"Old Mortality." Next spring, Bucha- | work—a translation of Linacre's Latin nan went to the University of St Andrews, Grammar-which was published by R. to attend the lectures of John Mair, or Stephanus in 1533. He continued for Major, a celebrated doctor of the Sor-five years with the earl in France, and bonne, then teaching in St Salvator's at the end of that period returned with College, whom he seems at first to him to Scotland. While residing at his have admired, but afterwards learned seat (a seat commemorated in Burns's to hold in little esteem, calling him "Vision" and "Hallowe'en") in Ayrshire, solo cognomine Major. On the 3d of Buchanan was moved by the demon of October, 1525, being then an exhibi- comic power which was within him, to tioner, or, as it was called, a pauper, he write a satire on the friars, entitled took his degree of Bachelor of Arts; and "Somnium," a production distinguished the next summer he followed Mair to by wit, by biting sarcasm, and by eleFrance, where he became a student in gant Latinity, and which formed the the Scottish college, and in March, 1528, first volley of his protracted fire against took the degree of A.M. The students "Eremites and friars, there were divided, much as they are White, black, and grey, with all their now in Glasgow, into different nations- trumpery.' according to their respective countries- This poem, which was a happy imitaand on the 3d of June, 1529, Buchanan tion of one on a similar subject by Dunwas elected Procurator (answering, we bar, irritated the clergy to fury, the more presume, to the Glasgow Censor) to the that it was generally admired; and they German nation, which included the at once loudly exclaimed, and silently Scotch. The tenets of the lion-hearted swore vengeance, against the author. We Luther were then beginning to pervade next hear of Buchanan being appointed as Paris, and were eagerly imbibed by our preceptor to a natural son of King James manly and courageous youth. He no V., one James Stewart, son of one Elizasooner "believed" than he "spoke," and beth Shaw; an appointment which seems for this offence he was treated as a to have saved his life at the time. While speckled bird, and for two years had to acting in this capacity, he became inticontend both with obloquy, and with the mate with Gavin Dunbar, archbishop of proverbial poverty of the Scotch scholar. Glasgow, and with Sir Adam Otterburn, He was next appointed regent or pro- a poet and statesman, whose works, howfessor in the College of St Barbe, where ever, have perished, and whose name, as he taught grammar, on a very slender David Irving for once happily remarks, salary, for three years. The miseries of "has glided into the history of Scottish this wretched position he consoled him- literature, because he was the friend of self by bewailing in one of his finest and Buchanan." What tie, unless it was commost forcible elegies, where he contrasts the profound repose and healthy cheek of the ploughman, the day-labourer, and even the sailor, with the pallid face, the emaciated frame, and the premature death of the poor student and teacher.

ཝ་

mon love of fun and common hatred of the monks, united Buchanan, whose morals seem to have been on the whole pure, and the "Red Tod of St Andrews," the gay licentious "Gudeman o' Ballengeich," James V., we cannot tell, but they During his residence at St Barbe, he became great cronies. It was fortunate became acquainted with Gilbert Kennedy, for our poet that it was so, for the Franearl of Cassilis, a young nobleman of some ciscans were using every means to degrade accomplishments and amiable disposi- and ruin him, representing him to the tions, who in 1532 appointed him his king as a man of bad morals, and worse regular tutor. This gentleman admired belief. James, who, Gallio-like, cared Buchanan to the brink of idolatry, and for none of these things, and who admired the tutor so loved and respected his Buchanan's genius, and enjoyed his hupupil, as to dedicate to him his first mours, instead of surrendering, stimulated

Herod, he replies in the following lofty comparison of the two kings, the one of whom he feared, and the other whose vengeance he defied:

him on to become yet "more vile" in the | Euripides; and "Jephthes," an original sight of these cowled quacks and sancti- play on the romantic Hebrew story of the monious impostors. The results were, immolation of Jephtha's daughter. As a first, the "Palinodia," a pretended recan- dramatist, Buchanan modelled his style tation, concealing bitterer and more gall- on the Grecian school, particularly on ing satire; and then the "Franciscanus," that of Euripides. He is accused by an open and most powerful attack, full Grotius of having lowered the dignity of of pungent wit, strong invective, search- the ancient buskin. This, however, is ing exposure, and bursts of real poetry. compensated by the superior variety of Never was a chastisement more richly his manner. He excels rather in manly merited. Religion, not to speak of learn- sense and sentiment, than in tenderness. ing, had sunk to such a pitch among the It is a curious fact, that Milton had proecclesiastics in Scotland, that some of jected and laid down the plan of a drama them actually thought that Martin Luther on John the Baptist, and if any one could was the author of a dangerous book called have coped fully with the austere and the New Testament! But in proportion rugged grandeur of him who, with one to the truth, and the telling power of foot in the desert, and the other on the Buchanan's books, became now his per- polluted soil of Palestine, uttered his sonal danger. Stung to madness, the cries of urgent haste and awful warning, priests, with Beaton at their head, raised it had been the author of "Samson Agoa fierce persecution against those sus- nistes." Buchanan, too, rises in parts to pected of being Lutherans. Five were the majesty of the character. Thus, burned, nine recanted, and many were when John is warned of the wrath of driven into exile. James stooped before the storm, and could not, or would not, any longer shield his favourite, and Buchanan was arrested, and would probably have fed the flames, had he not made his "Reges utrinque facere pugnantia jubent: escape, like another Halbert Glendinning, Coelestis alter, misericors clemens, bonus: through the window of his dungeon. He Terrenus alter, impotens, ferox malus Mortem minatur alter: alter me vetat fled southward, but found new troubles Mortem timere, pollicetur præmium in England, where that huge blood-red Vim non timenti: corpus alter perdere weathercock, Henry VIII., was then the Potest: at alter corpus una et spiritum presiding power. After some vain at- Torquere flamma poteret inevitabili, tempts to conciliate him and his minions Hi quum repugnent consule utri paream." by poetical effusions, at which they pro- It will be seen, from this extract, that bably laughed, he crossed the sea to Buchanan, like Milton, draws copiously Paris, where, however, to his dismay, he on Bible language. His scrip, indeed, is found Cardinal Beaton living as an am- never empty of those smooth stones from bassador. Fortunately he received an in- the river of life, and nobly does he wield vitation at this time from Andrew Govea, them. We think, in one point, he has a native of Portugal, to become professor detracted from the grandeur of the Bapof Latin in a college newly founded at tist's character. He makes him a married Bourdeaux, called the College of Guienne, man, and speaks of his children being which he accepted. He resided at Bour-left orphans by his death. Scripture deaux for three years, during which his says nothing of this, nor would Milton. genius was exceedingly prolific. Besides The Baptist is lonely as the desert, even various miscellaneous poems, he wrote or when he walks on the soil of Palestine. translated, and had acted by his students,. He never gets much farther, indeed, than according to the academic custom of the the edge of the wilderness. The "lion is age, four plays, namely, "Baptistes," a drama founded on the death of John the Baptist; "Alcestis" and "Medea,” from

alone, and so is he." It was no domestic character of whom they said, "He comes neither eating nor drinking, and hath a

demon." He had disciples, but they must have trembled when he talked to them by the way, as well as when they were by night huddling that awful and headless dust of his into the grave.

do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth, forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, the children of Ammon" -to follow her steps, alas! no longer Scripture has few finer subjects for light as those of the gazelle, as when she poetic treatment than the story of Jeph- came forth with timbrels and dances to tha's daughter, especially if we take what meet her father, but slow, composed, mawe think is unquestionably the correct jestic, moving to the unheard music of interpretation that she was sacrificed. lofty purpose as she goes away to the Otherwise, how explain his terrible grief, mountains with her companions to bewail when she comes forth to meet him; and that she was never to bear the Messiah, what a lame and impotent conclusion to but only to typify his early and cruel the story, had her taking the veil simply death; and to stand, in fine, beside the been! On the other supposition, how in- funeral pile-to see the torch applied tensely interesting to realise the varied by an untrembling hand-to see, again, circumstances of the story-to watch the Nature's curtain falling over the face of chariot of the conqueror returning to the father, and becoming the painting of see the look of eager anxiety, blended unutterable wo--and to see the "maiden with that of triumph in his face, as it is veil, her own black hair," of the devoted bent forward toward the door of his dwell- daughter, exchanged, by a rude and fiery ing to see the white raiment, elastic hand, for a mantle of surging smoke, step, and smiling welcome of his daughter, amidst which, without a groan or murmur, breaking at once on the view-to watch the spirit of Jephtha's only child ascends the ghastly look of the father at the sight, during the one moment which elapses, ere his hands dropped hastily over his face, supply to sorrow its natural veil-a moment unspeakably strange and tremendous, as bringing into contrast, on two faces so like each other, the extremes of the highest and most innocent joy, and of the highest, most overwhelming, and That the "Jephthes" of Buchanan most innocent anguish-to observe the answers our ideal, or clothes adequately damp, the breathless anxiety, the speech- the great skeleton of the scriptural story, less suspicion, which fall on the daughter's we cannot affirm. The poet has erred, lovely and beaming countenance, as if we think, artistically, in making Iphis' from some supernatural region, when she mother still alive. Far more impressive sees her father's clasped hands, covered were the thought of Jephtha's daughter, face, and hears his speech, Alas, my like Campbell's Gertrude, being the only daughter, thou hast brought me very stoop and stay of her father's house, the low!"-to thrill in sympathy with that sole light of his dwelling, the last of his voice of a father's sorrow, shuddering up race. This, obviously, would have deepinto the sky in its loose, dissonant anguish, ened the pathos. There are also sonie to come down again, stiffened into calm minor objections. The names of the and marble magnanimity, as he adds, "I females are both Greek, not Hebrew. have opened my mouth to the Lord, and Who could dream of a Jewish maiden as I cannot turn back"-to see the momen- Iphis? Of course, Buchanan was thinktary cloud of uncertain horror passing ing of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agaaway from his daughter's face, and the memnon, and her parallel fate. But Resweet, sad sunlight of a great resolve becca, or Rachel, or Hannah, had better settling on it, as she says, "My father, if preserved verisimilitude. He gives the thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, devoted maiden golden tresses. A Jewish

to glory;-in all this, we see a subject which, in its conception and its details, its lights and shadows, its central figure and its accompaniments and asides, challenges for itself the illustration of the loftiest artistic genius, for even in this our humble version it contains the essence of the highest poetry.

female should have been represented, as the Hebrew faith-of the wail of peniRebecca in "Ivanhoe" is, and as we have tential anguish arising from deeps of a ventured to do in our little sketch above, different kind, those of tortured memory with hair dark as the raven's wing. We and accusing conscience—of the long and mention this as a little trait, typifying linked narrative, like the episode in an the general confusion the poet makes of epic, and of those little drops of historic the Grecian and Hebrew elements. Other- pathos or sublimity, such as the 114th wise, and after subtracting also a good and 187th psalms, reminding you of the deal of diffusion and sounding verbiage, "drops which at Sinai from heaven fell,” Buchanan's drama is a pleasing perform-each drop reflecting the fires and thunders ance; and the description, in the last of the burning mount-to render all these chorus, of the damsel's sacrifice, is at once into a tongue so different from the Hebrew picturesque and pathetic. But we are in construction and spirit as the Latin, still waiting for a first-rate tragedy on a was a daring task, and was competent subject which might have challenged the only to the genius, learning, taste, and powers of a Shakspere. piety of a Buchanan. We enter not gramBuchanan, while composing these matically into the merits of his version. pieces, continued in imminent danger Ruddiman has long ago employed his from the machinations of the priests and masterly knowledge of Latin to defend it Cardinal Beaton. But all the eminent from cavils, and to proclaim its accuracy scholars of the place and neighbourhood, and purity of style. But looking at it including the elder Scaliger, were his simply as a book of poetry, it has confessfriends. The celebrated Montague was edly very high merit. The style is glowhis pupil, and acted in his dramas. After ing and majestic; the diction select, yet residing three years in Bourdeaux, he re-abundant; and the spirit of the original, moved to Paris, and, in 1544, became a especially in all the more ornate and lofty regent in the college of Cardinal Le parts, is admirably preserved. His verMoire, where he continued till.1547. In sion of the 104th Psalm is the best poem that year he went with his friend A. in the volume. The subject was one of Govea to Portugal, where he taught in great grandeur, and one on which the the University of Coimbra. Govea died Latin poets themselves had often expasoon after, and Buchanan, deprived of his tiated namely, the glories of the natural protection, fell into the hands of the In- world. Buchanan was thus furnished quisition. He was confined to a monas- with a stock of classical terms, and, havtery, and there he continued several months, employing the time he could rescue from the society of the monks, and their impotent attempts to convert him, in planning, and in part executing, his far-famed translation of the Psalms.

ing unified them by the idea of the one Jehovah, which pervades the original Hebrew poem, and fired them still farther by the breath of his own genius, he has far outdone himself, and Virgil and Lucretius too. We close the rolling strain To translate a book like that of the with the wish that the author had adPsalms, which, apart from its divine in- dressed himself to the task of versifying spiration, contains specimens of the best the speech from the whirlwind in Job. kind of almost every variety of poetry, of And yet he seems to us to sink under the the storm-winged ode, of the plaintive sublimity of the "Thunder Psalm," the elegy, dying away in broken sobs of sor- 29th; and to dissipate in long and feeble row of the epithalamium, rich in imagery echoes those short, deep words, which and ornament as the dress of an oriental sound like successive and redoubled peals bride-of the short, simple sigh in verse from a darkened heaven. "The voice of of an humble and contrite spirit-of the the Lord is upon the waters; the God of descriptive hymn, glowing with all the glory thundereth; the Lord is upon many colours of a Syrian sky-of the didactic waters. The voice of the Lord is powerstrain, descending into the very depths of ful; the voice of the Lord is full of ma

jesty." How poor to this the words of which he dedicated to his patron, the

Buchanan's paraphrase !—

Earl of Murray, who, in requital, promoted him in 1566 to be Principal of St Leonard's, St Andrews.

"Vox dignitatis plena, nec irritæ Unquam ad patrandum jussa potentiæ, Nudare cedris seu Libanum juvat Great events now shot across the Celsasque ventis sternere fraxinos." horizon of Scottish history, which we Some of the Psalms seem, indeed, to need not detail. When Elizabeth was defy paraphrase: they are self-involved; forced to inquire into Mary's conduct, the ideas and the words are inextricably Buchanan was charged with the main intertwined. Others seem waiting and burden of the proof against the unfortueager to be expanded. The former are nate queen. And thus suddenly he became rarely well translated; the others are an actor in that strange and complicated sometimes even improved in the render- drama. He accompanied Murray to ing. The 29th Psalm and the 18th, like England, carrying with him his "Detecthe simple, rugged style of Dante, are tion" of Mary's conduct. After the rebest when rendered in plain prose; the gent's death, he issued an "Admonition 104th and the 139th, like the majestic to the true Lords of Scotland," assailing measures of Homer and Milton, demand the Hamiltons, and bespeaking proteca free and flowing translation. tion for the young king, and the children of the regent; and the same year attacked Secretary Lethington in a Scottish satirical piece, entitled "The Chameleon." This, and the former, are the only pieces in Scotch from Buchanan's pen, and both are excellent, and have been often reprinted. In 1570, he was elected the principal tutor of James VI., and plied his task with more dignity, energy, and zeal, than politesse or discre

Soon after, Buchanan was restored to his liberty, and repaired to Paris, where he was appointed to a regency in the college of Boncourt. Here he remained till 1555, when he was engaged by Comte de Bressac to be tutor to his son, Timoleon de Cosse. During the five years which elapsed till the death of this promising young nobleman, Buchanan spent his life alternately in France and Italy, and had time to commence a philosophical poem tion. James trembled in his presence; he never finished, entitled "De Sphera." He spent, too, much of his leisure in studying the controversy between the two churches; came at last to a decided resolution to join the Reformed Church, to which he had long inclined, and did so as soon as he reached Scotland, which was about 1560.

and while he continued in after life to respect Buchanan's talents, he bore a deep grudge to his memory. Buchanan had but a slender perception. of what is called royal dignity; and he not unfrequently disturbed the "divinity which hedges in a king," by a blow on the face, or a stroke on yet tenderer parts of the On his return to his own country, he anointed frame. Every one remembers became Latin teacher to Mary, Queen a story on this subject, rather racy to be of Scots, then in the pride and glory of recounted, as well as the well-known sayher youth and innocence. The connec- ing of the tutor, who, when reproached tion between them was, for awhile, plea- with having made James a pedant, thanksant and profitable. She bestowed on ed God that he had made so much of him. him the temporalities of the Abbey of Buchanan was at the same time appointCrossraguel, amounting to 500 pounds ed director of the chancery and keeper of Scots (£25), which he seems to have re- the privy seal. On the Earl of Morton's tained to the close of his life, and he return to power he was displaced, and wrote various verses in her praise. At never afterwards undertook any political this time he published his "Psalms," his office. In 1576 he published his "Bap"Fratres Fraterrimi," a collection of his tistes," with a dedication to his royal satires against the clergy, and put the pupil, distinguished rather by freedom finishing touch to his "Franciscanus "and force, than by respect or delicacy.