Buchanan's "De Sphaera,"

AN inquiry into the condition of the European mind at the
epoch of Buchanan would be a stupendous task. Even a
general statement of the more salient features of the knowledge
and modes of thought of the men of the time, of what interested
them and attracted them, of what general explanation of the
universe satisfied them, would carry us too far. Moreover, it is
apt to be forgotten that the Renaissance was a manifold
awakening, and Humanism was only one of its products and
not the most important and enduring.

What we in these days call science, the life-work of such men
as Darwin, or Lord Kelvin, was hardly possible for anyone.
To the Humanist it offered no reward and presented no interest.
Besides, it took a long time for the human mind to recover
from the effects of a thousand years of slavery to ecclesiastical
domination. While the Arabs and the Jews were free to pursue
investigations in Anatomy, Medicine, Chemistry, Astronomy,
the men of Christendom were in absolute bondage. The
religious creed of the Arab and the Jew was so short and so
simple that no elaborate system of casuistry, no cumbrous
hierarchy and ceremonial, no boundless wilderness of legends
about shrines and saints and relics were needed to support it.
The ecclesiastical system of Christendom had become such that
it could not exist if there were free inquiry such as the Arabs
carried on. Doctors, for example, could hardly be tolerated,
for they would be rivals to the Confessional, and they would,
moreover, prevent the sick from resorting to shrines and
relics for cure, and would thus cut off a very profitable
form of tribute from the clergy. Mankind, besides, had grown
so much accustomed to illogical thinking that a scientific
mode of thought could hardly be looked for till many years had
come and gone. Galileo was barely allowed to live by the
ecclesiasticism of the seventeenth century : it sent Bruno to the

Buchanan's "De Sphaera" 151

stake in 1600. Newton, Dr. Harvey, Napier of Merchiston,
Torricelli, Kepler, Leibnitz, Otto von Guericke were not coeval
with the high tide of Humanism ; they appeared after it had
subsided. They were products of the seventeenth century, not
the sixteenth.

All science must be founded upon careful sifting of
evidences. No science can exist in a community in which the
inability to appreciate the cogency or irrelevance of evidence is
a prevalent feature. This inability, so extraordinary when
viewed along with the elaborate and acute formal reasoning of
the schoolmen, was the characteristic of European thought for
centuries. The victory of Ivanhoe in the lists at Ashby was
accepted as quite a satisfactory proof that Rebecca was
innocent. An Arab writer mocks at this illogical thinking and
says that if a man wished to prove that three is greater than
ten he would do so by changing a stick into a serpent. Beyond
all this, those illuminati to whom the glories of the Greek and
Roman classics had revealed themselves had all the hunger of
their souls satisfied. They felt no call to inquire into the secrets
o£ nature further than had been done by Aristotle, Pythagoras,
Hippocrates and Ptolemy. They would have held it to be
sacrilegious to doubt the methods of the ancients or the accuracy
and completeness of their results. For it was not only the
artistic beauty of the compositions in which the ancient thought
was revealed to them that aroused Humanistic admiration and
enthusiasm ; Greek and Roman thought itself was so free from
the ecclesiastical and theological fetters in which the European
mind for centuries had been bound, that it was unhesitatingly
accepted as the last word. It was so free, so well ordered, so
lofty and so sane, compared with the trivialities and narrowness
of the scholastic lore of Western Europe. Hence the
Humanists were in every way satisfied to revel in the delights
of literature, without a care for any key to the mysteries of
nature.

The Renaissance was a resurrection of the open mind, the
curiosity natural to the human intellect ; but in that general
awakening that was extending the bounds of human knowledge
in every direction, that gave us Columbus, Bacon and Newton,
the Humanists took only a small share. Their chosen field was
girt and circumscribed by the codices that could be found by
devoted searchers, and by the volumes issued with such

152 Science and Humanism :

marvellous rapidity by the presses of Aldo or of Estienne.
And although the best of them pleaded that in the training of
youth, which was part at least of the life work of Buchanan,
the aim should be ratio as well as oratio, there were few true
Humanists who would not prefer the latter to the former, and
forgive the badness of the reasoning or the smallness of the
topic if the style were good and, above all things, accurate.
They were few indeed who, like Buchanan, could at once
inform, convince, and charm.

The ideal man was now a man of books. The " light of
things " had hardly dawned. In the previous age the ideal
man had been either the man of war or the holy monk. But
now the sword and the pilgrim's staff had both been obscured
by the printed page. Pere Bourbon would rather be author of
Buchanan's Psalms than Archbishop of Paris. Pomponius
Laetus, who taught Latin literature in Rome for many years,
and who both lived the life of a pagan Roman and induced
many others to follow his example, was not excommunicated,
but was accorded, at his death, a great funeral which was
attended by forty bishops. Beautifully symbolical of the
change is the bronze monumental figure of Alberto Pio in the
Louvre. The princely Italian scholar is represented in armour,
but his sword is sheathed and in his hand he holds an open
book.

It is this worship of books, this devotion to the ancients,
the cultivation of their style and the adoption of their thought,
that set the Humanists apart. We can thus understand how
it was that Buchanan, one of the greatest of his class, lays
himself open to the charge of imitation, of having in the
selection of his themes and the manner of treating them
confined himself to tracts already travelled by the classic writers.

It has just been said that scientific research, as we know it,
was impossible in these days. Not only was there no scientific
mind, but the ground was so covered with the weeds of
superstition and credulity that the best of minds had to be
cleared of rank thickets of error and superstition before any
cultivation could be attempted. Gargantua had to be " purged
canonically with Anticyrian hellebore." But even Rabelais,
one of the best products of the Renaissance, and himself follow-
ing what should be a scientific profession, makes Ponocrates
teach his pupil the fact-lore of " wine and water, of salt, of

Buchanan's "De Sphaera" 153

fleshes, fishes, fruits," etc., not by the modern method of
observation, but by " learning in a little time all the passages
competent for this that were to be found in Pliny, Athenseus,
Dioscoridee, Julius Pollux, Galen, Porphyrius, Oppian,
Polybius, Heliodorus, Aristotle, ^Elian, and others." It is true
that there are better things than this in the training of
Gargantua, but it shows how classical lore was trusted and
revered and how unfamiliar the scientific spirit was to the men
of the Renaissance.

Curiosities of the current natural history are to be found
everywhere, and appalling credulity and ignorance even among
the cultured. The reader is advised to read Bishop Leslie's
account of Scotland in his History. His account of the
"clack-goose" is typical. He not only quotes Hector Boece
as having seen these fabulous creatures, but declares that he
himself saw them at Leith in 1562, " mony thousands of sik
lytle foulis stiking to the ship, thrie fingres lang, of a
meruellous perfyte and weil schapen forme, except that they
war litle, lyueles, and fethirles." Other eyes too, were
evidently blinking owl-like in the dawn on things around :
minds like those of children were wondering ; for he goes on
to tell how in the " zeir of God 1566," there was presented to
" our noble Maistres, Quene Marie of Scotis," who was then at
Stirling, " a branche of a certane trie fra whilke mony fructes,
as thay had bene, hang doune, litle indeid, bot innumerable
mussilis, in quhilkes war fund not fishe (a meruel) bot foulis."
And even when the simple Bishop was writing this in Rome he
met a Dr. Allan, doctor of Theology in England, who told him
he had often seen " thir lytle foulis upon the keilis of aide
schipis in the west of Ingland." The interesting thing about
all this is that apparently Queen Mary must have given reason
for believing that she was interested in natural history : we
know on the other hand that she had shortly before been
reading Livy with Buchanan. We feel when we read this
incident as if we were assisting at the small beginnings of a
Royal Society. Was Buchanan present when this " branche of
a certane trie " was brought to Mary or had he gone to Paris
to see to the printing of the Psalms with the famous dedication
to the Queen ? Possibly had he been present he would not have
doubted, any more than did Hector Boece or Bishop Leslie or
" Doctour Allan of Ingland," that the "mony fructes"
contained " foulis."

154 Science and Humanism :

If there was any scientific progress at all between the
extinction of the ancient culture and the Renaissance, it was in
Chemistry, Medicine, and Astronomy, and these matters were
in the hands of laymen. The Arabs had taken the torch that
was nickering in the loosening grasp of the Eastern scholars and
had trimmed and fed the flame and carried it into Spain.
Thence their light shone upon the men of Western Europe for
centuries. These branches of knowledge were cultivated by the
Arabs above all others. The marvellous pitch to which
scientific and philosophic culture was carried by the Arabs
contrasts painfully with the darkness and superstition prevail-
ing in Christendom. When science began to be cultivated in
Western Europe, the work had only to be begun where the
Arab scholars had left it. We are about to see how Buchanan
regarded Astronomy. One illustration of the state of Medical
Science in the 16th century must be sufficient. In January
1570 the Regent Moray was shot at Linlithgow by a Hamilton,
and all the Hamiltons fell into public disfavour. In the
following month a rhyming broadside was issued, not wanting
in poetical and musical feeling, calling on all birds and flowers
to mourn the fallen prince and on the ' ' Lordis " to revenge the
deed, pointing out how dangerous the Hamiltons were,
" forquhy Cardanus the Feind pat in the priest." The priest
into whom Cardanus, the famous Jerome Cardan, put a fiend
was the notorious Archbishop Hamilton of St. Andrews, whose
character must have been very black indeed if it were as black
as Buchanan has painted it. In 1552 he had despaired of
being cured by the Scottish doctors of a disease given out as
asthma. Cardan, only known to modern students as the author
of a method of solving cubic equations, called Cardan's rule, had
a great repute as a physician and was then professor of
Mathematics at Milan. He was sent for and stayed from June
to September in Scotland. He undertook the cure of the
Archbishop and succeeded, being very handsomely paid for his
treatment. The cure is described by Randolph in a letter to
Cecil, now in the State Paper Office, and bears out the state-
ment quoted above from the poetical broadside of Feb. 1570,
about seventeen years afterwards. Briefly told the cure
consisted of " divers foreign inventions," which puts it very
mildly. He hung him up by the heels " certain hours in the
day"; he fed him " many days on young whelps." To crown

Buchanan's "De Sphaera" 155

all he ' ' rounded " for the space of six days ' ' certain unknown
words in his ears." " It is said," says Randolph, " that at that
time" — viz., these six days — " he did put a devil within him"
and " that this devil was given him on credit but for nine
years," and so on. Could any more striking picture be drawn
of the state of science than this of His Grace the Archbishop of
St. Andrews hanging by the heels while he of the cubic
equations ' ' rounded " cabalistic words in his ears ? And yet
Cardan was in the front rank of physicians: he was besides a
first-rate mathematician, which is supposed to cure one of
credulity. Moreover, not only were the quack and his victim so
prominent men, but Randolph, who tells the story and
obviously believes it all, was a cultured man of much shrewdness,
who knew men and cities, and Cecil, to whom he tells it, had
one of the best heads in England.

The only work of Buchanan's that has any scientific
character is his great poem, De Sphaera, which he began to
write about 1555, but never finished. As a Humanist he had
entered upon almost every field cultivated by his prototypes,
the Greek and Roman ancients, and had proved himself a
master in them all. There remained for him to essay a great
and enduring monument of genius in the form of a poem on
the loftiest of themes. He had matched himself with the
epigrammatists, the lyrists, the dramatists, the elegiac writers,
the satirists, the historians, and by universal consent had proved
himself their equal. But he had written nothing epic like
the jEneid, nothing like the Georgics, nothing loftily didactic
and philosophic like the De Rerum Natura. The subject of the
constitution of the universe presented itself to him as one in
which great thoughts like those of Lucretius would be called
forth, while in the abundant digressions into ancient myth that
such a subject would allow there would be welcome opportunities
of rivalling the fancy and the music of Virgil.

The De Sphaera is indeed a very great and remarkable poem.
As a contribution to astronomical or cosmographic thought it is
now of little value, but as a sustained proof of poetic genius,
of classical learning, of astonishing fluency and ease in the use
of Latin and all the lore of the ancients, it must take a very
high place. Most readers must inevitably come to the con-
clusion that the digressions are the best of the poem as poetry,
and have most of that characteristic charm that readers of

156 Science and Humanism :

Buchanan soon come to associate with his verse, a charm which
has lifted Buchanan out of the mass of merely imitative writers.

The thought is almost wholly the thought of the ancients,
the science that of the Almagest of Ptolemy. It was according
to the spirit of Humanism to treat all that had been thought and
done by mankind between the death of the last of the Roman
writers and the rise of Humanism as null and void, and to begin
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as if the preceding
thousand years had never come and gone: In these long years
a great deal had been done in Astronomy. Facts had
accumulated from the observations first of the Alexandrian
Greeks and then of the Arabs, and more than one guess at the
truth had been made. Just twelve years before Buchanan
began to write De Sphaera, Copernicus had announced a new
theory of the heavens, which, though partial and tainted with
error, was to upset the received doctrine and lead to the
marvellous developments of the next century, and to the
establishment of a base of operations from which many great and
acute minds have since gone forth to gather astronomic spoil.
The views regarding the universe held by men like Buchanan,
satisfactory to strong and reasonable minds like his, have long
since departed from human thought and are now interesting
only as a stage in a long journey.

Briefly stated the theory of the ancients was as follows. The
earth was round, but stationary. Its size was approximately
known. It was divided into five zones. Round it revolved in
circles the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn and the fixed stars. As each of these had a different
time and manner of revolving, each must be fixed to a
transparent hollow shell or sphere one within the other, the
earth being in the centre. Of the seven crystal spheres the
fourth or middle one had the sun attached to it. The eighth
carried all the fixed stars.

Modifications of this had been made from time to time, for
example by adding small circles (epicycles) to the larger ones to
explain the progression and retrogression of the planets, or
errones as Buchanan calls them.

In 1543 Copernicus, in extremis at Frauenburg, had touched
with his dying hand the first printed copy of his book De
Revoliitionibus, in which the theory is stated that the sun and
not the earth is the stationary centre round which all the

Buchanan's " De Sphaera" 157

heavenly bodies revolve. For each planet and for the fixed stars
he still retains a great hollow crystal sphere to which each is
fixed and with which it revolves. This notion was universally
rejected by Protestant Europe and condemned as impious by
such leaders as Luther and Melancthon. It is therefore no
shame to Buchanan that he utters a similar denunciation of the
Copernican theory. Very slowly indeed did this revolutionary
theory gain acceptance. Forty years younger than Buchanan
was Tycho Brahe, the Swede, who devoted his restless active
mind to astronomical observations and did much to enrich the
records. The chief of his contributions is a theory, differing
from both the Ptolemaic and Copernican, to the effect that the
planets revolve round the sun, but the sun, carrying them with
him, revolves round the earth, which is stationary. This was
less of an upheaval of old beliefs and gained more adherents,
being moreover later in time. The Copernican theory is
denounced by Buchanan, but, although the writing of the De
Sphaera was earlier than the discoveries of Tycho Brahe, and we
do not know how Buchanan received them, we find him in later
life corresponding with Tycho Brahe on intimate terms, having
received from him through Gulielmus Lummisdaile an account
of his discovery of the new star in Cassiopeia. When James
VI. visited the Court of Denmark in connection with his
marriage, he sailed to Tycho Brahe's Baltic Island and visited
him in his tower, Uranienburg, where he was shocked to see in
an honoured place a portrait of Buchanan, whose memory he
always recalled with fear and dislike. It does not seem probable
that Buchanan's powerful mind could fail to see the truth and
reasonableness of the new theories, at least in his later years.
However this may be, the phenomena remain the same whether
we give the true explanation of them or not, and the greater
part of any true description of the heavens as seen by one who
knows nothing of the telescope or of gravitation will remain true
to all time. Should the description be vivid and poetical it
will remain interesting and attractive, and such a description is
the purpose of Buchanan's poem.

The poem is in five books. Of these the first three were
finished, containing altogether eighteen hundred hexameters.
The fourth stops short at the 119th line and the fifth at the
463rd. In this incomplete state the poem was first published
at Geneva in 1584, two years after the death of Buchanan, and

158 Science and Humanism :

again in 1585. Supplements were written to the fourth and
fifth books by Pincierus, and the poem in this completed form
was published in 1587 and frequently since along with his other
poems.

When Buchanan began the poem in 1555 he was tutor to
Timoleon de Cosse, a boy of about fourteen, and he addresses
him in each of the introductions. It is not very clear why
Buchanan did not finish the poem. He refers to it in a letter
to Tycho Brahe in 1576, and blames his illness and his
busy life. Again in 1579 he makes a similar excuse. These
causes had not prevented him from writing much poetry
of a different class, nor the De Jure Regni apud Scotos,
nor the great history. Had the interest remained keen,
and had the enthusiasm for the subject not been overcome by
others, these excuses would probably not have been made, or
needed. It seems as if the march of the years had carried
Buchanan, as it was carrying mankind generally, to new stand-
points. The ceternce legum habence were still there in 1579 as
in 1555, but it was dawning on the best minds that the laws
were not what they had long supposed. Kepler was not far off,
and neither he nor Newton appeared in a world altogether
unprepared for them.

The first book begins in the epic style with a statement of
the subject :

Quam varise munch partes, quo semina rerum
Fcedere conveniant discordia, lucis et umbrae
Tempora quis motus regat, sestum frigore mutet,
Obscuret Solis vultum Lunaeque tenebris,
Pandere fert animus.

Then follows an invocation :

Tu qui fulgentia puro

Lumine templa habitas, oculis impervia nostris,
Rerum sancte parens, audacibus annue cceptis ;
Dum late in populos ferimus tua facta, polique
Immensum reseramus opus : gens nescia veri
Ut residem longaque animum caligine mersum
Attollat ccelo, et, flammantia mcenia mundi
Dum stupet, et vicibus remeantia tempera certis
Auctorem agnoscat, tantam qui robore molem
Fulciat, aeternis legum moderetur habenis,
Consilio innumerosque bonus conformet ad usus.

There is here no spontaneous or atheistic origin of things as
in Lucretius. The aim is rather that of Milton, " to justify the
ways of God to men." The flammantia mcenia mundi echoes

Buchanan's "De Sphaera" 159

Lucretius, however. The aeternis legum moderetur habenis is
very familiar to a reader of Buchanan's Psalms and recalls the
doctrine of the De Jure Hegni. The frequent use of this
phrase is indeed one of the mannerisms of Buchanan.

He calls on his pupil Timoleon in a very beautiful passage
to join him in the study of this great subject :

Tu inihi, Timoleon, niagni spes maxima patris,
Nee patriae minor, Aonii novus incola mentis,
Adde gradum comes, et teneris assuesce sub annis
Castalidum nemora, et sacros accedere fontes,
Nympharumque chores, populoque ignota profano
Otia, neo danmo nee avarae obnoxia curae.

Then he goes directly into his subject with a statement of
all that is connoted by the term mundus. There is one ruler
of the universe, but there is no vis nativa. He then explains
that the world is made up of four formative elements, earth,
water, air and fire, and that these settle themselves by their
own weight in their respective places. Every part of the earth
would thus have been under the water :

Nisi cura Dei se attollere montes

Jussisset, vallesque premi, terramque cavernis

Hiscere, et ingentes humori aperire lacunas . . .

This arrangement was made in the beginning by God for the
sake of the human race that was to be.

He also proves that the world is round, by well-known
proofs, e.y., (1) the sun rising later in western countries and
earlier in eastern, (2) the shadow of the earth on the moon
being always round :

Redduntque trigona trigonum,
Quadratam faciem quadrata, rotunda rotundam.

A young pupil need not think that lofty mountains and deep
valleys contradict this, for they are as nothing to the total
bulk, no more indeed than the slight roughnesses which give
foothold to a fly on a globe of glass, which is rough to him,
who is so small and so close to it, but which seems smooth and
round to our eyes :

Non secus ac vitreum si musca perambulat orbem,

Qui nobis penitus laevis videatur, et omni

Asperitate carens, sen tit tamen ilia tumorem,

Parraque inaequali figit vestigia clivo . . .

The disappearing of the hull of a receding ship before that
of the masts is a proof of the rotundity of the water. This is

160 Science and Humanism :

to be inferred otherwise, for as the conflagration that destroyed
Troy had the same properties and obeyed the same laws as the
smallest flame, such as that of " exiguue populatrix flamma
lucernae," so must the great ocean have the same shape as a
drop of dew :

Ergo velut tenui se ros argenteus orbe

Lubricat, et nitidis depingit gramina gemmis,

Et quae de madidis dependet stiria tectis ;

Sic late effusus pontis remeabilis humor

In eunmlum assurgit, formamque affectat eandeni.

But why labour to prove this rotundity by reasoning ?
Avarice, which nothing can withstand, has led Spanish ships
round the world, and there are no secrets now :

Omnia jam vasti ratibus panduntur Iberis
Claustra orbis, rerum longis incognita seclis
Jam secreta patent.

The barrenness of Spain, "sicco vix fertile sparto " (esparto
grass, to wit) has given place to luxury. The products of all
lands are being brought home, cotton, silk, frankincense, ginger,
pepper. The Arab collects cinnamon for us, and (very oddly)
" Congerit in caecas aurum formica cavernas." The other side
of the picture is the loss of the best of all the sons of Spain by
emigration. They leave all that men hold dear and go forth,
" auspice avaritia." This is expanded into a long and eloquent
passage, after which the description of the mundus is resumed.

Up to this point the structure of the poem has been given
in detail that the reader may form some idea of its nature, but
the available space admits of only a very general statement of
what the rest of the poem contains. It must have been noticed
that a high and generous soul animates this noble poem, no
didactic opportunity is let pass unimproved, nor is any chance
omitted of colouring the astronomic lore with the rich hues of
classic myth. Above all the natural descriptions are very fine,
and anything of the nature of a story is always well told.

After showing that the Earth does not rotate, such an idea
being absurd, he tells how the earth had been measured. An
arc had been measured on the Assyrian plain and the elevation
of the Pole Star observed. From this the circumference was
found, and, by dividing this by three, the diameter.

The earth is then compared with the sun's sphere and with
the great Olympus, that is, the sphere of the fixed stars. If

Buchanan's " De Sphaera" 161

Phoebus were to trust Timoleon for a day with the chariot of
Phaethon (Phatthonteas habenas, favourite word!) how small
would the earth appear to him looking down from the summit
of the heaven, if any earth would then be visible at all, and
how small would the sun be !

Quantulus est cum stelligero collatus Olympo !

Reason cannot comprehend in numbers the proportion that the
earth would bear to the vast Mundus which contains all. Yet
this small place is the abode of man and of beasts and birds.
The habitable part is smaller still when the ocean, the lakes and
streams, the marshes and deserts and mountain ranges are all
subtracted. It is like a small island floating on the great deep.
And what a home man makes of this earth of his !

Quantula pars rerum est, in qua se gloria jactat,
Ira frenrit, metus exanimat, dolor urit, egestas
Cogit opes ; ferro, insidiis, flamma atque veneno
Cernitur, et trepido fervent humana tumultu.

The Second Book begins with a beautiful introduction, too
long to quote. Timoleon is invited to raise his mind from the
earth and accompany his guide through the immense tracts of
heaven. By degrees his eyes will become clear and " Nudaque
se nobis offert natura videndam," — a very modern way of
putting it. He then explains how the stars move. They
revolve in a perpetual and constant circle, " for that is the only
force in round bodies." This is effected by each one being
fixed to a sphere through which it sticks like a nail in the rim
of a wheel or a knot in a board of maple :

Superest ut fixa per orbes
Quaeque suos (veluti tympana summa rotarum
Clavus inhaerescit, tabula vel nodus acerna)
Perpetuo maneant, et cum se verterit orbia,
Astra suum peragaut cum coelo tracta meatum.

These crystal spheres are eight in number, sphere within
sphere, the Earth being in the centre. Next to it is the Moon,
then Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and
lastly all the fixed stars. A beautiful passage describes this
eighth sphere flying with its " swift array of stars, a thousand
eyes, a thousand little fires under the sleepy night scattering the
dark shadows of pitchy gloom, lest the wayfarer rashly wander
through the dark, lest the wandering sailor lose himself on
unknown seas, lest the watchman waking all the night should

162 Science and Humanism :

tell the hours unequally." Above this eighth sphere are the
secret temples of the Gods, where neither diseases nor grief nor
anxious care disturb the fretting minds with fear, but where
there is rest without a care and life that knows not old age.
The wisdom of the ancients had come to know these eight
spheres and their motions, and though reason has shown that
what they taught is true, " nevertheless ignorance sunk so far
in blind darkness ceases not to rail at them and is daring
enough to condemn the heaven to rest and to turn the solid
earth into a swiftly moving mass." He then explains that the
heaven is spherical, giving very fanciful reasons, and refers to
the Assyrian astronomers using an artificial globe, " ad speciem
penitus tornata rotundam." The heavenly bodies revolve from
east to west, returning daily to the spot from whence they
started and following the same path. And so the book proceeds
to state the movements of the five planets, quinque errones, the
Sun and Moon which are called Titania astra, and advises
Timoleon, in order to understand them better, to draw their
orbits in sand. The conclusion from the observation of the
heavens and the regularity of the motions of the stars is that
there are no men, however uncultured, who can look upon the
stars and not believe that there is a God :

esse Deum credat, vim scilicet illam,
Quae regat immensam justo moderamine molem,
Et moveat nostros per tot miracula sensus.

The third book of De Sphaera abounds in beautiful passages
as well as in such information as a scholar was expected to
know about the stars.

" Hitherto you have roamed widely, Timoleon, in the vast
Olympus, with wandering chariot, nowhere a resting place,
nowhere an abiding home. Tighten now for a little your k
reins, and with your mind narrow down the great fields and the
measureless expanse of ether, and with me mark out wit
boundary lines the limits of the world, so that a mind, chile
of heaven, may grow accustomed little by little to know it
native home, while the breezes rustle in the leaves, while, softl]
gleaming, the glory of the meadows harmonizes, while Apoll
favours, and the Muses, not unpropitious, smile kindly on 01
songs."

After this introduction begins a systematic survey of the
heavens, with much technical information and abundant myth.

Buchanan's " De Sphaera" 163

First the poles are described, located and named, the Arctic and
Antarctic Circles, the Tropics, the Solstices, the Equator, and
the five Zones. The study of this as an astronomical treatise
must have been extremely hard owing to the continual calls it
makes on classical lore. The constellation, Aries, for example,
is not called always by so direct a name, but is designated
Phryxi vector. References to more obscure myths than even
this are constantly pulling the student up. From the Zones
we pass on to the Ecliptic and the Zodiac:

Hie auro gravidas Phoebus molitur habenas,

Hie varias ponitque et sumit Delia formas,

Hie quinque Errones, sed certis legibus errant,

Exercentque suas ccelo gaudente choreas.

Then follow the twelve Signs of the Zodiac in order, from
Phryxi vector onwards. Each constellation is described,
sometimes in exquisite lines, and the story of each is told.
Then comes a beautiful passage about the Milky Way and the
various stories of its origin ; whether it was a streak of milk
from Juno's breast, or the track of Phaethon's headlong car,
or, anticipating modern discoveries, the accumulated light of
many feeble stars :

, . . multas magno sine lumine Stellas

Exiguas credunt collata luce nitorem

Gignere ..........

The Celestial Zones are then marked off. Then the
Terrestrial Zones are described, each giving opportunity for
splendid natural description in which Buchanan excels. Then
follows a passage about the tropical regions and the overflowing
of the Nile, a favourite mystery with ancient geographers from
Herodotus downwards. The book closes with a fine passage
about the Spanish ships once more.

The fourth book is a mere fragment. The subject is stated
in the first eleven lines, thus:

Nunc mihi stellarumque ortus obitusque canenti
Sis facilis, caussas penitus dum promo latentes,
Cur lenta Oceanum linquant haec, ilia repente
Signa per obliquum properent ascendere ccelum ;
Cur iterum falsas subeant haec ocyus undas,
Ilia trahant lento molimine gressus :
Cur ubi Sol mediam cceli conscendit in arcem,
Longior hie, alibi contractior exeat umbra :
Cur Thebaea suas consumat Pyramis umbras :
Cur hie aequa dies semper cum nocte recurrat,
Una dies et nox una illic finiat annus.

164 Science and Humanism :

Rising and setting are defined and compared to the birth and
death of mortals. Risings and settings are classed as or I UK
matutinus and urtus vtspertinus or receptus matutinus and
lapsus vesptrtinus. Stars rise and set at different times in
different countries. The Chaldean astronomer by reckoning
fifteen degrees of arc to the hour was able to explain the
apparent irregularities :

. . . quanto

Tardius haec illis spatio emergantque cadantque,
Et velut apposita motus deprendere norma.

The fifth book opens with a fine apostrophe:

Macti animi, heroes, seclis melioribus orti,

Qui primi . . .

. . . magni intrastis penetralia coeli.

and taught mankind the truth.

Not blind ambition, nor alluring pleasure, nor wakeful cares,
nor the pallid plague of gain kept you from penetrating with
your minds into regions hidden from the senses, and from
dragging out of the secret chambers of the gods the laws of the
stars unknown throughout the ages.

In contrast with these macti animi is the mind of those who
care for none of these things. A noble passage describes these,
the majority of mankind. So little does such a mind know of
nature that:

quicquid vel profuit olim,

Vel nocuit, putat esse Deum.

Thunder and lightning, even the squeaking of a mouse, or the
flight of a raven terrifies such a mind, and vain superstitions
prevail. Of this ignorance the Astrologer takes full advantage.
The ascription of the blame of all evil to the stars teaches men
to give loose rein to wickedness, hands over heaven to the
wicked, and, by excusing, encourages the mad doings of kings.
Not the vulgar throng only, but the very greatest of men are
scared by eclipses of the sun and moon. Such a fear caused
the defeat of the Athenians and the loss of their fleet long ago
in Sicily. So at Pydna, when the armies of Perseus and
Aemilius Paulus were face to face, the former was terror-
stricken by an eclipse of the moon : so would the Roman army
have been, had not Gallus (the orator, who was tribune of the
soldiers in that campaign), addressing the army, forewarned
them of the coming eclipse and explained its cause.

Buchanan's "De Sphaera" 165

Addressing Timoleon the poet proceeds to explain the nature
of eclipses and their cause. First of all he gives a tribute of
praise to whoever it was who first delivered the minds of men
from so great darkness, and comments on the strange fact that
men have recorded the deeds of Xerxes, of Caesar and of
Alexander, but have forgotten what benefits they received from
Endymion. He shall no longer be forgotten :

nam nostrae si qua est fiducia Musae,
posterity shall remember him with gratitude.

Then follows in a beautiful passage the story of Endymion,
the shepherd, paying for perennial youth with perennial sleep
upon the Latmian hills, loved by Delia (the moon) who visited
him and embraced him every night, till, awakened at last, he
returned her love and was taken up by her into her kingdom and
shown all its secrets. This knowledge .Endymion, having
returned to the Latmian hills, diffused throughout Greece.
Late in the ages it reached the Romans, of whom Gallus was
the first to expound it. Again at more length the story of the
eclipse at the battle of Pydna is told. Then the theory of
eclipses is stated.

The temptation is great to continue an account of this fine
poem in detail. Enough has been said, however, to give the
reader some idea of its scope and the order of the topics.
Nothing but an actual perusal of it can give any idea of its
power, or of the splendour of the genius of its author. Is it
too much to hope that one day it may be translated and made
known to a larger circle by some one better equipped for the
task than the author of this imperfect sketch can claim to be ?

J. W. M.

XVIIL

The Writings of George Buchanan.

WHEN arranging the details of the Quater-Centenary Celebration
at St. Andrews, the General Committee decided that there should
be a Buchanan Exhibition in the University Library consisting
of portraits, books, manuscripts, and, if possible, relics of the
poet and historian. The search for manuscripts and relics was
ultimately abandoned and the exhibition confined chiefly to
portraits and printed books. It was hoped that it might have
been possible to make the display of editions practically complete
and to print a catalogue of them in the form of a Buchanan
bibliography. But it was soon found that many blanks could
not readily be filled up and that it would consequently be impos-
sible to include a satisfactory Buchanan bibliography in the
present memorial volume. Such a bibliography may be
attempted later on, when the permanent collection of Buchanan's
works in the University Library has made further progress. This
collection has been got together mainly within the last twenty
years, but it is ajready a fairly representative one. Up to that
time very little interest had been taken in the bibliography of
Buchanan at St. Andrews, and the selection of his works in the
University Library was a very meagre one. So far as can be
learned from extant catalogues, St. Leonard's College Library
never possessed more than one volume — the Basel edition of the
Franciscanus and other poems — and it was presented by Dr.
Mungo Murray. If it is the same copy that is now in the
University Library it had previously belonged to Mr. Thorn*
Gilbert " iure emptionis possessor, 10 solid." St. Salvator'g
College Library was better off, having at least eight volumes;
but these have nearly all disappeared. In 1825 the University
Library catalogue contained only twelve entries under Buchanan :
it now contains over a hundred.

The Writings of George Buchanan 167

Pending the appearance of a formal bibliography, it has been
thought desirable, as a slight record of the exhibition, to give a
short account of Buchanan's writings and of the principal
editions through which they have passed in their original texts
as well as in translations. It need hardly be said that the sub-
ject matter of the books does not come within the scope of these
notes. Nothing more has been attempted than a bare statement
of titles, publishers or printers, and dates. What follows has
been written mainly on the basis of the volumes exhibited :
editions not actually seen have only been mentioned when they
were found recorded in library catalogues or in other reliable
works of reference.

The complete works of George Buchanan were first published,
under the editorship of Thomas Ruddiman, by Robert Freebairn,
at Edinburgh, in 1715, in two folio volumes. The plan of such
a collection had originally been formed by George Mosman,
another Edinburgh printer, and the impression was actually
proceeding as early as 1702 ; but after a few sheets had been
completed the property was transferred to Freebairn.1 Both
editor and publisher did their best to make the edition worthy
of the author. Ruddiman's preface, annotations, and critical
dissertation are of great value and display exceptional know-
ledge and learning, while his care for the text is vouched for
in many illuminating foot-notes. Although somewhat incon-
venient in size, the volumes are pleasant to read, being well
printed in bold clear type. The large paper copies on superior
paper, such as that in possession of the Signet Library, are
admirable examples of book-production. But Ruddiman's
manner of dealing with his author's political opinions so offended
many of Buchanan's admirers that an association was speedily
formed for the express purpose of producing another edition
of his works. This scheme proved abortive, and as yet no
new edition of Buchanan's works has been brought out in
Scotland. In 1725, however, an edition was published at
Leyden, in two stout quarto volumes, edited by Dr. Peter
Burman. This edition is, in the main, a reprint of Ruddiman's,
with additional annotations, chiefly of a philological nature,
by the new editor. It is less correctly printed than the Edin-
burgh edition, but has the advantage of being more convenient

1 Irving, " Memoirs of Buchanan," 1817, p. IX.

168 The Writings of George Buchanan

to work with.1 Some of Burman's observations on Buchanan
and his country gave so much offence in Scotland that Ruddi-
man felt called upon in his old age to administer a severe rebuke
to the Dutch Professor. l

Roughly speaking, about two-thirds of the entire bulk of
Buchanan's writings are in prose, the remaining third being
in different kinds of verse. He made his first public appear-
ance as a writer in prose, but in all probability his earliest
efforts at literary composition were in Latin verse. This may,
in fact, be inferred from what is said in the Vita of his
having given much attention to the writing of poetry, partly
from natural inclination and partly from necessity, in his early
student days at Paris. Like many another teacher, Buchanan
felt the need of a new text-book for his pupils' use — something
more practical than the Doctrinale Pnerorum of Alexander,
and less tedious than the Grammat4ca of Despauterius.
And so he translated into Latin the elementary grammar of
the Latin language which Thomas Linacre had composed in
English for the use of the Princess Mary, and had it printed
by Robertus Stephanus at Paris in 1533. The success of his
enterprise is attested by the fact that edition after edition of
the translation followed each other in rapid succession. At
least ten editions are said to have been published in France
within thirty years. Of these the following six were included in
the exhibition at St. Andrews besides the first edition of 1533 : —
Lyons, 1539; Paris, 1540: Lyons, 1541 and 1544; Paris, 1546
and 1550. All the Parisian editions were published by
Stephanus. The first Lyons edition was published by the heirs
of Simon Vincent ; the two others (which differ only in date)
by Sebastian Gryphius. The dates of other editions appear to
be 1545, 1548, 1552, 1556, and 1559.

Following the Eudimenta Grammatices came the four

1 Father Prout, writing of Buchanan, rather overshot the mark by
twitting the Scots with " a greater disposition to glory in the fame he has
acquired for them than an anxiety to read his works, of which there was never
an edition published on the other side of the great wall of Antonine save one,
and that not until the year 1715, by Ruddiman in 1 vol. folio. The con-
tinental editions are innumerable" (Reliques, Bonn's Illustrated Library, 1866,
p. 559). The editions of portions of Buchanan's writings published abroad are
very numerous indeed ; but when it comes to a question of editions of his
" Works," Scotland is rather more than even with the Continent.

2 Irving, "Memoirs of Buchanan," 1817, p. XIV.

The Writings of George Buchanan 169

plays — Medea, Alcestis, Jephthes, Baptist, es — two of them
being translations and two original compositions. All four
were written at Bordeaux, while Buchanan was a Regent
in the College of Guyenne, and were acted by the students as
part of their academical training in accordance with a widely
prevalent custom of the time. The Medea was acted at
Bordeaux in 1543, and was first published at Paris, by Michel
Vascosan, in 1544. x It was included (along with the
Alcestis) in a volume of Tragoediae Selectae published
by Henricus Stephanus in 1567, and has frequently been
reprinted. It is not known when the Alcestis was first
acted. Vascosan was licensed to print it on 7th February
1553, but he seems to have delayed doing so until December
1556, when the volume appeared in small quarto form and
printed in much larger type than the Medea. As already
remarked it was reprinted along with the Medea in 1567.
These two plays were again issued together (along with the
Greek text of Euripides) by Ruddiman " in usum Academiarum
Scoticarum " in 1722. Buchanan's metrical version of the
Alcestis was also appended to J. H. Monk's edition of the
Greek text published at Cambridge in 1816 and several times
reprinted. Both plays have likewise been inserted in numerous
editions of Buchanan's poetical works from 1568 onwards.

The Baptistes, Buchanan's first original composition, was
probably written about the year 1541, but it was not published
until 1578, when two editions appear to have been issued sim-
ultaneously— one at Edinburgh " apud Henricum Charteris,"
and another at London, without publisher's name, but with the
notice " Et prostant Antuerpiae apud lacobum Henricium."
Copies bearing the Edinburgh imprint are extremely rare, but it
is in all respects uniform with the London issue, which may have
been put upon the market by Vautrollier. It was dedicated
to the young King in a brief " Epistola," dated at Stirling 1st
November 1576. In the following year (1579) a new edition
appeared at Frankfort " apud Andream Wechelum," and in the
same year it was reprinted, along with other matter, at Paris
"apud Mamertum Patissonium, Typographum Regium: In

1 Professor H. de la Ville de Mirmont in Chapter V. — " George Buchanan k
Bordeaux," p. 36 note, states that the Municipal Library of Bordeaux possesses
a copy of the edition of 1543. But as his description of the volume corre-
sponds exactly with the 1544 edition, there has probably been a misreading of
the date (M.D. XLIIIL).

170 The Writings of George Buchanan

officina Robert! Stephani." In 1618 it was included in the
Homo Diabulus of Caspar Dornavius, and thereafter took its
place in the various collected editions of Buchanan's poems.
At Tours, in 1586, Brisset, sieur de Sauvage, published a
French translation of the Baptistes along with other compositions
of a kindred nature. Another, by Pierre de Brinon, appeared
at Rouen in 1613 and was reprinted there in the following
year; while as late as 1823 a third was published in
Aignan's Bibliotheque etrangere. An undated German trans-
lation by A. Lobwasser also exists, as well as a Dutch
translation by J. de Decker, dated 1656. Under the
title of Tyrannical-Government anatomized: or, A dis-
course concerning evil-councillors, an English translation
of the Baptistes was, on 30th January 1642, ordered by the
House of Commons to be forthwith printed and published.
This translation was afterwards attributed to Milton, and was
reprinted, with a preface and notes, by Francis Peck in his
" New memoirs of the life and poetical works of Mr. John
Milton," London 1740. Another translation (along with the
Jephthes) by Alexander Gibb, appeared in 1870, and a third by
the Rev. A. Gordon Mitchell in 1904. " The sacred Dramas of
George Buchanan, translated into English verse by Archibald
Brown, minister of the parish of Legerwood " (Edinburgh,
James Thin, 1906) was not published in time to be included in
the exhibition.

The Jephthes was first published at Paris in 1554, " apud
Guil. Morelium," with a dedicatory preface by the author dated
28th July of the same year. It was reprinted in 1557 by
Vascosan in a style similar to his edition of the Alcestis. In
1575, R. Stephanus published it along with the Psalms and other
poems. A French translation by Claude de Vesel figures among
the books printed by R. Stephanus in 1566. Another French
translation, by Florent Chrestien, was published by L. Rabier,
at Orleans, in 1567. Reprints of this translation appeared at
Paris in 1573, 1581, 1587, and 1595. Pierre de Brinon also
produced a French translation at Rouen in 1614. German
translations, by four different hands, are ascribed to 1569, 1571,
1595, and 1604 : while a Polish translation, first printed in 1843,
was reprinted in 1854 and 1855. In 1750, an English prose trans-
lation by William Tait, schoolmaster in Drummelzier, appeared
at Edinburgh without the publisher's name. Mr Gibb's trans-

The Writings of George Buchanan 171

lation, as already noted, appeared in 1870, and a further trans-
lation, by the Rev. A. Gordon Mitchell with illustrations by
Miss Jessie M. King, was published in 1903. A very neatly
printed edition of the original text came from the Foulis press
at Glasgow in 1775. It is also to be met with in most editions
of the Poemata.

In the dedication of his Historia to King James the Sixth,
Buchanan explains that on his return to his native country,
after twenty-four years of wandering, his first care was to
gather together his various writings, which had got scattered
and mutilated amid the troubles of bygone days. He complains,
too, that injudicious friends had rushed some of them
immaturely through the press, while others had suffered at the
hands of copyists, who, assuming the role of censors, had
altered and even vilely corrupted his meaning. His plans
were all upset, he says, by an urgent demand from many
quarters that he should devote his time to writing the history
of his nation. But he had made some progress with the task
to which he had first set himself, and he speedily became known
throughout Europe as easily the chief poet of his age. It was
just before coming to St. Andrews in 1566 to take up his
duties as Principal of St. Leonard's College that his fame as a
poet began to spread. In that year, or the year before, the
Paraphrasis Psalmorum was first printed in full ; then followed
the Franciscamts, and next the shorter poems.

The most popular and widely read of all Buchanan's works
was undoubtedly the Paraphrasis Psalmorum, the greater part
of which he wrote during his imprisonment in the Convent of
San Bento, at Lisbon, in 1551-52. For more than two centuries
and a half it found a ready sale throughout Europe, and edition
after edition poured from the printing presses of Great Britain
and the Continent. It is impossible to say, with any close
approach to accuracy, how many editions of the Paraphrasis
have been published. It is quite evident that a good many of
the editions recorded in bibliographies and sale catalogues are the
result of typographical or other errors, as they cannot be found
in Libraries. But after making every allowance, there cannot
have been fewer than seventy separate editions or reprints, and
there may have been considerably more. At first the task of
publisher and printer was clearly to supply the wants of
educated people who took pleasure in reading Latin poetry for

172 The Writings of George Buchanan

its own sake. As time went on, however, and as Latin became
less and less familiar to the general reader, school editions began
to predominate. This is specially the case in the eighteenth
century and in the first quarter of the nineteenth, after which
the publication of the Paraphrase ceased. Ruddiman's text of
1715 formed the basis of all the school editions published in
this country (one of the best of which was printed at Edinburgh
in 1812); but an earlier edition "in usum scolarum recusa "
had appeared at Stendal in 1710.1 The Paraphrasis, indeed,
was to some extent used as a school book even in Buchanan's own
lifetime,2 and there are Scotsmen still living who owe part of
their training in Latin to the study of that work. In some
grammar schools it was the usual lesson-book for Saturday, in
others it was read on Monday. Being a paraphrase of part of
an inspired volume, it was permissible to the pupils, without
fear of censure, to do their " grinding " on Sunday. But the
little volumes, bound in the once familiar sheepskin, have long
been banished from the schools, and no new edition in any form
has been called for for more than three-quarters of a century.
It was in 1556 that a selection of eighteen of Buchanan's
" Psalms" first left the press. They were contained in a small
volume bearing the title " Davidis Psalmi aliquot Latino
carmine expressi a quatuor illustribus Poetis, quos quatuor
regiones Gallia, Italia, Germania, Scotia genuerunt : in
gratiam studiosorum poetices inter se commissi ab Henrico
Stephano, cujus etiam nonnulli Psalmi Graeci cum aliis Graecis
itidem comparatis in calce libri habentur." From the
dedication it is clear that Stephanus was alone responsible for
the publication of this comparative collection. He placed
Buchanan's versions first in order of merit, and after them those
of Antonius Flaminius, an Italian, Salmon Macrin, a
Frenchman, Eobanus Hessus, a German, and Rapicius Jovita,
also an Italian. The first complete edition was the joint
production of H. and R. Stephanus. It is without date and

1 "Nullum ego," says Burman, "si ab antiquioribus decesseris, celebrari
unquam audivi aut legi, qui cum Buchanano contendere possit ; aut cujus
scripta tarn assidua doctorum virorum manu versata, et etiam in publicis et
privatis scholis pueris et adolescentibus ediscenda fuerint data."

2 Chytraeus, writing in 1584, states that five years previously it had been
resolved that the Paraphraxis should be prescribed for the first class in the
school in which he taught at Rostock.

The Writings of George Buchanan 173

the exact year of its publication has not been ascertained
definitely. The probability seems to be that it was issued in
1565, or in the early part of 1566. It is a well-printed octavo
volume, bearing the title : ' ' Psalmorum Dauidis paraphrasis
poetica, nunc primum edita, authore Georgio Buchanano,
Scoto, poetarum nostri saeculi facile principe. Eiusdem
Dauidis Psalmi aliquot a Th[eodoro] B[eza] V[ezelio] versi.
Psalmi aliquot in versus item Graecos nuper a diuersis translati.
Apud Henricum Stephanum, et eius fratrem Robertum
Stephanum, typographum Regium. Ex privilegio regis." The
Greek versions form an appendix of 46 pages, with a separate
pagination. This " editio princeps " was followed in 1566 by
an edition in 16mo from the same press, in which the Jephthes
was included and the Greek versions omitted. The first edition
was reprinted, also in 1566, at Strassburg, by Josias
Rihelius; and in the same year another edition, including the
Jephthes, was issued at Antwerp " ex officina Christophori
Plantini " — making four distinct editions within a period of
perhaps from twelve to eighteen months. Plantin's edition was
reprinted in 1567 with the Greek versions added. Other
editions came from the same press in 1571 and 1582. In 1575
R. Stephanus reprinted the Paraphrasis and Jephthes, and in
that year H. Stephanus likewise brought out the " Psalmorum
Davidis aliquot inetaphrasis Graeca, Joannis Serrani," to which
the Latin paraphrase of Buchanan is subjoined. Another
edition, " omnia multo quam antehac emendatoria," was
printed by R. Stephanus in 1580, and seems to have been the
last issued from that famous press. Other sixteenth century
editions were produced at Strassburg in 1568 and 1572, London
in 1580, Morges in 1581, Frankfort in 1585, i Herborn in 1590,
1595 and 1600, Geneva in 1593 and 1594, and Leyden in 1595.
Subsequent editions are too numerous to be mentioned here
in detail. It must suffice to say that in the exhibition were
included editions printed at Paris in 1646 (selections) ; Leyden
1609 and 1621; Frankfort in 1605; Herborn in 1616, 1619,
1637, 1646, 1656, and 1664; Stendal in 1710; London in 1620,

1 In this edition, as well as in all those printed at Herborn and some
others, the Psalms are set to music, and are accompanied by arguments and
scholia from the pen of Nathan Chytraeus. On the advice of the printer, the
scholia were issued in a separate booklet, but it is usually bound up with the
text. The music was composed or adapted by Statius Olthovius of Osuabruck.

174 The Writings of George Buchanan

1648, 1660, and 1742; Edinburgh in 1699, 1716, 1725, 1730,
1737 (the most comprehensively annotated edition), 1772
(with Waddel's prose translation), 1812, 1815, 1816
(Waddel's translation only), and 1825 ; Glasgow in 1750, 1765,
1790, 1797 (with and without Waddel's translation), and 1836
(John Eadie's verse translation).

It will be noticed that Scotland was somewhat late in taking
up the printing of the Paraphrasis. Renouard asserts that a
re-impression of the Paris edition was published at Edinburgh
in 1566, with many corrections by Buchanan himself. This, of
course, is a mistake, arising from a misreading of Buchanan's
letter to Peter Daniel, dated at Edinburgh 24th July 1566.
Three editions are attributed to Andrew Hart, viz., 1611, 1615,
and 1621. According to the British Museum Catalogue, the
1621 edition is a reprint of the London edition of 1592, of
which an earlier edition is said to have appeared in 1590. The
1615 edition, as issued along with Buchanan's poetical works,
may have been printed in Edinburgh, but it has all the appear-
ance of having been imported from Holland. The 1611 edition
has been described as " very scarce," and a copy could not be
got for exhibition. Another seventeenth century Scotch edition
that could not be found is said to have been printed at Aberdeen
by John Forbes, younger, in 1672. The sole authority for its
existence — a sale catalogue of 1842 — is a very unreliable one.

There has always been some uncertainty as to when the
Franc iscanus was first published. The dedicatory letter to the
Earl of Moray, written at St. Andrews on 5th June 1564,
fixes the time at which it had been completed by the author for
the press. But this letter did not appear in print until 171 1,1
and it was not prefixed to the poem itself until Ruddiman did
so in his edition of the Opera Omnia of 1715. In an address
to the reader of the Letters he says: " Ne quis autem Geo.
Buchanani ad Moraviae Comitem Epistolam, quae in Edit.
Lond. quart a occurrit, incuria nostra intercidisse caussari
possit, monendus est earn suo loco ante Franciscanum (cujus
nuncupatoria est) esse repositam." Dr. David Murray, of
Glasgow, is the owner of an extremely rare pamphlet of
56 unnumbered octavo pages entitled " Georgii Buchanani

1 In "Georgii Buchanani Scoti ad viros sui seculi clarissimos, eorumque
ad eundem, Epistolae. Ex MSS. accurate descriptae, nunc primum in lucera
editae." Londini, irnpeusis D. Brown et Gul. Taylor.

The Writings of George Buchanan 175

Scoti, Franciscanus. Varia eiusdem authoris poemata.
M.D.LXVI." There is no mention of place or printer, but it is
bound up with another pamphlet of 46 numbered pages con-
taining the " Psalmi aliquot in versus Graecos nuper a
diuersis translati," which accompanies and forms part of
the first edition of Buchanan's Paraphrases P&alinorum. The
two pamphlets are quite uniform in size and style, and are
evidently from the same press. There is thus every reason to
believe that this is the first edition of the Franciscanus, and
that it was printed by H. or R. Stephanus, although its title
is not to be met with in the " Aunales de 1'imprimerie des
Estienne " of Renouard. Prefixed to the Franciscanus is the
Somnium, and appended are twenty-five Epigrammata and the
first Palinodia. The last page contains " Ad vanam super -
stitionem G. C. lurecons. Apostrophe," and " Patricii
Adamsoni Scoti de Buch. carmen." A French translation by
Florent Chrestien was published by Nicolas de Mergey, at
Sedan, in 1599, under the title of '' Le Cordelier, ou Le Sainct
Francois." The volume also contains the Songe, the Palinodie,
jrnd various other pieces.1 An English translation, by George
Provand, appeared at Glasgow in 1809, and another, by
Alexander Gibb, at Edinburgh, in 1871.

An edition of the Elegiac, Silvae, and Hendecasyllabi was
printed by R. Stephanus at Paris in 1567, with a dedication to
Peter Daniel, dated at Edinburgh 24th July 1566. It was re-
issued, with the addition of the Baptistes, in 1579, "apud Mamer-
tum Patissonium." Meanwhile, in 1569, H. Stephanus had
printed a selection of Buchanan's poems, including the Francis-
canus, Elegiac, Silvae, etc., as a companion volume to the second
edition of Beza's poems. A larger collection, comprising the
Franciscanus and Fratrts, the Elegiac, Silvae, Odae, Medea,
Alcestis, and Jephthes followed from the press of Thomas
Guarinus Nervius at Basel, in or about 1568, in a well printed
volume containing also the poems of various other writers.
Another collection containing, in addition, the Epigrammata and
a fragment of the Sphaera, but omitting the plays, appeared with-
out place or publisher, but apparently at Heidelberg, in 1584.
Ten years later these pieces were re-issued, along with the five
books of the Sphaera; and in 1597 a second part followed,

1 Brunei and La Ville de Mirmont mention an earlier edition, Geneva
1567.

176 The Writings of George Buchanan

" apud Petrum Sanctandreanum," containing the " Tragoediae
sacrae et exterae." Both parts were republished in 1609 " in
Bibliopolio Commeliniano," at Heidelberg.

During the seventeenth century, collected editions of
Buchanan's Potmata were issued from various presses in neat
little pocket volumes, printed in very small type. The first of
these bears the imprint of Andrew Hart, Edinburgh, and is
dated 1615. It is made up in two sections, the one containing
the Franciscanus, Elegiac, tiphaera, etc., and the other the
Paraphrases Psalmorum, Jephthes and Baptistes. The editor is
said to have been John Eay, first Professor of Humanity in
the University of Edinburgh. Other editions, differently made
up and containing the Alcestis and Medea as well, were
published in the following order: — 1621 (Saumur, Cl.
Girard and others, and Ley den, Abraham Elzevir) ; 1628
(Leyden, Elzevir) ; 1641 (Amsterdam, Jansson) ; 1665 (Amster-
dam, Waesberge) ; 1676 (Amsterdam, Daniel Elzevir) ;
1677 (Edinburgh, John Cairns) ; 1687 (Amsterdam, Henry
Wetsten.) An edition on a larger page and in more
readable type was published at London by B. Griffin in " The
Old Baily " in 1686, and remains the best collection of
Buchanan's poetical works in an easily read and handy form.

The Sphaera, in a separate form (" quinque libris descripta:
nunc primum e tenebris eruta et luce donata ") was first
published at Herborn in 1586, by Christopher Corvin, with a
dedicatory epistle by Robert Howie, afterwards Principal of
St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, at the time a student at
Herborn. In the following year another edition was put forth
by the same publisher, with supplements to books IV. and V.
by John Pincier.

The poem addressed to Henry II. of France " post victos
Caletes " came from the press of R. Stephanus, at Paris, in
1558, in a tract of eight pages (whereof two are blank) entitled
De Caletu nuper ab Henrico II. Francoriim rege invictiss.
recepta, Georyii Buchanani Carmen. Four lines were, how-
ever, subsequently added. An English version of this poem
may be read among the " Reliques of Father Prout," in Bohn's
Illustrated Library.

An English version of the Epithalamium, along with the
Latin text was published by Archdeacon Wrangham, in 1837,
in his " Epithalamia tria Mariana"; and in 1845 an edition,

The Writings of George Buchanan 177

restricted to 61 copies, of an older anonymous translation,
dating from about 1711, was printed at Edinburgh from the
scarce copy preserved in a volume of pamphlets in the
Advocates' Library. Another translation, by George Provand,
had been published in 1809, along with the Franc iscanus. The
text of this Marriage Ode was included in the Silvae printed in
1567, and occurs in many subsequent editions of Buchanan's
poems.

" The Stoic King, from Seneca; by Buchanan: to which is
added his Dedication of the Latin Paraphrase of the Psalms
to Mary Queen of Scots. Translated into English verse : with
notes " is the title of a sixteen page pamphlet printed at
Edinburgh in 1807. The Hex Stoicus ex Seneca is usually
appended to the De Jure, Regni.

The Silvae and the Hymnus Matutinus ad Christum, trans-
lated into English verse by J. Longmuir, LL.D., Aberdeen, was
published at Edinburgh in 1871 in a pamphlet of 48 pages.

Attention may also be drawn to the verse translations, with
explanatory notes, of the Fratres Fraterrimi, Epigrammata, and
Miscellanea, by Robert Monteith, M.A., printed at Edinburgh
for the heirs of Andrew Anderson, in 1708, although the
translator warns the reader that " Buchanan's Learn'd
and Witty Jests, by way of this translation, suffer
much Decay." Translations of a number of Buchanan's
single poems and epigrams lie hid in old magazines
and other out of the way places. Some of these are good, and
might be worth reprinting; but, in the words of Dr. Robert
Chambers, written more than seventy years ago, "it is an
honour yet awaiting some future scholar, to give to his un-
lettered countrymen to feel somewhat of the grace and strength
that characterize the performances of George Buchanan."

In 1571 Ane Admonitioun direct to the trew Lordis
appeared in three separate editions. Two of them were printed
by Robert Lekprevik at Stirling. The third was " imprinted
at London by lohn Daye, accordyng to the Scotish copie printed
at Striuilyng by Robert Lekpreuik " ; but it may have come
second in point of time, being reprinted from Lekprevik's first
edition. Leprevik's second edition, besides minor variations,
introduces a new paragraph of ten lines on page 13. In the
Advocates' Library copy (which was shown at the exhibition)
some one has written, in an eighteenth century hand, " This

178 The Writings of George Buchanan

last § is not in the next following copy, which seems to have
been a former edition, nor in the MS. 1570, Cotton's Library."
Another note by the same hand, referring to a statement on page
30, says, " Hence it is evident this libel has been written
before the English army entered Scotland, which was about the
middle of May 1570." Lowndes mentions a St. Andrews
edition of 1572, but it has not been traced. The Admonitioun
was reprinted in 1745 and again in 1808, in the third volume of
the " Harleian Miscellany." A reprint of Lekprevik's second
edition forms Appendix II. of Irving's " Memoirs of Buchanan,"
1817. The same issue is included in the " Works of Mr George
Buchanan in the Scottish language," published at Edinburgh
in 1823. The most recent edition is that contained in the
" Vernacular Writings of George Buchanan," edited, from an
early manuscript, for the Scottish Text Society, by Professor
Hume Brown in 1892. The Admonitioun was actually printed
for Ruddiman's edition of Buchanan's Works, and was intended
to occupy the first ten pages of the sheets allotted to it and the
Chamaeleon. But from some prudential considerations on the
part of the editor or publisher, it was afterwards suppressed.1
Copies containing it are, however, frequently to be met with,
printed in smaller type in double columns, and filling, with an
" Advertisement," only six pages. The Admonitioun was not
included in Burman's edition of the Works.

About the same period (1570), Buchanan wrote " The
Chamaeleon, or, the crafty statesman : described in the
character of Mr. Maitland of Lethington, Secretary of
Scotland," and the printing of it is said to have been begun by
Lekprevik in April 1571. It was, however, successfully
stopped by Maitland, and the pamphlet was made public for
the first time at London in 1710 in a volume known as
"Miscellanea Antiqua " in England and as "Miscellanea
Scotica " in Scotland. The editor remarks, "The Chamaeleon
was written originally in English, we have chang'd nothing,
save the old spellings, and some obsolete words." It was
printed from the manuscript in the Cotton Library in the
Opera Omnia, 1715 and 1725, and in the second volume of
another "Miscellanea Scotica" published at Glasgow in 1818.
Other re-prints will be found in Irving's " Memoirs," 1817,
Appendix II. 2; in the " Works of Buchanan in the Scottish

1 See note on p. 154 of Irving's Memoirs of Buchanan, 1817.

The Writings of George Buchanan 179

language," 1823 ; in Aikman's translation of the Historia, vol. 1,
1827; and in the " Vernacular Writings" of Buchanan, 1892.
In 1741 appeared the "Chameleon redivivus : or, Nathaniel's
character revers'd. A satire . . . against the Laird of
Lidingtone. . . . Reprinted, and most humbly inscribed to a
learned C[ler]k of the T[eind] C[ourt] of Edinburgh]."

A third piece written by Buchanan in the Scottish
vernacular was his Opinion anent the Reformation of the
Universitie of St. Andros. It was first published as
Appendix III. to Irving's " Memoirs of Buchanan," 1817. It
was re-edited for the Bannatyne Club and printed in the
second volume of its "Miscellany" in 1836. A third and
much more carefully supervised edition will be found in the
" Vernacular Writings" published by the Scottish Text Society
in 1892. Although printed from the same original manuscript,
this edition differs very much in spelling from Irving's, and
the text is also somewhat different.

Buchanan's famous Detectio was first issued to the world in
a. little volume bearing a title beginning " De Maria Scotorum
Regina." Accompanying it was a tract of greater length, by
another hand, entitled " Actio contra Mariana Scotorum
Reginam " ; and appended were three letters written by the
Queen to Bothwell, about which much has since been heard.
The volume bore no date, and place and publisher were likewise
withheld ; but it is known to have been printed in 1571 by
John Daye, of London. The book has sometimes been dated
1572, and as slight variations are observable in the typography,
it is just possible that there may have been a re-issue in that
year. In 1571 there was also issued (without imprint), from
the same press as the Latin edition, an English translation
under the title of " Ane Detectioun of the duinges of Marie
Quene of Scottes, "touchand the murder of hir husband, and hir
conspiracie, adulterie, and pretensed mariage with the Erie
Bothwell. And ane defence of the trew Lordis, mainteineris of
the kingis graces actioun and authoritie. Translated out of the
Latine quhilke was written by G. B." Of this translation there
were two issues, the earlier of which is recognisable by the
misplacement of the initial letter of the word " actioun," which
had been accidentally dropped and inserted in the word
" authoritie," making it read " authaoritie." There is no
alteration in the text of the volume. In 1572 a Scotch

180 The Writings of George Buchanan

edition of the Detectio was " imprentit at Sanctandrois be
Robert Lekpreuik." This was followed in 1572-3 by a
French translation, " Histoire de Marie Royne d'Escosse,"
ascribed to " a Huguenot avocat of Rochelle, named Cumez."1
It was in all probability published in France although it bears
to have been published in Edinburgh, and has the following
colophon : ' ' Acheue d'imprimer a Edimbourg, ville capitalle
d'Escosse, le 13. de Feurier, 1572. Par moy Thomas Waltem."
As the ' ' Histoire tragique de Marie Royne d'Escosse " it again
appeared in the " Memoires de 1'estat de France sous Charles
IX.," torn. 1, 1579. An edition of the Detectio, " translated
into Scotch, and now made English," was printed, without
place, in 1651, and again at London in 1689. It is the first
item in an Appendix to Buchanan's History of Scotland,
published at London in 1721, and it was once more reproduced,
from the copy printed at St. Andrews, in Anderson's
" Collections relating to the History of Mary Queen of
Scotland," vol. 2, 1727. The Detectio, in Latin and French,
as well as the "Actio," are further accessible in Jebb's "Autores
Sedecim," vol. 1, London, 1725. In connection with the
Detectio, mention may be made of " The copie of a letter,
written by one in London to his frend, concernyng the credit
of the late published Detection of the doynges of the Ladie
Marie of Scotland. Without date, black letter, 12mo,
containing fourteen pages ; and, by some, thought to have been
written by the learned Buchanan," printed in Anderson's Col-
lections, vol. 2, 1727, in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. 3, London
1745, and in Sommers's Tracts, vol. 14, London, 1751, as well
as in the later editions of these latter collections. A copy of the
original edition (ca. 1571), belonging to the Advocates' Library,
containing sixteen pages, inclusive of the title-page, was
exhibited at St. Andrews.

The De Prosodia Libellus, which Buchanan drew up as part
of a new Latin manual for use in Scottish schools, has been
frequently reprinted, usually as an appendix to the grammar
of Despauterius. The following editions were included in the
exhibition: — [1595], Edinburgh, Robert Waldegrave; 1621,
Edinburgh, Andrew Hart; 1660, Edinburgh, Society of
Stationers; 1667, Glasgow, Robert Sanders; 1689, Edinburgh,

1 T. F. Henderson, "The Casket Letters," 1889, p. 48.

The Writings of George Buchanan 181

Society of Booksellers; 1694 and 1708, Edinburgh, Heirs of
Andrew Anderson.

Buchanan's celebrated political dialogue De Jure Begni apud
Scotos first saw the light in 1579 at Edinburgh, but it had
been written about ten years before, not unlikely at St.
Andrews while he was still Principal of St. Leonard's College.
The dedication to the King is dated at Stirling, 10th January
1579. There would appear to have been two issues of the book —
one bearing the imprint " Edinburgi, apud lohannem Rosseum,
pro Henrico Charteris Anno Do. 1579, cum privilegio regali " ;
and the other " Anno Do. 1579," without printer, publisher, or
place. An " editio secunda " followed in 1580, " ad exemplar
loannis Rossei Edinburgi, cum privilegio Scotorum Regis,"
and was probably printed abroad. In the same year Ross's
edition seems to have been re-issued with a new title, while an
" editio tertia " is dated Edinburgh 1581. In 1610, it was trans-
lated into Dutch by Ellert de Veer, and published at Amster-
dam by Pieter Pieterszoon in black letter, with a lengthy pre-
face by the translator. In 1654 the Latin text was inserted
in part V. of the Theatrum orbis Terrarum published at Am-
sterdam by John Blaeu, along with a short description of Scot-
land extracted from Book I. of the Historia. The text was also
printed by Robert Urie at Glasgow in 1750, and it was ap-
pended to all the Latin editions of the Historia from 1583 to
1762. The first English translation was " printed in the year
1680." The name of place and publisher are withheld, and the
translator (who defends his craftsmanship in an address to the
reader) shelters himself behind the pseudonym " Philalethes."
This translation was re-issued at London in 1689 by Richard
Baldwin. A new translation was made by Robert Macfarlan
and published at London in 1799, together with two disserta-
tions, one archaeological and the other historical. Macfarlan's
translation was re-printed in conjunction with Rutherford's
Lex Bex, in the third volume of the " Presbyterian's
Armoury," Edinburgh 1843-46. In " Fiirst und Volk nach
Buchanan's und Milton's Lehre," a German translation of the
Dialogue was published at Aarau in 1821.

The last, and most voluminous, of Buchanan's writings was
his Reritm Scoticarum Historia, which must have occupied
his leisure hours for many years. It was first published in one
folio volume by Alexander Arbuthnot, at Edinburgh, in 1582,

182 The Writings of George Buchanan

shortly after the author's death. Next year it was reprinted,
also in folio, on the Continent, probably at Geneva, "ad exem-
plar Alexandri Arbuthneti editum Edimburgi." Other Con-
tinental editions, in octavo, followed — at Frankfort in 1584,
1594, and 1624; Amsterdam in 1643, and Utrecht in 1668 and
1697. An " editio novissima " appeared at Edinburgh (Mosman)
in 1700, and Paton re-issued Ruddiman's text there in 1727.
The latest edition seems to be that edited by James Man, on
the basis of the first edition, with numerous useful notes in
English, printed at Aberdeen by James Chalmers in 1762.
According to Irving ("Memoirs," p. 282) "of the History of
Scotland there are seventeen editions." This looks like an
exaggeration, as it has been found impossible to trace more than
a dozen with certainty, and some of these are unaltered reprints.

An edition of the Historia " faithfully rendered into English "
by an unknown hand was published at London in 1690, in folio.
Of this version seven editions followed, more or less revised and
corrected by William Bond, each in two volumes, octavo, viz.,
London, 1722 and 1733, Edinburgh, 1751-52, 1762, and 1766,
and Glasgow 1799. A new translation, with a continuation, by
James Aikman, was commenced at Glasgow, 1827, and finished
at Edinburgh in 1829, in six volumes, octavo. Buchanan's
Historia occupies the first two volumes only. This edition was re-
issued at Edinburgh, Glasgow and London more than once. Still
another translation, also with a continuation, by John Watkins,
LL.D., was published at London in 1827 and again in 1843.
Most of these English editions contain portraits of the author
besides maps and other illustrations. Translations into Scotch
and French remain unprinted. In 1705, under the title
of " An impartial account of the affairs of Scotland .
written by an eminent hand," a portion of Buchanan's History
was published anonymously at London as an original work. It
extends ' ' from the death of James the Fifth to the tragical exit
of the Earl of Murray, Regent of Scotland."

Within two years of his death (that is to say about 1580)
Buchanan is reputed to have written, at the urgent request of
friends, a short autobiography giving a condensed account of his
life from his birth to his final return to Scotland. The authen-
ticity of this Vita, as it is usually called, has frequently been
impugned ; and although there is a general consensus of opinion
in favour of its being the work of Buchanan himself, there is

The Writings of George Buchanan 183

still an element of doubt in the matter. None of Buchanan's
editors has really grappled with the question, and his bio-
graphers have been equally supine. George Chalmers boldly
rejected Buchanan's authorship of the Vita, having convinced
himself that the real author was Sir Peter Young.1 Professor
Hume Brown has declared the objections formulated by
Chalmers to be groundless;2 and there the controversy may be
said to rest. Perhaps all that can now be affirmed with
certainty is that if Buchanan did not write the Vita himself he
dictated it to another ; for it contains information regarding his
life abroad that could not possibly have been given with such
precision by any of his Scottish contemporaries.

A good deal has been made of the defective chronology of the
Vita and especially of the statement it sometimes contains that
Buchanan was appointed tutor to King James a year before his
royal pupil was born. Ruddiman was much puzzled by this
sentence and tried to explain it in different ways. Such aber-
rations may, however, be due, in part at least, to defective edit-
ing. In point of fact the text of the Vita has never been criti-
cally edited ; and, such as it is, it has not even been quite fairly
placed before the modern reader. It is impossible to go into the
whole subject here, but a few relevant facts may be pointed out.
The earliest edition mentioned by Ruddiman is 1608, but he had
not seen it himself and he does not specifically refer to another
with the exception of Sir Robert Sibbald's, of 1702, merely
remarking that the V^ta is to be found in many editions of the
Foemata. He does not seem to have noticed that during the
greater part of the seventeenth century two distinct versions of
the Vita had been appearing concurrently. The difference
between them is certainly not great, but it is sufficient to suggest
that the one was not copied directly from the other. So far as
can be ascertained at present the one version was published for
the first time at Herborn in 1613, and the other at Edinburgh
in 1615. There may have been earlier editions of both, but if
so they have still to be discovered. When, towards the end of
1584 , Nathan Chytraeus was preparing for the press the
" Collectanea" or " Scholia" to his school edition of the Para-
phrasis Psalmorum he deemed it necessary to say something
about the author. So, under the heading of " De paraphraste

1 Life of Thomas Ruddiman, London, 1794, p. 68.

2 George Buchanan, humanist and reformer, Edin., 1890, p. 369.

184 The Writings of George Buchanan

ipso," he gave such particulars of Buchanan's life as he could
glean from the Historia and from the prefaces to his poetical
and other works. In the edition of 1590 he added the story of
Buchanan's manner of rebuking King James for signing docu-
ments without reading them. Chytraeus was the first to publish
this story, which had reached him in a roundabout way from
Johannes Metellus, who had heard it from the lips of a nephew
of Buchanan. These biographical notes remained unaltered in
the editions of 1595 and 1600, so that Chytraeus, who died on
25th February, 1598, had evidently never seen the Vita. In
the edition of 1613, however, and probably in an intervening
one, the Vita takes the place of what Chytraeus had written.
It is unlikely that the first edition of the Vita should have been
printed at Herborn, and further investigation may yet reveal an
earlier one. The next known edition is that prefixed to the
Poemaia published by Andrew Hart at Edinburgh in 1615. This
is the more accurate text of the two, and is clearly not a reprint
of the Herborn one. The heading of the Herborn text is simply
" Georgii Buchanani Vita." The words " ab ipso scripta biennio
ante mortem " have been added in the Edinburgh one. But
while the Edinburgh text merely adds at the end " Obiit Edin-
burgi vigesimo octavo Septembris, anno salutis 1582," the
Herborn one gives this more detailed information : " Haec de se
Buchananus, amicorum rogatu. Obiit Edinburgi, paulo post
horam quintam matutinam, die Veneris xxviii. Septembris,
anno M.D.XXCII." Among minor variations it may be noted
that the Herborn text prints " atque " for " avoque," "aliquam"
for " ambiguam," "atque" for " itaque," "probe" for
" prope," " dixit " for " dixisset," and suchlike. It also adds,
as well as omits, single words here and there. In one place a
whole sentence is dropped, but although havoc is thus played
with the context the error seems never to have been rectified in
any subsequent edition. Another omission has a more practical
bearing. Ruddiman asserts that in all the editions of the Vita
the statement is made that Buchanan was appointed tutor to
the King in 1565 (" ita enim constanter exhibent omnes ejus
vitae editiones "). This is perhaps true of the Scotch and Dutch
editions, but in the whole series of Herborn editions this state-
ment does not once occur. Sir Robert Sibbald, who edited the
Vita in 1702, adding marginal dates1 and a commentary,

1 The Herborn editor was the first to attempt to supply the Vita with
much needed dates. His attempt was praiseworthy, but his calculations were
seldom correct.

The Writings of George Buchanan 185

followed the former, without making any reference to the source
of his text. Ruddiman, in 1715, reprinted the text of Sibbald,
with a few variations, revising and multiplying the marginal
dates, and adding elaborate notes and a continuation. Both
Sibbald and Ruddiman adhere to the text they had adopted (it
may be because they knew no other) and retain the impossible
date in the last sentence — " Cui erudiendo erat praefectus anno
millesimo quingentesimo sexagesimo quinto. " Irving, on the
other hand, while adhering in the main to Ruddiman's text
prints the last sentence and the docquets which follow exactly as
they stand in the Herborn editions, and in this he is followed by
Professor Hume Brown. This mixing of texts, without warning
to the reader, is misleading and at variance with modern
methods of dealing with historical documents. It is to be hoped
therefore, that some one will before long make a serious effort
to trace the Vita to its origin, and to construct a reliable text
accompanied by such critical and explanatory notes as may be
necessary for its elucidation.

J. M. A.

XIX.
Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries.

THERE can be little doubt that when George Buchanan, in 1536,
returned for a time to Scotland from the College of St. Barbe
in Paris, to superintend the studies of the young Earl of
Cassillis, he was already regarded by the learned of his day
as one of the greatest scholars of his own or any preceding age.
Nor was so exalted a reputation undeserved. For variety of
culture, as well as accuracy in scholarship, for true poetic
inspiration, united to a calm judicious faculty of historic and
philosophic judgment and critical appraisement, for sound, well-
balanced principles on the theory of government and the
reciprocal duties of rulers and ruled, for a true sense of literary
proportion and for an unfailing fund of wit, satire and irony —
for the possession of all these in felicitous intermingling, I say,
he stood unrivalled among the writers of his age.

Buchanan died just when the second epoch of Humanism
was near its close, and he was amongst the latest and certainly
was the greatest of its glories. That his name was familiar to
the great English scholars of the mid-sixteenth century, John
Ireland, Sir John Cheke, Sir Thomas Wilson, Roger Ascham,
and others, is as certain as that he was on terms of intimacy
with all the great Continental Humanists, who saw in him one
of themselves, even when they failed to recognise those higher
principles of character and conduct which distinguished him.
There is little doubt, moreover, that his satires were far more
widely known than we believe them to have been, and there are
frequent lines and passages in nearly all the great English
writers from Sackville and Gascoigne to Milton and Marvel
which are only free translations of familiar passages in his
political tracts, his satires and his historical works. Holinshed,
Stow, Camden, Speed and others, reveal not only the acknow-
ledged influence of Buchanan, but in addition more than one of
them refer to him either to commend or to controvert.

Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries 187

Naturally, however, it is in Scottish Literature more distinc-
tively, that is to say, in the works of writers who were
not only treating of Scottish themes, but were Scotsmen born
and bred, that we find the influence of Buchanan most apparent.
It is wrong to imagine that the Scots and English are racially
one, and that what differences do exist are merely patriotically
sentimental and dialectical. Were this so Bannockburn and
Flodden would never have been fought. Not only are Scot and
English as racially distinct in most cases as Magyar and Czech,
but their springs of sympathy and sources of national feeling
are also altogether different.

To this cause must be attributed the fact that the genius
of Buchanan, supreme though it was, had not the same ex-
tensive influence in England as in Scotland and the Continent
of Europe. Buchanan's culture and genius had certainly more
in common with the Continental Humanism than with that
Elizabethan Romanticism which was then making a fight for life,
before being choked in the uncongenial atmosphere of seventeenth
and eighteenth century Classicism. Buchanan's Humanism was
neither parochial nor one-sided — that is to say, he neither
believed that the learning of any land or any epoch constituted
the sum total of culture. Like Odysseus, he had studied the
countries and the customs of many men and it was his prolonged
Wander jahre that made him the polymath he became.

Out of the fulness of his intellectual treasury he distributed
to all and sundry, and it is singular to note how persistently
his mind advanced along the best lines of progress and develop-
ment. His earliest original works may be described as satires,
the chief of these being his clever poem giving that vivid picture
of his daily life as a pedagogue at Ste Barbe, his Satire on the
Sorbonne, his famous Somnium, his Palinodia, and his Fran-
ciscanus. Of these the last three are historic. The Somnium,
a vigorous onslaught upon the Franciscans, may, it is true, be
described as in some respects little more than a paraphrase of
Dunbar's splendid poem The Visitation of St. Francis which
begins : —

This nycht befoir the dawing cleir
Me thocht St. Francis did to me appeir
With ane religiouse abbeit in his hand
And said " In this, go cleith the" my servand
Refuis the warld, for thow mou be a Freir.

188 Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries

Both poems are inspired by the same idea, viz. — " Is it worth
while to become a Churchman ? " Dunbar's is the wittier piece,
Buchanan's the more sustained effort of the two. but there can
be no question that from the former the latter drew the
materials for his poem. Franciscanus which traverses much the
same ground as the Somnium, was composed at the request of
James V., who seems to have given the writer some under-
standing that he would protect him from the anger of the
reverend fathers. But in this case the cowl proved more potent
than the Crown, and Buchanan had to run before the storm.
The Palinodia had also been written at the request of James
and were bitter onslaughts against the Franciscans, but the
King did not consider them severe enough and Franciscanus
was the result. As a satirist, Buchanan stands in the very first
rank and there can be little wonder that his style was imitated
by writers alike in England and in Scotland, as well
as on the Continent. The man who could produce
such work as the Somnium, Franciscanus, and the
Palinodia in Latin, and the Admonitioun to the Trew
Lordis, as well as the scathing Chamaeleon in the Scots
vernacular, was an outstanding master of his craft. Hence
we find that Buchanan's satiric work exercised a very marked
influence upon the mind and writings of several of his contem-
poraries, on the great Andrew Melville (1545-1622) to whom,
next to Knox, the Scottish Reformation owed the most of its
direction and inspiration. Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington
(1496-1586), albeit an older man than Buchanan by ten years,
showed how profound was the impression made upon him by
the Somnium, the Palinodia, and the early MS. drafts of
Franciscanus, by his obvious references to them in his works.
In fact, the Maitland family as a whole seems to have had
intimate relations with Buchanan. Sir Richard's brother, Sir
John, afterwards Lord Maitland of Thirlestane and Chancellor
of the Kingdom of Scotland, revealed the extent of Buchanan's
influence upon him, both in his epigrams, preserved in the
Delitiae Poetarum Scotorutn, and in his satire Aganis Sklan-
derous Toungis, which is in many features only a free para-
phrase of portions of Buchanan's Satire on the Sorbonne, also
that on The Brothers of St. Anthony and the Palinodia. Thomas
Maitland, one of Sir Richard's younger sons, wrote some ex-
cellent Latin poems in Buchanan's manner, and was chosen by

Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries 189

the latter himself as one of the interlocutors in his great work
De Jure Kegni.

Other names, both Scottish and Continental, might be men-
tioned as those of contemporaries whose works show a tinge
more or less pronounced of the great Humanist's influence —
viz., Robert Wedderburn (better known as a religious poet),
Thomas Hudson, Alexander Arbuthnot, William Fowler, John
Napier of Merchiston, Alexander Hume and John Burrell ; also
in England such satirists as Thomas Dekker, with his // this
be not a good Play the Devil is in it, W. Turner's Hunting of
the Fox, and The Trial of the Masse, George Gascoigne's Steel
Glass, and Glass of Government, Marston's Scourge of Villainy,
Hall's V irgidemiarum and Nicholas Grimoald's Satires ; and on
the Continent of Europe George Witzel, Nicodemus
Frischlin, Caspar Brulow, Thomas Kirchmayer. Many of these
writers may simply refer to Buchanan, yet the mere reference
shows the marvellous extent of his influence — an influence which
continued to increase after his death.

The widely diverse character, therefore, of those contempor-
ary writers, in whose works the influence of Buchanan can be
traced, is a remarkable testimony to the amazing versatility of
the man. Unless in the case of Shakespeare an analogous
instance to this universality of influence can scarcely be cited.
As a historian he influenced his contemporaries, through his
History of Scotland and his Detectio Mariae Reginae Scotorum ;
on the poetry of the epoch, also, he left his impress through
his Sphaera, his Epithalamii/m, his Calendae Maiae, (which
Wordsworth considered equal to anything in Horace), his ama-
tory verse, addressed to Leonora and Neaera, and his matchless
rendering of the Psalms, which by the verdict of the first Latin-
ists of the world have been held to be worthy of the Golden Age
of Latin Verse, a verdict acquiesced in by such rival translators
as Arthur Johnston himself. As a dramatist, moreover, his
Jephthes, his Baptistes, his translation and adaptation of the
Medea and the Alcestis, and finally his Masque for the Baptism
of James VI. all appealed profoundly to the temper of the time.
Lastly, as a political writer in his De Jure Regni, his Admoni-
tioun to the Trew Lore/is, etc., how keenly and how correctly did
he not mould the opinions of all the more liberal minded writers
of the sixteenth century ! That these works manifest a versatility
and fecundity altogether exceptional will be the first thought

190 Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries

which occurs to anyone who examines the case. The admiration,
however, will be distinctly deepened when we come to study
the works with critical care, and realise the marvellously high
standard of excellence which is maintained throughout. The
individual whom the jealous mind of Julius Caesar Scaliger,
recognised as his superior must have been of outstanding merit
indeed ; while the younger and the greater Scaliger, Joseph,
(son of the other) affirmed most emphatically " In Latin
poetry, Buchanan leaves all Europe behind."

That being the opinion entertained of Buchanan by his
contemporaries abroad, we can estimate at once the probable
extent and depth of the influence exercised by Buchanan at
home, when his fame was so European in its diffusion.
Scotsmen in all ages have been impressed by the tongue of good
report abroad, and the mere fact that he occupied so supreme
a place among the Humanists of Europe, was quite sufficient to
ensure Buchanan a permanent as well as a prominent place in
the estimation of his countrymen, even although they might not
be qualified to gauge the character of his works, nor be able
to pronounce upon their relative excellence as regards a given
standard.

We have seen his influence as a satirist exercised on his
contemporaries : there remains his influence as a historian, a
publicist, and a Humanist translator of the Psalms. Buchanan's
idea was that by writing in Latin, the language of the learned,
he was laying the foundations of his fame so deep and sure that
they would never be moved. He had lived among Humanists,
he had imbibed their sentiments and had imagined the
" Humanistic We " to be as far reaching in its mandatory effects
as the " Imperial Plural." " Alas," as Professor Hume Brown
says "if he had only known it, even when he wrote, Modern
Europe had rejected Latin as the vehicle of its deepest thoughts
and feelings." All the more credit is it to him that as a
Historian — whether we read him in the original Latin or in
the excellent English translations now furnished — he delights us
as few writers do, and carries home to our minds the conviction
that this is no ordinary writer whose work we are perusing,
but one of the leading minds in the world's hierarchy of letters.
Granted that it is not fair to read Buchanan's 16th century
Latin works through twentieth century spectacles, all the more
honour it is to him that we do not need to suggest this plea in

ANDREW MELVILLE.

Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries 191

extenuation of tedium, that he is writing in what is to us an
alien language.

Now as John Major had influenced Buchanan in his his-
torical studies, saliently, but not wholly beneficially, as he him-
self says, so Buchanan's influence may be traced in several of
his contemporaries. That Buchanan exercised a profound in-
fluence upon John Knox is now well recognised. Again and
again in the Reformer's "Historic of the Reformation" there
are turns of expression which remind us of passages in the
Somnium and Franciscanus. Buchanan, after Knox's death,
was asked to revise certain passages in the latter's Historic, and
from this we may argue that in life the Reformer had freely
utilised the aid of the greatest of his contemporaries.

Another writer who owed much to Buchanan was Sir James
Melville of Halhill, whose Memoirs, besides referring more than
once to Buchanan by name, reveal how closely the courtier had
studied all the works of the old Humanist. Though his
political opinions were far from being so liberal as those
enunciated by Buchanan in De Jure Regni, viz., that absolute
liberty is essential to the true growth and welfare of men,
nevertheless, James Melville's study of Buchanan led him to
take up towards the close of his life an attitude of quiescent
antagonism to the King's Divine Right views.

The famous Andrew Melville and his nephew James Melville
were also individuals upon whom, as public men, the influence
of Buchanan's works was especially marked. The former, who
unquestionably was the ablest ecclesiastic in Scotland, after
Knox, was a strange mixture of the Humanist and the
Puritan. In this Eclecticism he would receive no sympathy
from Buchanan, who although a member of the Reformed
Church, was at heart a Humanist, and the Reformation and
Humanism had nothing in common. As Professor Hume
Brown aptly said: — " Scotland, whether for good or ill, learned
nothing from the Revival of Letters. Had the Renaissance
touched her before the Reformation it might have been other-
wise. But as it was, the Renaissance came to her through the
Reformation, and theology dominated her schools from the
moment of her new birth." Despite the powerful influence
exercised by Buchanan's works upon Melville, between the men
themselves there could be little sympathy. Thomas Smeaton
also, second Principal of the University of Glasgow, has testified

192 Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries

to the benefit he had received from the personal influence and
works of Buchanan.

Among theologians and preachers, there were two others
whose careers were undoubtedly moulded for them to some
extent by Buchanan's works, viz., John Craig (1512-1600)
the colleague of Knox, and Robert Rollock, the first Principal
of Edinburgh University. The former had come under
Buchanan's influence abroad, and the latter was one of his
students at St. Andrews. Both of them repeatedly, Craig in
his sermons and Rollock in his works, testified to the enormous
intellectual stimulation they had received from Buchanan.

Finally, as a translator of the Psalms into Latin, Buchanan
has inspired more than one illustrious scholar to follow his
example. So excellent is Buchanan's version, and so
felicitously has he rendered the thoughts of the Psalmist into
choice idiomatic Latin, that many of our leading scholars have
declared that a Roman of the Augustan era could not have
succeeded more felicitously in clothing the ideas of the Hebrew
poet in a fitting Latin garb. Buchanan's example has been
followed by Arthur Johnston, who has also achieved triumphant
success in the attempt.

Amongst other contemporaries on the Continent and at home
who during their lives bore testimony to the value of the
intellectual stimulation they had received from Buchanan, were
the Reformer Beza of Geneva, also Joannes Serranus (Jean de
Serres of Lausanne, the Editor of Plato), Obertus Gifanius the
Philologer, Florent Chrestien — the Humanist — of Vendome,
Peter Daniel of Orleans, the Scaligers and Turnebus, Hubert
Languet of Antwerp, Janus Dousa and Philip de Marnus de
Ste Aldegonde, both of Leyden, and Joannes Sturmius of
Strasburg. Among Englishmen and Scotsmen, Roger Ascham,
author of the Scholemaster, Dr. Walter Haddon of Oxford,
Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, Sir Anthony Cook and his learned
daughters, Daniel Rogers and Sir Thomas Randolph, the
English Ambassadors, and Nicholas Udall, were a few of those
who rejoiced to bear testimony to Buchanan's influence.

Many were the tributes, public and private, paid to Buchanan
by the scholars and literati, both of his own century and that
which succeeded. Henricus Stephanus, said of him that he was
" easily the first poet of his age," a verdict echoed with appro-
bation by Camden. Later on the great Grotius speaks of him as

Buchanan's Influence on his Contemporaries 193

" Scotiae illud numen," while Salmasius styles him " the greatest
man of his age." Milton praised him unstintedly, so did
Abraham Cowley, and neither of these poets was over-liberal in
his laudation of others, while Dryden considered that as a
historian he was comparable to any of the moderns and excelled
by few of the ancients. That there were many others who did
not thus acknowledge the benefits derived from Buchanan, yet
were influenced by his life and works, goes without saying. Of
Buchanan himself, of a truth, we may say, in the words of
Nicolas Breton, " He was a Sun of letters, sent to this dark
land to shed abroad upon us the light and the leading that come
to us from his unrivalled learning."

O. S.

XX.

The Humanist: a Psychological Study.

ALTHOUGH in some ways Psychology is the youngest of modern
studies, it is undoubtedly a direct result of the Renaissance
interest in all that concerned mankind and of the Renaissance
tendency to observe and examine before, instead of after,
enunciating fundamental laws. In 1690, Locke showed the
scope of the new inductive science, and Scotland re-
sponded to the stimulus just as, at an earlier date,
she had responded to Chaucer. It is then not inappropriate
that a volume which commemorates Scotland's greatest humanist
should consider his character, so far as it was typical of his age,
by the light of a humanistic science long known as " Scottish
Metaphysics."

The intense vitality of the humanist is what strikes us
at the outset and what ever remains the strongest impression
made upon the student of the Renaissance. It is not the rest-
less vitality of the American who, like jesting Pilate, asks,
" What is Truth? " and stays not for an answer, nor is it the
departmental vitality of the specialist whose consciousness is
polarised and in whom a section only of his environment can
awake activity. The humanist is distinguished from these
types and from others by a high level of general consciousness
which makes him forceful in every activity of life. There is
nothing in him vaguely intelligent, weakly emotional, or vacilla-
ting of purpose; whatever aspect of mind is prepotent for the
time being is concentrated to a high degree. The exag-
gerated habitual bias of the specialist is absent and yet unity
of life interest is strongly marked, differentiating the humanist
from the American who is not "interested" at all, but only
curious as regards the external world.

There is another modern type, more pleasant to meet than
those already mentioned, which is nevertheless but a travesty

The Humanist : a Psychological Study 195

of sixteenth century humanism. A cultured person of to-day
is frequently humanistic only in a partial sense — " Humani
nihil a me alienum puto " expresses only half the truth, yet
too many end their creed at this point, and we, as well as they,
wonder as time goes on why their influence on the world is so
feeble. A little observation and comparison soon give us the
answer. This modern cultured type is compacted of strongly
emotional interest, with the more intellectual forms less well
developed and without that potency of will which is necessary
to balance the dissipating tendency of wide interests. It is
lacking both in the elastic balance and in the fulness of vitality
supremely characteristic of the Renaissance period. There were
giants in those days who brought to each of their quickly suc-
ceeding interests and into each of their corresponding desires,
gigantic power of concentrated thinking and feeling, or of
action guided by unswerving will. Humanistic schoolmasters
of to-day would do well to have this twofold ideal in view, the
rousing of widespread interest and the development of habitual
concentration. The men and women of the Renaissance had
their moments of supreme relaxation as well as of supreme
effort ; the bow cannot, as well as must not, always be bent.
But concentration was a habit with them and less costly, there-
fore, than a more explicit effort of will, and it is this habitude
of concentration with its easy performance of herculean labours
which must be associated with the stimulating characteristic
of widespread interest, before modern education and modern
men and women can rival those of the New Birth. The amount
of actual work produced during the sixteenth century was in
every department enormous, and yet the workers were com-
paratively few. If we explain it as largely due to the mar-
vellous stimulation of that concurrence of movements included
under the term Renaissance, we must also acknowledge that
events of the nineteenth century in this respect parallel those
of earlier days. We cannot then blame our environment, and if
the succeeding age is unproductive, the lack of achievement
must be largely due to our own puny characters and enfeebled
vitality.

Having thus laid stress on the importance of concentration,
we may now give full value to the humanistic quality of interest
than which there is no attitude of mind so educative, so
civilised, — in the best sense of the word. It was this going

196 The Humanist : a Psychological Study

forth day after day, in the belief that observation of their
surroundings would repay with pleasure, that stimulated the
imaginative powers of Shakespeare and Columbus, of Petrarch
or of Raphael. The past was reconstructed, the spirit as well
as the letter of Greek was understood. The known world
was used as a starting point from which to reach a clearly
pictured unknown. The future was predicted by the truly
prophetic gift of intellectual foresight. There must have been
moments when it was difficult to tell what century a man really
lived in, for the humanist could "look before and after" and
yet needed not to repine ; the best of the ancient world as well
as modern life was his.

The effect of this widening of individual experience until
co-extensive with that of the race, was to break down the old
systems of thinking, of education, and of living itself. After
the long rule of dialectic, imagination ran riot ; after centuries
of passive receptivity, the active, creative faculties of mind
became overwhelmingly prepotent ; after the iron reign of
formal habit there was everywhere an irresistible yearning for
spontaneous development. When the passion for living and
doing was so strong it was inevitable that excesses should occur,
that we should have antinomians in every form of creative art
as well as in religion and politics, mystics like Wilhelmina the
Fraticellian, and humanistic hooligans such as the Goliards of
Germany. " Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds," but
while these extreme types are more repellant than the mere
grossness of medievalism, we turn with pleasure to the more
normal pattern, a man whom it is impossible to classify in our
carefully partitioned table of human activities, who may
happen to be best remembered as a scholar, or a painter, a
poet or a sculptor, but who was also pre-eminent in his own
country and in his own day in other spheres. Michael Angelo,
the sculptor, was also a poet ; Petrarch, the poet, was a diplo-
matist : Wolsey, Churchman and diplomatist, was a great war
minister : Gerson, the mystic in religion, championed the rights
of the laity against the Papacy.

This tendency is noticeable very early in the Renaissance.
Dante and Chaucer, each for his countrymen the Janus of the
movement, won renown on many a field. Dante, alternately
Guelf and Ghibelline, but always on the side of Italian nation-
ality, was a diplomatist and a writer on political theory as

The Humanist : a Psychological Study 197

well as a poet who painted. Chaucer was poet, soldier, diplo-
matist, master of the intellectual thought of his day, besides,
we strongly suspect, inheriting a keen business faculty from his
tavern keeping and goldsmith ancestors. Benvenuto Cellini
was, according to his latest translator, "jeweller, goldsmith,
sculptor, musician, writer, soldier, duellist, and man of plea-
sure." Buchanan was a diplomatist like Dante, a soldier like
Chaucer, a scholarly educationalist like Petrarch, counsellor in
war and in Church polity like Wolsey, a poet who mirrored
his day in a symbolic past, like Milton (to whom he also gave
the lead in the discussion of political theories) and a satirist
of religious hypocrisy comparable to Erasmus and Ulrich
von Hutten. The mere modern who challenges criticism
in half as many departments is labelled ' ' versatile " in the
worst sense of the word. We live at a lower level of conscious-
ness where, for efficiency, we must resolutely limit our likings
and desires, but Browning echoes a true note of the Renaissance
music when he tells how

No artist lives and loves, that longB not
Once and only once, and for one only
(Ah, the prize) to find his love a language
Fit and fair, and simple and sufficient
Using nature that's an art to others,
Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.

80 to be the man and leave the artist,
Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.

The motive alone differed ; pure strength of vitality impelled
men to conquer new worlds. The scope was greater ; it was not
always just another form of art which was attempted.

In environment so complex as that of the sixteenth century
the interests of life were very varied and our humanists group
themselves accordingly. Strongly defined is the creative artist
so typical of Italy, where love of beauty and desire to make
what is beautiful have always gone hand in hand, although at
the present day a more purely intellectual type of interest
seems to predominate. In Petrarch the artistic and intellectual
sentiments seem almost evenly balanced ; he had the double
ecstasy of discovering knowledge and of creating beauty. In
Valla, the intellectual sentiments predominated, and he ap-
proaches nearer to the Erasmus type to whom hypocrisy and

198 The Humanist : a Psychological Study

falsehood cause as much, if not more, pain as the discovery
of truth causes pleasure. Painful emotion is a spur to vigorous
action, hence the power displayed in De Donatione Constantini,
Julius Secundus Exclusus, or in the Franciscanus and the
S omnium. Potent fervour and force were given to satire of
Church abuses north of the Alps by the strength of the moral,
as well as of the intellectual, sentiments in Teutonic minds.
Overpoweringly strong were these at times, indeed, to the
complete warping of the humanistic nature with its universal
sympathies. Pure morality and true religion were dangerous
magnets for Luther, Calvin, and many another. The work they
did was valuable and much of it absolutely necessary, but they
certainly departed from the humanistic ideal of many sided
interest and of perfectly balanced mental development.

The triumph of physical pleasures was certain to be marked
in the overthrow of an asceticism which had warred most of all
upon them, and here too the strength of the emotions roused
led by an easy Avernian descent to departure from the human-
istic spirit. But the finer spirits were saved from this and so,
while we read of orgies which nothing in after life or before
redeems, we can also turn with relief to men and women whose
self-indulgence took less crude form and who, either as artists
or patrons of art have made us their bedesmen.

Another well marked group was dominated by the social
sentiment of nationality. In sub-conscious form this force was
working throughout Europe drawing together people of differing
race and ignoring geographical unities as only social instincts
can. Dante has been already quoted as an early exponent
of nationality. Rienzi, striving to put the new elixir mice,
into a Roman amphora, attempted a disastrous experiment and
failed in that fore-knowledge which marked the greater minds
of his day. Catharine of Siena and Petrarch, urging the return
of the Papal Court to Rome, offered a more practical but not less
evanescent solution. Rienzi, failing as does many an idealist, in
his conscious effort, yet revived the noble concept of true citizen-
ship to become the educational ideal of Vittorino da Feltre, most
noted of Italian schoolmasters, and to find its way across the
Alps as a permanent influence on our English public schools.

Pico della Miraudola, again, is representative of another
humanistic group of thinkers — perhaps we should more cor-
rectly say believers, since the emotional element predominates —

The Humanist : a Psychological Study 199

for whom mystic religious sentiment was the controlling force
of consciousness. In many ways, this is the most complex and
curious of Italian types. Ahead of its age in recognising that
religious truth and moral beauty are not the monopoly of any
faith, abreast of the age in recognition of the human dignity,
it was yet too closely in sympathy with mediaeval symbolism
and with the more subtle platonic realism to be of far reaching
influence in the Renaissance movement. Pico is a clearly de-
nned figure in the sunshine, but with his exception, the best
in this kind are but shadows, and shades which please us after
the glowing colours of all the rest.

Interest, wide reaching and yet concentrated, is then the
dominant psychological note in humanism, and it is in relation
to it that we must consider the rest of that harmonious
character.

The most immediate effect of this access of emotional force
was probably the quickening of imaginative power. The quan-
tity of creative work produced during the sixteenth century
has been already referred to; the high average of its quality
requires no comment here. But imagination is not concerned
with the inventive faculty alone. It is an essential element in
sympathy, and was consequently of importance in giving intelli-
gent direction to the social emotions already mentioned. Practi-
cal work and art were equally affected. Shakespeare is " for all
time," just because his naturally sensitive mind was stirred by
contact with men of other lands besides his own, and his
sympathies widened by interest in topics other than the great
religious and social questions of Tudor England. Ho was not
thereby made indifferent to national problems; on a shallow
nature this would certainly have been the effect, but then the
humanist was not a shallow nature. He " apperceived " them all
the better for seeing their relation to the European struggle
between the old and new systems, but he was not obsessed by
them. We find no obtrusion of the Puritan question or of the
struggle with Spain in his dramatic plots, but yet we can clearly
discern that his larger conceptions of life were moulded upon
these realities. The affectionate mention of him by his contem-
poraries would lead us to believe that his sympathies went out to
individuals as well as to great national movements.

Such another, in this respect, was Colet, the hater of wars
and the good friend of little children, and Buchanan who " with

200 The Humanist : a Psychological Study

boys became a boy " and who was chosen, at a critical moment,
to be helmsman of the Scottish Church. Imaginative sympathy
produced humanistic historians. Buchanan entered into the
spirit of the Scottish past, Colet made St. Paul a man, and not
merely an author, for his hearers, and the first century of
Christianity became a reality as he spoke of its events. Thomas
More shared the gifts of these two. Increased opportunities may
enable us to dispute some details of fact, but we are eternally
indebted to them for the new spirit in which they handled
their material.

Again, this many-sided interest with the concomitant sym-
pathy born of imagination led to a detachment in thought, an
impartiality of criticism, an opeu-mindedness in debate, and a
lack of animus when the humanist was, by circumstances,
forced to speak or write on partisan lines.

To many people, whether of the sixteenth or the twentieth
centuries, beata tranquillitas in the face of abuses which cry
for removal is not a pleasing virtue, and once more it must
be granted that the man of action is necessary quite as much
as the humanist. But the practical man so-called, is often
unconsciously driven into unconsidered action not because of
greater force of character, nor yet because his sympathies are
more quickly and deeply stirred, but simply because he lacks
knowledge of the possibilities, and because in an ill- balanced
nature the desire to act has overpowered the intellectual
faculties. With shallow enthusiasm of this kind the humanistic
spirit is in everlasting conflict, but there is a nobler and rarer
idealism which, based upon wide knowledge interpreted by sym-
pathetic imagination (so lacking in the average idealist), is the
fairest incarnation of active belief. Here are met the open-
minded judicial attitude of humanism and fervent idealism,
in potent and beneficial union. But, alas, strait is the gate and
narrow is the way and few there be, in any age, that find it.

We are acustomed to associate the southern temperament
with fervour, but it is interesting to note that this open-minded-
ness is more characteristic of the Italian than of the Teutonic
Renaissance. It is, of course, mainly explicable by the earlier
date of the Italian movement and its consequent limitation to
the more sensitive natures as well as to its independence of the
practical problems which modified the northern development.
The early humanists in Germany were as detached in spirit

The Humanist : a Psychological Study 201

as any, but social and religious sentiments being stronger in
their race, the movements took popular form on these lines.
The average Italian developed an artistic and literary sense;
the average German, Englishman or Scot interested himself in
religion, education, or political rights. Increased knowledge
of these subjects brought with it strong beliefs, strong alike in
individuals and in churches or parties. Consequently, in the
latter part of the sixteenth and during the entire seven-
teenth centuries, we find whole nations at death grips — France
(where the struggle began and ended earliest), Germany, Scot-
land, and England, split into hostile camps in bitter conflict
over some political or religious article of faith. It is in in-
dividuals alone that we find traces of the old spirit. Elizabeth
of England was only a little less indifferent on burning ques-
tions than Henry IV. of France and Catharine di Medici, and
it is worthy of note that the Church of England owes its
peculiar characteristics and its peculiar difficulties to its organis-
ation by humanist ecclesiastics and statesmen. The other
Churches formed about this date to this day re-echo the fervour
of their idealistic founders.

" It taks a' sort o' fowk to mak' a warld," but the pity
of it is that in the transition stage, typical men of either side
failed in humanistic sympathy, and that friends who, in less
critical days, worked together all the better for the difference
in the personal equation, now separated with the bitterness of
disillusionment. Luther cannot understand Erasmus; Erasmus
shrinks from Luther. Henry VIII. turns partisan and bigot,
and the old friendship for More cannot save the Chancellor's
head. Buchanan and Knox understood each other better than
Luther and Erasmus; they had been brought up entirely in
the world, while over the two latter the idola of the cloister
had subconscious power. But still, the followers of Knox and
Buchanan would fain make them leaders of hostile camps.
Saddest of all perhaps is the broken friendship between
Buchanan and his Queen. Mary, by upbringing a humanist
of the Medicean type, pleasure seeking and material, could not
see that in the northern humanist, ruled by the moral senti-
ments, she had her natural complement and her best friend.
We deny a partisan spirit foreign to humanism in the
Detectio : we see in it the greater tragedy of disillusionment,
and of a lost ideal of womanhood.

202 The Humanist : a Psychological Study

Much remains to be worked out fully, but we may sum up
the main characteristics of humanism as follows: — first, a
strong vitality, which made mental processes rapid, as well as
habitually concentrated, and which made the connection
between thought, emotion and volition close and intimate, all
consciousness responding vigorously to the prepotent aspect:
secondly, abnormal development in the emotion of interest,
giving keenness to the observation, strength to the memory, and
freshness to the imagination : thirdly, on the intellectual side,
imagination is the most active faculty ; it reconstructs the past
and discovers or foretells the future. Brought to bear upon
mankind, imagination evokes sympathy, at times almost uni-
versal in its scope, and in specialised forms leading to social and
educational schemes for the betterment of the weaker classes.
A more purely intellectual form of imagination leads to im-
partiality and freedom from bias in thought, a beata tranquil-
litas as far removed from Gallio's indifference as it is from the
Stoic contempt for life.

While the emotional and intellectual faculties are thus
developed, the strength of will which carries men through great
enterprises is abundantly evident. Men knew their power and
believed most of all in themselves.

It matters little that balanced development of mind is not
to be found in every great man of those days, that the artist
sometimes overpowered the thinker south of the Alps, or that
more frequently the thinker subdued the artist north of
them. It is easy to note such exceptions : and indeed they are
neither few nor insignificant. But for all that, harmony and
symmetry are essential characteristics of the humanist, and the
cases we refer to are exceptional, not because these qualities are
entirely lacking, but simply because they are less evident.

How does the subject of this volume appear when tried by
the standard ? Buchanan was not altogether Teuton ; very few
Scots are. From a mother born in the Lothians and from a
Highland father, he had the gift of tongues by birth
as well as by education in Scotland and France. Four
hundred years after his birth he is honoured in prose and
verse as thinker and literary artist, as scholar but also
as leader of men of action, as open-minded friend, as un-
sparing critic and " unfriend " of what pained his moral sense.
In the essential qualities of concentration, of universal interest,

The Humanist : a Psychological Study 203

of clear imagination, of wide sympathies and, finally, of de-
tachment from party and party spirit, he was a typical embodi-
ment of the humanistic spirit. The Teuton in him made intellect
predominant and directed his creative powers to literature, but
the grace of his style and the delicacy of his fancy, as well as
the fervour of his satire, were a Celtic inheritance.

Is it too much to hope that, in a century which of all
others most nearly reproduces the stimulating environment of
the Renaissance and in the country of Buchanan's birth, the
spirit of humanism will be fostered with careful wisdom as the
most enduring monument to Scotland's great humanist ?

L. P .8. H.

XXL

Buchanan as a Latin Scholar.

BUCHANAN was not a Scholar, in the same sense of the word as
Turnebe or Lambin or Scaliger or Nicolas Heinsius. He did
not, like them, add to our knowledge of the life and thought,
the history and literature of the Romans. He never edited
the works of any Latin poet, although he read and read again
all the Latin poets till he almost knew their verses by heart.
In a word he was

"Contented, if he might enjoy
The things that others understand."

It is to the Scholars of the sixteenth century that we owe our
Latin texts. They explored the Libraries of Europe for
ancient MSS. ; they examined the claims of this or that MS.
to be the more faithful representative of the actual words of
an ancient author; they made a minute study of the style and
diction of each author so as to discriminate the genuine from
the spurious version of a line; they collected from all available
sources every scrap of evidence regarding the author's life and
character, his purpose in writing, his attitude of mind. By
these laborious means they removed the accretions which had
in the course of centuries gathered round the writings of the
ancients and gave to the world each poem of Virgil, Horace,
Ovid and the rest as nearly as possible in the actual form in
which it had been written down by the author. When we try
to read any of these poets in an earlier edition, we stumble
over something unintelligible or incongruous or ungrammatical
in every other line. It is then that we realize what a debt
we owe to the work of these sixteenth century Scholars.

To all this noble work of recovering for the modern world
the writings of the ancient, Buchanan contributed not one jot.
He was, in this respect, a drone in the hive. It is an injustice
to Scaliger and Heinsius when we class Buchanan with them
and speak of him as a Latin Scholar. Buchanan was of quite
a different type. He would be more correctly described as a

Buchanan as a Latin Scholar 205

journalist, pamphleteer, man of letters, at a time when Latin
was the common language of the educated world. Latin was
for him merely the instrument by which he expressed his ideas
to other minds. Latin was his tool, and Buchanan plied it
with the hand of a master. No one has ever equalled him as a
writer of Latin Verse.

Now-a-days we should not think much of a Latin Scholar
whose only contribution to Scholarship was a collection of Latin
verses, however faithfully they reproduced the feeling and
diction of the ancient poets. No doubt the successful writing
of Latin Verse implies a sympathy with Roman poetry and a
minute knowledge of the Latin poetic vocabulary, and claims
our respect on this account. But after all it is the ape-like
faculty of the human mind, the faculty of imitation, that is
cultivated in Latin Composition ; and we give little more credit
to a ready writer of Latin Verse than we would allow to a
smart junior clerk in the Diplomatic Service who was able to
chatter in half a dozen foreign languages. Latin Composition,
especially Verse Composition, no longer holds the same place
even in English Public Schools and Universities that it held a
century ago. Still, for my own part, I should be sorry to see
it dropped from the curriculum. To take it at the lowest
estimate, no student who does not practise Latin Versification
can ever be sure of knowing " Quantity," in other words, the
correct pronunciation of Latin words.1 Another and a higher
part that it plays in education is that it shews the student how
the same ideas are expressed in Latin and in English poetry
and enables him to read a Latin poet with better appreciation
and understanding. Professor Tyrrell, in his edition of a
Comedy of Plautus, has included a few of his own renderings
of passages from English Dramas into Latin Dramatic Verse.
The idea is an excellent one. They provide the student with a
key for re-setting the ancient melody to a modern tune. They
enable him, when he reads a sentence of Plautus, to say to
himself " This is how a Latin Dramatist expresses exactly the

1 1 found an amusing instance of this the other day. At a Congress of the
Classical Scholars of Germany, the bronze medal, presented to each member
of the Congress, had as a motto a line of Horace in this form, " Labitur atque
labetur in omne volubilis aevum," with a false quantity at the beginning of
the line. There are, I believe, only two schools in Germany where Latin
Verse Composition is taught.

206 Buchanan as a Latin Scholar

same sentiment as would be expressed in this other way by
Congreve or Sheridan." Plautus is of all Latin poets the one
with whom a modern reader can most easily feel in sympathy ;
for his fun and jollity appeal to us as much to-day as they did
to his contemporaries. The only obstacle is his unfamiliar
diction. Professor Tyrrell's Latin Verses do a great deal to
remove this obstacle, by shewing us how an English joke would
appear in Plautine language. But most of all is Latin Verse
writing necessary to the advanced student. I do not see how
one can thoroughly appreciate the artistic side, the technique
of Latin Poetry, who has not himself tried the experiment of
imitating Latin metres ; and I trust that the day is far distant
when Scholars in this country will abandon the habit of trans-
lating their favourite passages of English poetry into Latin
poetical form.

This is the method of Latin Verse Composition that is
followed at the present day. A short poem of Keats or
Tennyson, or else a passage of Shakespeare or Milton, is
rendered in Latin verse. No one would think of writing an
original poem in Latin, as Buchanan did. And this difference
of practice makes it difficult to compare Buchanan with the
leading verse-writers of this and the last century, such as
Robinson Ellis, Jebb, Evans, Kennedy and others. It may be
said that Buchanan's task was the harder one, inasmuch as he
had to provide the ideas as well as the Latin words. On the
other hand a Latin version of a passage of Tennyson has to
bear comparison with the English original, while Buchanan's
lines have no such rival to diminish their lustre. Certainly the
same defect, perhaps an unavoidable defect, attaches to both
types of Latin verse-imitations, namely, the use of what
English public-school boys call " tags " ; that is to say, phrases
or short descriptions transferred bodily from some ancient poet
into a modern version. Take this passage of Buchanan's De
Sphaera, the most ambitious of all his poetical works :

Proximus huie, parvo sed proximus intervallo,
Mercurius, laetoque diem modo Lucifer astro
Praeveniens, idem noctis praennntius ignis
Hesperus, observans Solem prope passibus aequis;
Ut medius rerum Sol omnia lumine lustret,
Educet et foveat, flamir.is nunc celsns in Arcton
Emicet, humentes nunc se dimittat in Austros.

Buchanan as a Latin Scholar 207

An unkind critic might describe this as a patchwork of " tags."
Buchanan has here drawn upon certain well-known lines of
Latin poets, and has with considerable skill strung together a
number of phrases that are all borrowed. Nor is this passage
an exception. We do not read many lines of the De
Sphaera before we come across Lucretius' noble phrase,
fiammantia moenia mundi, and the phrase is pressed into
service again within the first hundred lines. A little further
on we have nearly a whole line of Virgil's, verrens abiegnis
aeqnora palmis; then Horace furnishes a contribution, finitimix
excliidit iurgia limes, and so on.1 The same thing is
found, but not, I think, to the same extent, in Latin Verse
of the present day ; and I suppose there is some justification
for it. If Lucretius or Virgil or Horace invented the one
exactly appropriate phrase for describing this or that object
or this or that action, why should not the modern imitator
avail himself of the invention ? And yet, how could we tolerate
an English poem from some French or German admirer of
Tennyson, which consisted, to a great extent, of Tennysonian
phrases, like " a land in which it seemed always afternoon,"
" tiptilted like the petal of a flower," and so on, and so on?
If one wishes to read Buchanan's poetry with enjoyment, one
has to try to forget that others have said the same things before.
But this defect — and it is a defect shared to some extent by
Latin poets of the Silver Age and of the Christian period, who
are always borrowing from Virgil — cannot impair Buchanan's
claim to be the best writer of Latin verse, that is, of original
Latin verse, since the Revival of Learning. His facility in
widely different styles of Latin poetry is amazing. Some of
his epigrams2 would not have been disdained by Martial, e.g.,

Frustra ego te laudo, frustra me, Zoile, laedis,
Nemo mihi credit, Zoile, nemo tibi.

1 Professor Hume Brown doubts whether Buchanan wrote suis or tuis at
the end of the Epigram to Lennox : —

Denique da quidvis, podagram modo deprecor unam :
Munus erit medicis aptins ilia suis.

A reference to the line of Martial from which the last sentence is borrowed
shows that he wrote sui*.

2 Still I think he is inferior to Owen as an epigrammatist. Of course
Owen wrote a great deal more of this style of verse than Buchanan.

208 Buchanan as a Latin Scholar

His Satire on the Franciscans is reminiscent of Juvenal, his
De Sphaera of Lucretius ; his Elegiacs and Lyrics are
always pleasing, although Wordsworth exaggerated in declaring
the Alcaic " May-day" to be worthy of Horace. Of the later
Roman poets he has, I think, imbibed most of the spirit of
Claudian. In almost all of his writings (to omit the Epigrams
and Dramas) there are turns of expression or even mere
metrical cadences that remind one of Claudian. What a time
he must have spent in reading and re-reading these authors !
How great a portion of his life must have been given up to the
practice of Latin Verse Composition ! It may be said that
this was waste of time. It would be in our own day, but it
was not in Buchanan's period. For Latin was then the
recognised vehicle of communication between educated men of
the different countries of Europe; and the more polished the
Latin verse, the more chance it had of carrying its message
home. It was, therefore, worth Buchanan's while to cultivate
to the utmost his natural bent for imitating the Latin poets.
And this he did with such success that his poetical remains are
even now, when the events to which they refer belong to the
forgotten past, almost as pleasant reading as some of the second
or rather third-rank poetry of antiquity.

I say " almost," because there are three things which, in
my opinion, prevent, and must always prevent, Buchanan's
Latin poems from securing a wide circle of readers. And these
three things are of some importance to us in forming an
estimate of Buchanan as a Latin Scholar. The first is the
number, the surprising number, of false quantities in his lines.
Of course there is much to be said in extenuation of this fault.
The texts of the Latin poets were in his period, at least in his
student-period, still published in a very inaccurate form. An
English Public School boy of to-day could easily quote a line of
Martial or Catullus from which Buchanan might have learned
the correct quantity of this or that Latin word. But in the
texts of Martial and Catullus that were at Buchanan's disposal,
the line was quite as likely to be presented in incorrect form as
not. That is one excuse that may be offered. Another is that
the quantity of some words is known only from the Latin
Comedies; and the laws of the Comedians' metres were not
discovered till long after Buchanan's time. In fact they have
not been wholly elucidated yet. Another plea, that is more or

Buchanan as a Latin Scholar 209

less reasonable, is that the sharp distinction was not made then,
as it is now, between classical Latin poetry and the poetry of
a later period, when the pronunciation of many words had
changed. But in spite of all that can be brought forward in
Buchanan's justification, the awkward fact remains that on
page after page we find a false quantity, and often in
the case of words whose quantity was easily ascertainable.
The first stanza of his "May-day" has dicatae scanned with
the first syllable long. Now Buchanan must have known the
common Latin verbs, indicare, dtdicare and the other com-
pounds of dicare. What excuse had he for being ignorant of
the pronunciation of words like these ? That he might have
written the line in this incorrect form in the first heat of
composition is possible and pardonable, but that the error
should have remained undetected by him and that the line
should ultimately be published in this shape seems to a
Latinist of the twentieth century quite inexcusable. Is it that
we are more squeamish now ? Should we admire the robustness
of a Buchanan who disdained to take heed of blemishes like
these? We can hardly assent to this suggestion, when we
reflect that Latin verse is quantitative verse ; its rhythm, its
poetical nature, depends on the arrangement of long and short
syllables; and to substitute a short for a long syllable in a line
throws the whole line out of gear. We cannot approve of the
Frenchman's rhymed English couplets on Shenstone, in which
" rural" is made to rhyme with " natural." The false rhyme
murders the metre and makes it a " corpus mortuum."
Similarly a false quantity in a Latin poem is not a mere trivial
blemish, like a misspelling or a false grammatical concord; it
makes a verse cease to be a verse.

There is another thing that mars our enjoyment, especially
of his Dramatic writings. But it is of lesser importance, for
Buchanan's Dramas are the least interesting of his works and
do not at all rise to the level of his Satirical and Didactic
poetry. And it need not diminish our admiration of the
writer's scholarship. It is the disregard of certain laws of
Latin Dramatic Verse, which forbid the use of this or that
metrical foot at certain parts of the line. These laws were not
known, or only partially known, in the sixteenth century ; the
discovery of them has been a slow process. Buchanan could
not well have learned them from his teachers; and it would be
p

210 Buchanan as a Latin Scholar

too much to expect that he should have completely assimilated
himself to the Latin Dramatists whose works he read so often
and so closely, and should have unconsciously caught up each
detail of their method of constructing a line. Still it is
impossible to read with pleasure a Latin line in Iambic Metre,
whose construction is inconsistent with the character of the
Latin language.

Even if Buchanan's lines were free from the two faults I
have mentioned, faults of prosody and of metre, there is a
third defect, which tries the patience of a reader. I mean that
insincerity, that unreal, artificial tone which necessarily
attaches to poems written in a dead language about living
people. It is least objectionable in ceremonious pieces, like the
congratulatory lines which he composed as poet of the Court
or the Epithalamium or the Pompa Deorum. Verses of
this type, written to order, are expected to be more or less
unnatural. But when we read in Latin about the misdoings
of the Franciscans or the latest theory of Astronomy, we cannot
escape the feeling that we should have preferred to re^tf
Buchanan's sentiments expressed in his own language. It does
indeed compel our admiration, when we find him throughout
his long astronomical poem, De Sphaera, carefully avoiding
any sentiment or metaphor or mode of expression that
is more modern than, let us say, the fourth century A.D. But,
we ask ourselves, why should he voluntarily impose these fetters
on his imagination ? Why should he restrict himself to the
pace possible to a Roman of twelve centuries earlier, instead
of revelling in the freedom of his own language? To walk on
a tight-rope is a wonderful exhibition of skill and elicits the
admiration of the crowd ; but the fact remains that the walk-
ing would be done with much greater success on an ordinary
road. Since Buchanan deliberately confined his range of
expression to the language which he learned from the diligent
study of a limited number of ancient authors, whose tricks of
phrase and turns of sentence he faithfully reproduces, he could
hardly avoid the danger of occasionally using a phrase, which
did not express his real sentiments and which was not
peculiarly appropriate to the occasion, but which exactly
echoed the ancient style or was borrowed unchanged from some
ancient writer. The " new wine" cannot but be spoilt by the
"old bottle"; and it is no fault of Buchanan that his verses

Buchanan as a Latin Scholar 211

are somewhat unpalatable to modern readers, merely because
they are written in Latin. No one, however, can apply to
them Dr. Johnson's remark on a woman preaching: "it is not
that the thing is well done, but the wonder is it can be done
at all." For undoubtedly the thing is well done.

W. M. L.

XXII.

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist.

GEORGE BUCHANAN has had the singular fortune to be esteemed
by the commonalty of his native land — " the poor-living, lewd,
grimy, free-spoken, ribald, old Scots peasant-world," to use Mr.
Henley's contemptuous and contemptible phrase — as the anti-
thesis of a man of learning. Robert Burns, in his epitaph on
William Cruikshank, said —

The fauts he had in Latin lay ;

and by writing for Europe Buchanan hid his light in a dark
lantern, so far as Scotland was concerned. His vernacular
tractates served their political and temporary purpose and were
forgotten ; the part he played in history was not sufficiently
striking to command popular attention ; and his memory was
only saved to the man in the street by a publication that
reflected little credit upon him and did no justice to his merits.

During his lifetime Buchanan attained considerable fame as
a wit and humorist. His sallies against the Church were supple-
mented by gossipy anecdotes of his everyday existence. His en-
counters with the King are just the kind of incidents of royal life
that are retold in conversation to-day, or served up in the personal
columns of the modern newspaper, and it is reasonable to believe
that they would pass from lip to lip and reach an ever-widening
circle of his contemporaries and immediate successors. In time
his name became a by-word for wit and humour. Good stories
that were narrated of nobody in particular were associated with
Buchanan ; and generations that had forgotten or never heard
of him as a scholar recognised and admired him as a jester.

The floating and uncertain popularity which he enjoyed for
wit and humour was fixed to some extent when the stories
attributed to him were collected by some illiterate hand and
woven into a chap-book. The identity of the editor has not
been established, but there is a belief that the compilation was

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 213

the work of Dougal Graham, the hunchback bellman of Glasgow
and rhyming historian of the '45, who figures so prominently
in the cheap literature of a byegone day. Graham, who was as
coarse and grotesque as the Buchanan of the chap-book, died in
1779, and, if he is responsible for collecting the stories, the pub-
lication probably made its first appearance about 1770. It gave
permanency to anecdotes that had lingered in oral tradition
for nearly two hundred years, but it doubtless contains only
a fragment of the gossip that, with the name of Buchanan, had
circulated among the common people of Scotland.

Dr. Robert Wallace who in his unfinished sketch of the
Historian's life refers at some length to the chap-book, says that
' ' its description of Buchanan as the ' Fule ' instead of the tutor
of King James, and its placing him at the English court of
James, who did not ascend the throne of England until
Buchanan had been twenty-one years dead, are sufficient com-
mentary on its historical accuracy." Dr Wallace, who may have
written from memory, is less than just to the booklet. It states
that though Buchanan was "of mean parentage," he "made
great progress in learning " and that ' ' for his understanding
and ready wit he excelled all men then alive in his age, that ever
proposed questions to him." Further, it affirms that Buchanan
" was servant or teacher to King James the VI., and one of his
private counsellors " but that publicly he " acted as his fool."

The nature of the stories of which the chap-book is composed
ensured a wide circulation for the brochure, and during the
century after its publication it was in great demand.
Buchanan became the hero of the bothy. The greatest
Scotsman of his age was deposed from the exalted
position which he held as a scholar and reduced to the
level of unlettered ploughmen who laughed uproariously
over his escapades, and who recognised in the buffoon of the
chap-book a spirit kindred with their own. It is certainly a
curious coincidence that the British Solomon who was described
by a French wit as ' ' the wisest fool in Christendom " should
have received much of his wisdom at the feet of a genius who
was only known to the vast majority of his countrymen as " the
King's jester."

When we come to enquire how far " The Witty and Enter-
taining Exploits of George Buchanan " may be accepted as
authentic we are naturally led to consider those examples of his

214 Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

wit and humour which are preserved in repositories other than
the chap-book. All Buchanan's biographers enliven their pages
and illustrate their subject with anecdotes believed to be genuine.
Dr Hume Brown, it is true, is extremely cautious in this respect,
and, when he cites Mackenzie, is careful to add that that author
" is always to be taken with large reservations." Mackenzie,
however, " quotes chapter and verse " so far as his anecdotes are
concerned, and that is all that can be reasonably asked from any
writer who does not profess to have actually heard what he
narrates.

Throughout the chap-book Buchanan is represented as having
indulged in considerable freedom of speech and action towards
his royal master, and to that extent at least it is historically
accurate. As tutor to the king he was brought into close touch
with James, and two anecdotes bear witness that the preceptor
showed no special favour to his sovereign pupil.

On one occasion the youthful monarch cast envious eyes upon
a tame sparrow which belonged to his companion John,
Master of Mar. After pleading in vain with Mar to part with
the bird, James endeavoured to take it by force, and in the
struggle which ensued the pet sparrow was killed. Erskine's
grief at the loss of his favourite attracted the attention of
Buchanan who enquired into the reason for his sorrow. On
being informed, the tutor seized the king, boxed his ears, and
told him that " he was himself a true bird of the bloody nest to
which he belonged." The incident helps to render credible the
more famous instance of Buchanan's chastisement which, Dr.
Wallace says, " was better known in Scotland " than any other
story.

In the course of his readings in history James had learned
the fact of the conspiracy at Lauder Bridge in the reign of
James III., and had been informed of how the Earl of Angus
became known as " Bell-the-Cat." Lessons over, the King and
his fellow-pupil, Mar, engaged in play, but were so noisy that
Buchanan, who was at his studies, was disturbed. He enjoined
them to be quiet, and, finding that James disregarded his
request, the tutor informed him that if he did not desist he
would certainly be whipped. The king, with a precocious touch
of that cleverness and conceit which characterised his later life,
looked at Buchanan and asked " But who will ' Bell the Cat ' ?"
Buchanan threw his book from him and gave the young king a

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 215

sound thrashing. The cries of distressed royalty brought the
Countess of Mar on the scene who demanded the cause of the
tears. The preceptor explained, whereupon she asked how he
dared " to lay his hands on ' the Lord's anointed '." Buchanan's
answer is not for polite ears in these decorous days, but there
are few Scotsmen who are unfamiliar with it.

The story got abroad — Buchanan himself may have narrated
the incident with quiet humour and twinkling eyes to some of
his boon companions — and it was enjoyed by courtiers and
plainer folk. For some unexplained reason it does not appear
in the chap-book : the omission is culpable. Aikman in retail-
ing the anecdote remarks that he gives it "on the authority of
Dr. Mackenzie, who bore no goodwill to Buchanan and who was
an idolater of royalty," a circumstance which, one should think,
would have suggested its suppression. " That Buchanan did
inflict corporal chastisement on the boy," adds Aikman, " there
is no reason to doubt ; if he saw it necessary, he was not the man
to be scared by any imaginary sacredness of royal skin, but that
he returned so rude an answer, is not at all likely." Language
is rude only by comparison, and what is permissible to-day might
appear unseemly in another age. Buchanan's remark amounted
merely to a proverbial expression which is common enough
yet in many parts of the country and which, with a very slight
modification, may be heard among the lower classes all over the
British Isles. And the common people imitate their " betters"!

If there is virtue in chastisement it is evident from the stories
that have come down to us that James had every opportunity of
becoming a good man. When he was free of the watchful
eye of Buchanan, he was under the surveillance of his
companion, the Master of Mar, — " Jock o' the sclaits," as
he was called by the king from the fact that the tutor, with char-
acteristic humour, gave him a slate upon which to record all the
royal misdeeds committed during Buchanan's absence !

Another anecdote illustrates in a different manner the freedom
which Buchanan took with his sovereign master. It is given on
the authority of the tutor's nephew. The royal dominie in
studying the mind and actions of his pupil, noticed that James
was inclined to grant every request that was made to him, and
he set himself to endeavour to correct this weakness. He pre-
pared two documents which he put before the king for signature.
Without examining them, and after merely asking a careless

216 Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

question concerning their purport, James appended his name.
One of the writs nominated and appointed Buchanan King of
Scotland for fourteen days. The tutor at once assumed
sovereignty. James was amazed and demanded an explanation,
whereupon Buchanan produced the document in his favour
which had duly received the royal signature. According to Dr.
Hume Brown the master read his pupil " a lecture on the folly
of his conduct," but judging from James's later career the lecture
did little good. This incident forms one of " the witty and
entertaining exploits " of the chap-book.

Through life Buchanan continued to speak plainly to the king,
and in the hour of death was not afraid of his sovereign power.
An anecdote, variously told, illustrates this. Dr. Macmillan
says that when Buchanan was on his deathbed the authorities
summoned him " to answer for something objectionable in his
writings, but he was unmoved. ' Tell the people who sent you,'
was his reply to the macer of the Court of Session who came on
the errand, ' That I am summoned to a higher Tribunal '."
The chap-book shifts the locality of the story to Court.
Buchanan had been absent from the royal presence, and on the
king's commanding him peremptorily to return within twenty
days, failing which officers would be sent to fetch him, he

replied : —

My honoured liege and sovereign king
Of your boasting great I dread nothing :
On your feud or favour I'll fairly venture :
Ere that day I'll be where few kings enter.

There is something of a heroic chuckle in these lines that is
in keeping with the death-bed remark which is preserved in
Melville's " Diary." The Melvilles, James and Andrew, had
crossed from St. Andrews to Edinburgh to see Buchanan. In
the course of conversation, talk turned to his History which was
then in the printer's hands. The Melvilles saw a proof and
noticed the story which alleged that Mary Stuart had ordered
Rizzio's body to be laid in her father's tomb. They suggested
that it might offend the king. "Tell me, man," queried
Buchanan, " giff I have tauld the treuthe?" They said they
believed so. " Then!" exclaimed the dying man, " I will bide
his feud, and all his kin's." The story in the chap-book is pro-
bably founded on this conversation and on the anecdote concern-
ing Buchanan's summons to the Court of Session.

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 217

Another of the witty and entertaining exploits of the king's
fool is clearly based on an incident in Buchanan's life which,
according to Dr. Hume Brown " has all the marks of truth, as
he certainly knew Gaelic, and as the humour of the story is
thoroughly characteristic." During his wanderings in France,
Buchanan met a woman who affirmed that she was devil-ridden,
and, as a proof, stated that she could speak in all tongues.
Among other languages he tested her with Gaelic which she did
not understand, whereupon he protested that the Devil was
ignorant of the common speech of Celtic Scotland — a circum-
stance which does not favour the perfervid Highlanders' belief
that Gaelic was spoken in Eden. There is more humour in the
chap-book version. Buchanan, according to the story there,
was in conversation with a Bishop, in the course of which he
emphasised the superior value of Scottish over English educa-
tion, affirming that shepherds in Scotland would " argument
with any Bishop in England, and exceed them mighty far in
knowledge." So preposterous did this vaunted triumph of the
Thistle over the Rose appear that an Ecclesiastical Commission
.vas appointed to enquire into the matter. Three clergymen set
out for Scotland, but they presumably — in the words of a later
ballad — took " the high road," while Buchanan took " the low
road," as he was in Scotland before them. In the guise of a
shepherd he met the clergymen. To a question in French he
returned an answer in Hebrew, and when this was followed by
a statement in Greek he replied in Flemish. Then they tried
him with Dutch and he responded in Gaelic which was unintel-
ligible to them and they " went away shamefully, swearing that
the Scots had gone through all the nations in the world to learn
their language, or the devil had taught them it," which latter
remark may please the enthusiastic Celts who affirm that Adam
and his good lady conversed in their mother tongue.

Many of the extravagant fables that connect themselves with
Buchanan are doubtless due to his enemies. Dr. Hume Brown
says that, "as in the case of every Protestant of eminence,
foolish stories came to be circulated by Roman Catholic writers
concerning the Historian's last days." One shameless libel from
the pen of a French priest who laboured to prove Buchanan to
have been a debauchee and a drunkard represents him as saying
on his death-bed in answer to the upbraidings of his medical
advisers — " ' Go along with you! You, and your prescriptions

218 Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

and dietaries! I would far rather live only three jolly weeks,
getting comfortably drunk every day than live six dreary wine-
less years.' . . . He died in brief space, however ; his
chamber being then rarely littered with glasses and wine-
measures." Vastly different from this is the genial domestic
scene depicted by the Melvilles. Buchanan was suffering much
bodily weakness at the time they visited him. " When we cam
to his chalmer " says the narrator, ' ' we f and him sitting in his
chaire, teatching his young man that servit him in his chalmer
to spell a, b, ab ; e, b, eb, etc." After salutation, one of his
visitors said, " I see, sir, ye are nocht ydle." " Better this,"
answered Buchanan with quiet humour, " nor stealing sheipe or
sitting ydle, quhilk is als ill."

Buchanan's fondness for a jest never deserted him. In a racy
letter to Randolph, " Maister of Postes," he said, after referring
to his History upon which he was engaged; "The rest of my
occupation is wyth the gout, quhilk holdis me besy both day and
nyt. And quhair ye say ye haif not lang to lyif, I traist to
God to go before you, albeit I be on fut and ye ryd the post."

A touch of grim humour characterises his final interview with
his servant. " When Buchanan was dying," according to the
story which Mackenzie tells in his Lives of the Scots Worthies,
" he called Mr. Young, his servant, and asked him how much
money he had of his : and finding that it was not sufficient for
defraying the charges of his burial, he commanded him to dis-
tribute it among the poor." On hearing this Mr. Young asked,
" Who, then, will be at the expense of burying you?" " I am
very indifferent about that," was the characteristic answer of
" the stoic philosopher who looked not far before him," " for
if I am once dead and they will not bury me, they may let me
lie where I am, or throw my corpse where they please." Of
course, as he knew, adds Dr. Wallace by way of commentary
on the anecdote, the people of Edinburgh " had to bury him,
so he could enjoy his posthumous triumph of wit, but they had
their repartee, denying him a gravestone for a generation or
two."

In the Somnium and Franciscanus Buchanan gives free play
to his wit and humour at the expense of the Church, and the
author of these satires might quite well be the hero of one or
two of the witty and entertaining exploits narrated in the chap-
book. In Franciscanus he shows the nature of the men who

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 219

join the monkish fraternity. Biting lines reveal to what per-
fection they have brought the art of imposition, and the flashing
search-light of the poet's wit exposes them entrenched behind
all the tricks of their profession. In these circumstances, no
great streteh of imagination is needed to identify the author of
the satire with the George Buchanan who disclosed the impos-
ture of the Dalkeith priests by fearlessly striking the bell which
they asserted would rend itself at the touch of a guilty person.
Similarly, the man who, in literature, laughed at the abuses of
the Church, flung scornful jests in the faces of ecclesiastics and
did not hesitate to turn his wit against Popes might reasonably
be the hero of another of the chap-book stories. The anecdote
is to the effect that once when Buchanan was in Versailles he
met the King of France who had heard that he was a very witty
and ingenious man. The monarch accompanied him to a picture
gallery and shewed him a representation of Christ on the Cross,
'You know what that represents?" queried the King, but
George answered that he did not. " Why, then," continued the
monarch, " I'll tell you. It is a picture of our Saviour on the
Cross, and that on the right is a portrait of the Pope, while this
on the left is my own." " I humbly thank your majesty for the
information," said Buchanan, " for though I have often heard
that our Saviour was crucified between two thieves, I never
knew who they were."

In his Popular Ehym.es of Scotland Dr. Robert Chambers
includes a verse which, he says, is commonly " understood to be
the composition of no less distinguished a man than George
Buchanan." After referring to the vulgar belief that that
learned preceptor was the king's fool — " a mere natural, but
possessed of a gift of wit which enabled him to give very
pertinent answers to impertinent questions " — Chambers says that
Buchanan was once asked what could buy a plough of gold and
he immediately answered —

A frosty winter, and a dusty March, a rain about April,
Another about the Lammas time, when the corn begins to fill,
Is weel worth a plench o" gowd, and a' her pins theretill.

There is much truth in the rhyme. A season falling just as
described in the verse would doubtless produce a good harvest
which is not over-estimated in value by a golden plough " and a'
her pins theretill."

220 Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

Dr. David Irving writes that Buchanan's " conversation was
alternately facetious and instructive " and that ' ' his wit and
humour are still proverbial among his countrymen." The few
examples of his facetiae which have descended to us form a
basis much too slender to support any such statement, and they
must therefore be regarded as but fragments of a mass of their
kind that has been all but forgotten. The wit and humour
which he displayed in his works were in great measure lost to
that large number of his countrymen who knew little English
and less Latin, and his celebrity must have been derived from
something other than the mirth of his satires or the sparkle of
his epigrams.

Translators have done their best to convey samples of
Buchanan's literary wit and humour — if the word may be used
to distinguish them from the wit and humour that survive in
anecdote — to his countrymen. Some of his epigrams have been
excellently rendered by Dr. Hume Brown. The scholar was
never in affluent circumstances and from time to time he is
found supplicating royalty for monetary assistance. And he
usually does so with a flash of wit or a touch of quiet humour.
The following lines, which we quote in Dr. Brown's translation,
were addressed to Mary Stuart ; they ' ' are supposed to be accom-
panied by copies of verses : " —

I give you what I have,

I wish you what I lack ;
And weightier were my gift

Were fortune at my back.

Perchance you think I jest ?

A like jest then I crave :
Wish for me what I lack,

And give me what you have.

To similar purpose he addressed the Earl of Moray at a later
date. One of his verses to the good Regent has been rendered
thus —

It is more blest, saith Holy Writ,

To give than to receive ;
How great, then, is your debt to me,

Who take whate'er you give !

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 221

and another in these terms —

Niggard and laggard came my gift, you say,
Then must I deem your duty clear indeed ;

By good example this my fault amend :

Let thy gift come with bounty and with speed.

The gout that held him " besy both by day and nyt " received
playful reference in a begging epigram which he addressed to
the Earl of Lennox. The verse is as follows, and once more the
translation is Dr. Brown's : —

Since I am poor and you are rich,

What happy chance is thine !
My modest wishes, too, you know —

One nugget from your mine !
Only, whatever be your gift,

Let it not be your gout :
Tliat, — a meet present for your leech, —

I'd rather go without.

Possibly the best known of Buchanan's epigrammatic verses
is that on Pontiff Pius. For the moment he ceased to jibe at
Franciscans and other small fry and directed his wit against
their infallible chief. " Heaven," he said of Pius —

Heaven he sold for money,

Earth in death he left as well,
What remains to Pontiff Pius ?

Nothing that I see but hell.

Pius may have been the impenitent thief in the trio which,
according to the chap-book, Buchanan saw in the art gallery
in France.

While the industry and genius of the translator have brought
a measure of the wit and humour of his verse within reach of
the general reader, a full appreciation must always be denied to
those who are ignorant of Latin. As a consequence, his reputa-
tion for mirth, where it depends on something other than the
venacular, must be a concession, on the part of the majority, to
the opinion of the scholar. But apart from his poems many
things combine to shew him a genial, kindly, and humorous soul.
One description that has been given to us says that he was
" austere in face and rustic in his looks, but most polished in
style and speech, and continually, even in serious conversation,
jesting most wittily." Others tell us that he was " rough-hewn

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

in his person, behaviour, and fashion, seldom caring for a better
outside than a rugge-gown girt close about him," and that he
was of " gud religion for a poet." He was a bachelor who
yearned not for the uncertain joys of matrimony, and who
bantered his friend Randolph on his foolhardiness in marrying
a second time : — " After having been delivered of ane wyf e to
cast " himself ' ' in the samyn nette " ! These, and other
sentences that might be quoted, bring before the mind an
' ' honest Scot " who looked abroad upon life with a merry
twinkle in his eyes, and who was not afraid to denounce the
hypocrisy that he met at every turn. He attacked the in-
sincerity of his time and if, as in later years was the case with
Burns, he painted with a broad brush and produced canvases
that to some minds may appear indelicate rather than witty,
and coarse rather than humorous, it should be remembered to
his credit that contemporary evidence is available in plenty to
prove that he did not exaggerate. Inferentially, and by a refer-
ence to modern life, the charge of obscenity that is sometimes
made against him may be held to be unfounded. No man who
occupies in our day a position similar to that held by Buchanan
in his, and who desired to ridicule some aspect of the life
around him could afford deliberately to transgress the limits of
decorum. What is rude to us may not have been coarse in a
ruder age, just as the partisan cartoons of our time which are
said to win and lose seats at St. Stephen's might appear vulgar
and even indecent to a generation that had acquired other tastes
in pictorial politics.

"Latin," says Dr. Hume Brown, "lost him that place in
the hearts of his countrymen which his genius and intensely
Scottish type of character must certainly have assured him,"
and (it may be added) rendered the work of the chap-book
writer possible. In time his scholarship came to be a mere
tradition among the great mass of the people who appreciated
the only side of his genius they could understand as that was
depicted for them in the all-but-mythical ' ' witty and entertain-
ing exploits," and who were too ignorant of history or too
undiscerning to see anything incompatible in the right reverend
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland
being also the King's " Fule." It is true that George Mac
Gregor tells how many of the Scottish people believed " there
were two Scotsmen who bore the name of George Buchanan,"

Buchanan : Wit and Humorist 223

one of whom was the jester and the other the scholar, but it is
doubtful if such a belief ever found much credence outside the
boards of MacGregor's book. Dyce makes the suggestion that
Buchanan was confounded with Archie Armstrong, and supposes
that several of the ' ' witty exploits originated in the sayings and
doings of " that jester, but none of the stories credited to the
Latinist in the chap-book are told of the Border sheep-stealer
in the " Banquet of Jests and Merry Tales" except the conun-
drum as to the difference between a Scot and a sot, and that, as
Dr. Wallace points out, is a mediaeval chestnut.

Ridiculous as the transformation was, Buchanan is not alone
in having been so treated by posterity. Michael Scott of Bal-
wearie lives in popular imagination as a wizard rather than as
a philosopher; Gervase of Tilbury gravely described Virgil as a
mighty sorcerer ; and in Palestrina, in Italy, Horace is still
credited with having worked magical wonders. Strange stories
of some of Buchanan's contemporaries are in circulation. Knox
was credited with powers from hell; and if Nicol Burne and
other Roman Catholic writers and gossips had found a
sympathetic editor we might have had a chap-book on " The
Weird and Wonderful Exploits of John Knox, commonly called
the Scottish Deil." Nearer our own day, we find this strange
literary transformation of historic personages. Little more than
a century ago Paul Jones was similarly treated. A few days
after the pirate's death a pamphlet was published with the
startling title — "Paul Jones; or, Prophecies on America,
England, France, Spain, Holland, etc., by Paul Jones, a
Prophet and Sorcerer such as never lived heretofore " ! The
indecent stories and vulgar verses attributed without foundation
to Burns doubtless prove witty and entertaining to many people,
but are wholly unworthy of the poet's genius, and afford only a
hideous reflection of the man.

The growth of the Buchanan chap-book is easy of explanation.
As has been shown, some of the stories are versions of authenti-
cated anecdotes. These, with the tradition that the scholar was
a wit and a humorist, gave the compiler a beginning, and pro-
bably led him to search for other stories about his hero. No
sense of historic accuracy moved him to enquire as to the
credibility of the anecdotes he gleaned from oral sources; any-
thing was good enough that was calculated to raise a laugh.
Mirth was what his public demanded, and its provision was all

224 Buchanan : Wit and Humorist

that concerned him. Ere long he succeeded in his purpose. The
stoic philosopher was destined to make sport for the Philistines,
and, invested with the cap and bells of a fool, he took his place
in the chapman's wallet alongside Lothian Tom, and Paddy
from Cork. " At first sight," writes Dr. Wallace, " one might
imagine that" the collection "had been put together by an
enemy of Buchanan, but its brutish zeal in holding up
Buchanan as a desperately clever fellow who was continually
turning the tables and raising a laugh against people who wished
to take him off, and who were generally English, and often
English nobles, bishops or other clergy, shows that it was
earnest in its admiration according to its dim and dirty lights."
The decay of chap-book literature has done something to
restore Buchanan to his rightful place in history. For at least
a generation he has ceased to be a jester to any great extent,
and his witty and entertaining exploits are fast being forgotten.
Those that are not positively indecent have become associated
with other men notorious for humour, and in this way survive
for the delectation of later readers. Stories that made " the
rafters dirl " a century ago when told of Buchanan now provoke
mirth as they are narrated of Watty Dunlop of Dumfries or
Robert Shirra of Kirkcaldy. Thousands have enjoyed the
humour of Buchanan's observation to the French King in the
art gallery three hundred and fifty years ago ; in a recent volume
of Scottish anecdote the reader is assured that the conversation
took place between Bishop Murdoch of Glasgow and " Hawkie "
the gangrel, and the incident is set forth with a wealth of local
colour and pictorial embellishment that almost defies criticism !
Verily, in modern collections of Scottish humour there are
stories " both good and new, but what is good is not new, and
what is new is not good."

W. H.

XXIII.

The Portraits of George Buchanan,

IN addition to many prints, framed and in books, the
exhibition in the University Library contained eight oil
paintings of Buchanan. One of these is the property of the
University of St. Andrews, two were lent by the University of
Aberdeen, two by the University of Edinburgh, one by the
Buchanan Society, one by the Duke of Sutherland, and one by
George A. Buchanan, Esq., Cawder House, Bishopbriggs.
Perhaps on no previous occasion have so many portraits of
Buchanan been brought together, and a better opportunity
afforded for a comparative study of his portraiture. Other
paintings of him are known to be in existence, but there were
either difficulties in the way of getting them brought to St.
Andrews, or their authenticity was too doubtful to make it
worth while to borrow them. There is indeed room for reason-
able doubt as to the genuineness of some of those exhibited.
Nor is this to be wondered at when it is borne in mind that
the portraits of Buchanan's great contemporary, John Knox,
have given rise to much discussion and difference of opinion
and that no authentic portraits at all of such men as Andrew
Melville and Samuel Rutherford are known to exist. That
Buchanan was painted by more than one artist in his later
years, may be taken for granted ; but there appears to be no
absolute certainty that any one of the existing portraits was
actually painted from life.

The oldest portraits exhibited were those lent by the
University of Edinburgh. One of these is painted on a wooden
panel measuring 19J inches in height by 12 inches in width.
The picture itself gives no clue to its date nor to the name of
the artist who painted it. It has been in the possession of the
University from time immemorial and it certainly looks old
enough to be a contemporary portrait. Buchanan is repre-
sented as an old and rather sad looking man, wearing a black
Q

226 The Portraits of George Buchanan

gown, large white collar, and close-fitting black skull-cap, with
a roll of paper in his right hand. This painting has generally
been accepted as an authentic picture, and has been selected by
Mr. James L. Caw for reproduction in his excellent series of
" Scottish Portraits."1 The other Edinburgh University
portrait is painted on canvas and purports to represent
Buchanan at the age of 73, but it has not the appearance of a
contemporary portrait. The head is not unlike that of the
older picture, but the eyes, nose, mouth and beard differ, and
altogether the face is much less pleasing. Buchanan appears
to be seated behind a desk or lecture-table, and is wearing
a coat or gown with fur collar and facings. In his right
hand he holds an open book; his left hand rests on the desk,
and the fingers of both hands are spread out in a stiff and
awkward manner, reminding one of Carlyle's phrase, " a tied-
up bundle of carrots supporting a kind of loose little volume,"
in his description of Beza's portrait of Knox.

The Aberdeen University portraits are evidently enlarged
and uniform copies of the Edinburgh ones. By themselves they
make a most interesting pair, but they do not contribute
anything to the original portraiture of Buchanan. The small
head in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland has apparently
no known history. It is painted on wood and appears to have
been well done, but it shows signs of blistering and will soon
require to be carefully restored. A full front face is shown,
with rather small eyes, short nose and stunted beard. It is
probably a copy of the Porbus portrait to be afterwards
mentioned.

The paintings belonging to the University of St. Andrews
and to the Buchanan Society introduce another type of
Buchanan portraiture about which there is considerable
dubiety. The University portrait was purchased at Edinburgh
in 1884 in the belief that it was either by or after Titian. It
is painted on wood, and was then in a rather faded condition,
but has since been renovated. The "Titian" portrait of
Buchanan appears to have been first heard of in the beginning
of the nineteenth century and was discovered by David,
eleventh Earl of Buchan. His Lordship is said to have been
very proud of his discovery and had the portrait engraved as a
frontispiece to the " Philosophical Magazine," edited by
Alexander Tilloch, vol. 34, July-Dec. 1809. It is stated to be

1 See Frontispiece.— ED.

Facsimile oj the Woodcut in " Le.s Portraits des Hommt*
Illuxlres," 1673.

The Portraits of George Buchanan 227

engraved by T. Woolnoth at Edinburgh " from the original
picture by Titian in the possession of the Earl of Buchan."
There is no reference to it in the text of the volume. In July
of the following year the Earl of Buchan, through the Earl of
Kelly, presented a framed copy of the engraving to the
University of St. Andrews, where it is still preserved in the
University Library. The " original picture by Titian " has
disappeared and cannot now be traced. It is just possible that
it is the same as that now in possession of the University, but
there is no proof either one way or the other. The University
picture could scarcely be a copy of the Earl of Buchan's, for
in its original state it had the appearance of having been
painted long before 1809. It certainly bears a close
resemblance to Woolnoth's engraving and belongs unques-
tionably to the " Titian " type.

The portrait lent by the Buchanan Society was specially
painted for the Society by Sir Henry Raeburn and is known
to be a copy of the portrait of Buchanan then in the possession
of the Earl of Buchan. Writing from Edinburgh on 13th
December 1814 to Mr. Archibald Buchanan, Glasgow, Sir
Henry announced that the portrait had been sent off carefully
packed. " Lord Buchan," he added, "is of opinion that the
original was painted by Titian. I am not well enough
acquainted with the history of George Buchanan to be able to
say whether he had an opportunity of being painted by that
Master, but it is not unlike his style, and at all events is an
excellent picture. I have been at great pains to make the copy
like, and I hope the Society will be pleased with it."
Raeburn's picture is a very much finer piece of work than the
University one, and if copied from it, or from another one like
it, must have undergone considerable improvement in the
process. But the question arises, is it a portrait of Buchanan
at all? Unfortunately, Lord Buchan's judgment was not
always to be relied upon, and it has long been current that the
' ' original picture by Titian " in his possession was not a
portrait of Buchanan, but of M. le President Pierre Jeannin
(1540-1622) finance minister to Henry IV. of France. There
is certainly a striking resemblance between Woolnoth's engrav-
ing of Buchanan and the engraving of M. Jeannin as it appears
in Perrault's " Hommes Illustres," published at Paris in 1696.
Titian (1477-1576) was much older than either Buchanan or

228 The Portraits of George Buchanan

Jeannin, but he was for a time their contemporary and might
have painted either or both of them. Meanwhile proof is
lacking that either gave sittings to the great Italian painter;
and whether or not Lord Buchan mistook a portrait of
Jeannin for one of Buchanan, the balance of evidence appears
to be against his Lordship's picture being a genuine portrait of
the Scottish humanist.1

In connexion with the Titian portrait, mention may be
made of two curious framed drawings exhibited by the Faculty
of Advocates. The one represents " the upper part of the head
of Buchanan by Titian in the collection of the Earl of Buchan
with a view to compare with the skull of that learned man " ;
while the other is an " exact representation of what remains
of the skull believed to be that of the learned George Buchanan,
the historian and poet, which was taken out of his grave in the
Greyfriars Kirkyard at Edinburgh about fifty years after his
decease and is exhibited in the museum of the University of
Edinburgh." Both drawings were made by Alexander
Chisholm in March 1816 and are signed " Buchan." The
comparison was probably made in the hope of dispelling doubt
as to the genuineness of his Lordship's discovery. Front and
side views of Buchanan's skull, drawn and engraved by W. and
D. Lizars, Edinburgh, were published by William Blackwood
in 1815, and may be seen in the second edition of Irving's
" Memoirs of Buchanan " (1817).

The large painting belonging to Mr. George A. Buchanan
is one of the series of Scottish historical pictures painted by the
late James Drummond, R.S.A., Edinburgh. It represents
Buchanan teaching young King James the Sixth in the Palace
at Stirling in presence of the Countess of Mar and her little
boy and girl. The grouping and technique of the picture are
excellent, and the artist's conception of the learned pedagogue
is very satisfactory, although the picture was painted long
before he had made a special study of the portraiture of Knox
and Buchanan.

1 The renaming of old portraits is a practice of long standing and still goes
on. At the opening of Queen's College, Belfast, a portrait bearing the in-
scription " Georgius Buchananus " was presented to the College by its architect,
Mr. Lynn. About fifty years afterwards, when it was found necessary to
entrust the picture to a restorer, it was discovered that it had been tampered
with, and that it was really the portrait of a German clergyman named
Johannes Carolus,

PORTRAITS OF BUCHANAN.

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Collected at fit. Aiidre.ir*, Jiily

The Portraits of George Buchanan 229

The accompanying plate shows at one view the group of
these eight portraits as exhibited in the Senate Room. It will
be at once noticed that there are at least three distinct types
of portraits. There are first of all the two Edinburgh
University portraits (of which the Aberdeen University ones
are copies) representing Buchanan in extreme old age.
Although differing in detail, these two portraits may be classed
together as they have a general resemblance to each other.
Then there is the Duke of Sutherland's portrait (which may be
taken along with Mr. Buchanan's) in which the poet and
historian appears as a somewhat younger man. Lastly, there
are the two so-called Titian portraits, in which Buchanan is
perhaps shown at a still earlier period of his life.1

Turning now to the engravings, the oldest that has been
discovered is that contained in part III. of the " Icones
Virorum Illustrium " of Jean Jacques Boissard, published at
Frankfort in 1598. Boissard was not an artist himself, and the
engravings in his book are chiefly the work of Theodore de Bry,
whose sons continued and completed it, and bestowed upon its
originator the title of " Antiquariorum nostri seculi facile
princeps."2 But Boissard was Buchanan's contemporary and
outlived him a good many years (1528-1602), and may
have had little difficulty in obtaining the use of an
original portrait for reproduction in so important a work
as the " Icones." As the engraving represents Buchanan
at the age of 76, it is clear that it must have been
taken from a portrait painted in Scotland shortly before his
death.3 The Boissard engraving has much in keeping with

1 In the plate the two Edinburgh portraits are shown resting on chairs,
with the Duke of Sutherland's portrait between them. The large picture in
the centre is Mr. Buchanan's, with the Aberdeen portraits on either side.
Above are the two "Titian" portraits, the one with the label being the
property of the University of St. Andrews, and the other the property of the
Buchanan Society. The production of this plate, in spite of much care, has
not been quite successful, but the position of the portraits in the Senate Room
made it difficult for the photographer to obtain a satisfactory negative.

2 The portrait of Buchanan is marked " P. C. H. f." It is different in style
and setting from all the rest and has evidently been engraved by another
hand.

3 Irving (" Memoirs," 1817, p. 309) says that Buchanan " expired a short
while after five o'clock in the morning of Friday, the twenty-eighth of Sep-
tember 1582, at the age of seventy-six years and nearly eight months." It
ia just possible, however, that he may have been a year younger. I drew

230 The Portraits of George Buchanan

the later Edinburgh University portrait, except that the hands
and book are wanting. The attire is very similar, but the
features are rather more strongly marked. It cannot be
described as an attractive portrait. Still it is full of character,
and taken in conjunction with the older Edinburgh University
painting, may be regarded as a fairly accurate likeness of
Buchanan in his old age. The same portrait, on a
much smaller scale, with the face greatly altered
and looking the opposite way, was used by Dr. Paul
Freher in his " Theatrum Virorum Eruditione Clarorum,"
published at Nuremberg in 1688, and it has been
reproduced with more or less exactness in various subsequent
publications. It forms the frontispiece to Professor Hume
Brown's Life of Buchanan (1890) and also to the Rev. Dr.
Donald Macmillan's (1906). It appeared as a small wood-cut
in Anderson's "Scottish Nation" (1862); and in a slightly
enlarged form it illustrates the Rev. J. Rolland McNab's
article on Buchanan in "Morning Rays" for July 1906. In
Garnett and Gosse's " English Literature," vol. 2 (1903), there
is a small portrait of Buchanan ' ' from an old engraving " of
the Boissard type, but with the face turned the other way.

The next most typical engraving is that used as a
frontispiece to the first edition of the English translation of
Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, published at London in
1690, in folio. It was engraved by Robert White, and
purports to be from the original preserved in the museum of
Dr. Thomas Povey. The same plate, folded, was issued with
the second and third editions of this translation published
respectively in 1722 and 1733, in octavo. It is a bust giving a
full face view of Buchanan, who is robed in a black gown
buttoned down the front, and wears a large, white, folded
collar. The head is high and bald, and the face somewhat
stolid and expressionless. A very similar portrait was engraved
by Jacobus Houbraken, of Amsterdam, in 1741, from a painting
by Francis Porbus in the collection of Dr. Mead; and still

attention to this more than a year ago, but at the suggestion of Professor Hume
Brown I agreed not to raise the question of the exact date of Buchanan's birth
in connexion Math the Quater-Centenary Celebration, which had by that time
been fixed for 1906. But as the question has since been discussed elsewhere,
it may not be amiss to mention here that there are good grounds for arguing
that, according to modern reckoning, Buchanan's birth-year was 1507 and not
1506.

GEORGE BUCHANAN.
(From Boissartf.\

By kind permittion of Mr. G. A. Morton, Publisher, Edinburgh.

The Portraits of George Buchanan 231

another was engraved by Edward Scriven in 1833 for Charles
Knight's " Gallery of Portraits," " from a picture by Francis
Pourbus, senior, in the possession of the Royal Society," and
reprinted on a smaller scale in the fourth volume of his "Cabinet
Portrait Gallery of British Worthies " (1845), and again in
" Old England's Worthies " (1847). The same portrait has also
been engraved by J. B. Bird, and appears in Anderson's
" Scottish Nation" (1862) and elsewhere. As engraved by W.
Penny the Porbus portrait assumes a somewhat different form.
The face is longer and thinner and Buchanan is shown seated in
a high -backed chair with his hands resting upon a large book
lying open across his knees. This plate has been used to
illustrate Dr. Wylie's quarto edition of the " Scots Worthies"
published by Mackenzie.

Unhappily the Porbus (or Pourbus) portrait is no more
authentic than the others. There is no proof whatever that
this Flemish artist was ever in Scotland and no certainty that
Buchanan visited the Continent at a time when Porbus
(who died in 1581) could have painted him. There is
of course Ruddiman's statement (" Anticrisis," 1754, p. 139)
that he had heard it related a hundred times that
Buchanan, when Principal of St. Leonard's College at
St. Andrews, without acquainting any of his friends of it,
did make a voyage to France. If the many stories of
this voyage could be substantiated by a single reliable
document, the Porbus portrait would acquire additional
interest, in St. Andrews at all events, as it would show what
manner of man Buchanan was during his residence there.

Some degree of authority is lent to the Porbus portrait by
the fact that it has been followed in all the editions of
Buchanan's Poemata printed in Holland, viz., 1628
(Leyden, Elzevir1); 1641 (Amsterdam, Jansson) ; 1676 (Am-
sterdam, Elzevir); 1687 (Amsterdam, Wetsten). These are all
medallion portraits drawn on a very small scale. Mr.
Drummond was of opinion that they agreed with Boissard's
head, but they agree even more with Porbus's. They are all
full face, the head is bald or nearly so, they show the same
collar and very nearly the same gown — two having buttons and

1 An enlarged photographic reproduction of the portrait in this edition
appears in M. Ernest Gaullieur's "Histoire du College de Guyenne," Paris,
1874.

232 The Portraits of George Buchanan

two not. The frontispiece of another edition of the Poemata
published at Amsterdam in 1665, " apud Joannem a Waesberge
et Elizeum Weyerstraet," shows Buchanan seated at a table,
on which is placed a small writing desk. He holds a pen in his
right hand, and his face is turned to the spectator. It shows a
head resembling in some points both the Boissard and Porbus
types, but the gown and collar belong to the latter. In none
of these five engravings is there any appearance of fur.

Among other examples of the Porbus type of portrait
(which has been the most popular among book illustrators) the
following were among the exhibits : — An undated print
engraved by A. Bell and inserted in Sibbald's " Commentarius
in vitam Georgii Buchanani " (1702), but probably not issued
with that work; another undated print, apparently of the
eighteenth century, without the name of the engraver; the
elaborate frontispiece engraved by Van der Gucht for
Ruddiman's edition of Buchanan's Works (1715), which
introduces a small portrait of the Porbus type, but influenced
to some extent by the Boissard or Edinburgh type ; the frontis-
piece to the edition of the Historia published by Paton at
Edinburgh in 1727, engraved by R. Cooper; the fourth and
sixth editions of the English translation of the Historia
(1751 and 1766), giving a new version of the Porbus portrait
engraved by T. Phin; the frontispiece to Robertson's "Life
of Buchanan " (1812) ; the frontispiece to the edition of
the Historia in English, published in 1827 and again
in 1843, giving an engraving by " H. Meyer from a
painting by F. Pourbus." The same portrait — sometimes from
the same plate or block — has also done duty in Hume Brown's
"Buchanan and his times" (1906), the quater-centenary
edition of Wallace and Campbell Smith's sketch of Buchanan
written for the " Famous Scots Series," and in various
periodical publications issued within the last few months. A
very good undated print was lent by Lt.-Col. Playfair, St.
Andrews, taken " from the original by F. Porbus, late in the
Mead collection."

Quite a different type of portrait forms the frontispiece to
the seventh edition of the English translation of the Historia,
published at Glasgow in 1799. It was engraved by K.
Makenzie, London, from an original picture in Anderson's
Institution, Glasgow. This picture is now in the possession of

"A. ,57/.

(From Ponrbuti.)

The Portraits of George Buchanan 233

the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, and a
copy of it belongs to Dr. Freeland Fergus, Glasgow. Its
authenticity, however, is so open to question that it was not
thought worth while to include it in the exhibition of paintings.
It represents Buchanan as a younger man than any of the
others and is not devoid of resemblance to the Porbus portraits.
Another portrait, not unlike this Glasgow one, is given in
Pinkerton's " Scottish Gallery," 1799, Vol. 1, plate 17. It is
described as " from an original at Hamilton," and is lettered
" Buchaniae Comes delt. E. Harding sc. Published Novr.
1, 1797, by I. Herbert." In the notice of Buchanan it is said
' The portrait is in the Duke of Hamilton's house at
Hamilton : and is the only one which represents Buchanan when
young. It is probably genuine ; but its authenticity is supposed
to rest on tradition only." Drummond1 calls it " an absurd
head," but it had evidently at one time found favour with the
Earl of Buchan.

The older Edinburgh University portrait was engraved by
•T. Woolnoth for the second edition of Irving's " Memoirs of
Buchanan " (1817) ; and ten years later it was engraved by
R. Scott for Aikman's translation of the Historia. In 1854
it appeared in Chambers's " Biographical Dictionary of
Eminent Scotsmen," engraved by Samuel Freeman. As already
remarked, it has more recently been included in Mr. Caw's
" Scottish Portraits." It is this portrait, sometimes looking one
way, sometimes another, which has been associated with the
cover and title-page of " Blackwood's Magazine" since its com-
mencement in 1817.

Engravings similar to the later Edinburgh University
portrait (with hands and book introduced) have been published
more than once. The earliest exhibited was an undated
engraving, which some previous owner of a copy of the 1583
edition of the Historia has inserted as a frontispiece. It
bears to have been painted by I. C. W. and engraved by
C. van Sichem. Another version of it, by Ja. Clark,
is given in Mosman's edition of the Historia published at
Edinburgh in 1700. In these engravings the age has been

1 In " The portraits of John Knox and George Buchanan," Edinburgh,
1875, reprinted, with additions, from the " Transactions of the Antiquarian
Society." To this critical and suggestive paper are appended lists of engrav-
ings of Buchanan. It also gives excellent reproductions of the Boissard and
Porbus portraits.

234 The Portraits of George Buchanan

changed from 73 to 76, making it the same as in the
Boissard engraving. The bust in the frontispiece to Burman's
edition of the Opera Omnia (1725) follows the same type,
with skull-cap and fur collar, but omits the hands and book.

Among the illustrations in Chambers's " Cyclopaedia of
English Literature," vol. 1 (1901), there is a picture of
Buchanan (aetatis 76, an. 1581) " from the portrait in the
National Portrait Gallery." It belongs to the Edinburgh type,
but differs in several respects from those already described.
Buchanan is represented standing at a small covered table, with
his left hand resting upon it. In his right hand is an open
book from which he looks pensively away.1

The " Titian " portrait does not appear to have been re-
engraved or reissued since 1809.

1 The painter of this portrait is unknown. It is a small picture, measur-
ing 13i by 11$ inches, and was transferred to the National Portrait Gallery
from the British Museum in June 1879.

J. M. A.

From the Paintintj in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

XXIV.
Buchanan Memorials.

A statement was recently made in the columns of a high-class
literary weekly that Scotland had no worthy memorial of
Buchanan. Whether this remark was, in some degree,
significant of the general lack of acquaintance with Buchanan's
life and work, or whether it was a mild criticism of the
indifference of Scotsmen to the scholarship of their famous
countryman, is not quite certain. The latter probability, how-
ever, can scarcely be entertained by those whose pilgrim journey
has led them from the busy haunts of men into the peace and
quiet of the valley of Strathendrick, — into the land of Buchanan.
From far and near there may be seen — towering from the ridge
on which the village of Killearn stands — a well-proportioned
obelisk, symbolic, in its dignified isolation, of the place occupied
by the great scholar in the memory of Scotchmen. The people
of Buchanan's native district have always been proud of his
learning, and near the end of the eighteenth century a plan was
suggested by a Robert Dunsmore, Esq.,1 whereby a fitting and
permanent memorial should be raised. That gentleman out-
lined the scheme to a large company assembled in the house of
a gentleman of the district, in which assemblage was Professor
Richardson, " well known as a successful cultivator of polite
literature."2 A subscription list was opened, to which the
guests present on that occasion contributed, the share of one of
them — a Mr. Craig, a nephew of Thomson — being the
architectural design. The monument, which is said8 to have
been fashioned after the model of that which commemorates the
Battle of the Boyne, is an obelisk nineteen feet square at the
base, extends to the height of one hundred and three feet, and
is built of white millstone-grit which was found at a short
distance from the village. The foundation was laid in June

1 Irving'a Memoirs, p. 312.

*Ibid.

sNew Statistical Account of Scotland.

236 Buchanan Memorials

1788 by one who had taken a prominent part in the movement
— Rev. James Graham, Minister of Killearn Parish,— and at
this ceremony a hermetically sealed bottle, containing a silver
medal with the following inscription was deposited under the
foundation-stone1 : —

IN MEMORIAM

Georgii Buchanani,

Poetae et Historic! Celeberrimi :

Accolis hujus loci, ultro conferentibus,

Haec columna posita eat, 1788.
Jacobus Craig Architect. Edinburgen.

It seems, however, that the monument was without a visible
inscription till 1850, when a marble tablet, bearing the following
Latin eulogium composed by Professor William Ramsay of
Glasgow University, was inserted in the base: —

Memoriae Aeternae
GEORGII BUCHANANI

Viri

Inter Fortos Fortis

Inter Doctos Docti

Inter Sapientes Sapientissimi,

Qui Tenax Propositi,

Impiorum sacerdotium minas ridens,

Tyrannorum saevorum minas spernens

Purum Numinis Cultum

Atque

Jura Human! Generis

A Pessima Superstitione atque ab infima servitute
Imperterritus Vindicavit

Hoc Monumentum,

Domum Paternam et Natalia Rura Prospectans,

Sumptibus et Pietate Popularium

Olim Extructum

Aetas Postera

Reficiendum Curavit,

Anno Christi D.N.

MDCCCL.

There thus stands, overlooking his ancestral home and the scene
of his birth, a memorial of Buchanan's genius which is in itself
a pillar of affection from his fellow-countrymen and to which
not a few travellers ' resort with veneration and enthusiasm.'
Nor was it erected without evoking approval and praise. Dr.
David Doig, inspired by the loyalty to Buchanan thus shown,

1 Nimmo's History of StirlinrjKhire (1st edit.), p. 697.

hi/ Valentine a- Soils, Dunde

BUCHANAN MONUMENT AT KILLKARN.

Buchanan Memorials 237

wrote the following lines, which were communicated by the
Right Rev. Bishop Gleig to Dr. Irving who printed them as an
Appendix to his Memoirs : —

En Buchanane ! pii, longo post tempore, cives
Ingenio statuunt haec monumenta tuo.
Sootia to natum, to Gallia jactat alumnum ;
Te canit Europe, qua plaga cunque patet.
Nil opus est saxo, nil indice : laeta sonabunt
Carmine Levinium saecula cuncta decus.
Seu decoras Latio divina poemata cultu,
Seu recinis nugas, ludicra, festa, sales ;
Grandia seu tragico devolvis verba cothurno,
Seu reseras varii claustra viasque poli ;
Aemula seu capias Patavi praeconia linguae,
Foedera dum patriae, bella virosque refers ;
Eloquio, gravitate, sono, vi, lumine, verbis
Aequiparas veteres, exsuperasque novos.
Quod Graii potuere simul, quod Komula virtus,
Tu solus nuraeris, arte, lepore potes.
Sin aliqua titubas patriae labefactus amore,
Aut nimium vera pro pietate pius,
« Ipsa notam lecti Libertas porat alumni ;

Ipsa tegit lauri Calliopea comis.
Saepe nitor veri spissis latet obrutus umbris,
Nee semper Lynceus cuncta videnda videt.

The citizens of Edinburgh had always been fully cognisant
of Buchanan's ability, and they never wholly allowed his memory
to fade. One of their number, and a kinsman of Buchanan —
James Buchanan, Esq., Moray Place, and father of the present
Member of Parliament for East Perthshire — caused a Memorial
Window to be placed in the wall of Old Greyfriars Church,
Edinburgh. This three-light window, which is the last one from
the pulpit on the south side of the church, was designed by
James Ballantine. It contains in the centre panel the portrait
of Buchanan and the arms of the Buchanan family, as well as
the following inscription, which forms the last two lines of
Joseph Scaliger's laudatory Elegy : —

Imperil fuerat Romani Scotia limes :

I Ionian i eloquii Scotia finis erit.

(Where Scotland curbed the march of conquering Rome

The Latian Muse will find her final home.)

On the other two lights are imprinted the notice:

<(Georgius Buchananus

Mortuus est .... 28 Spt. 1582,
Edinburgi aetatis suae 76."

238 Buchanan Memorials

On a disc on each of the extreme panels there is the St.
Andrews Cross and the Scottish Lion, with a motto which is
occasionally attributed to Buchanan. This phrase — nemo me
impune lactsslt — was first found on the thistle merks and half-
merks of James VI. ; it is possible that Buchanan suggested
its use, but it was not original. According to Dr. George
Macdonald, Honorary Curator of the Hunter Coin Cabinet,
Glasgow, a motto much similar had been used a hundred years
before in Italy. A similar criticism applies to the phrase
Pro me si inereor in me, which ornamented the so-called ' sword
dollars' first minted in 1567. " Hoc lemma," says Ruddiman,
" (quo et suum adversus reges ingenium prodit) Georgium
Buchananum Jacobi VI. praeceptorem subministrasse omnes
consentiunt."1 The motto was certainly suggested by the saying
attributed to Trajan by Dio Cassius and others, but no
authority can be found for saying that its use on the coinage
was due to Buchanan's advice.

Scots abroad, having fully realised the reputation which
their countryman of a former century had earned among scholars
throughout Europe, have been inspired, no doubt by Buchanan's
contribution to the national sentiment of independence and by
his honesty in withstanding the wrath of the king " and all his
Kin's," to aid in perpetuating his memory. On the 12th
September, 1887, a statue of Buchanan was unveiled in the
Wallace Monument, near Stirling. It was presented by the
Caledonian Club, Forte Wayne, Indiana, in compliment to the
Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D. Five years afterwards it was to
the memory of Dr. Rogers — a graduate of St. Andrews and
for some time Secretary and Historiographer to the Royal
Historical Society, — that these Scotsmen in America presented
a bust to the Wallace Monument " to mark its appreciation of
his enthusiasm for Scottish history and patriotism."

A less elaborate but more noteworthy memorial is to be seen
in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, where Buchanan was,
according to Dr. David Laing, " the first person of celebrity"
to be buried. The history of Buchanan's last days does not
redound to Scotland's credit. He died shortly after five o'clock
in the morning of Friday, 28th September, in Kennedy's
Close, " first court thereof on your left hand, first house in the

1 Anderson! Selectu* Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Tliesaurus,
Edinb. 1739.

MEMORIAL WINDOW IN OLD GREYFRIARS CHURCH,
EDINBURGH.

Buchanan Memorials 239

turnpike above the tavern there."1 He was buried the next
day at the city's expense, and Calderwood records that the
funeral was attended " by a great company of the faithful."
Irving believed with a Mr. Callender that Buchanan's " un-
grateful country never afforded his grave the common tribute
of a monumental stone," but the Records of Edinburgh Town
Council give evidence that the poor wandering scholar who
had often asked for bread and received a stone.2 In 1701,
however, the stone could not be seen, and the Council,
supposing that the stone had sunk, gave orders to the
Chamberlain that it should be raised ; but if this was ever done,
it had again disappeared by 1794. According to Dr. Laing, the
stone was found before 1867, having been appropriated and
raised to the memory of a grave-digger. Thus it is certain that
no inscription had been engraved on it, although Chalmers,
at that time unaware of the misappropriation of the stone
and misinterpreting a sentence in Sir Robert Sibbald's
Commentarius in Vitam Georgii Buchanani, states in his Life of
Ruddiman that the inscription was written by John Adamson,
Principal of Edinburgh University in 1623. He quotes the
Adamson "inscription" which, had he read carefully, would
have proved that no words had been engraved on the stone.
This Epigram to Buchanan's memory is as follows : —

Marmorese cur stant hie omni ex parte columnae,

Signaque ab artificium daedala facta manu ?

Ut spectent oculis monumenta insignia vivi,

Per quae defunctis concilietur honos.

Talia nonne etiam debet Buchananus habere,

Doctius aut melius quo nihil orbis habet ?

Gloriolas vivus qui contemnebat inanes,

An cupiet divus se decorent lapides ?

lllis fas pulchro nomen debere sepulchre,

Qui nil quo melius nobilitentur habent.

Per te olim tellus est nobilitata Britanna,

Et decus es tumulo jam, Buchanane, tuo.

It was the author of the above epigram who, according to the
Librarian to the University of Edinburgh about 1697,
procured what is supposed to be Buchanan's skull and which
is now preserved in the University Anatomical Museum.

The spot where Buchanan was buried is not even known.

1 From a note by George Paton, the antiquary, and quoted by Prof.
Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, p. 353.

2 Ibid. p. 353.

240 Buchanan Memorials

An iron tablet which is affixed to a rod rising from the grass and
is said to have borne " a suitable inscription," is supposed to
mark the grave near the north-eastern boundary, although the
exact spot is considered by some to be nearer the eastern wall.
It is more than thirty years since this tablet was placed, at his
own expense, by a humble blacksmith named Ritchie, who was
an elder in New Grey friars Church. After his death his son
carefully looked after the grave and the tablet, on which the
letters of the inscription are almost illegible, although their
general effect is " Geo. Buchanan, 16th Century, interred in this
Churchyard."

Towards the west end of this ' Scottish Campo Santo ' a
monument was erected by the late Dr. David Laing in 1878.
This cenotaph consists of a large pedestal with bronze bust of
life-size inserted in high relief. The bust, after the Boissard
engraving, was executed by D. W. Stevenson, B.S.A., who was
also responsible for the bust in the Wallace Monument. There
is no inscription, however, on the monument, — a defect
which, it is hoped, will soon be remedied. There ought also to
be no objection to insert in Westminster Abbey a bust or
medallion. " Buchanan, Scott, Burns, and Carlyle are the
four men of first-rate genius whom Scotland has as yet
produced," and Buchanan and Carlyle might equally well be
commemorated beside Scott and Burns.

More striking, though less substantial, than these monu-
ments of " brass, glass or marble," which, according to Irving,
" contribute more to the honour of the living than of the dead,"
are the letters and tributes which the acquaintances of
Buchanan wrote to him or about him. Therein lies the revela-
tion of his noble attributes, and he is revealed to us as a man
of generous and friendly disposition. His loyalty to his friends
in the hour of trial, his commemoration of the tender care and
skill with which he was cured of a severe illness, the zeal he
exhibited in the promotion and well-being of young Scottish
scholars, his instructions that his last savings should be given to
the poor, — all prove that though his distinction as a scholar and
his intolerance of an impure ecclesiasticism appealed to the head,
his judgment of men and affairs lean to the charity that
emanates from a man of such integrity and piety as is none
the less sincere because of its uneffusiveness. It is sad to think
that in his last days the fame and noble aspirations of one who,

MONUMENT IN GRKYFRIARS CHURCHYARD.

Buchanan Memorials 241

by his efforts to mould the thought of his time and exchange the
bright glare of the old for the feeble light of the new order,
commanded the admiration of the civilised world of his earlier
days, should only have been understood by the few. These few
did not relax in their efforts to keep his memory fresh in the
minds of the Europe of after centuries, for in the words of
D. G. Barclay, M.D.,

Beza et Turnebus, Scaliger Pater atque Josephus

Te, Buchanane ! super sidera laude locant.

Frustra igitur verhis famam detraxerit ullus

Nee Grain tinctis Ausoniove sale.1

No one, however, has celebrated Buchanan more often and with
greater zeal than his great colleague in the University reform
movement — Andrew Melville, one of the most distinguished
Principals of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. In congratulat-
ing him on his recovery from a severe illness, Melville wrote
some sympathetic lines, of the latter part of which a close
translation is here given : —

This lay to thee, I say, I have rough-drawn

Buchanan, leader of the skilful Nine ;

Unwrought, to till it thou ; rough, thou to smooth,

Who in thy single self art match for all ;

As deals the tiller with his up-torn field,

Ploughing, re-ploughing, ploughing yet again —

Or as the artificer with his hammered steel,

Filing and polishing and perfecting :

That, turned not once, but turned again, again,

Replaced upon thy anvil, it comes back,
• Not such as the enfeebled sisters can,

Abated, thin of accent, void of charm,

But such as in sound health the Muses wont,

Lofty and mighty-toned, of charm supreme. 2

Melville has here addressed Buchanan as his preceptor and the
parent of the Muses, " preceptor " not necessarily implying that
Buchanan had been Melville's regent, which was hardly
possible. Having come under Buchanan's influence perhaps as
a private pupil, and having been associated with him in after
years, he felt moved at Buchanan's death to pay a tribute to the
great scholar : —

Ergo silent magni Buchanan! in funere Musae ?

Nee Vatum Aonidum flet pia turba suum ?

An secum Buohananus habet montem, unde Camoenae,

1 Poetarum Scot-arum Muxae. Sacrae.

8 This translation is by the Rev. Archibald Brown, minister of Legerwood.
R

242 Buchanan Memorials

Devolvunt moestos murmura trunca modoe ?

An secum Buchananus habet fontem, untie Pogtae

Pieriis poti collacrimantur aquis ?

Aonio frustrk quaeruntur vertice Musae :

Castalio frustdt e fonte petuntur aquae.

Pro monte est coelum, pro fonte est Christus : utrumque

Et Christum et coelum nunc Buchananus habet.

Hausisti hinc sacros latices, Divine Poeta !

Fudisti hinc sumino carmina digna Deo.

Hauriat hinc quisquis Buchanani in funere moeret ;

Ut Vatum fundat carmina digna Deo.

Turnebe praised Buchanan's great knowledge of Latin,1
whilst Beza and Scaliger, whom, along with De Thou, the
scholarly Casaubon, in one of his letters, calls " the three suns
of the learned world," have all expressed their admiration for
the Scottish ' man-of-letters,' as Prof. Hume Brown aptly
describes Buchanan. In his correspondence with our great
humanist, Beza describes him as "a true lover of all good
men " ; in the same letter he beseeches Buchanan's blessing and
continues "I, in turn, pray Him that He may bless with
increasing blessing the happiness of your old age.2

Buchanan's last letter was addressed to Beza, and he there
mournfully apologises " that all my senses dying before me,
what now remains of the image of the former man testifies, not
that I am, but that I have been alive ; especially, as I can
neither cherish the hope of contracting new intimacies, nor of
continuing the old."3 It was this same sentiment, conveyed in
one sentence of a letter to Vinet that especially appealed to De
Thou as being memorable : ' ' Nunc id unum satago, ut minimo
cum strepitu, ex inaequalium meorum, hoc est, mortuus e
vivorum contubernio demigrem."4 Thus in his closing days,
Buchanan's noble traits seem to have come forth, and this spirit
of magnanimity and independence, in which Buchanan left his
circle of friends behind, Joseph Scaliger has realised and
expressed in Latin verses which have often been quoted, and of
which something of the sentiment remains in a translation
published by Robert Macfarlan, M.A., in 1799. 5

1 Ruddiman, Bitchanani Opera, Vol. II., p. 104.

2 Hume Brown, Biography, p. ,342.
8 Irving's Memoirs, p. 280.

4 Epistola xxxvii.

s George Bttchanan's Dialogue concerning the Rights of the Croivn of 8cot~
land : unth two Dissertations prefixed.

UEORGE BUCHANAN.

(From the bv#t in Wallace Monument.)

By kind permiitfion of Mr. William Middlettm, Curator, Wallace Monument.

Buchanan Memorials 243

"The country blest, Buchanan, in thy fame,
And every region honouring thy name,
Thou diest declining mad ambition's ways,
To wealth superior and to vulgar praise ;
Of Phoebus and his choir the favourite son,
Who every prize in every contest won.
The rare memorials of a soul refin'd
Which in thy works admiring nations find,
No bard shall equal of the Gallick breed,
And of th' Italick none could e'er exceed.
Raised to her zenith, poetry no more
Beyond thee tries on daring wing to soar,
Bounds to her empire, Rome in Scotland found,
And Scotland, too, her eloquence shall bound. "

Whilst being a man of genius whose scholarship and
brilliant conversational powers endeared him to the scholars of
his time, his simplicity of life and the value he attached to
elevation of character marked Buchanan as ever and always a
true Scot. The emphasis he gave to purity of life was the
result of a strong and burning patriotism. For such expression
he was made to endure the stings of hostile criticism ; this fact
and the recent history of his native country alike prove him
to have been not only a writer, but a maker, of history.
Having in the evening of his days repaid his native land with
services which have been so slightly acknowledged, even by those
who admired him as an intellectual aristocrat, he well deserved
the tribute which was composed by John Johnston,1 Professor
of Hebrew in St. Mary's College, 1593, and differs somewhat
from other elegies in its reasons for praise : —

Scotia quern genuit, fovit, cum Pallade Musa

Diva beat, tanto sese hospite Gallia jactat,

Ingensque ingentem Tellus miratur et Aether,

Seu canit Historiam, seu grandi carmina plectro :

Quern decorant Reges, qui ipsos decorat quoque Reges

Et Solymse et propriae gentis : Quique entheus almi

Facta Dei, laudesque virum, qui sidera dixit ;

Exiguo magnus sub cespite Buchananus

Hie Vates recubat. Nomen viget alite fama,

Atque orbem immensum complet. Jamque arduus ipse

Coelum habet, et gaudet permistus Coelitibus Diis.

Buchanan loved his country, and devoted his thoughts and

1 Johnston in 1587 was studying at the Univerbity of Helmstadt, whence
he sent a MS. copy of Buchanan's Sphaera to Pincier who published a second
edition of that poem, with two epigrams by Johnston, in 1587. — M'Crie's Lift
of Andrew Melville, p. 153.

244 Buchanan Memorials

earnest endeavours to leave her better than he found her. He
made a brave struggle for human freedom, and voiced the cause
of culture and progress. The spirit of his work has never died,
and although his reputation may not have been so deeply rooted
in the hearts of his countrymen as that of the other great sons
of Scotland, it is to be hoped that in this year, when four
hundred years have hurried into the past since Buchanan was
born, justice and fair-mindedness will permit all to estimate
fully the brilliance of one of the foremost of Scotland's great
scholars, who, in words attributed to Andrew Melville, was : —

Clams in Historiae campo, clarusque Poesi,

Nomen ad aeternos fers, Buchanane, dies.

Scotia luce tua perfusa celebrior audet,

Rex disciplinae gaudet honore tuae.

Maximus es meritis. Quid Patria Rexve rependet,

Quando tuis meritis hie sit et in ilia minor?1

To these many memorials of him who first kept for Scotsmen
the citadel of their fame, is added this volume. As an
appreciation of work done and a record of praise for that work,
it is hoped that it will be a memorial in some small degree
worthy of one whose fate it was to receive more honour from
the nations among whom he was a stranger than from that in
which he was born and which rewarded his services with scanty
sympathy and support. Time has changed many opinions, and
this year of grace allows us to read Buchanan's writings in a
fresh and strong light, for we must ever remember with Horace :

' Neque uno Luna rubens nitet vultu.'

1 These verses were written below the dedication in M'Crie's copy of
Melville's Carmen Mosis. The handwriting is not Melville's. — M'Crie's Life
of Andrew Melville, p. 42.

THE EDITOR.

To George Buchanan 245

To George Buchanan.

GOOD old Buchanan, my heart warms to thee,
So long hast thou companioned my lone hours;
And I have felt thee to be near to me,

And pleasant as the breath of summer flowers —
So oft thy words of truth and wisdom stirred
My soul, responsive to the tones it heard :
No stranger thou, far centuries apart ;
Thy speech was as a friend's, and heart to heart.

Thy voice is in the silence of the night;

I hear thee when all other sounds are still,
Upholding what is true and just and right,

Sounding the sacred lyre with matchless skill.

I honoured thee as patriot, scholar, bard —
Chiefly as bard, of many a varied lay,
Wherewith full oft I have beguiled my way,

Dreaming enchanted dreams in daylight hard ;

The shocks and troubles of the world dispelled

By the sweet spell wherein my soul was held.

What titles shall I heap on thee to pay
The debt I owe thee, due this many a day ?
To thine own titlepage I turn, and there
Of academic titles find thee bare :
One title only wilt thou deign to claim —
I read it, kindling with an inward flame :
Instead of many a letter, many a dot,
This only read I, GEORGE BUCHANAN, SCOT.

SCOTUS ! exclaims an old encomiast,

Tossing his Greek about with airy sleight;

Not thou art ^KOTOS, though that name thou hast ;
Not SKOTOS thou, but rather Aorta's light.

Yet SCOTUS wert thou to thy inmost core;

A patriot fire burned there with fervent heat ;
And though thy country drove thee from her shore,

And made thee long the bread of exile eat,
Lovedst thou still the rugged land that bore

Thy fathers' race, and sepulchred their dust —

A land that ill repaid thy faith and trust.

246 To George Buchanan

For thou art still a banished man, denied
The harbour and the hearth of kindred Scot:

Thy name may linger, but thy words abide
In dusty volumes which men handle not :

Thy name is famous yet, but all beside,
Save to a dwindled number, is a blot.

Yet greater son than thou thy country ne'er
Nursed in her bosom and sent forth to fame ;

Born child of genius, of endowments rare,
The world once echoed with thy lauded name:

Now, the last echoes all are fallen low,

And few there be thy glowing words that know.

Ephemeral leaves in myriads strew the land;

Thine own immortal pages are unread —
Conjured away as by enchanter's wand ;

Unseen and unremembered as the dead.
And yet thy pages shall not die but live;

There is no death to an immortal thing :
Their root is in the ground, and time will give

New growth, new verdure and new blossoming.

Thy glorious star, high in the azure set,

In splendour shone through many lives of men :
Dark clouds obscured it, and obscure it yet —

Shall not its lustre yet shine out again ?
Thou earnest back from thy long banishment ;

Shall thy long banished strains not yet return ?
Is not the night of thy neglect far spent?

Shall but a loyal few revere thy urn?

Four hundred years ago thy infant feet

Trod the green sward beside thy native stream ;
And when thou hadst o'erpast life's troubled dream,
Old and renowned, they wrapt thee in thy sheet,
And laid in Scottish soil and hallowed ground,
Where many of earth's noblest sleep around.
Rest well, beloved master, rest in peace,
Where fame has followed, and where troubles cease.

A. B.

PART IL

Poems and Translations.

Quam Misera Sit Conditio Docentium Literas
Humaniores Lutetiae.

(Elegiarum Liber — I.)

IN this Elegy, which is probably the first of his compositions, Buchanau gives
valuable information as to student and professional life in the College of
Ste. Barbe, where he taught for three years. It was first published at Paris
in 1567.

The French translation or adaptation here given is by Joachim du Bellay
(1525-1560), who was an Angevin of good birth. As a French poet, he ranks
as one of the best of the celebrated Pleiade of seven writers who in their day
sought to shape French poetry on classical models. Some of his smaller
poems, one of which Spenser translated into English, are very beautiful.
Du Bellay was also a writer of forcible prose. The present adaptation is
taken from an edition of his works published at Paris in 1568, a copy of
which was found by Rev. R. M. Lithgow in the Library of the ancient
Hermitage Chapel of Saint Thiago, Cintra, Portugal. In the same volume
was a translation of another of Buchanan's poems — Ad Henricum II. Franciae
Jtegem du soluta urbis Alediomatricum obsidione. The French poem here given
is not wholly a translation. While Buchanan's Latin poem expatiates on the
misery of a teacher's life, du Bellay makes no reference to a teacher's life,
and takes as his theme the misery of a poet's life. The first fifty-four are
faithfully translated from the first twenty-eight lines of Buchanan's Latin.
Then du Bellay omits quite a large part of the Latin, and interpolates. The
lines beginning Sept villes dt, (Jrece are a close translation ; these are followed
by another interpolation. A few more lines are closely translated, and then
the latter part is a paraphrase of Buchanan's five words — " Nos alio sort
animusqite vocat."

Ite leves nugae, sterilesque valete Camoenae,

Grataque Phoebaeo Castalis unda choro.
Ite, sat est : primes vobiscum absumsimus aunos,

Optima pars vitae deperiitque meae.
Quaerite quern capiat jejuna cantus in umbra :

Quaerite qui pota carmina cantet aqua.

250 Poems and Translations

Dulcibus illecebris tenerum vos fallitis aevum,

Dum sequitur blandae carmen inerme lyrae.
Debita militiae molli languescit in umbra,

Et fluit ignavis fracta juventa sonis.
Ante diem curves senium grave contrahit art us,

Imminet ante suum mors properata diem :
Ora notat pallor, macies in corpore toto est,

Et tetrico in vultu mortis imago sedet.
Otia dum captas, praeceps in mille labores

Irruis, et curis angeris usque novis.
Nocte leves somnos resolutus compede fossor

Carpit, et in mediis nauta quiescit aquis :
Nocte leves somnos carpit defessus arator,

Nocte quies ventis, lonioque mari :
Nocte tibi nigrae fuligo bibenda lucernae,

Si modo Calliopes castra sequenda putes :
Et tanquam Libyco serves curvata metallo

Robora, et Herculea poma ferenda manu,
Pervigil in lucem lecta atque relecta revolves,

Et putri excuties scripta sepulta situ.
Saepe caput scalpes, et vivos roseris ungues,

Irata feries pulpita saepe manu.
Hinc subitae mortes, et spes praerepta senectae,

Nee tibi fert Clio, nee tibi Phoebus opem.
Si caput in cubitum lassa cervice recumbat,

Et sopor exiguus lumina fessa premat:
Ecce, vigil subito quartam denuntiat horam,

Et tonitru horrifico lumina clausa quatit :
Excutit attonito somnos1 sonus aeris acuti,

Admonet et molli membra levare toro.
Vix siluit, jam quinta sonat ; jam janitor urget

Cymbala, tirones ad sua signa vocans:
Mox sequitur longa metuendus veste magister,

Ex humero laevo mantica terga premit.
Dextera crudeli in pueros armata flagello est :

Laeva tenet magni forte Maronis opus.
Jam sedet, et longis clamoribus ilia rumpit,

Excutit implicitos ingenioque locos.

1 Griffin's London edition of 1686, the 1677 Edinburgh edition of Cairns
who employed printers from Holland, as well as more recent editions, have
somiio.

Elegia I. 251

Corrigit, ct delet, mutat, vigilata labore

Promit, in obscuro quae latuere diu.1
Magna, nee ingeniis aevi explorata prioris,

Emit, inventas nee sibi celat opes.
[Ignava incerta2 stertit plerumque juventus,

Cogitat aut curae multa priora suae.]
Alter abest, petiturque alter, mercede parato

Qui vocet, et fictos condiat arte dolos.
Ille caret caligis, huic rupta calceus alter

Pelle hiat: ille dolet, scribit et ille domum.
Hinc virgae, strepitusque sonant, fletuque rigantur

Ora, inter lacrymas transigiturque dies.
Dein nos sacra vocant, dein rursus lectio, rursus

Verbera: sumendo vix datur bora cibo.
Protinus amota sequitur nova lectio mensa,

Excipit hanc rursus altera, coena brevis:
Surgitur, in seram noctem labor improbus exit,

Ceu brevis aerumnis hora diurna foret.
. Quid memorem interea fastidia mille laborum,

Quae non ingenua mente ferenda putes?
Ecce tibi erronum3 plenas ex urbe phalanges,

Terraque ferratis calcibus icta tremit :
Turba ruit, stolidasque legentibus applicat aures,

Quales Phoebaeae Phryx dedit ante lyrae.
Et queritur nullis onerari compita chartis,

Esse et Alexandrum4 nullo in honore suum :
Nee gravidum pleno turgescere margine librum,

Neglectumque premi vile Guidonis opus.
Curritur ad montem magno cum murmure acutum,

Aut alias aedes, sicubi beta sapit.
Quid referam quoties defenditur acer Orestes,

Carmina vel nutneris cum caruere suis ?

1 The edition published at Edinburgh in 1615 by Andrew Hart gives situ
instead of diu.

2 This couplet is not inserted in any edition except in Iluddiman's,
Burmann's, and Hart's Edinburgh edition of 1615 where interea is given
instead of incerta.

3 The errone* were elderly students who worked very little, were very
unruly, and merely attended classes for many years for no more definite
purpose than "killing time." They were known in Paris as galoches, "so-
called," Professor Hume Brown says, " from the galoshes which they wore in
winter."

4 Alexander of Villa-dei, a grammarian of the Middle Ages.

252 Poems and Translations

Arcadico juveni quod laeva in parte mam iliac

Nil salit, i rat us clamat uterque parens :
Conqueritur nullo labentia tempora fructu,

Totque diu sumtua deperiisse suos.1
[Quin etiam in libros nati consumta talenta

Supputat: et damnum flagitiumque vocat.]
Aestimat et nostros non aequa lance labores :

Temporis et nulla damna rependit ope.
Adde, quod Aonidum paupertas semper adhaerens

It comes, et castris militat ipsa suis:
Sive canas acies in Turcica bella paratas,

Sive aptes2 tenui mollia verba lyrae :
Sive levi captas populi spectacula socco,

Turgidus aut tragico syrmate verris humum :
Denique quicquid agis, comes assidet improba egestas,

Sive poema canis, sive poema doces.
Bella gerunt urbes septem3 de patria Homeri :

Nulla domus vivo, patria nulla fuit.
Aeger, inops patrios deplorat Tityrus agros,

Statius instantem vix fugat arte famem.
Exul Hyperboreum Naso project us ad axem,

Exilium Musis imputat ille suum.
Ipse Deus vatum vaccas pavisse Pheraeas

Creditur, Aemonios et numerasse greges.
Calliope longum coelebs cur vixit in aevum ?

Nempe nihil doti1 quod numeraret, erat.
Interea celeri cursu delabitur aetas,

Et queritur duram tarda senecta famem :
Et dolet ignavis studiis lusisse juventam,

Jactaque in iniidam semina moeret humum :
Nullaque maturis congesta viatica canis, .

Nee faciles portus jam reperire ratem.
Ite igitur, Musae steriles, aliumque ministrum

Quaerite: nos alio sors animusque vocat.

1 This couplet is found only in Hart's Edinburgh edition, Ruddimaif s
1715, and Burmann's 1725.

2 The first edition, 1567, has aptas, — evidently an error.

5 Edinburgh edition of 1615 gives this line — Septem bella geruiU urbes.
4 In the Amsterdam edition published by Henry Wetsten, 1687, dotis is
given instead of doti.

Elegia I. 253

TRANSLATION

(by T. D. Robb, M.A., Paisley).

YE barren books, I've played the fool too long,

Tending your trivial vanities of song!

I'm growing old, and ask, What is to me

Apollo with his nymphs of Castalie?

He lures to thankless toil, and now appears

My Will o' the Wisp above the marsh of years.

Can any mortal breakfast on a verse,

Or quench his drouth with water, and rehearse

The vinous classic song ? If any choose,

Go seek him out to fill my empty shoes.

Right pleasantly does song allure the young,
Sweet song that leaves the manly lyre unstrung.
Their country, calling them to bow and blade,
Finds them relaxed in some delightful shade,
Marring their youth in metring idle sound ;
So, ere their life has run the ample round,
They bow enfeebled limbs; nay, while the years
Count them yet young, Death tolls upon their ears
His quick approach ; nor is he far to seek,
Seated on shrunken form and withered cheek.

The dream of lettered leisure ! I and you
Yearn over it, then, plunged in work, pursue
A thousand toils with troubles ever new.

Night comes for sleep. Poor clowns that turn the sod

Leave spade or plough and straight begin to nod ;

Tired mariners upon the middle deep

Find wave and wind a lullaby to sleep;

Yea, oft with night will roughest storms give o'er,

And surges cease along the Ionian shore.

But you that think to serve the Muse of Song,

Drink reek of sooty lamp the whole night long,

Sleepless as e'er the dragon lay of old,

Warden beneath those boughs that bent with gold :

(How vainly sleepless, too, since Hercules

Must yet the golden apples cull at ease).

264 Poems and Translations

Even such are you that hear the early chimes,

Still pondering what you've read a score of times,

Eager to sweep the obscuring dust away

From antique lore. Oft till the dawning day

You bite your nails to the quick, and scratch your head,

And bang your desk, but never win to bed.

What guerdon for it all ? Long years and glory ?
In no wise does the Muse of song or story
So royally reward. An early death
Is all the comfort that she promiseth.

For sleep's denied. The tired neck may bow,
And on the pillowed elbow droop the brow,
A little sleep may cool your burning sight,
When sudden clamour fills the startled night.
Wildly you wake, unnerved for what dread shock,
And hear the night-watch bellowing " Four o'clock!
With brazen din he deafens night around,
Warning day's bondmen not to sleep too sound.
Scarce is he silent, scarce your eyelids close,
When "Five o'clock!" shatters your last repose.
Clang goes the bell ! The porter — sleepless ass ! —
Is ringing scholars to your morning class.

Prompt at the call, and dreadful in the frown

He wears to match his flowing Roman gown,

Behold the master follow forth to school.

He clutches what proclaims a sceptred rule,

And looks as he'd out-tyrannise the Turk ;

In the other hand he holds the morning's work,

Virgil perchance, — so great, yet thus so mean.

Now at his desk he eyes the restless scene,

And cracks his cheeks with shouting. Say he wins,

And quiet — most comparative — begins ;

He takes his task, unravelling some skein

Of tangled Latin, seeking to make plain

To careless boys the questionable text

That had his midnight vigil so perplext.

He changes this and that, with skill to note

Errors the classic author never wrote,

And vindicates the readings that may be,

From lore long latent in his memory.

Elegia I. 255

He scatters knowledge with a lordly hand ;
Things that no former age could understand
Are his attainment ; and he casts away
Those treasures of his cornucopia, —
But casts to slothful swine. A steady snore
Comes from the crowd that study on the floor :
And those who seem awake in studious wise
Are knaves that listen only with their eyes.

Some one is truant ; another has taken care
To hire some rascal with a specious air
To have him called away. Or, this cold morn,
One has no boots ; another's boots are worn
To sandals. In that corner over there,
Some booby blubbers for a mother's care ;
Or there is one that lets his fancy roam,
And, 'stead of writing notes, is writing home.

Wherefore the switch is busy, and the sound

Of frequent lamentation floats around ;

Tears channel youthful cheeks; and, when 'tis run.

The record of the hour is — Nothing done.

Then comes the call to prayers; after which

Another hour of Latin and the switch.

Then breakfast ; but the board is hardly set

When it is borne away. We only whet

Our appetites ere clangs the bell again,

Renewing the futility and pain

Of Latin lessons. When that weird is o'er

Comes dinner, and as breakfast proved before,

'Tis but a snack ere we are called away.

Whither ? The tired to sleep, the fresh to play ?

No, Latin lends small heed to set of sun,

And we are deep in night ere work is done, —

Such work as 'tis. Why should I court your scorn

Telling the thousand degradations borne

In classes crowded with an adult crew

Too old to birch, yet seeking nothing new,

Nor even come to keep their learning green.

All day the city's nuisance they have been.

Now from the streets dusk-driven, where so well

256 Poems and Translations

Ensconce themselves and make a childish hell

As in those rooms where once they suffered woe?

So, foolishly indulged to come and go

At their sweet will, into the class they pour

With clogs that well-nigh clatter through the floor,—

A graceless rabble ! Making no pretence

To listen, for their dull indifference

Is God's own blame ; they fail in heavenly fire,

As the Phrygian failed when Phoebus charmed his lyre.

Yet they'll complain : ' ' Why are no posters out

To tell us what the lectures are about ? "

Or, " This new grammar! Why have you forsook

Old Alexander ? Never a better book !

Do you fancy that we bothered with his notes!"

Nay, even neglected Guido has their votes !

So, with a hue and cry for Latin grammar —

The sound old style ! — they rush with rowdy clamour

To Montaigu, or whereso they shall find

An atmosphere to suit the idle mind.

*******!

Then there's the angry parent, whose dear boy,

A dull Arcadian, disappoints the joy

His father thought to find. " 'Tis all a sell ! "

He'll coarsely shout, and even the coppers tell

That books have cost. But one thing has no place

In his brute cries of Swindle and Disgrace \

He never counts the time and trouble spent

By the poor teacher of his innocent.

Yet one thing more. The servant of the Muse
Has one companion he shall never lose,
Even poverty. That lean vivandiere
Campaigns with him ever ; he must fare
As she provides, yet find a soul for song.
And whatsoe'er the mood, or sweet or strong, —
Whether smooth carol to the lightsome lyre,

1 Two lines omitted, Quid referam qiiotiea, etc., easy to translate literally,
but of obscure interpretation. No editor has yet given an explanation that is
not open to objections.

Elegia I. 257

Or battle-song a Turkish war to fire,

Or motley matter for the comic stage,

Or swelling syllables of tragic rage, —

It profits nothing. Teach or make such song,

The one reward is poverty life-long.

Homer in life had home or country none,

Now seven cities claim him for their son.

Where once his fathers held their flocks at feed

The j:uined Virgil filled his forlorn reed

With*sick complaint. Though Statius o'er and o'er

Polished good verse, the wolf kept at his door.

Ovid, an exile in the utter north,

Must blame his Muse. 'Tis even given forth

How once Apollo, lord of minstrelsy,

Drove kine and counted sheep in Thessaly.

Why must Calliope live a maid so long?

Her only dowry was the gift of song.

So 'tis to-day. Our youth is quickly o'er,
And all the song is hardship at threescore.
Gray-haired, we mourn the barren years of toil,
Harvesting nothing from a well-sown soil ;
Or, after buffeting with every gale,
Finding no happy port to strike the sail.

Avaunt ye, then, and find some other slave,
Ye thankless Muses ! What I have to save
Of years and strength craves higher destiny;
My star, my soul, command that I be free.

TRANSLATION

(by Joachim du Bellay, 1568).

Adieu ma Lyre, adieu les sons
De tes inutiles chansons :
Adieu la source, qui recree
De Phebus la tourbe sacree.
J'ay trop perdu mes jeunes ans
En vos exercices plaisans :
J'ay trop a vos jeux asservie
La meilleure part de ma vie.
Cerchez mes vers, et vous aussi
O Muses, jadis mon soucy,
s

258 Poems and Translations

Qui a vos douceurs nompareilles
Se laisse flatter les oreilles :
Cerchez, qui sous 1'oeil de la nuict
Enchante par vostre doux bruit,
Avec les Nymphes honorees
Danse au bal des Graces dorees.
Vous trompez, o mignardes soeurs,
La jeunesse par vos douceurs :
Qui fuit le Palais, pour elire
Les vaines chansons de la Lyre :
Vous corrompez les ans de ceux,
Qui sous 1'ombrage paresseux
Laissent languir effeminee
La force aux armes destinee.
L'hyver, qui naist sur leur printemps,
Voulte leur corps devant le temps:
Devant le temps 1'avare parque
Les pousse en la fatale barque.
Leur teint est tousjours pallissant,
Leur corps est tousjours languissant,
De la mort 1'effroyable image
Est tousjours peinte en leur visage.
Leur plaisir trayne avecques luy
Tousjours quelque nouvel ennuy :
Et au repos ou ils se baignent,
Mile travaux les accompaignent.
Le miserable pionnier
Ne dort d'un sommeil prisonnier:
Le nocher au milieu de 1'onde
Sent le commun repos du monde :
Le dormir coule dans les yeux
Du laboreur laborieux :
La mer ne sent tousjours Forage :
Les vents appaisent leur courage :
Mais toy sans repos travaillant,
Apres Caliope baillant,
Quel bien, quel plaisir as-tu d'elle,
Fors le parfum d'une chandelle ?
Tu me sembles garder encor'
Les chesnes se courbans sous Tor,
Et les pommes mal attachees,

Elegia I. 259

Par \es mains d'Hercule arrachees.

Jamais le jour ne s'est leve
Si matin, qu'il ne fait trouve
Revant dessus tes poesies
Toutes poudreuses et moisies.
Souvent, pour un vers allonger,
II te fault les ongles ronger:
Souvent d'une main courroucee
L'innocente table est poussee.

Ou so it de jour, ou soit de nuict,
Ceste rongne tousjours te cuit.
Jamais ceste humeur ne se change :
Tousjours le style te demange.
Tu te distilles le cerveau
Pour f aire un poeme nouveau :
Et puis ta Muse est deprisee
Par 1'ignorance autorisee.
Pendant la mort qui ne dort pas,
Haste le jour de ton trespas:
Adonques en vain tu t'amuses
A ton Phebus et a tes Muses,
Le Serpent, qui sa queue mord
Nous tire tous apres la mort.
O fol, qui haste les annees,
Qui ne sont que trop empennees !
Adiouste a ces malheurs icy,
De pauvrete le dur soucy,
Pesant fardeau, que tousjours porte
Des Muses le vaine cohorte :
Ou soit, que tu ailles sonnant
Les batailles d'un vers tonnant :
Ou soit, que ton archet accorde
Un plus doux son dessus ta chorde,
Soit, qu'au theatre ambicieux
Tu monstres au peuple ocieux
Les malheurs de la Tragedie,
Ou les jeux de la Comedie.

Sept villes de Grece ont debat
Pour 1'auteur du Troyen combat:
Mais le chetif, vivant n'eut onques
Ny maison, ny pais quelconques.

260 Poems and Translations

Tytire pauvre et malheureux,
Regrette ses champs plantureux :
Le pauvre Stace a peine evite
De la faim Timportune suyte.
Ovide du Getique seiour,
Falche de la clarte du jour,
De son bannissement accuse
Ses yeux, ses livres, et sa Muse.
Mesmes le Dieu musicien
Sur le rivage Amphrysien
D'Admete les boeufs mena paistre,
Et conta le troppeau champestre.
Mais fault-il pour les vers blasmer
Nombrer tous les flots de la mer,
Et toute 1'arene roulante
Sur le pave d'une eau coulante ?
Malheureux, qui par 1'univers
Jetta la semence des vers :
Semence digne qu'on evite
Plus que celle de 1'aconite.
Malheureux, que Melpomene
Veit d'un bon oeil, quand il fut ne,
Luy inspirant des sa naissance
De son scavoir la cognoissance.
Si le bon heur est plus amy
De celuy qui n'a qu'a demy
Des doctes soeurs 1'experience,
O vaine et ingrate science !
Heureux et trois et quatre fois
Le fort des armes et des lois :
Heureux les gros sourcils encore,.
Que le peuple ignorant adore.
Toy que les Muses ont eleu,
Dequoy te fert-il d'estre teu,
Si pour tout le gaing de ta peine
Tu n'as qu'une louange vaine ?
Tes vers sans fruict, laborieux
Te sont voler victorieux
Par 1'esperance, qui te lie
L'esprit d'une douce folie.
Tes ans, qui coulent ce pendant,

Elegia I. 261

Te laissent tous jours attendant:
Et puis ta vieille lamente
Sa pauvrete, qui la tormente:
Pleurant d 'avoir ainsi perdu
Le temps aux livres despendu:
Et d'avoir seme sur 1'arene
De ses ans la meilleure grene.

" Donne conge, toy qui es fin
Au cheval, qui vieillit, a fin
Que pis encor ne luy advienne,
Et que poussif il ne devienne.
Que songes-tu? le lendemain
Du corbeau, n'est pas en ta main.
Sus donq', la chose commencee,
Est plus qu'a demy avancee.

Malheureux, qui est arreste
De vieillesse et de pauvrete.
Vieillesse, ou pauvrete abonde,
C'est la plus grand' peste du monde."
C'est le plaisir, que vous sentez
O pauvres cervaux evantez:
C'est le profit, qui vient de celles,
Que vous nommez les neuf pucelles.
Heureuses Nymphes, qui vivez
Par les forests, ou vous suynez
La saincte vierge chasseresse,
Fuyant des Muses la paresse.
Soit donq' ma Lyre un arc turquois,
Mon archet devienne un carquois :
Et les vers, que plus je n'adore
Puissent traicts devenir encore.
S'il est ainsi, je vous suyuray
O Nymphes, tant que je vivray:
Laissant dessus leur double croppe
Des Muses 1'ocieuse troppe.

Somnium.

(Fratres Fraterrimi — XXXIV.)

THIS poem, which was prompted by various arguments held with some
ecclesiastic in Scotland, and was written during his leisure moments, was of
importance in determining Buchanan's career. Such is the satire that ren-
dered him extremely obnoxious to the Franciscans against whom it was
levelled, while it commended him to the attention of the king, who encouraged
him to renew his attacks. The Somnium is based on a poem by William
Dunbar, which is here quoted from the MS. of George Bannatyne, pub-
lished in 1568. Buchanan's poem was probably published at Paris in 1566 by
"Henri Estienne." The translation of Buchanan's poem by Robert M'Farlane,
M.A., was published in the historical dissertation prefixed to a translation of
Buchanan's De Jure Regni (1799).

How Dunbar was desyred to be ane Frier.

(by William Dunbar).

This nycht befoir the dawning cleir
Methocht Sanct. Francis did to me appeir,
With ane religious abbeit in his hand,
And said, In this go cleith the my servand,
Refuse the warld, for thow mon be a freir.

With him and with his abbeit bayth I skarrit,
Like to ane man that with a gaist wes marrit :
Methocht on bed he layid it me abone ;
Bot on the flure delyverly and sone
I lap thairfra, and nevir wald cum nar it.

Quoth he, quhy skarris thow with this holy weid?
Cloith the tharin, for weir it thow most neid ;
Thow that hes lang done Venus lawis teiche,
Sail now be freir, and in this abbeit preiche:
Delay it nocht, it mon be done but dreid.

Somnium 263

Quoth I, Sanct Francis, loving be the till,
And thankit mot thow be of thy gude will
To me, that of thy clayis are so kynd ;
Bot thame to weir it nevir come in my mynd :
Sweet confessour, thow tak it nocht in ill.

In haly legendis have I hard allevin,
Ma sanctis of bischoppis, nor freiris, be sic sevin;
Of full few freiris that has bene sanctis I reid ;
Quhairfoir ga bring to me ane bischopis weid,
Gife evir thow wald my saule gaid unto hevin.

My brethir oft hes maid the supplicatiouns,
Be epistillis, sermonis, and relatiounis,
To take the abyte ; bot thow did postpone ;
But ony process cum on ; thairfoir anone
All circumstance put by and excusationis.

Gif evir my fortoun wes to be a freir,
The dait thereof is past full mony a yeir ;
For into every lusty toun and place,
Off all Yngland, from Berwick to Calice,
I haif into thy habeit maid gud cheir.

In freiris weid full fairly haif I fleichit,
In it haif I in pulpet gone and preichit
In Derntoun kirk, and eik in Canterberry ;
In it I past at Dover our the ferry,
Throw Piccardy, and thair the peple teichit.

Als lang as I did beir the freiris style,
In me, God wait, wes mony wrink and wyle ;
In me wes falset with every wicht to flatter,
Quhilk mycht be flemit with na haly watter ;
I wes ay reddy all men to begyle.

This freir that did Sanct Francis thair appeir,
Ane fieind he wes in liknes of ane freir;
He vaneist away with stynk and fyrrie smowk;
With him methocht all the house end he towk,
And I awoik as wy that wes in weir.

264 Poems and Translations

Somnium.

Mane sub auroram nitidae vicinia lucis

Pallida venture cum facit astra die :

Arctior irriguos somnus complectitur artus,

Demulcens placido languida membra sinu :

Cum mihi Franciscus nodoso cannabe cinctus,

Astitit ante torum stigmata nota gerens.

In manibus sacra vestis erat, cum fune galerus,

Palla, fenestratus calceus, hasta, liber :

Et mihi subridens, Hanc protinus indue, dixit,

Et mea dehinc mundi transfuga castra subi.

Linque voluptates cum sollicitudine blandas,

Vanaque continui gaudia plena metus.

Me duce, spes fragiles et inanes despice curas :

Et superum recto tramite limen adi.

Obstupui subita defixus imagine, donee

Vix dedit hos tandem lingua coacta sonos.

Pace, inquam, vestri liceat depromere verum

Ordinis, baud humeris convenit ista meis.

Qui feret hanc vestem, fiat servire paratus:

At mihi libertas ilia paterna placet.

Qui feret hanc, ponat perfricta fronte ruborem :

At non ingenuus nos finit ista pudor.

Qui feret hanc, fallat, palpet, pro tempore fingat :

At me simplicitas nudaque vita juvat.

Nee me Phthiriasis, nee rancida cantio terret,

Inque diem ignavae vivere more ferae :

Ostia nee circum magno mugire boatu,

Si tamen his nugis aetheris aula patet.

Pervia sed raris sunt coeli regna cucullis :

Vix Monachis illic creditur esse locus.

Mentior, aut peragra saxo fundata vetusto

Delubra, et titulos per simulacra lege :

Multus honoratis fulgebit Episcopus aris,

Kara cucullato sternitur ara gregi.

Atque inter Monachos erit haec rarissima vestis :

Induat hanc, si quis gaudeat esse miser.

Quod si tanta meae tangit te cura salutis,

Vis raihi, vis animae consuluisse meae ?

Quilibet hac alius mendicet veste superbus:

At mihi da mitram, purpureamque togam.

Somnium 265

TRANSLATION

(by Robert McFarlan, M.A., 1799).
At dawn, when frighted by the solar ray
The stars turn pale at the approach of day,
Francis in knotty dowlas clad, and red
With recent lashes, stood before my bed.
The sacred vestments all he held in hand,
Hat, cord, book, robe, and bursten shoe and wand,
And smiling said, " At once these badges wear,
Forsake the world, and to my camp repair,
The anxious blandishments of pleasure spurn,
And from her fearful joys repentant turn.
Vain hopes and cares I'll teach you to despise,
And tread the paths strait leading to the skies."

Fix'd in amaze I at this vision hung,
And scarce these sounds could issue from my tongue;
1 ' Without offence may I the truth declare ?
That garb my shoulders are unfit to bear.
The wearer must in cringing slavery bend ;
I hail paternal freedom, as my friend.
The wearer's brazen front no blush must know ;
That I'm forbid by nature's honest glow.
He must deceive, coax, feign and temporize;
I love simplicity without disguise.
Me nor your lice nor rancid songs dismay,
Nor prowling lives like those of beasts of prey;
Nor bellowing roars, when at each gate you bawl ;
If such vain arts can move th' ethereal hall.
The way to heaven the cowl can seldom find ;
For monks, 'tis thought, no place is there assign'd.
Survey all temples rear'd with ancient stone,
And read o'er monuments th' inscriptions strown,
You many a bishop's honour'd shrine will view,
Scarce one erected to the hooded crew.
Let then this garb with monks be rare and fine,
And those who love in penury to pine.
But if my welfare lie so near your heart,
Would you save me, or save my better part;
Let others traverse all the country o'er
Proud of this dress, and beg from door to door:
The trade I like not, nor the monkish frown,
Give me a mitre and a purple gown."

IIL

Ad Juventutem Burdegalensem

( Misccllcmeorum Liber — IX.)

THIS Sapphic Ode exemplifies Buchanan's zeal and enthusiasm in the education
of youth. Addressed to the youth of Bordeaux, it warns them of the dignity
and importance of a liberal education, and particularly of "that art which
he had himself cultivated with such eminent success."

The French translation is the work which gained one of the prizes
generously offered by Dr. Steele (of Florence) for translations of certain of
Buchanan's poems.

Ad Juventutem Burdegalensem 267

Ad Juventutem Burdegalensem.

Vasconis tellus, genitrix virorum
Fortium, blandi genitrix Lyaei,
Cui parens frugum favet, et relictis

Pallas Athenis.

Te licet claris decoret triumphis
Martius belli labor, et vetusti
Nominis splendor, seriesque longum

Ducta per aevum :
Ni tamen doctas foveas Camoenas
Et bonas artes opera fideli,
Spes tuas vano studio in futuros

Porrigis annos.

Non enim moles Pariae columnae,
Phidiae aut vivax ebur, aut Myronis
Aera mansurae poterunt sacrare

Nomina famae.

Obruet longos cita mors labores,
Obruet claros titulos opesque ;
Saxa findentur vitiata serae

Dente senectae.

Mulciber quamvis et iniqua Juno
Verterint urbem Priami superbam,
Ilia Smyrnaeis inimica pensat

Fata Camoenis :
Nee suo mallet cineri superstes
Ilium Eois dare jura terris,
Qua patent nigros1 Rhodope ab nivosa

Usque sub Indos.
Sola doctorum monumenta vatum
Nesciunt fati imperium severi,
Sola contemnunt Phlegethonta, et Orci

Jura superbi.2

1 Taurinua Edition gives fwco* instead of nigro*.
8 Taurinua Edition gives nf.ve.ra instead of mperbi.

268 Poems and Translations

TRANSLATION

(By Richmond S. Charles, United College, St. Andrews).

Navarre, nurse of heroic sons,

Land of the generous vine,
Thee Ceres dowers, Minerva shuns

For thee her Grecian shrine.

Of what avail the stricken field
With brilliant triumph crowned,

The fame that olden glories yield
In series long renowned ?

If from the Muse thou turn away,

Nor Learning's gifts acclaim,
Vain is the zeal that would essay

To win enduring fame.

No Parian columns towering high,

Nor Myro's bronze hath power,
Nor Phidias' long-lived ivory,

To 'scape Oblivion's hour.

Man's laboured work Death levels low,

Power fails, pomp disappears,
The rocks asunder cleft must bow

To all-devouring years.

Though Vulcan and the Queen of Heaven

Conspired proud Ilium's fall,
In Homer's muse see guerdon given,

Atonement made for all.

Now Troy resurgent would disdain,

In lieu, imperial sway
From farthest India's fervid plain

To snows of Rhodope.

The Poet's art alone can rise

Above Fate's stern decree,
Alone Oblivion despise

And Hell's dread mastery.

Ad Juventutem Burdegalensem 269

TRANSLATION

(By R. de la Vaissiere de Lavergne, University of Bordeaux.)

Gascogne dont le sol enfante tour a tour

Et des vins delicats, et des coeurs sans faiblesse,
Terre que des nioissons protege la deesse,

Pallas de*daigne Athene et t'elit pour sejour.

Mais, si tu meritas dans la lutte guerriere,

Chere au dieu Mars, Fhonneur des triomphes fameux ;
Et si, de siecle en siecle, a tes fils valeureux

Succedent d'autres fils dans la noble carriere,

Garde-toi cependant de ne point rejouir

Par un culte constant le chceur des doctes Museg ;
Aime les arts ; sinon, 1'espoir dont tu t'abuses

Tend en vain ton effort vers les ans a venir.

« C'est en vain que Paros eleve ses colonnes ;

L'ivoire est vainement par Phidias sculpt^ ;
Vainement tes airains, Myron, out me'rite'
Les applaudissements des Grecs et leurs couronnes.

De tous ces longs travaux rien ne demeurera ;

La mort effacera les titres sur la pierre ;

Les marbres les plus durs tomberont en poussiere ;
Le temps qui ronge tout les ane'antira.

Mais, si le dieu du feu, si Junon ennemie

Ont detruit de Priam 1'orgeuilleuse cite" ;

Le poete de Smyrne a pour rdternite"
Su, malgre* les destins, lui confe'rer la vie.

Un aussi memorable aneantissement

Plait mieux a Troie, encor, que de vivre en sa gloire,
Et d'avoir, du neigeux Rhodope a 1'Inde noire,

L'Orient tout entier sous sou coramandement.

Car, seul, le monument qu'uri poete e*difie
N'a point 4 redouter le sombre Phle'ge'ton ;
II me'prise les lois de 1'orgueilleux Pluton,

Et jamais le Destin ne termine sa vie.

IV.
Calendae Maiae.

( Miscellaneorum Liber — XI.)

THIS poem is one of Buchanan's finest works. Wordsworth refers to it as
' ' equal in sentiment, if not in elegance, to anything in Horace. " Professor
Hume Brown thinks that "Buchanan's Ode, by its true poetic quality, is
worthy of Horace when he transcends himself. "

The two translations are given, both having being placed equal for
Dr. Steele's prize.

Calendae Maiae 271

Calendae Maiae*

Salvete sacris1 deliciis sacrae
Majae Calendae, laetitiae, et mero,
Ludisque dicatae, jocisque

Et teneris Charitum choreis.
Salve voluptas,2 et nitidum decus
Anni recurrens perpetua vice,
Et flos renascentis juventae

In senium properantis aevi.
Cum blaiida veris temperies novo
llluxit orbi, primaque secula
Fulsere3 flaventi metallo,

Sponte sua sine lege justa :
Talis per omnes continuus tenor4
Annos tepenti rura Favonio
Mulcebat, et nullis feraces

Seminibus recreabat agros.
Talis beatis incubat insulis
Felicis aurae perpetuus tepor,
Et nesciis campis senectae

Difficilis, querulique morbi.
Talis silentum per taciturn nemus
Levi susurrat murrnure spiritus,
Lethenque juxta obliviosam
Funereas agitat cupressos.
Forsan supremis cum Deus ignibus
Piabit orbem, laetaque secula
Mundo reducet, talis aura

Aethereos animos fovebit.
Salve fugacis gloria seculi,
Salve secunda digna dies nota,
Salve vetiistae vitae imago,
Et specimen venientis aevi.

1 Taurinus Edition gives Jestis.

2 Taurinus Edition has venustas.

3 The same edition gives fluxere.

4 Decor is given in the Taurinus Edition.

272 Poems and Translations

TRANSLATION

(By Lionel S. Charles, United College, St. Andrews.)

This is the day when joy divine is seen

And brimming cups, and Pleasure crowned queen ;

This is the day of jest and gambolling,

And gentle Graces dancing on the green.

This is the day of joyaunce ; Spring's sweet prime
Comes back to us with soft recurring chime,
And Youth, like some sweet flower, is born again
Between the old and hurrying feet of time.

When the first Spring the new-born world beheld,
From Earth's glad heart such store of joyaunce welled ;
And the first age shone bright with yellow gold,
Flushing the hills at pleasure, uncompelled.

Such gentle breezes in the long ago,
For long, long years through the still wheat did go,
Arid softly stirred through all that Paradise
The fruitful fields, when there was none to sow.

Such is the breeze that in the distant West,
Broods o'er the placid islands of the blest,
Where never came complaining voice of Eld,
And fields, of sickness ever undistressed.

And such a breath, in groves that spirits know,
Passes in gentleness, and whispers low,
And by the sleepy river of the dead
Stirs the dark cypress softly to and fro. .

I think when He shall purge the earth with fire,
And bring again the famished world's desire,
Perchance e'en such a blessing and a breeze
Shall fan the angels in their starry choir.

Pride of the age that passes still away !
Day of fair mark ! and we who greet thee say : —
" Such shall the life of our to-morrow be,
Such was the life of that tar yesterday."

Calendae Maiae 273

TRANSLATION

(By Victor F. Murray, United College, St. Andrews.)

Hail to thee, May-day ! Thou to sacred glee
Sacredly kept, ever the devotee

Of wine; jest, pastime, merriment and the dance
Where tender Graces bear us company.

Hail to thee, Joyance ! and the glorious year,
Made by the eternal change to re-appear

In vernal loveliness : for fleet decay,
Lo ! youth's emblossoraed flower, sweet and clear.

When springtime's pleasant warmth first dawned upon
The new-born world and ages primal shone

By no true law save of their own sweet will
Yellow with gold ; through all those years agone

In such a stream as this, continuous

•

In flow, the wind, Favonian, languorous,

Soothed all the land and quickened every field
To rich luxuriance unsown of us.

Glad breezes ! lasting temperateness ! yea, theirs
This lot perpetual — ours to-day ; for airs

Brood o'er our isles, while neither fretful age
Nor querulous disease our calm impairs.

A light breath such as this amid the grove
Enwrapt in silence where the Silent move,

Faint o'er oblivious Lethe whispering
Ruffles the cypresses of death above.

Perchance this breath, when God will purify
The world in final tire, and joyfully

Lead happier ages to the universe,
Will clasp celestial souls caressingly.

Welcome ! sweet glory of bygone centuries,
Welcome ! sweet day deserving of all praise,

The mirrored beauty of an ancient life,
Welcome ! and earnest of the nearing days.

Desidcrium Lutetiae.

(SUvae— III.)

THIS beautiful poem was apparently composed before his departure from
Portugal. He pathetically bewails his absence from " Amaryllis," — which is
to him an allegorical name for Paris, — and hopes that his return may not
be long delayed.

The translation here given was written last summer for the Glasgow
High School Magazine.

O Formosa Amarylli, tuo jam septima bruma
Me procul aspectu, jam septima detinet aestas :
Sed neque septima bruma nivalibus horrida nimbis,
Septima nee rapidis eandens fervoribus aestas
Exstinxit vigiles nostro sub pectore curas.
Tu mihi mane novo carmen, dum roscida tondet
Arva pecus, medio tu carmen solis in aestu,
Et cum jam longas praeceps nox porrigit umbras :
Nee mihi quae tenebris condit nox omnia vultus
Est potis occultare tuos, te nocte sub atra
Alloquor, amplector, falsaque in imagine somni
Gaudia sollicitam palpant evanida mentem.
At cum somnus abit, curis cum luce renatis
Tecta miser fugio, tanquam mihi tecta doloris
Semina subjiciant, et solis moestus in agris,
Qua vagus error agit feror, et deserta querelis
Antra meis, silvasque et conscia saxa fatigo
Sola meos planctus Echo miserata gementi
Adgemit, et quoties suspiria pectore duco,
Haec quoque vicino toties suspirat ab antro.
Saepe super celsae praerupta cacumina rupis
In mare prospiciens, spumantia coerula demens
Alloquor, et surdis jacto irrita vota procellis :

Desiderium Lutetiae. 275

O mare ! quaeque maris vitreas, Nereides, undas
Finditis, in vestros1 placidae me admittite portus :
Aut hoc si nimium est, nee naufragus ire recuso,
Dummodo dilectas teneam vel naufragus oras.
O quoties dixi Zephyris properantibus illuc,
Felices pulchram visuri Amaryllida venti,
Sic neque Pyrene duris in cotibus alas
Atterat, et vestros non rumpant nubila cursus,
Dicite vesanos Amaryllidi Daphnidos ignes.
O quoties Euro levibus cum raderet alis,
Aequora, dicebam, Felix Amaryllide visa,
Die mihi, Num meminit nostri ? num mutua sentit
Vulnera 1 num veteris vivunt vestigia flammae ?
Ille ferox contra rauco cum murmure stridens
Avolat irato similis, mihi frigore pectus
Congelat, exanimes torpor gravis alligat artus.
Nee me pastorum recreant solamina, nee me
Fistula, Nympharumque leves per prata choreae,
Nee quae capripedes modulantur carmina Panes :
Una meos sic est praedata Amaryllis amores.

Et me tympana docta ciere canora Lycisca,
Et me blanda Melaenis amavit, Iberides ambae,
Ambae florentes annis, opibusque superbae :
Et mihi dotales centum cum matribus agnos
Ipsi promisere patres, mihi munera matres
Spondebant clam multa : meum nee munera pectus,
Nee nivei movere suis cum matribus agni,
Nee quas blanditias tenerae dixere puellae.
Nee quas delicias tenerae fecere puellae.
Quantum ver hyemen, vietum puer integer aevi,
Ter viduam thalamis virgo matura parcntem,
Quam superat Durium Rhodanus, quam Sequana Mundam,
Lenis Arar Sycorim, Ligeris forrnosus Iberum,
Francigenas inter Ligeris pulcherrimus amnes :
Tantum omnes vincit Nymphas Amaryllis Iberas.
Saepe suos vultus speculata Melaenis in unda
Composuit, pinxitque oculos, finxitque capillum,
Et voluit, simul et meruit formosa videri.
Saepe mihi dixit, Animi male perdite Daphni,

1 After these words in Hart's Edinburgh edition there is added the line
" Et date Celtarum incolumi contingere portus."

276 Poems and Translations

Cur tibi longinquos libet insanire furores?

Et quod ames dare nostra potest tibi terra, raccmos

Collige purpureos, et spes ne concipe lentas.

Saepe choros festos me praetereunte, Lycisca

Cernere dissimulans, vultusque aversa canebat

Haec, pedibus terrain, et manibus cava tympana pulsana;

Et Nemesis gravis ira, atque irritabile numen,

Et Nemesis laesos etiam punitur amores.

Vidi ego dum leporem venator captat, echinum

Spernere, post vanos redeuntem deinde labores,

Vespere nee retulisse domum leporem nee echinum.

Vidi ego qui mullum peteret piscator, et arctis

Retibus implicitam tincam sprevisset opimam,

Vespere nee retulisse domum mullum neque tincam.

Vidi ego qui calamos crescentes ordine risit

Pastor arundineos, dum torno rasile buxum

Frustra amat, (interea calamos quos riserat, alter

Pastor habet), fragiles contentum inflare cicutas

Sic solet immodicos Nemesis contundere fastus

Haec et plura Melaenis, et haec et plura Lycisca
Cantabant surdas frustra mihi semper ad aures.
Sed canis ante lupas, et tauras diliget ursas,
Et vulpem lepores, et amabit dama leaenas,
Quam vel tympana docta ciere canora Lycisca
Mutabit nostros vel blanda Melaenis amores.
Et prius aequoribus pisces, et montibus umbrae,
Et volucres deerunt silvis, et murmura ventis,
Quam mihi discedent formosae Amaryllidos ignes:
Ilia mihi1 rudibus succendit pectora flammis,
Finiet ilia meos moriens morientis amores.

TRANSLATION

(By A. L. Taylor, M.A., Glasgow High School.)

O beauteous Amaryllis, now from thee

Seven weary years have kept my feet afar ;
Yet not those winters, howsoe'er it be

They to the snow-storms dread the gates unbar,
Nor all those summers, when the sun's bright car

Burns with devouring heat, have power to slay

1 In all editions, except Hart's Edinburgh edition, Kuddiniau's, and
Burmann'a, meum is wrongly given instead of mihi.

Desiderium Lutetiae 277

The watchful cares that in my bosom are :

My heart's deep longing time can not allay,
And that so distant date seems but as yesterday.

Thou art my song at dawning, when the dew

Lies on the fields where nibbling flocks do stray :
At noon my song and I the strain renew

When the long shadows mark the dying day :
And night, that hideth all in dark array,

Hides not from me thine eyes that beauteous beam :
In the black night I name thy name alway,

And fold thee to my breast, and this doth seem
To solace my sad heart although 'tis but a dream.

But ah, when sleep departs, with morning light

Those cares reborn, my home I sadly flee,
As though its dreadful walls of this my plight

So piteous the sombre source might be.
In the lone fields I wander dolefully

Wherever chance may turn my careless feet,
And, as I make my plaint, forlorn for thee,

The desert caves, each woodland wild retreat
And all the listening rocks the echo sad repeat.

Echo alone that hears how I complain

Mourns with me when I mourn, and when I sigh,
From forth the neighbouring caves he sends again

Each sad lament and each despairing cry,
And ofttimes from a rock's steep summit high

I cast mine eyes forlorn upon the sea,
And the wild foaming waves all frenziedly

I call aloud and the wild winds that flee
Heedless of all ray prayers that unavailing be.

" O sea, and you, ye Nereids that do cleave

The sea's bright waves, ah, be ye gentle now,
And me within your havens safe receive,

Or if ye may not with such grace endow,
Even shipwrecked shall I go, if ye allow

That shipwrecked I may win the shores so dear."
How often I have made my solemn vow

To the soft western winds that I did hear
Hastening towards the land where I was fain to steer :

278 Poems and Translations

" Ye happy winds that all so soon shall see

My Amaryllis, may Pyrene ne'er
With its harsh rocks a horrid barrier be

To vex your gentle wings against them there,
As ye to Amaryllis shall declare

The burning flames that tire her Daphnis' breast."
Ah me, how many times with anxious care

The wings of Eurus I would fain arrest,
As o'er the waves he flew, with sorrowful request.

" Wind that my Amaryllis late hast seen,

O happy wind, hath she remembrance still?
Tell me, O wind, if yet her heart hath been

Filled with the love that doth my bosom fill.
Or have the embers of that love grown chill ? "

But he flies from me like a man in ire
With raucous murmurs loud and fierce and shrill,

Freezing with cold my heart that was afire ;
My lifeless limbs are bound as if in torpor dire.

And now the things that shepherds do delight

Not solace me, the tabor hath no joy :
Along the grassy mead the dances light

Of the sweet nymphs do but my heart annoy ;
For me the goat-foot forest gods deploy

The wonders of their sylvan notes in vain ;
And every rapture now hath some alloy ;

For Amaryllis all my love hath ta'en
And I all other loves reject in sad disdain.

Sweet-voiced Lycisca of such skill to sound

The harmonious timbrels, sweet Melaenis fair,
Iberians both, have loved me, both renowned

For youth and wealth, but not for these I care;
Albeit their sires that wealth with me would share :

A hundred lambs they promised as their dower,
With their own ewes, and secret gifts and rare

Their mothers preferred : vain was all their power
To draw my heart away from its true love an hour.

Nor snowy lambs with their own ewes could move
This heart of mine, nor could the maidens sweet

Desidenum Lutetiae 279

With all their flatteries fair allure my love,

Nor all their charms with that one charm compete.

As spring surpasses winter, as the heat
Of youth outvies age, weak and withered,

As the fair maiden now for marriage meet
Her mother far outvies — thrice widowed,

Beauty and grace now gone and all her fairness fled ;

As Rhine the Douro, as the lordly Seine

Outvies Mondego, as the beauteous stream
Of the smooth Arar doth the stream disdain

Of Segne, as the lovely Loire doth seem
Fairer than Ebro — Loire men fairest deem

Of all the waves fair France sends to the sea, —
Even so my Amaryllis I esteem

Fairer than all the maids that beauteously
Move o'er Iberia's meads, howe'er they beauteous be.

Ofttimes Melaenis gazing in the sea

Adorns her face, adorns her lovely hair ;
Makes bright her eyes in eagerness to be

Fair to behold and to behold is fair ;
Ofttimes my heart she subtly seeks to share :

" O frenzied Daphnis, wherefore passion so !
For distant loves thy fui'ious longings spare,

The things thou lovest here thy heart may know,
Pluck the bright grapes and let the vain illusions go."

Oft as I passed the festal company

Lycisca who had seen would turn away
Her countenance as one that doth not see ;

And then as though with menace to dismay,
She, as she beat the earth in dances gay

And as she beat the hollow timbrels loud,
Sang as in warning : " Terrible alway

The wrath of Nemesis, and lovers proud,
That scorned sweet love, hath still with punishment endowed."

And I have seen the huntsman, who in scorn

Had passed the hedgehog while the hare he sought,

At eventide with Holeful steps return,

His bag with neither hare nor hedgehog fraught ;

280 Poems and Translations

And I have seen the fisherman, that caught

A goodly tench in his close-woven net,
Eager for mullet wisdom sadly taught

When at the eventide, his basket yet
Of tench and mullet void, — he told his vain regret.

And I have seen the herd that did deride

The growing reeds what time he sought in vain
The polished boxwood that afar doth hide

(Meantime the reeds that he did so disdain
Another shepherd wins) content to gain

The fragile hemlock : so doth Nemesis
Beat down the proud : these things and more the twain,

Lycisca and Melaenis, well I wis
Would sing to me, but still their songs the mark would miss.

Dogs with she-wolves, with she-bears bulls will mate,

The hare with fox, with lion fierce the hind,
Or e'er sweet-voiced Lycisca compensate

My heart's desire or sweet Melaenis kind :
Birds shall desert the wood, and sighs the wind,

Fishes the sea, and shades the shadowy hill,
Ere Amaryllis be by me resigned ;

With love so strong she doth my bosom fill ;
And when death stills her heart, my heart shall be as still.

VI.

Advcntus in Galliam.

(Fratrea Fraterrimi — XXVIII.)

As a fitting sequel to the previous poem, De.sidt.rium Lutetiae, the poet here
gives expression to his sentiments on revisiting France.

The French translation is the work that won the Steele Prize offered to
students of Bordeaux.

Jejuna miserae tesqua Lusitaniae,
Glebaeque tantum fertiles penuriae,
Valete longum. At tu beata Gallia
Salve, bonarum blanda nutrix artium,
Coelo salubri, fertili frugum solo,
Umbrosa colles pampini molli coma,
Pecorosa saltus, rigua valles fontibus,
Prati virentis picta campos floribus,
Velifera longis amnium decursibus,
Piscosa stagnis, rivulis, lacubus, mari;
Et hinc et illinc portuoso littore
Orbem receptans hospitem, atque orbi tuas
Opes vicissim non avara impertiens;
Amoena villis, tuta muris, turribus
Superba, tectis lauta, cultu splendida,
Victu modesta, moribus non aspera,
Sermone comis, patria gentium omnium
Communis, animi fida, pace florida,
Jucunda, facilis, Marte terrifico minax,
Invicta, rebus non secundis insolens,
Nee sorte dubia fracta, cultrix numinis
Sincera, ritum in exterum non degener:
Nescit calores lenis aestas torridos,
Frangit rigores bruma flammis asperos,

282 Poems and Translations

Non pestilentis pallet Austri spiritu
Autumnus aequis temperatus flatibus,
Non ver solutis amnium repagulis
Inundat agros, et labores eluit.
Ni patrio te amore diligam, et colam
Dum vivo, rursus non recuso visere
Jejuna miserae tesqua Lusitaniae,
Glebasque tantum fertiles penuriae.

TRANSLATION

(By Andrte Waltz, University of Bordeaux.)

O maigre Portugal, ingrate et triste terre,
Dont les champs n'ont produit jauiais que la misere,
Adieu pour plus d'un jour ! — Et toi, terre des Francs,
Salut, toi qui souris aux Beaux Arts, tea enfants !
Ton ciel est doux, ton sol fe*cond ; le pampre ombrage
Tes fortunes coteaux de son moelleux feuillage.
Ici les gras troupeaux paissent au flanc des monts ;
Les sources d'onde pure arrosent tes vallons ;
La fleur brille en tes pre"s comme au ciel les e'toiles ;
Tes grands fleuves partout bercent les blanches voiles ;
Mille et mille poissons pullulent dans tes eaux,
Peuplant tes mers, tes lacs, tes e tangs, tes ruisseaux ;
Les ports hospitallers de tes divers rivages
Accueillent 1'univers ; aux plus lointains parages
D'innombrables vaisseaux prodiguent tes tre'sors ;
Tes riantes villas, tes fieres tours, tes forts,
Tes splendides palais, le luxe de tes villes,
Ton accueil bienveillant, tes coutumes faciles,
Ton aimable parler, ta paix, ta bonne foi,
Charment les etrangers : tous les peuples en toi
Ont une autre patrie. Aux ennemis terrible,
Tu jouis sans orgueil de ta force invincible ;
Aux jours douteux tu vois le peril sans terreur ;
Ta pie'te' reste sourde a I'e'trangere erreur.
L'Ete*, qu'un frais Zephyr ici toujours re*frene,
Ne connait pas les feux de la terre Africaine,
L'Hiver, que de ton ciel attie'dit la chaleur,
Du Nord n'apporte pas ici 1'apre rigueur ;

Adventus in Galliam 283

L'Automne, temper^ par des vents salutaires,
De 1'Auster ne craint pas les souffles dele"teres ;
Et jamais, au Printemps, les torrents de'borde's
Et sans frein se ruant sur les champs inonde"s
N'engloutissent soudain la moisson qu'on espere.
Si, tant que je vivrai, inon cceur ne te reVere
Et ne te garde pas un filial amour,
O France, je consens a revoir quelque jour
Du maigre Portugal 1'ingrate et triste terre,
Dont les champs n'ont produit jamais que la misere.

TRANSLATION

(by T. D. Robb, M.A., Paisley}.

FAREWELL, thou wretched land, whose soil
Bemocks the famished peasant's toil.
Heaven hold what else for me in store,
But Lusitania never more!

Hail, happy France ! Thy gentle care

Tends every art that makes life fair.

Thy heaven breathes health; thy peasants sow

Furrows where fattened harvests grow,

Or rear on basking hills the shade

Of vines. Thine, too, the well-browsed glade,

Vales flowing with well-waters, plains

That every meadow-blossom stains,

And rivers that with easy sweep

Bear barges to the greater deep,

Where mariners with every gale

In many a harbour strike the sail,

To find, with all the wealth they bring,

From thee no niggard bartering.

Hail ! where the lords of land reside
In charm of grange or towered pride;
And hail ! where many a dainty roof
Gleams safe mid rampart towns, war-proof.
Pleasant thy speech, thy graces shine
In tasteful manners that refine
The coarser world, whose travellers own
A common love to thee alone.

284 Poems and Translations

Sound heart at all times ! Whether Peace

Freshen thy fields in sweet surcease

Of foray, or terrific War

Come trampling o'er them from afar;

So light, so gay thy peaceful mood,

So dauntless in the day of blood.

Nor vain in happiness and power,

Nor cast down in thy evil hour,

God is thy God, and still to thee

As in thy pristine piety,

A noble worship undefiled.

Blest land ! thy summer ever mild,

Thy mellow winter, put to shame

Untempered climes of frost and flame.

No plagues from the wan-stricken South

Breathe from thy Autumn's wholesome mouth,

Spring sets no ice-bound rivers free

To drown the seedling husbandry

That quickens o'er thy laboured earth.

My fatherland ! — even though my birth

Chanced elsewhere — when my feet shall roam

Thankless, to find a dearer home,

God send me to that wretched soil

That mocks the famished peasant's toil,

And curse me, as he cursed before,

On Lusitania's barren shore.

VII.

Ad Invictissimum Franciae Regem Henricum IL
Post Victos Caletes.

(Liber Miscellaneorum — I.)

THIS very fine poem was first published in 1558 by Robert Stephanus or
Stephen, but under another title — De Caleto nuper ab Henrico II. Francorum
JRege invictias. recepta. In that edition, however, the last four lines of the
poem are not given. It refers to the capture of Calais by the Duke of Guise
in 1558, which occasion also moved De 1'Hdpital, Turnebus, and others to
verse. All these are printed in the Basel edition of Buchanan's Franciscanus
et Fratren, and some of them in Paradin's De Motibus Galliae et vxpugmato
receptoque Itio Culetorum anno 1558, printed in Rerum Germanicorurn scriptores
by Schrader, III. pp. 9-30 (1673). The English Translation here given is by
Rev. Francis Mahony, S.J. ("Father Prout").

It again shows how remarkable was Buchanan's attachment to the
French people and how much he was interested in their welfare. His refer-
ence to pater Romanus is, moreover, a sign that the Lutheran reformers have
not yet secured his sympathy.

286 Poems and Translations

Ad Invictissimum Franciae Regcm Henricum II.
Post Victos Caletes.

Non Parca .fati conscia, lubricae
Non sortis axis sistere nescius,
Non siderum lapsus, sed unus
Rerum opifex moderatur orbem :

Qui terrain inertem stare loco jubet,
Aequor perennes volvere vortices,
Coelumque nunc lucem tenebris
Nunc tenebras variare luce:

Qui temperatae sceptra modestiae
Dat, et protervae frena superbiae :
Qui lacrymis foedat triumphos,
Et lacrymas hilarat triumphis.

Exempla longe ne repetam : en jacet
Fractusque et exspes, quern gremio suo
Fortuna fotum, nuper omnes
Per populos tumidum ferebat.

Nee tu, secundo flamine quern super
Felicitatis vexerat aequora,
Henrice, virtus, nesciisti

Imbriferae f remit um procellae.

Sed pertinax hunc fastus adhuc premit,
Urgetque pressum : et progeniem sui,
Fiducia pari tumentem

Glade pari exagitat Philippum.

Te, qui minorem te superis geris,
Culpamque fletu diluis agnitam,
Mitis parens placatus audit,
Et solitum cumulat favorem :

Redintegratae nee tibi gratiae
Obscura promit signa. Sub algido
Nox Capricorno longa terras
Perpetuis tenebris premebat ;

Post Victos Caletes 287

Rigebat auris bruma nivalibus,
Amnes acuto constiterant gelu,
Deformis horror incubabat
Jugeribus viduis colono:

At signa castris Francus ut extulit
Ductorque Franci Guisius agminia,
Arrisit algenti sub Arcto
Temperies melioris aurae.

Hiems retuso languida spiculo
Vim mitigavit frigoris asperi :
Siccis per hibernum serenum
Nube cava stetit imber arvis.

Stravit quietis aequora fluctibus
Neptunus, antris condidit Aeolus
Ventos, nisi Francas secundo
Flamine qui veherent carinas.

Per arva nuper squalida, et ignibus
Adhuc BniTANNis pene calentia,1
Cornu benigno commeatus
Copia luxurians profudit.

Idem ut reductas abdidit oppidis
Francus cohortes, mitis hiems modo
Se rursus armavit procellis,
Et positas renovavit iras.

Stant lenta pigro flumina marmore,
Canisque campi sub nivibus latent,
Diverberatum saevit aequor
Horriferis Aquilonis alis.

Ergo nee altis tuta paludibus
Tulere vires moenia Gallicas,
Nee arcibus tutae paludes
Praecipitem tenuere cursum.

1 Stephen's Edition of 1558 gives this line as " Adhuc Britanni pent,
calentibus."

288 Poems and Translations

Loraene princeps, praecipuo DEI
Favore felix, praecipuas DEUS
Cui tradidit paries, superbos
Ut premeres domitrice dextra.

CJnius anni curriculo, sequens
Vix credet aetas promeritas tibi
Tot laureas, nee si per auras
Pegasea veherere penna.

Cessere saltus ninguidi, et Alpium
Inserta coelo culmina, cum pater
Romanus oraret, propinquae ut
Subjiceres humeros ruinae.

Defensa Roma, et Capta Valentia,
Coacta pacem Parthenope pati,
Fama tui Segusianus

Barbarica face liberatus.

Aequor procellis terra paludibus,
Armis BRITANNUS, moenia seculis
Invicta longis, insolentes

Munierant aninios Caletum :

Loraena virtus, sueta per invia
Non usitatum carpere tramitem,
Invicta devincendo, famam
Laude nova veterem refellit.

Ferox BRITANNUS viribus antehac,
Gallisque semper cladibus imminens,
Vix se putat securum ab hoste
Fluctibus Oceani diremtus.

Regina, pacem nescia perpeti,
Jam spreta moeret foedera, jam Dei
Iram timet sibi imminentem,
Vindicis et furiae flagellum.

Gives et hostes jam pariter suos
Odit pavetque, et civium et hostium
Hirudo communis, cruorem
Aeque avide sitiens utrumque.

Post Victos Caletes 289

Huic luce terror Martius assonat,
Diraeque caedis mens sibi conscia,
Umbraeque nocturnae quietem
Terrificis agitant figuris.

Sic laesa poenas Justitia expetit,
Fastus superbos sic Nemesis premit,
Sic mitibus justisque praebet
Mitis opem Deus atque iustus.

TRANSLATION1

(by H. Bonnevie, L-es-L., University of Paris).

Ce n'est ni le fuseau des Parques, ni la roue /

De la fortune helas ! qui va toujours tournant,

Ni les astres brillants dont la course se joue

Au ciel le plus profond, d'un vaste glissement,

C'est le seul Createur qui gouverne le monde,

C'est lui seul qui maintient toujours aux memes lieux

La terre ou nous vivons, lui qui commande a 1'onde

De faire tournoyer sans cesse ses flots bleus,

Lui qui fait succeder dans la celeste nue

La nuit sombre au jour clair, le jour clair a la nuit,

Lui qui fait triompher la vertu retenue

Et punit la superbe insolente ; c'est lui

Qui trouble la victoire en y melant des larmes,

Et donne le succes pour egayer les pleurs.

L'exemple en est recent : il a brise les armes .

De ce roi, maintenant courbe sous les malheurs,

Que jadis dans son sein la Fortune frivole

Endormait mollement, et dont le nom heureux

De peuple en peuple allait comme 1'oiseau qui vole.

Toi-meme, roi fra^ais, Henri tres valeureux,

Dont la nef si longtemps, poussee a pleine voile

Par un zephyr clement, evita tout ecueil,

Le destin quelquefois fit palir ton etoile.

Mais lui s'est entete dans un coupable orgueil,

L'orgueil qui perd aussi son fils le roi d'Espagne

Pareillement enfle d'orde presomption

Et toi qu'une vertu si modeste accompagne,

1 This and the following French translation were placed equal for the
Steele Prize offered to students at the University of Paris.
V

290 Poems and Translations

Toi qui gardes toujours 1'humble condition

D'homme soumis aux Dieux, toi qui pleures tea fautes

Quand tu les reconnais, Dieu te cherit, t'entend

Et te comble a plaisir des faveurs les plus hautes.

Meme il t'en a donne plus d'un signe eclatant:

La nuit developpait ses longs voiles funebres

Sous le bouc encorne, plongeant ces pays froids

Dans le deuil attriste d'eternelles tenebres;

L'apre hiver raidissait les branches dans les bois;

Les vents charges de neige a travers le ciel bistre

Galopaient ; les cours d'eau geles ne coulaient plus ;

Sur les champs desertes 1'Horreur pesait, sinistre . . . ,

Mais des que les Fran9ais se furent resolus,

Sous le comraandement du noble due de Guise,

A mener hors des camps leurs gonfanons vainqueurs,

Un Zephyre riant vint pourchasser la bise,

Et 1'hiver moins piquant tempera ses rigueurs ;

Sur les sillons seches creverent les nuages ;

Neptune retablit le calme dans les flots,

Eole, son second, apaisa les orages

Et les tint desormais dans leurs antres enclos ;

II ne laissa dehors qu'une brise clemente

Pour pousser des Fran9ais les nefs sur 1'Ocean ;

Aux champs ou les Anglais, en leur fureur demente,

Avaient porte le feu, le mort et le neant,

L'Abondance vida sa corne, bienveillante.

Mais lorsque les cites eurent donne 1'abri

De leurs epais remparts a la troupe vaillante

Qui sous Guise marchait, vite 1'hiver reprit

Son courroux. De nouveau les tempetes surgissent,

Les fleuves arretes en marbre sont figes,

Les champs, abandonnes, sous la neige blanchissent,

Et 1'horrible Aquilon, mena9ant de dangers

Bat a nouveau les flots de ses ailes rapides ....

Cependant les remparts de marais entoures

Ne purent resister aux elans intrepides

Des soldats d'Henri deux. Vainement les marais

Entoures de remparts dresserent leur barriere

Centre eux : car ils allaient irresistiblement.

Et toi, prince fameux dont la Lorraine est fiere,

Post Victos Caletes 291

Mignon tant fortune de notre Dieu clement,

Toi dont il a choisi les armes redoutables

Pour chatier 1'orgueil, les ages a venir

Peut-etre kesiteront a croire veritables

Les exploits qu'en un an tu sus faire tenir.

Us douteraient encor, meme si sur ses ailes

Pegase t'avait pris et porte par les airs.

Tu vainquis 1'Alpe enorme aux neiges eternelles,

Dressant jusques au ciel 1'orgueil des monts deserts,

Et courus empecher de tes fortes epaules

Que du saint pape Paul, le puissance tombat.

Ta vaillance eut tot fait de renverser les roles :

Rome put respirer, Valence succomba,

Naples n'obtint la paix qu'a force de suppliques,

Et de tous tes hauts faits le bruit dans Tair epars

Sauva le Piemont des brandons germaniques

Les flots tempetueux, les marais, les remparts

Dont nul n'avait jamais viole la ceinture,

Avaient mis la superbe au coeur des Calaisiens.

Ton merite pourtant sut en cette aventure

Par un nouvel exploit eclipser les anciens.

Car tu vaincs et n'es pas vaincu ; car ton courage

Sait trouver des chemins inconnus jusqu'a toi . . .

Done Calais est repris ; 1'Anglais pleure de rage,

Lui, toujours le vainqueur, lui, 1'eternel effroi

De la France du Nord, il fuit et c'est a peine

Si sur les flots marins il se peut delivrer

De la peur des Fran9ais. Cependant que la reine

Qui detesta la paix, lors se prend a pleurer

D'avoir des vieux traites viole la promesse ;

Elle craint de son Dieu le mena9ant courroux,

Elle craint d'Alecton la fureur vengeresse,

Les Fran9ais, ses sujets, elle craint tout et tous;

Elle a soif de leur sang, comme une hydre feroce;

Mars lui fait redouter que le Fra^ais vainqueur

Batte encor ses soldats, le souvenir atroce

De ses crimes passes vient bourreler son coeur.

Et, quand la nuit enfin developpe son ombre,

C'est en vain qu'elle attend Foubli du doux Sommeil;

Elle voit se dresser des fantomes sans nombre,

Des fantomes blafards, taches de sang vermeil ....

292 Poems and Translations

Et c'est ainsi que Dieu, dans sa puissance auguste,
Salt chatier 1'orgueil au front trop haut monte,
C'est ainsi qu'il cherit le mortel bon et juste
En sa toute justice et sa toute bonte.

TRANSLATION

(reprinted from " Reliques of Father Prout " in Bohn'i
Illustrated Library, 1866)

Henry ! let none commend to thee

FATE, FORTUNE, DOOM, or DESTINY,

Or STAR in heaven's high canopy,

With magic glow
Shining on man's nativity,

For weal or woe.

Rather, O king ! here recognise

A PROVIDENCE all just, all wise,

Of every earthly enterprise

The hidden mover ;
Aye casting calm complacent eyes

Down on thy Louvre.

Prompt to assume the right's defence,
Mercy unto the meek dispense,
Curb the rude jaws of insolence

With bit and bridle,
And scourge the chiel whose frankincense

Burns for an idol.

Who, his triumphant course amid,
Who smote the monarch of Madrid,
And bade Pavia's victor bid

To power farewell?
Once Europe's arbiter, now hid

In hermit's cell.

Thou, too, hast known misfortune's blast ;
Tempests have beat thy stately mast
And nigh upon the breakers cast

Thy gallant ship :
But now the hurricane is past —

Hushed is the deep.

Post Victos Caletes 293

For PHILIP, lord of ARAGON,

Of haughty CHARLES the haughty son,

The clouds still gather dark and dun,

The sky still scowls ;
And round his gorgeous galleon

The tempest howls.

Thou, when th' Almighty ruler dealt
The blows thy kingdom lately felt,
Thy brow unhelmed, unbound thy belt,

Thy feet unshod,
Humbly before the chastener knelt,

And kissed the rod.

Pardon and peace thy penance bought;
Joyful the seraph Mercy brought
The olive-bough, with blessing fraught

For thee and France; —
God for thy captive kingdom wrought

Deliverance.

'Twas dark and drear ! 'twas winter's reign !
Grim horror walked the lonesome plain;
The ice held bound with crystal chain

Lake, flood, and rill;
And dismal piped the hurricane

His music shrill.

But when the gallant GUISE displayed
The flag of France, and drew the blade,
Straight the obsequious season bade

Its rigour cease ;
And, lowly crouching, homage paid

The Fleur de Lys.

Winter his violence withheld,
His progeny of tempests quelled,
His canopy of clouds dispelled,

Unveil'd the sun —
And blithesome days unparalleled

Began to run.

294 Poems and Translations

'Twas then beleaguered Calais found,
With swamps and marshes fenced around
With counterscarp, and moat, and mound,

And yawning trench,
Vainly her hundred bulwarks frowned

To stay the French.

Guise ! child of glory and Lorraine,
Ever thine house hath proved the bane
Of France's foes ! aye from the chain

Of slavery kept her,
And in the teeth of haughty Spain

Upheld her sceptre.

Scarce will a future age believe

The deeds one year saw thee achieve:

Fame in her narrative should give

Thee magic pinions
To range, with free prerogative,

All earth's dominions.

What were the year's achievements? first,
Yon Alps their barrier saw thee burst,
To bruise a reptile's head, who durst,

With viper sting,
Assail (ingratitude accurst ! )

Rome's Pontiff-King.

To rescue Rome, capture Flaisance,
Make Naples yield the claims of France,
While the mere shadow of thy lance

O'erawed the Turk: —
Such was, within the year's expanse,

Thy journey-work.

But Calais yet remained unwon —

Calais, stronghold of Albion,

Her zone begirt with blade and gun,

In all the pomp
And pride of war; fierce Amazon!

Queen of a swamp !

Post Victos Caletes 295

But even she hath proven frail,
Her walls and swamps of no avidl;
What citadel may Guise not scale,

Climb, storm, and seize?
What foe before thee may not quail,

O gallant Guise !

Thee let the men of England dread,
Whom Edward erst victorious led,
Right joyful now that ocean's bed

Between them rolls
And thee! — that thy triumphant tread

Yon wave controls.

Let ruthless Mary learn from hence
That Perfidy's a foul offence;
That falsehood hath its recompense,

That treaties broken
The anger of Omnipotence

At length have woken.

May evil counsels prove the bane
And curse of her unhallowed reign ;
Remorse, with its disastrous train,

Infest her palace ;
And may she of God's vengeance drain

The brimming chalice.

TRANSLATION1

(by H. Petitmangin, Paris University).

Ce n'est ni du destin les Parques confidentes,
Ni la fortune avec ses caprices divers,
Ni le pouvoir secret des etoiles mouvantes,
C'est le Dieu createur qui mene I'Univers.

Sur sa base immobile il affermit la terre,
II roule incessamment les tourbillons des eaux,
Par lui 1'obscurite succede a la lumiere,
Par lui le jour renait avec des feux nouveaux.
1 Steele Prize Translation.

296 Poems and Translations

Au coeur humble et paisible il donne la puissance,
Son frein salt moderer 1'impetueux orgueil,
II fait couler les pleurs des vainqueurs qu'on encense,
Le triomphe, par lui, vient rejouir le deuil.

N'en aliens pas chercher une preuve lointaine:
II git, brise, dechu de ses ambitions,
Celui que la Fortune attentive et sereine
Promenait glorieux parmi les nations.

Et toi, que la vertu, comme un vent favorable,
Dirigeait sur la mer de la felicite,
Henri, tu sais aussi le fracas effroyable
Des tempetes soufflant sous le ciel irrite.

Mais 1'autre est sans repit puni de son audace,
II git sous les debris de son f aste pervers ;
Et voici que Philippe, heritier de sa race,
Enfle du meme orgueil, sent les memes revers.

Pour toi, qui sais qu'au ciel appartient la puissance,
Que la faute ne peut s'effacer sans les pleurs,
Dieu, paternel et doux, comble ton esperance
Et joint a ses bienfaits de nouvelles faveurs.

II montre maintenant, par des preuves certaines,
Que sa grace est rendue a tes efforts heureux :
L'hiver avait longtemps etendu sur les plaines
D'une eternelle nuit le voile tenebreux ;

Pleins de neige les vents fendaient 1'air froid et morne,
Les fleuves s'arretaient sous le poids des gla9ons,
La sombre horreur planait a 1'horizon sans borne,
Sur les champs desoles que fuyaient les colons.

Mais lorsque de son camp une troupe fra^aise
Sortit armee, avec Guise pour general,
Au temps meme ou froid sur la terre encor pese,
On sentit la tiedeur d'un air moins glacial.

L'hiver sans aiguillon, se soutenant a peine,
De son apre froidure amoindrit les dangers,
Les champs resterent sees : 1'atmosphere sereine
Retint la pluie au fond des nuages legers.

Post Victos Caletes 297

Neptune se calma sur la plaine liquide ;
Eole, emprisonnant tous ses vents apaises
Dans son antre profond, ne lacha plus la bride
Qu'a ceux qui dirigeaient les navires f ratals.

La campagne naguere etait sterile et morne,
Elle f umait des feux qu'allumaient les Anglais ;
Mais bientot 1'Abondance eut verse de sa corne
De riantes moissons sur les champs desoles.

Et des que le Fran9ais fut rentre dans ses forts,
L'hiver, auparavant si clement et si doux,
De tempetes s'arma pour de nouveaux efforts,
Et reprit, plus terrible encore, son courroux.

Les fleuves sous la glace en vain cherchent passage ;
Sous leur linceul de neige au loin dorment les champs ;
Sous 1'Aquilon strident les Oceans font rage
Fouettes par 1'aile horrible et sifflante des vents.

Us n'ont done pu briser les efforts de la France,
Ces remparts defendus par Feau de toutes parts,
Us n'ont point arrete 1'elan de sa vaillance,
Ces fosses proteges par d'orgueilleux remparts.

O favori du ciel, o Prince de Lorraine,

Toi qui re9us de Dieu le role glorieux

De courber sous le poids de ta main souveraine

De tes fiers ennemis les fronts audacieux,

Les siecles a venir voudront a peine croire
Que ta valeur durant le cours de douze mois,
Ait pu recueillir tant de lauriers et de gloire,
Lors rneme que Pegase eut hate tes exploits.

Des Alpes les sommets neigeux, leur haute chaine,
Qui menace le ciel, t'ont ouvert un chemin,
Quand le Romain sentant sa ruine prochaine
Te demandait 1'appui de ta vaillante main.

Tu sauvas Rome et tu t'emparas de Valence;
Parthenope rebelle enfin dut t'obeir ;
Au seul bruit de ton nom devant sa delivrance
Suze, du feu sauvee, a vu 1'ennemi fuir.

298 Poems and Translations

Sur mer, lea ouragans, du cote de la terre,
L'enceinte des fosses, les troupes des Anglais,
Des remparts, si longtemps invincible barriere,
Avaient nourri 1'orgueil confiant de Calais.

Mais ton courage a qui rien n'est inaccessible,
S'ouvrant dans 1'inconnu de glorieux sentiers,
Fait oublier, ardent a vaincre 1'invincible,
Les lauriers d'autrefois par de nouveaux lauriers.

Les Anglais jusqu'alors si fiers d'une puissance
Dont la France attendait toujours quelque malheur,
A peine maintenant mettent leur confiance
Dans les flots dont les ceint 1'ocean protecteur.

Leur reine a qui la paix pesait si fort naguere,
Pleure d'avoir trahi ses traites, la terreur
Lui montre dans le ciel la divine colere
Qui plane, et la Furie avec son fouet vengeur.

Son coeur etant gonfle de craintes et de haines,
Non moins pour ses sujets que pour ses ennemis,
Elle mele, sangsue attachee a leurs veines,
Le sang des etrangers au sang de ses amis.

Durant le jour, Mars jette en une terreur sombre
Son coeur, plein du remords de tant de sang verse,
Et lorsqu'elle repose, a son chevet, dans 1'ombre,
Quelque spectre, chassant le sommeil, est dresse.

Tel est le chatiment que 1'injustice attire,
Ainsi brise 1'orgueil Nemesis en courroux,
Mais ceux que la douceur, que la justice inspire
Sont proteges toujours par le Dieu juste et doux.

VIIL

Francisci Valesii et Mariae Stuartae, regum Franciae
et Scotiae, Epithalamium.

(Silvae—IV.)

THIS was written on the marriage of Francis of Valois, Dauphin of France,
with Queen Mary in 1558. It is one of his finest poems, and displays a
"fertility of fancy and felicity of diction which preclude all comparison."
His loyalty is expressed in his praise for his native land, and points out that
the Dauphin would be by the marriage even a greater gainer than the Queen
of Scots. He not only glorifies the Scots for their valour in war but their
peaceful inclinations, and praises highly the bride's grace of mind and person.

Poems and Translations

Francisci Valesii et Mariae Stuartae, regum Franciac
et Scotiae, Epithalamium.

Unde repentino fremuerunt viscera motu ?
Cur Phoebum desueta pati praecordia anhelus
Fervor agit, mutaeque diu Parnassidos umbrae
Turba iterum arcanis renovat Paeana sub antris ?
Nuper enim, memini, squalebat rnarcida laurus,
Muta chelys, tristis Phoebus, citharaeque repertor
Areas, et ad surdas fundebam vota sorores.
Nunc Phoebi delubra patent, nunc Delphica rupes
Panditur, et sacro cortina remugit ab antro.
Nunc lauro meliore comas innexa sororum
Turba venit, nunc Aoniae non invida lymphae
Irrigat aeternos Pimplei ruris honores,
Laetaque Pieriae revirescit gloria silvae.
Fallimur ? an nitidae tibi se, Francisce, Camoenae
Exornant ? tibi serta parant, tibi flore1 recenti
Templa novant ? mutumque diu formidine Martis
Gaudent insolitis celebrare Helicona choreis?
Scilicet baud alius nemoris decerpere fructus
Dignior Aonii, seu quern numerare triumphos
Forte juvat patrios, seu consecrata Camoenis
Otia: sic certe est. Hinc laeto compita plausu
Cuncta fremunt : legumque exuta licentia frenos
Ludit : Hymen, Hymenaeus adest : lux ilia pudicis
Exoptata diu votis, lux aurea venit:
Venit. Habes tandem toties quod mente petisti,
O decus Hectoridum2 juvenis : jam pone querelas,
Desine spes nimium lentas, jam desine longas
Incusare moras, dum tardum signifer annum
Torqueat, ignavos peragat dum Cynthia menses.
Grande morae pretium fers : quod si prisca tulissent
Secula, non raptos flesset Menelaus amores,
Et sine vi, sine caede Phrygum Cytherea probatae
Solvere Priamidae potuisset praemia formae.
Digna quidem facies, quam vel trans aequoris aestus
Classe Paris rapiat, vel conjurata reposcat

1 Hart's Edinburgh edition gives fronde.

2 Buchanan, according to poetic usage, has represented the French as
Hectoridae. Mediaeval mythology makes out the Gauls to be sons of Francus,
who was a son of the Trojan Hector.

Epithalamium 301

Graecia : nee minus est animi tibi, nee minor ardor
Quam Phrygio Grajove duci, si postulet arma
Conjugii tutela tui. Sed mitior in te
Et Venus, et teneri fuit indulgentia nati,
Qui quod ames tribuere domi : puerilibus annis
Coeptus amor tecum crevit : quantumque juventae
Viribus accessit, tanto se flamma per artus
Acrius insinuans1 tenerum pascebat amorem.
Non tibi cura fuit, quae saepius anxia Regum
Pectora sollicitat, longinquae obnoxia flammae :
Nee metus is torsit, veri praenuntia fama
Ne vero majora ferat,2 dum secula prisca
Elevat, et primum formae tibi spondet honorem :
Cera nee in varias docilis transire figuras
Suspendit trepidum dubia formidine mentem :
Nee tua commisti tacitis suspiria chartis,
Rumorisque vagam timuisti pallidus umbram.
Ipse tibi explorator eras, formaeque probator,
Et morum testis. Nee conciliavit amorem
Hunc tibi luxuries legum indignata teneri
Imperio, aut primis temerarius ardor ab annis:
Sed sexu virtus, annis prudentia major,
Et decori pudor, et conjuncta modestia sceptris,
Atque haec cuncta ligans arcano gratia nexu.
Spes igitur dubiae, lentaeque facessite curae;
Ipse tuis oculis tua vota tuere, probasque :
Speratosque leges sine sollicitudine fructus,
Nullaque fallacis delusus imagine somni
Irrita mendaci facies convicia nocti.
Expectatus Hymen jam junget foedere dextras ;
Mox etiam amplecti, mox et geminare licebit
Basia, mox etiam non tantum basia: sed tu,
Quamlibet approperes, animo moderare : beatum
Nobiscum partire diem, tu gaudia noctis
Solus tota feres : quanquam neque gaudia noctis
Solus tota feres : et nos communiter aequum est
Laetitiam gaudere tuam ; communia vota
Fecimus, et sacras pariter placavimus aras,

1 The Basel Edition has aecendens instead of insimtans.

2 The older editions wrongly have printed what would be terat instead
of ferat.

302 Poems and Translations

Miscuimusque preces, et spesque metusque tuosque
Sensimus affectus : aegre1 tecum hausimus una
Taedia longa morae. Super! nunc plena secundi
Gaudia cum referant, sensus pervenit ad omnes
Laetitiae, mentemque ciens renovata voluptas
Crescit, et exsultant trepidis praecordia fibris.
Qualis ubi Eois Phoebus caput extulit undis
Purus, et auratum non turbidus extulit axem,
Cuspide jucundae lucis percussa renident
Arva, micat tremulo crispatus lumine pontus,
Lenibus aspirat flabris innubilus aer,
Blanda serenati ridet dementia coeli :
At si nubiferos effuderit Aeolus Austros,
Et pluviis gravidam coelo subtexuit umbram,
Moesta horret rerum facies, defonnia lugent
Arva, tument fluctus, campis gravis incubat aer,
Torpet et obductum picea caligine coelum :
Sic ex te populus suspensus gaudia, curas,
Moeroresque trahit : rosea nee sola juventa
Florida, nee spatiis quae te propioribus aetas
Insequitur, genio indulgent, vultuque soluto
Lusibus exhilarant aptos juvenilibus annos;
Hunc posita vultus gravitate severior aetas
Laetatur celebrare diem, matresque verendae
Non tacito hunc, tacitoque optat virguncula voto.

Quid loquar humanas admittere gaudia mentes?
Ipsa parens rerum totos renovata per artus
Gestit, et in vestros penitus conspirat honores.
Aspice jam primum radiati luminis orbem
Semper inexhausta2 lustrantem lampade terras,
Ut niteat, blanda ut flagrantes mitiget ignes
Temperie, ut cupidos3 spectacula vestra tueri
Purpureo vultus maturior exserat ortu,
Serius occiduas currus demittat in undas,
Ut gelidos repetens flamma propiore triones
Contrahat aestivas angusta luce tenebras.
Ipsa etiam tellus virides renovatur amictus,

1 Stephen's 1567 edition and that of Pattiaon who had married the
widow of Robert Stephen or Estienne, give aegrae instead of aegre.

2 All editions, except Hart's and the London Edition of 1686, give
inexJiauxto.

3 All editions except Stephen's, Ruddiman's, and Burmann's give cupido.

Epithalamium 303

Et modo pampineas meditatur collibus umbras,
Et modo messe agros, modo pingit floribus hortos
Horrida nee tenero cessant mansuescere foetu
Tesqua, nee armati spina sua brachia vepres,
Nee curvare f eros pomis aviaria ramos :
Inque omnes frugum facies bona copia cornu
Solvit, et omniferum beat indulgentior annum,
Pignoris hoc spondens felices omine taedas.
Fortunati ambo, et felici tempore nati,
Et thalamis juncti ! vestram concordia mundi
Spem fovet, aspirat votis, indulget honori :
Atque utinam nullis unquam labefacta querelis
Conjugium hoc canos concordia servet in annos.
Et (mihi ni vano fallax praecordia Phoebus
Impulit augurio) quern jungit sanguinis ortus,
Et commune genus proavum, serieque perenni
Foedus amicitiae solidum, quern more vetusto
Sancta verendarum committunt foedera legum,
Nulla dies unquam vestrum divellet amorem.
Vos quoque felici lucent quibus omine taedae,
Quo studium, populique favor, quo publica regni
Vota precesque vocant, alacres accedite : tuque,
Tu prior, o Reges non ementite parentes,
Hectoride juvenis, tota complectere mente
Quam dedit uxorem tibi lex, natura sororem,
Parentem imperio sexus, dominamque voluntas,
Quam sociam vitae tibi conjunxere parentes,
Et genus, et virtus, et forma, et nubilis aetas,
Et promissa fides, et qui tot vincula nectens
Firmius arctat amor totidem per vincula nexus.
Si tibi communi assensu connubia Divae
Annuerent, Paris umbrosa quas vidit in Ida,
Permittantque tuo socias tibi jungere taedas
Arbitrio, quid jam, voti licet improbus, optes
Amplius ? Eximiae delectat gratia formae ?
Aspice quantus honos frontis, quae gratia blandis
Interfusa genis, quam mitis flamma decoris
Fulguret ex oculis, quam conspirarit amico
Foedere cum tenera gravitas matura juventa,
Lenis et augusta cum ma j estate venustas.
Pectora nee formae cedunt exercita curis

304 Poems and Translations

Palladiis, et Pierias exculta per artes

Tranquillant placidos Sophia sub judice1 mores.

Si series generis longusque propaginis ordo

Quaeritur: haec una centum de stirpe nepotes

Sceptriferous numerare potest, haec regia sola est,

Quae bis dena suis includat secula fastis ;

Unica vicinis toties pulsata procellis,

Externi immunis domini : quodcunque vetustum

Gentibus in reliquis vel narrat fama, vel audet

Fabula, longaevis vel credunt secula fastis

Hue compone, novum est. Ampla si dote moveris

Accipe dotales Mavortia pectora Scotos.

Nee tibi frugiferae memorabo hie jugera glebae

[Aut saltus pecore, aut foecundas piscibus undas, ]2

Aut aeris gravidos et plumbi pondere sulcos,

Et nitidos auro montes, ferroque rigentes,

Deque metalliferis manantia flumina venis,

Quaeque beant alias communia commoda gentes.

Haec vulgus miretur iners, quique omnia spernunt

Praeter opes, quibus assidue sitis acris 3 habendi

Tabifico oblimat praecordia crassa veneno.

Ilia pharetratis est propria gloria Scotis,

Cingere venatu saltus, superare natando

Flumina, ferre famem, contemnere frigora et aestus;

Nee fossa et muris patriam, sed Marte tueri,

Et spreta incolumem vita defendere famam ;

Polliciti servare fidem, sanctumque vereri

Numen amicitiae, mores, non munus amare.

Artibus his, totum fremerent cum bella per orbem

Nullaque non leges tellus mutaret avitas

Externo subjecta jugo, gens una vetustis

Sedibus antiqua sub libertate resedit.

Substitit hie Gothi furor, hie gravis impetus haesit

Saxonis, hie Cimber superato Saxone, et acri

Perdomito Neuster Cimbro. Si volvere priscos

Non piget annales, hie et victoria fixit

Praecipitem Romana gradum : quern non gravis Auster

Reppulit, incultis non squalens Parthia campis,

1 In Hart's edition praeside is given instead of jwlice.

2 This line is not in any other editions than Hart's, Ruddiman's, and Bur-
mann's.

'Since Hart, the recent editions except Rmldiman and Burmann have
aeris instead of acris.

Epithalamium 305

Non aestu Meroe, non frigore Rhenus et Albis
Tardavit, Latium remorata est Scotia cursum:
Solaque gens mundi est, cum qua non culmine mentis,
Non rapidi ripis amnis, non objice silvae,
Non vasti spatiis campi Romana potestas,
Sed muris fossaque1 sui confinia regni
Munivit : gentesque alias cum pelleret armis
Sedibus, aut victas vilem servaret in usum
Servitii, hie contenta suos defendere fines
Roma securigeris praetendit moenia Scotis :
Hie spe progressus posita, Carronis ad undam
Terminus2 Ausonii signat divortia regni.
Neve putes duri studiis assueta Gradivi
Pectora mansuetas non emollescere ad artes,
Haec quoque, cum Latium quateret Mars barbarus orbem,
Sola prope expulsis fuit hospita terra Camoenis.
Hinc Sophiae Grajae, Sophiae decreta Latinae,
Doctoresque rudis formatoresque juventae
• Carolus3 ad Celtas traduxit : Carolus idem
Qui Francis Latios fasces, trabeamque Quirini
Ferre dedit Francis, conjunxit foedere Scotos :
Foedere, quod neque Mars ferro, nee turbida possit
Solvere seditio, aut dominandi insana cupido,
Nee series aevi, nee vis ulla altera, praeter
• Sanctius et vinclis foedus propioribus arctans.
Tu licet ex ilia numeres aetate triumphos,
Et conjuratum cunctis e partibus orbem
Nominis ad Franci exitium, sine milite Scoto
Nulla unquam Francis fulsit victoria castris,
Nulla unquam Hectoridas sine Scoto sanguine clades
Saevior oppressit : tulit haec communiter amnes
Fortunae gens una vices: Francisque minantes
Saepe in se vertit gladios. Scit belliger Anglus,
Scit ferus hoc Batavus, testis Phaethontias unda,4

1 This refers to the Antonine Wall that extended from the Forth to the Clyde.

2 Dr. Longmuir (1871) says: " There was standing in Buchanan's time a
round tower near the Carron, which he supposed to be a temple of Terminus.
A stone erected by the legions on the wall is to be seen in the Antiquarian
Museum in Edinburgh."

3 This refers to Charlemagne.

4 Buchanan was staying with the Marechal de Brissac when he wrote this
poem, and the reference here is to one of de Brissac's expeditions to Italy and
hie operations on the River Po.

306 Poems and Translations

Nee semel infaustis repetita Neapolis armis.
Hanc tibi dat conjux dotem, tot secula fidam
Conjunctamque tuis social! foedere gentem,
Auspicium felix thalamis concordibus, armis
Indomitos populos per tot discrimina, felix
Auspicium bellis, venturaeque omina palmae.

At tu conjugio, Nymphe, dignata superbo,
Te licet et Juno, et bellis metuenda virago,
Et Venus, et Charitum larga indulgentia certet
Muneribus decorare suis, licet ille secundus
Spe votisque hominum Francae moderator habenae,
Et solo genitore minor, tibi Regia sceptra
Submittat, blando et dominam te praedicet ore,
Sexum agnosce tamen, dominaeque immunis habenae
Hactenus imperio jam nunc assuesce jugali :
Disce jugum, sed cum dilecto conjuge, ferre :
Disce pati imperium, victrix patiendo futura.
Aspicis Oceanum saxa indignatus ut undis
Verberet, et cautes tumida circumf remat ira :
Rupibus incursat, demoliturque procellis
Fundamenta terens, scopulisque assultat adesis :
Ast ubi se tellus molli substravit arena,
Hospitioque Deum blande invitavit amoeno,
Ipse domat vires, placidusque et se minor ire
In thalamos gaudet non torvo turbidus ore,
Non spumis fremituque minax, sed fronte serena
Littus inoffensum lambit, sensimque relabens
Arrepit facilis cerni, et, ceu mollia captet
Oscula, ludentes in littore lubricat undas.
Cernis ut infirmis hedera enitatur in altum
Frondibus, et molli serpens in robora. flexu
Paullatim insinuet sese, et complexibus haerens
Emicet, et mediis pariter caput inserat astris.
Flectitur obsequio rigor, obsequioque paratur
Et retinetur amor. Neu te jactura relictae
Sollicitet patriae, desideriumque parentis :
Haec quoque terra tibi patria est, hie stirpe propinqui,
Hie generis pars magna tui, multosque per annos
Fortunatorum series longissima Regum,
Unde genus ducis, rerum moderatur habenas.
Quoquo oculos vertes, quoquo vestigia flectes,

Epithalamium 307

Cognatis pars nulla vacat, locus exhibet omnis
Aut generis socios, aut fastis inclyta gentis
Ostentat monumenta tuae. Jam ut caetera mittam,
Hie te, qui cunctis merito praeponderat unus,
Expectat longe pulcherrimus Hectoridarum,
Pene tibi stirpis communis origine f rater:
Mox etiam fratrem quod vincat amore futurus,
Et matrem, et quicquid consanguinitate verendum
Lex facit, et, legum quam jussa valentior ulla,
Naturae arcanos pulsans reverentia sensus.
Hie quoque (ni justis obsistent numina votis,
Falsaque credulitas frustra spem nutrit inanem)
Filius ore patrem referens, et filia matrem
Sanguine communi vinclum communis amoris
Firmabunt, brevibusque amplexi colla lacertis
Discutient blando curarum nubila risu.

Hunc vitae mihi fata modum concedite, donee
Juncta Caledoniae tot seclis Gallia genti
Officiis, pactisque, et legum compede, fratrum
Subdita dehinc sceptris animo coalescat : et undis
Quos mare, quos vastis coelum spatiisque solumque
Dividit, hos populum concordia nectat in unum,
Aequaeva aeternis coeli concordia flammis.

TRANSLATION

(By Lionel S. Charles, United College, St. Andrews.)

Ah, whence this burst of passionate ecstasy ?
"Pis long since Phoebus poured his grace on me.
And whence doth our Parnassus mute so long
In antres dark renew his Triumph-song 1

But late I marked the wan, sad laurel fall,

And silence in fair places musical,

Song's spirits bowed in grief, the tuneful Nine

Turned but deaf ears to every prayer of mine.

And now the gates of Delphi open swing,

In Phoebus' grot I hear the tripod ring.

Their locks entwined with laurels greener grown

The sister-choir advance, and Helicon

Unenvious sees again the fountain spring,

308 Poems and Translations

PimpJea's fount, that dowers the gift to sing,
And glad Pieria's grove, haunt of the Muse,
Her verdurous glory once again renews.

Am I deceived t For thee, fair prince, for thee

The Muses deck themselves right royally ;

For thee they garlands bring, with fresh-blown flowers

The shrines renew ; and the unaccustomed bowers

Round Helicon, long mute while War they dread,

See them again the choral-dances lead.

And who more worthy, by the Muses' shrine

Or kingly sires, and all the laurelled line1?

A thronging people, and a nation's prayer

Fill the wide ways ; and loyal love is there.

The day is with us, day of all the year

Most loved, most wooed ! Thy heart's desire is here,

Thy heart's desire is with thea Ah, away

With hope so long deferred and coy delay !

No more bewail the progress of the skies

Circling the world in tardy galaxies.

The meed of patience thine, patience repaid

With rich reward. Oh ! had the old world made

The like, fair peace had lulled the Spartan king

In Helen's arms and Helen's comforting.

Venus in peace had blessed the Phrygian's bed,

Nor Phrygia in adulterous quarrel bled.

Such beauty Troy might harry o'er the main,

Such beauty Greece in arms demand again ;

And were there need to draw the avenging sword

For wrongs of hers, true love and loving lord,

The world had seen thee, champion of her right,

Like Paris woo, like Menelaus fight.

But Love was kind to thee, and Love's sweet pain
Thy boy-heart filled, and fired thy growing vein.
Not thine, my Prince, to give a loveless hand
To some sad stranger from an alien land !
Ah me ! how oft a care past comforting

Epithalamium 309

Dwells in the bosom of a hapless king,

That he must clasp some stranger to his breast,

By envoys wooed, but by himself possessed.

Ah me ! how oft delusive beauties shine

In the false wax, and blur the flattering line,

How oft sad princes, for a distant flame,

Sigh in a parchment to a stranger's name.

Face to sweet face you stood ! Yourself approved

Your heart's fair saint ; you came, you saw, you loved.

Say, was it wayward pride, too great to obey,

And wilful ways that charmed thy heart away ?

Truly I ween no light of evil fire

Shone in her face, no arrogant desire ;

No insubmissive spirit that could not brook

Control of law, no hard and fearless look,

No bitter scorn ; nay, she is good with more

Than woman's goodness, wiger than the store

Of all youth's wisdom ; in her port we see,

With modest beauty, crowned humility,

And sweetest grace in all. Ah ! sigh no more,

Fair pride of France ! the long delay is o'er,

Thy heart's desire is with tbee. Ah ! away

With hope so long deferred and coy delay.

Face to sweet face you stood ; the young blood rang
Triumph ; the bounding pulse her beauty sang.
(Ah me ! how oft the promise mocks the sight
For kings ; deceived they curse the faithless night.)
Soon shalt thou feel, at Love's divine command
The little hand creep softly to thy hand,
Soon shalt thou share all joy of love — the kiss,
And all love's joyaunce yet more deep than this,
All heart's desire. Yet, passionate lover, stay
And share with us the joyaunce of the day ;
The joyaunce of the day — the night is thine ;
Nay, all is ours ; we at the self-same shrine
Have sought the gods with sacrifice and prayer,
And with our offerings filled the votive air.
Thy fears and hopes were ours ; the long delay

310 Poems and Translations

Was bitter, and our strength consumed away.
But Heaven relenting brings us joy again ;
Our bounding hearts confess the blissful reign.

Even so if Phoebus in his Orient car

Climb the steep sky, what time no shadows mar

His perfect radiance, all the fields are bright,

Struck with the shaft of his exceeding light ;

A sweet, soft light is flickering on the seas,

And from the azure comes a gentle breeze.

But if the South with tempests in her womb

Come cloud-engirdled, comraded of gloom,

The fields are wrapped in shade, the seas are given

To tumult, and to pitchy dark the heaven.

Even so thy people veer. Suspense and care

And joy and grief alike with thee they share,

And deem not thou that rose-flushed youth alone

Joys in thy joyaunce, knows thy bliss her own,

Her red, red rose. For age with kindly zeal

Blesses the joys it is not hers to feel.

The maiden's whispered prayer ascends the skies,

The matron's blessings, not in whispers, rise.

Such is the joyaunce of the human kind —

And is this all 1 Nay, Nature's mighty mind

Is one with thine ; she shares the joy with thee ;

Her heart is bounding with thy ecstasy.

Look to the presence of the Eastern gate !

In the white morn with longing passionate

Swift Phoebus comes and hears thy glory's call ;

Loth he departs at the still evenfall.

Loth he departs ; to the far North he goes

Glorying, and bids the sullen darkness close

And yield to light. Earth dons a mantle green

And on the shadowy hills the vines are seen ;

And in the wilderness where briars spread

She decks with fragrant blooms the enamelled mead ;

In white pomegranate trees the love-birds sing,

With tuneful joy the hills and valleys ring.

From Plenty's horn the copious fruits appear,

Epithalamium 311

Abundance smiles to bless tbe mellowing year
With fair increase — oh prosperous auspices
Of wedded love and happy auguries !

0 happy pair in prosperous season sprung !

O wedded pair, in love and hope so young !

All, all around, a world in happy peace

Smiles on your hope and bids your joys increase.

Fair, happy pair, for ever, ever dear !

Away complaint ! false Discord come not near !

By plighted faith and holy law allied,

No day shall part them, nothing shall divide.

A nation's hope, and loyal love is there ;

And kindly Heaven receives a nation's prayer.

On, on to bliss ! the auspicious tapers shine,

And point the way to Love's own secret shrine.

On, on to bliss, by Truth and Honour led,

Fair wedded pair ! Lord Francis, thou hast wed

Thy sister-soul in nature ; womanhood

Makes her obedient, with all power endued

By thy consent ; and tender parent-hands

Give her to thee, and Love with all the bands

That ever Love supreme hath power to bind,

Ever in closer union intertwined.

Her maiden youth, her long ancestral line,

And her troth plighted, make the fair saint thine.

Yea, had the Three, whom Paris on the side
Of woody Ida met, given thee thy bride,
Ah, nothing in their gift could equal this !
Faint were the rapture, doubtful were the bliss
Compared to her. If beauty be thy care
Mark her proud form ! mark her imperial air !
The stately brow, the cheek of blushing rose
(Ah, how the mantling colour comes and goes),
O maiden youth ! O queen's serenity !
And gentle grace, and princely majesty !
And Pallas' self hath taught her every art,
And Poesy hath informed her gentle heart,
And Wisdom guided all.

312 Poems and Translations

And old descent

Is hers ; a hundred ancestors have sent
Her crown to her ; and twice a thousand years
Stretches the line of those august compeers.
This hath no rival ; shrinks each ancient throne
Dwarfed by the giant greatness of our own.
Bright, bright the rays of each time-honoured crown
And throne primeval — Scotia shines them down.
And if thy heart desire a princely dower
'Tis here ; 'tis Scotia's embattled power.
She boasts not, she, the harvest's golden store,
Nor rivers gleaming with the yellow ore.
Not hers the flocks that mountain pastures feed,
For her no finny tribes the waters breed.
Not hers the iron lode, the leaden vein,
Slaves of the mine, and craven thralls of gain.
Others, I ween, may bow to wealth's control,
While gold, contagious, dulls the hireling soul ;
But Caledonia's sons, a sinewy race,
Urge the wild wood, and wing the arrowy chase,
To beat and cold inured ; the rivers wide
Bar not their course, they swim the foaming tide.
Not ditch nor rampart guard our country's bound,
But valiant hearts and patriot swords are found ;
And life is little ; is not Honour great ?
And Truth abides, and Virtue guards the state,
And Friendship's holy power. Small marvel then
When Desolation shook the towers of men
And bruised them with the yoke, if uncontrolled
She kept her ancient liberty of old.

The Saxon vanquished fell before the Dane,
In turn the victor felt the Norman's chain ;
But Scotia dwelt apart. 'Gainst Rome's attack
She stood : the screaming eagles fluttered back.
Though Rome might pass to Meroe's tropic plain,
Traverse unchecked bleak Parthia's wild domain ;
Nor Rhine nor Elbe her rapid course could stay
For all their frosts ; yet Scotia barred the way.
Deem ye a lofty mount between them rose?
Did some resistless river interpose ?

Epithalamium 313

Some pathless forest, some waste solitude ?

A ditch, a rampart 'gainst the unsubdued

Rome's one resource ; and while she still could chase

Each other nation from its ancient place,

Here 'twas enough to ward the clans' attacks,

And bar the wall 'gainst Scotia's battle-are.

" Thus far our course," she cried, " advance no more,"

And fixed her eagles by the Carron shore.

Yet think not thou that Scotia's fame is known

On trampled fields of crimson death alone :

Wisdom has smiled on us, and gentle Peace

In seraph-tones bids War's rude trumpet cease.

When Desolation shook the towers of men,

The arts of Greece and Rome revived again

In Scotia's bosom ; here they found a home

While Vandal darkness overshadowed Rome.

To Charlemagne, on his dim Celtic shore

She sent Hellenic light, Ausonian lore,

Charlemagne, who donned in his far Frankish home

The purple mantle of Imperial Rome.

And the proud emblems of the Latian reign

Crowned his endeavour with distinguished gain.

He bound our Scotia in a loyal league,

Strong 'gainst all force, and strong 'gainst all intrigue,

No years can waste it, and change comes not near

Save for a holier love, a bond more dear.

Ambition fails ; War's fury breaks not down

Our Scotia's union with the lily crown.

When France, all desolate, crashed with a world

In angry concourse on her banners hurled,

Ever she heard our battle-trumpets blow,

Ever with her we met the coming foe.

And well to France may Scotia's Genius say : —
" We shared each triumph, each disastrous day ;
In victory, or when the field was wet
With blood of France, and banners overset,
But undishonoured, I was at thy side ;
As one we conquered, or as one we died.
How firm our faith let gallant Albion show,

314 Poems and Translations

And wild Batavia, and the crimsoned Po.
Say, Naples, if we knew faint heart or fear,
Lost city, wooed so long, and wooed so dear ! "

Such is the dower that Marie brings her lord,
(Presage of harmony and sweet accord),
A power so long conjoined — fair auspices
Of prosperous fields and happy victories.

But thou, though Beauty arm thy form divine
With every grace, and every art be thine
From the fair Lady of the battlefield,
And Juno's emulation will not yield
To Pallas, yet beware high heart of pride,
Let wisdom govern, and sweet patience guide.
Though he profess to wear a subject-chain,
Proud of the yoke, of Love's own fetters vain,
Yet deem not thy weak woman-hand can guide
The imperial rein, and shun the voice of Pride.
Let Love be lord, and tread ambition down ;
Be patience thine — for Patience wears a crown.

The Ocean, where the rocky ramparts frown,
Saps the strong wall and drags the bastion down ;
All hoarse and rude his battle-trumpets blow,
Rolling his angry crests upon the foe ;
His fury batters down the ancient wall,
The deeps are shaken, and the great rocks fall.
But where he sees a gentle hostess-hand
Bidding him enter on the kindly sand,
His rage is gone ; she sees her lover come,
Not in chill scorn and insolence of foam ;
He comes her lover ; no rude fortalice
Bars his advance ; he shares a lover's kiss.

So round the oak the ivy's tendrils twine,
Raised to the starry sky and height divine.
'Tis soft Obedience bends the ruler's rod,
And Love still follows where her footsteps trod.

And think not thou, fair queen of all the fair,
Though reft unwilling from a mother's care,

Epithalamium 315

Yet think not thou an alien shore to see,

Lands none of thine, and kindred strange to thee.

Let History speak, what monarchs of thy line,

Prosperous and great, in Gallia's annals shine.

And in thy coming she again shall know

The blood that swayed her in the long-ago.

'Tis no strange land that waits thee ; everywhere

Thy kindred gather, and thy friends are there,

And the memorials of their deeds appear,

Dear to their kindred, to their allies dear !

And one there is, dearer than all beside,

Fair France's fairest son awaits his bride,

All but a brother in his ancestry,

More than a brother in his love to thee,

More than a mother, and than all beside,

By Love within the heart's own heart allied,

Love holier, stronger than a mortal band —

Though this shall bind, yet Love hath power beyond —

Love, holy Love ! in Nature's inmost frame,

With passionate thrill thy call imperial came.

With fair increase, if kindly fates ordain,

Daughter and son shall bless your equal reign,

And in inheritors of either line,

Marie, thy traits shall rise, and, Francis, thine.

Faces angelical shall smile away

The fleeting sorrow of an evil day ;

Ah, many a time shall clouding Sorrow's bands

Fall at the touch of those soft angel-hands.

Oh, be it mine to hail the auspicious day

When Gaul and Scotia join beneath the sway

Of brothers ; long in faith and truth allied

Stand they at length in union side by side

Though seas dispart them far, and alien skies divide.

One throne be theirs, and loyalty set sure
While the strong sun and all the stars endure.

IX.

Joannis Calvini Epiccdium

( Miscellaneorum Liber — XXIV.).

THIS Dirge was written on the death of Calvin in 1564. In poetic form
Buchanan endeavours to blend the old heathen mythology with the Calvinistic
theology. " There ought to be no grief over Calvin's death," he says,
" because he will always live with us, his genius and fame being present in
the Reformed religion. Filled with a 'draught of deity' (numinis haustu),
he merely lives in an eternal and nearer enjoyment of God." Buchanan
endeavours to explain the spiritual work of regeneration, but his brief and
theistic references to matters of faith show that he was not zealous in the
Reformed doctrines.

In the following pages are given two translations, the first of which
secured the First Steele Prize, and the next the Second Prize.

Joannis Calvini Epicedium 317

Joannis Calvini Epicedium.

Si quis erit nullos superesse a funere manes
Qui putet, aut si forte putet, sic vivit ut Orcum
Speret,1 et aeternas Stygio sub gurgite poenas,
Is merito sua fata fleat, sua funera ploret
Vivus, et ad caros luctum transmittat amicos.
At nos, invitis quanquam sis raptus amicis
Ante diem, magnis quamvis inviderit ausis
Mors, te flere nefas, Calvine, et funera vanae
Ludibrio pompae, et miseris onerare querelis.
Liber enim curis, terrenae et pondere molis,
Astra tenes, propiusque Deo, quern mente colebas,
Nunc frueris, puroque vides in lumine purum
Lumen, et infusi satiatus Numinis haustu2
Exigis aeternam sine sollicitudine vitam :
Quam neque dejiciunt luctus, nee tollit inani
Ebria laetitia spes, exanimantve timores,
• Quaeque animo offundit morbi contagia corpus.
Hanc ego quae curis te lux exemit acerbis
Natalem jure appellem, qua raptus in astra
In patriam remeas, et post fastidia duri
Exilii, mortis jam mens secura secundae,
Fortunae imperio major, primordia longae
Ingreditur vitae. Nam ceu per corporis artus
Quum subiit animus, pigrae vegetatque movetque
Molis onus, funditque agilem per membra vigorem ;
Quum fugit, exanimum jacet immotumque cadaver,
Nee quicquam est luteae nisi putris fabrica massae :
Sic anirni Deus est animus, quo si caret, atris
Obruitur tenebris, specieque illusus inani
Fall aces rectique bonique amplectitur umbras.
Ast ubi divini concepit Numinis haustum
Diffugiunt tenebrae, simulacraque vana facessunt,
Nudaque se veri facies in luce videndam
Exhibet aeterna, quam nullo vespere claudit
Septa caput furvis nox importuna tenebris.
Hunc ergo in portum coelo plaudente receptus

1 Perhaps it should be xpernat.

2 Ruddiman's text gives haustum, although in a note he prefers haustu to
be substituted.

318 Poems and Translations

Tu licet in placida tranquillus pace quiescas,
Non tain on omnino potuit mors invida totum
Tollere Calvinum terris ; aeterna manebunt
Ingenii monumenta tui : et livoris iniqui
Languida paullatim cum flamma resederit, omnes
Relligio qua pura nitet se fundet in oras
Fama tui. Ut nuper falso te nomine Clemens,
Te Pauli duo, flagitiis et fraude gemelli,
Te Juli timuit rabies, te nobilis una
Fraterna impietate Pius : sic nominis umbram
Ingeniique tui effigiem post fata timebit
Vana superstitio : quique olim in sede Quirini
Triste furens, fiammaque minax ferroque tyrannus
Transtulit inferni cuncta in se munia regni,
Imperio Pluto, foedis Harpyia rapinis,
Eumenis igne, Charon naulo, triplicique corona
Cerberus, immissi stupefactus lumine veri,
Terrificoque tuae dejectus fulmine linguae,
Transf eret infernas in se post funera poenas :
Inter aquas sitiens, referens revolubile saxum,
Vulturibus jecur exesus, cava dolia lymphis
Frustra implens, Ixioneum distentus in orbem.

TRANSLATION1

(By Lionel S. Charles, United College, St. Andrews.)

Well may he weep, if there be one
Who thinketh death the end of all,
Or fears what penance may befall
In silent gulfs of Acheron.

Well may he weep before his end,
Still shrinking from the doom to be,
And share his sorrow's mystery
With every loved and loving friend.

Calvin, for thee we may not weep,
Though loth that thou should'st leave us so
Before thy day ; no painted woe
Shall mock thee in thy holy sleep.

1 First Prize Translation.

Joannis Calvini Epicedium 319

Far from the burden of the clod,
And from our dull terrestrial care,
Joyful thou climb'st the starry stair
To freer heights, and nearer God.

'Tis thine the Light-in-Light to see,
The Light serene, untouched of stain ;
'Tis thine the Godhead-cup to drain
In thine unvexed eternity.

And Hope, with her insensate drink,
Comes not to thee ; Grief breaks not down
The angel of the starry crown,
Nor Fear that makes the heart-blood sink.

Thou passest from the taint of earth,
And far from bitter Sorrow's breath,
Thou scalest the stars. And is this death ?
This is thy day of second birth.

In highest heaven, thy fatherland,
From weary banishment set free,
Armoured in immortality,
Stronger than Fortune thou dost stand.

Thou standest in thine ancient home.
Our very clay, a lifeless mass.
When into it the soul doth pass
Doth stronger, brighter still become.

Strong streams of being onward roll,
But if the soul be fled away,
'Tis crumbling dust and senseless clay ;
So God is of the soul the soul.

Without Him night is round it made,
And darkness in the things that seem ;
And good is but a passing dream,
And evil but a fleeting shade.

When Man hath drained the Godhead-cup,
Their flight the dark illusions wing ;
And truth shines out, and the dayspring
Shines on her, deepening on and up.

320 Poems and Translations

On her no twilight comes ; no night
In her dull robe of hodden-gray
Breaks down, breaks down the golden day,
And robs of truth the spirit's sight.

And peace that none interpreteth
Comes on thee in their loud acclaim,
Yet think not that below thy name
Is compassed of the shades of death.

The voice of envy waxes dumb,
The fire of envy reels and faints ;
And soon on all the lands of saints,
Like some great tide thy fame shall come.

As Clemens of the barren name,
As the twin Pauls, who sinned alway,
And Julius, like a beast of prey,
And Pius of the impious fame ;

As all these feared thee, all shall fear ;
These souls of shame shall know thy power ;
And thou art with them in this hour ;
Their painted sham shall know thee near.

And on his proud Quirinal hill
That grim old lord of steel and flame —
And shall my song rehearse his name ?
These are the signs that point him still.

The Charon-coin he loved so well ;
The fury with the torch of flame ;
The Harpy's ravin without name,
And the three-headed hound of Hell.

All powers of Hell were his desire ;
Yet in his kingdom of the night,
Dazed by the onset of the light,
And blasted by the bolt of fire,

All his shall be the pains of Hell,
And his the thirsty Lydian's lake,
Rolling for his old evil's sake
Rocks up the hills unscalable,

Joannis Calvini Epicedium 321

Or doomed to be the vulture's meal,
Or doomed the hollow sieve to fill
With water running, running still,
Or stretched upon Ixion's wheel.

TRANSLATION ]

(By R. K. Winter, United College, Si. Andrews.)

Saith one to me, ' Beyond the grave
The soul doth die ' : perchance he saith
' The spirit liveth, let that faith

Guide me in life ' : for he would have

The pit of Hell his goal, and pain

For aye beneath the Stygian pool ;

Yet all deserving, let the fool
Bemoan his fate ! let him again

Make mourning for his coming death,
While yet on earth : let him bestow
On every man his gift of woe,

Yea on his friends, the best he hath !

And thee O Calvin, tho' thy day

Was scarcely spent, that Jealous One,
For that thou valiant deeds hadst done,

From friends unwilling snatched away.

Yet were it wrong thy death to mourn,

To load thy bier with empty show

Of pageant-mockery, or woe
That doth bespeak the heart forlorn.

For thou art free from cares, and free
From blind Earth and her travailing :
'Mid stars thou'rt nearer to the King,

Thy earthly mind did shew to thee.

Thou dost enjoy Him : yea 'tis thine

To see in light unmarred by shade

The very light of God display'd,
And slake thy thirst with draught divine,

1 Second Prize Translation.
X

322 Poems and Translations

That comforteth. And so for aye
An endless life that hath no care
Thou livest : nor can sad Despair

Those lasting pleasures sweep away :

Nor Hope dethrone, the drunken-blind
With empty joy, nor Fear can kill,
Nor body that our souls doth fill,

And filling breeds distempered mind.

The day that took thee from the gall
Of sorrow, 'mid the stars to stand,
To see again thy Father's land,

Thy birthday feast I rightly call.

And after exile's loathed chain —
No Death in store — thy soul is free
From grinning Fortune's tyranny,

And hath begun its endless reign.

Within our membered frame the breath
Thro' sluggish mass its way doth take,
That so bestirred it may awake,

Fed by the life that quickeneth.

And if that breath hath fled away

The corse lies dead — a senseless frame,
A loathed thing without a name,

A worthless heap of crumbled clay.

Thus God the soul's breath is ; the mind
That hath Him not, is plung'd in night,
Lays hold on wraiths of good and right

But mocking shapes of truth to find.

But waking to that fairest day
Thy majesty O Lord to see —
Then break those gloomy clouds and flee,

The mocking visions haste away.

Unswathed by guile, in endless light,
Pure Truth her fairest form doth show :
No closing eve that day doth know,

Nor sable-crowned, churlish night.

Joannis Calvini Epicedium 323

The haven reached, the bar is crost,

The sky resounds with joyful psalm ;

Now may'st thou lie in quiet calm —
Yet Calvin's name shall ne'er be lost.

Tho' jealous Death hath taken thee,
Thy deeds below will ever claim
Their mem'ry's due : and when the flame,

That fitful flare of enmity,

Hath laid to rest her flickering,

Then every shore whereon there gleams
The torch of faith with purest beams,

Shall Calvin's name in glory sing.

Foul brethrens' twin-deceit thy word

Dismay'd, and Clement false in name,

Pius renowned 'mid brother's shame ;
Mad Julius feared, and owned thee lord.

So hast thou wrought : the very shade

Of that thy name, thy spirit's ghost

Live on, and mad Belief's vain host
Shall look on thee and be afraid.

The tyrant breathing flame and sword, •
Against himself — with raving burned, —
The panoply of Hell hath turned,

E'en he that sate before the Lord.

The Arch-fiend, with his world below,

The Harpies with foul robbery,

With fire the Furies, with his fee
The Ferryman, — Hell's every woe

Against himself will each one bring —

Mark Cerberus with the triple crown,

Amazed at truth revealed, cast down
By Calvin's speech fierce-thundering.

Thirsting 'mid streams, adown the hill
Rolleth the stone, birds rend his heart,
Teareth the wheel his limbs apart,

Filling the cruise that none can fill.

Gcncthliacon Jacob! Sexti Regis Scotorum.

Silvae — VII., not VIII. as Ruddvman has numbered it.

THIS birthday-ode, written on the birth of James in 1566, is noteworthy in BO
far as it helps to clear away some misapprehension. It shows at once that
Buchanan's opinions had changed or were changing, and Queen Mary was
almost of necessity bound to recognise that her own position was threatened.
The poem is really in verse what the De Jure is in prose, and had the same
effect. Buchanan apostrophises the infant prince as the hope of all who
desired peace, but parents are advised, "in verse of Virgilian elevation and
beauty," as to the upbringing of children, and especially of princes. The
poem is also of value to educational reformers, who realised in Buchanan one
who sought to accomplish good results rather than fame.

Cresce puer patriae auspiciis felicibus orte,
Exspectate puer, cui vatum oracla priorum
Aurea compositis promittunt secula bellis:
Tuque peregrinis toties pulsata procellis,
Pene tuo toties excisa Britannia ferro,1
Exsere laeta caput, cohibe pacalis olivae
Fronde comam, repara flammis foedata, ruinis
Convulsa, et pulso cole squalida tecta colono:
Pone metum, aeternam spondent tibi sidera pacem.
Jam neque Saxonidae Scotos, nee Saxona Scotus
Infestus premet, et cognato sanguine ferrum
Polluet, et miseras praedando exhauriet urbes.
Sed quibus ante feri tractabant arma Gradivi,
Jam dehinc pacatis conjungent foedera dextris.
Vos quoque felices felici prole parentes,
Jam tenerum teneris puerum consuescite ab annis
Justitiae, sanctumque bibat virtutis amorem
Cum lacte ; et primis pietas comes addita cunis

1 In recent editions this verse has been transposed so as to come after the
line beginning " exsere laeta ..." which here follows it.

Genethliacon 325

Conformetque animum, et pariter cum corpore crescat.

Non ita conversi puppis moderamine clavi

Flectitur, ut populi pendent a Principe mores.

Non career, legumque minae, torvaeque secures

Sic animos terrent trepidos formidine poenae,

Ut verae virtutis honos, moresque modesti

Regis, et innocui decus et reverentia sceptri

Convertunt mentes ad honesta exempla sequaces.

Sic ubi de patrio redivivus funere phoenix

Aurorae ad populos redit,1 et cunabula secum

Ipse sua, et cineres patris inferiasque decoris

Fert humeris, quacunque citis adremigat alis,

Indigenae comitantur aves, celebrantque canoro

Agmine : uon illas2 species incognita tantuui,

Aut picturatae capiunt spectacula pennae,

Quam pietas, pietas etiam intellecta volucrum

Sensibus : usque adeo recti natura per omnes

Diffudit rerum vivacia femina partes.

Sic in Regem oculos populus defigit, et unum

Admirantur, amant, imitantur, seque suosque

Ex hoc ceu speculo tentant effingere mores.

Quod non sanguinei metuenda potentia ferri

Exprimet, et nitido florentes aere phalanges,

Hoc praestabit amor : certat cum Principe vulgus

Officiis, et amat cum se deprendit amari,

Et domino servit, quia non servire necesse est:

Quasque bonus Princeps laxat sponte, arctat habenas,

Deposcitque jugum quod vi cogente metuque

Rejecturus erat : contra indulgentior ille

Rexque paterque suis adimit, subit ipse labores,

Quaeque jubet primus praeit, et legum aspera jussa

Mollia parendo facit, erratisque suorum

Parcere non durus, sibi inexorabilis uni.

Ille nee in cultu superet mensaque domoque

Quern posuit natura modum, nee more ferarum

In Venerem praeceps, sed certo fine pudoris

Casta colat sancti genialia foedera lecti.

Quis bombyce ausit cultus foedare viriles,

1 Hart's Edinburgh edition gives Memphin ab A urora petit.

2 In all editions except those of Stephen, Patisson, Ruddiman, and
Burmann, ilia is given. Illas is, however, a better reading.

326 Poems and Translations

Si ferat indigenam majestas regia vestem ?

Quis de lege tori, tanquam fit dura, queratur,

Cum teneat Regem? Cui non temulentia turpis

Principe sub sicco ? patrios quis frangere mores

Audeat, ignavoque animum corrumpere luxu,

Ipse voluptatum cum Princeps frena coercet,

Et nimium laetam vitiorum comprimit herbam ?

Talem Romulidae tranquilla pace fruentem

Sacrificum videre Numam, Solomonta potentem

Palmifer Euphrates : non illis lethifer onsis,

Non bellator equus firmavit regna, nee axis

Falcifer, aut densis legio conferta1 maniplis,

Sed pietatis amor, sed nulli noxia virtus,

Fretaque praefidio majestas juris inermi.

At qui gemmiferos victor penetravit ad Indos

Dux Macedum, quique Ausoniam tenuere superbo

Imperio Reges, aut ferro aut tabe veneni

Effudere animas, et caedem caede piarunt.

Scilicet humano generi natura benigni

Nil dedit, aut tribuet moderate Principe majus,

In quo vera Dei vivensque elucet imago.

Hanc seu Rex vitiis contaminet ipse pudendis,

Sive alius ferro violet vel fraude, severas

Sacrilego Deus ipse petet de sanguine poenas,

Contemtumque sui simulacri haud linquet inultum.

Sic Nero crudelis, sic Flavius ultimus,2 et qui

Imperio Siculas urbes tenuere cruento,s

Effigiem foedare Dei exitialibus ausi

Flagitiis, ipsa periere a stirpe recisi.

Sic qui se justi macularunt sanguine Servi,4

Et qui legitimos ferro flammaque petivit

Rectores patriae Catilina nefarius, acti

In furias misero vix tandem funere vitam

1 Thus Andrew Hart's Edinburgh edition, Ruddiman's, and Burmann'a,
but all others have conferta.

2 The reference is presumably to Titus Flavius Domitian, who was slain
by his freedman, A.D. 96.

3 Superbo is given in all the editions, except in Andrew Hart's, Ruddiman's,
and Burmann's, where cruento is employed as above. Only a few lines before,
the phrase ttnuere mperbo is given.

4 Servius, sixth King of Rome, who perished in consequence of having
been flung down the steps of the Senate House by Tarquin.

Genethliacon 327

Invisam posuere, ignominiaque perenni
Foedavere suam ventura in secula gentem.

Haec tenero1 addiscat, mature exerceat aevo,
Et regnare putet multo se latius, orae
Hesperiae fuscos quam si conjunxerit Indos,
Si poterit rex esse sui.2 [Dum firmior art us
Vis reget atque animum, puerilia murmura dulces
Interea Charites atque eluctantia verba
Component, Musisque dabunt rude pectus alendum:
Inde notas discet, per quas absentibus absens
Quid juvet aut doleat caris exponat amicis :
Quae dirimant verum a falso discrimina certa :
Quae quibus aut pugnent, aut non invita sequantur :
Quod genus eloquii flammatas leniat iras,
Quod refides acuat : quae vis regat aetheris orbes :
An sponte aeternos volvat natura meatus.
Turn de Socraticis sese cognoscere chartis
Incipiet, si Socraticae modo pandere chartae
Vera queant : mox coeligenis se firmior aetas
Conformet Musis, dignoscere sacra profanis
Apta quid intersint : sumet praecepta rebelles
Hinc domitura animos ; et bello et pace regendi
Imperii veram sacris de fontibus artem
Discet. Ad hanc omnes normam si sedulus actus
Finxerit in patrias felix succedet habenas.]

TRANSLATION

(by J. Longmuir, LL.D., Aberdeen, 1871).

Grow, with glad omens for thy country born,

Desired boy, to whom the oracles

Of former seers promise a golden age,

Wars hush'd to rest. And thou, Britannia, beat

So oft by foreign tempests, and so oft

By thine own weapon almost quite destroy 'd,

Lift gladden'd now thy head, thy hopes confirm'd,

1 The Basel edition, Stephen's and Patisson's give tener, the Commelinian
edition (1594) and Andrew Hart's give tenera, while all other and more recent
editions support the reading in the text.

2 All editions, except Hart's Edinburgh edition, finish the poem with this
line — Si poterit Rex esse sui, Rzx esse feuarum. Hart's, along with Ruddiman's
and Burmann's, omit Rex es-ie suoram, and add the remaining lines here given.

328 Poems and Translations

With boughs of peaceful olive bind thy hair,
Repair thy dwellings blackened with flames,
And trim, foul with neglect, the dwellers fled :
Dismiss thy boding fears, thy troublous cares,
The stars now promise thee eternal peace.
Now neither shall the Saxon's sons the Scot,
Nor hostile Scot the Saxon shall oppress,
And stain with kindred blood the deadly steel,
And wretched cities waste by siege and sack.
But who aforetime fierce Gradivus' arms
Were wont to wield in conflict shall henceforth
In treaties join, and clasp right hands in peace.

Ye happy parents of a happy offspring,
Bless'd twain, from tender years the tender boy
Accustom unto justice, let him drink
The holy love of virtue with his milk;
Let piety, companion of his life,
From his first cradle even on him wait,
And mould his mind and with his body grow.
Less steers the ship her course at government
Of the turn'd helm, than on the Prince depend
The people's manners. Not imprisonment,
Nor threats of laws, nor headsman's axes grim
So frighten with the fear of punishment
Their trembling minds, as honour of true worth,
And gentle manners of a Prince, and grace
And awful reverence of harmless sceptre
Their pliant wills much imitative bend,
And draw to an example honourable.
Thus when the Phoenix, from his father's dust
Arisen, returns to Memphis from the dawn,
And with him bears his cradle, with him bears
Upon his shoulders, sparkled with bright hues,
His father's ashes and due offerings,
Where'er with nimble wings he oars the sky,
The native birds accompany in flocks,
And sing his praises in resounding train ;
Them not so much the species unknown,
And spectacle of pictured pens attract,
As piety, piety even known
By wild-bird's senses: to so great degree

Genethliacon 329

Hath Nature throughout all her parts diffused

The living seeds of right. So on the King

The people fix their eyes, and him alone

Admire, love, imitate, and by this glass

Endeavour, as it were, to form themselves

And all their manners. What not the dread power

Of bloody sword, nor phalanx blossoming

In sheeny brass, shall out of them wring, that

Affection will make good : when with the Prince

In offices of love the vulgar vie,

And love when they perceive that they are loved,

And serve their lord because they need not serve;

And the reins tighten, which the gracious Prince

Spontaneously relaxes, and demand

The yoke, which, were it urged by force or fear,

They would reject: he, on the other hand,

A more indulgent father and a King

Takes the yoke off, himself toil undergoes,

And in whatever he commands precedes,

And by obedience makes the harsh behests

Of statutes easy, nor is stern, nor loth

To spare transgressions by his subjects done,

Inexorable to himself alone ;

Nor let him overpass in dress, in board,

In house, the measure Nature hath laid down,

Nor headlong in the manner of wild beasts

To lechery rush, but within sure bounds

Of blushful modesty preserve the chaste

And genial league of holy marriage bed.

Who durst demean the manly dress with silk,

If Royal Majesty wear native robes?

Who of the law of marriage bed complain,

Though it be hard, when it doth bind the King?

To whom would drunkenness not shameful seem

Under a sober Prince ? Who dare to break

Ancestral customs, and the mind debauch

With lazy luxury, when the Prince himself

The bridle of his pleasures tight holds in,

And checks the too luxuriant herb of vices.

Such an one saw the sons of Romulus,

Numa the Priest enjoying tranquil peace;

330 Poems and Translations

Palmy Euphrates, potent Solomon :

For them not deadly sword, nor warrior steed

The realm maintained, nor scythe-bearing car,

Nor legion thronged with dense maniples,

But love of piety, virtue hurting none,

And Majesty on the unarm'd defence

Of right reliant, and unsullied faith.

But who victorious, through the lands of Dawn,

The leader of the Macedonian host,

To the gem-bearing Indi penetrated,

And Kings who held Ausonia in proud sway,

Or poured forth their lives by sword, or stain

Of blood-corrupting poison, and by death

For deaths innumerable caused atoned.

Nought better surely Nature hath conferr'd

Upon the human race, nor greater will,

Then a devout and temperate Prince, in whom

The true and living image of God shines.

That whether he himself by shameless vice

Contaminate, or other violate

By sword or treachery, God will exact

Severest punishment in his wicked blood,

Nor leave his spurned likeness unavenged.

Thus cruel Nero, thus last Flavius,

And they who the Sicilian cities held

'Neath bloody sceptre, daring to pollute

The image of God with pernicious vices,

Perish'd entirely, to the root cut off.

So who them stain'd with righteous Servius' blood,

And wicked Catiline, who sought by sword

And flame his country's lawful magistrates,

Driven into fury, scarce at length laid down

Their hated lives by a most wretched death,

And with an everlasting ignominy

Disgraced their nation to all coming time.

These precepts let him learn in tender age,

And practise in mature, and let him deem

He reigns more widely, than if he conjoin'd

The dusk Hindoos to the Hesperian shore,

If of himself, and of his passions King.

When firmer strength shall rule his limbs and mind,

Genethliacon 331

His boyish murmurs, and his struggling words

The Graces sweet will fashion, and will give

His rude breast to the Muses to be train'd ;

Thence will he learn the marks, by which what grieves

Or pleases, he, though absent, may express

To absent friends beloved ; what certain marks

Discriminate the specious from the true;

What contradicts, or necessarily follows;

What kind of language soothes inflamed wrath,

What kindles it when smouldering; what force rules

The orbs of heaven; or whether Nature rolls

Her maze eternal of her proper force.

Next he'll begin by the Socratic chart

To know himself, if by Socratic chart

Truth can indeed be known : now firmer age,

Fit to distinguish sacred from profane,

Adapts him for the heaven-begotten Muses :

Thence will he get the precepts that subdue

Rebellious passions; from the sacred fount

Learn the true art of ruling commonwealths

In peace and war. If careful to this rule

He all his acts conform, he will succeed

And happily to his forefathers' throne.

Miscellaneous Poems and Translations.

I. Hymnus Matutinus ad Christum (Ruddiman, Folio tome II., p. 101)
II. In Aulum (Epiyrammatum Liber I. — /.).

III. Coena Gavini Archiepiscopi Glascuenais (Epigrammatum Liber I. —

XLIIL).

IV. In Doletum (Epigrammatum Liber I. — LXIV.).

V. Joanni Areskino, Comiti Marriae, Scotorum Proregi (Mificellaneorum

Liber— XXV.).

VI. Ad Alisam e Morbo pallidam et macilentam (Elegiarum Liber — VI.).
VII. Patricio Buchanano fratri (Epigrammatum Liber II. — XXIII.).
VIII. Petro Planoio Parisiensi (Epigrammatum Liber II. — XX. ).
IX. In Castitatem (Miscellaneorum Liber — II. ).
X. De Equo Eulogium (Silvae — VI., not VII. as Ruddiman has numbered

it, although in his Index it is rightly numbered).
XI. Hymnua in Christi Ascensionem (Miscellaneorum Liber — XXXVI.).

Hymnus Matutinus 333

I. — Hymnus Matutinus ad Christum.

Proles parentis optimi,
Et par parent! maximo,
De luce vera vera lux,
Verusque de Deo Deus:

En nox recessit, jam nitet
Aurora luce praevia,
Coelum solumque purpurans,
Et clausa tenebris detegens.

Sed fuscat ignorantiae
Caligo nostra pectora,
Et nubilis erroribus
Mens pene cedit obruta.

Exurge sol purissime,
Diemque da mundo suum :
Nostramque noctem illuminans
Erroris umbram discute.

Dissolve frigus horridum ;
Arvumque nostri pectoris,
Galore lampadis tuae,
Humore purga noxio :

Ut irrigetur coelitus
Roris beati nectare,
Et centuplo cum foenore
Coeleste semen proferat.

TRANSLATION.

(By Rev. Dr. A. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn.)

Son of God Who wield'st by right

Equal sovran rod,
Very Light of very Light,

Very God of God,
Lo ! the morn bids night begone,

And her shadows fly,
As the rosy -fingered dawn

Gilds the earth and sky.

334 Poems and Translations

But our wildered breasts remain

Ever dark and blind,
And a cloud of errors vain

Broods upon our mind.
Dawn upon our darksome night,

Sun of peerless ray !
Shining as the morning light

To the perfect day.

Melt our hearts, and purge their soil
With Thy kindly flame

From the mists that round them coil-
Mists of death and shame ;

That Thy dew may bless Thy field-
Draught of heavenly wine —

Till an hundred-fold it yield
Fruit of seed divine.

II. — In Aulum.

Mnam mihi promissam iubeo numerare Calenum :

Abnuit ille : Aulum consulo caussidicum.

Is mihi iudicio suadet contendere : caussam

Suscipit: hac quicquam justius esse negat,

Quam mihi dum peragit decimumque extendit in annum,

Pene decem decies iam peri ere minae.

Ne lis quod superest exhauriat aeris et aevi,

Vito reum pariter caussidicumque meum.

Certum est nil posthac promittentive Caleno,

Hortanti aut aulo credere. Caussa vale.

Quaeris utrum fugiam magis ? Aulum : namque Calenus

Verba dare, ast Aulus vendere verba solet.

TRANSLATION

(by " Rufus" in " Notes and Queries," April 6th, 1860).

Calenus owed a single pound, which yet
With all my dunning I could never get.
Tired of fair words, whose falsehood I foresaw,
I hied to Aulus, learned in the law.

Gavini Archiepiscopi Glascuensis 335

He heard my story, bade me " Never fear,

There was no doubt — no case could be more clear : —

He'd do the needful in the proper place,

And give his best attention to the case."

And this he may have done — for it appears

To have been his business for the last ten years,

Though on his pains ten times ten pounds bestow'd

Have not regain'd that one Calenus owed.

Now fearful lest this unproductive strife

Consume at once my fortune and my life,

I take the only course I can pursue,

And shun my debtor and my lawyer too.

I've no more hope from promises or laws,

And heartily renounce both debt and cause — •

But if with either rogue I've more to do,

I'll surely choose my debtor of the two ;

For though I credit not the lies he tells,

At least he gives me what the other sells.

III. — Coena Gavini Archiepiscopi Glascuensis.

Praesulis accubui postquam conviva Gavini,

Dis non invideo nectar et ambrosiam.
Splendida coena, epulae lautae ambitione remota,

Tetrica Cecropio seria tincta sale :
Coetus erat Musis numero par, nee sibi dispar
Doctrina, ingenio, simplicitate, fide.
Ipse alios supra facundo prominet ore,

Qualis Castalii praeses Apollo chori.
Sermo erat aetherei de majestate tonantis,

Ut tulerit nostrae conditionis onus:
Ut neque concretam Divina potentia labem

Hauserit in fragili corpore tecta hominis:
Nee licet in servi Dominus descenderit artus,

Naturam exuerint membra caduca suam.
Quisquis adest dubitat scholane immigrant in aulam,

An magis in mediam venerit aula scholam.
Juppiter Aethiopum convivia solus habeto,

Dum mihi concedas Praesulis ore frui.

336 Poems and Translations

TRANSLATION

(by T. D. Robb, M.A., Paitley).

I'VE dined with Gavin, Glasgow's great High-Priest,
And never more may grudge the gods their feast
Of nectar and ambrosia. The board
Was richly served, yet all in rare accord
With simple taste; and, finely gracing it,
Discourse severe enlived with Attic wit.

In number we were equal to the Nine;

And, equal in ourselves, none might outshine

The wit and learning of his company ;

And each in other felt delight to see

An equal truth and honour. If one might boast

Preeminence, we yield it to our host,

Who, in his easy eloquence supreme,

Led us, as Phoebus by Castalia's stream

Leads round the tripping ringlets of his choir.

We spoke of Heavenly Love, that could inspire
The mighty God to leave his lofty throne,
And take our mean condition for His own ;
And marvelled how in tenement of clay
No coarse infection soiled Him, no decay
Crumbled the Majesty that dwelt within;
How, like the lowest, He felt desire of sin
Trouble His frailty, yet His lordly soul
Triumphed, and held its Godhead pure and whole.

So high our converse; yet so light a grace
Relieved it, that we doubted if the place
Were court or college; whether a banqueting
Of courtly scholar or of scholar-king.

Let Jove in sandy Ammon choose to dine
When Ethiopians heap his bloody shrine ;
Far though he fare, yet would I thrice so far
Only to feast on words with great D unbar.

Joanni Areskino 337

IV,— In Doletum.

Carmina quod sensu careant, mirare, Doleti ?
Quando qui scripsit carmina, mente caret.

TRANSLATION

(by J. 0. W. H. in " Notes and Queries," Aug. 3rd, 1850).

Boletus writes verses and wonders — ahem —

When there's nothing in him, that there's nothing in them.

V. — Joanni Areskino, Comiti Marriae, Scotorum
Proregi.

Si quis Areskinum memoret per bella ferocem,

Pace gravem uulli, tempore utroque pium ;
Si quis opes sine fastu, animum sine fraude, carentem

Rebus in ambiguis suspicione fidem ;
Si quod ob has dotes saevis jactata procellis

Fugit in illius patria fessa sinum ;
Vera quidem memoret, sed non et propria: laudes

Qui pariter petet has unus et alter erit.
Illud ei proprium est, longo quod in ordine vitae

Nil odium aut livor quod reprehendat habet.

TRANSLATION

(by Rev. Dr. A. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn).

Should any say that worthy Mar
Was tneek in peace and brave in war,
That both whene'er he drew the sword
And sheathed it, still he feared the Lord ;
Should we his character extol
As a rich man of humble soul,
Able but guileless, and without
Suspicion, where was room for doubt ;
And should we add, his native land,
Betossed by storms on every hand,
To his great spirit looked for rest
And found a haven in his breast —

338 Poems and Translations

We nothing but the truth should tell,
Yet should we not pourtray him well ;
For other names than his might claim
For equal virtues equal fame.
But here is his peculiar praise
That in the course of all his days
Nor hate, nor envy of his fame
Can find in him a fault to blame.

VI. — Ad Alisam e Morbo Pallidam et Macilentam,

Verane te facies miseranda ostendit Alisa,

Anne oculos fallax decipit umbra meos?1
Sed neque decipiunt oculos modus oris et artuum,

Et Charitum quales vix rear esse pedes :
Et tua qui semper sequitur vestigia, sive

Discere vult gestus, sive docere, decor.
Sed quota, me miserum, pars haec illius Alisae est,

Inter Hamadryadas quae modo prima fuit ?
Heu color, et vultus sine rusticitate modesti,

Et lepor, et blandis ira proterva minis !
Heu ubi lethiferas spirantia lumina flammas,

Et matutinis aemula labra rosis !
An tibi Thessalici vis perniciosa veneni

Torret ad arcanos cerea membra focos ?
Aemulus an livor te perdidit ? et venus ipsa

Indoluit formae dicta secunda tuae ?
At tibi ego infelix senium deforme timebam,

Et cum rugosis pallida labra genis,
Et quaecunque olim longinqui temporis aetas

Invida formosis damna parare solet.
Sed tenero securus eram de flore, nee unquam

Credideram tantum fata ego posse nefas.
Vos o, quas penes est vitaeque necisque potestas,

Sortitae nimium regna superba Deae,
Quale decus primo fraudatis flore juventae?

Debuit hoc vestris non licuisse colis.
Si vos forte juvant fletus prope busta recentes,

1 Robert Stephen's and Patisson's editions wrongly print tuos.

Ad Alisam 339

Et semper lacrymis tincta1 favilla novis:
Carpite inaturosque scnes, vetulasque rigentes,

Sparsaque vix raris tempora cana comis :
Carpite quos inopis torquent2 fastidia vitae,

Quique velint anuos praecipitare suos.
Parcite formosis, breve ver dum transvolet aevi,

Parva mora haud parvi muneris instar erit.
O fera Persephone, nimium3 dilecta tyranno,

Quern luctus miseri, vinclaque saeva'1 juvant,
Non ego te facie credo placuisse marito,

Saevitia captus palluit ille tua.
Tune potes virides annos fraudare juventa?

Et modo nascentem praesecuisse comam ?
Totque animas anima perdes crudelis in una?

Heu frustra votis saepe vocata piis !
At puto non longum laetabere, si modo verum est

Ditis inhumani pectus amore capi.
Sit licet et ferro, sit durior aere rigenti,

Asperior furiis sit licet ille suis :
Hanc semel adspiciat, feritas placata quiescet,

Atque hunc, qui vincit omnia, vincet Amor.
Turn tibi praelatam neglecta dolebis Alisam,

Et viduum flebis frigida sero torum.
Quin animum nostris frange exorata querelis,

Victuraeque brevem temporis adde moram.
Quod tibi das, nobis poteris tribuisse videri:

Et lacrymas nobis, et tibi deine metum.

TRANSLATION

(by T. D. in " Blackwood's Magazine," Nov. 1822).

Hath death that cheek of all its bloom bereaved ?

Art thou some shade that visits earth again ?
No, in that form I cannot be deceived —

That step — of which the Graces might be vain; —

1 Andrew Hart's edition gives sparsa instead of tincta.

2 In the editions of Robert Stephen and Patisson capiant is given instead
of torquent.

3 Basel Edition gives merito instead of nimium.

* Stephen and Patisson reverse the order of the words in this phrase —
saevaque vincla.

340 Poems and Translations

Those orbs, whose radiance sorrow cannot kill,

For ever gentle — never, yet, too free —
The modesty that waits upon thee still,

Though not to teach — but learn to look like thee; —

Oh ! they bespeak Alisa — but those sighs,

What mean they? and that face, how changed its hue-
Where is the joy that lived within those eyes —

The lips — like early roses dipt in dew?

That healthful glow, still elegant the while —
That pride becoming — pensiveness serene,

Where are they ? — where the fascinating smile,

And every charm that form'd the maiden Queen?

Doth some foul sorceress mould each matchless limb
In wax, to waste before the lingering fire ?

Doth Venus' jealousy thy beauties dim,
No longer, now, the goddess of desire ?

Such was the flower. How hard, methought, it seem'd,
That it must yield to time — to age unkind !

But still methought the bud was safe, nor dream 'd
That fate would be so pitiless or blind.

Oh ! hags, who shape the thread of all our years,
And grudgingly mete out our span of day,

This life was not intended for your shears —
Ye should have sought for some maturer prey.

If ye delight in tears — for ever new —

Take still the fruit — but let the blossom live;

Call but on those whose debt of breath is due —
Who bow them to the sentence that ye give.

Ruthless Persephone — thy boasted charms

Ne'er conquer'd Pluto — he but loved thy frown —

'Twas this that brought thee to the tyrant's arms —
Yes — to thy cruelty thou owest thy crown,

Else wouldst thou turn aside the murderous dart
From her whose fragile life is scarce begun,

Nor give to sorrow many a bleeding heart,
And, reckless, kill a thousand souls in one.

Patricio Buchanano 341

Beware, hard Queen — thine Empire may be brief;

If Love the gloomy heart of Dis can stir ;
Take heed thou seest not an unlook'd-for grief,

And feelst thyself deserted, and for her.

Beware in time — oh, jealous Queen, beware !

For it may hap thy close of power is near ;
In prudence seem to listen to our prayer —

To give to Pity, what thou yieldst to Fear.

VII, — Patricio Buchanano fratri.

Si mihi private fas indulgere dolori,

Ereptum, f rater, te mihi jure fleam :
Nostra bonis raros cui protulit artibus aetas,

Et nivea morum simplicitate pares.
At si gratandum laetis est rebus amici,

Gratulor immensis quod potiare bonis.
Omnia quippe piae1 vitae et sinceriter actae

Praemia securus non peritura tenes.

TRANSLATION

(by Rev. Dr. A. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn).

If it be right to give a fee-grief scope,

Well may I weep thee, brother, torn apart,
With whom in culture few indeed could cope,
Or in thy snowy purity of heart ;
But if to gratulate on good be part
Of friend, I thee congratulate on this :

That dreadless now thou boldest where thou art
The meed eterne of holy life in bliss.

VIIL — Petro Plancio Parisiensi.

Fessus Atlantiades toties transmittere nubes,

Taenariam toties ire, redire viam :
Ante Jovem supplex stetit, et finire labores
Postulat, aut socium qui relevaret onus.
1 Perhaps pie.

342 Poems and Translations

Aequa petis, (ait ille) petisque in tempore, nam te

Qui juvet, aut nemo, aut Plancius unus erit.
Saepe ego per tenebras vidi sum scanderet Alpes

Concretae gelidum findere marmor aquae:
Vidi cum fessos cursu praeverteret Euros,

Et Zephyri lentos antevolaret equos.
Non labor insomnis, non saevae injuria brumae,

Non sitis aestiferi cum furit ira canis:
Non salebris colles, non coeno undante paludes,

Non scopulis torrens impediebat iter.
Quid referam ingenium, magnaeque capacia curae

Pectora, custodem depositique fidem ?
Eloquiumque potens mandatis addere pondus,

Comere res tenues, promere difficiles ?
Et facilem quamvis ad caetera munia mentem,

Difficilem falli muneribusque capi ?
Hunc age : 1 quam primum volat ille, et mole relicta

Corporis, Eridanus qua Ligus urget aquas,
Astra, Deum plaudente choro, novus incola scandit

Plancius, et superum jussa minister obit.
Sis felix licet,2 usque tuis decus, et dolor ingens,

Ultima nos donee mittet in astra dies.

EIDEM.
Cura, fides, labor, ingenium, vigilantia, Planci,

Fecerunt carum civibus esse tuis.
Jam virtus, hominumque favor spondebat honores,

Et meritis regum conciliatus honor.
Sed vulgaris honos meritis minor : ergo abiisti

Illo, ubi virtuti verus habetur honos.

TRANSLATION*

(by H. Bonnevie, L-es-L., Paris University).

Fatigue de courir par les airs, et tres las
D'avoir fait tant de fois le chemin de Tenare,
Le messager des Dieux, le descendant d' Atlas,

1 In all editions except Ruddiman's and Burmann's there is no punctua-
tion mark after age. Ruddiman considered that the meaning of the passage
required it.

2 There seemed some uncertainty as to whether the comma should be after
licet or after tisqite.

3 The two French translations given were placed equal for the Steele
Prize offered to students of Paris University.

Petro Plancio Parisiensi 343

S'en va vers Jupiter, suppliant, lui declare
Qu'il est extenue : ' ' Termine mes travaux
Ou me donne un compain pour alleger ma peine."
' ' Ton placet est f onde, dit Jupiter ; tu vaux
D'etre ecoute . . . Pour toi vraiment la bonne aubaine,
Le Fran9ais Pl'ancius viendra bientot t'aider.
Lui seul le peut. Mes yeux, qui percent les nuits sombres,
Ont vu, combien de fois ! . . . . cet homme escalader
Les monts italiens aux gigantesques ombres,
Briser a grand ahan le marbre des glaciers,
Fatiguer de 1'Eurus les escadrons rapides,
Et du Zephyr trop lent depasser les coursiers.
Rien n'arretait jamais ses elans intrepides,
Ni la nuit, ni le froid qui mord cruellement,
Ni 1'estivale soif, quand la chaleur fait rage,
Ni du mont orgueilleux le haut escarpement,
Ni le marais bourbeux, ni le torrent sauvage,
Roulant parmi ses eaux des rocs a grand fracas.
aA quoi bon rappeler la ressource infinie
De son esprit, egal aux plus graves tracas,
Sa ferine bonne foi nette de felonie,
Et son parler subtil, habile a menager
Le poids de 1'eloquence aux mandats de son prince,
Aux sujets embrouilles donnant un tour leger,
Sauvant par 1'agrement le sujet le plus mince ? . . .
Je passe cependant nombre d'autres talents
Ou 1'or ne pouvait rien, ni la fausse grimace
Des vils menteurs .... Vers vous, astres etincelants,
Ayant laisse du corps la trop pesante masse
Aux pays d'outre-mont ou coule a flots presses
L'Eridan ligurien, deja Plancius grimpe.
Et vous, celestes Dieux, en choeur applaudissez
Ce nouvel habitant du sejour de 1'Olympe,
De vos ordres sacres ce serviteur accort.
Sois heureux, que ton sang de toi se glorifie,
Moi je te pleurerai jusqu'a ce que la mort
Aux astres m'envoyant me surprenne a la vie.

Air Mfc.MK.

Tes soucis Plancius, ton labeur incessant,
Tes talents qui seront d'eternelle memoire

344 Poems and Translations

T'ont valu des Frar^ais 1'amour reconnaissant . . .
Les hommes et les rois te promettaient la gloire;
Mais quel vulgaire honneur pourrait-il egaler
Les si rares vertus que ton grand cceur abrite?
Done ton ame a voulu dans les cieux s'en aller.
Pour trouver des honneurs dignes de ton merite.

TRANSLATION

(by W. H. Hamilton, United College, St. Andrews).

Wearied with long cloud-lofty wayfarings,
Tired of the star-white way of beating wings,
With prayerful feet nigh Jove the swift god came
Craving but rest, or proffering mild claim
For one to share his labours.

" Happy thou,"

Cried Jove, " to find so fit an hour as now;
For one can aid thee — Plancius alone !
Him oft these eyes 'neath the night-murk have known
Scaling the Alps, shiv'ring the crystal ice ;
Seen him outstrip the east wind in a trice
Or fly the falling zephyrs. Wakeful toil
Nor bitter-wounding winter gave recoil ;
Nor parching burns of summer, nor any height,
Nor muddy tarns, nay — not the sheer crag's might
Could give him pause. What tongue with what great art
Should praise his wit and his great faithful heart ?
His words that made commander of his will,
And smoothed the rough, and the mean with worth could fillt
His mind alive to Duty, assayed in vain
By guile and gold ? "

Forthwith he speeds amain
O'er Italy, a spirit freed of earth.
The singing spheres loud hail his heavenly birth,
Upraising lauds in choir, as through the sky
Comes Plancius forth to serve the gods most high.
There be thou happy, O glory and grief of thy kin,
Till once we too thy timeless haunt may win.

* * * * #

Thy loyal labours, wit, and watchful care

Petro Plancio Parisiensi 345

Won thee thy country's love ; and virtue rare
Conspired with men and monarchs to advance
Thy worthiness to high inheritance.
Too poor were all our honours ; thou art there
Where valour hath at last the wages fair.

TRANSLATION1

(by H. Petitmangin, Paris University).
Mercure fatigue de voler vers la terre,
D'aller et de venir sur 1'infernal chemin,
Supplia Jupiter de finir sa misere
Ou d'accorder quelqu'un qui lui pretat la main.
" C'est justice et tu fais a propos ta requete:
" Car un seul peut t'aider, Pierre Planche est son nom,
" Repond le dieu. Souvent la nuit, gagnant la crete,
" Des alpes je 1'ai vu fouler le dur gla9on ;
" Je 1'ai vu depasser 1'Eurus, et le Zephyre
" Pour lui semblait porte par des chevaux trop lents.
" Un travail sans repos, 1'hiver cruel, ni 1'ire
" De 1'ete, quand la soif nait des soleils ardents,
" Ni le marais fangeux, ni la rude montee,
" Ni 1'ecueil du torrent, rien n'arretait ses pas.
' ' Pourquoi de son esprit rappeler la portee ?
" Cette discretion qui ne se lassait pas,
" Ce ton persuasif dont il savait tout dire,
" Ornant tous les sujets, ne laissant rien d'obscur?
" Son genie a tout faire et si prompt et si sur,
" Pourtant si difficile a tromper ou seduire?
" Prends-le." Lui, sans tarder, vole. Au meme moment
Laissant son corps aux lieux ou le P6 se promene
Pierre, agree des Dieux, s'eleve au firmament
Et devient messager de leur voix souveraine.
Sois heureux, toi, 1'honneur des tiens, leur deuil cruel,
Jusqu'au jour ou la mort nous ouvrira le ciel.

AU MP.MK.

Diligent, sur, actif, adroit et vigilant,
Planche, tu meritas 1'amour de ta patrie.
Les peuples et les rois gagnes sans flatterie
Allaient bientot d'honneurs couronner ton talent.
Cette gloire etait peu : la sachant tot fletrie
Tu fus chercher au ciel un honneur plus constant.
1 Steele Prize Translation.

346 Poems and Translations

IX. — In Castitatem.

Castitas blandi domitrix amoris,
Castitas vitae specimen prioris,
Labe cum puras soboles colebat
Aurea terras.

Castitas vitae specimen futurae
Morte cum victa, sociata membris
Pura mens puris radiantis aulam
Incolet aethrae.

Una nee certam Veneris sagittam,
Jura nee fati metuis severi,
Quippe quae rursus moriente major
Morte resurges.

Pura cum puris agites ut aevum
Angelis, quorum studium secuta
Colliges fructus socios secundae
Reddita vitae.

TRANSLATION

(by Rev. Dr. A. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn).

Chastity, victress of amorous wile,

Chastity, relic of life as it came
Fresh from the heavenly Maker, the while

Earth was untainted and man without blame :

Chastity, earnest of life yet to be,

When over death shall be victory won,

And the soul, in a frame from corruption set free
Shall dwell in the temple that shines as the sun :

Thou alone never dreadest the arrow of love,
Thou alone never tremblest at statutes of fate,

Inasmuch as thou risest from death, and above
Thou passest to glory, by dying more great :

To dwell with the angels in vesture of white,
Whom ever thou lovedst — to reap in the sky

Thy harvest of friendship and stainless delight,
Restored to a life that can nevermore die.

De Equo Elogium 347

X. — De Equo Elogium.

Caetera rerum opifex animalia finxit ad usus
Quaeque suos, equus ad cunctos se accommodat unus :
Plaustra trahit, fert clitellas, fert esseda, terrain
Voraere proscindit, dominum fert, sive natatu
Flumina, seu fossam saltu, seu vincere cursu
Est salebras opus, aut canibus circundare saltus,
Aut molles glomerare gradus, aut flectere gyros,
Libera seu vacuis ludat lascivia campis.
Quod si bella vocent, tremulos vigor acer in artus
It, domino et socias vomit ore et naribus irae,
Vulneribusque offert generosum pectus, et una
Gaudia, moerores1 sumit ponitque vicissim
Cum domino : sortem sic officiosus in omnem,
Ut veteres nobis tarn certo foedere junctum
Crediderint mixta coalescere posse figura,
Inque Pelethroniis Centauros edere silvis.

TRANSLATION

(by ,7. Longmuir, LL.D.y Aberdeen, 1871).

The heavenly artist, who with life profuse
The world endow'd, for some particular use
All creatures form'd, except the horse alone,
Who, fit for all, makes every part his own :
He draws the waggons, wheels the chariot forth,
The panniers carries, cleaves the fertile earth
With ploughshare ; bears his master, whether need
Rough roads to cross, or length of journey speed,
Or deep ditch leap, or swim the river's tide,
Or with the hounds surround the forest wide;
Or round the race-course wheels in rapid flight,
Or falters on the way with footfall light,
Or gambols joyous loosen'd from the rein
In wanton freedom o'er the open plain.
But if to war the martial trumpet sounds,
Through every member sprightly vigour bounds ;
When rage and wrath his master's soul inspire,

1 All editions, except Hart's, Ruddirnan's and Burmanivs, have moerorem.

348 Poems and Translations

His mouth and nostrils foam a kindred ire;
His generous breast amid the press of arms
Presents the foe, and dares their deadly harms;
Prompt with his lord alike to take or lose
The oft vicissitudes of joys and woes.
So many aids have men from him received,
That it is said the ancient world believed
That he to us by league so certain joined,
Could in a mix'd form mingle with mankind ;
And they relate how in their solitudes
The Centaurs haunt the Pelethronian woods.

XL — Hymnus in Christi Ascensionem.

Io triumphe, Ecclesia,
Jam victor hostium tuus
Dux templa scandit aetheris,
Adversa patri vulnera
It et coronam ostendere,
Qualis redit de praelio
Tabo decoro sordidus.
Demissa nubes se explicat
Sub Imperatoris pedes :
Reclusa coeli janua
Invitat omnem exercitum :
Vox Angelorum cantibus
Venire Regem nunciat:
Aether nitescit gaudio,
Timore pallent Tartara,
Mundus stupet spectaculo
Suspensus ante incognito :
Mors victa flet, spes praemii
Levat labores militum.
Cum Patre Proles unica,
Et ex utroque Spiritus,
Adeste sic pugnantibus,
Ut sint triumphi compotes.

Hymnus in Christ! Ascensionem 349

TRANSLATION

(by Rev. Dr. A. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn).

Church of Christ the Saviour,

Sing thy triumph-song !
Now the mighty victor

Of the hostile throng —
He, thy glorious Captain

To the Father hies—
Climbs the shining temple

Of the ageless skies.

*
Like a faithful soldier,

Soiled with noble stains
From the field of battle,

He the sky regains,
Wearing still his wound-prints

From the deadly close,
And His crown of glory

To the Father shows.

Lo ! a cloud descending

Spreads itself abroad,
'Neath the feet Imperial

Of our Saviour God ;
Hands unseen fling open

Wide the gates of Heaven ;
To the host celestial

Access free is given.

Hark ! the holy angels

Through the portals wing,
And with raptured voices

Hail the ascending King.
Now a tide of glory

Floods each heavenly sphere ;
Hell's abysmal regions

Pale with gloomy fear.

350

Poems and Translations

In the central spaces

Balanced, to her core
Earth is awed by wonders

Never seen before.
Vanquished death is weeping,

And, through conflict hard,
Cheerfully Christ's soldiers

Press to their reward.

God the eternal Father,

God the only Son,
And, from both proceeding,

Spirit, Three in One,
Help us in our conflict

So the cross to bear,
That Thy heavenly glory

We at last may share.

XII.

Selections from the " Baptistes,"

With Translations by Lionel S. Charles, University of
St. Andrews — (Steele Prize'].

BUCHANAN'S Baptistes, considered as a stage play, is inferior to his Jephthes.
It is remarkable, however, for the contrasts of character it displays and the
prominence into which it thrusts forward the figure of the prophet. To use
the words of Dr. Gordon Mitchell, "the play is a voice in a setting of
whispers." To appreciate fully the extracts here given, the reader will find
Chapter XIII. of this volume valuable, but new light has recently been
ttfrown on this drama. In his Defence in the Inquisition Buchanan has stated
that when he wrote the Baptistes, he had Sir Thomas More in mind. (See
Appendix I. A. and footnotes). Thus the play is now seen to be a protest
against the tyranny of Henry VIII.

The numbering of the Scenes here used is that employed by Mr. Alexander
Gibb in his translation of the Baptistes (1870).

I. Queen Herodias incites Herod to slay John, because he had reproved them

for their incestuous marriage. (Scene III. )

II. Herod desires John to cease disturbing the public peace, and after John

vindicates his preaching, the Chorus reminds God of what He has done
for His people, and calls on Him to look on their present evil condition
and rescue them from misery. (Scene V. )

III. John, in sublime words, declares he is ready to die, and hopes for an

immortal life of blessedness. Chorus bids him farewell. (Scene X.).

IV. Chorus moralises on the wickedness of Jerusalem in slaying the prophets,

and anticipates the judgments of God. (Scene XIII.)

V. Announcement of the death of John. (Scene XIV.)

352 Poems and Translations

Selections from the " Baptistes."

I. — Queen Herodias incites Herod to slaughter John.

Tanto in tumultu nihil agendum est aspere,

Quum concitatur mobilis vulgi furor;

Leges, religio, auctoritasque principis

Contemta, plebi est infimae ludibrio ?

Cave, lenitatis falsa species avocet

Tibi mentem ab aequo : quae videtur lenitas,

Propius tuenti summa erit crudelitas.

Dum parcis uni factioso et perdito,

Is perditum omnes, in caput quos hie tuum

Armare satagit. Finge fieri, quod fore

Tandem necesse est, concitari mobile

Ad arma vulgus, cuncta passim lugubri

Ardere bello, vasta linqui praedia,

Urbes cremari, virgines per vim rapi,

Manusque dubia conseri victoria ;

Quum frena legum ruperit licentia,

Damnabis istam sero turn clementiam.

Atque ecce coram pestis et mali caput.

Hie censor ille est. Hunc roga, plura audies

(Ni fallor) ab eo, fama quam vulgaverit.

Nee miror esse sceptra qui spernant tua;

Quando ipse pravos lenitate provocas.

TRANSLATION:

Listen, my king, and all rash thoughts refuse,

In Salem's streets Sedition cries aloud,

And giant Treason fires the shrieking crowd.

My king, let never mercy's painted show

Seduce thy heart from justice. Mercy ? No !

Look closer, closer ! 'Tis all cruelty

To spare one rebel in his guilt ! And he

Arms thy poor lieges' hands against thy life

To their own ruin ; mercy fires the strife,

Thy mercy, king. So it must be. Think well;

Oh hearken : To your tents, 0 Israel !

They burn in wrath ; they change with bitter flame

Cities to ashes, maidenhood to shame.

Baptistes 353

Ah cease ! bethink thee of the evil day
When giant Discord breaks her bonds away;
When host and host in breaking battle close,
Too late then mourn thy mercy and thy woes,
Too late, too late, too late !

Ah, he is here,

The rigid censor and the judge severe,
The source of all our bane. He'll tell you more,
I think, than rumour told your ears before.
'Tis little marvel if they mock the throne,
The king shows mercy, and the fault's his own.

II. — The Appeal of the Chorus to Heaven.

O spatiosi conditor orbis,
Cujus trepidant omnia nutum,
Coelum nitidis ignibus aptum,
Tellus vario florida cultu,
Tumidum refluis aestibus aequor:
Nonne ad nostras pertulit aures
Fama prioris conscia saecli,
Aevi splendida facta prioris?
Cum tu, validae robore dextrae,
Auro atque opibus regna superba
Ipsa exstinxti a stirpe revellens,
Illorum ut nos agro insereres,
Agro, haud ense, aut jaculis nostris,
Aut consilio vique parato.
Sed nos coeli favor omnipotens,
Per fera tutos agmina duxit.
Non tu Rex ille Isacidarum ?
Non tu gentis Deus Hebraeae?
Cujus ductu perfida castra
Proculcavimus, hoste perempto :
Non confisi robore nostro,
Sed duce et auspice te, praeclaras
Saepe retulimus patriae palmas.
Nunquid penitus deseris, olim,
Genitor, populum tibi delectum?
Nunquid f abula linquimur hosti ?
Spreta est pietas : religio jacet :

354 Poems and Translations

Fraus purpurea regnat in aula :
Populus, tanquam victima, sanctus
Dat pia saevae colla securi:
Vates pereunt ense tyranni :
Nostris gaudent luctibus hostes :
Et pietatia sub praetextu,
Meriti poenas regna gubernant:
Meritos regnum poena coercet.
Exsurge, tuo populo fer opem :
Exsurge parens optime, et hoati
Da te talem cernere, qualem
Te viderunt aequore patres
Rubro Pharios mergere currus :
Qualem vatis fatidici olim
Te puer oculis vidit apertis,
Dantem igniferis frena quadrigis,
Totis flammas spargere campis.
Te, caligine pulsa erroris
Humanae qui lumina mentis
Obruta caeca nube recondit,
Et quae primo sole tepescit
Tellus, et quae mergere ponto
Cernit rutilae lumina flammae,
Unum agnoscat cuncta potentem.

TRANSLATION.

The heaven alight with a golden flame,

And the earth where roses blow,

And the sea, with a tide that none can tame,

Tossing to and fro,

All these bow down to Thy deathless name

Who madest all things below.

Have we not heard (the tale is ours),

The tale of an ancient day,

How Thy hand smote down the heathen's powers,

And gavest them for a prey.

They were purple-clad in their golden towers,

In cloth of gold were they.

It was not the shaft or the sword
That saved us in that day;

Baptistes 355

The strength and the grace of the Lord
Were on us and swept our way
Through the savage host and the heathen horde
And the sword that was raised to slay.

Thou art the King of Juda's race,

Lord over Israel's seed ;

On through the guilty citadel

We saw Thy right hand lead ;

Ay, where Thy right hand pointed red

We saw the heathen bleed.

It was no strength of ours

That saved us in that day ;

We leaned on our God, and His powers

Were as a shield and stay,

And He crowned us with power and glory

And many a wreath of bay.

Wilt Thou leave us a scorn to Thy foeman ?

For faith is past away

In the purple court, and no man

Hath care for his God to-day,

And Thy folk, fast-bound at the altar,

Waits for the sword to slay.

And the evil sit in high places,

Clothed in a holy show ;

There is dust on Thy people's faces,

There is joy for the heathen foe.

Oh hearken, O kind All-father,

Oh, rise and Thy folk set free!

As when Thou didst cast the chariots

Of Pharaoh into the sea;

As the son of the prophet of old

Beheld Thee with purged sight,

When the flames of Thy chariot rolled

Through the fiery fields of night,

Give ear to us; our tale is told;

Bring forth Thy power to light.

And I know, when the darkness closes
That severs our souls from Thee,

356 Poems and Translations

The waves where the sun reposes
And the lands by the eastern sea
Shall know Thy power and Thy glory,
Ruler eternally !

III. — John declares he is ready to die.
John.

Non desero, sed potius ab eis deseror.
Namque, institutam ab initio mundi viam,
In fata curro. Nempe lege hac nascimur,
Quicunque lucis fruimur almae munere,
Conditio cunctos una cohibet, tendimus
In mortem : eo nos singuli ducunt dies.
Mortem esse poenam voluit improbis Deus,
Bonisque portum ....

lam prope peractae liber e vitae freto
Prospicio terram : de peregrino solo
Domum revertor, optimum primum patrem
Visurus : ilium nempe patrem, qui solum
Revinxit undis, induit coelum solo ;
Regitque certas mobilis coeli vices :
Servator, auctor, rector unus omnium :
Cui cuncta vivunt viva juxta ac mortua.
Ut flarama sursum sponte volvit vortices,
Undae deorsum perpeti lapsu ruunt,
Propriumque pergunt ire cuncta ad fomitem
Jamdudum anhelat spiritus coelo editus.

Non, si pruinis obstet horrens Caucasus,

Aer procellis, unda tempestatibus,

Tractusque nimiis invius caloribus,

Eo ire pergam ? non, tot ut videam duces,

Reges, prophetas, judices pios, via

Rumpenda, vel si mille mortes obstruant?

Ergo recluso corporis de carcere,

Eo evolare spiritus liber cupit,

Quo cunctus ibit orbis, serius, ocius.

Nam longa vita nil, opinor, aliud est,

Quam lenta duro servitus in carcere.

Baptistes 357

O mors laboris una laxamen gravis !
O mors doloris portus, et mali quies !
Notumque paucis commodum mortalibus.
Formido pravis, et bonis votum ! tuo
Sinu recepta naufragum hoc corpusculum,
Et sempiternae due quietis in domum,
Quo non sequetur vis, dolus, calumnia,

Chorus.

O te beatum hac pectoris constantia !
O nos misellos, quos iners animi metus,
Felicitatis privat hoc consortio !
Quando igitur ipse quod opus est facto tenes,
Salve valeque sempiternum dicimus.

TRANSLATION John.

I leave them not; they will no longer stay.

My soul is going on its ancient way

Through gates predestined since God's world began,

His law is heavy on the soul of man.

For a brief season in the kindly light

We pass, but ever onward to the night.

Ah, for the base 'tis penance; for the saints

It heals the weary flesh, the soul that faints.

From seas storm-stricken, waters desolate
I yearn for land, for land ! I see Thy gate,
My father's house. My father — He hath given
The lucent azure of the inarching heaven,
Around the earth He clasped the ancient sea,
And the primaeval stars keep memory
Of His commands ; their courses know Him still
Author of all, and all obey His will.

All things return where first they saw the day,
As waters ever seek the downward way;
As flames aspiring ever upward rise,
The soul indignant claims her native skies.

Though Caucasus itself should bar my way

With icy horror, yet I would not stay,

Though storms should fill the sea and storms the air,

358 Poems and Translations

And wastes of tropic sands, and blinding glare

Lay all between. On, onward to the goal!

Burst through a thousand deaths, unvanquished soul !

There are the righteous judges, kings and seers,

Of ancient days ; there are their warrior peers

Who led God's people in the battle-line !

Fare forth my soul, and wing thy way divine

Bursting thy prison-house ! And soon or late

All, all the world must pass that equal gate.

What is a body with long life endued

Save a drear prison-house of servitude?

But there is one that holds the prison-key,

O Death, fair Death ; and still we turn to thee.

'Tis thine to hush our pain with soft caress.

Haven of peace ! storm-stricken in the stress

Of Life's sad ocean, still to thee we turn,

Thy arms receive us, and thy beacons burn.

Few know thy kindness — to the just a vow,

To sin a curse. Oh, give me shelter now !

From this sad cave of Guile and Force release

And guide me to the eternal House of peace.

Chorus.

Oh, thou art happy in thy generous vow,

As we are base, we who are fain to bow

To craven fear ; we linger in distress ;

We are not worthy of thy happiness.

Thou knowest what must be, and what must cease.

A last farewell ! Oh pass, and pass in peace.

IV. — The Chorus on God's judgment of the wicked.

Davidis regnum, Solymaeque turres,
Et locupletis Solomonis arces,
Unde tarn dirus furor in prophetas?
Sanguinis justi sitis unde saeva?
Quern decet nor mam pietatis esse,
Unicum est vitae specimen scelestae.
Furta, vis, caedes, dolus ac rapinae
Sunt tuae tirocinium palaestrae.

Baptistes 359

Non sacerdoti pietas nefandis
Fraudibus suadet cohibere dextras.
Cultor idoli populus reliquit
Omnium return Dominum et parentem,
Pro Deo lignum colitur lapisque:
His calent arae vitulis et agnis :
Et suae dextrae simulacra adorat
Artifex: vitam sine lege truncum
Poscit, a muto eloquium precatur:
Pauperi dives, dominus ministro
Supplicat : ritus pereunt vetusti.
Te prophetarum cruor innocentum
Judicis magni rapit ad tribunal :
Pauperes clamant, viduaeque coelum
Questibus implent.
Ergo te justae manet ultionis
Poena non mendax, nisi fallor augur.
Namque, qui fastus premit insolentes
Arbiter coeli, maris atque terrae,
Spectat ex alto, lacry masque plebis
Et preces tristes meminit, manuque
Vindice infandi sceleris propinquas
Exiget poenas: quibus intumescis,
Insolens victor tibi vertet arces :
Barbarus miles tua possidebit
Praedia: externo domino refundet
Vinitor f ructus tuus : alta qua nunc
Surgit in coelum Solomontis aedes,
Exterus messem faciet colonus.
Ergo dum praebet tibi poenitendi
Numinis favor spatium, relictis
Turpiter vitae vitiis peractae,
Exteri ritus simulacra pelle.

TRANSLATION Chorus.

City of David's righteousness !

City of holy hands !

Thou art a light of scarlet sin

To all the sinful lands,

And blood and theft and guile are all

Thy spirit understands.

360 Poems and Translations

And the folk have turned from their God,

To an idol they bow the knee ;

And they leave the kind All-father,

To worship the stone and tree;

And the lambs and steers on their altars burn

To the gods of heathenry.

And he prays to the work of his hand,

And the prayer on his lips is sin ;

Of the block that his brain hath planned

He asketh his life to win ;

And he asketh speech of the stone where God

Bade no speech enter in.

Each rite that is old thou must doff it,

But the Judge hath an eye to see;

And the blood of each guiltless prophet

Is loud in its cry on thee ;

And the widows raise the wail, and the poor men fill the tale

Of misery.

But a vengeance doth abide ; for a jealous Judge of pride is

lord of the earth and sea,
And He rules in heaven above, and He hears his folk with love,

and He keeps in memory
Their bitter tears and prayer ; with a hand that shall not spare

He will surely slay thy sin,
And the victor in his wrath shall tread an iron path through

the towers thou vauntest in,
And the alien shall abide in thy meadows rich and wide, and

thy husbandmen shall yield to him the grape,
And the wise king's temple fair, proud and eminent in air, shall

fall and shall not 'scape
From the stroke of heathen plough. Oh, arise, bethink thee

now, while yet thy God in mercy guards the blow ;
Cast thine images away, that the heathen make of clay, and

leave the sins that thou hast loved so !

V. — A messenger announces the death of John.

Si flenda mors est, mortuos illi fleant
Quorum sepultae spes jacent cum corpore;
Qui post soporis terminum brevissimi

Baptistes 361

Reditura membra non putant, et alteram
Superesse vitam. Mortuos miseri fleant,
Miserosque tantum : neminem facere potest
Fortuna miserum: similis insontem licet
Sontemque maneat terminus vitae, tamen
Male morietur nemo, qui vixit bene.
De genere miseros exitus si judices,
Miseros putabis tot patres sanctos, quibus
Crux, ensis, unda, flamma clausit spiritum.
Nam veritatis qui satelles occidit
Pro religione, patriisque legibus,
Ominibus ilium prosequi bonis decet,
Votisque vitae poscere similem exitum.

Chorus.

Vere profecto es elocutus omnia.
At nos, opinio quos et errores trahunt,
Dum fata fugimus, fata stulti incurrimus.
Ignis pepercit, unda mergit : aeris
Vis pestilentis aequori ereptum necat :
Bello superstes tabidus morbo perit.
Differre, non vitare fata dat Deus :
Et foeneramur mortis in dies moras
Morbis, periclis, luctibus, molestiis.
Nee longa vita est aliud ac longi mali
Catena, mortis nexa ad usque terminum
Serie perenni. Nee legati hoc vinculo
Servire miseri nos putamus : exitum
Quam servitutem potius exhorrescimus.

TRANSLATION Messenger.

Weep not for him ; tears may beseem their eyes

Whose hopes are buried where the body lies;

Who know not how from slumber souls are sped

Re-born. Ah, weep alone the unhappy dead !

Weep none who live not in unhappiness

Far from the touch of the White Comfortress !

The just and unjust have their fates assigned,

And all is one ; yet no ill end they find

Who live not ill; and nought to mar his peace

Dwells in the fashion of his soul's release.

362 Poems and Translations

Else many a saint were pitied in his death
When cross, or sea, or flame consumed his breath.
Warrior of truth, Warrior of God he fell
Guarding the holy laws of Israel.
Fair speech attend him, and fair auspices
Attend him. God, make Thou our end like his!

Chorus.

'Tis true, 'tis true ! But all is nought to us,

We are but reeds, shaken of perilous

Sad winds; we fly, we fly and meet our death.

If flame is kind, wild ocean stops our breath,

Or winds of pestilence destroy, in vain

Snatched from the menace of the stormy main.

Unscathed we ride from the dim battlefield,

Unscathed — till to disease the victors yield.

God deigns the fatal summons to defer

" For certain months and days," but will not spare.

In perilous breath and daily misery

We pay grim Death a bitter usury.

His chain is heavy on the soul of man;

Our sorrow's measure is our being's span.

Ah ! think not that we fear to wear his chain ;

So we but live, we count our thraldom gain.

XIIL

Paraphrase of the Psalms of David.

THK Paalmorum Davidia Paraphratsia Poetica is the work for which Buchanan
earned the greatest distinction in his life-time. This was a common exercise
of the Humanists, but there is the authority of Le Clerc, Pere Bourbon,
Cowley, Arthur Johnston, and Henri Estienne, for saying that Buchanan's
versions were superior to all. " All France, Italy, and Germany have since
subscribed to the same opinion," says Maittaire.1 " Buchanan seems to have
consulted the Hebrew text with the interpretation of his friend Vatablus
and the Commentators, and he probably used these as subsidiary to the
Vulgate, the Septuagint, and the modern translation." 2 It is, nevertheless,
true that his version is free, and, as is shown in the following pages, uses
varieties of metre mostly unknown in Hebrew. Though Buchanan has set
himself to build a classical temple in honour of the true God, and though his
work, with " its European charm of form," at times recalls too closely its
classical models, he has preserved something of the "Syrian depth of feeling."
The whole of the work is unequal in parts, but there are at times exquisite
pieces of composition. The best are here given, and comparison made with
others.

I. The Paraphrase of Psalm CXXXVII. is undoubtedly the finest part of the

whole work. In spite of the fact that the true spirit of Hebrew poetry
is not felt, " there is thorough power, yet perfect ease ; a quiet finished
classical tone throughout, but no mosaic, no centroism."3 The para-
phrase by Lord Grenville will enable the reader to see the difference
between a man of genius writing in Latin and " an accomplished modern
gentleman who can write Latin verses."

II. Psalm CXXI. as paraphrased by Buchanan and M. Antonio Flaminio
provides the distinction between the learned Latinist who could rise into
a higher atmosphere, and the poet whose ability for sustained thought
had been weakened. Flaminio — a great Latin poet of the modern
school — was above all "a man of virtue and simple tastes, who ardently
desired a return to purer ideals on the part of the Church. " 4 In other
words his main purpose is to build up piety and to mould the thought of

1 Quoted by Hallam, Literature of the Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 147, and
by Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, p. 146.

2 North British Review, March 1867.

3 North British Review, March 1867.

4 Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, p. 142.

364 Poems and Translations

the young, — his appeal being wholly to the heart of man. He would
insert nothing in his translations of which David would disapprove, and
yet he sought to add grace to the beauty of his verse ;

"... virgini pulcherrimae
Quale decus addunt arte purpureae rosae,
Violaeque flavis crinibus circumdatae. "

("even as rich-hued roses and violets, garlanding her golden locks, add
grace to some beautiful maiden "J.1 Buchanan, on the other hand, is not
merely a translator, but has completed the thought where in the original
there were merely a " series of disjointed utterances." Buchanan is here
the thinker as well as the poet, Flaminio is the man of feeling whoso
purity of language, not superior to Buchanan's, is his especial recom-
mendation.

III. The paraphrase of Psalm CIV. is another of the best of Buchanan's
compositions. One of his critics, Dr. Eglisham, " had the vanity to
suppose himself capable of executing a paraphrase superior to that of his
illustrious countryman, and was even so infatuated as to exhibit a version
of Psalm CIV. in contrast with his." 2 We give Eglisham's version here,
that all Latinists may judge for themselves. Both Dr. Barclay and Dr.
Johnston exposed the puerility of Eglisham's paraphrase, and severely
attacked him, the latter in two severely satirical pieces.

VI. The Paraphrase of Psalm XXVII. shows us Buchanan's favourite metre,
— one frequently used by Horace. Compared with Buchanan's version
is that of his great rival of after years — Dr. Johnston, of which much has
already been said in these pages.

The translations of Buchanan's Paraphrasis into English verse, which
are here given, are by John Eadie, who is described as a preacher of the
Gospel, and who probably secured his M. A. degree at Glasgow in 1820. While
these translations are not at all of great merit, they prove that even in the
early part of the last century, Buchanan's work was well known. In the
following pages are given notes and explanations by Chytraeus and Yule.
Nathan Chytraeus has served to spread Buchanan's fame. He was born in
1543, and was rector of the gymnasium at Bremen, and introduced Buchanan's
Paraphrasis into the German schools. In Chytraeus' edition, the translations
are set to music composed by Statius Olthovius. Yule, latinised Julius, is
said to have been a graduate of St. Andrews, and, as has already been
mentioned in these pages, was at one time rector of Stirling High School.
It is stated that Buchanan had given some explanations of his translations of
the Psalms to his nephew, Thomas Buchanan. These were at the time noted,
and these notes were given by the son of Thomas Buchanan to Yule, who
was himself a poet. These notes are given because they lend an additional
interest to the following specimens of George Buchanan's work, for in the
words of John Keble (Pradect. Acad. I. 76 J,

"Qualia sunt ilia sanctissimi Vatis vivide a Buchanano expressa."

1 Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Seformer, p. 143.
a Irving, Memoirs, 2nd edit. , p. 113.

Psalm CXXXVII. 365

L— Psalm CXXXVIL

(Paraphrase by George Buchanan,)

Dum procul a patria moesti Babylonis in oris,

Fluminis ad liquidas forte sedemus aquas:
Ilia animum subiit species miseranda Sionis,

Et nunquam patrii tecta videnda soli.
Flevimus, et gemitus luctantia verba repressit;

Inque sinus liquidae decidit imber aquae.
Muta super virides pendebant nablia ramos,

Et salices tacitas sustinuere lyras.
Ecce ferox dominus Solymae populator opimae

Exigit in mediis carmina laeta malis :
Qui patriam exilio nobis mutavit acerbo,

Nos jubet ad patrios verba referre modos,
Quale canebamus, steterat dum celsa Sionis

Regia, finitimis invidiosa locis.
Siccine divinos Babylon irrideat hymnos ?

Audiat et sanctos terra profana modos ?
O Solymae, O adyta, et sacri penetralia templi,

Ullane vos animo deleat hora meo ?
Comprecor, ante meae capiant me oblivia dextrae,

Nee memor argutae sit mea dextra lyrae :
Os mihi destituat vox, arescente palato,

Haereat ad fauces aspera lingua meas :
Prima mihi vestrae nisi sint praeconia laudis;

Hinc nisi laetitiae surgat origo meae.
At tu (quae nostrae insultavit laeta rapinae)

Gentis Idumaeae tu memor esto, pater.
Diripite, ex imis evertite fundamentis,1

Aequaque (clamabant) reddite tecta solo.
Tu quoque crudeles Babylon dabis impia poenas:

Et rerum instabiles experiere vices.
Felix qui nostris accedet cladibus ultor,

Reddet ad exemplum qui tibi damn a tuum.
Felix qui tenero consperget saxa cerebro,

Eripiens gremio pignora cara tuo.

Ruddiman draws attention to this line.

366 Poems and Translations

TRANSLATION

(by John Eadie, Glasgow, 18S6).

While banished from our native land,

To Bab'lon's hostile shore,
We by the flowing river sit,

And all our woes deplore ;

Sion's lost form, to be bewailed,

Appears before our eyes,
Our native lands ne'er to be seen,

In our grieved minds arise.

We wept, and groans our words suppressed,

Tears o'er our bosoms rain,
Our harps now dumb the branches green

And leafy twigs sustain.

Our lyres on boughs of willow trees

Aside from us were hung,
And mourning much we left them there,

All silent and unstrung.

Behold, our Lord, the spoiler fierce

Of Solyma's great power,
Commands us to sing joyful songs,

Where griefs our souls devour.

And he who drove us from the land

To us so long endeared,
Where we were born and lived in joy

While us our parents reared,

And from it far us captive led,

To feel the exile's pains,
Requires us now to suit our songs

To our sweet native strains,

Such as we sung when Sion stood

In lofty regal state,
And all the nations round admired

Our happiness so great.

Should Babylon deride the hymns

To God Almighty sung?
Should in a heathen land profane

Such sacred sounds be rung?

Psalm CXXXVII. 367

O Solyma! O temple's shrines,

Of the most holy place !
Shall any length of fleeting time

You from my mind efface?

May my right hand forget to raise

The harp's melodious sound,
May my voice cleave to my mouth's roof,

May my parched tongue be bound,

If I am not the herald first

Of your high-sounding praise,
If you are not the origin

Of all my joyful lays;

But thou, our Father, bear in mind

The Idumean race,
Who at the desolation scoffed

Of our dear native place.

The wall's foundations raze, they said,

Lay level with the ground
The houses all, and spoil, they cried,

To the land's utmost bound.

Thou, likewise, Babylon, shalt feel

A sad reverse of state,
Punished because thou mad'st us groan

'Neath misery's galling weight.

Happy he'll be who shall advance

Th' avenger of our wrong,
Who, just as thou hast done to us,

Shall make thee suffer long.

Happy he'll be who'll tear by force

From breasts of mothers dear
The children that in 'midst of thee

They tenderly uprear.

And sprinkle all their scattered brains

Dashed on the sharp rough stone,
That thus thou may'st for all thy crimes,

To us oppressed, atone.

368 Poems and Translations

PARAPHRASE (I. -VI.)

(By Lord Grenville, 1846.)

Euphratis ripae acclines, ubi, limite longo

Porrecta, Assyriae tristia culta patent,
Amissam memores patriam, sanctumque Siona

Flevimus, et summi diruta templa Dei.
At qua moesta salix invisam offuderat umbram,

Pendebant tacitae, pristina cura, lyrae.
Saepe illic Solymae evcrsae captiva propago

Impia victoris probra rainasque tulit :
Saepe illic, pompas inter ritusque nefandos,

Ingemuit, patrios jussa referre modos.
Ergone solennes virgo Solymaea choreas

Captiva et patriis finibus exul agat?
Ergo et nunc poterit, Babylonis moenia propter,

Sacra Davideae tangere fila lyrae,
Qua Siloa, altuaque Hermon, Libanusque sonabant,

Praesentique Patris numine plena Salem ?
Cara Salem, quascunque ferar vagus exul in oras,

Ecquando possim non memor esse tui ?
At mihi defixa obmutescat lingua palato,

At citharam, et solitum dextra recuset opus,
Si mentem non una meam tua torquet imago,

Una Salem, luctus laetitiaeque comes.

IL— Psalm CXXL.

(Paraphrase by George Buchanan.)

Dum ferox armis inimicus instat,

Ad montes vaga lumina
Proximos circumfero, si quid illinc

Forte appareat auxili.
At mihi coeli Dominus solique

Certam solus opem feret.
Ille (quid vano trepidans tumultu

Cor pulsas mihi pectora?)
Ille sanctorum (mihi crede) custos

Noctes excubat et dies :

Psalm CXXI. 369

Victa nee blandi illecebris soporis

Unquam lumina dimovet :
Leniter passis tibi semper alia

Umbrae more supervolat;
Ne cutem soils violentioris

Urant spicula de die,
Nocte ne lunae nebulosioris

Artus degravet halitus.1
Seu domi clausus lateas, latentem

Clausis servat in aedibus :
Seu foris pacis obeas amicae,2

Seu belli fera munera,
Sospitem e cunctis Dominus periclis

Semper te bonus eruet.

TRANSLATION

(by John Eadie, Glasgow, 1836).

While th' en'my fierce threatens with arms,

Around mine eyes I throw,
On mountains near, if thence perhaps,

Aid its approach should show.

The Lord of heaven and earth alone

Assistance sure will grant,
He, (why heart beating in my breast,

Dost thou with vain fear pant?)

He, be assured, the watchful guard

Of saints his chief delight,
Beholds them with unsleeping eye,

Both in the day and night.

He is awake, and them he loves

In view will ever keep :
For his all-seeing eye ne'er yields

To slumb'ring or to sleep.

1 Yule paraphrases this line aa "should make the body sluggish or weak."
8 This may be paraphrased, according to Yule, "or beyond the house
thou performest duties of pleasant tranquillity."
A 1

370 Poems and Translations.

O'er thee, my soul, his shading wings

He ever gentle lays :
Lest that by day thou should'st be hurt,

By the sun's scorching rays;

Lest the cool moon shining through clouds,
Thy wearied limbs should chill,

When shifting vapours, during night,
The air with coldness fill.

Whether thou art retired at home,

Enjoying private peace,
He'll cause that thou in safety may'st

Obtain thy secret ease ;

Or if thou should'st, in tranquil state,

Perform of civil life
The duties quiet, or dang'rous deeds,

Of horrid war and strife,

The bounteous Lord will thee preserve,

From dangers all secure ;
Salvation will begin on earth

Endless in heaven t' endure.

PARAPHRASE

(by M. Antonius Flaminius, 1559).

Periculis in maximis vates docet,
. Ease exciendam opera Dei.

Duin me cruentus hostis urget, lumina

Montes ad altos sustuli,
Unde ille rerum praepotens pater omnium,

Terrae, polique conditor,
Frustratus hostem barbarum, mittet mihi

Opem benigno numine.
Nunquam ille saevis impiorum incursibus

Tuam sinet constantiam
Labare victam : dormiet nunquam tuae

Salutis ille neligens :
Qui civitati praesidet sanctissimae,

Nunquam profecto dormiet
Haerebit ille semper ad dextrum latus

Fidissimus comestuum :

Psalm CIV. 371

Umbraculique tecum amabilis vice

Fungetur optimus pater,
Ne fervidus te tangat aut Sol, aut gravi

Luna insalubris luraine.
Quodcunque ages, ubicunque eris, domi, foris

In urbe, in agro, tecum erit
Semper beatus caelitum rex, et pater,

Fortunet ut tibi omnia :
Suasque ducet tandem ad domos, ubi

Aeterna vives secula.

HI. — Psalm CIV. (xiii.-xxvti.).

(Paraphrase by George Buchanan.)

Tu pater aerios montes, camposque jacentes
Nectare coelesti saturas, foecundaque rerum
Semina vitales in luminis elicis oras.1
Unde pecus carpat viridis nova pabula foeni :
Unde olus humanos geniale assurgat in usus :
Quaeque novent fessas cerealia munera2 vires,
Quaeque hilarent mentes jucundi pocula vini,
Quique hilaret vultus3 succus viridantis olivi.
Nee minus arboribus succi genitabilis4 humor
Sufficitur: cedro Libanum frondente coronas,
Alitibus5 nidos : abies tibi consita surgit,
Nutrit ubi implumes peregrina ciconia foetus.

1 In some editions auras is given instead of oras.

2 "Cerealia munera was a poetical phrase for -pro frugilnis." — Chytraeus.
The Goddess Ceres has been referred to by nearly all poets, but of her David
could not have known.

3 In the 1620 London edition of the Paraphrasis Psalmorum, edited by
Yule, vultum is given.

4 Chytraeus points out that this word was used by Varro and Lucretius.
The latter certainly uses it for genitalis, — Et reaerata vi.yet genitabilis anra
Favoni (I. 11). Uut Varro is only quoting Lucilius when he uses the word.
Chytraeus seems to attribute to Virgil the line of Lucretius.

6 Chytraeus notes that in the interpretations of the ancients some birds
were called oscme«, and others alitex or praepetex. The former were con-
sidered to denote forebodings of some event by their voice and song, the
latter by their flight. This note of Chytraeus seems to be borrowed from
Servius who, however, distinguishes only between oscines and praepetes.
Cp. Virgil (Aen. III. 361) — Qui volucrum linguns, qui praepetis omina pennae.

372 Poems and Translations

Tu timidis montes damis ; cava saxa dedisti,
Tutus ut abstrusis habitaret echinus1 in antris.

Tu lunae incertos vultus per tempera certa
Circumagis: puroque accensum lumine solem
Ducis ad occiduas constanti tramite metas :
Inde superfusis cuncta involventibus umbris,
Per tacitas spargis nocturna silentia terras.
Turn fera prorepit latebris, silvisque relictis.
Praedator vacuis errare leunculus arvis
Audet, et e coelo mugitu pabula rauco
Te patrem exposcit : dein rursus sole renato,
Abditur occultis praedatrix turba cavernis :
Inque vicem subeunt hominumque boumque labores,
Donee sera rubens accendat lumina vesper.

Sic, pater in cunctos didis2 te commodus3 usus.
Nee tantum tellus, genitor, tua munera sentit,
Tarn variis foecunda bonis: sed et aequora ponti
Fluctibus immensas circumflectentia terras,
Tarn laxo spatiosa sinu : tot millia gentis.
Squamigerae tremula per stagna liquentia cauda
Exsultant : tot monstra ingentia et horrida visu
Veliferas circumnant puppes : grandia cete
Effingunt molles vitreo sub marmore4 lusus.
Atque adeo quae terra aivis, quae fluctibus aequor
Educat, a te uno pendent, pater optime, teque
Quaeque suo proprium poscunt in tempore victum.

TRANSLATION

(by John Eadie, Glasgow, 1836).

They're sated with provision meet,
And quench their thirst with waters sweet.
The river sweeps with wand'ring waves,
The woods and devious rocks it laves,

1 There were, according to Chytraeus, two kinds. Some had a snout, as
a hog, others were of the dog-tribe.

2 Didere is explained by Chytraeus as a poetical usage for distribuerc or
the digerere of Lucretius ; also used by Horace. It is ante-classical.

3 Some editions have providm for commodity.

4 Chytraeus calls this a Virgilian usage for mart, and "quotes" from
II. Georg., — Infidum remis impellere marmor. Virgil certainly uses it in
Aeneid (VII. 28 and 718, X. 218), but the phrase marmor infidum is found in
Silius, XIV. 464.

Psalm CIV. 373

Where the wild ass all lonely dwells,
And drinks it as it freshly swells.
Along its banks the trees arise,
With lofty branches to the skies,

Where fowls that skim along the air,
To build their nests in flocks repair,
And soothe, with warbling plaintive note,
The solitary wilds remote.

Thou, Father, pourest o'er the plains
And mountains high, ethereal rains,
Whence seeds fertility obtain,
And soon with life cover the plain.

The growing tribes are all alive,
Whence moving creatures food derive.
The herbage fresh covers the ground,
And cattle feed the fields around.

The genial plants, for human use,
Supply mankind with food profuse.
Abundant bread man now obtains,
That long in health his frame maintains.

The gen'rous wines his mind excite,
And cheer the heart with true delight.
Thus he's refreshed from varied toil,
And his face shines with perfumed oil.

A balmy juice pervades the trees,
Growing by which their trunks increase.
Their leafy boughs spread far and wide,
And they from age to age abide.

The cedar Lebanon invests,
Among whose leaves birds build their nests.
Ash trees, the planting of the Lord,
To young of storks shelter afford.

Their parents them with food supply,
Till wings enable them to fly.
On tim'rous deer thou has bestowed
The mountains for a safe abode.

374 Poems and Translations

Thou mak'st 'mong rocks dark hollow caves,
The urchin there itself long saves.
The moon thou wheelest in her range
Around the earth, with reg'lar change.

The sun thou clothest with pure light,
With which he shines, till coming night
Succeed the day, in reg'lar turn,
Lest constant heat should nature burn.

Then all her works thou cover'st round
With shades and silence most profound.
The wild beasts then their dens forsake,
And rush abroad their prey to take.

The lion young then leaves the wood,
And roams the fields to seize his food,
He sends to heaven his hollow roar,
That, Father, thee he may implore,

That nourishment thou may'st provide,
By which he may in life abide.
The rising sun relumes the sky,
And beasts of prey to coverts fly.

PARAPHRASE

(by George Eglisham, 1618).

Ambrosio montes irrorant astra liquore,
Muneribus satiata tuis, pecorique virisque
Aptas obsequiis, alimentis dulcibus aptas.
Promit humus teneris gemmantes floribus herbas,
Pampineos animis nectentes gaudia succos,
Et baccas oleae fragrantis ut ora serenent,
Et cererem valido firmantem corda vigore.
Arboreos foetus, tineis impervia cedri
Robora tu saturas, Libani quae consita celso
Vertice, progeniem volucrum nidosque tuentur.
Nee minus est felix abies, hac vimine texta
Pendula castra novat clangente cicoria rostro.
At lepori silices, pavidis juga senta recessum
Concilias damis : constanti temporis ortu
Inconstans lunare decus renovare figuras,

Psalm XXVII. 375

Occiduoque jubes pelago decumbere solem.
Tecta soporiferos picea caligine vultus
Nubila diffundis tacitam ducentia noctem.
Proruit interea speluncis acre ferarum
Agmen, et auxilium coeleste leunculus escam
In praedam exorans, rugitibus aethera pulsat.
Sole recens orto latebrosis invia dumis
Antra subit: remeant alacres ad plaustra coloni,
Donee purpureus det sera crepuscula vesper.
Sancte opifex ! quanto moliris cuncta decore,
Consilioque struis ! Moles terrena tuarum
Dives opum exsultat; late circumsonat ingens
Oceanus ; seu parva lubet, seu jnagna ciere
Corpora squamigerum, vitrea complectitur alvo
Innumeras pinna fluitantes remige turbas.
Pandentes levibus naves cita carbasa ventis,
Marmoreoque sinis balaenas gurgite passim
Carpere jucundos placido molimine saltus.
In te, summe Parens ! haec inclinata recumbunt
Omnia, temporibus victum poscentia certis.

IV.-Psalm XXVII. (ix.-xiv.).

(Paraphrase by George Buchanan.)

Ne conde vultus lumen a me amabilis,

Neu me in tenebris desere.
Servum per iram ne sine opprimi tuum :

Vitamque, quam debet tibi,
Tuere ab hoste, et e periclis eripe,

O spes salutis unica.
Me cari amici, me propinqui, me pater,

Me blanda mater liquerat :
At non reliquit, qui pios in asperis

Non deserit rebus, Deus.
Parens benigne, me vias doce tuas,

Rectaque deduc semita:
Ne vis metusque ab hoste me deterritum

De calle recti detrahat.
Ne me impiorum obnoxium libidini

Relinque. Testes impii

376 Poems and Translations

Fingunt maligne falsa de me crimina,

Armantque se mendaciis.
Meus victa tantis iam fatisceret1 mails,

Ne spes foveret me tuae
Benignitatis, post labores anxios

Mox affuturum gaudium.
Vivusque vivos inter ipse commoda

Vitae beatae praestolor.
In rebus ergo turbidis ne concide,

Sed f ortis usque sustine : 2
Te roborabit Dominus, et cor fulciet ;

Tu f ortis usque sustine.

TRANSLATION

(by John Eadie, 1836).

My dearest friends had fled from me,

Relations had all gone,
My father had forsaken me,

And I was left alone.

My loving mother had me left !

But God yet left not me :
For he the pious ne'er forsakes,

But them from ill sets free.

Father benign, teach me thy ways,

Lead me in righteous path,
From it let foes deter me not,

Nor even the fear of death.

The wicked falsely me accuse,

With cruelty and hate,
And crimes untrue against me, they

Audaciously relate.

1 Chytraeus considers that fatixco may have the sense of perior as in
Virgil — Accipiunt inimicum imbrem rimiaque fatiscunl ; or it may signify what
is deficient or weak, as in Lucretius — Animae natura fatixcit Feesa aero. In
the first place Chytraeus seems wrong, because fatisci cannot mean what
perior may signify. Then the quotation from Lucretius is incorrectly given.
Fatiscit should be fatiaci, Lucretius, III. 458. It is a deponent verb, and in
Lucretius, V. 308, its other meaning is given.

2 Yule paraphrased these two lines as meaning " While therefore troubles
prevail, do not lose courage."

Psalm XXVII. 377

Long ere now my heart had failed,

By such dire ills enclosed,
Unless thy goodness unto me

Had future joys disclosed.

Yet living, 'mong the living, I

A happy life expect,
Then bear your ills and let not them

Your troubled hearts deject.

Attend unto my suppliant voice,

And me oppressed relieve,
By heavenly favour, may I vexed

Deliverance receive.

My longing soul pants after thee,

I look with earnest face,
That I thy count'nance may behold,

And may obtain thy grace.

Of thy bright face to be desired,

Hide not the saving light,
Leave me not to be overwhelmed,

In darkness of the night.

Let not thy servant be oppressed

By thy wrath's grievous load.
Preserve the life from enemies

Thou hast on me bestowed.

O thou, who art the only hope

Of my salvation sure,
Deliver me from dangers, which

So often I endure.

The Lord to thee will give great strength,

And will support thy heart :
Then patient bear affliction's load,

And duteous act thy part.

378 Poems and Translations

PARAPHRASE

(by Arthur Johnston, M.D., 1637).

Lumina deflectens famulum ne respue, tristem

Ne fuge, qui vitae spes mihi semper eras.
Me licet horreret pater et patris aemula mater,

Dextra tamen, spero, me tua toilet humo.
Tu, quod iter subeam, monstra ; facilemque clienti,

Ilostis ut evitem spicula, pande viam.
Subtrahe me populi furiis, qui crimine ficto

Me preinit, immani spirat et ore minaa.
Spem mihi tu reparas, venturae gaudia vitae

Dum recolo, et coeli quae bona civis habet.
Fide Deo, firmaque fidem ; sunt praemia praesto :

Erigit et mentes sustinet ille pias.

APPENDIX

Appendix I.

(Page 70.)
A. — BUCHANAN'S DEFENCE IN THE LISBON INQUISITION.

Among the documents discovered in 1893 by Senhor
Henriques in the Archives of the Inquisition at Lisbon is
Buchanan's Defence, written in Latin. There were then found
ninety-four pages, some in French and most of them in
Portuguese, and all were docquetted : — "Jorge Buquanano
escorses, e nao vellio," i.e., " George Buchanan a Scotchman,
and not old." This defence, which is here presented in modern
spelling, must have been written in two days, and this in itself
'is evidence of Buchanan's ability. For further enlightenment
on the trial of Buchanan there are added notes, some being
based on the information obtained, by kind permission, from
Senhor G. J. 0. Henriques' translations of the records, although he
gives no translation of the Latin. The textual errors are also
here noted but the paragraphing remains as copied from the
Records.

It was Senhor Henriques of Carnota who first made known
the existence of the whole series of documents relating to
Buchanan's trial by the Inquisition. This gentleman has done
good service to his country by writing the lives of several of its
worthies connected with the pleasant district in which he has
his own estate. And it was when making investigations in
regard to one of them who had been tried by the Lisbon
Inquisitors that Senhor Henriques came across the Buchanan
documents. Lately, in connection with the Buchanan Quater-
century celebrations, Senhor Henriques has extended his investi-
gations in regard to Buchanan among the Inquisition papers
preserved at Coimbra, and given the benefit of the truth he has
thus elucidated to English readers in a quarto volume entitled
George Buchanan in the Lisbon fnqtiisition, and in his contribution
to this Memorial Volume.

Saint Bento's Convent within the city gates, at Xabregas,

382 Appendix

which was destroyed by tire on the night of 1st July,
was the scene of Buchanan's seven months' imprisonment by
decree of the Inquisition, and part of this better known Saint
Bento within the City forms that repository of the national
archives called the Torre do Tombo, wherein are preserved the
records of the Lisbon Inquisition. A whole room in this build-
ing, the entrance to which adjoins that of the Chamber of
Deputies, is devoted to these Inquisition papers. They fill the
phalanx of little pigeon holes which line three of its walls. The
Buchanan papers consist of forty-seven folios of antique reddish
yellow paper stitched together. To the ordinary scholar one-
half of their contents is quite unintelligible, being the report in
the fanciful shorthand of the time of the four several examina-
tions to which Buchanan was subjected by the Holy Office. In
the matter of legibility these pages contrast forcibly with the
two Latin statements written out by Buchanan in a very clear
caligraphy.

The archival staff, acquainted as they are with the general
character of these Inquisition documents, expressed great
appreciation of the courage and calmness shewn in the
calligraphy and composition of this Scotch victim's statement,
in which to share fully one needs the sight of such another
attempt at this as a neighbouring record in the room affords.
Here the writer, in a wild fashion that makes the blood creep, ex-
presses his absolute inability in the circumstances he is placed in
to collect his thoughts at all, or to remember in any way what he
had said or done with a view to his defence. In a shaking
scribble he begs urgently for mercy, a mercy vainly thus sought,
for a note written on the other side of the paper by the Cardinal
Inquisitor himself states that the note was only handed him by
the executioner when its writer was already at the stake. It
needs a tragic touch like this to make one realise the horrors
surrounding our Scotch worthy when making his defence in the
dungeon of the Inquisition, and the perils which his coolness and
sagacity so helped him to escape.

" Ego Georgius Buchananus natione Scotus, diocesis
Glasguensis, aio cum anno domini 1539 quaestio in Lutheranos
decreta esset, mihi timuisse ob has causas. Primum biennium
fere ante fuit mihi disputatio cum Franciscano quodam de forma
iudicii rerum capitalium in Scotia et praecipue in causa haer-

Appendix

eseos.1 Nam cum e Gallia turn venirem ac magis Galileos quam
nostrorum mores tenerem, mirabar imprimis2 homines damnari
testibus ignotis, atque etiam interdum hostibus, neminem enim
esse tarn innocentem qui circumveniri possit si modo inimicos,
aut invidos haberet. Recens erat cxemplum ob oculos raercatoris
cuiusdam, qui petierat a iudicibus ut certi homines inimici
capitales sui reiicerentur, nee datus erat ei reiectionis locus. Is
igitur Franciscanus cum circumstantibus in ea disputatione non
satisfecisset, multa de me in vulgus suspitiose seminabat. Ego
invicem ut me ultiscerer epigramma vetus nostrate lingua
scriptum in latinos versus transtuli,3 cuius sententiam vobis ante
retuli, post id tempus odiis, et convitiis res utrinque acta est,
multa proba utrinque iactata citra ullam rem quae ad
religionis calumniam attineret. Incidit interea in aula crimen
coniurationis,'1 de qua multa scire Franciscanos rex arbitrabatur.
Itaque iratus illis, cum non ignoraret, mihi cum illis esse
inimicitias, me iussit, atque etiam coegit, ut sciunt viri aliquot
clarissimi, nee ipsi Franciscani ignorant, carmen in eos scribere.5
Illi interea non cessarunt omnibus concionibus me traducere.
itaque paulo etiam quam destinaveram acerbius scripsi, sed

1 This disputation seems to have been conducted during Buchanan's stay
with the young Earl of Cassillis. In the Examination after this defence was
submitted, Buchanan was questioned as to the form of the tribunal discussed
with the Franciscan. He, however, merely asserts that it appeared to him to
be unjust to condemn men without giving them an opportunity of contra-
dicting their enemies' testimony.

2 Henriques' text gives imprimi.

3 Buchanan refers to his Somnium which was a translation of Dunbar's
poem, "How Dunbar was desyred to be ane frier." During his first exam-
ination Buchanan very carefully pointed out that the King had not asked him
to write this poem, although he asked him, even compelled him, to write the
Palinodia and the Franciscanus.

4 In 1536 the Master of Forbes was accused of an attempt to shoot the
King at Aberdeen, and on this accusation was beheaded two years later ;
"nothing is accurately known of this affair of Forbes, and there is no reason
to believe that the Franciscans were in any way his accomplices," — Hume
Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer, page 92.

5 Buchanan gives almost the same account in Vita Sua, except that there
he says that the King was ignorant of the strained relationship between him
and the Franciscans, "Rex Buchananum, forte turn in aula agentem, ad so
advocat, et ignarus offensionis quae ei cum Franciscanis esset, jubet adversus
eos carmen scribere." Irving asks us to read gnaru* or non ignarus instead of
ignarus, because " it was the King's knowledge, not his ignorance, of the poet's
warfare with the Franciscans that must have suggested him as already pre-
pared to second his own resentment."

384 Appendix

eerie citra religionis christianae contumeliam etiam cum ilia
protestatione me nihil adversus ordinem dicere aut in
bonos Franciscanos, quales veteres fuerunt, sed in homines
nostri temporis dissolutos, et qui a veterum institutia
destituissent : l ea res mirum in modum odia accendit. Itaque
antequam carmen ostendere conatus sum deprecari regem
per homines in aula notos ne tantam iuvidiam mihi
conflaret : fore enim videbam, ut Franciscani solicitarent
episcopos,2 episcopi regem aliquando a me averterent. Cum vero
rex omnibus modis exigeret a me carmen, partem eius turn dedi,
ut si ea contentus esset reliquum turn supprimerim, quod etiam
factum est: neque quisquam ex me nisi rex exemplar accepit.3
Interea Franciscani amicam regis mulierem nobilem, et maxime
apud regem potentem in me inflammant iam an tea sua sponte
iratam. Nam cum antea de me sparsisset rumores varies,4
ego ab episcopo loci indicium de iniuria postulavi. Episcopus
etsi turn5 rex aberat in Gallia potentiam mulieris reveritus de
ea re ius dicere non est ausus.

Per idem tempus amicus quidam meus gravissimo morbo
laborabat : neque in extreme periculo carnem attingere audebat
diebus veneris ac sabbati. Ego non solum hortatus sum ilium
ut carnem ederet, sed etiam quo libentius id faceret una cum
illo edi idque simpliciter, ac bona fide adhuc actum est.6

Mulier cum id rescisset, rem ad Dominicanos quosdam
retulit. Id nos postea ex uno eorum rescivimus, qui non solum

1 Henriques, deafaiissent.

2Henriques, episcopus.

3 The fact that the King only got a copy of a part of the poem and that
the rest was temporarily suppressed accounts for the poem Franciscanus not
taking final shape till after 1560.

4 In the Examination which followed Buchanan was asked what were the
reports which he here says a lady spread concerning him. In reply he stated
that he was with some one in Scotland who was reading, in the " Ecclesiastes
of Solomon, about so many collecting riches for others. The reader began to
laugh, and called his, Master George's, attention to the place where he was
reading, upon which he also began to laugh because he called to mind sundry
individuals to whom the words of Solomon were applicable ; and that the
lady in question, seeing them reading and laughing, presumed that they were
reading either some Lutheran books or the New Testament which the lower
orders take to be only read by Lutherans, and for this it was that she spread
about that they were Lutherans."

'Henriques, tarn.

" In a previous examination he says he partook of meat solely to induce
his sick friend, on Fridays and Saturdays, to eat thereof, as he was in a
dangerous condition.

Appendix 385

factum excusabat, sed etiam ulteriora audere compulit ut
scilicet semel atque iterum in quadraytsima rarnibus vesceremur.
Valuit1 apud nos autoritas hominis, apud suos summa autoritate
ut qui prior conventus aliquando fuisset et concionator imprimis
clarus, ac praeter multa alia dictitabat etiam Christum cum
apostolis agnum in quadragesima edisse. Unde opinor fabula
ilia agni paschalis nata est : de qua hodie primum audivi :
atque hinc mihi prima mali labes, ac primum commercium cum
Lutberanis fuit. Nam quae ante id tempus acta fuerunt, nihil
penitus ad earn causam attinebant.

Interea quaestio decreta est. Ego regem per amicos in aula
deprecari sum conatus, quod per ilium, ac eius potissimum
impulsu in id mali incidissem. Ille me accitum ad se tribus
aulicis interrogandum de his rebus dedit,2 quibus omnia ut acta
erant simpliciter atque ex fide sum confessus. Cum illi mihi
multa minarentur, ac nullam spem veniae ostenderent si quicque
negarem, cumque eos etiam viderem meae adversariae intimos
esse, et totam quaestionem a patre eius regi plura etiam quam3
facta sunt dixi nequid causari possent. Ea nocte cum iam
admodum serum esset apud secretarium regium, apud quern
haec acta sunt fui. Postridie rex me iussit in hospitium meum
liberum abire cum bona spe fore pollicitus omnium praeteri-
torum veniam.

Per id tempus maxime praeparabatur bellum in Anglos a
pontifice, ac vicinis regibus, spe coniurationis quae turn fere
etiam in Anglia detecta est. Rex Scotiae cum quaedam explorare
vellet in Anglia me maxime ad id putavit idoneum, ut qui videri
possem sectae causa ad illos transisse. Quod adeo verum fuit ut
paulum abfuerit quin1 Angli me rursus in Scotiam ad
explorandas res Scotorum dimitterent, cum ego adfirmarem mihi
amicos esse per quos quidvis secreto transigi posset. Rex igitur
Scotiae (ut illuc redeam) me per aulicum quendam admonuit
quae in rem essent, ac ita discedere iussit quasi clam fuga

1 Underlined in the original, as well as the other words which will be
found in italics further on.

2 According to Senhor Henriques' translation of the Lisbon documents,
the three examiners appointed by the King to hear Buchanan's case were
Thomas Esquem (Askew?) — one of the King's secretaries, John of Nestam — an
ecclesiastic, and Thomas Escot. When asked what it was that he divulged
to the examiners, he said that he divulged to them that he had eaten meat on
prohibited days more often than he really had.

3 Henriques, que. * Henriques, gum.
Bl

386 Appendix

elapsus essem.1 Haec ego hactenus caelaveram quod non ignorem
si rescita fuerint quantum mihi instet periculum et ab Anglis,
et a Scotia qui turn in Anglia exulabant, nunc vero domi
plurimum, ac potius omnia possunt. Deinde quod non
existimaveram magnopere interesse vestra ea scire praesertim
cum ad causam non magnopere pertineant.

Voluntatis regiae erga me inditium id fuit multis, quod
postridie demum illius die post meridiem iusserit persequi qui
me comprehenderent cum ego iam in Anglia esse possem quippe
quae triginta millia passuum tantum absit.

Quod famulum meum ex itinere retractum iusserit dimitti.

Quod notos homines interrogarit an me vidissent Londini.

Quid illic agerem.

Quod omnia secunda de me libenter audiret ac imprimis
illud quod iam Burdegalae essem.

Quod multis repugnantibus fratrem meum2 in locum
substituerit, semper comiter allocutus sit, atque humaniter
tractaverit.

Itaque illo vivo nemo Scotus mihi facessere negocium est
ausus, cum id quod erat aliqua ex parte suspicarentur.

Igitur cum principio lanuarii discessissem e Scotia, multum
in itinere vexatus, ac spoliatus, et pro speculatore aliquot locis
retentus, vix tandem Londinium sub initium quadragesimae
veni.3 Ibi multorum conciones in diversa trahentium animos
auditorum audivi, ex quibus vacillabat interdum infirma mens
et rationum fluctibus modo in hanc, modo in illam partem

1 Thus Buchanan's statement in the second examination by the Inquisition
officials that he had never been imprisoned in his own country seems to be
justified. It is seen that James skilfully planned Buchanan's departure, and
so Cardinal Beaton perhaps never had Buchanan in his power.

2 This may refer to Patrick Buchanan. It is well to point out here that
the Inquisition records do not confirm the statement that Patrick became a
professor at Coimbra. The names of those professors who went to Portugal
are given, but he is not mentioned. This might be another proof against
Buchanan writing what is known as Vita Sua.

s Henry VIII. had just passed the Statute of the Six Articles, and the
result was as Buchanan tells us in Vita Sua : — " Sed ibi turn omnia adeo erant
incerta, ut eodem die ac eodem igne utriusque faetionis homines cremarentur."
From one of his epigrams and Sir Thomas Randolph's letter to Sir Peter
Young, we gather that Buchanan was befriended by a Sir John Rainsforde in
times when he was, as he describes himself in a poem addressed to Thomas
Cromwell, a wanderer, an exile, needy, tossed about by land and sea.

Appendix 387

ferebatur quarum rerum capita inferius quantum suggeret
memoria exponam.1

Multos item utriusque partis libros2 legi. Multa fuerunt
mihi simulanda, ac dissimularifla pro persona quam gerebam.
Sub quadragesimam rumor belli increbruit ac paucis post diebus
nunciatum est circiter centum naves Hollandicas in proximo ad
anchoras stare expectantes siquis motus popularium fieret.

Porro ad eum nuncium tota Anglia in armis erat. Nullam
igitur de egressu meo mentionem ausus sum facere donee is
motus plane sedatus est sub finem aestatis ac turn etiam3 Anglis
persuaseram mihi iter in Germaniam esse uni hiberno ausus sum
profiteri me in Galliam proficisci cum quo una Luteciam veni
mense Augusto. Burdegalam deinde Septembri profectus sum
quod per id tempus plurimae naves Scotorum et Anglorum
convenire illuc soleant.

1 Buchanan had in a previous examination stated how he was influenced
by the various preachers. In the examination that followed this Defence, he
«aid "that he remembered one of the preachers, who was called Jerome and
who was a layman, and in his sermon he argued upon the words of Saint
Paul, — hare nunc tempu* acceptabile, — asserting that those who said that Lent
was the period more acceptable than another to God were in error, because
Saint Paul said the same of all the period of Grace ; being asked if he,
Master George, agreed with the preacher that Saint Paul spoke of all the
period of Grace, he replied in the affirmative, but added that it appeared to
him that the preacher's argument did not convince one that there was not, in
the period of Grace, one time more acceptable than another, and that, "as
regarded the time of Lent as being more acceptable to God than any other, he
had no fixed idea in his heart." — Henriqties.

2 In the subsequent examination Buchanan was asked if the books he had
read when in England had also created doubts in his mind. He stated in
reply that "one of them treated of Justification, and the other of Purgatory,
and that it was owing to reading them that the doubts that he has mentioned
arose in his mind ; and that, as he has confessed it, it appeared to him that
the Catholics and the Lutherans were agreed upon the manner of Justification
and the article of Purgatory." In the first Examination, 18th August 1550,
he stated that " when passing through England, where he was for six months,
he read many books of the Lutheran Sect, which treated of Justification and
other books in which there were many things offensive to the ecclesiastics
and the Pope, as is the book the title of which is Of the Traders, in which all
the ecclesiastics are called traders, because they sold the Sacraments, and the
other things of the Church, because Our Lord drove the dealers out of the
Church," — Henriques.

3 Henriques, istatis ac turn etaeam.

388 Appendix

Ibi cum accepissem Regem Scotiae cum classe profectum
ease ad compescendos motus insulanorum statui earn hyemem
Burdegalae expectare dum nuncium de reditu ab eo acciperem,
neque enim eius iniussu redire aut audebam aut volebam.
Interim conditionem ab Andrea Goveano accepi.1

Ilia hyeme semina belli inter Scotos et Anglos iacta sunt,
quod bellum ad hunc usque annum 1550 duravit.

Haec sunt igitur capita quaestionum de quibus me aut
dubitasse aut hesitasse memini.

De libero arbitrio haec ego semper prae me tuli : —

Nee me intelligere posse deum sine providentia, nee hominem
sine libero arbitrio. Quomodo vero ilia inter se conveniant non
putavi mihi anxie disquirendum esse, nee unquam in disquisi-
tionem vocavi nisi in scholis quomodo vulgo fieri solet. Nee
memini me postquam ex Anglia veni de ea re disseruisse nisi
nuper in scholis Conimbricae adversus eos qui ponebant facta
posse esse infecta.

De votis scripto in tragsedia de voto Jepthe meam sententiam
ostendi cuius disputationis haec summa est : vota quae licite fiunt
omnia servanda ac multi etiam sciunt Conimbricae me orationem
Barpt. Latomi super hac re contra Bucerum et legere libenter
solitum, et semper laudare.

Ego omnium religionum receptarum instituta probavi,
multorum hominum mores non probavi. Multos religiosos atque
eorum instituta nominatim saepe et multis in locis laudavi ut
Conimbricae Bernardinos et Eligianos de quibus nunquam nisi
honorifice sum loquutus, qui viri mihi videntur vere antiques
mores referre.

De his vero qui apostoli vocantur non id unum reprehendi
quod pueros impuberos solicitarent contra morem aliarum
religionum, sed alia quaedam quae de eis iactabantur: quarum
rerum querelas ad Jacobum Goveanum gymnasiarcham saepe
detuli, nunquam in vulgus effudi. Contra vero in institutis
eorum plurima etiam probavi et laudavi, ut nemo nisi malignua
interpres in odium religionis ea dicta fuisse existimet quae
culpabam. Quod si etiam in hoc genere errarim id certe ita
modeste feci ut non petulantia sed simplicitate peccarim.

1 This was the invitation to join the professional staff at the College of
Ouyenne at Bordeaux, where the best scholars of the time were engaged.

Appendix 389

Burdegalae vero cum occurrissem Jo. Pinario1 qui ante paucos
dies Tolosae 2 Dominicanus factus erat ut vulgo certe ferebatur,
quod aegre ferret se minus laute quam volebat vestitum conspici ;
cui opinioni cum mores hominis antea mihi noti congruere
viderentur, coepi liberius iocari cum illo pro antiqua familiari-
tate. Quid autem dixerim non memini. Certe nihil opinor me
dixisse quod non soleat in Gallia vulgo dici, ac possit libere
ubique inter amicos. Et tamen ilium notabiliter offensum sensi
quod mihi qui eum paulo ante noveram non tarn gravis visus
quam ipse omnibus se videri volebat.

Eiusdem Gallicae libertatis erat illud quod homini molesto
quern videbam causam3 disputandi quaerere roganti quis fecit
primus monachos ego forte respondi tonsor et vestiarius. Is qui
fuerit certe non memini, hoc autem scio in Gallia nusquam
homines huiuscemodi verbis offendi solere.

Scripsi Burdegalae dialogum qui publice exhibitus est, et
privatim apud multos actus, a nemine quod sciam reprehensus,
in quo reprehendebantur patres, qui liberos suos invitos ad
monachatum adigunt, nihil animadvertentes idonei sint, necne,
"ad id institutum. Cuius scribendi occasio haec erat; nobilis
quidam in Santonibus monsieur de Mirambeau duas habebat
filias ex priore uxore, ad quas proveniebat hereditas opulenta
ex morte matris. Pater autem arguebatur eas invitas intrusisse
in monasterium eius hereditatis causa, nam in Santonibus
parentibus liberi, et liberis parentes succedunt. Hae autem
puellae turn maxime adversus patrem litigabant in senatu

1 Joam Pinheiro was a nephew of the Bishop of Tangiers, and had been
one of Buchanan's pupils. On 6th September Buchanan states that the brief
discussion which he had at Bordeaux, with Friar Joam Pinheiro, was, " as to
whether the monks of Saint Dominic were bound not to eat meat when
travelling, and that he, Master George, held that they were not so bound,
because he thinks that he had heard so from old monks of Saint Dominic ; and
that he also, joking with Pinheiro, remarked that his Habit was better than a
Silken Coat, and this he said because he had heard at Bordeaux that the said
Friar Joam Pinheiro had become a monk, because he was refused a Silken Coat."
This Pinheiro was perhaps the originator of the persecution of Buchanan, Teives,
and Costa. His evidence given at Paris was the cause of Buchanan and the
others being arrested. All three had told him that men had instituted Advent
and Lent, and that Christ had ordained that there should be no difference in
victuals. They had also said that men had instituted the Religious Orders.

2 Buchanan's reference here to Toulouse, and again on p. 391 (tholosam) do
not quite confirm the belief that Buchanan had been there, although in his
History (p. 11) he mentions that he was there in 1544.

3 Henriques, ausam.

390 Appendix

Burdegalensi.1 Is dialogus turn2 ncminem quod sciam offen-
derat : neque quicquam continebat quod in Gallia non agi et
dici et liceat et soleat.3

De matrimonio sacerdotum hoc sensi ; votum his qui fecissent
servandum sed certe minus scandali futurum si, ut solebat anti-
quitus, presbyteri, hoc est seniores, tantum ordinarentur, aut
permitteretur eis matrimonium.4

An vero quisquam sine speciali gratia possit caste vivere
quaestionem earn putavi magis pertinere ad medicos quam ad
theologos, ac de ea re fuit mihi sermo cum Nicolao Pichoto
medico Burdegalensi homine docto qui mihi plane persuasit
libidinem arte et diaeta niinui multis rationibus posse.

De veste vero Franciscanorum an tantam vim habeat quantam
vulgus credit, hoc est, liberos a poenis fore et omnino remitti
eis peccata qui in ea sepeliuntur3 nunquam mihi uecessario cred-
enduin putavi quippe cum id nee scripturis sit traditum nee ab
ecclesia sancitum.6

1 On 21st August in the second Examination he was asked if he had ever
censured or laughed at people for entering the Religious Orders. He
remembered that at Coimbra before four or five persons he had said that the
Jesuits were wrong in persuading young people to enter their Order, before
they had attained years of discretion. He said, however, that he had never
felt badly disposed towards the Order.

2 Henriques, tarn.

3 This dialogue raised the anger of the Catholic Clergy, and thus
helped to cause Buchanan's flight from Bordeaux. From an item in Pinheiro's
evidence, it has been conjectured that a Lutheran, a friend of Garanta (or
Guerente), was burned as a martyr at Bordeaux, and so Buchanan took
warning and fled.

4 In a succeeding examination when he was asked if he at any time had held
that formerly priests were free to marry, he replied, that he had thought he
had, but that he had never taught this, nor would he advise any one iu
Holy Orders to marry. He had also heard another preacher in England,
a Catholic named Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, who had argued that
marriage had two objects, prolem et vitationcm fornicatioms, and that the
second was of less importance. Before that, another Lutheran whose name
he does not know had preached that the object of matrimony was the avoiding
of fornication. In the light of these facts, it is not surprising that Buchanan
with his broad-mindedness should have recoiled from both sides, and after-
wards refrained from any religious reforming fervour.

5 Henriques has a footnote which, when translated from the Portuguese,
evidently means " written in the margin with reference to the passage."

6 In the subsequent examination he said that he believed that those who
are buried in the Franciscan Habit will obtain all the indulgences granted to
them by the Pope, but he was unaware that these indulgences had been
given. His opinion was that the said indulgences were derived from the
promise of St. Francis, and not from the Pope. He had doubted about that
promise of St. Francis, because no mention was made of it in his biography.

Appendix 391

Atque ut obiter id attingam nunquam putavi mihi ease necesse
ut fidem adhiberem miraculis, nisi his praesertim quae gravia-
simis autoribus confirmata essent, non quod credam non posse
per sanctos, atque ttiam per diabolum opera mirabilia saepe
praesentari std quod ex uno ficto miraculo plus fit mali si res
fiat palam, quam ex multis veris boni.1 Id ego multis exemplis
edoctus dico. Fratrum Bernensium multis nota est historia,
quae turbavit Helvetios. Infinita huius generis uno tempore
prodierunt, quae totam subverterunt Angliam.

Aureliae in Gallia Franciscani, prope Tholosam sacerdotes, in
suburbio Luteciano procurator Benedictorum quautos tumult us
excivissent nisi nigrantus2 severe animadvertissent.

In Scotia purgatorio multum fidei detraxit Gulielmus Langius
Franciscanus dum purgatorium miraculo vult confirmare.3

De purgatorio vero nunquam dubitavi quin crederem esse
locum poenae aeternae, ac alium poenae temporalis post mortem
cum nullum peccatum sit quod non aliquam poenam mereatur
etiamsi culpa condonetur.

Illud vero aliquando dubitavi an indulgentiae pertinerent
etiam ad mortuos. Nee alia res nisi determinatio ecclesiae me eo
scrupulo liberavit. De qua dicam inferius.

De iustificatione putavi diversis verbis idem dicere vos et
Lutheranos cum alteri dicerent hominem iustificari ex fide et
operibus, alteri ex fide peroperante.4 Ac in tarn tenui discrimine
dolebam eos non convenire de re maxima. Quod si quando
simpliciter ex fide iustificari nos dicebant, id ita accipiebam ac si
dicerent fide perfecta quae coniunctam habet charitatem quae
otiosa non est.3

1 When questioned regarding the miracles often presented both by the
saints and the devil, he stated that at a certain time he had believed that the
wonders worked by the saints were on an equality with the others, because he
had wrongly interpreted some things which he had read. The master-priest,
Friar Hieronimus, had, however, " made things clear to him."

2 Henriques, nigrantue. 4 Henriques, per operanle.

8 In reference to this miracle performed by William Languis or Lang,
in order to prove the existence of Purgatory, Buchanan afterwards stated that
" according to popular report, and as was afterwards proved before the King,
Langius conspired with another man, that he should say that a departed soul
had appeared to him— which was eventually found to be false."

5 He was afterwards examined on the question of justification, and a
straight question put to him. He was asked if he held that the sinner was
justified through faith in Christ, so that charity only would follow, or that the
sinner justified himself by faith formally. His reply was in favour of the
former condition, — ita quod Charitas consequebatur. He also considers that

392 Appendix

Cum in Scotia legerem libros Augustini de doctrina Christiana
ac in locum incidissem libro. 3. ubi quaedam eo pertinentia verba
explicat, ostendi locum fratri Dominicano primi nominis apud
nostros ac interrogavi quid sibi videretur. I lie nihil de re dixit
sed me apud alios passim traducebat tanquam sacramentarium,
quae res multiplex malum mihi creavit, nam et dubium multo
magis quam antea remisit, et sum mam vulgo infamiam mihi
conflavit, et fecit ne postea si qua in re dubitarem cuiquam me
aperire auderem. Cur autem id fecerit novit deus: quid alii
suspicati sint, non attinet scribere.1

Accesserunt postea alii Augustini loci qui vehementius animum
meum commoverunt ac maiorem iniecerant scrupulum, ita ut
plane Augustinus ab adversariis stare videretur cui ego semper
plurimum tribuebam. Interea si de ea re incident sermo fieri
potest ut ego meam de Augustino sententiam aperirem. Nam id
nunquam dissimulavi, sed ita ut ipse nunquam ausus sim definire
quicquam. Neque enim ita ei assentiebar, ut plane illi crederem,
sed ut tanti viri autoritas turbaret animum. Earn hesitationem
meam per otium feriis paschalibus antequam communicarem ad
And. Goveanum retuli. Is mihi primus ostendit in sacramento
eucharistiae et corpus esse et signum, neque contra. Quod
responsum eius cum varie confirmaret, turn mihi omnino satis-
fecit postea vero animum plane confirmarunt scripta Roffensis et
Clithovei2 ea potissimum quae de autoritate ecclesiae disputant
non solum in hac parte sed in omnibus aliis. Accesserunt
conciones doctorum virorum Luteciae atque etiam Burdegalae,
quae mihi satisfecerunt.

Cum de eucharistia dubitabam quod tempus coepit sub meum

Catholics and Lutherans are agreed on this point, that faith cannot exist
without works. In other words, he considered, that though faith and charity
were different things in themselves, they could not be present independently
of one another. Perfect faith — belief in the history of the Holy Scripture and
the confidence that through Christ we have access to God— could not be without
Charity.

1 The influence of Augustine, whose works he had carefully read, was
shown in the conversations with Pinheiro, who in his evidence stated that
Buchanan had tried to prove and show him, that according to St. Augustine's
De Doctrina Christiana, the body of our Lord " was in the Eucharistic
Sacrament per modum signitatem." It was Augustine's sincerity in this belief
that inclined Buchanan to accept it.

2 We learn both here and in another passage that " his doubts have been
removed by attending the lessons of the Catholics and by reading Rofense and
Aclitoben. " — Henrique*.

Appendix 393

ex Anglia discessum usque ad proximum pascha (nam in
Scotia magis disquirebam etiam quam disputabam et in Anglia
de ea re vetitum erat disputare) necesse erat etiam de missa an
esset sacrificium disputare, praesertim cum haec inter se connexa
sint. Neque memini tamen unquam in ulla disputatione hanc
rem a me agitatam nisi in disputatione quadam publica ad
quam me et alios provocaverat Melchior Flavius Franciscanus.
Argumenta vero quibus usus sum illic, agitavi cum aliis ac
postea quibusdam recitavi, idque simpliciter.

Unane missa debeat esse an plures nunquam interposui meam
sententiam. Illud saepe dixi multas res esse quae minus venera-
tionis haberunt ex frequentia. Dixi me libentius audire mag-
nam missam in secreto aliquo templo quam frequenti, quod in
templis celebrioribus eo tempore plures contractus transigi
viderem, quam in foro.

Ex his verbis quid maligni interpretes collegerint nescio, neque
etiam id praestare possum.

Missas vero qui plures audiat quam ego in tantis occupationi-
bus puto esse neminem, cuius rei testem habeo totam viciniam.

Missas autem a privatis dici imperari pro furto inveniendo ac
aliis id genus absurdum putavi.1

Orationem rem longe sanctissimam esse sentio. Multa tamen
saepe dixi in eos qui temere orant, hoc est, non animadvertunt
quid dicant, item in eos qui vel evangelium vel alias orationes
quasi carmen magicum ad usus profanos applicant, ac certis
verbis f ebrim depelli vel alios morbos credant : qua in re multos
offendi vel qui fiduciam in his rebus collocant, vel qui quaestum
hinc faciunt.2

In his erant qui clavem vertendo de furto divinant, qui salicis
virgam fissam certis verbis coire faciunt, ac ex ea crucem depel-
lendae febri faciunt, ac alia multa id genus. Hi cum reprehen-
duntur statim Lutheran! nomen reprehensoribus obiiciunt.

Delectum ciborum, vestium, et confessionem auricularem certo
tempore et modo ex institutione humana omnia sed utilia semper
putavi, quae si quis non observet peccare quidem ex inobedientia

1 Henriques has a footnote which, when translated, means " in margin
without reference to the text."

8 When Buchanan was afterwards asked if he held that all who prayed
without attention thereby sinned, he replied, that in his opinion, those people
grievously sinned who mechanically spoke the words of the prayer and there-
by thought that sufficient. He, in the above passage, severely criticises those
who expect disease to be expelled simply by using words, even if they be
holy.

394 Appendix

cum non solum ecclesiae sed etiam principum legibus obediendum
sit, sed leve id peccatum esse si sine scandalo fieret, cum ad
mores regeudos tanquam leges civiles sint.1

In cibis illud sensi : non cibum ipsum inquinare hominem sed
vel inobedientiam, vel scandalum. Usus autem sum cibis promis-
cue cum incidebat occasio fere per biennium : postquam vero ab
Auglia egressus sum nunquam quod sciam nisi valetudinis causa
quae magna ex parte mihi adversa fuit ex gravissimo Burdegalae
coelo, unde longum morbum contraxi distillationis, qui nunquam
nisi hac aestate intermisit.

Confessione semper usus ex more ecclesiastico etiam in Anglia,
quanquam ibi non communicavi, cum in maximis rebus ab eis
dissentirem .

Videlicet pontificis potestate quam semper maximam esse prae
me tuli, sed ita ut pontificem in potestate concilii dicerem esse,
quae res saepe canonici iuris studiosos offendit, aeque atque
illud quod dicebam canonistaium scientiam esse periculis
obnoxiam, quae concilii generalis uno decreto possit eis auferri.

Item quod aliquando dixerim pontificem praeter clavem Petri
aliam hoc est multas rationes colligendae pecuniae habere qua
omnium loculos aperiret.

Dissentiebam item ab Anglis de praeceptis humanis cum
existimarem etiam profanorum ingrantuum2 leges et iussa sub
poena peccati observanda : item quod nunquam persuadere mihi
poterant Regem Angliae caput esse ecclesiae Anglicae.

Item de purgatorio, de libero arbitrio, de potestate pontificis,
de votis, de ecclesia, in qua se nunquam mihi explicare poterant
quid esset, aut quae. Itaque cum primum potui ut illinc evasi
meam senteutiam de Anglis explicavi, in ea tragoedia quae est de
Jo. Baptista, in qua quantum materiae similitude3 patiebatur,

1 Buchanan was much questioned regarding his views on Confession. He
stated that it was a Divine law, that man should confess to the priest, that the
time for doing so was fixed by human law, that the precept of confession was
human. He considered that it was not a sin to fail to confess at the times
ordered by the Church if scandal was not caused thereby, — at least it was a
venial sin. It was venial as compared with sins which are contrary to human
laws ; it was not an unpardonable sin to disobey human laws, if neither scandal
nor injury to one's neighbour arose therefrom.

2 Henriques, ingrantuum.

1 The phrase, in qua — aimilititdo, is repeated in Henriques' text.

Appendix 395

mortem et accusationem Thomae Mori repraesentavi, et speciem
tirannidis illius temporis ob oculoa posui.1

Haec sunt quae memoria suppetvmt mihi in quibus animus fere
per biennium in Scotia et Anglia haesit aut interdum male
sensit, aut in quibus cum male sentientibus consensi, et coivi
societatem.

Burdegalae vero quicquid fui temporis illud in vero disquirendo
consumpsi, adeo ut cum edoctus f uissem ex Roffensi et Clichtoveo,
quanta esset orthodoxae ecclesiae autoritas protinus mecum
statuerem in posterum minus mihi credere, atque ut rationes
humanas in profanis disciplinis quaererem, in rebus sacris
autoritati scripturae crederem cuius neminem interpretem
1 The statement, as here made, is perhaps the most important in the whole
defence. It is certainly the most startling and throws new light altogether
on the motive of Buchanan's drama, — the Baptistes. In spite of his heresies,
Buchanan was faithful to the Catholic Church in its principles of government,
if not in its methods and interpretations. Henry VIII. 's claim to be head of
the Church was repugnant to Buchanan, as well as being an example of the
tyranny of kings. Professor Hume Brown with his insight into the historical
conditions of the times was certainly justified in inferring that the leading
sentiments in the drama express the strong leanings of the writer, but his
surmises as to the personalities represented were not correct, however near they
may have been. Buchanan's confession in the above defence shows that Sir
Thomas More was the prototype of Buchanan's Johannes. Professor Hume
Brown suggests a fiery reformer of Buchanan's time, e.g. Berquin, while Pro-
fessor De la Ville de Mirmont, suggests Patrick Hamilton (see p. 122 of this
volume). We may presume that it is equally wrong to say that "Herod could
hardly but suggest Francis I. :s past attitude towards the religious difficulties
of the day," while Louise of Savoy was considered the prototype of Herodias.
Again Professor De la Ville de Mirmont makes Herod to represent the James V.
of Scotland, and Herodias to be Mary of Guise. Howsoever these happy
suggestions may have been in conformity with Buchanan's drama, we must now
consider them as improbable. Herod was evidently meant to represent Henry
VIII., and Herodias was evidently Anne Boleyn. Then again, Professor
De la Ville de Mirmont agrees with Buchanan's greatest biographer in saying
that Malchus "undoubtedly stood in Buchanan's mind for his own relentless
pursuer, Cardinal Beaton." It is now to be accredited to Buchanan that he
did not vituperate his greatest foe to the extent that students of his works
expected him to do. Malchus must thus represent Cromwell, and undoubtedly
the representation is complete. Professor Hume Brown has no suggestion to
make concerning Gamaliel, but Professor de la Ville de Mirmont has suggested
Charles de Grammont, Archbishop of Bordeaux (see p. 122) and gives his
reasons, which are strangely opposite to the suggestion of Professor Hume
Brown that this Archbishop might seem to the people of Bordeaux to represent
Malchus. We however are much clearer on this point, and the character seems
to represent Cranmer. Then the Queen's daughter might be interpreted as
a prophetic representation of the character of Anne's daughter, though the
prophecy wag not fulfilled in Elizabeth's actions.

396 Appendix

praeter ecclesiae catholicae consensum suscipercm. Quae cogitatio
adeo animum meum fregit ut per postremum biennium quod fui
Burdegalae nullum insolentius verbum ex me audiium arbitrer
cuius non esset mihi facilis ratio in Gallia ubi scrmonis in iocando
et comediarum in agendo summa libertas est non modo in alios
sed etiam in regem ipsum. Itaque durissimae inquisitionis tem-
poribus nmo me unquam levissima suspitione aspersit.

Sub flnem anni 1543 Luteciam profectus sum1 omnino ea mente
[ut] in Scotiam redirem ac me restituerem ecclesiae. Ibi cum a
Paulo pontifice maximo bulla veniae generalis promulgata esset
omnibus qui se reconciliare veUent ecclesiae, earn ego turn veniam
lib enter amplexus sum, quippe qui omnes rationes sum secutus
ut non modo crimen sed etiam suspitionem criminis a me
removerem. Neque propterea destiti in patriam velle reverti, ut
de scandalo quod illic excitarem omnibus publice satisfacerem,
neque enim animo illic habitandi redire volebam, sed me pur-
gandi. Nam praeter poenitentiam a sacerdote mihi indictam ego
mihimetipsi aliam indixi mea sponte ut videlicet perpetuum
mihi exilium consciscerem ubi me semel purgassem, praeterea ut
meus labor ecclesiae semper deserviret nee ullos honores unquam
aut fructus ex ecclesia perciperem.

Interea Luteciae usus sum consuetudine eorum hominum qui
longissime a suspitione abessent. Cum Jo. Ershin priore coenobii
divi Colmoci, ac fratre illius mulieris quae mihi creavit omnes
molestias, familiarissime vixi, cum Gulielmo Cranstono,2 qui
nunc opinor est doctor theologus, cum Davide Panitario3 turn
legato qui nunc est archiepiscopus Glascuensis ac legatus
Scotorum in Gallia qui me saepe humaniter mensa sua excepit
et cui praelecturus fueram literas Graecas1 nisi mihi morbus
impedimento fuisset. Denique nullus fuit alicuius nominis turn
Luteciae Scotus cuius familiari consuetudine non sim usus.

Verum cum ex destillatione in morbum articularem in omnes
corporis artus diffusum incidissem, qui me tota aestate et autumno
detinuit affixurn lecto mea profectio in patriam irupedita est.

Successit tempus illud quo per factiones domesticas Scotorum
Angli magnam partem Scotiae armis obtinuerunt, ac totam
occupaturi videbantur ut iam nee si possem redire liceret.5

1 It is now certain that Buchanan did not leave Bordeaux until 1543.

2 Appointed Principal of St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, 1551.

1 Presumably David Panter, Commendator of Cambuskenneth Abbey. He
was vicar of Carstairs, near Glasgow ; latterly Bishop of Ross, not of Glasgow.

4 Buchanan stated earlier in the Inquisition that he had studied Greek, as
well as Latin, Letters and Philosophy at Paris ; he was not therefore self-
taught in Greek, aa has been supposed. 5 Heuhques, liberet.

Appendix 397

Itaque omnino de patria repetenda animum abieci et qui antea id
solum cogitabara turn conditionem requirendam putavi ubi des-
perata salute patriae longissime ab eius malis audiendis abessem.

Offerebant mihi in Gallia amplas conditiones Abbas Jueriaci
homo nobilissimus qui me etiam in morbo pecunia benigne
iuverat, in Vasconibus item Episcopi Tarbellensis, et Condo-
mensis, in aula regia Card. Lothoring, et Card. Giuriacensis,
et Franciae Cancellariua suasu Jo. Gagnei theologi et lazari Bayfii,
quorum domestica consuetudine usus sum aliquot menses in aula.

Ego tamen tenuiorem hie secutus sum, ut quam longissime, ut
dixi, a patriae malis abessem. Hoc demum anno cum pacem
cum Anglis factam audissem statueram iterum in patriam redire
ac omnibus quod in me esset satisfacere.

Superiore ergo illo triennio multa per ignorantiam multa per
negligentiam, iuvenilis aetatis impetum, pravam consuetudinem
et dixi et feci, quae nequiter perverse et impie facta intelligo,
quorum ego cum poenitentiam egissem anno 1544 putavi ea
apud homines oblivione perpetua sepultum iri quemadmodum
apud deum sepulta esse arbitror et spero. Quorum rationem
mihi nunc non putavi reddendam. Neque singillatim reddere
possum neque dubito tamen quin multo plura sint quam hie a
me perscribantur. Novem vero posteriores annos ita egi et cum
his hominibus, in luce Christiani orbis ut nee fingendis criminibus
locum me praebuisse opiner cuius rei testem neminem fugio qui
me familiariter novisse poterat. Qui fuerunt multi, et illustres
homines, quorum non solum familiaritate, sed etiam convictu sum
usus quadriennio proximo antequam in Lusitaniam venissem.1 Ita
enim vixi ut pauci admodum eo tempore me notiores fuerint Luteciae.

De mea vita et oratione postquam in Lusitaniam veni nullum
testem reiicio. Quod si novem annorum inoffensus cursus perpetuo
vitae tenore non satis magnum mutatae vitae inditium habet,
si regressus ad ecclesiam et venia impetrata apud tales homines
non valent, nescio quis portus est ad quern miseri confugere
possunt. Ego vero confiteor me graviter in deum atque homines
peccasse, scandalo fuisse ecclesiae Dei, idemque testor me cum
saepe alias turn promulgatis indulgentiis peccata me confessum
esse, ab eo tempore semper cavisse ne quern ulla in re quoad
possem offenderem, et si quid in praesentia omiserim id me in-
firmitate memoriae, non alia ratione fecisse. Protestor item me
nullam poenam etiam nunc recusare, donee omnibus quod in me
est satisfaciam. Sin minus mihi hie in aliqua re creditur, illud a
1 Also from a passage at foot of p. 401 we are assured that he was in Paris
until he left for Portugal, and thus the problem of the years 1545-1547 is solved.

398 Appendix

vestra humanitate peto, ut hie de Lusitanicis peccatis statuatis
quod vobis visum fuerit severissima iudicii1 forma. De his quae
in Gallia a me admissa dicuntur vinctus in Galliam mittar ut
illic ubi asperrime iudicia exercentur dem poenas, neque enim
ego meis testibus uti possum neque adversariorum hie testimonia
refutare neque notos homines allegare: multa praetera hie
criminosa esse video quae in Gallia ne suspitionem quidem
criminis habent.

In Britannia vero quae acta sunt non solum deprecor sed
etiam ea detestor atque abominor. Vos autem viri doctissimi
interim hoc expendere velim quam infirma sit iuventa non solum
suapte natura sed etiam provocata contumeliis, ambitione
inflammata, contentione accensa, callidorum hominum insidiis
circumventa, doctorum hominum opinione et suasu impulsa,
irarum impetu in praeceps plerumque proruens, insidiis diaboli
impedita,2 consuetudine pravorum hominum corrupta, illecebris
capta.

De me vero sic habetote. Quae mihi causa fuerat ad lapsa
praecipua, eadem fuit ad odium praeteritae vitae potissima. Nam
cum ab ineunte aetate in grammatica rhetorica et dialectica male
institutum me intellexissem, statui mihi omnium opiniones
audiendas, in nullius magistri verba iurandum. Ea ratio me
provexit longius ut nihil non audiendum in quavis re putarem.
Itaque cum .Lutherani freti adversariorum ignorantia sese
ostentarent, Christiani homines quae ipsi firma et solida
putarent in disquisitionem vocari moleste ferrent, et convitiar-
entur magis quam responderent, factum est plerumque ut
infirmiorum animi nutarent quod inopia probationum eos ad
convitia descendere crederent, et ob eandem causam suos sensus
non auderent omnibus nudare. Dum auxilium petere non aude-
bant in luto haerebant. Postquam vero in Galliam veni aeque
facile veritatem auditam arripui, nee ulla in re unquam pertin-
aciter egi. Me autem non esse pertinacem in ulla re cum omnes
alii Conimbricae turn mei discipuli sciunt, a quibus facile me
admoneri patior si quid interpretando errarim, aut siquid
posterius occurrit de aliqua re quod melius dici possit, sine ulla
ambitione detego meum errorem. Neque quicque in quo dubito
ulla ex parte me plane profiteer scire. Eorum vero quae superius
explicavi si quid pro explorato tenuissem, non erat cur ex Anglia
discederem ubi nee opes, nee honores, nee securitas mihi defutura
1 Henriques, indicii. 2 Henriques, impetita.

Appendix 399

erant: non recusassem ire in Daniam, quo me vocabat in spem
maximae hereditatis maior amita mea, mulier orba, provecta
aetate, et notae opulentiae omnibus exteris qui mare Balthicum
navigant.

Non toties infelici eventu reditum in patriam tentassem.

Non temporibus turbulentis redire recusassem.

Non ita rationes meas constituissem ut, dum commodum
revertendi tempus expecto, nullis certis sedibus haeream, aut
certe me munissem literis pontificiis adversus invidiam potius
quam simplici indulgentia, cuius ego etiam nunc vim earn esse
volo ut meae conscientiae in solatium prosit. Quod reliquum est
totum misericordiae Dei ac vestrae committo neque ullam
poenam qua vos me dignum statueritis recuso. Illud tantum
vos oro ne hominem qui nullam satisfaciendi rationem hactenus
omisit, quod in se fuit, potius perditum quam servatum velitis

Orationes ad sanctos1 veteri more semper probavi quibus vel
oramus ut intercedant pro nobis, vel per memoriam eorum aliquid
a deo petimus. Multae novae mihi visae sunt superstitiosae, ut
quae a sanctis simpliciter petunt ea quae a deo peti debent quae
putantur ad certa mala afferre remedium, ut adversus vulnera
febrim, etc.

Picturae comparatio pontificis cum Christo, qui non ingreditur
per ostium, etc., . . omnis arbor non faciens fructum, etc.,
. resurrectio Christi in qua religiosi omnium ordinum
custodiunt sepulchrum ac dolent ubi senserunt Christum
surrexisse2 . . . picturas varias in Anglia vidi quas in
Gallia interdum explicabam expetentibus, e quibus aliquas in
Scotiam delatas vidi per episcopum sancti Davidis Anglum cum
esset legatus in Scotia quae nonnulos commoverunt.

De imaginibus probavi id quod turn vidi fieri in Anglia: ut
hae quae superstitiose colebantur velut imago crucifixi quae
vultu risus et alios affectus fingebat et imago darvel gadezim3
tollerentur, caeterae permanerent, utque quater in anno ad

1 Buchanan afterwards stated that the saints ought not to be asked for
that which only God gives, which is the life eternal and the remission of sins,
and that he had always advised to go direct to God, because no saint was so
merciful as God. The saints should only be our intercessors with God.

2 This picture compared the Pope with Christ and was inscribed with the
texts " He who entereth not in by the gate " and " Every tree that beareth
not fruit," and to a picture of the Resurrection of Christ, which represented
the monks of every order as guarding the sepulchre and expressing their
grief on discovering that Christ was risen indeed. " These were probably
German prints." The passage is quite corrupt. 3 See p. 71, footnotes.

400 Appendix

minimum sacerdos interpretaretur populo quid sibi vellent
imagines ac caeterae cerimoniae quae videbantur populo
necessariae.

De Judaismo nunquam cogitavi. Anabaptistarum quae sit
secta adhuc ignore.

Epicureos in omni conventu semper detestatus sum nee verbo
solum sed etiam carminibus interdum.

Libros nee habeo ullos nisi vetustos, nee aliud est de quo
diligentius admoneo scholasticos in omni loco quam ut a lectione
novorum librorum in omni genere doctrinae absistant donee
veteres plane perlegerint.

Babylonem quae describitur in apocalipsi aliquando Romam
putavi, ac earn etiam designari per mulierem. Verum cum mecum
reputarem in prophetis de re futura omnem interpretationem
ease periculosam, quippe cum maxima pars turn demum intelli-
gatur ubi eventus est manifestus, statim in ea re suspendi
sententiam ac facile passus sum me cum multis id ignorare.

Georg. Buchanan mea manu omnia scripsi et signavi.

After the first Defence was received Buchanan had to undergo
a severe examination. After that was over, he wrote the
following, which is mainly autobiographical : —

" Tria fere tempora esse video, in quibus omnis mea versatur
accusatio. Primum a postremis incipit annis quibus in Scotia
fui, usque ad id tempus quo ex Anglia in Galliam veni, ac per
aliquot menses legendo et audiendo quoad potui animum
repurgavi, ac deinde communicavi quod fuit circiter quindecim
dies post pascha anno domini 1541 si recte memini. Hoc ego
totum tempus quoad memoria suppetebat, vobis ante descripsi.
Multa autem ut fateor in Anglia et Scotia a me parum pie
dicta et facta sunt. Nam in Gallia nihil memini nisi siquis me
rogaverit de rebus Anglicis forte responderim.

Non dubito tamen quin ad vos in rebus Scoticis multo acerbiora
vero delata sunt omnia, praesertim cum gravissimis factionibus
absens oppugnarer. Praeterea cum ego e familia non adeo opul-
enta sim, sed certe nota et factiosa, non solum mea privata odia
in me incubuerunt, sed ab inimicis etiam familiae communibus
oppugnabar. Quanto autem odio prosequebatur meam familiam
eius familia qui nunc est prorex in Scotia, quoties iudiciis
capitalibus, quoties ferro totam nostram gentem petiverint,
nemini opinor ignotum est qui res Scoticas noverit.

Appendix 401

Accedebat commune nominis Lutherani odium quod secundis
populi auribus, summam fingendi licentiam hominibus invidis et
malitiosis dabat.

Haec ego non ideo dico ut me purgem sed nequis vestrum
admiretur si eadem quae ego facta fateor aut paulo aliter, aut
etiam asperius facta ab aliis dicantur, praesertim cum hi
quibus negocium datur ut inquirant de talibus rebus eorum testi-
monia recipiant libentissime, qui criminosissime, et acerbissime
loquantur. Neque enim iudicum sed accusatorum partes sibi
demandatas intelligunt. Itaque dura crimina omnia sine dis-
crimine libenter arripiunt , malunt alienae saluti periculum
creare, quam ipsi videri in quaerendo parum diligentes fuisse.

Quae omnia refutandi mihi in praesentia non video locum.
Sed odio invidiae et malignis rumoribus praebendae sunt aures,
apud eos auditores, qui1 quid sit veri in re ipsa nosse non
possunt.

Ut in Galliam veni omne tempus quoad potui in excutiendo
vero posui, usque ad pascha proximum.

Et cum id quod concionibus et libris legendis nondum satis
axplicatum putabam ad And. Goveanum retulissem, ille partim
negociis impeditus, partim disputando et docendo rem protrax-
isset in XV. diem post pascha, eo tempore liber omni scrupulo
communicavi.

Proximum fuit tempus ab eo paschate donee in Lusitaniam
veni, quo tempore nullam occasionem satisfaciendi deo et hominibus
quoad eius fieri2 potuit omisi. Nam quod meae conscientiae con-
solandae debebam id omnibus modis exsecutus8 sum, legendo
audiendo, ecclesiae omni ex parte parendo et publicum et privatam
absolutionem accipiendo.

Quod vero ad homines attinet cum in Gallia neminem me
ostendisse dicto vel facto mihi conscius essem, non eram ea de re
solicitus. Scotis vero quos publice offenderam ut satisfacerem
publice semper id unice cupienti occasio est erepta de manibus.
Quos vero ita convenire familiariter potui ut meam voluntatem
exponerem eis abunde satisfactum puto.

Hoc totum tempus prope sex annorum fuit, quo partim
Burdegalae, partim Luteciae fui, et cum honoratissimo quoque
qui in his locis erant familiariter vixi.4 Neque reor me in
offensionem cuiusquam incurrisse.

1 Henriques gives quid 2 Henriquea— /reri. s Henriques — execntns.
4 This statement proves that Buchanan left Paris to go to Portugal.
Ol

402 Appendix

Tamen cum in tanta malignitate hominum difficile sit invidiam,
difficillimum linguas malas effugere, video quod in Gallia mihi
facillimum foret, idem hie mihi fore difficillimum,1 ut cum
testibus ignotis confligam, apud eos qui nee me, nee illos nosse
potuerunt, inter mores longe diversissimos cum occulta invidia
pugnandum.

Itaque quod antea petii nee iniquum esse nee novum existimo
id etiam nunc peto, ut apud severissimos Galliae iudices, ubi ius
severissime dicitur liceat mihi cum illis experiri. Quod si fiat
facile polliceor non magis mihi nunc ausuros molestiam exhibere
quam per tot annos in Gallia praebere ausi sunt.

Tertium est tempus hoc quadriennium prope,2 quod in
Lusitania sum. De quo hoc tantum dico quoad per valetudinem
licuit meam semper domum meum cubiculum noctes et dies
patuisse, nihil clausi, nihil caelati apud me fuit : neque dicta,
neque facta obscura sunt de quibus rebus facile vos cognoscere
potestis praesertim cum neminem testem recusem.

Quam vero libere et clare haec nunc apud vos de hoc tertio
tempore pronuntis, tarn libere apud Gallos iudices de tempore
quo in Gallia fui pronuntiarem neque enira qui clam nunc me
oppugnant (si qui sunt) suam impudentiam prodere auderent ubi
facile redargui possent palam."

B. — INVENTORY OP THE BOOKS OP COSTA AND BUCHANAN
WHEN IN PORTUGAL.

When Buchanan and his colleagues — Teive and Costa — were
arrested by the Inquisition at Lisbon, the Doctors and Deputies
visited their rooms and examined their possessions. When they
visited Teive's room, they found money and one book — John
Calvin's Christianae Religionis Institiitio (1536). The books of
the other two prisoners were more numerous, and it is especially
interesting to learn what books they had been cherishing. For
information on this point we are indebted to Senhor Henriques,
who gives an account of the Record given by the notary : —

" And at once the said Doctors, together with me, the Notary,
went to the lodgings of Master Joamo da Costa, Principal of the

1 Henriques prints facilimum and difficilimum.

2 Buchanan must have come to Portugal at the beginning of 1547 or at the
end of 1546.

Appendix 403

said College, who is said to be at His Highness's Court, and,
search having been made for all of his papers and books, the
following were found, that is to say : — Two volumes, the title of
which is Precationes Cristiana;1 ITEM, another volume, the title
of which is Unio Discedentium ; another volume, the title of
which is Inquiridion Salmorum;2 ITEM, another volume, the
title of which is Prases Divini Escriture; ITEM, another volume,
with the covers wanting, the title of which is Anotaciones
Sebastiane Monsteri; ITEM, another volume, the title of which
is Dictionario Ebraico, composed by Monstero; ITEM, another
volume, the title of which [is] Works of Clement Marot; another

volume of the Brivia ,3 in the French language.

And, at once, all the said senhores Deputy and Doctors went
with me, the Notary, to the lodgings of the said Master George
Buchanan, and, upon all of his books and chests being searched,
there was found among them a volume, the title of which is
Greci Literature de Colampadio; another volume, the title of
which is Arismetica Integra* with the preface of Philip
Melancthon ; ITEM, another volume, the title of which is
Gicero's Oration pro Milone, with an exposition by Philip
Melancthon ; ITEM, another volume, the title of which is
Orations of Julius, with expositions by Philip Melancthon ; all
of which books the said Doctor Jorge Gon9alves, Deputy, ordered
to be placed in safety, and he took charge of them."

C. — LIST OP PASSAGES, PHRASES, AND SINGLE WORDS DELETED BY
THE INQUISITION IN BUCHANAN'S Rerum Scoticarum Historia.5

PASSAGES, phrases, and single words deleted by the Inquisition in
George Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, 2nd edition of
Alexander Arbuthnot, Edinburgh, 1583 (1st 1582), as seen in the
copy 16 xii. 20 now in the Library of the Royal Ajuda Palace,
Lisbon (Real Bibliotheca d' Ajuda).

1 Evidently Precationes Christianas.

2 This should be Enchiridion Pnalmorum.

3 Writing here is almost illegible, but Senhor Henriques suggests that the
book referred to was the Bible.

4 Should be Arithmetica Integra. Whether this book was returned to
Buchanan or not, is not known, but it is certain that among the books he
presented in later years to the University of St. Andrews there was a copy of
this edition.

6 Drawn up and sent by Rev. R. M. Lithgow, Lisbon.

404

Appendix

Folio lOv, lines 51-2, 2 words.
„ 36v, „ 9-13.
„ 42, „ 49-50.
„ 45, „ 45.
„ 46, „ 19-25.
„ 50v, „ 18.
„ 57, „ 44-7, 49-50.

., 63 v, lines 45-6.
„ 65, „ 33-48.
„ 68v, ,, 14-5, 21 6, 28-9, 30

41, 46-53.
„ 70, „ 9.
„ 71, „ 2352.
„ 80, „ 14-5, 17, 49-53.
„ 80v, „ 1-2, 15-17.
,, 83v, „ 26, 52-3.
„ 84, „ 1-2, 10, 14.

99v 2.

„ 102v, „ 25-30, 41-53.

„ 103, „ 1-39.

„ lllv, „ 26.

„ 113v, „ 15, 18-22.
192v v 4

,, IffiEV, ,, —-*.

„ 123v, „ 35.

„ 124v, „ 49-50.

„ 129, „ 45.

„ 129r, „ 2-5.

„ 137, „ 33-42.

,, 138, „ 51.

„ 145 v, „ 26-34.

„ 146, „ 33-37.

„ 147, „ 13-51.

„ 149, „ 44-5.

„ 149v, „ 19.

„ 150, „ 3-5, 22-3, 25, 34-5,

48-51.

„ 151, „ 33-6.

„ 162, „ 28-9, 38-9.

„ 152v, „ 4-8, 14, 20-2.

„ 163v, „ 14, 20, 54.

„ 154, „ 1.

„ 156, „ 4,6.

„ 156v, „ 28-31, 37-8, 53.

„ 157, „ 1-3, 8-10, 13-5, 19,

26,52.

„ 157v, „ 4, 22-46, 53.

,, 158 and 158v, this folio excised.

„ 159, lines 6, 32-5, 39-40, 50-1.

Folios 187-194 are excised, and a

Folio 159v, lines 50.

„ 160, „ 48-9, 52-3.

„ 160v, „ 37-9.

„ 161, „ S-8.

,, 161v, „ 5.

,, 162v, lines 38-53.

,, 163, „ whole page deleted.

„ 166v, lines 42-4, 49-50.

„ 167, „ 1,5,7,11,14,15,17,

19, 36, 40, 47 (single

words).
„ 167v, „ 4-11, 15, 21, 24, 26-

7, 29 34.
„ 168, „ 23, 31, 49, 50 (single

words).

„ 168 v, „ 6, 7-16, 22, 40, 48.
„ 169, ,, 1, 2, 15, 19, 31, 46

(single words).

„ 169v, „ 6, 7, 8, 17, 22, 47.
„ 170, „ 21-2, 23, 25, 27, 29-

31,44.
„ 170v, „ 7-12, 15-7, 21, 24-5,

29, 37, 39, 40.
„ 172, „ 21.
„ 172v, „ 48.
„ 173, „ 1, 8.
„ 173v, „ 41.
„ 174v, „ 9, 10.
„ 174, „ 18, 49, 52.
„ 176, „ 45, 46, 47.
„ 176v, „ 42.
„ 178v, „ 8-9,12,14,15,31,32.
„ 179, „ 13-4, 16, 18, 19,21

22,23.

„ 179v, „ 27.
„ 180, „ 53.
„ 180r, „ 3, 4, 5, 21, 22.
„ 181v, „ 43.
„ 182, „ 16-20,24-6.
„ 183, „ 7,40-1,42,45,47-51
„ 184, ,, 27, 29, 31 to the end

of page.
„ 184v, ,, All save last 11

words deleted.
„ 185, „ 4-8.
„ 185v, ., 1-2, 44-50, 52-3.
„ 186, „ 1-4.
„ 186v, „ 19-24, 31-8, 43-8, 53.

long note follows on margin of next page.

Appendix 405

It begins " Hie lib«r qui totus scatebat evidentibus mendacijs et atrocibus in
optimam reginam contumelijs excisus est."

Folio 195, lines 1-3, 19-31, 34-38, 43-4, Folio 203v, lines 35, 36, 39.

49. „ 204, „ 6, 30-2, 34, 42-3, 60.

„ 195v, „ 12-14. „ 204v, „ 31-2, 40, 44.

,, 196v, „ 27-31, 44-5. „ 205, „ 22-3, 32-3.

„ 197, „ 1-2, 7-18, 19-21, 23-4. „ 206, „ 19, 21, 22, 27-8, 31-2.

„ 197v, lines 32. „ 209v, lines 25-29, 35,36.

„ 199, „ 32, 36, words deleted ; „ 210v, „ 1,2,3,4.

41, 42 words added. „ 211, „ 27,28.

„ 199v, „ 10-15, 32, 33. „ 212, „ 22-49.

,, 200, ,, 24-37, addition to 52. ,, 212v, „ 52-53.

„ 200v, „ 2-4, 6-7, 10-12, 14, 16, „ 213, „ 1-3, 5-13, 31-3.

21-3, 45-8. „ 213v, „ 6-6, 13-17.

„ 201v, „ 13-15, 26. „ 216, „ 32, 43-8.
„ 202, „ 2-7, 13-14, 20, 36-7.

For these words deleted fol. 172, 1. 21, 3rd word ; fol. 172 v, 48, 5th ; fol.
173, 1, 4th ; fol. 173v, 41, penult ; fol. 174, 18, 8th, 49-52, penult, catholica is
substituted, and for fol. 173, 8, 4th and 22, 3rd word, nona is substituted, and
for fol. 174v, 9, last word nolebat. For fol. 179v, 27, 4th last word, lutherane
is substituted ; for fol. 197v, 32, penult, 2 words sectae lutlierae, and catholicos
for fol. 180, 53, 3rd and 183, 7, 7th word.

DE JURE REGNI.

Folio 22v, lines 15-16. Folio 29, 63, lines 1-19.

„ 23v, ,,36. „ C2 (34v), last half line.

„ 25v, „ 1, 23-31. „ C3 (35), lines 1-20, 34-45.

„ 28, 62, last 2 words of 270 and „ C3v (35v), „ 3-23.

all but 3$ lines here. „ Dv (37v), „ 37-50.

DlALOGUS.
Last 11 lines of verses " Ad eundem " (2 sets) excised.

The well bound volume in the Library of the Royal Palace of
the Ajuda in Lisbon, in which the above deletions are found, has
written upon it, " De S. Roque dado per Lopo Scares," from which
it would appear to have come from the Convent of that name. The
deleted words, save in the Latin verses at the close of the volume,
cannot be read, and in many places the chemical used has quite
burnt the part away.

406 Appendix

Appendix II.

(Page 181.)

[BRIEF statement concerning the earliest known translation of the
first part of the De Jure Regni recently discovered in a MS. of the
16th or early 17th century, by Professor I. Gollancz, the Secretary
of the British Academy, in whose possession is the MS., and
who allowed it to be brought to St. Andrews, so that it might be
considered by those interested in the problem.]

This newly discovered translation of a portion of the De Jure is
in a MS. volume containing a most interesting and unique
MS. version of the play of Af^lstapha by Fulke Greville, Lord
Brooke, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney, — the play (in its later
expanded form first printed in 1633, though a fragmentary corrupt
quarto edition appeared in 1609) may actually be in the handwrit-
ing of John Davies of Hereford, writing-master and poet, who wrote
a sonnet in praise of Mustapka "as written, not printed." The
evidence of calligraphy seems strongly in favour of this suggestion.
The writing of the translation of the De Jure is in a less beautiful
hand, and, if by the same scribe, was written more hurriedly and with
less care. The interesting fact of the two works being in the same
volume may be explained by the close connection of certain principles
enunciated in the play with the principles set forth in Buchanan's
treatise, much in the same way as Buchanan's Baptistes set forth
in dramatic form the views of the De Jure. It is a commonplace
of literature that " the Tragedies of Lord Brooke might with more
propriety have been called political treatises."

It is well known that in 1664 the Privy Council of Scotland
issued a proclamation prohibiting the circulation of copies of a MS.
translation of the De Jure, and ordering the confiscation and
destruction of all copies — the original work itself was suppressed by
an Act of Parliament in 1584, i.e. five years after its first publication.

No copy of an early translation has hitherto been discovered ; the
earliest version known is that printed in 1680. The newly dis-
covered text may well be assigned to the Elizabethan period, or the
very beginning of the seventeenth century. As to its authorship,
nothing is known. The subject is one that would have appealed to
Fulke Greville himself, but without further investigation nothing
definite can be said on this point. As a specimen of the translation
the first part of the Dedication is here given in modernised spelling : —

Appendix 407

" I had written many years since, when your kingdom was in
trouble, a dialogue concerning the right of the Kings of Scotland in
which, even from the beginning, I have desired to lay down what right
and what power belongeth both to the Kings as to the Subjects,
which book might seem at that time somewhat profitable to stop the
mouths of those which followed the State of those times with
violent and importunate clamours, rather than weighing directly
what was just or right. Notwithstanding, I kept it for more
peaceable times, and willingly dedicate it to our public quietness.
For of late, looking over my waste papers, by chance I lighted upon
this dialogue, and reviewing it methought I saw many things in it
fit for your age, and therefore purposed to publish it that it might
be a witness of my care and loyalty towards you, as also to admonish
you of your1 duty towards your subjects. Many things do assure me
that this my labour will not be vainly bestowed ; first, your age
which is nob yet corrupted with false opinions, and above that your
towardliness hasting of its own accord to the understanding of those
things which are most excellent ; besides this, your willingness in
receiving the admonitions and instructions, not only of your teachers,
"but of all those which are accounted men of judgment and
discretion ; to these I join also your great diligence and judicious-
ness in examining your own businesses in which I know no man's
authority or greatness is available to persuade you unless it be
joined with probable and sound reason," etc., etc.

Appendix III.

(Page 24.)

A. — BOOKS WHICH BUCHANAN PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY
OF ST. ANDREWS.

Sir Robert Sibbald in his Commentaries in Vitam Bnchanani
(Edin. 1702) says: " Est etiam in eo collegio librorum, eidem
a Buchanano donatorum, catalogus : qui omnes adhuc in biblio-
theca extant." With regard to these books, research has been
made by the Rev. Dr. Lee, at one time Professor of Ecclesi-
astical History in St. Mary's College and Rector of the
University, and he was only able to come across nine of the
books referred to. He, moreover, considered that there were
not many more of Buchanan's books in the Library. The

408 Appendix

following are Dr. Lee's remarks upon the volumes, which were
printed as an Appendix to Irving's Memoirs of Buchanan (2nd
Edition) : —

1. Hieronymi Osorii de Gloria libri V. Conimbr. a
Francisco Correa, A.D. MDXLIX. This volume has this inscrip-
tion at the bottom of the title : ' ' Ex libris communis
bibliothecae Collegii Leonardini, ex dono doctissimi Magistri
Georgii Buchanani, principals ejusdem." The inscription is
repeated at the end of the volume in the same handwriting, — not
Buchanan's own, it is almost unnecessary to add.

2. IlavAou 'Aiyii/jyrov 'larpov dpurrov /3i(3\ia kirra. Venetiis,
in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri, MUXXVIII. fol. This
is a very beautiful copy of the editio princeps.

3. Homeri Poetarum Supremi Ilias per Laurent ium
Vallensem in Latinum Sermonem traducta : accuratissime ac
solerti cura impressum ac emendatum hoc opus per venerabilem
d. presbyt. Baptistam Farfengam, impensa vero d. Francisci
Laurini civis Brixiani, MCCCCLXXXXVII. With regard to the
accuracy of the impression, the following specimens taken from
fol. I. may suffice : — ' Agros ' for ' Argos,' ' gratia ' for ' grata,'
' fasta ' for ' festa,' ' orgis ' for ' rogis,' ' innuet ' for ' juvet.'
These errors are corrected on the margin, in Buchanan's hand-
writing I think. I see many others corrected in the handwriting
of Professor Francis Pringle.

4. Marci Antonii Sabellici Annotationes veteres et recentes,
ex Plinio, Livio, et pluribus authoribus. Philippi Beroaldi
annotationes centum. Angeli Politiani Miscellaneorum centuria,
etc. (eight other tracts). Impressit volumen hoc Jacobus
Pentius de Leuco, Impressorum omnium accuratissimus MDII.
Many marginal notes in this volume seem to be in our poet's
handwriting.

5. Augustini Steuchi Eugubini Bibliothecarii contra
Laurentium Vallam de falsa Donatione Constantini libri duo.
Ejusdem de Restituenda Navigatione Tiberis. Ejusdem de
Aqua Virgine in Urbem Revocanda. Lugd. ap. Seb. Gryphium,
MDXLVII. These three last are in folio.

6. Arithmetica Integra, authore Michaele Stifelio, cum
praefatione Philippi Melanchthonis. Norimbergae, ap. Johan.
Petreium, anno Christi MDXLIIII. A quarto of 640 pages.

7. Terentiani Mauri venustissimus de Literis, Syllabis, et
Metris Horatii Liber. (Johan Petit.). Venundantur Parisiis

Appendix 409

in vico Divi Jacob! sub leone argenteo, apud Joannem Parvum.
Bound up with this is Probi Grammatici Instituta Artium.
Parisiis, 1.5.1.0.

8. Ephemerides Nicolai Simi, Mathematici Bononiensis, ad
annos xv. incipientes ab anno Christi MDLIIII. usque ad annum
MDLXVIII. cum meridiano inclytae civitatis Bononiae dili-
gentissime collatae, etc. Venetiis, ex officina Erasmiana
Vincentii Valgrisii, MDLIIII.

9. Le Epistole Famigliari di Cicerone, tradotte secundo i
veri sensi dell' autore, et con figure proprie, della lingua volgare.
Con privilegio del ommo Pontifice et della illustrissima signoria
di Venezia, MDLII (8vo). All these books are marked in the
same manner as No. 1, both on the first and the last page.

There is also a copy of Buchanan's translation of Linacre's
Rudiments, printed at Paris in 1540, with a great number of
interlineations and marginal notes written in a very small
hand, — whether Buchanan's or not, I am not able to ascertain.

B.— BOOKS WHICH BUCHANAN PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY
OF GLASGOW (Page 15.)

Eustathii Commentarii in Homerum, quatuor volurainibus, Grace, in folio,

Romas, 1549.

Plutarchi Opera,1 Grace, duobus voluminibus, fol. Basil, Frobenitis, 1542.
Platonis Opera, Grace, fol. Basil. 1534, Valderua.
Procli in Platouis Tym. [Timteum] Commentarii, Grace, fol. Basil.
Demosthenis Opera, cum Commentariis Ulpiani, Grace, fol. Basil. 1532,

Herwigius.
Lycophronis Cassandra, Graece, cum Commentariis Tzetzze, fol. Basil. 1546,

Oporinuti.
Commentarii Graci in Aristotelis Rhetoricam anonymi, fol. Parisiis, Neobar.

1539.

Apollonii Argonautica, Grace, in quarto, Florentia;, 1496.
Aristophanes cum Commentariis, Greece.
Basilii Opera, Grace, fol. Basil. 1532, Froben.
Euclidcs cum Commentariis, Graece.
Stephanus Byzantinus de Urbibus, Grace.

Omnes ex dono viri optimi et doctissimi Georgii Buchanani, regii magistri.
Strabo, Grace, fol.
Athenaeus, Grace, fol. Basil. 1535.
Suidas, Grace, fol. Venetiis, Aldus, 1514.

Manuelis Moschopuli de Ratione Examinandae Orationis Libellus, Grace.
Ex dono pariter Georgii Buchanani, re^ii magistri.

1 "This book," says Professor Muirhead of Glasgow, " ought to have been
entitled Moralia Opuscula." The above list is taken from the Annales Cottegii
Olatguensis torn. 1, f. 166-7, and printed as an appendix in Irving's Memoirs
(2nd Edit.)

410 Appendix

Appendix IV,

(Page 24-)
MR. GEORGE BUCHANAN'S OPINION

ANENT

THE REFORMATION OF THE UNIVERSITIE OF ST. ANDROS.
(From a MS. in t/te Advocates' Library.)

THIS is one of the few specimens of Buchanan's writing in the
vernacular, and was first printed by Dr. Irving (Memoirs, 2nd edit.,
Appendix III.). It has, however, been thoroughly revised by
Professor Hume Brown for the Scottish Text Society. As the
original MS. could not recently be found in the Advocates' Library,
we are indebted to Professor Hume Brown for allowing us to
reproduce his text. The original MS. is not in Buchanan's hand-
writing, as is evident from the variations in the spelling of
certain words, but must have been transcribed since Buchanan's
time, during which the MS. was certainly never published.
The original must have been written some time between 1563
and 1567, although the transcriber considers the year 1579 as
the time of its composition. This, however, must be a mistake, as
Mary was then no longer Queen, and the document makes reference
to her still being on the throne: — "Item, that the Queen's grace,
and lordis of the parlement, be requirit to pas ane act," etc. Thus
it is reasonable to believe that the original was written after the
Commission of 1563 was appointed, and not for the Commission of
1579. It has been doubted whether this is Buchanan's work or
not. We see, however, throughout the work suggestions and terms
which could only be familiar to one who had studied at the Uni-
versity of Paris. He refers to portionists, a term applicable to
those who, as at St. Barbe, boarded with the principal or regent.
Then the reference to pedagogis comes from one who is acquainted
with the methods of private tutoring employed at Bordeaux ; whilst
the authors which Buchanan here prescribes for study are those
who are read in his old Bordeaux College of Guyenne. These
points alone would mark the work as that of Buchanan.

The whole scheme outlined here bears a striking resemblance
to that of the College or School which had been founded at Geneva
in 1536.

Appendix 411

THE OKDINAR EXPENSIS OF THE COLLEGE OP HUMANITE.

Personis.
The Principal.
Ane Lectour Publik.
Vj Regentis.

Servantis.
The Principal ij.
The Lectour Public ane.
The Cuik.
The Porter.
The Stewart.
The Pant ri man.

For the Principal and ij fervantis ij quartis of ayl, ij bread, of
xvj vnce the bread, ane quartar of mouton, or equiualent in fylver,
or the fifche day, ij f.

Summa.

Of niault, xij gallons the bol, . xv blis and ane half.

In bread of quheit, 6 blis.

For kytchyn meat, xxxv Ibis.

The public lectour j quart of ayl, ane bread and ane half.

Item half ane quartar of mouton at the principals table. And
he be maryit, or hald hous out of the college, that it falbe leful to
hym to haif ane burdit in the college at the principalis table in his
place, or ellis the pryce of the buirding abuve written.

Summa.

Of mault, vij blis 3 f.

In bread, .... 4 blis 2 f.
In fylver, .... xviij Ibs.

The vj regentis euery man tlire chopins of ayl, and xx vnce of
bread dayly, and amangi.s thaynie ane quartar of mouton and ane
half, or equiualent ; that is, for fifche or flefche on the day v f. ; vz.
on the tifche day ij course of tifche, and every man ane eg at the
mailteth, or ane heryng, eftyr the feafon and oportunite.

Summa.

Of mault, . . xxxv blis.
Of quheit, . . xxii blis, j f.
Of fylver, . . Ixxxxj pundis v f.

412 Appendix

The cuik, stewart, portar, and panfcriraan, ilk ane of thayme
ane bread, ano pyint of ayl the day, and half ane quartar of mouton,
or equiualent, amang thayme, ane cours of fyfche at mailteth, xvi d
the day.

Summa.

Of mault, . . xj blis 2 f. 2 p.

Of ait tueil, . xv blis.

Of fylver, . . xxiiii Ibs vi fh. 8 d.

Wages of the Personis.

The principal ane hundreth pund.

The publik lectour ane hundreth markis.

The sex regeutis fex scoir of pundis, to be diuidit at the princi-
palis discretion, and paction maid with thayme.

The cuik and portar xij marks.

The steuart to be payit be the principal off the profet of the
portionistis.

For colis, napre, vefchel, and other extraordinaris concerning
the hal and kitching xl pund 5eirly.

For reparation of the place xl pund 5eirly.

Of the quhilk reparation the principal fal geif coumpt jeirly to
the cenfouris and rectour for the tyme.

The Hail Soume.

In drynk of mault . . Ixix blis iij f. ij pkis.

In quheit xxxj blis j f.

In filver ..... five hundret xlvij Ibs. x f x d.

Item for ilk bursar, fa mony as falbe thocht necessair to be in
the College of Humanite, ane bread and ane pyint of ayl on the day,
the fext part of ane quartar of mouton, or the valour thairof.

The Ordre of the College of Humanite.

The scholaris that cumis of new fal addrefse thayme to the
principal, quha fal caufe thayme to compone, and examine thayme,
and eftyr thair capacite send thayme to ane regent with hys signet,
and the regent fal writ thayme in hys rol, and assigne thayme place
in hys classe diuidit in decuriis.

The bairnis of thys college fal heir na other lessons bot thair
regentis, and the lectour public in humanite sa mony as falbe fund

Appendix 413

able be the principal. And that quhilk is red in thys college sal
nocht be red in otheris.

The bairnis of thys college fal nother ga furth be themselves
nor 3it with ane regent without the principalis leif. Al other
thyngis partenyng to discipline scolastic to be doin as commodite
and tyme occurris.

The nombre of the classis at the leist sex.

The lawast class1 is for thaynie that suld declin the namis, and
the verbes actives, passives, and anomales, and eftyr that lear
Terence and the rudimentis of grammar as followis. Thay sal bring
to the classe paper and ink, and the regent sal cause thayuie to writ
twa or thre lynis of Terence, tellyng nocht only to thayme the
lettres and the word but als the accent in sik lasar that the bairnis
may easely writ eftyr his pronunciation.

And efter that he sal geif the interpretation in Scottis corres-
pondant to the Latin, garryng thayme all writ. Syne he sal declair
euery word, and cause thayme to writ severally all the nounes and
the verbes that be in thair lesson, geif command to lear thayme
against the nixt lesson, and als bring that lesson quhilk was maid
in the classe without ony fait writtin. The nomenclatouris to haif
charge to gather the lessons writtin, euery ane in hys awyne decurio,
and bring thayme to the regent, and schaw hym quha has faltis.
And geif the regent find fait quhairof the nomenclator has nocht
advertysit hym, than he sal punyss baith the writar and the
nomenclator, to mak thayme mair diligent in tyme to cum. And
na man sal mend othoris faltis vntil thay cum to the regent. In
thys classe thay salbe constranit to speik Latin, and dayly to com-
pone sum smal thyng eftyr thair capacite.

The F. Classe.

Thys classe sal reid Terence, and sum of the maist facil epistles
of Cicero, alternatirn, and als the reulis of grammar assignat to
thayme, without commentair, bot only the expresse wordis and
sentence of the reul : and thay sal writ baith Terence and Cicero,
euery man with hys awyn hand.

The IV. Classe.

Thys classe sal reid of Terence and Cicero sum thyng mair than
the classis onder thayme, and als de constructions octo partium ;

1 The lowest Class would be Class; VI. There were seven classes in the
school or gymnasium at Geneva.

414 Appendix

and the latter half of the $eir sal reid snm epistles of Guide, or other
of hys elegyis, and als writ al tliair lessons, except the grammar, and
compone largear themes than the nether classis. And al thyr
clasais salbe vesiit euery quarter of 3eir, and prornovit hyear efter
thair meritis.

The IIT. Classe.

Thys classe sal reid the grammar in Grek, the epistles of Cicero,
and sum of the maist facil orations, with sum buik of Guide, and
the quail titeis of syllabes, and sum introduction of rhetorik, and
sum of the bukis of Linaceris grammar, and salhe mair exercisit
in composition than the otheris lawar.

The Secund and Fyrst Class.

Thyr classis sal reid the rethorikis of Cicero, and hys orationis,
and for poetis, Vergil, Horace, Guide, and sum of Homer or Hesiode.
The auditouris salbe diligently exercisit in verse, and oration, and
declamation euery moneth, ilk ane thair cours about. Item,
generaly disputations to be had euery Satterday fra ane efternone
to four houris, ane classe aganis ane other, fixing themis alternatim,
and syne componing on themis ditit be regentis of other classis or
other maisters.

At the end of the 3eir, in the moneth of August or thairby, all
the haill classis sal propone themis oppinly, and affix thayme vpon
the college wallis, or in the great schol or hallis. The principal sal
cheis ane certain of the best of the fyrst classe and secund, and send
thayme to sum of the honest men of other collegia, or sum other
lernit man beyng present for the tyme, and desire that he propone
thayme ane theme in prose and ane other in verse. Thair salbe twa
bonnittis proponet to be given solemnly to the twa that makis best
composition, with honorable wordis to encourage otheris in tyme to
cum to emulation ; and that the honest and principal personis of the
vniversitie assistand, and exhortyng the studentis to be diligent,
and raise thair curage.

Heir efter because the maist part of the countrey will be glaid
to se thair bairnis, and mak thayme clathys, and provid to thair
necessiteis the rest of the 3eir, thair may be gevin sum vacans on to
the first day of October, on the quhilk day al lessonis begynnis
againe in al collegis. At the quhilk day naine salbe promovit to na
classe without he be examiuat be the principal and regentis com-
iiiittit thairto.

Appendix 415

The principal salbe diligent that euery regent do hys devtie, and
that the bairnis be obedient, and to that effect mak sum particular
reulis sik as salbe fund gud be the rectour and censouris for peccable
governing of the college ; arid at the begynning of October, the
principal sal present befor thayme the said regentis ; and geif ony
inlak be seiknes or other necessite, he sal present ane qualefyit
persone to thayme. And geif the principal inlak, the vniversitie
and conservatour or hys deputis sal convein, and cheiss of the hail
vniversitie four of the best qualefyit personis to that office, and writ
thair names : and eftyr prayer maid, that God of his gudenes wald
send the sort apon hym that war habliast to exerce that estat to hys
glore and common weil, ane barne sal draw of the four ane, the quhilk
salbe principal, and thys to put away al deception and ambition.

The principal sal support the defectis of absens of the public
reidar and regentis. And siklyk in the principalis absence, euery
man in hys ordre sal haif hys jurisdiction and correction of the
studentis.

The portar sal abyd continualy at the 3et, and receave the
principalis signet of thayme that desiris to pas furth. Item, in
sommer he sal ryng dayly at v houris to the rising ; at sax to the
lesson public ; before viij, twys to the ordinar lection ; at ten he sal
knel ; at half houre to xi knel ; at xi ryng to the dennar ; at grace
knel ; to repetition eftyr grace ring ; or iij howris ring twyiss ; at
half houre to five knel ; at v ryng.

Al the studentis remanyng in the college salbe distribut be
chalmeris onder cure of the principal or sum regent or pedagogis
lernit and of jugement, quha sal haif cure of thayr studie and
diligens ; bot nocht to reid ony particular lection to thayme, bot to
cause thayme to geif compt of it that thay reid in the classe. Nor
3it sal it bo leful to the said pedagogis to ding thair disciples, bot
only to declair the fait to the principal, or to thair regent, and refer
the punition to thayme.

In thys college nayne sal persever regent in humanite abuve
the space of vij or viij 3eir.

The thre law1 classis sal nocht be subject to cum to preaching
or exercise public, except on the Sonday. The other preachyng and
exercise days, ane regent salbe committit to se that thay be dewly
exercisit and specialy in lerning to writ.

1 In modern English this phrase would be " the three low classes," i.e.,
Classes IV., V., and VI.

416 Appendix

THE COLLEGE OP PHILOSOPHIE.
Personis.

Ane Principal.

Ane Reidar in Medicine.

And Regents iiij.

Servantia.

The Principal ij.
The Medicine j.
The Cuik.
The Portar.
The Stewart.
The Pantriman.

The Principalis portion and salair as in the College of Humanite.
The Medicins as the Lectour Public in Humanite.
The rest vt supra proportionately.

Summa.

In bread.

In drink.

In sylver.

The bursaris 12 vt supra, euery ane xvi Ibis the 3eir, or vt
supra.

For colis, candil, napre, and veschel, xl pund 3eirly.

For reparation of the place, xl pund 301 rly.

The hayl subject to compt vt supra.

The principal to be ane man of iconomie, and sufficient doctrine
to supple the regentis absens in redyng in thair seikness or lauful
besynes. Item, to haif al sik autorite on regentis, and studentis,
and servants of the college, and to geif compt to the rectour and
censoris as forsaid is in the College of Humanite at euery visitation.

The first regent reid the dialectic, analitic, and moralis, in the
first 3eir and half ; and the other 3eir and half, the natural philoso-
phic, metaphysik, and principis of mathematik. Swa in thre 3eris
thyr regentis sal pas be degreis the hail cours of dialectic, logic,
physik, and metaphysik ; the rest of the tyme to repet and pas thair
actis. They sal reid sik bukis of Aristotil, or other philosophes as
the principal sal praescrive to thayme.

Na man salbe admittit at the begynning of the 3eir to the
philosophie that has nocht passit be the first or second classe of

Appendix 417

humanite, or geif he hi- ane strangoar, be jugit worthy of the first or
secund classe be trial of composition in verse and prose.

The Ordre of Redyng.

All the regentis sal begyn baith soinmer and winther at vi howris
in the mornyng to thair ordinar lessons, and at the begynning sal
mak ane schort prayer for promotion of lernyrig and the estat of
the common weil. Thay sal reid vnto viij houris, the quhilk being
strokin, the bel sal ryng to the medicinis lesson, quha sal reid on to
ix houris ; and fra ix to ten salbe intermission. In the rest of the
howris thay salbe exercisit in disputyng and reidyng as the College
of Humanite ; and the regent in euery classe sal cause the ane part
to disput aganis the other. On Satterday euery classe sal propone
certaine propositions, quhilk afoir none sal be examinat and disput
againe be the regentis betuix viij and xj howris ; and eftyr none the
disciples of the superiour clasae sal disput aganis the inferiour betwix
ane and thre howris.

The Promotion of Thayr Degreis.

At the end of the first ij jeiris thay salbe maid bachelaris,
quhair nocht only thay sal declair publicly quhat thai haif profettit
be thair Industrie and labouris, but alswa thay sal ansuer priuatly to
iiij examinatouris, deput be the vniversite, of the dialectic, logic and
moralis ; and quha beis nocht fund liable, salbe deposit to ane lowar
classe. And siklik, at the end of the 3eir and half followyng, to be
examinat of the natural philosophie, metaphysik, and mathematik.
The examinatouris salbe gradual, ane in theologie, ane that has red
in philosophie, ane of profession of medicine passit maister, and ane
regent in humanite ; quha, on thair conscience, sal declair to the
rectour and censouris quha ar worthy of promotion or nocht. Efter
the quhylk declaration, the rectour sal decerne the onworthy to be
deposit for tyme convenient to ane inferiour classe, swa that na man
be admittit to resave degre except that he haif promouit in lettres.

To the banquettis of actis of bachelar and licence the riche sal
nocht pay abuve xl f, the puir ten f, to augment the common portion
of the college ; swa that the convention of honest men of the vniuer-
sitie he with modestie and temperance. Item, sa mony of the
assistandis to thys act as be graduat in divinite, lawis, or medicine,
or presently regentis in philosophe or humanite, sal haif for thair
presens and decoryng of the act, ane pair of gluvis. And the

418 Appendix

principal of the said college sal tak head that thyr thyngis be per-
forunit, as he wil ansuer to the jugenient of the rectour and censouris.

The nombre of bursaris xxiiij, susttmit as is praescrivit in the
College of Ilumanite.

Nayne sal persevere regent in thys college langar than the space
of twa coursis.

The medicine sal reid iiij days in the weik, ane hore euery day
in medicine ; and geif he inlakis, the principal sal deduce sa mekle
of hys gagis to be vsit to the common profet of the college.

THE COLLEGE OP DIUINITE.
Personis.

Ane Principal, to be Reidar in Hebrew.
Ane Lawer.

Servantis.

The Principal ij.

The Lawer j.

Cuik.

Pantriman.

Stewart.

Portar.

Thair expensis vt supra. Vz. the principal as other principalis
The lawer 40 Ibis. The cuik, portar, stewart, and pantriman, vt
supra. Bursaris xviij of thaynie, sex in law and xij in theologie,
thair expensis vt supra. In thys collegia, because that the studentis
ar in nombre fewaf and of gretar age than in the otheris, the
principal and lectour in Hebrew may be ane persone ; the quhilk
sal reid iiij days euery weik.

The Thursday ane student in diuinite sal expone ane pas of the
Scripture, the space of ane hore ; and that being doin, sal ansor to
the objections of euery man that pleasis to disput aganis hym the
space of ane hore and half. The principal sal se that gud ordre be
kepit in disputing, without superfluite of wordis nothyng partening
to the propos, without dinrie or pertinacite in contention ; and that
euery auditour in diuinite ansver hys cours about, as aalbe ordanit
by the principal. To speik in the publik exercise, and expone the
Scripture, sal entice nocht only the auditouris of diuinite, sik as sal
be thoucht expedient, bot als the regentis in other faculteis.

Appendix 419

The lawar sal reid dayly ane hore in law, except on the
Thursday.

Thair sal be xviij bursaris in thys college ; vz. sex in law, and
xij auditouris in diuiuite.

THE COMMON MAGISTRATIS AND OFPICIABIS OP THE VNIUERSITE.
Ane Rectour.

The rectour most be ane discreit and grave person, doctor or
bachelar in the hyear faculteis, or principal of ane college, or
presently regent in diuinite, law or medicine, of age abuve thretty
jeris ; and salbe chosiu be the hayl graduattis of the vniuersite,
within ane of the thre collegia, the conservatour or hys deput being
present ; quha sal requir the convention in thair conscience, that out
of euery college thair be ane chosin, quha sal declair the votis of the
college faithfully gadderit, and declair hym rectour quha has moniast
votis, swa that he haif nocht been rectour within twa jeris afoir.
The rectouris tyme to be ane 3eir, without continuation ; and geif,
be ambition or otherway, the maist part of the votis contenew hyna,
al thayr votis that tendis to continuation, to be nul.

The rectouris office is principaly in keping of the discipline
scolastic, as in visitation of the collegis twyss or thryis in the 5eir,
to se that the ordre be kepit in teching, in mutations of classis,
in disputations priuat and publik ; item, that the rentis of the
vniuersite be nocht inisspendit, that na idle person be haldiii on the
gagis or expensis of the vniuersite, nor onworthy promovit to degre,
and mak ane registre of al that entres in the nombre of the
vniuersite, and sal enjoy the priuelege thairof.

Conservatour.

The conservatour of priuilege most haif autorite to cal befor
hym al actions or questions movit be thayme of the vniuersite
again is ony personis in materis twiching studentis, as being studentis;
and hys decreit sal haif redy execution, notwithstanding ony appel
lation, without delay or appellation out of the vniuersite. Hys
gagis to be payit to hym or hys deput of the archdenry ; because in
tymes by past the archidene, or bischeppis, war conservatouris, or
sum deput for thayme, and now is raisonable that thay susteine the
samyn charge.

The thesaurar salbe chosin anis in the 3eir, the samyn day that
the censouris beis chosin, and sal geif compt at the 3eris end to the
censouris the day afor the cheising of the new censouris.

420 Appendix

The salair of the rectour, thosaurar, and censouris, to be payit
of the casualiteis of the vniuersite, as it that cumis of the entrcs of
the studentis in the rectouris bukis, and of the degreis. Als the
beddel to be payit of the samyn. The gagis of the rectour, censourisj
thesaurar, and beddel, and als al thyr casualiteis, to be sa moderat
that thay be nocht excessiue in na qualite.

Item, that the Quenis grace, and lordis of the parlement, be
requirit to pas ane act that thre 5eris efter the performing of thys
reformation, na man be providit to susteine office of preachour or
techour in the kyrk, except thay haif beine dewly graduat in the
scholia.

The Rental of St. Leonardos College.

In sylver, . . .132 Ibis. 2f. 4d.

Qwheit, . 2 chald. 12 blis.

Bear, . . .13 chald. 11 blis. 2f. 2p.

Ait meil, . . . 8 ch. 8 blis.

Sanct Salvatouris, Al being fre.

In sylver, . . . 642 Ibis.

Qwheit, . . . 3 ch. 13 blis.

Bear, . . . 8 ch. 2 blis.

Aitis, . . . 19 ch. 3 blis.

The New College,1 Al being fre.

In sylver, besyid Tannadyss

quhen it sal vaik, . 510 Ibis.-'

Qwheit, . . . 3 ch. 8 blis.

Bear, . . .6 ch.

Atis, . . 5 ch.

The Hayl Soume.

In sylver, . . .1284 Ibis 2f. 4d.

Qwheit, . . . 10 ch. 1 blis.

Bear, . . . 27 ch. 13 blis. 2f. 2p.

Ait meil, . . .8 ch.

Aitis, . . . 24 ch. 3 b. [8 blis.].

1 By "New College" is meant what is now known as "St. Mary's College."

2 Irving gives it as 110 Ibis, and yet his total is the same as that given in
Prof. Hume Brown's text. Irving, however, spells aits uniformly throughout
the Opinion.

Appendix 421

Appendix V,

(Page 105.)

SOME NOTES ON MSS. TRANSLATIONS OF BUCHANAN'S
Rernm Scotlcanim Historia.

In the British Museum is "A History of the State of
Scotland by George Buchquhanane, a Scotchman " (Hart. MSS.
7539). This copy, though incomplete, is in 88 paper folios,
and contains Books xn. to xix., the last being unfinished. It is
written in a clear, but very small hand, and the lines are so
close together and so interspersed with corrections (three or four
versions of a phrase are frequently given) that many parts are
difficult to read. The MS. is in good preservation, but is
discoloured at the edges. The hand is of the early 17th century
style, and the spelling is more English than Scottish. The
writing is on both sides of the folios, and there are many
marginal headings. The opening words are :

" James the 2d [the hundred and fourth king] as we have
related was kild in the field." The words in brackets are written
above the line and have been inserted later. The closing words
are:

' ' But the lie was not likely to have credit long ; therefore
she feigned that the Protectour, to bring the kingdom of
Scotland under " The narrative breaks off here.

There is another complete translation in the British Museum
(Add. MSS. 4218) along with a Refutatio libri de iure Regni
apud Scotos, — and both are in an 18th century hand.

The History was translated into the Scottish language
and this translation, which is in the Glasgow University Library,
was made by John Reid, or Read ; who, according to
Calderwood's MS., was " servitur and writer to Mr. George
Buchanan." The MS., which appears to have been completed
on 12th December 1634, and is clearly written, bears the
following inscription: " The Historic of Scotland, first written
in the Latine tungue by that famous and learned man George
Buchanan, and afterwards translated into the Scottishe tungue
by John Read, Esquyar, brother to James Read, person of
Banchory Ternam whyle he liued. They both ly interred in the
parishe church of that towne, seated not f arre from the banke

422 Appendix

of the river of Dee, expecting the general resurrection, and the
glorious appearing of Jesus Christ there redimer."1

Another translation is to be found in the Mitchell Library,
Glasgow. It is contained in a large folio and is beautifully
written. It is a complete translation of the History, —
" Interpreted by an English gentleman." The date given is
1659, and the MSS. is supposed to be the translation which was
being printed in London about the Restoration time, and
publication of which was prohibited by an order of Council,
7th of June, 1660. Irving, however, says that the proposed
publication was " a translation of Buchanan's history and
dialogue." This Glasgow MS. seems to be a free translation
rendered into fairly good English. The folio formerly belonged
to a John Buchanan and bears on the fly-leaf the words: " Ex
libris Johannes Buchananus de Auchnaven."

Appendix VI.

(Page 186.)

The following letter, addressed to ' Monsieur de Sigongues,
Chevalier de 1'Ordre, et Capitaine et Gouverneur de la Ville et
Chasteau de Dieppe,' is the only specimen of Buchanan's writing
in French : —

" Monsieur, ce que j'ay tant differe* de vous escrire a este
pour 1'occasion des troubles qui ont universellement regne, tant
en ces quartiers, qu'en la France, au grand prejudice des deux
royalmee. Et comme par la grace de Dieu nous avons en la fin
quelque relasche de nos maux, il me semble (je le dis avec
regret) que les vostres ne font que recommencer. Mais pour
laisser ce propos, la presente sera pour me recommander
humblement a vostre bonne grace, ensemble ce present Porteur
Thomas Fairlie, qui est fort de mes amys, et autant amy
qu'ayme de tous les miens. Le bien et plaisir que vous luy
ferez, je 1'estimeray fait a moy mesme, comme je fais celuy
qu'avez par le passe fait a tous ceux que je vous ay recommande
qui se lonent grandement de vostre faveur, pour laquelle je
vous demeure tres oblige ; vous asseurant, Monsieur, que si je
puys quelque chose pour vous par deca, ou pour les vostres, que
vous me pouvez livrement commander, comme celui qui sera
tous jours prest a vous obeyer et fair service. A Sterlin, ce
dousieme de Janvier, 1573, celui qui est de tout vostre,

GEORGE BUCHANAN."
1 Irving*s Memoirs, p. 282, 2nd edit.

Appendix 423

Appendix VII.

(Page 218.)
BUCHANAN'S TESTAMENT DATIVE.

The Testament Datiue, & Inuentar of ye

Maister gudis, geir, soumes of money, «fc dettis,

George Buchannane pertening to vmquhile ane rycht venerabill

Vigesiuno Febi>H man, Maister George Buchannane, precep-

1582. tour to ye kingis uiajestie the tyme of his

deceis, quha deceist vpouii ye xxix day

of September,1 the zeir of God jmvclxxxii

zeris, faithfullie maid & gevin vp be Jonet

Buchannane, relict of vmquhile Mr Thomas

Buchannane of Ibert, his bruyer gone,

executrix datiue, decornit to him be de-

creit of ye commissaris of Edr as ye same

decreit of ye date ye xix day of December,

the zeir of God foirsaid, at lenth proportis.

In the first, ye said vmquhile Maister George Buchannane,
preceptour to ye kingis majestie, had no uyer gudis nor geir (except
ye dett vndirwrittin) pertening to him as his awin proper dett ye
tyme of his deceis foirsaid : viz. Item, yair wes awand to ye said
vmquhile Mr George be Robert Gourlaw, custumar burges of Edr
for ye defunctis pensioun of Corsraguell, restand of ye Whitsonday
terme in anno jm vc Ixxxii zeris, the souine of ane hundreth pundis.

Summa of ye inuentar j° 1.

No diuisioun.

Quhairof ye quot is gevin gratis.

We, Maisteris Eduard Henrysoun, Alexr Sym, & Johne
Prestoun, commissaris of Edr specialie constitut for confirmatioun
of testamentis, &c. vnderstanding yat efter dew summonding <fc
lauchfull warning maid be forme of editt oppenlie, as efferis, of ye
executouris intromettouris with ye gudis <fc geir of vmquhile Mi-
George Buchannane, & of uyeris hafand entreis, to compeir judiciale

1 To Buchanan's short autobiographical sketch (if it is his), which Professor
Hume Brown and Dr. Irving include in their respective works, a note has
been added to the effect that Buchanan died on 29th September, not on the
28th, as given here. This Testament Dative was taken from the records of
the Commissary Court. Dr. Irving considers the record incorrect, so far as
the above date is concerned.

424 Appendix

befoir us at ane certane day bypast, to heir & sie executouris datiuia
decernit to be gevin, admittit, & confermit be us in <fe to ye gudis
& geir quhilk justlie pertenit to him ye tyme of his deceis, or ellis to
schaw ane caus quhy, &c. we decernit yairintill as our decreit gevin
yairupoun beris ; conforme to ye quhilk we in our soverane lordis
name & autoritie makis, constitutis, ordanis, & confermes ye said
Jonet Buchannane in executorie datiue to ye said Mr George, with
power to hir to intromet, vptak, follow &, perseu, as law will, ye
dett & souine of money abone specifeit, & yairwith outred dettis to
creditouris, and generalie all <fe sindrie vyer thingis to do, exerce,
& vse yat to ye office of executorie datiue is knawin to pertene;
prouiding yat ye said Jonet, executrix foirsaid, sail ansuer <fe render
compt vpoun hir introuiissioun quhan and quhair ye samin salbe
requirit of hir, & yat ye said dett «t souine salbe be furthcumand to
all parteis haifand entres, as law will ; quhairvpoun scho hes fundin
cautioun, as ane act rnaid yairvpoun beris.

Appendix VIIL

(Page 244-)

BUCHANAN'S SCOTTISH RESIDENCES.

Buchanan when Principal of St. Leonard's College occupied
a room in the house now occupied by the Headmistress of St.
Leonard's School. Dr. Lee, in his researches, came across an
inventory1 of this chamber as it was in the year 1544 : —

" In camera quae est prima versus orientem proximior
templi in parte australi, fuerunt haec bona communia pertinentia
ad locum collegii. In the first, twa standard beds, the foreside
of aik, and the northside and the fruits of fir. Item, ane
feather bed, and ane white plaid of four ells, and ane covering
woven o'er with images. It. another auld bed of harden,
filled with straw, with an covering of green. It. ane cod.
Item, an inrower of buckram of five breds, part green, part red
to zaillow. Item, ane Flanders counter of the middling kind.
It. ane little buird for the studie. It. ane furm of fir, and ane
little letterin of aik on the side of the bed, with an image of
St. Jeromfl. It. an stool of elm, with an other chair of little

1 Printed in the Appendix of Irving's Memoirs of Buchanan, 2nd Edit.

Appendix 425

price. It. an chimney weighing .... Item, an chandler
weighing . . . ."'

In connection with this it may be of interest to know some-
thing of the College buildings. In the year 1599, the furniture
of the College is as follows : —

" Impr. In the hall four fixed boards. The hale beds
almaist fixt. In every chamber ane board and ane furme
pertainarid thereto, w* glassen windows, and the maist part of
all the chambers ciellered aboue, and the floors beneath laid
with buirdis.

Compt. of Vessels.

2 Silver pieces, ane maizer, wl common cups and stoups.

3 Doz. silver spoons, ane silver saltfat, a water basin, an
iron chimney fixed in the hall.

In the kitchen, an iron chimney, w* sic vessels as is necessar
therein, with fixed boards and almeries."

Despite the number of letters which Buchanan addressed
from Stirling and the importance of the work he conducted
there, little interest has been shown by Buchanan's biographers
in his connection with that town. They have presumed that
Buchanan, in his later years, resided within the Castle,
although there is a local tradition that he lived in a house of
his own in the Castle Wynd. There was certainly a study
provided for Buchanan in the Castle, but it haa been supposed
that he had a private residence not far away ; indeed, a house
in the Castle Vennal was popularly known as George
Buchanan's House or " Ludging." That he had no private
house in the vennal, however, is now quite clear. Recent
examination of records and title-deeds prove that there was only
one large tenement in the Vennal, and it has been shown that
one of the houses there belonged to David Erskine,
Commendator of Dry burgh and Prior of Inchmahome. From
an examination of the title-deeds held by the Town of Stirling,
the following extract in modern spelling proves that Erskine
had been resident there : —

" Sas., 1626, taken by John Norrie, in favor of Christopher
Russel and Margt. Howson his spouse of ' All and whole that
Great tenement of land houses and stable and yard thereof
sometime pertaining to the deceased David Commendator of
Dryburgh and Prior of Inchmahom and lying within the said

1 Some part illegible.

426 Appendix

Burgh of Stirling in the wynd called the Castle Wynd thereof
on the eist (west) side of the same between the land of the
deceased John Kinloch on the west, and the Castle Wynd on the
west and north parts.' ' This description is repeated in a
subsequent Disposition and Bond of Annual Rent of same
tenement, dated 27th February 1742, by John Watson to
Andrew Neilson who acquired it from an Andrew Wood, and it
is described as on the west side of the Castle Wynd, and the
High Street on the east and north bounds it.1

The examination of the whole title-deeds referring to the
west side of the Vennal on which Buchanan's alleged " House "
was situated reveals not one single owner or occupier of the
name of Buchanan. Erskine was one of the superintendents of
the young King's training in bodily exercises and accomplish-
ments, and consequently local historians consider that "it is
not difficult to understand how the Prior's Manse — or a portion
of it — should have been assigned as a residence to His Majesty's
preceptor." Thus the matter stands, and Buchanan may have
lodged in this old building which is reminiscent of the period.
A controversy concerning this alleged residence of Buchanan was
conducted by the Town Council of Stirling when it was proposed
to demolish the structure, one member finally believing that if
the shade of George Buchanan himself were to stand forth at
the table, it would be the first to vote for the removal of the
dilapidated pile.

Professor Hume Brown in his George Buchanan: Humanist
and Reformer (page 353) has inserted a footnote which is almost
the only information to be had concerning the scene of
Buchanan's last days. " The following note was extracted about
sixty years ago from a memorandum-book kept by George
Paton, the antiquary : — ' George Buchanan took his last illness
and died in Kennedy's Close, first court thereof on your left
hand, first house in the turnpike above the tavern there ; and
in Queen Ann's time this was told to his family and friends,
who resided in that house, by Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees,
Lord Advocate.' Kennedy's Close was the second close above
the Tron Church, and is now absorbed into Hunter Square."

Dr. Irving in his Memoirs of Buchanan refers to a note
written on the cover of a book and in a hand which appears to

1 This information was kindly communicated by J. S. Fleming, Esq. ,
F.S.A. (Scot.), Stirling.

Appendix 427

have been formed in the earlier part of the eighteenth century.
The note is " Scheriffhall, near Dalkeith, said to be the place of
Buchanan's residence, where he wrote his history : this room is
pointed out to the visitors of the place."

Appendix IX.

GEORGE BUCHANAN QUATER-CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS.
St. Andrews, 6th and 7th July 1906.

AFTER many centuries the city of the " college of the scarlet
gown " on Friday 6th July cast aside its gay, holiday attire
to don temporarily the garments of academic aspect —
reminiscent of winter — that it might the more appropriately
obtain precedence in the national commemoration of George
Buchanan,— a man of European fame. As poet, humanist, and
historian he had conferred such lustre upon his Alma Mater —
having been for some time one of her distinguished principals
— that the importance of the occasion and the fame of the
man who had lived in the "old grey city" in historic days
stirred the interest of all students of letters, and attracted a
large gathering of scholars and educationists from all parts of
the United Kingdom and from the Continent of Europe. Side
by side at the shrine — the Alma Mater of learned men and
women — were men of letters and representatives of the old
Scottish loyalists and hero-worshippers, several of the latter
having travelled from the most remote parts of Scotland to
support Scotland's earliest centre of learning in her
vigorous and successful endeavour to keep in remembrance and
recall to the public notice the high national place Buchanan
occupies as scholar and humanist. That the University should
have inaugurated these celebrations — as representative in
character as was possible — is to her credit, for she owes not a
little of her prestige to the roll of distinguished men who, in
days of yore, were associated with her fortunes.

CHAPEL SERVICE.

The Celebration proceedings opened with a service in the
University Chapel, — St. Salvator's. The limited accommoda-

428 Appendix

tion was fully utilised by a gathering consisting of the
professors and lecturers of the University, graduates and
undergraduates, and members of the public. To the right and
left of the chancel sat the representatives of learned bodies at
home and abroad, and in the professorial stalls places were
reserved for the Rector (Dr. Carnegie), Principal Donaldson,
Lord Reay, Lord Provost Bilsland (Glasgow), Lord Provost
Longair (Dundee), and Provost Murray (St. Andrews). The
service was appropriate, solemn, and brief, and included the
singing of ' that noble Lutheran hymn,' — " A safe stronghold
our God is still." The Very Rev. Principal Stewart, D.D.,
conducted the service, in which he was assisted by Rev.
Professors Menzies, Herkless, and Kay. The praise was
magnificently led by a special choir, consisting of young ladies
from St. Leonard's School and students, and under the direc-
tion of Mr. R. K. Hannay, M.A., who acted as organist.

THE ORATION ON BUCHANAN.

The principal event of the day was Lord Reay's Oration on
" George Buchanan." This was delivered in the Hall of the
United College, which was filled to its utmost seating capacity
with a representative gathering of members of the various
Universities, public men, and St. Andrews citizens. Preceded
by the maces, the members of the Senatus of the University,
together with the distinguished visitors, entered the Hall in
procession and took the seats reserved for them. Amongst
those present were : —

Members of the University Court of St. Andrews — Principal
Donaldson ; Very Rev. Principal Stewart ; Dr. John Ross,
Dunfermline ; Provost Murray, St. Andrews ; Dr. Barrie Dow,
Dunfermline ; Rev. Dr. Blair, Dunblane; Dr. George A.
Gibson, Edinburgh ; Professor Herkless ; Professor Lawson ;
Mr. E. Morrison, Bonny town.

Members of the Senatus of St. Andrews — Professors Butler,
Purdie, Menzies, Musgrove, Kay, Edgar.

Representing the General Council of St. Andrews — Dr.
James Browning, Edinburgh ; Rev. Dr. Campbell, Balmerino ;
Rev. Dr. Irvine Robertson, Clackmannan; Rev. George
Johnston, Newburgh ; Messrs. J. E. Grosset, Cupar; John
Scott, Edinburgh ; Walter G. Mair, Thomas Carmichael,
Edward King, and D. Bayne Meldrum.

From a photo by Valentine ,(• So/w, Ltd., Dundee.

THE (GATEWAY, ST. SALVATOR'S CHAPEL, ST. ANDREWS.

Appendix 429

Representing the University Court of Glasgow — Dr. David
Murray, Mr. Alan E. Clapperton.

Representing the Senatus of Glasgow — Professor Ferguson
and Professor Latta.

Representing the General Council of Glasgow — Mr. William
Graham, Rev. Dr. Donald MacMillan, Rev. John Anderson,
Mr. Archibald Craig.

Representing the University Court and Senatus of Aberdeen
— Professor Baillie.

Representing the General Council of Aberdeen— Mr. Patrick
Cooper and Sir William J. Sinclair, M.D., Manchester.

Representing this University Court of Edinburgh — Dr.
David F. Lowe.

Representing the Senatus of Edinburgh — Professor Hume
Brown.

Representing the General Council of Edinburgh — Mr. David
D. Buchan, S.S.C.

Representing the Edinburgh Students' Representative
Council — Mr. J. B. Forbes Watson.

Representing the University of Paris — M. Bonet-Maury,
Professor of Protestant Theology, and M. Salles, Professor au
Lycee Janson de Sailly.

Representing the University College, Dundee — Sir George
W. Baxter, LL.D., and Mr. George Ogilvie.

Representing the Town Council of St. Andrews — Bailies
Ritchie and Todd, Judge Balsillie, Treasurer Wilson, and Dean
of Guild Grubb.

Representing the Buchanan Society — Mr. A. W. Gray
Buchanan, Polmont.

Representing the Franco-Scottish Society — Mr. James
Macdonald, W.S., Depute-Keeper of the Great Seal of
Scotland.

Representing the Faculty of Advocates — Sheriff C. N.
Johnston, K.C.

Representing the Society of Writers — Sir Henry Cook,
W.S., Edinburgh.

Representing the Society of Solicitors — Mr. John Campbell,
S.S.C., and Mr. Thomas Liddle, S.S.C., Edinburgh.

Representing the Educational Institute — Mr. A. T. Watson,
LL.D., Dumbarton.

Representing the Society of Antiquaries — Mr. J. Maitland
Thomson, LL.D., Edinburgh.

430 Appendix

The others present were : — Lord Provost Longair, Dundee ;
Mr. J. Peddie Steele, M.D., LL.D.; Mr. D. Hay Fleming,
LL.D., Edinburgh; Mr. Alex. Menzies, LL.D., Kirriemuir;
Rev. Alex. Gordon Mitchell, Killearn ; Mr. Hew Morrison,
LL.D., Edinburgh; Mr. J. S. Reid, Litt.D., Cambridge;
Mr. J. Maitland Anderson, Sheriff Armour, Sir R. Rowand
Anderson; Mr. G. W. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Dr. Buchanan,
Glasgow; Miss E. Buchanan, Stirling; Rev. Dr. R. Menzies
Fergusson, Bridge of Allan; Lady Helen Munro Ferguson;
Rev. George Galloway, Kelton; Mr. W. S. Hamilton, W.S.,
Edinburgh ; Mrs. Haldane ; Mr. William Low of Blebo ; Mr.
J. L. Low, St. Andrews; Mr. John McKcnzie, Madras College;
Mr. Robert Munro, LL.D., Largs; Sir H. N. Maclaurin,
Sydney; Rev. P. M. Playfair; Principal Peterson, Toronto;
Mr. T. D. Robb, Paisley; Mr. Robert Smeaton, LL.D.,
London; Rev. W. Connan, Aberdeen; Mr. John A. Trail,
LL.D., Edinburgh; Rev. Allan Wilson, Aberdeen; Mrs.
Younger, Mount Melville; Mrs. Riddel Webster; Mrs. Rodgei,
Southcourt, St. Andrews.

The Rector (Dr. Carnegie), who presided, in introducing
Lord Reay, said : — " Last year Scotland celebrated the 400th
anniversary of the birth of its greatest reformer, John Knox.
We are met to-day to celebrate the similar anniversary of its
greatest constitutional reformer, George Buchanan — (applause).
Both were sons of St. Andrews University and contemporaries.
Such a gathering as this, 400 years after his birth, proved he
was entitled to this great honour. The winnowing fan of time
had dispersed all that was perishable ; it had separated the
dross from the gold, and there was revealed still before them
not only the greatest poet of his time and a great scholar, but
the founder of constitutional government. It was Buchanan
who first in Britain proclaimed the divine, right of the people
and denounced the divine right of kings, — he even advocated
their election by the people. He was thus the founder of the
principles of liberty which prevailed in crowned and uncrowned
Republics alike. Wherever the English community settled,
there was government of the people for the people and by the
people, as Buchanan advocated. To-day Buchanan the poet
and Buchanan the scholar was no longer a vital force, but
Buchanan the statesman and constitutional reformer had grown
and must grow as the principles of constitutional liberty spread

Appendix 431

throughout the world — (hear, hear). Just as John Knox's title
to fame — immortal fame — was finally to be this sentence, " I
shall never rest until there is a parish school in every parish in
Scotland," so was Buchanan to receive evidence among the gods,
holding out in his hand this sentence, ' ' The people is the source
of all power, and kings are to be allowed to reign only as they
obey the will of the people and promote their good " —
(applause). There was no question about Buchanan's place
among the immortals, and as long as those principles of liberty
and of popular government which characterised our race
wherever it settled, endured, Buchanan's fame would endure —
(applause). They were now to hear about this extraordinary
man from the lips of a distinguished Peer, a linguist, and an
able Governor in India, and who, as a statesman, was known
to them as Lord Reay, but in the Highlands was known by the
old and more enduring title — ' The Mackay ' ' — (laughter and
applause).

Lord Reay, who was cordially received, said: — "My Lord
Rector, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Members of the Senate, Ladies
and Gentlemen, when you did me the honour to invite me to
address you on this memorable occasion, I felt no little
diffidence in accepting your gracious invitation, for on the
subject of George Buchanan so much has been written, and
his biography by Professor Hume Brown is so exhaustive and
so admirable that no further tribute can add anything of
value. It was, however, natural that this ancient University
should wish to commemorate the striking career of the
great scholar, so intimately associated with its early history.
As your representative, I venture to pay dutiful tribute
to one of the most illustrious of our countrymen, and to
recall events which have exercised a lasting influence on the
character of the nation. And even now, four centuries after
Buchanan's birth, our generation has much to learn from the
record of a life devoted to high aims and distinguished by its
patriotism and constant self-sacrifice.

Buchanan was about fourteen when, in 1520, he was sent to
the University of Paris, where at that time there would be at
least two hundred Scotch students among the ten thousand
students who attended its fifty colleges. Unfortunately, the
University of Paris did not accept the reforms which Humanism
and Lutheranism introduced ; but Scholasticism was discredited,

432 Appendix

and the literature of Greece and Rome inspired those who
desired to shake off the unreality of the Schoolmen. Almost
simultaneously the Reformers undertook their great struggle
against the Church. This was the atmosphere into which
Buchanan was thrown, and he accepted both Humanism and
Lutheranism after long and patient inquiry. During his first
two years of residence in Paris, he devoted himself mainly to the
writing of Latin verse. His progress was hampered by ill-
health and poverty. He returned to Scotland and joined the
army, so that he might become acquainted with military
matters. He served in the expedition of the Duke of Albany
against the English Army, which ended in retreat ; he returned
home, and for a time he was forced to rest. Another incident in
his life shows that Buchanan had natural military instincts.
When he was tutor to the Marshal de Brissac's son, he chanced
to hear the Marshal discussing matters with his staff ; Buchanan
muttered disapproval. He was called in, and all present
agreed that he was right. Moreover, the result justified his
intervention. Buchanan returned to Paris as Bursar of the
Scots College, an office that barely saved him from the trials
of cold and hunger. In March 1528 he graduated as Master,
and in the following year was on the teaching staff of Ste.
Barbe, the most famous of the Colleges, where he met Jacques
de Gouvea, the Portuguese scholar, who was Principal. Al-
though he was now in receipt of a salary, his life was by no
means one of comfort. His more important achievements
during this period were certain reforms in the teaching of Latin,
and the publication of the Latin translation of Linacre's
Grammar; this went through seven editions.1

After three years he left Ste. Barbe to become tutor to the
Earl of Cassilis, and in 1535 returned with him to Scotland.
At that time he began to use satire as a weapon against the
abuses of the Monastic orders. The Somnhim, the two
Palinodes and the Franciscanus, the two latter written at
the request of James V., show his great powers of invective in
combination with his rare scholarship. They naturally pro-
voked the fiercest hostility on the part of the dignitaries of the

1 After his return to Scotland he was President of a Committee of four
scholars who undertook to edit a Latin Grammar, and he took upon himself
the part dealing with prosody.

Appendix 433

Church, and in 1539 Buchanan was exiled ; he escaped from
his guards while they were asleep, and, finding Paris unsafe
(Cardinal Beaton was there on an Embassy), he went to
Bordeaux, where he and Elie Vinet were appointed to two
vacancies at the College de Guyenne, under Jacques de Gouvea
as Principal. Montaigne thought this College " the best in
France " ; Latin was the principal study, while Logic, Philo-
sophy, Greek, and the Bible, held a secondary place. Greek was
not recognised by the University of Paris till 1600. Montaigne
was one of the students of the College and afterwards spoke of
Buchanan with admiration. Buchanan translated into Latin
the Medea and Alcestis of Euripides, and wrote two original
plays, Baptistes and Jephthes. In the Baptistes his political
views were first made known.

Buchanan left Bordeaux in 1543, and in 1544 we find
him acting as Regent in the College du Cardinal Lemoine
in Paris, where he had as colleagues Turnebe and Muret. He
fell dangerously ill, and on his recovery found himself, at forty,
without any assured source of income. Such is the picture of
this Scot abroad. He was surrounded by devoted friends; and
he loved Paris, as we know from his Desiderium Lutetiae. In
1545 he left that city, and in 1547 accompanied Andre de
Gouvea to establish a great school in Coimbra, where King John
the Third was reconstituting a University. Buchanan got
an appointment on the teaching staff for his brother Patrick.
Everything went well with this centre of humanism until the
death of the Principal in 1548. The Jesuits were determined
to bring the University under their direct influence, and
Buchanan and his colleagues were charged before the Inquisition.
After a trial which lasted a year and a half, Buchanan was sent
to a Monastery to be instructed by the monks. He made use of
this incarceration by translating the Psalms into Latin verse —
a task which the Jesuits imposed upon him as a penance. The
version, in the opinion of Le Clerc, was " incomparable." In
the 17th and 18th centuries it was a text-book in many of the
best schools in Scotland. The rendering of the 104th and
137th Psalms is still universally admired. The dedication of
this masterpiece to Queen Mary " every Scotsman ought to have
by heart," according to James Hannay :

" 0 daughter of a hundred kings

That boldest 'neath thy happy sway
El

484 Appendix

This ancient realm of Caledon ;

Whose worth outstrips thy destiny ;

Whoso mind thy sex ; whose grace thy peers ;

Whose virtues leave behind thy years —

Behold in Roman garb I bring

The work of Israel's prophet king.

Rude is my song as born afar

From the Muse- haunted founts of Greece,

Under the frigid Northern star ;

And but that aught that pleases thee

Must ne'er displeasing seem to me,

It had not looked on eyes save mine ;

Yet such a virtue flows from thine,

Perchance my sorry child may own

Some graces that are thine alone ! " l

Almost at the same time, Knox, a slave in the French
galleys, edited Balnave's ' Treatise on Justification.' In their
school of adversity, Knox and Buchanan were being educated
for their great task of emancipating Scotland. Although the
King of Portugal wished Buchanan to remain, when he was
set at liberty, and even supplied him with means, he left
Portugal and sailed for England. England, however, was too
disturbed, and in 1553 he again returned to Paris and acted as
Regent in the College Boncourt. In 1555 he was appointed
by the Marshal de Brissac (to whom he addressed a fine ode on
the capture of Vercelli) as tutor to his son. For five years he
was happy in the family of this great soldier, and his duties
were congenial. Timoleon du Cosse, his pupil, was only twelve
years of age; he was killed at the siege of Mucidan at the age
of twenty-six. Buchanan accompanied de Brissac on his many
expeditions between France and Italy. During this period he
began his great poem, De Sphaera; it was never completed.
He also devoted a great part of his time to the study of the Holy
Scriptures. At last, in 1561, he came home to Scotland at the
age of fifty-five, after an exile of twenty-two years.

When Buchanan returned to Scotland, he enrolled himself a
member of the Scottish Church. This step was due to his
critical study of the Scriptures during the last five years of his
residence on the Continent. Until that time, he was ostensibly
a Roman Catholic. But he was by no means a theologian, —
he was a humanist; he was imbued with the spirit of Greek

1 Translated by Professor Hume Brown.

Appendix 435

and Roman literature. The negative side of the Reformation
was probably its chief attraction for him. There is no evidence
that he took part in any of the dogmatic struggles of his
time. As a Protestant he was tolerant ; as he had himself been
the victim of persecution, he was not prepared to interfere with
the exercise of private judgment. It is greatly to the credit
of the leaders of the Scottish Church that they made him a
Member of the Assembly which met on the 29th December
1563, and also of subsequent Assemblies, and that in 1567 he
was appointed Moderator. He served also on most of the
important Committees. In 1574 the General Assembly ap-
pointed Buchanan, with Peter Young, Andrew Melville, and
James Lawson, to revise Adamson's Latin version of the Book
of Job.

Knox, in 1566, wrote: "That notable man, Mr. George
Bucquhanane, remains to this day, in the year of God 1566
years, to the glory of God, to the great honour of the nation, and
to the comfort of those that delyt in letters and virtue." It
shows the sagacity of Knox that he did not alienate Buchanan,
•with whom he had very little in common. To the cause of
Protestantism the allegiance of Buchanan gave additional
strength. The exclusion of Buchanan would have been a great
error. As Sir James Melville aptly put it, Buchanan was " of
gud religion for a poet."

Soon after his return to Scotland, Buchanan enjoyed the
privilege of reading Livy with Queen Mary after her dinner,
and we may take it for granted that their conversation must
often have turned to France, which both loved so well. Sir
James Melville has left it on record that Buchanan was " pleas-
ant in conversation, rehearsing on all occasions moralities short
and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing where he
wanted" . . . "a Stoick philosopher, who looked not far
before him."

Moreover, as Queen Mary had so strong a preference for St.
Andrews, where Buchanan generally resided, he must have had
many opportunities of meeting the Queen. He undertook also
the functions of Court poet, writing Latin masques for the
Court on the return of Mary from France, on her marriage
with Darnley, and on the baptism of her son James.

It is painful to record that Buchanan, " despising wealth"
according to Joseph Scaliger, had no fixed income and was

436 Appendix

reduced to such ignominious appeals to the Queen as the well-
known epigram, where wit feebly conceals want:

" I give you what I have,

I wish you what you lack ;
And weightier were my gift
Were fortune at my back.

" Perchance you think I jest?

A like jest then I crave :
Wish for me what I lack,

And give me what you have."1

In 1570 he was appointed Director of Chancery, and in the
same year Keeper of the Privy Seal, which office he resigned in
1578 in favour of his nephew Thomas. This position gave him a
seat in the Privy Council and in Parliament. By the latter
he was appointed a Member of a Commission to examine a
book on the " Policy of the Kirk."

Buchanan brought with him to Scotland a thorough know-
ledge of the French system of higher education. His admira-
tion for all things French found expression in his Adventus
in Galliam. It was quite natural that Moray, as Prior of the
Abbey, should appoint him Principal of the College of St.
Leonard at this University in 1566. In 1563 the number of
students at St. Mary's was ten, at St. Leonard's ten, and at St.
Salvator's eleven. Canon law, the logic and metaphysic of the
Schoolmen, and Latin, formed the chief elements of the curricu-
lum. Greek was unknown. It is rather remarkable in connection
with the hold of Greek on the older English Universities, that at
Oxford the study of Greek only gradually made its way against
the most determined opposition. But Oxford and Cambridge
accepted the new order, while the University of Paris was still
opposed to both Renaissance and Reformation. In April, 1560,
Knox was asked to draw up what is known as the
First Book of Discipline, and by the autumn of that year the
work was completed. It deals with the government, with the
discipline and organisation of the Church, with education, and
with pauperism. Lately, in our own time, the Church has
taken up social questions. In so doing, it is undertaking duties
which Knox and Chalmers considered to be essential to the
maintenance of its vitality. Against the accusation that
Calvinism is severe, this concern for the poorer brethren

1 Translated by Professor Hume Brown.

Appendix 437

shows that Knox was fully alive to the paramount precept
of Christianity — charity. The success of the Reformation
was probably due to the recognition of this duty, neglected
by the Church in pre-Reformation days. The democratic char-
acter of the Reformation was illustrated by the provision made
for public education. But we must remember that, as far back
as 1494, by an Act of James IV., the barons and freeholders were
ordered to keep their heirs at school until they had learned
" perfyt Latyn." Some of the burghs maintained elementary
and secondary schools. There were also elementary Church
schools, in many cases taught by women, and ordinary
private schools. Knox proposed that every parish should
have its elementary school. Education was to be com-
pulsory. " All must be compelled to bring up their
children in learning and virtue." In every town and
cathedral city secondary schools were to be established, in
which logic, rhetoric, Latin, and Greek, were to be taught.
Latin Grammar and Latin Literature were excluded from the
University curriculum. Bursaries and scholarships were to pro-
vide for capable boys. At St. Andrews, one college should
provide a course in Philosophy, the second a course in Law, and
the third a course in Divinity. The object was to make the
Universities institutions of higher education and to alter their
mediaeval character. The degree of Doctor of Divinity could
not be taken before the age of thirty-five. The Book of
Discipline reduced this to twenty-four, and for the Doctorate
in Law the age was also shortened. The absence of Latin and
Greek Classics from the University course, and the fact that
they were to be taught only at secondary schools, which students
would leave at sixteen or seventeen, show that the right
enthusiasm for humanism did not inspire the authors of the
Book of Discipline. Indeed, Scotland did not so wholly yield
itself to the influence of Humanism as did other countries of
Europe. Theology was the cardinal factor in the Reformation
here, whereas in England the Italian Renaissance played a
great part in stimulating the national life. The scheme of the
Book of Discipline was not carried out ; it has not been
carried out even yet. It was a bold attempt to place the
intellectual life of Scotland on a broad foundation. By an Act
of Parliament, in 1563, Commissioners were appointed to
investigate matters in the University of St. Andrews. Moray,

438 Appendix

Maitland, and Buchanan, were the most important among the
Commissioners. They produced a scheme which has been
attributed to Buchanan. One of the Colleges was to be a
Secondary School with six successive classes, in which Latin
and Greek were to be taught, — Greek only in the three highest
classes. The rule for the Saturday disputations, and the
rule that the Regent was not to give lessons, were the same
as those of the College at Bordeaux with which Buchanan was
acquainted. The second College was to supply a three years'
course of Philosophy and Medicine. The staff was to consist of
a Principal, four Regents, and a Reader in Medicine. The
third College was to teach Divinity and Law, with a Principal
who would lecture on Divinity, and a Reader in Law.
Buchanan must have felt that this scheme was wholly
inadequate, but he had limited means at his disposal.

In 1579 another Commission was appointed, of which
Buchanan and Andrew Melville were members. Their scheme
made St. Salvator's and St. Leonard's Arts Colleges, the former
with Regents in Law and Medicine. St. Mary's was to deal
exclusively with Theology and to have five Professors. The
first Professor was to teach Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, the
first year ; the second to apply these languages to the critical
explanation of the Pentateuch and historical books ; the third
to apply them to the prophetical books ; the fourth to compare
the Greek Testament with the Syriac Version ; and the fifth to
lecture on Systematic Divinity. One omission is striking, — there
is no reference to Church History. The students were to have
a holiday only in September, and the course was to extend over
a period of four years. Parliament ratified this scheme, but the
University did not reap much benefit from it. As compared
with the present state of things, with a faculty of Divinity only
numbering four Professors and a much shorter course, the
earlier scheme shows a better appreciation of the immense
importance of the study of Theology than we moderns can
claim credit for. The Church of Scotland, which at all times
has had such eminent men among its Professors and Ministers,
should take steps to secure better equipment, a more adequate
representation of the various branches of Theology, at the
Universities ; the situation in England is no doubt worse, and
lately an appeal has been made, I believe, by the Bishop of
Birmingham, to remedy the evil. It is impossible to exaggerate

Appendix 439

the importance of giving proper training to the clergy, if the
Church is to exercise the potent influence which it alone
possesses.

Buchanan was Principal of St. Leonard's from 1566 till
1570. Very little is known of his life during those four
years. He was one of the electors, assessors, and deputies
of the Rector, his name being entered as " poetarum nostri
mecnli facile princeps." He was never either Rector or
Dean of the Faculty of Arts. In 1566 and 1567 no students
were enrolled at St. Leonard's, but in 1568 more students
entered St. Leonard's than St. Mary's, and in 1569 the number
enrolled for the first time in St. Leonard's was twenty four,
at St. Mary's only eleven, and at St. Salvator's only eight.
It is natural to attribute to Buchanan this ascendency of St.
Leonard's. The Principal of St. Leonard's was bound to
deliver divinity lectures every Wednesday and Friday, and it
is very much to be deplored that no record exists of these
lectures. By the Book of Discipline a weekly exercise of
" prophesying" was to be held, at which Ministers and learned
•men of the neighbourhood were expected to appear, and it is
probable that Buchanan was present at these exercises. With
regard to his merits as a teacher we have this testimony :
" Buchanan was of such flexibility of mind that with boys he
became a boy : he had alike the faculty and the will to adapt
himself to every time of life, yet always in such a way as never
to forfeit the respect due to himself." His affection for young
men is shown by the letter of introduction which he gave Jerome
Groslot to Beza, and by two poems in memory of Alexander
Cockburn, who died in 1564, at the age of twenty-eight, and
whose early death he seems to have considered as a loss to the
literature of the country.

Buchanan always took a keen interest in the University of
Glasgow, and it is probable that he induced Queen Mary to
confer grants on the University, and, in the new foundation of
the College of Glasgow made by the town in 1572, Buchanan
took an active part. The ' Erectio Regia ' was also probably
due to the influence of Buchanan with Morton. Buchanan is
mentioned in the deed as " our dear Privy Councillor,
Pensioner of Crossraguel, and Keeper of the Privy Seal." A
valuable gift of Latin and Greek books to the College is further
evidence of Buchanan's desire to promote its efficiency.

440 Appendix

The Privy Council in 1570 appointed Buchanan tutor to
James VI. who was then only four years old. A number of
able men were appointed to train the young king, and four
young nobles were selected as his companions. The Privy
Council and Buchanan realised how much of the future of the
United Kingdom was involved in the education of James.
The appointment of Buchanan was significant; the Privy
Council must have known the advanced views with which
he would imbue the king's mind. He had no thought of
ingratiating himself with his Royal pupil ; his one thought was
how best to ingratiate him with his subjects. His programme
of studies for a boy of eight or ten is certainly alarming, and
I do not think that an Inspector of our Education Department
would give his sanction to the time-table. After morning
prayers the young prince read Greek, the New Testament,
Socrates or Plutarch, and he was exercised in the rules of
grammar. After breakfast came Cicero, Livy, Justin, or
Modern History; in the afternoon he applied himself to
composition, and, when time permitted, to Arithmetic, or
Cosmography, which included Geography, or Logic and Rhetoric.
David and Adam Erskine, Commendators of Dryburgh and
Cambuskenneth, relatives of the Earl of Mar, were appointed
to superintend his training in bodily exercises and accomplish-
ments. We may think the scheme rather too ambitous, but at
any rate it reflects credit on the rulers of Scotland as showing
their determination that the king should have every advantage
deemed necessary to prepare him for his grave responsibilities.
The scholarship of the king was remarkable, though Buchanan
fully realised that this was not of primary importance.
In a poem addressed to Randolph, the English
Resident, we have his views thus set forth :
"You often urge me to paint for you what manner of king I
should wish, were God to grant one according to my prayer.
Here, then, is the portrait you want. In chief, I would have
him a lover of true piety, deeming himself the veritable image
of highest God. He must love peace, yet be ever ready for war.
To the vanquished he must be merciful, and when he lays down
his arms he must lay aside his hate. I should wish him to be
neither a niggard nor a spendthrift, for each I must think
works equal harm to his people. He must believe that the king
exists for his country and not for himself, and that he is in

Appendix 441

truth the Common Father of the State. When expediency
demands that he shall punish with a stern hand, let it appear
that he has no pleasure in his own severity. He will ever be
lenient if it is consistent with the welfare of his people. His
life must be the pattern for every citizen, his countenance the
terror of evildoers, the delight of those that do well. His mind
he must cultivate with sedulous care, his body as reason
demands. Good sense and good taste must keep in check
luxurious excess."

In these lines of Seneca appended to the dedication of the De
Jure, the same thought is tersely expressed :

" Rex est, qui metuit nihil,
Rex est, qui cupiet nihil
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat."

In his Birthday Ode, Buchanan had laid down for the

' felices felici prole parentes " of James what he considered to

be their duty. The opening lines of the poem gave expression

to the satisfaction felt at the prospect of union with England,

which in every respect was preferable to the French alliance.

These are the lines: — "Grow and be strong, long wished-
for boy, happy pledge for thy country's weal, to whom ancient
bards have promised the peaceful glories of the golden age.
And thou, happy Britain, joyfully lift up thy head, thou so
often stricken by foreign foes, so often on ruin's brink from
the swords of thy own children : bind thy hair with olive, and
repair thy ruined homes, for the stars now promise thee eternal
peace. Now Saxon oppresseth not Scot, nor Scot Saxon, nor
stain their swords with the blood of their kindred, nor make
the cities of the other their prey. They whose delight was
mutual war now join right hands in peace. And ye, happy
parents of this happy child, train him from his tenderest years
to virtue and justice. Let piety be his companion from the
cradle, moulding his thoughts and growing with his years."

Buchanan dedicated three books to his Royal pupil : the
Baptistes, the De Jtire Regni, and the History. The Baptistes
was written in 1540-41. In 1576 he dedicated it to James,
who was only ten, and he tells His Majesty: " This little work
must seem to have a peculiar interest for yourself, inasmuch as
it sets before you in the clearest manner what torments and
miseries tyrants endure, even when they appear to be most
prosperous. And this lesson I deem not merely beneficial, but

442 Appendix

absolutely necessary for you, so that you may early begin to
detest what it must be always your duty to avoid. Moreover,
I wish my book to be a standing witness with posterity that
not with your teachers but with yourself rested the fault, if,
impelled by evil counsellors or your own undue desire for
power, you should ever depart from the lessons you have
received."

In 1579, when the king was thirteen, he dedicated to him
the De Jure Regni. He praises him for the brightness
of his abilities, his intellectual interests, his independence of
judgment while enquiring into the truth of things and opinions.
He congratulates him on his aversion to flattery, — " tyrannidis
nutricula, et legitimi regni gravissima pestis," " naturae
quodam instinctu oderis solaecismos et barbarismos aulicos "
affected by the " elegantiae censores."

Hallam remarks that " the three great sources of a free
spirit in politics, — admiration of antiquity, zeal for religion,
and persuasion of a positive right, — which animated separately
La Boetie, Languet and Hottoman, united their stream to
produce the treatise of George Buchanan, a scholar, a protestant,
and the subject of a very limited monarchy."

In the dedication of his History Buchanan states that miser-
able ill health had prevented him from discharging his duties as
tutor, and that this work would in some degree make amends
for the unavoidable neglect. He urges James to follow the
example of his good predecessors, especially of David I., and
to eschew that of the bad. The admirable style of the
History, as well as its contents, prove that Sir James Melville
was wrong, when he stated that Buchanan " in his auld dayes
was become sleperie and cairless," but he was right in saying
that he " followed in many things the vulgair oppinion, for he
was naturally populaire." If James had accepted the warnings
of Buchanan, the history of the House of Stuart would have
been very different from what it turned out to be. But
although James was, according to Mark Pattison, " the only
English Prince who has carried to the throne knowledge derived
from reading or any considerable amount of literature," his
mind was not amenable to liberal ideas, and he was a pedant
and an absolutist by nature. He bitterly resented Buchanan's
views, and Buchanan's death alone saved him from being tried
for sedition at the instance of the King. Buchanan, however,
was fully justified. He foresaw the course of things.

Appendix 443

His treatise, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, and his
History of Scotland were condemned by Act of Parliament in
1584, two years after his death. In 1664 the Privy Council
of Scotland issued a proclamation prohibiting the circulation
of a manuscript translation of the dialogue.1 In 1688 this
order was repeated, and in 1683 the University of Oxford
publicly burned the political works of Buchanan, Milton,
Languet, and others. Buchanan's fame gave to his treatise its
abiding influence. During the 18th century three editions were
published, in 1789 an English translation was published, and
in 1843, the year of the foundation of the Free Church,
another translation appeared. The ideas developed by Buchanan
were not new. John Major had already in his History
stated that, " As it was the people who first made kings, so the
people can dethrone them when they misuse their privileges."
Buchanan, however, admits that the people can make a king
as little as they can make an artist or a physician, although
they can choose him ; they can make and interpret the laws which
the king preserves and administers. The function of the king
js that of a physician. He preserves the health of society and
restores it when it is lost. As far back as the 12th century,
John of Salisbury said: " When he is the true image of God,
the king should be loved, honoured, obliged ; when he is the
image of all that is evil, he should in most cases be put to
death." In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas taught that the
end of government is the good of the community. Duns Scotus
represents the people as the sole source of political power, and
Marsilius of Padua, at one time Rector of the University of
Paris, in a pamphlet written about the year 1324, says: " est
enim multitude dominus major," and the description given of
the "multitude" in the De Jure Regni is: " Reliqua est
imperita multitude, quae omnia nova miratur, plurima
reprehendit neque quicquam rectum putat, nisi quod ipsa aut
facit, aut fieri videt, quantum enim a consuetudine majorum
receditur, tantum a justo et aequo recedi putat." In Switzer-
land, I believe, the referendum has generally been exercised in
a conservative sense. Gerson, the Chancellor of the University
of Paris, quotes Seneca, who said that " There can be no more
acceptable sacrifice to God than a tyrant," and Milton after-
wards seems to have given his approval to this view. I may

1 See Appendix V.

444 Appendix

conclude with a very apt definition given by Isidore of Seville
in the ninth century : ' ' Reges a recte agendo vocati sunt,
ideoque recte faciendo, regis nomen tenetur, peccando
amittitur." The Reformers found a situation in which
supremacy over kings was claimed by the Church, which alone
had the power to loosen the bonds of allegiance. They had,
therefore, to face the question of the limits of this allegiance.
It is inaccurate to attribute as novel to the Reformers opinions
which had been held before.

Buchanan joined in the rebellion against Scholasticism.
His mind was steeped in the literature of ancient Greece and
Rome, but he applied its teachings to the problems of his own
day. He drew lessons from the past in order that a better
future might be secured to his countrymen. Humanism
was incompatible with the dogmatic system of the
Church. In so far as Humanism and the Renaissance
asserted the right of " private judgment," they paved
the way for the Reformation. Buchanan, in his History,
looks upon the Reformers as " the champions of liberty."
Protestantism represents to him the struggle for liberty.
Queen Mary was certainly not justified in calling him an
" Atheist." His Epicedium on the death of Calvin reveals
his conception of the Calvinistic Theology, and his appreciation
of the struggle in which Calvin was engaged. Calvin
filled with a draught of Deity lives in an eternal and
nearer enjoyment of God. God is the soul of the soul, and,
when the draught of Deity has been taken, the soul, which
before was shrouded in darkness, illusioned by empty appear-
ance and grasping at mere shadows of the right and good, sees
the darkness disappear, the vain simulacra cease, the unveiled
face of Truth reveal itself in light. Buchanan could not have
written thus had he not accepted the doctrines of the
resurrection and of regeneration. Knox would have stated it
differently. He was in a different position, as the leader
of the Democracy ; he had to speak plainly so as to raise the
Church on definite dogmatic lines and to denounce what he
considered dangerous. The times were not favourable to a
symposium ; the alternative was martyrdom. Buchanan had
experienced the amenities of the Inquisition at Lisbon ; we
may well marvel that he was so fair, in his History, to the
Catholics. In dealing with the great problems of life,

Appendix 445

he had no other aim than the discovery of Truth. Being
thoroughly in earnest, he made allowance for the errors of
others. It was an exceptional attitude in those days.

Buchanan wrote his History at the request of his friends
who thought such a work " more worthy of his advanced years
and of the expectation his countrymen had formed of him."
In a letter to Tycho Brahe, in 1576, he had written that bad
health had compelled him ' ' spem scribendi carminis in
posterum penitus abjicere." He was here referring to the poem
De Sphaera at which he intermittently worked at least
for twenty-five years and which he left unfinished.
Reluctantly, he writes to a friend in England, in 1579, he had
abandoned his astronomical aims in poetry, " neque enim aut
nunc libet nugari, aut si maxime vellem per aetatem licet.
Accessit eo historiae scribendae labor." He gave up De Sphaera
as being less serious than the History. In 1577 he writes to
Randolph: " As for the present, I am occupied in writing of
our historic, being assurit to content few and to displease many
thairthrow. As to the end of it, yf ye gett it not or thys
winter be passit, lippen not for it,1 nor nane other writings
from me. The rest of my occupation is wyth the gout, quhilk
haldis me busy both day and nyt."

In another letter to Randolph he says: "As to my
occupation at this present time, I am bisy with our story of
Scotland to purge it of sum Inglis lyis and Scottis vanite ; as to
Maister Knoks, his historic is in hys freindis handis, and thai
ar in consultation to mitigat sum part the acerbiti of certaine
wordis and sum taintis quhairin he has followit to much sum
of your Inglis writaris as M. Hal et suppilatorem ejus."

As a historian, Buchanan must not be judged by the tests
which we apply to the writers of history in our times. His
History must be judged by the standard of Livy, Salust, and
Tacitus, as in the first place a literary work. But we must give
credit to Buchanan for expressing not only his own views in a
brilliant style, but for introducing the arguments of the other
side, so that the reader may be able to form his own
judgment. The best example of this method is to be found in
his quoting the letter which Queen Mary sent to France
after her marriage with Bothwell. But the History shows
an absolute want of appreciation of the Reformation as
1 " Do not reckon on receiving it."

446 Appendix

a religious movement. He seems to have looked upon the
Reformers chiefly in the light of v indices libertatis rather
than of evaiujelici pro/essores. And as Knox, the greatest
figure of the time, is only mentioned four times, Buchanan
evidently had no idea of the position which would be
assigned to his great contemporary by posterity. Buchanan
enjoyed a European reputation, and probably considered him
his intellectual inferior. Knox was a leader of men and was
fighting a battle against tremendous odds, in which he had to
set in motion popular forces and at the same time to control
them. Buchanan approached the great problems from an
academic point of view. That he strengthened, by his classical
utterances, the great cause for which they both were doing
battle, there can be no doubt.

De Thou, who takes a very high rank among the historians
of those days, states that " Buchanan in his old age undertook
a History, which he wrote with such purity, sagacity, and
insight (although from that inborn love of liberty, peculiar
to his nation, somewhat severe on the pride of kings), that his
work seems the production, not of one trained in the dust of
the Schools, but of one who has passed his life in the conduct
of affairs," and, a century after, Dryden paid his tribute to
Buchanan, who, " for the purity of his Latin and for his
learning, and for all other endowments belonging to an
historian, might be placed among the greatest, if he had not
leaned too much to prejudice and too manifestly declared
himself a party of a cause, rather than an historian
of it. Excepting only that (which I desire not to urge too far
in so great a man, but only to give caution to his readers
concerning it), our isle may justly boast in him a writer
comparable to any of the moderns, and excelled by few of the
ancients." Buchanan did not suppress his own strong convic-
tions, and, with the personal knowledge he possessed of the rulers
of Scotland and of the governing class, it could hardly have been
expected that he would refrain from emphasising what he
believed to be the truth. That he was fair-minded, his estimate
of the character of the Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, may be
adduced by way of evidence. He was perfectly justified in his
adverse criticism of Cardinal Beaton and of the policy pursued
by the House of Hamilton.

Four editions of the History appeared during the sixteenth

Appendix 447

century, and three in the 18th, and many translations were
made in England and Scotland during the 17th and 18th
centuries. Altogether nineteen editions were published of the
History, the last in 1762.

Buchanan, as a typical representative of the New Learning
of the first half of the 16th century, necessarily chose Latin as
the medium for the expression of his thoughts. He thus
addressed himself to the whole republic of learning. " Modern
Languages," he would have held with a greater and later
philosopher, " would play the very bankrupt with my
works." His vernacular writings are perhaps only of value
as reflecting the influences derived from the habitual use of the
Latin idiom, and these writings, interesting as they are to the
historian, cannot claim for Buchanan any important place
among the men of letters of his country. It is then by his
Latin works that his place must be adjudged, and from this
standpoint his place is of very high rank in the history of
Humanism. Perhaps the most fascinating of his contributions
to this department of literature are his Latin plays. His
Jsphthes is indeed the earliest specimen of a Senecan drama
composed by a Northerner ; his Baptistes, similarly Senecan
in form, is closely connected with the whole movement
of the period, when the form of the later Roman Drama,
Tragedy in particular, became associated with the pressing
problems of Church and State, — problems which, in Germany
more especially, produced what has well been called
"a Christian Terence" with a "Christian Seneca" as a
counterpart. This play of Baptistes put in dramatic form the
principles afterwards enunciated in the famous prose work, De
Jure Regni. It is significant that both works received great
attention during the middle of the 17th century, when kindred
questions were agitating men's minds ; and that Milton,
between whom and Buchanan there was much in common,
seems to have been acquainted with both works . and to have
been influenced by both. When one recalls the condition of the
vernacular drama of Scotland at this time, with its indecorum
and want of art, one feels how much the 16th century
dramatists owed to the example of the Humanists, who
preferred the declamatory and rhetorical drama of Seneca,
with all its limitations, to the crude form of the native drama.
Buchanan was too early in date to witness the fruition of

448 Appendix

Humanistic influences, so far as the vernacular literature was
concerned. These results were to be for the next generation.
It is enough for him, and for his assured place among his
contemporaries, that his was the power ' ' to make King
David speak the language of Horace and Virgil " ; that,
according to one enthusiast, " Virgil never made better verses,
and fifteen centuries were needed to produce another poet
like Virgil " ; and that the licence of his amatory verse was
strictly in accordance with the classic examples set by Catullus
and Tibullus. Yet while so much of the form is derivative in
the spirit of these Latin poems, we are constantly reminded of
Scottish grim humour and satire, and Buchanan stands forth
as another Dunbar, to mention but one of his great
contemporaries who spoke in native Scots with all its grand
vitality and Rabelaisian vigour; and withal, the joy and
enthusiasm for the Scottish nation and his native land find full
expression in Buchanan's verse, in spite of the formal style of
the humanist:

" The glory of the quivered Scots
Is the bold heart and hardy frame
That fear, nor want, nor toil can tame ;
Whose joy is in their native woods
To chase and strike the various game,
And fearless breast their mountain floods ;
Whose good right hands their soil can keep,
Nor need high walls nor fosses deep ;
Who count all gone, if honour's gone ;
Whose faith can ne'er be bought nor sold ;
Who deem a friend heaven's dearest boon ;
Who barter not their soul for gold. " 1

The esteem in which Buchanan was held by his contempor-
aries is shown by Beza, who looks upon Buchanan as his
superior, and by the following letter of Languet, the
distinguished friend of Sir Philip Sidney: " So well are you
known to the whole Christian world by your virtue and the
many monuments of your genius, that there is hardly a lover
of learning and sound instruction who does not pay you the
tribute of his ardent reverence and admiration. I count it my
great happiness that in Paris, some twenty years since, it was
my good fortune not only to see you and to enjoy the benefit

1 Lines 173-179 of Francisci Valesii et Mariae Stuartae, Regum Franciae,
et Scotiae, Epithalamium, translated by Professor Hume Brown.

Appendix 449

of your learning and the delightful charm of your conversation,
but also to entertain you as my guest along with others of the
highest distinction, — Turnebe, Dorat and others. We then
heard much from you to our utmost profit and delight. Of all
this I now write to see whether I can recall to you who I am,
but be I who I may, be certain that your virtues are my
profoundest admiration. For many years I lived with Philip
Melanchtou, and I then thought myself happy. On his death,
after many vicissitudes, I at length came to this country as to
a safe port, finding none safer elsewhere, though here also for
many years the storms of civil war have been raging. Never-
theless, amid these storms the light of the gospel is shining,
and the true way of salvation is preached to us, and superstition
driven out of the churches to the great indignation of Spain,
which is still under its dominion. It was by the command of
the Prince of Orange, the chiefest ornament of our age, that I
came here with himself. By his courage and genius he has till
now so successfully coped with the mighty resources of the
Spanish King that he has won for himself undying fame. . . .
Erasmus was invited to undertake the education of Ferdinand,
the brother of the Emperor Charles, but refused the task.
You I count both more fortunate and more noble in consenting
to the request of your countrymen to imbue the youthful mind
of your prince with precepts which, if his manhood follow them,
will lead to the highest happiness of himself and his subjects."
This letter was written from Delft.

To his old friend, Elie Vinet, Buchanan wrote: " Now in
my 75th year, I sometimes recall through what cares and toils
(passing every port where men are wont to find joy and
refreshment), I have in my voyage of life at length struck on
that rock beyond which, as it is most truly said in the 90th
Psalm, nothing remains but labour and sorrow. The memory
of friends, of whom you are almost the only survivor, — this is

now my one consolation I have long bidden farewell

to literature, and my only thought now is, with as little noise
as possible, to leave a generation with which I am no longer in
sympathy, — as one dead, that is to say, to leave the haunts of
the living." De Thou always preserved in his memory this
last sentence.

Henri Estienne had called him " poetarum nostri saeculi
facile princeps," and Joseph Scaliger said "that in Latin
Fl

450 Appendix

poetry Buchanan stood alone in Europe, and left everybody
else behind " ;

" Imperii fuerat Roniani Scotia limes ;
Romani eloquii Scotia finis erit?" l

Dr. Johnson said that he was " not only a very fine poet,
but a great poetical genius." Finally, by way of specimen I
cannot refrain from quoting Dr Hume Brown's charming
tribute, to wit, his free translation of the Calendae Maiae,
in its elegance equal to anything in Horace : —

" Hail ! sweetest day,
Day of all pure delight ;
Whose gracious hours invite
To mirth and song and dance,
And wine, and love's soft glance.
Welcome ! with all thy bright hours bring
Of quickened life and beauty's dower —
The certain heritage of Spring.
In thee each year doth hoary Time
Renew the glories of his prime !

When, still rejoicing in her birth,
Spring brightened all the new-made earth,
And in that happy golden age
Men knew no lawless passion's rage,
Thy train of joys embraced the year ;
Soft breezes wooed the untilled field,
Its blessings all unforced to yield.

Even in such mildest atmosphere
Forever bask those happy Isles,
Those blessed plains that never know
Life's slow decay or poisoned flow.

Thus 'mid the still abodes of death
Should steal the soft air's softest breath,
And gently stir the solemn wood
That glooms o'er Lethe's dreamless flood.

And haply when made pure of stain
By cleansing fire, the earth renewed
Shall know her ancient joys again-,
Even such mild air shall o'er her brood !

Thou crown of the world's failing age,
Of life's sad book one happy page.
Hail ! sweetest day — memorial bright
Of early innocent delight,
And sure pledge of the coming day
When it shall be eternal May."

1 " Where Scotland curbed the march of conquering Rome
The Lallan Muse will find his final home."

Appendix 451

We are justified in honouring the memory of Buchanan as
the greatest scholar Scotland has produced. He was a typical
Scot, — his rugged independence of character, his love of liberty,
his strenuous activity, his sense of duty to his king and country,
his disinterestedness, his brilliant scholarship, his affection for
his friends, his fortitude, his sincerity, and his simplicity, were
remarkable. We can only think of granite in connection with
such a heroic figure. Buchanan's life was a constant struggle,
and he died penniless. He did not seek to win either the
favour of princes or that of the " multitude." He was by nature
averse to all that was mean. The nobility of his soul places him
in the front rank of the men of whom we may well be proud.
Scotland owes him a debt of gratitude. We can best acquit
ourselves of this debt by following in Buchanan's footsteps.
Strength of character, independence of judgment, scorn of
luxury, fearless assertion of individual convictions, are perhaps
more rare in our day than in the sixteenth century. Buchanan
did not hesitate to tell his royal pupil truths which the latter
warned his son Henry were " scandalous libels." The same
courage is required to tell the leaders of the Democracy that
"they are quite as liable to go astray as those who wield a
sceptre. The Divine Right of Kings is no longer misused, but
we have to oppose the insidious delusion that " vox populi est
vox Dei."

It would not be difficult to draw a picture of Buchanan
addressing his countrymen from a platform in very outspoken
accents. Buchanan entered a protest against the evils of his
day and used the means which he considered appropriate. His
own advancement he never considered, where the solus
reipublicae et ecclesiae was at stake. Had he lived in these
days, his scathing satire would have been directed against the
evils of plutocracy and democracy, and the tyranny of public
opinion. No worse form of Government can be imagined than
a corrupt Democracy. Buchanan would not have spoken of
Capital as the enemy, because he would not have been ignorant
of political economy. Capital is essential to civilisation and to
the welfare of every class of the community. It is the abuse
of power, whether by Capital or by Labour, which constitutes
the public peril.

Every generation has to deal with the dangers which beset
the Commonwealth ; it has the same proneness to error. Its

452 Appendix

safety depends on the wisdom and courage of those who
understand the signs of the times and on its readiness to listen
to them. History gives us ever recurring pictures of timely
warnings unheeded and consequent disasters. The men who
failed to convince their contemporaries are rehabilitated, and
those who pandered to the passions of their contemporaries
receive a just retribution in the verdict of history. We have
come here as pilgrims to this venerable seat of learning to
worship at the shrine of truth. We believe that this ancient
University, as well as the other Universities of Scotland, will
maintain the traditions bequeathed to us by such pioneers as
Buchanan. To the vigorous assertion of their principles by
Buchanan and his friends we owe the existence of our liberties.
The Universities have no nobler duty than to inspire the rising
generations of young Scots with the firm purpose to maintain
these liberties, and to use them in such a manner as would have
satisfied Buchanan that he had not lived in vain."

Principal Donaldson, in proposing the hearty thanks of the
gathering to Lord Reay for his " masterly, interesting, profit-
able, and very valuable address," said: — "The wise
problems he has brought before us and the wise sayings he has
uttered will be heartily pondered by us — (applause). We
might have had a larger number of humanists with us had it
not been for the circumstance that in Germany and France
the summer session was going on, and a number sent excuses
saying they could not leave the examinations in which they
were engaged. I have received from one Continental scholar
the following message : —

UNIVERSITAT1S SENATUI ET COLLEGIATIS ET ADVENTOBIBU8

GEOBGII BUCHANANI QUARTA SAECULARIA CELEBRATURIS

SALUTE M.

aperas iVo/xvr//xa a rwv ayaOCtv dvSptav
Senatus populusque ArginiB in decreto modo eruderato facto sub divo Marco.

Tela quatit fera Jjarbaries : tu, Scotia, scuto
Mundtim atque humanas protege munditias.

Franciscus Buecheler professor Bonnensis IVnon. Jul. a. MCMVI.

LORD REAY.
(President of British Academy.)

Appendix 453

The Greek, when roughly translated, reads : — ' Honour done to
good men is a beautiful commemoration of virtue and excel-
lence.' The meaning of the verse in Latin cannot be rendered
in English owing to the play upon words, but may be given
thus : — ' Barbarism hurls about its savage weapons. Thou, O
Scotland, with thy shield do thou protect the world .and the
refinements of mankind.''

The thanks of the meeting were cordially awarded to Lord
Reay, as also to Dr. Carnegie for presiding, and this part of the
proceedings came to an end.

GRADUATION CEREMONIAL.

The Rector having vacated the Chair, Principal Donaldson,
as Vice-Chancellor of the University, presided and officiated at
a special Graduation Ceremonial. After the proceedings had
been constituted with a prayer in Latin, - Professor Lawson,
Dean of the Faculty of Arts, in presenting the various
candidates for the LL.D. degree, said : —

"Mr. VICE-CHANCELLOR, on this historic occasion when we are met
•to do honour to the memory of our most famous Scottish Humanist,
who was in youth a student of this University, and in later life
Principal of one of its colleges, it has seemed fitting to the Senatus
Academicus to select for laureation a number of eminent scholars
whose life-work has had some connection with the favourite studies
or accomplishments of George Buchanan. In the name of the
Senate, therefore, Sir, I have to present to you, to-day, for the
Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws, a group of men and women as
eminent as any that ever, in the long history of the University, at
one time received this academic distinction. The body of honorary
graduands would have been larger and still more completely
representative but for certain accidents of time and circumstance
which have compelled some other illustrious scholars to forego the
pleasure of our celebration. It would have been larger but for
another circumstance which ought not, at such a time, to be over-
looked. Those of our own alumni who are pre-eminent as classical
scholars and who have done note- worthy work in classic fields — such
men, to name only three among many, as Mr. Andrew Lang, Dr.
Gunion Rutherford, and Dr. John Masson — the interpreter of
Lucretius, are already enrolled among our honorary graduates.
Though, for this sufficient reason, scholars of our own household are
absent from this honourable company, those who are here, are, I

454 Appendix

believe, as completely representative as the most captious could
desire. There are highly gifted interpreters of classical poetry,
philosophy, history, oratory, and archaeology ; and, that the literae
humaniores may not be too narrowly interpreted, there are other
scholars who have accomplished something worthy of note in
literature, history, and philosophy imbued with the classic spirit.
They come from many Universities old and new, and from many
countries. The pleasant land of France and the classic realm of
Hellas send representative learned men, as do England, Ireland
and Scotland. America, almost at the last moment, has failed us,
to our great regret.

By a happy chance, our severely democratic selection, according
to the order of the alphabet, has brought first for presentation,
among the pilgrims to the shrine of St. Andrew, Professor Gaston
Bonet-Maury, the representative of France and of the University of
Paris — the land and university and city so intimately associated
with the career of Buchanan, so dear to his heart, so justly
celebrated in his verse. For to him the land was fair and bright, ' the
gracious nurse of excellent arts,' and the city was Amaryllis, of whom
he lovingly dreamt in absence, counting the west winds happy that
were on the way to her presence. But, Sir, the first of our honorary
graduands is not only eminent in his representative capacity as a
Frenchman and a Professor in the University of Paris — that mother
university of northern Europe, whose fame has been invariably
resplendent through an almost unequalled history — he is himself a
man of the very highest distinction as a scholar, as an educationist,
and as a man of letters. Professor Gaston Bonet-Maury, Litt.D.,
S.T.D., is a member of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, and is
at the head of the department of Ecclesiastical History in the
University of Paris. A student of Geneva and Strasbourg, and
destined for the ministry of the Reformed Church, Professor Bonet-
Maury early shewed his zeal for learning as well as his special
predilection, in his thesis Josias Bunsen: a Prophet of Modern
Times. Throughout his long and versatile career he has investi-
gated, by preference, work of precursors of the Reformation,
and modern religious movements. He has written on Arnold of
Brescia, Gerard de Groote, The Netherland Origins of the Imitation
of Christ, and likewise on the Origins of Unitarian Christianity
among the English, and on the Congress of Religions at Chicago
in 1893. He has also done excellent work as a translator from the
German — The Emperor Akbar and Dollinger's Letters and

Appendix 455

Declarations on the subject of the Vatican Decrees. Professor
Bonet-Maury has also been a diligent and learned contributor to
many historical and theological journals ; he has taken an active
part in library and educational administration, and he has, for long,
been a member of the Commission charged with the selection and
supervision of bursars sent to study in foreign countries. As a
scholar, a historian, and an educationist, lie is appropriately sub-
mitted to you at a Buchanan celebration.

As the Scotsman who has the amplest claim to be honoured on
this occasion Professor Peter Hume Brown, M.A., LL.D., Professor
of Ancient Scottish History and Palaeography in the University of
Edinburgh, is now presented to you. He has more than followed in
the footsteps of Buchanan as the historian of his native country,
alike in his succession of volumes — Register o/ the Privy Council
of Scotland, Early Travellers in Scotland, Scotland before
1700, in the History of Scotland, now in course of publication
and in his various monographs dealing particularly with the age in
which Buchanan lived, Life of John Knox, The Scotland of
Mary Stuart, and, above all, in George Buchanan, Humanist
jand Reformer. This last work is at once the most complete and
sympathetic life of Buchanan. It unites detailed and elaborate
research with literary feeling and freshness, and the most ardent
admirer of the great humanist will find, throughout, enthusiastic
appraisement of his character and achievement. Our histories, no
less than our history, may be starred with battlefields. On many
great questions of public policy and human character we may debate
keenly. But no student of history will deny to Professor Hume
Brown just comprehension of the complex whole of Scottish national
life, in civil struggle, love of poetry, and intensity of religious
conviction ; nor will any fail to concede that he is worthy of the
highest honour from his countrymen for his patient research, his
clear exposition, and his genuine Scottish spirit.

The next of our honorary graduands is a typical humanist of these
later centuries — Emeritus Professor Samuel Henry Butcher, Litt.D.
of Dublin and Oxford, LL.D. of Glasgow and of Edinburgh, and one
of the Members of Parliament for the University of Cambridge. A
distinguished Cambridge student, Professor Butcher was elected a
Fellow of Trinity College in his own University. Soon afterwards
he was invited to Oxford, a most unusual honour at that time, and he
became a Fellow of University College there. He lectured on
Homer and Demosthenes and acquired great fame by his learning

456 Appendix

and eloquence. Called in 1882 to succeed Professor Blackie in the
Greek Chair of Edinburgh University, he filled this position for
almost twenty-one years, and had a popularity and success rarely
equalled in Scotland. During his tenure of office he was a most
efficient member of the Scottish Universities Commission. In ex-
tension of his labours upon Homer and Demosthenes he translated
the Odyssey, in conjunction with Mr. Andrew Lang, and edited
the works of the great Greek orator. He translated and expounded
the Poetics of Aristotle in one of the very finest editions
of any ancient classic. He was recently elected a Member of
Parliament for Cambridge University, and his first speech in the
House of Commons will long be remembered for its fine combination
of simple eloquence and sane statesmanship. It gave excellent
justification for the application to Mr. Butcher, by his friends, of a
compliment paid by Samuel Johnson, almost a century and a half ago,
to his great countryman Edmund Burke : "Now, we, who know him,
know that he will be one of the first men in the country."

In Professor Samuel Dill, M.A., LittD. of Dublin, LL.D. of
Edinburgh, Honorary Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, and Pro-
fessor of Greek in Queen's College, Belfast, I present to you another
eminent Irishman who has gained in England the highest distinction
as a scholar and classical teacher. He has filled important posts
with signal success. He has been headmaster of Manchester
Grammar School, and Governor of Owen's College, and a Professor
at Belfast. He has made most valuable contributions to classical
learning, and is best known as the author of two important treatises
on Roman social life — Roman Society in the Last Century of the
Western Empire, and Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius.

I have to ask you to confer the degree, in absentia, upon
Robinson Ellis, Esq., Corpus Professor of Latin Literature in the
University of Oxford. Professor Ellis has laboured in many
portions of the great field of classical scholarship. He has edited
the Minor Poems of Vergil, New Fragments of Juvenal, Orientii
Carmina in the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum
as well as the works of Velleius Paterculus and Specimens
of Latin Palceography, from MSS. in the Bodleian Library. But
his chief and enduring title to fame rests upon his great edition of
Catullus, and upon his poetic rendering into English, in the metres
of the original of the work, of the great Latin lyrist.

Professor Percy Gardner, Litt.D., F.S.A., whom I next present
to you, is an eminent classical scholar, with somewhat different

Appendix 457

interests from those of Professor Ellis, but with kindred fame in his
own special sphere of study. A brilliant student at Cambridge,
after graduation he joined the Ancient Coin Department of the
British Museum. He was Disney Professor of Archaeology from
1880 to 1887, and in 1887 he succeeded Professor W. M. Ramsay at
Oxford. He is one of the greatest authorities on ancient coins, and
on many phases of ancient history. He has published A Numism-
atic Commentary on Pansanias, New Chapters in Greek History,
A Manual of Greek Antiquities, and A Grammar of Greek
Art. He has not confined himself to these studies, however, but
has published, also, Exploratio Evangelica, and Historic View
of the New Testament. He has contributed to the Journal of
Hellenic Studies, which he edited, and frequently, and on many
subjects, to the Quarterly Review, Contemporary Review, and
Hibbert Journal.

Mr. Vice-Chancellor, I know you will count yourself fortunate,
on this day when we commemorate one of the earliest translators
of Euripides, that you have, among others, to promote to the degree
of Doctor of Laws, an illustrious Greek scholar, diplomatist, and
patriot, John Gennadius. His lineage, his learning, and his services
to his country are alike distinguished. The descendant of " a
Patriarch of Constantinople, who, in his lay days, had been present
with the Emperor Palseologus at the Council of Ferrara held in the
fifteenth century with a view to the reunion of the Eastern and
Western Churches," the son of George Gennadius, the famous Greek
scholar and patriot, who earned, during the War of Independence,
the peerless designation, Saviour of the Country, Mr. Gennadius
had every incentive to high-minded devotion to Hellas. He has
amply fulfilled the most ardent hopes of his ancestors. From early
youth to the present time he has devoted himself with keen
enthusiasm and bright intelligence to the economic, political, and
social liberation of Greece. He has been his country's representative
in many lands, and he once enjoyed the unique distinction of being
Envoy Extraordinary to three Courts simultaneously. In the
stirring time before the Russo-Turkish War, and after its close,
he was charged with most important diplomatic work, and he was
able, at Berlin and at Constantinople, as well as in London, to
render service to Greece of the highest, indeed of imperishable,
worth. He has been a prolific and versatile, as well as a learned
writer, and his articles and books deal with many subjects —
philological, economic, educational, literary, and devotional. He

458 Appendix

has received many honours. He i« a D.O.L. of Oxford, and an
honorary member of the International Congress of Orientalists, the
Council of which, in 1891, awarded him a gold medal for a paper
on The Influence of Greek Civilisation on Oriental Nations.
He has the Grand Cordon of the Netherlands. He is a Grand
Officer of the Order of the Danebrog of Denmark, Grand Officer of
the lakowa of Servia, Commander of the Iron Crown of Austria,
Officer of the Majidieh of Turkey, and Commander of the Greek
National Order of the Saviour. In brief, Sir, I present to you Mr.
Gennadius as a subject of the modern Hellenic kingdom, who recalls,
by his courage, work, and wisdom, that Greece of old which is an
inalienable possession of every cultured human spirit.

I have now, Sir, to present to you two women scholars of the
highest eminence, one of them, unhappily, in absence. They are
Miss Elizabeth Saunderson Haldane and the Countess Ersilia
Caetani Lovatelli. Miss Haldane is well known at St. Andrews
and in Scotland. She has won great distinction as a philosopher
and woman of letters, who has advanced the cause of learning and of
pure thought. Her earliest work bears upon the philosophy of
Hegel whose salient reflections upon the greatest subjects she has
collected and edited in her Wisdom and Religion of a German
Philosopher. She has also translated Hegel's Lectures on the
History of Philosophy, thus making accessible to English students
the most penetrating and compact history of philosophy ever
written. Her latest and greatest book is an elaborate life of
Descartes, which is admirable alike as a biography and as an
exposition of the system of the great French thinker. While the
ample learning, intellectual vigour, and rich human sympathy,
manifest in this volume, must be regarded as Miss Haldane's highest
and most just title to academic recognition, she will not least be
remembered in St. Andrews for her excellent brief monograph on
James Frederick Ferrier, whose picture looks down on our proceed-
ings. In this she has done tardy justice to one of the finest
speculative intellects of last century, and one of the most gifted
professors who ever taught in this College.

The Countess Lovatelli, whom I ask you to laureate in absence,
is one of the most illustrious living classical philologists and arch-
aeologists, and her works are as remarkable for poetic feeling and
literary elegance as for wealth of erudition and accuracy of scholar-
ship. For thirty years she has been writing on archaeological
subjects, and her papers have appeared from time to time in various

Appendix 459

learned Italian journals. Typical contributions are her Marriage,
of Helen and Paris on a bowl of the Esquiline, Cupid and
Psyche, The Feast of Roses, and Ancient Monuments Illus-
trated. Her latest work is called Varia, and was published in
1905. "Her papers range over the entire field of antiquarian re-
search in Rome, and they give many vivid pictures of the by-ways,
sacred groves, and other places connected with the workship of the
gods. They shew familiar knowledge of the classical writers to
whom she appeals, and of the modern works in various languages
which deal with Roman life and religion in ancient times." It
would be difficult, Sir, to find any Italian scholar, man or woman,
who could more appropriately be honoured on a day commemorating
Buchanan, who was poet and man of letters, as well as historian.

I have further, and fittingly after the Countess Lovatelli, to
introduce to you Emeritus Professor John Pentland Mahaffy, M.A.,
D.D., Mus. Doc. (Dublin), D.C.L. (Oxon.), C.V.O. Dr. Mahaffy
was formerly Professor of Ancient History in Trinity College,
Dublin, and he is one of the most accomplished and versatile scholars
and writers in a country noted for bright wit and keen intelligence.
He has translated and expounded Kant, and he has written the life
and discussed the teaching of Descartes. He has written on
primitive civilisation, on Greek social life, and on Greek antiquities.
He is the author of an admirable history of classical Greek literature,
of a history of Alexander's Empire, and of the empire of the
Ptolemies, and he has edited a translation of Duruy's History of
Rome. Professor Mahaffy's vast learning and many accomplish-
ments have won generous recognition from many famous foreign
Academies and Societies. Rome, Athens, Berlin, and Vienna have
been pleased to do him honour, and on such an occasion as this, our
venerable University will honour herself in enrolling Dr. Mahaffy
among her graduates.

After a venerable Irish man of letters I present a most venerable
English scholar, the Nestor of British Latin Scholarship, Professor
John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor, of the University of Cambridge,
D.C.L. of Oxford, LL.D. of Aberdeen, and D.D. of Glasgow. A
distinguished Cambridge student and Fellow of St. John's College,
Professor Mayor has filled his present Chair for more than a genera-
tion. His wide fame as a Latin scholar rests upon his editions of
Juvenal and of Cicero's Second Philippic, upon his Bibliographical
Clue to Latin Literature, and upon his numerous contributions to
the Classical Review, to the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology,

460 Appendix

and to the Journal of Philology, which he at one time edited.
While he is eminent among the Latin scholars of the world, Professor
Mayor has not restricted his interest to ancient times, or to classical
themes. He has edited the Sclioolmaster of Roger Aschnm, and
the Speculum Historiale of Richard of Cirencester, as well as
Two Lives of Nicholas Farrar, and The Autobiography of
Matthew Robins, He has written upon the Spanish Reformed
Church, and has published a volume of addresses and sermons On
Plain Living and High Thinking. Ho thus takes his place as an
illustrious classical scholar, who is eagerly enthusiastic about the
deepest religious problems and the nearest concerns of the spiritual
life.

The next of our honorary graduands is a colleague of Professor
Mayor. Like him, Professor James Smith Reid was a distinguished
student of the University where he now fills the Chair of Ancient
History. He is M.A., LL.M., and Litt.D. He has devoted the
greater part of his leisure to the elucidation and interpretation of
Cicero. He has edited many treatises and speeches of the famous
Roman orator, and he appropriately takes his place on our Buchanan
list, as Cicero, on whose works he has spent so much fruitful labour,
was, par excellence, the teacher of the sixteenth century humanists
in style, and not a little in substance.

Professor William Rhys Roberts, M.A., Litt.D., is a repre-
sentative of the learning which is to be found in the modern English
universities, now taking so great a part in higher education and in
scholarly and scientific research. As Professor of Classics in the
University of Leeds, he is known as one of the most accomplished
Greek scholars of the younger generation. He has not only taken
an active part in modern university education, but has written upon
it for the benefit of Wales, where he was formerly professor. He
has also written on " The Ancient Boeotians." His most notable
contributions to classical culture, however, are his learned and com-
plete editions of certain great Greek treatises On aspects of Rhetoric :
Longinus On the Sublime, Dionysius of Halicarnassus The
Three Literary Letters, and Demetrius On Style. In these
volumes Professor Rhys Roberts has not only done excellent critical
work for students of Greek style and Greek literature, but he has
given a vigorous impulse to study of literary theory in modern
languages and literatures as well.

As the last of the Senate's selected graduands I present to you
Emeritus Professor Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, Litt.D., D.C.L,

Appendix 461

Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. Professor Tyrrell occupied, in
Dublin, successively the chairs of Latin, Greek, and Ancient History,
and his pre-eminence as a scholar was fittingly recognised by his
selection as one of the original Fifty Fellows of the British Academy
of Letters. He has edited the Letters of Cicero, the Baccliae
and Troades of Euripides, and the whole of Sophocles. He has
rendered The Acharnians of Aristophanes into English verse, and
he has done valuable work for the interpretation of Plautus and
Terence. He excels as a writer of Greek and Latin verse, and is
thus, in the manner of part of his work as in the spirit and body of
the whole of it, a true follower of the humanists of the sixteenth
century" (applause).

Principal STEWART, Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, in present-
ing the candidate for the degree of D.D., said : —

"I have pleasure, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, in presenting to you for the
degree of Doctor of Divinity the Rev. Alexander Gordon Mitchell,
Minister of the Parish of Killearn. On this important and interest-
ing occasion, it is gratifying to the Senatus Academicus that it is
possible to include among our Honorary Graduates one so closely
connected with the place of George Buchanan's birth. The general
grounds on which this degree is ordinarily conferred are in this case
not wanting, for Mr. Mitchell is an excellent and much respected
minister, discharging his pastoral duties with zealous care. But he
has steeped himself in the associations of his parish, and, being an
excellent Latin scholar, has rendered into English verse the Jephthes
and Baptistes of George Buchanan, besides some of his minor pieces.
Mr. Mitchell's prefaces and notes, as well as his translations, are
executed in scholarly fashion, and altogether he has so identified
himself with his author, that to confer upon him the honour which
I ask for him at your hands, is at once most appropriate to the
occasion, and a recognition of meritorious work." (Applause).

After the graduation ceremony was completed, the Vice-
Chancellor said: — " It is usual for me at graduation ceremonies
to address the graduates — (laughter) — but such an address
would be totally superfluous on the present occasion. I regret
that many scholars who would have gladly been present have
been unable to do so through official engagements, but we are
delighted to see so large a gathering of able men who have
done much to elevate, reform, and soften the manners of this
age, to spread the feeling of brotherhood among the nations of
the earth, and to encourage unselfish exertions of the intellect

462 Appendix

and of the pursuit of the beautiful and true. May you long be
able to continue the noble tasks you have set before you, and
may you see your work prosper and bear fruit to your own joy
and the good of all " — (applause).

The proceedings then terminated with the benediction.

CELEBRATIONS DINNER.

In the evening a dinner was held in the Hall of the Students'
Union. The Vice-Chancellor presided, and the croupiers were
Principal Stewart, and Professors Lawson and Herkless. After
covers were removed, the Vice-Chancellor said : —

" Gentlemen, before proposing the first toast, I have to
express my deep regret — which is no doubt the regret of you
all — that the Chancellor of the University, Lord Balfour of
Burleigh is not able to be with us — (applause). He had
made up his mind to be here, but a violent attack of
gout has required him to go to distant waters. Then Principal
Story is unable to be present owing to the state of his health.
He is an old student of this University, and he would have
liked to come back to the old place, which is quieter than
Glasgow — (laughter). We should have been delighted to hear
him speak in his own graceful style on Buchanan who forms
one of the many links that connect the University of
Glasgow with the University of St. Andrews. I now
come to the toast of " The King and the Royal Family."
Buchanan had a difficult business with his King —
(laughter) — and I am sorry to say he did not succeed
altogether as could have been wished. It is a curious
thing that the same experiment was tried with the present
King, but with better results. His father had the high idea
that his son would be much the better of hearing lectures on
ancient history by a pupil of Niebuhr, and he brought teacher
and pupil to Holyrood Palace. I saw much of the teacher at
the time, and he said to me he tried to make a constitutional
king of the prince. Whether he did it or not, certainly
there has been success in the matter, for a better constitutional
king never existed— (applause). There is one peculiarity about
him. He always says the right thing and he never does the
wrong thing — so far as a king is concerned — (laughter). We
have to be thankful for that and we have also to be thankful
for the Royal Family. They are always ready to take part in

From the portrait by Sir George Reid.

PRINCIPAL DONALDSON, M.A., LL.D., ST. ANDREWS.

( Convener of Buchanan Quatcr-Centenary Celeb rat ion." Committee.)

Appendix 463

charitable work, and they are quite willing to go to distant
lands to represent the Throne and to conciliate native
populations — (applause) .

The toast which I have now to propose is " The Memory
of George Buchanan " — (applause). I suppose that this toast
has been entrusted to me because I am his successor in the
office which he held in this University, but I have also this
qualification, that I belong to a generation which was taught
to reverence that memory from its earliest days. When we
gathered round the fireside in the long wintry evenings to hear
stories of adventure, the exploits of Wallace and Bruce were
sure to be rehearsed, and our elders would tell us of the strange
disguises and escapades of James V., and then would come in
the anecdotes of George Buchanan, whom with delight and
pride we were wont to call " Geordie " — (laughter). These
anecdotes did not include the scandalous stories fabricated by
his contemporary, James Laing, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and
men of a like stamp, who rejoiced in blackening the character
of Luther and Calvin and of other heretics, amongst them
Buchanan, whom they believed to be the children of the Devil.
The tales told to us represented Buchanan as a man free from
conventionalities, who was a Professor of St. Andrews College,
who could match anyone in his knowledge of ancient and foreign
languages and who delighted in humiliating the arrogant, in
speaking the truth to kings and nobles and who was very witty
in rebuking fools, of whatever rank they might be, that tried
to make fun of him. We were particularly pleased, for
instance, with the story of George and the Bishops. Three
Bishops met the old man, the first said to him " Good-morrow,
Father Abraham," the second " Good-morrow, Father Isaac,"
the third " Good-morrow, Father Jacob." George replied, " I
am not Father Abraham, and not Father Isaac, and not Father
Jacob, but I am Saul the son of Kish and have been sent to
search for my father's lost asses, and lo ! I have found three
of them " — (laughter).

Our ideas in regard to Buchanan underwent a transforma-
tion when, at the age of 14 or 15, we reached the highest class of
our Grammar School. There we had a religious lesson on every
Monday morning, which we could prepare without sin on the
previous Sunday — (laughter). Our religious exercise was to
translate Buchanan's Latin version of the Psalms into English.

464 Appendix

The teacher's introduction to this exercise made an indelible
impression on us. He read the dedication of the book to Queen
Mary, in the belief that it was the most beautiful dedication
that had ever been penned. He lingered on each line of it,
explained to us its beauties and showed to us how appropriate
each word and phrase were, how graceful were the allusions in
it and how the whole was in every way perfect. The absorbed
pleasure which he took in the poem impressed us with the idea
that there could be music in words as charming as the melodies
composed by the most gifted musician — (applause). Every
Monday the same thought was brought home to us and there
was a special rapture in his handling of the 137th Psalm, which
he regarded as the most beautiful of Buchanan's renderings.
We gladly committed it to memory. From the Psalms we
passed by a circuitous route to the " History." Our teacher often
framed his themes for translation from English into Latin out
of that book, and, discovering this, we searched the volumes of
the history for the passages on which he based his themes. It
was thus that we learned the beauty of Buchanan's prose.
That sense of beauty still remains with me — (applause). I have
lately read his account of the founder of this College in which
we now are, and, in my opinion, nothing could be more
exquisite than the description which he gives of Bishop
Kennedy's noble character, or more masterly than the skill
with which he has composed the great speech which he
attributes to him.

From the history we naturally passed to the study of the
plays, especially Jephthea and Baptistes, and some of us
tried our hands at translation. At this time (1845-6) Buchanan
must have been in great repute, for several renderings of some
of his poems and choruses appeared in journals. Especially
there was a version of a chorus in Jepht/ies which was
published in Chambers' Journal that struck us as being
exceedingly good, and some of the lines remain in my memory
to this day. One of the verses ran :

When, O when, shall light returning

Gild the melancholy gloom,
And the golden star of morning

Yonder solemn vault illume?
When shall freedom, holy charmer,

Cheer thy long benighted soul :
When shall Israel, proud in armour,

Burst the tyrant's base control ?

Appendix 465

AH this you will allow was a good preparation for forming
a true estimate of Buchanan when we came, in later years, to
study his works thoroughly — (hear, hear!). And then and now
'I was and am of opinion that Henricus Stephanus was right
"when he put upon the title-page of his first print and the first
edition of the Psalms, that Buchanan was " poetarum nostri
soeculi facile princeps." Our University at once endorsed this
opinion, for it was embodied in our Minutes when his name
was mentioned — (applause). It was confirmed by all the great
scholars and literary men of that period. Indeed Henricus
Stephanus was exceedingly well qualified to judge. He had
taken special pains to acquire the power of writing Greek by
varied exercises. He did the same with Latin. Like Buchanan
he travelled far and wide, he knew the best scholars of his time
in Europe, and he printed and exercised his critical faculty on
nearly all the Greek and Latin Classics. Though he did not
succeed in making remarkable verses himself, yet he knew well
what was good poetry, and his verdict may be pronounced true
for all ages. One age may become partially blind to the
Excellences of another age. Frederick the Great regarded
Shakespeare as a barbarous poet, and so did the literary men
and the French Academy of the time. The reputations of our
greatest poets have risen and fallen at different epochs, but
there is a certainty that the truly great will receive full
appreciation at some time or another, and Buchanan is one of
these great — (applause). If we do not appreciate him now,
we should ask ourselves how it is that we differ so much from
the remarkable men of the Sixteenth Century, who pronounced
Buchanan easily the first of the poets of his own age.

There is a peculiarity about the Latin of Buchanan which
deserves special notice. It was not a patching together of
fragments or choice bits from various Latin writers. He had
made the language completely his own, and as Cicero, Livy
and Tacitus had styles of their own, so Buchanan's style is
the product of his own mind. In this matter he stands almost
alone among modern writers of Latin poetry, the nearest to
him being Jacob Balde, who was born 98 years after him and
produced exquisite and powerful odes in the metres of Horace.
In his honour the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of
Ensisheim, his native place, are making arrangements for
erecting a statue, and surely the countrymen of Buchanan

466 Appendix

ought not to be behind them in paying respect to the memory
of their great poet.

It seems to me that while we honour the poet, it is still
more our duty to consider and honour the man. Here again
we have not an imitator, but one who lived his own life, free
from ambition or other like stimulus, simply because he could
not but live that life. He was trained under the influences of
the great writers of antiquity, and they unquestionably
moulded him to a certain extent, but it was the living man
that they moulded, not mere dull matter. He was not £
product of antiquity, but a powerful spirit of the sixteentL
century, and in this view he deserves our attention — (applause).
He looked upon this life in all its concrete aspects, he enjoyed
the beauty of nature, above everything he valued friendship
with man. He bore inevitable ills courageously, he faced
difficulties without flinching, he enjoyed the good that came to
him, and he looked forward to his end with hopefulness and
courage. He had religion, but it was free from superstition
and fanaticism, and the trend of his thought was very different
from that of the ecclesiastics in the midst of whom he lived.
This comes out very strikingly in a portion of his autobiography
where he laments the evil treatment which he received from
great officials of the Church for his satire on the Franciscans.
He believed that in this world the laughable and the serious
were blended together and that it was the part of man to enjoy
the laughable as well as to face the serious. Now in his age
most of the monks were the real comedians of destiny. They
professed to teach others and were grossly ignorant themselves.
They took on them vows of poverty and amassed riches. They
bound themselves to control the flesh and feasted on luxuries.
They were sworn celibates, but their Leonoras were numerous.
Was not all this ridiculous ? and why should there not be poems
to exhibit the absurdity '( In Greece, poets sacred to the gods
exhibited in their plays before vast multitudes caricatures of
the gods, of Heracles and Dionysos for instance, and the gods
were supposed to enjoy the fun. They also lampooned the
greatest men of the day, and the great men laughed. The
Roman soldiers jeered at their victorious general, when they
marched in the triumphal procession along with him, and he
was not offended. Why should the monks have done otherwise?
Buchanan could not comprehend this. Their persecutions

Appendix 467

appeared to him altogether out of harmony with nature and
utterly unreasonable.

Buchanan delighted in the external world. His poems
abound in allusions to groves and forests and bowers and
rivers and fountains, with aptly descriptive epithets. He
paints every aspect of land and sea and sky, but there
is no mystic interpretation of nature. He delights in
the external objects as they present themselves to the senses
and does not look beyond this. In all his descriptions, man is
in the foreground. He has written beautiful lines on the two
countries which he knew best, — Scotland and France. His
picture of Scotland is that of a country where the people hunt
and swim and endure hunger and are nerved to brave deeds by
continual hardships, and he proudly thinks of the Scots as the
nation which finally checked the forward movement of the
Roman arms. France on the other hand smiles with every
blessing, its climate is perfect, its inhabitants are cultured,
polite, and brave, the land is fertile and the cities are beautiful.
He evidently had a strong passion for " beata Gallia," and was
•always happy there.

Buchanan's love of nature was subordinate to his love of
man. Buchanan was a true lover of man. He loved men not
philanthropically because they were destitute, but simply and
heartily because they were lovable. Friendship was the moving
power of his life. He liked to talk with his fellow men on all
subjects that concerned them, and no man ever made a greater
number of stedfast friends. He knew well nearly all the clever
and cultured men of his age. They sought and enjoyed his
society, and his epigrams show that he appreciated and praised
their writings without a tinge of envy or rivalry. There is a
very touching proof of the effect of friendship on him in one of
his poems. He describes in strong language the horrors of the
gout, with which he was tortured, and then tells how the
agonies entirely disappeared when some of his intimate friends
came to talk with him and look after his wants.

One of the marked features of his life was his love of
freedom. In reading the Greek writers he had imbibed a
hatred of tyranny. He read in the history of Rome the
gradual development and extension of the power of the people.
He had drunk in from Cicero and Livy and other Latin writers
a belief in the people and their rights, and he deeply

468 Appendix

sympathised with Tacitus when he expressed his sorrow that the
Republic had disappeared. Curiously enough, too, he found
in the fabulous portion of the history of Scotland, written
before his time, the same development of the power of the
people as in Livy. Inspired with this devotion to liberty, he
wrote his masterly treatise De Jure, and though he did not
persuade his kingly pupil to adopt his ideas, it is agreed on all
hands that his work had no small share in guiding the
movements which have culminated in our Constitutional
Government.

Buchanan therefore seems to me a great poet, a true
patriot, a man of sturdy independence of mind and character,
the warmest of friends, and the glory of Scotsmen. In this
belief, I ask you to drink enthusiastically the " Memory of
George Buchanan " — (applause).

Professor Mahaffy said : — When I was asked to propose the
toast of " The University of St. Andrews," I was told to
confine myself to within ten minutes. But if you, sir, can
occupy twenty- five minutes speaking of one member of the
University, how can I cover its history in less than ten
minutes? — (laughter). So you will excuse me if I say nothing
about my utter unworthiness to attempt so high a duty. For
that is a deduction which is seldom taken as serious, till the
speaker has proved it by his speech. It is a signal instance of
the insight of an Irishman who said there were a terrible lot of
lies going about the world, and the worst of it was that more
than half of them are true — (laughter).

When I reflect on its history there are two or three
points on which I should like to dwell. The first
and distinguishing feature of the University is its antiquity.
I have seen a great number of new colleges, but every one of
them lacked that peculiar flavour which is given by antiquity.
The great difference between civilized man and the barbarian
is that the civilized man has a respect for antiquity and a care
for posterity, whereas the barbarous man has neither. The
antiquity of this place is a great and noble feature, and shows
that centuries ago there were civilized and great men here, and
we do well to imitate their virtues and carry them on to our
posterity. But as an old lady said to a Dublin cabman who was
helping her into the cab, " You know I am very old." He
gallantly replied, " No matter what age you are, you don't

Appendix 469

look it" — (laughter). You all know the difficulties of age.
Individuals when they become old become weak. But in
Universities you have the constant infusion of youth every few
years, and, above all, in St. Andrews we find the grace of youth
with very few of the weaknesses of age. The next feature
of this University which I commend is its smallness. There is
nothing more important in this life than quality as against
quantity. There is no democratic intellectual life except in a
small society. Aristotle and Plato always limited their ideal
polity to 10,000 citizens, and your authorities have ruled that
a ten minutes' speech is of ideal length. My third point implies
that a little controversy puts life into a thing— (laughter). For
I should like to speak on the extraordinary privilege and bless-
ing of not having a great school of practical science in this place.
I understand it has been relegated to Dundee, an excellent place
for marmalade. Practical science is always crying " Give, give."
I know that the Rector is to reply to this toast, and I suppose
there is no man in this country who has the needs of the various
Universities more constantly brought home to him — (laughter).
"He honours education generally, just as he honours the great
benefits of modern science, and I am proud to think he values
this University which pursues letters as a great thing indepen-
dent of modern science, for, believe me, however we may develop
in material wealth there is something in literature and
philosophy superior to anything else — for it is the pursuit of
the beautiful, the good, and the true— (applause).

The Rector, in reply, said : — I have found in my visits to
St. Andrews that they did everything relating to celebrations
of this kind remarkably well, — so well that I wonder how they
chose the Rector to reply to such a eulogy upon the University
as Professor Mahaffy has made. You know that the modesty
of Scotsmen is such that the national prayer is said to be " O
Lord, gie us a guid conceit o' oorsels," and some people in other
countries have been kind enough to say that the prayer has
been fully answered — (laughter). As for the charms of St.
Andrews, so beautifully depicted by Professor Mahaffy, the
Rector has done nothing to increase them, and therefore he can
speak freely. Every visit he makes to the venerable University
convinces him more and more that every word spoken in its
praise is well merited — (applause). I find a happy family here
— such loyalty, such devotion, as is rarely met with in institu-

470 Appendix

tions even of this kind where I do think loyalty is very
pronounced as a rule. I quite agree with the eminent
professor about small universities. I had the question to
consider whether I should go on in America giving to large
universities, or whether I should take up the question of small
and struggling universities. I chose the latter. My secretary
told me before we sailed from New York that we had given aid
to 125 small universities between January and March, and
that we had 250 more cases to investigate. We are doing a
wholesale business now in small colleges — (laughter). It is
astonishing — I confess it is a revelation to me — the thirst of
the American people for education — (laughter). I think they
rank with Scotland in that respect. They are doing much on
small sums, and the saying about cultivating literature upon
a little oatmeal applies to the professors in the western states;
and yet no body of men is doing finer work and more of it for
so little money as the American professors — (applause). I
believe that patriotism is more intense in a small country than
in a large, as the Professor contends, but I find in America a
devotion to the Union which is marvellous. Every State has
its flag which is shown at all State ceremonies, but so far from
being a rival to the greater flag, the Stars and Stripes,
representing all the States and the sentiment of Union, I
believe it is a contributing force to this higher sentiment. It is
well that a man should say with pride, " I am a Virginian,"
and another that he is a Pennsylvanian. Patriotism for the
Union is a broader and higher patriotism than that for the
State, and it has this great advantage that it dedicates a
Continent to peace — (applause). The American Union will in
the life of some of you have 250 millions of English speaking
people, all in fellowship with the mother land, in concert with
whom our race will some day be strong enough to say to the
world " We do not like this mode of settling disputes by war."
We shall give disputants what we Scotch call an ' ' intimation "
that it will be distasteful to us for nations to go to war, and shall
be the power which, by raising our arm, can compel peace —
(applause). Gentlemen, not a shot will then be fired. I don't
agree with Professor Mahaffy in regard to what he said about
science — (laughter). I have just been reading a book which I
was astonished to find had been written by an unknown
professor in one of these small colleges near Pittsburg. Let

Appendix 471

you who dwell in the realms of literature and classic lore read
that book and know something of the mysteries that surround
you. " The New Knowledge" is the title of the book. Get it
and read it, and you especially, Professor Mahaffy — (laughter).
There is no rivalry in learning. One branch is not greater
than another. As for science, the Cinderella of the Universi-
ties, the little pittance she is now beginning to get should not
be grudged. Science will justify the funds spent upon her,
mark my words. You classical men have been getting millions
and millions annually ever since the Universities began with
theology as supreme, and then classics succeeded to the throne,
which were better than the old theology, but which in turn
must now admit science. If a University is to be a University
it must embrace all branches, for all knowledge is a sisterhood —
(applause). St. Andrews thanks you, Professor Mahaffy, for
your kind words, and also the distinguished gentlemen who
have come here upon this occasion. As Professor Lawson read
the names to-day, there was not a man in the room who did
not feel that St. Andrews had been greatly honoured. You
don't find their names blazoned in the newspapers. Quietly
they have lived and modestly produced the results, and I tell
you when a man who, like myself, has been in business all his
life, has such noble, self-sacrificing lives revealed to him, he
takes his hat off to you, gentlemen, and acknowledges that
there is something far higher than mere material wealth —
(applause).

Professor Herkless, in proposing the toast of " The Houses
of Parliament," said : — This toast commends itself to us in
connexion with the festival of George Buchanan. Buchanan
was keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland, as you remember,
and had a seat in Parliament. I believe he sometimes was in
attendance in Parliament, though he has made no impress
upon its records. It was a good time in which he lived.
There was no general election possible. There were no women
graduates of the Universities — (laughter) — who took respect-
able individuals like the Rector, the Vice-Chancellor, Principal
Stewart and myself and a few other harmless members of the
Court into law courts — (hear, hear). Nor was Buchanan's a
time when a member of the Government was attacked by very
indignant and strange females. His was a century when a
Cardinal was stabbed in his castle, when an Archbishop was

472 Appendix

hanged, and when a Regent was made shorter by his head, to
use a phrase of Drummond of Hawthornden ; but his was not a
time when a distinguished member of parliament was followed
by a clamant woman with a toy whip and a demand for the
franchise — (laughter). In this University of ours we have
attempted to attach many distinguished men to our body.
We have shown you to-day some distinguished men whom we
are proud to welcome. We have been careful from time to
time to associate with ourselves men of great influence, such,
for example, as members of the Carnegie Trust — (laughter) —
and we have also been careful to attach distinguished Members
of Parliament. It may certainly be believed, on the other
hand, that, however celebrated and useful the Houses of
Parliament may be, they are certainly made better by the
inclusion of men distinguished in Letters and in Science. To-
day we have by an Honorary Degree joined to ourselves a
distinguished humanist, the former Professor of Greek in the
University of Edinburgh and now Member of Parliament for
the University of Cambridge, and we have also as a member of
the University the noble Lord who is to reply to this toast —
one who is an ornament to that House in which he sits — a man
of letters whom the students of a former day chose as Rector
of this University — (applause).

Lord Reay, in reply, said : — I believe I am right in saying
that public opinion at this present time watches with greater
interest the debates of the House of Lords than those of the
other House ; that the question is more often asked — What will
the House of Lords, than what will the House of Commons do
with such and such a measure ? I shall not mention which —
(laughter). All I can say is that I sincerely trust that what-
ever is done by the majority of the House of Lords, a conflict
between the two Houses will be avoided — (applause). It is
satisfactory that the majority of the House of Lords is led by
a sagacious and cautious statesman — Lord Lansdowne. The
House of Lords conducts its business in such a way that you
cannot accuse it of being obstructive. No one ventures to speak
in the House of Lords, if he has not, at all events, some know-
ledge of the subject. I am not criticising the House of
Commons, but there are certain advantages in having an
hereditary assembly. In the House of Lords subjects of a
highly abstruse nature can be appropriately discussed by experts.

Appendix 473

Let me give you an instance. You are aware that a great con-
troversy has arisen in regard to the safety of Greenwich Observa-
tory. That is a most important matter, because we are not only
responsible to these islands, but we have a mandate, a very
honourable mandate, from the whole world to look after the
moon — (laughter). It is a very remarkable fact that in scientific
matters, as there is such a wide field to cover, an understanding
has been come to amongst the astronomers of various countries
that each country should have its own department of astrono-
mical research. We are responsible for the moon, and if any-
thing goes wrong with the Greenwich Observatory we shall be
called to account by the whole scientific world. The subject was
dealt with in a rather cursory fashion in the House of Commons,
but it was dealt with by a Scotsman — Lord Crawford — in the
House of Lords with consummate ability. He gave us a lecture
— I cannot tell you how many peers were able to follow it — but at
all events it was one of the most remarkable and most scientific
speeches I ever heard in the House. It was endorsed by
Lord Kelvin, and it made a deep impression on the House.
"Foreign, Indian, and Colonial affairs are discussed in the House
of Lords by experts — men who have had practical experience
and who speak with a deep sense of responsibility — (applause).
There is one advantage of the House of Commons I would like
to mention, and that is the presence in that assembly of
University representatives, who, in the present debates, have
spoken on educational questions with authority. I hope this
will be the last Education Bill they will have to discuss for some
time. We have in the future to improve our educational system
and to avoid these controversies — (hear, hear). I trust that
nothing will ever occur to disturb the great privilege of Scotland
— that education does not divide parties North of the Tweed,
and that we are all determined to maintain and expand the
system we have inherited through the wisdom of our ancestors —
(applause).

The toast of the "Literae Humaniores" was proposed by Dr.
Steele of Florence, who said : " The significance of this subject has
been well summarised by an American poet as

The glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome. "

The languages and the literatures of these two civilisations are still
among the most valuable assets of cultured humanity — assets never

474 Appendix

to be despised so long as the world responds to the watchword of
the great Humboldt : " Cherish the Beautiful, the Useful will take
care of itself." In these days, when every interest struggles for
existence, the Greek and Roman culture has difficulty in maintaining
its foothold on the territory of education. Let us hope that, in
language with which Professor Mahafly and our Irish guests are
familiar, it will assert in that territory its 'tenant right,' with
1 fixity of tenure ' and claims for ' unexhausted and inexhaustible
improvements.'" Dr. Steele concluded by proposing the healths of
" the Hellenic scholar and diplomatist," Dr. Gennadius ; of the
" greatest of living Latinists," Professor J. E. B. Mayor ; and of
" that brilliant archaeologist who had been the life and soul of the
Hellenic Society," Dr. Percy Gardner.

Dr Gennadius said : — In the very learned address to which
we were privileged to listen this afternoon, Lord Reay referred
to the fact that the principles enunciated by George Buchanan,
with regard to the relations of sovereign and people, were not
absolutely original with him, but that there were former
exponents of the same ideas, of a date not very distant from his
own. That is true, as indeed were accurate all the learned
observations in that remarkable paper. But I might perhaps
venture to add that the first who defined the relations between
a sovereign and his people — the relations according to which
most of the nations in the enjoyment of liberal institutions at
the present day are governed— were the Greek philosophers.
They first conceived them, and the Greek States first practised
them — (applause). If Buchanan expressed these ideas so
forcibly, so clearly, so convincingly, it was because he was
imbued with that which was then known as the New Learning,
but which was as old as the civilization we now enjoy — namely,
the teaching of Greek philosophy and of Greek literature —
(applause). George Buchanan was one of the few fortunate
men who, in his earlier years at all events, was privileged to sit
at the feet of those who shaped that most remarkable event in
history which goes by the name of the Renaissance of Letters
and Arts, but which actually was nothing less than a resurrec-
tion of man — the intellectual revival and the ethical reform of
man. That event was brought about, as you are aware, by the
illustrious but unfortunate Greek refugees who fled from Con-
stantinople when that bulwark of Europe and ouptost of civiliza-
tion fell ; and in seeking a refuge, they shed over Western

J. P. STEELE, ESQ., B.A., M.D., LL.D.

(Donor of the prizes for translation* of Buchanan'* poems and for the

essay on "16th Century Humanism «.s illustrated by the Life

and \York of G(.or<jr Buchanan" 1906. )

Appendix 475

Europe the light that had been illuminating Constantinople. It
will always remain the pride of Greece that even when laid low
and prostrate she was able to shed light around her and benefit
the human race — (applause). It was after being thus tutored
and trained that George Buchanan was privileged to be the first
to bring to you in Scotland and initiate you in that love of
Greek literature, which has ever since been a prominent char-
acteristic of Scottish education ; and your capital city prides
itself in the appelation of Modern Athens, more for its culture,
than for its topographical conformation. But the relations
between Greece and Scotland may, I think, be traced to a much
earlier date. It was a Greek, Pytheas of Marseilles, who in the
third century before Christ, first made a scientific exploration
of the shores of Caledonia. It was Greek missionaries from Asia
Minor who established the Celtic Church ; and in that Church
the cultivation of Greek letters remained for many centuries a
distinctive feature. It was a Greek ship which brought
Buchanan home from his detention at Coimbra. At a com-
paratively recent date a countryman of mine, Alexander Negris,
baught Greek at Edinburgh, and there edited some of the Greek
classics. And latterly, the munificence of the late Marquis of
Bute established in your University a Chair for Modern Greek, —
a form of the ancient language which Professor John Stuart
Blackie loved and cultivated, and of which my most honoured
friend, your venerable Principal, published years ago, an
elementary, but most excellent grammar. Thus living in your
midst, I venture to say I feel not quite a stranger — (hear, hear,
and applause). Indeed I am filled with a sacred sense of grati-
tude at the recollection of the names of Gordon and Cochrane,
and other brave and generous Scotsmen who fought for the
emancipation of Greece, who suffered and struggled, and
triumphed in common with our fathers a generation ago —
(applause.) Of that benefaction and sympathy I deem the
enviable honour you have conferred upon me to be but a con-
tinuation— a testimony of your goodwill and friendship toward
my country — (applause).

Professor J. E. B. Mayor also replied. He said: — What
do you understand by this toast? Because as you understand
it one way or another, the study of Latin and Greek will die
or flourish. If yon understand by ' litterae humaniores ' ' littera
scripta,' it will die. If it is ' littera dicta,' it will live. This

476 Appendix

principle really runs through the teaching of all language. In
many of our schools there is absolutely no difference between
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and German. They are all dead
languages, and if they are taught in this extraordinary way
they will remain dead. If we treat language as painting or
architecture — if we look to the eye and the hand — we shall be
excluding the voice of nature. You may read a million pages
of Latin or Greek, and you may learn to spell, but you will
learn nothing about the laying of words together. But let a
boy say aloud but a single ode of Horace or a single Georgic,
and he begins to feel something of the order of words. If you
have anyone to teach, you will not do it by any but the best
works of the great masters. Take actual Latin and turn it
into English, and let every single sentence be of the highest
kind. It is time that the teachers of Greek should know the
Greek alphabet. There are four of the Greek letters that we
name in a way of which Plato had not the least conception.
Germany and England are equally to blame. England does
not know the last letter, and Germany does not know the
first. We say in the apocalypse, " Alpha and Omega," Luther
and Goethe say " A und O " — (laughter and applause).

Professor Percy Gardner, in reply, said : — Those who are
in my position usually listen to the speeches of their
predecessors in an unchristian frame of mind, in the hope that
they will leave something of importance to be said — (laughter).
My position to-night is entirely different. There are thousands
of things one might say in regard to literae hnmaniores, and
one has time to say but a single thing. I would only recall one
statement — an interesting statement amongst many interesting
statements — made by Lord Reay. He spoke of the classical
learning, the humanism of Buchanan, and he praised it because
Buchanan studied the ancient literature and philosophy in the
spirit of his own age. We are aware that the old Universities
of England and Scotland are different from all Universities
throughout the world, because the primacy in their studies is
preserved to literae hitinaniores. The younger Universities
which are springing up in the northern towns of England
naturally start from a different point. Many people regret the
relegation of the classics to a lower place, but I do not believe
that in the long run it will be a bad thing. The result is that
now literae hnmaniores have to justify themselves before the

Appendix 477

world, and I do not doubt that they will succeed in it. I have my-
self seen in the country of your Rector, Latin making its way,
making conquests in some of the more obscure Universities in
Western America, whenever there happens to be an enthusiastic
and able teacher — (applause). What we shall have to do in this
country is to adopt the principle of Buchanan, and introduce
modernity into the study of literae hiimaniores, to study the
literature of Greece and Rome, not in a dry mechanical fashion,
not as a mere method of teaching boys grammar, but as the
foundation for the study of man to which it forms the best
possible introduction — (applause). The past century was a
great century for the study of nature. Our century perhaps
will be a great century for the study of man ; and the study of
man may perhaps in the course of it be put in almost as satis
factory and exact a position as the study of nature now occupies
— (applause). I think the spirit is already among us, and such
Associations as the Classical Association of Great Britain and
the Classical Association of Scotland, which are due in part to
the influence of the younger Universities, are already doing a
•great deal to revive the study of the ancient classics. I am sure
you wish the classics all success, and I will express a hope that
they will retain their honourable position in the old Universities
of England and Scotland, and that they will retain it by fully
rising to the needs of the age — more especially in this most
ancient and most charming University — (applause).

Dr. Tyrrell proposed the toast of " English Literature." He
said : — On this occasion it may seem irrelevant to invoke the
sacred name of Shakespeare, but from one point of view at least
it is entirely relevant, if I am right in my belief that the two
greatest heirs of Shakespeare were two Scotsmen. Who has
come nearer than Robert Burns in his delightful lyrics, with
their sincerity, their music, their philosophy, their simplicity,
to those exquisite songs of Shakespeare which run like a golden
thread through the fabric of his immortal dramas 2 Who but
Sir Walter Scott has succeeded like Shakespeare in recreating
the past, in reviving for us the great personages of old, in
presenting them to us in their habit as they lived ? Shakespeare,
dealing with the nearer past, raises for us the curtain of
feudalism, while, going back to long bygone times, he evolves
for us ancient Rome and her heroes, with a skill that seems
little short of a miracle. So Scott dealt with the near past in

478 Appendix

the Covenanters, and with the remote past in the Crusaders.
His ancient characters were not less true to nature than his more
modern, and they all spoke and bore themselves in a manner
characteristic of their time. Thus we find, I think, two Scots
who were in a peculiar sense heirs to the genius of Shakespeare,
at all events to some phases of that myriad-minded man. They
were admitted at least into some chambers, and rich chambers,
of his great treasure house. That seems to me a thing we should
not forget in speaking about the Scottish genius, especially when
we consider the failures of others, even great literary men, to
achieve the same feat. Far be it from me to say that Bulwer
Lytton was a failure, but his ancient Romans were very stiff and
spoke an intolerable jargon. When we come nearer to our own
times, we meet something to make us shudder. We find the
dialect of ancient Rome mixed up with yesterday's slang. " By
the Genius of Livia, it was a near shave" — (laughter). "By
the temple of Pollux, that will suit me down to the ground."
Literature — Scotland — ten minutes ! Who could even begin
to do justice to such a theme ? There has not been a century,
and there has hardly been a generation, in which Scotland has
not produced great literary men — (hear, hear). One can here
mention only a name or two — the philosopher who aroused Kant
from his dogmatic slumber, the sage who showed the blessedness
of silence in so many eloquent volumes, and the Scot who has
given us the best biography which the world has yet seen.
Scotland is embarrassed by her riches. She is a country in
which so many great literary luminaries have arisen, that we can
best describe her in the words of an ancient Latin poet as
" Altrix terra exsuperantum virum " — " The foster-mother of
outstanding genius" — (applause).

I daresay you all remember Dr Johnson's visit to this town.
His sojourn was extremely pleasant. He was in the habit of
speaking of Mary Queen of Scots, who resided here so con-
stantly, as the " Queen of St. Andrews." When Johnson was
leaving the town he asked Boswell to give him a quotation suit-
able to the occasion, and Boswell replied with the words of
Aeneas,

Invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi.

This University may be fairly described as the Queen of St.
Andrews, and we who have been congratulating her on the
quatercentenary of her great alumnus, and especially those of

Appendix 479

us who have received the enviable honour of being enrolled
among her graduates, may leave this historic town with the
words happily suggested by Boswell to Johnson — " Invitus,
regina, tuo de litore cessi " — (applause).

Professor Lawson, in reply, said : — I do not see why those
who arranged this toast-list should have distinguished English
Literature from literae humaniores. There was a time when
they might have done so, but in the year 1906 they might have
been a little more polite — (laughter). English Literature is
supremely civilized and civilising, and if I had more than five
minutes I might demonstrate this. In this year of grace any
successful education in the literae humaniores must be based
upon adequate study of the English language and literature —
(applause). Nothing can be more absurd than the supposition
that boys, or anyone else, can be taught ancient language and
literature if they are not acquainted with what is best in their
own language. But one must also add that it is quite
impossible to teach the English language or English literature
without constant and careful reference to the literae humaniores
in the old sense. It is a great calamity that George Buchanan
did not render a portion of his poetry into the language of his
native country, and, perhaps, I may say, forgetting for the
moment the presence of Professor Hume Brown, that the
only considerable treatise which is in his native tongue as well
as in Latin might well have been left in the comparative
obscurity of the Latin language.

Principal Stewart gave the toast of the " Honorary
Graduates." He said: — Mr. Vice-Chancellor, my Lord and
gentlemen, I had intended in submitting this toast for your
acceptance to make some remarks which would doubtless, like
C. S. Calverley's celebrated joke, have been " full of intricate
meaning and pith," but I shall deny myself and spare you. I
feel that at this late hour and on such an occasion it becomes
one whose voice has been often heard in this hall to keep silence
and so make way for those friends from a distance whom we
are so glad to see with us, and whom we may not soon have an
opportunity of hearing again. I think that I shall but
discharge my present duty by asking you in a word to drink to
the health of the Honorary Graduates of this day. We have
honoured ourselves in honouring them. We trust that they
are enjoying their visit to St. Andrews, and that they will bear

480 Appendix

with them, when they leave, a pleasant recollection of our
ancient city, and a fresh interest in, as well as a real affection
for, their new Alma Mater.

Professor Hume Brown, in reply, said: — I am sure I speak
for all my fellow graduates when I say that we are deeply
conscious that we have received our honour from a noble source.
There are other Universities in Scotland besides the University
of St. Andrews; there is the University of Edinburgh, to
which I have the honour to belong. I hope it is an admirable
institution, and so I hope is the University of Glasgow, and
also the University of Aberdeen. But, as Professor Mahaffy
has truly and happily said, these three Universities, great and
prosperous though they are, all lack one thing. They do not
possess the halo which is the crowning glory of the ideal seat of
learning. Let us imagine that by some unhappy spasm of
nature St. Andrews was to be swallowed up to-morrow. We
could not reproduce it like San Francisco ! There would go
with it more than stone and lime and timber. There would go
with it some of the most august and sacred of our national
memories. For us Scotsmen, St. Andrews with its venerable
University is, in very truth a " city of the soul," an ideal
" city of the mind " — (applause).

Professor Bonet Maury in reply said : — " M. le Vice-Chancelier,
My lord et Gentlemen, c'est avec grand plaisir que je vous reraercie
des vo3ux que vous avez exprimes en faveur des gradue's de ce
jour, et qui m'ont etc au coaur. Je saisis avec joie 1'occasion de
remercier I'Universite* de St. Andrews de 1'honneur qu'elle m'a fait
an me conferant le grade de Docteur en droit ; cet honneuv rejaillira
sur 1'Universite de Paris tout entiere, qui m'a de'legue' ici. Les
relations amicales entre la France et 1'Ecosse ne datent pas d'hier.
N'est-ce pas 1'immortel Shakspeare qui a ecrit : —

But there's a saying very old and true,
If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin ?

Un siecle avant la fondation de cette Universite"-ci, nous avions
a Paris un College des Ecossais, fonde en 1325 par David eVeque de
Moray, et, en outre, dans vingt autres colleges ou Universite's de
France, les maitres Ecossais etaient recherches pour leur talent &
enseigner le grec, la philosophie, la me'decine ou la the'ologie.

Tous leurs noms ont ete eclipse's par celui de George Buchanan,
qui n'6tait pourtant ni philosophe, ni theologien, a peiue helleniste.

Appendix 481

II a conquis une renomm^e europe'enne, comme poete latin et
professeur d'humanites, comme historien et the"oricien politique.
Nos Universites franchises ont garde", dans leurs archives, le
souvenir des brillantes lemons qu'il a donndes aux Colleges
Sainte Barbe et du Cardinal Lemoine, a Paris, et au College de
Guienne a Bordeaux. II a eu des eleves, qui sont devenus des
homines illustres, entr'autres Michel de Montaigne, mais surtout,
il s'est fait partout de chauds amis par son caractere loyal, geneYeux,
son esprit humoristique et ses moralites. Buchanan fut un type
authentique de la nation Ecossaise, il admirait et aiinait la Franco,
nos compatriotes lui ont bien reudu cette atfection. De Thou a
dit de lui : " Buchanan e"tait n4 sur les rives de la Blane ; mais il
etait notre par 1'adoption."

J'apporte les salutations de la plus vieille Universite" de 1'Europe
a la plus vieille Universite* d'Ecosse, qui a su se maintenir eternelle-
uient jeune par le talent de ses recteurs et par 1'esprit progressif
de ses niaitres. Puisse-t-elle croitre et prospdrer dans la culture des
lettres, des sciences historiques et naturelles, de la the"ologie !
Puisse-t-elle avoir toujours a sa tete des hommes amines de 1'esprit
•de George Buchanan ! Puisse-t-elle nous envoyer a Paris des
etudiants ou des e"tudiantes qui seront les bienvenus dans notre
nouvelle Sorbonne ! Puisse-t-elle, enfin, par un ^change actif de
maitres et de travaux avec les Universites franchises, contribuer pour
sa part a augmenter cette entente cordiale entre la grande Bretagne et
la France, dont votre Roi magnanime a pris la noble initiative et
que nous saluons avec espoir comme une des plus sures garanties de
la paix du monde et du progres de la justice, de la liberte et des
lumieres dans 1'humanite ! "

Professor Dill, with whose name the toast was also coupled,
said : — "High as the honour is that you have conferred upon us,
it is all the more so from the fact that it is associated with the
celebration of the great humanist whose memory is one of the
greatest treasures of this University. After making the round
of the scenes which have made this place so famous, one could
almost pardon a little Paganism in erecting an altar to the
genius loci — a force, the subtle influence of which we can hardly
estimate. In the feverish activity of our educational move-
ments some of us are perhaps apt to forget how true an educa-
tion may be drawn from the very atmosphere and traditions and
associations of an ancient seat of learning — (applause). The
very stones of this place are educators. I congratulate the

482 Appendix

youth of St. Andrews on spending their happiest and most
impressionable years in a scene where modern research is con-
secrated by the memory of great movements of the human
spirit, and I congratulate myself and my colleagues on having
to-day attained a rank amongst your graduates " — (applause).

The Rev. Dr. Blair of Dunblane proposed " Our Guests."
He said : — "I thank Professor Dill for the last words he uttered.
Students of St. Andrews have a high pride of their University
and a love to her and her sons which is unquenchable. I think
I am about the oldest member of the University here, — Sheriff
Campbell Smith and others in this room are my juniors. I have
still the honour to be a member of the University Court, and it
is in that capacity I am asked to propose the health of our
guests. I do not know how many of them are present, but to
all of them, coming from so many seats of learning, we are very
greatly beholden for coming to swell the tide of this high occasion,
the four hundredth anniversary of Buchanan's birth. I rejoice
that we are following that great humanist with our grateful
regards, as we have done this day, and I trust that in future
generations this University will continue to hold his memory in
the same reverence and high honour. The gentleman who is to
reply to this toast is Sir Henry N. Maclaurin, Chancellor of
the University of Sydney. When I matriculated sixty years
ago, there was a student named James B. Maclaurin, a brilliant
mathematician, the gold medallist of 1848, and who graduated
in 1849. After him came his younger brother Henry Normand
Maclaurin, who matriculated in 1850, a distinguished classical
scholar who became M.D. and went to the Colonies, like many
others of the noble sous of our Alma Mater , carrying her dear
name across the globe. I do not know if this is the identical
student who gathered his laurels here in the fifties, though I
rather think it is he. But whether or not, I ask you to honour
this toast, coupled with the name of Sir Henry Normand Mac-
laurin, Chancellor of the University of Sydney " — (applause).

Sir Normand Maclaurin, in reply, said : — " There is only one
pre-eminence that I have among the guests, and that is that I
come farthest to do honour to George Buchanan, and I plead
guilty to being the very Maclaurin that Dr. Blair mentioned.
I have the misfortune to belong to a young University, but we
are as old as we can be, and we are getting older every day —
(laughter). We hope to be able to quit ourselves like men,

Appendix 483

and we try to model ourselves on the old Universities whose
example is worthy to be followed. There is no University
more esteemed in New South Wales than the University of
St. Andrews, for I can assure you that many graduates of St.
Andrews have occupied prominent positions in that Colony and
have been in the forefront of every intellectual movement there.
Their names I need not mention, for, like me, they belong to
the past generation. But they are still held in veneration, and
the University to which they owed their degrees is esteemed in
the highest possible way. I believe that the prosperity of St.
Andrews is not altogether unconnected with a gentleman who
lived and died in New South Wales, who, on his death, showed
his recognition of the University in the most practical of all
ways — by conferring upon it a very large sum of money —
(applause). He could not have done better. Could anything
be better than to revive the fortunes of an institution to which
Scotland owes so much ? Is there any sight more pleasing to
us than to see this old University reviving its youth ? —
(applause). I trust that the progress that the University has
made during the last fifty years will continue and that even
some day it may attain the magnitude of which Professor
Mahaffy thinks so little. It has been a great pleasure to me to
come here and revive associations of so many years ago — to
think of the great many people I have known here, and whose
spirits are with us this evening " — (applause).

The Lord Provost of Glasgow proposed " The Chairman."
He said: — "Speaking as a west countryman, I feel deeply
indebted to those in charge of the arrangements for having
entrusted me with this toast. We esteem very highly what
you have done in these celebrations in memory of our very noted
west countryman, George Buchanan. We in Glasgow, and I
also speak for Killearn, appreciate the honour you have done
the minister of Killearn. Speaking of Dr. Mitchell's transla-
tion of some of the works of Buchanan, I may tell you that the
very beautiful and artistic illustrations of that beautiful book
were done by the daughter of a former minister of that parish
— (applause). We appreciate you, sir, our chairman, as the
successor of Georg* Buchanan, and we of the west also feel
interested in this University because of the close and cordial
relations that exist between St. Andrews and Glasgow. We are
indebted to your University for sending us our venerable

484 Appendix

Principal, Dr Story, and we all join in your wishes that his
health may be restored — (applause). You have also sent us
other notable professors, and we think we have sent some of our
best men to St. Andrews — (applause).

The Vice-Chancellor, in reply, said: — "I thank the Lord
Provost of Glasgow for the kind words he has spoken in propos-
ing this toast and all of you for the reception which you have
given to it. It seems to me very appropriate that the Lord
Provost of Glasgow should take part in the celebration of
Buchanan's Quatercentenary, for Buchanan was attached to
Glasgow and showed his affection for it by gifts of books and
otherwise. It is a great satisfaction to me that George
Buchanan's merits have been so heartily acknowledged this day.
In fact we have done the right thing in honouring him, and I
hope we will continue to honour him" — (applause).

The proceedings terminated with the singing of " Auld Lang
Syne."

EXHIBITION or BUCHANAN BOOKS AND PORTRAITS.

On Saturday forenoon the ladies and gentlemen visiting St.
Andrews in connection with the Celebrations gathered in the
University Library, and had the pleasure of seeing a magnifi-
cent collection of various editions of Buchanan's works,
including rare and valuable first editions. These had been
brought together by Mr. J. Maitland Anderson, Librarian to
the University, who had laboured steadfastly and successfully
to make the collection as interesting and complete as possible.
He had received volumes on loan from the Scottish Universities,
from the Advocates' and Signet Libraries of Edinburgh, and
from private individuals. The volumes were chronologically
arranged, and separated into their different classes. There
were a number of early copies of the History, with a list of the
passages deleted by the Inquisition. Photographs there were
of four of the important documents connected with the im-
prisonment, trial, and sentence of Buchanan, and which have
been preserved in the archives of the Inquisition at Lisbon.
In the Senatus Room was a collection of paintings of Buchanan.

Under the guidance of Mr. Anderson, the visitors were
conducted to St. Leonards, where they beheld the Chapel of the
College of which Buchanan was Principal. The ruins of the old
chapel are rich in tombs, and close by is the house in which

'coin a photo by

Falettiitie <t- Son*, Ltd., Dundee.

ST. SALVATOR'S TOWER, ST. ANDREWS
(FROM THE QUADRANGLE).

Appendix 485

Buchanan is said to have lived, and where he and Queen Mary
studied classic literature together and " talked of their beloved
France." Thus, in visiting these and the other and better-
known ruins with which St. Andrews is resplendent, the
imagination took flight into bygone years and realised something
of the ancient grandeur midst which the great Humanist studied
and taught.

GARDEN PARTY.

In the afternoon a garden party was held in the grounds of
the United College, which were tastefully laid out with seats
and lounges and which were more trim and neat than usual for
the reception of the distinguished gathering.

Principal and Mrs. Donaldson extended a kindly welcome
to each and all of the guests who entered the Tennis Courts
from the College Quadrangle. Tea was served "on the Terrace,"
and soon small groups were dotted all over the lawn. The
whole spectacle was a brilliant one as seen amid the beauty
of a well-trimmed lawn and ivy-clad walls. The sun " shone
resplendent" on the "fair ladies" who, for once in a while,
"did not outvie the " scholarly " gentlemen in colour-show. Not
that the toilettes of the ladies were not beautiful and in lovely
tints and harmonies, but the gorgeous gowns and hoods of the
savants and University dignitaries from far and near added
infinitely to the effect of the scene. For more than an hour
the panorama was complete ; groups here and there engaged in
discussions on things ancient and modern. Lulls in the
conversation there might have been, but only to appreciate the
more fully the excellent music coming from a distant corner of
the lawn, where Herr Iff's string band helped to complete the
enchanting spell. But the old college clock tolling the fifth
hour dispelled this "vision of the pageantry of mediaeval days,"
and the guests lingeringly left behind the last scene of a great
festival, the memory of which will long be cherished by those
who were fortunate enough to take part in it.

Here ended the impressive and noble tribute of Scotland's
oldest University to one of the greatest of her sons.

INDEX.

A BERDEEN University, 137, 225,
A 226, 229, 480
Ad Ali*am e Morbo PaJUdam et

Macilentam, 338

Ad Briandum Vallium, 143, 144
Ad Camillam Morelliam, 147
Ad Christum, llymnuz Matutinux, 333
AD GKORGIUM BUCHANANUM, 1-3
Ad Invictixsimum Franciae Rt.ge.rn.

He.nric.nm. II., Po*t Victos Caletex,

285

Ad Juventutem Burdeyalemem, 266
Ad Lec.torem Elegia, 139
Ad Afildredam, 147
Admonitioun to trew Lordit, 81, 177,

178, 188, 189
Ad Neaeram, 143, 146
Adventusin Gattiam, 281, 436
AlceMi*, 16, 36, 41, 115, 125, 169,

170, 175, 176, 189, 433
ANCESTRY, SOMK NOTES ON BUCH-
ANAN'S, 4-6
Arexkino, Joanni, 337
ASSOCIATIONS, EARLY SURROUNDINGS

AND, 7-18
A ilium, In, 334

Baptiste*, 37, 49, 115, 116-124, 125,
169, 170, 175, 176, 189, 394, 395
note, 433, 441, 447, 461, 463

WAS IT TRANSLATED BY MlLTON?
130-135

Bibliography, 166-185
Briandum Vallium, Ad, 143, 144
Buchanan, George, his birthplace, 8

SOME NOTES ON ANCESTRY OF, 4-6

early education, 10, 11, 12

school-days, 13

military expedition of, 432

STUDENT DAYS OF, 19-24, 27, 28,

431

regent in St. Barbe's, 29, 41, 186
a wandering tutor, 29, 30
at College du Cardinal Lemoine,

30, 47, 433

A BORDEAUX, 30, 35-52, 433
IN PORTUGAL, 7, 30, 59, 60-78,

381-405, 433

Principal of St. Leonard's Col-
lege, 23, 85, 424, 436, 439, 463
Moderator of General Assembly,

24, 93, 222

Director of Chancery, 436
Keeper of the Privy Seal, 436,

439, 471

tutor to King James, 440
Commissioner to York, 24
last days, 216, 218, 238, 239
AND CONTINENTAL THOUGHT, 25-

34
AND CROSSRAGUEL ABBEY, 86-90,

439
and educational methods, 437,

477

and Elie Vinet, 44, 48, 242, 449
and Erasmus, 27, 28, 95
and Glasgow University, 10, 14,

15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 433
and Horace, 27, 30, 43
and Humanism, 28, 29, 30, 32,

94, 100, 150 ff, 186, 187, 190,

194 ff
and James VI., 97, 104, 106, 112,

213, 440

and Knox, 49, 434, 435, 446
AND KNOX ; A STUDY IN ME-
THOD, 91-95
AND MARY, 12, 17, 18, 24, 79-85,

86, 88, 111, 201, 435, 444

Index

487

and Montaigne, 38, 39, 41, 48,

60, 433, 481
and St. Andrews, 24, 85, 410-

420, 435-439

and the duties of kings, 100
AND THK FRANCISCANS, 53-59
and the Inquisition, 67 ff, 139,

381, 382, 402-405, 433
and the New Learning, 27, 447,

474
and the Reformation, 33, 34, 54,

94, 95, 435

and the Renascence, 203, 474
and the scholastics, 99, 432, 444
and the Scriptures, 33, 102
as a dramatist, 116, 123, 209,

210, 447

as an epigrammatist, 30, 33

AS A HISTORIAN, 105-114, 445,

447

as a Greek scholar, 475, 396 note
AS A LATIN SCHOLAR, 13, 204-

211, 447, 465

as a poet, 155, 448-466, 467

AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER,
80, 96-104, 430, 431, 442-443

bibliography of the works of,
166-185

his characteristics, 95, 104, 240,
463, 466

his connection with West of
Scotland, 8, 12, 18

his criticism of Major, 21

his debt to ancient literature, 99

his doctrine of tyrannicide, 102

his knowledge of Gaelic, 1 1

his love of nature, 467

his scholarship, 14, 451

INFLUENCE ON HIS CONTEMPOR-
ARIES, 186-193, 448-450

on Bishop Kennedy, 110

on Bruce, 108

on the rule of women, 110

on Wallace, 107, 108

Quater-Centenary, 5, 149, 166,
427-485

WIT AND HUMORIST, 212-224

f \amillam MorMiam, Ad, 147

\J Calendae Maiae, 189, 208-209,
270, 450

Calvini, Epicedium Joannia, 316, 444

Catstitotem, In, 346

Celebrations, Quater-Centenary, 427-
485

Chamaeleon, 79, 178, 188

L'oena Oaoini Archiepiacopi Glancu-
emi«, 18, 335

CONTEMPORARIES, BUCHANAN'S IN-
FLUENCE ON ins, 186-193

CONTINENTAL THOUGHT, BUCHANAN
AND, 25-34

CROSSRAGUEL ABBEY, BUCHANAN
AND, 86-90, 439

De Equo Elogium, 347
Defence in Inquisition, Buch-
anan's, 70-71, 381-402

De Jure Reyni Afmd Scotos, 21, 49,
96-104, 113, 131, 158, 159, 177, 181,
189, 190, 262, 324, 405, 441, 442,
443, 447, 468

De Jure Regui Ajnu.1 Scotos, Earliest
known Translation, 406

De Prosodia Libellua, 180, 206

Desiderium Lutetiae, 24, 112, 274, 433

De Sphaera, 154-165, 175, 176, 189,
208, 210, 434, 445

Deteclio Mariae Reyinae Scotorum,
24, 79, 82, 111, 179, 180, 189

Doletum, In, 337

Dramas of Buchanan, 114-129, 209,
210

Dunbar, William, 262

EADIE, JOHN, 364, 366, 369, 372,
376

Earliest known translation of De
Jure Jtegni, 406

EARLY SURROUNDINGS AND ASSOCIA-
TIONS, 7-18

Edinburgh University, 192, 225, 226,
228, 229, 239, 480.

Eglisham, Dr. George, 364, 374

Elegiac, 24, 41, 175, 176, 208

488

Index

Elogium, De Equo, 347

Epicedium Joannis Calvini, 316, 444

Epigrammata, 41, 175, 177, 189, 207,

208
Epithalamium, 80, 82, 176, 189, 210,

299, 448 note
EROTIC VERSE, BUCHANAN'S, 143-149,

189
Exhibition of Books and Portraits

(Quater-Centenary Celebrations),

484-485

Flaminio, M. Antonio, 363, 364,
370

Franciscanux, 24, 49, 54, 56, 58, 122,

145, 166, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177,

187, 188, 190, 198, 208, 218, 219,

383 note, 384 note, 432

FRANCISCANS, BUCHANAN AND THE,

53-59
Fratres Fralerrimi, 175, 177

Gattiam, Adventm in 281, 436
Gavini Archiepiscopi Glaaca-
emis, 18, 335
Genethliacon Jacobi Sexti Regis Scot-

orum, 82, 324, 441
GEORGIUM BUCHANANUM, AD, 1-3
GEORGE BUCHANAN, To, 245-246
Glasgow, Grammar School of, 12, 14
Glasgow University, 10, 14, 16, 17,
19, 191, 236, 421, 439, 480, 484
Books presented to, 15, 16, 409,

439
Grenville, Lord, 363, 368

Hendecasyllabi 24, 175
HISTORIAN, BUCHANAN AS A,

105-114
Historia Rernm Scoticarum, 11, 13,

15, 16, 101, 105 ff, 122, 123, 171,

179, 181, 182, 184, 189, 216, 218,

230, 232, 233, 441, 444, 445, 446,

447, 464
Historia Rerum Scoticarum, list of

passages deleted by Inquisition,

403-405

Historia, Rerum Scoticarum, MSS.

Translations, 421
Henricum II., Ad Invictwsimum

Franciae Regem, 250, 285
Heriot, Agnes (mother of George

Buchanan), 5, 6, 8, 9, 202
HUMANISM AND SCIENCE, 150-165
HUMANIST : A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY,

THE, 194-203
HUMORIST, BUCHANAN : WIT AND,

212-224

Ilymnut in Christi Asccnsionem, 348
Hymnus Matutinua Ad Christum,

333

Iambon Liber, 41, 148
In Auium, 334

In Caatitatem, 346

INFLUENCE ON HIS LITERARY CON-
TEMPORARIES, BUCHANAN'S, 186-193

In Gelliam, 143, 147

7?i Doletum, 337

In Leonoram, 143

Inquisition, Buchanan and the, 67 ff,
139, 381, 382, 402-405, 433

Inventory of the books of Costa and
Buchanan in Portugal, 402-403

JAMES VI., Buchanan and, 97, 104,
106, 112, 213, 440

Jephfhes, 36, 41, 49, 124-129, 131,
169, 170, 173, 175, 176, 189, 433,
447, 461, 463
Joanni Areskino, 337
Johnston, Dr. Arthnr, 137-142, 189,
192, 364, 378

Killearn, 8, 10, 11, 235, 236, 483
KNOX AND BUCHANAN : A STUDY
IN METHOD, 91-95

Knox and Buchanan, 49, 191, 434,
435,446

T ectorem, Elegia ad, 139
1-J Leonoram, In, 143

Index

489

LES TRAOEDIKS RELIGEUSES DE

BUCHANAN, 114-129
Letters of Buchanan, 242, 422, 449
London, Buchanan in, 386
Lutetiae Desiderium, 24, 112, 274, 433

Maiae Calendae, 131
Major, John, 20, 21, 22, 23, 98
MARY, BUCHANAN AND, 12, 17, 18,

24, 79-85, 86, 88, 111, 201, 435, 444
Masque for Baptism of James, 189
Medea, 16, 36, 41, 115, 125, 169, 175,

176, 189, 433

MEMORIALS, BUCHANAN, 235-244
Mildredam, Ad, 147
MILTON, WAS BAPTISTES TRANSLATED

BY? 130-135

Miscellaneorum Liber, 41, 43, 177
Montaigne, Buchanan and, 38, 39, 41,

48, 50, 433, 481

l^eaeram, Ad, 143, 146
ii New Learning, Buchanan and
the, 27, 447, 474

PINION ANENT THE REFORMATION
OF THE VNIVERSITY OF ST. AN-
DROS, 410-420

Paedagogium of Glasgow, 20
Paedagogium of St. Andrews,
20, 22

Palinodia, 54, 175, 183, 187, 188, 192,
383 note, 432

Paris, Buchanan at, 19, 23, 27, 28,
29, 41, 431, 432

Paris, University of, 14, 19, 24, 25-
34, 431, 480

Passages and Phrases of Historia de-
leted by Inquisition, 403-405

Patricia Buchanan o Fratri, 341

Petro Plancio Parisiensi, 341

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER, BUCHANAN
AS A, 80, 96-104, 430, 431, 442-443

Pompa Deorum, 210

PORTRAITS OF BUCHANAN, 225-234

PORTUGAL, BUCHANAN IN, 7, 30, 59,

60-78, 381-405, 433
PSALMS, BUCHANAN'S : AN 18TH CEN-
TURY CONTROVERSY, 136-142
Paraphrase of, 30, 60, 124, 136 ff,
152, 159, 171, 172, 174, 175,
176, 189, 129, 433, 462
Dedication to, 84, 433

Quam misera sit conditio docentium
literas humaniores Lutetiae, 188,
249

Quater-Centenary, Buchanan, 5, 149,
166, 427-485

T) EFORMATION of the University of
XX St. Andrews, Buchanan's Opinion

anent, 410-420, 438
Reformation, Buchanan and the, 33,

34, 54, 94, 95, 435
Renascence, Buchanan and the, 203,

474
Rerum Scoticarum Hiatoria, 105, 443 ;

1st book, 106 ; 2nd book, 107 ; 3rd

book, 107; 4th book, 107; speeches

in, 109

Residences, Buchanan's Scottish, 424
Pudimenta Orammatices, 168

SCHOLAR, Buchanan as a Greek,
475, 396 note

SCHOLAR, BUCHANAN AS A LATIN, 13,
204-211, 447, 465

SCIENCE, HUMANISM AND : BUCHAN-
AN'S " DE SPHAERA," 150-165

Scottish Residences, Buchanan's, 424

Selections from the Baptistes, 350-362

Silvae, 24, 35, 144, 175, 177

SOME NOTES ON BUCHANAN'S ANCES-
TRY, 4-6

Somnium, 54, 87, 175, 187, 188, 190,
198, 218, 383 note, 432

St. Andrews, Buchanan at, 20-22,
23-24, 85, 424, 436, 439, 463

St. Andrews, University of, 21, 22,
23, 407, 410-420, 427, 437, 468, 478,
480, 481, 483

490

Index

STUDENT-DAYS, BUCHANAN'S, 19-24,
431-432

STUDY, THE HUMANIST : A PSYCHO-
LOGICAL, 194-203

SURROUNDINGS AND ASSOCIATIONS,
EARLY, 6-18

^TESTAMENT Dative, Buchanan's,

1 423

THOUGHT, BUCHANAN AND CONTIN-
ENTAL, 25-34

TRAGEDIES RELIGIEUSES DE BUCH-
ANA.V, LKS, 114-129

Translation of De Jure Kegni, Earli-
est known, 406

Translations of Rerum Scoticarum
Historia, MSS., 421

University of Glasgow, Books pre-
sented to, 15, 16, 409, 439

of Paris, 14, 19, 24, 25-34, 431,
480

of St. Andrews, 21, 22, 23, 225,
226, 227, 407, 427, 437, 468,
478, 480, 481, 483

of St. Andrews, Buchanan's
scheme of reform of, 410-420,
438

of St. Andrews, Books presented
to, 407-409

"\TERSE, BUCHANAN'S EKOTIC, 143-
V 149, 189

Vita Siia, 9, 10, 19, 21, 23, 60, 182-
185, 383 note, 386 note

TTNIVERSITY of Aberdeen, 137, 225,
U 226, 229, 480

of Edinburgh, 192, 225, 226, 228,

229, 239, 480

of Glasgow, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19,
191, 236, 421, 439, 480,484

r AND HUMORIST, BUCHANAN :
212-224

WRITINGS OF BUCHANAN, THE, 166-
185

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