George Buchanan

eriod of performance. What I shall call his period of performance, or at all events chief performance, was from the time when he finally returned to Scotland, after an absence abro

ment there. It is a curious coincidence that these two persons, eminent alike in their widely divergent spheres, and destined alternately to a literary friendship that was pleasant to both, and a political antagonism that was fatal to one of them, should have appeared on the scene of their sympathies and conflicts practically at the same time. I have said that the division of Buchanan'

he old order of things and the new, and often give practical advice that was useful. In this period, too, he completed that thorough study of the Roman and Protestant controversy which ended in determining him to identify himself publicly with the Protestant side in the great conflict that was on foot-in itself no inconsiderable event. All this was undoubtedly performance of no mean order, but from the Scottish national point of view, and from the point of view of general history, on which the special Scottish history exerted so profound an influence, it was preparatory to the great work he did in his nat

life for themselves or society, or both. But I doubt if any, beyond a small minority even of this class, begin life with a distinct aim at reaching what they end life by becoming. There is, of course, the famous case of Whittington, who set himself in cold blood to become Lord Mayor of London. But for one Whittington there have been centuries of Lord Mayors who never dreamt of the Mansion House when they started business in the City. The glory and the turtle came upon them, virtually unsolicited; and even

cesses. In politics and the professions men probably set out with a general aim at the best position and the most money they can make for themselves; but very few, I should imagine, of those who have reached the greatest eminence or prosperity possible to them said in their youth, 'I mean to be Prime Minister, or Lord Chancellor, or Archbishop of Canterbury, or President of the Ro

bus, spretis po

fugax ambit

mob's applause, and shunning v

o evidence that he ever tried to make a fortune. He might have prospered in the Church, as Dunbar was willing to

Letter

humorous than when he is what some of us might call 'begging' from some wealthy friend who could appreciate his genius and accomplishments. Here, for insta

pto quod abest ti

animo si for

dis, paribus me

opta tu mihi:

according 'to the best of my knowled

do have: for you I wis

be my gifts, were Fo

ink this levity, in equal

don't have: to me giv

puts it neatly

I have: I wish

e my gift, were f

nk I jest? A like

I lack, and give

r in the sa

um, Morav

ut Christus ait

ifica dona

eam tibi: sis u

eri, te trib

s, Earl

a munificent hand, just see what a favour I am doing you: that you may be b

te Dr. Br

aith Holy Writ, to g

our debt to me, who t

Matth?um Levini? Comitem, Scoti? Proregem' (To Matthew, Earl of

vis, podagram mo

edicis aptiu

at

not your gout. That will be a more appropriate

Dr. Brown's trans

you are rich, what

oo, you know-one nu

your gift, let i

for your leech, I'd

, to give him something 'to go on with.' What else could he do? Carlyle's description of Thackeray as 'writing for his life' could never have applied to Buchanan. Literature was not yet a profession or 'bread-study.' It was not till next century that Milton got ￡5 for Paradise Lost; and even Shakespeare made his money less as a writer than as a showman. The idea of Buchanan or Erasmus-a much more

oes not want feudalism back merely on that account. Kings and lords took everything to themselves, in the shape of power and possession, that they could lay their hands on; but it was on the understanding that they were to make a generous use of what they had appropriated. Noblesse oblige was still a maxim with vitality in it. The right men acknowledged it, and acted on it; the ruffians, as their manner is, wherever they are placed in life, ignored it. Patronage was not an act of grace: it was a duty. It was part of the honourable service to society, by which the patron's tenure

r otherwise enjoy themselves, according to their tastes in meat and drink, or even conversation. It is often a case of undisguised 'treating' on the part of the so-called host, who wants to use his so-called guests for a purpose, and whose performance might very appropriately go into a schedule to some of the Bribery and Corruption Acts. But in

t office. They had taken over the wealth of the religious houses; did not their hospitalities pass with it? They had divided up the country among themselves and others; were they not honourably bound to see that a great civilising force like Buchanan was not extinguished? Besides, he understood his own value. A man is not six feet six inches high without being awar

Europe. To the rulers of his time he was worth what, say, fifty friendly editors of newspapers-including the Times and all the sixpenny weeklies, as far as they are worth anything would be to a politician of to-day. To Queen Mary especially, with her refined intellectual tastes and her ambition to be a figure in

help him in prosecuting his shining and useful career? He had done a good work on the High Street of the World. He had sung it a song or played it a melody such as it would hear nowhere else. Was he not entitled to send round his hat among the listeners? Is it not what is done by every book-writer of to-day, who, when the last page is finished, sends out a confederate in the shape of a publisher to canvass the public-for a consideration-with the book in one hand and the hat in the other? Is it not what is done, inter alia, by every Parliamentary lawyer, who goes into t

suppose I paid fully for my dinner with my company, and I am perfectly free to criticise you as you deserve.' Buchanan stood equally free in his relations to his patrons. From the personal point of view, whether his connection were regarded as an ornament, a pleasure, or a utility, his alliance was worth his subsidy. From the public point of view it was their duty, as trustees for the public property and progress, to maintain a great civiliser like Buchanan in a position where his powers had scope, while it was Buchanan's privilege and duty to exercise his creative and critical capacities in the public interest without fear or favour. And this, as will be seen, is what Buchanan substantially did. Knox and Melville repeatedly reminded Q

oriety

society that was morally indebted to him. His indifference, however, to wealth as a life-object must not be confounded with the counsel of the ascetic preacher who urges his hearers to forget the present world in thoughts of the world to come, and wins, perhaps, a better living by an eloquent and pessimistic sermon on the text which says that 'the love of money is the root of all evil.' There is nothing to show that Buchanan did not hold, with all sensible people, that there is a sense in which the love

his own breast, to find some counterpoise to the struggles of a world alien and uncouth to the poetic mind-'these were his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found Poetry to be its own reward.' In other words, the poet may desire fame and distinction for what he has done, yet it need not have been the desire of fame and distinction that made him do it. Buchanan seems to have been even more self-controlled

, and who had been told off to instruct him in orthodoxy, he addressed himself to a classic rendering of the Psalms with the double purpose of discharging his duty by his Humanistic Vocation, and doing something that might redeem his time and his temper from the boredom of the uncongenial society amidst which misfortune had placed him. There does not seem in all this much of that passionate desire

d, who, like many others, kept dunning him for his promised books, and even for 'copy,' he says, with respect to his 'astronomical' aims in poetry, he had not so much voluntarily abandoned them, as been obliged reluctantly to submit to the deprivation of them; neque enim aut nunc libet nugari, aut si maxime vellem per ?tatem licet. Accessit eo histori? scribend? labor,-'for neither

sty of merit, as the common form carelessly puts it, but from the consciousness of merit, and because he felt that it was in him to do better. He hated the idea of having more celebrity than he deserved, and wanted to produce something that would show he was not an impostor or a quack. In short, he did not want more fame, but what he thought a better and honester title to the fame he had. That, however, is not the passion for fame, but simply self-respect, and an uns

e is no reason to doubt his declaration, that he desired to set before his royal pupil, James VI., the warnings and the encouragements derivable from the story of his predecessors on the throne, including his own ill-advised and ill-fated mother. It was no fault of Bucha

of leaving unfinished a task he had engaged himself to his friends to perform that made him persevere at a labour which, he says, in ?tate integra permolestus, nunc vero in hac meditatione mortis, inter mortalitatis metum, et desinendi pudorem, non potest non lentus esse et ingratus, quando nec cessare licet, nec progredi lubet,-'would, even in the flower of my age, have