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The reader will find the wretched condition of Paris professors at this period powerfully described in the first of Buchanan's Elegies. The University of Paris, like that of Oxford, was founded during a period not now on record. The students were classed under what were termed four nations; the one called the German nation included all students from Scotland. Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis, a young Scottish nobleman, was living in the neighbourhood of the College of St. Barbe when Buchanan commenced his duties as one of its professors. In a short time both of the young men were very intimate; the earl admired the scholar, and soon became his pupil. To him Buchanan dedicated his edition of Linacre's Latin Grammar, printed in 1533 by the celebrated Robert Stephens. At the end of five years both of them returned to Scotland, and resided at the earl's seat in Ayrshire, where Buchanan composed a Latin poem, entitled Somnium. This satire is in the form of a dream, St. Francis being represented as appearing with the object of obtaining the poet's consent to become a member of his order. Buchanan was prevented from returning to France by his sovereign, James V., who did not hesitate to detain the great scholar, by appointing him in 1537 to the office of preceptor to his natural son, James Stuart, who died in 1548. From one of Buchanan's Epigrams (lib. i., 43), we learn that at this period of his life he became acquainted with Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, and enjoyed his hospitality. In his history Buchanan also states that this prelate was a good and learned man; Knox, however, gives him a different character, as in his opinion he was nothing more than a glorious fool, and narrates a good "gowkston glaikston (piece of merry folly), performed by the said Dunbar in 1546, prefacing his description of it by stating that if he interlaced merriness with earnest matters, the reader was to pardon him, for the fact was so notable as to deserve long memory. At the request of the king, who was

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ƒ Hallam, in his notice of Linacre's works (Hist. Lit., vol. i., p. 344), does not mention this, the first work of Buchanan's; and Dr. Eadie (Dict. Uni. Biog., art. Buchanan), says the grammar was Linant's. When and where did Linant flourish?

Cardinal Beatoun had arrived in Glasgow at the end of harvest, and abode in the city, while the Archbishop remained in his castle beside the cathedral. This castle, once a large and strong building, is not now in existence, as the fragments were entirely removed in 1790, and the present City Infirmary built on the site. The reader will find a portion of the castle illustrated in Swan's Strath-Clutha. The Cardinal when in the city claimed pre-eminence, and that his cross should not only go before, but that also it should only be borne wheresoever he was. This Dunbar, as proud as a peacock, would not permit, seeing he was an archbishop in his own diocese, and in his own cathedral see and kirk, and therefore ought to give place to no man. The question was decided when both of them were either entering or going out of the choir door of the cathedral

himself a poet, Buchanan wrote his famous satire entitled Franciscanus. Dr. Irvine, an excellent scholar, and well qualified to give an opinion, remarks that this poem, as it now appears in its finished state, "may without hazard be pronounced one of the most skilful and pungent satires which any nation or language can exhibit." As was to be expected, the king could not prevent the bigotted adherents of the Church of Rome from arresting and imprisoning the author of the satire written at his own request. This event took place in the beginning of the year 1539, three years before the Reformer, John Knox, embraced the Protestant doctrines. Some of Buchanan's numerous friends at court sent him information that his enemy, Cardinal Beatoun, had offered the king a large sum of money if he would consent to his death. With that decision of character which Buchanan possessed to a great extent, he at once resolved to escape from his prison, as he knew that his sovereign could not resist the bribe, for he was one of the most avaricious of men. During the stillness of night, when the keepers were sleeping, he lowered himself from the window of his prison, and hastened to England. Henry VIII. was then on the throne, and, although requested, gave no relief to Buchanan, who, however, on his arrival in London, received protection and assistance from an English knight, named Sir John Rainsford, to whose memory Buchanan has written one of his numerous Latin poems. Hunger and poverty soon compelled the scholar to write verses soliciting the patronage of those enjoying court influence. His proud spirit did not long submit to such expedients, as he soon left England for France. When he arrived in Paris he found the Scottish ambassador to be none other than his old enemy, Cardinal Beatoun. He did not, however, leave France, as he at once accepted the Professorship of Latin, then vacant, in a college lately established in the city of Bordeaux, the Principal of which, the celebrated Govea, invited him to reside in that city. Buchanan must have been anxious to leave Paris, as we find him in his college at the close of 1539, the year in which he escaped from his prison in Scotland. It was also at this time that

by the two cross-bearers, who assayed which of the crosses were finest metal, which staff the strongest, and which bearer could best defend his master's preeminence. Then began no little fray, but yet a merry game, for tippets were torn, crowns were knapped, etc. The trial of Wishart, at whose martyrdom both Beatoun and Dunbar were present, buried in oblivion, says Knox, all the bragging and boasting just described. See Knox's Hist. of Reformation, book i.

Ut Lutetiam venit, Cardinalem Betonium pessime erga se animatum ibi legatione fungi comperit. Itaque ejus iræ se subtraxit, Burdegalam invitante Andrea Goveano profectus (Vita). In Dr. Irvine's Life of Buchanan, the reader will find an excellent account of Govea.

Charles V. passed through Bordeaux, on his way to the Netherlands; Buchanan presented, in the name of his college, a Latin poem to the emperor on his entrance into the city.

Buchanan remained in Bordeaux for three years, during which he wrote four tragedies and a number of poems, all of course in the Latin language. None of Buchanan's tragedies are mentioned, or alluded to, in the text of Hallam's History of Literature. This historian's undoubted bias in favour of English, and determination to notice as little as possible Scottish, writers, who flourished during the period of which he treats, will, however, receive further proof in our brief sketch of the life and works of Buchanan. Of the four tragedies written by Buchanan two are translations of two Greek plays, and two are original. The translations were executed with great care; so much so, that those of his cotemporaries who could give an opinion on the subject, suspected that one of them, at least, was a fragment of antiquity published in his own name. The original tragedies are entitled Baptistes and Jephthes. The former, "John the Baptist," was one of the one hundred subjects for tragedy selected by the great Milton. Buchanan has undoubtedly made this tragedy the vehicle for promulgating his peculiar sentiments, as its great theme is civil and religious liberty. "The poet," says his excellent biographer, Dr. Irvine, "frequently expresses himself with astonishing boldness; his language relative to tyranny and priestcraft is so strong and undisguised, that it could not then have been tolerated in many colleges, and the acquiescence of Buchanan's learned auditory suggests no unfavourable opinion of the flourishing seminary to which he belonged." In Jephtha's Daughter, "Buchanan," says the same writer, "has described the situation of a father who had unwarily subjected himself to the dreadful necessity of sacrificing a beloved and only child; the repugnant and excruciating sensations of the mother, the daughter's mingled sentiments of heroism and timidity, are delineated with considerable felicity of dramatic conception." But it must be granted that this tragedy is not altogether free from faults; they are, however, the faults frequently found in the works of ancient and modern poets. To some of his characters Buchanan has given Greek names, and mentions the wealth of Croesus, supposed to have been born 600 years after Jephtha. With equal absurdity did the great Shakespeare make a clock strike in his Julius Cæsar; the ancient Romans being totally ignorant of such a piece of mechanism. It is right that we should remember that Buchanan himself had a very modest opinion of his tragedies. "Their composition," to quote again from his biographer, Dr. Irvine, "was partly a

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task which his academical station imposed; he completed the four tragedies in the compass of three years, while engaged in the laborious occupation of teaching grammar to young students, and while he even regarded his life as insecure from the deadly malice of Cardinal Beatoun and the grey friars. Whatever may be the defects of those productions, they are at least superior to any of the Latin dramas which had been composed by modern poets. This province had been sufficiently cultivated by the scholars of Italy and Germany, but with a degree of success which leaves them very far behind the author of Jephtha's Daughter." And the celebrated Ascham, Latin secretary to Queen Elizabeth, has also given a favourable opinion in the following terms: "Some in Englande, moe in France, Germanie and Italie also, have written tragedies in our tyme; of which, not one, I am sure, is able to abyde the trew touch of Aristotle's precepts, and Euripides' example, save onely two, that ever I saw, M. Watson's Absalon and Georgius Buchananus' Jephthes."i Buchanan's original tragedies have been translated into Italian, French and other languages. The great knowledge of the Latin language possessed by the learned Scotchman, enabled him to be of service to others; as it is recorded that a Latin ode, presented by Buchanan to the French Chancellor, obtained an augmentation to the income of all the professors connected with his college, then considered to be the best seminary in France for the elementary instruction of young men. During his stay at Bordeaux, Buchanan became intimate not only with the highly gifted men, fifteen in number, who taught in the same college, but he also extended his social intercourse to many individuals in the city and its neighbourhood, of whom the elder Scaliger, then living at Agen, appears to have been the most accomplished; two of his poems celebrate the virtues and learning of Buchanan, who has also expressed, in one of his epigrams, his opinion of the good qualities possessed by the illustrious but vain physician After living three years at Bordeaux, Buchanan returned to Paris, and from 1544 to 1547 he was one of the regents of a college in that city, called the College of Cardinal le Moine. Some of his colleagues were very eminent scholars, and a French historian, says Dr. Irvine, has remarked “that three of the most learned men in the world then taught humanity in the same

i Ascham's works, as quoted by Irvine.

See Hallam's Hist. of Lit., vol. ii., p. 300, and Irvine's Life of Buchanan, p. 42. The latter gives the best account of the life of J. C. Scaliger that we are acquainted with. Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, said of Buchanan, he had fewer centos than any modern Latin poet, and that "he not only had great knowledge of the Latin language, but was a great political genius; both the Scaligers praise him." Life, p. 207.

college; the first class was taught by Turnebus, the second by Buchanan, and the third by Muretus."

Like most of the learned men who flourished during the sixteenth century, Buchanan always aided, either personally or with his powerful pen, every attempt to promote the progress of education wherever a desire for it was evinced; consequently he remained in Paris only for three years, at the end of which period he left his college, and, along with his brother Patrick and several of his associates, entered in the year 1547 the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, lately founded by the sovereign of that kingdom. They did this at the earnest desire of Govea, who had been requested by the king of Portugal to fill up the vacant professorships. Govea being a native of Portugal, was elected Principal. When he died in 1548, the bigotted inhabitants, seeing that this noble band of scholars had lost their chief protector, immediately accused them before the Inquisition of crimes which existed only in their imagination. Three of the professors were imprisoned, and Buchanan requested to take up his abode in one of the monasteries. When living in the monastery Buchanan commenced his celebrated Latin translation of the Psalms of David: there is also in existence a beautiful Latin poem, considered to have been written by him at this time, in which he laments his absence from Paris. In his opinion the monks belonging to the monastery were men by no means destitute of humanity, but totally unacquainted with religion. There is nothing, however, in the autobiography of Buchanan, who has fully recorded the facts, nor in any other historical document, to justify Dr. Eadie in making the following comparison; "Like the Consolations of Boethius, the Henriade of Voltaire, and the Pilgrim of Bunyan, this work (the Psalms) of Buchanan's had been projected and commenced in a dungeon."k Buchanan was

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certainly not the person to state that the monks were humane, if he lived in a dungeon! When he was allowed to leave the monastery, the king of Portugal requested him to continue in the kingdom, and gave him a sum of money, with the promise of being appointed to any situation that should be vacant. chanan declined to live in Portugal, and at once embarked at Lisbon, from which port he was conveyed to England, where he did not, however, long remain, as his accomplished friends in France proved a magnet too strong for him to resist. It was, consequently, about the beginning of the year 1553 that Buchanan again entered the kingdom of France. This was the year in which the Reformer, John Knox, then in England, de

Article in Dict. of Uni. Biog. already quoted.