GEORGE BUCHANAN
GLASGOW
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY
ROBERT MACLEHOSE &* COMPANY LTD. FOR
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, PUBLISHERS
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD. LONDON
THE MACMILLAN CO. NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA TORONTO
SIMPKIN, HAMILTON AND CO. LONDON
MACMILLAN AND BOWES CAMBRIDGE
DOUGLAS AND FOULIS EDINBURGH
MCMVII
GEORGE BUCHANAN
National Portrait Gallery, London
GEORGE BUCHANAN
GLASGOW QUATER-CENTENARY STUDIES
1906
485924
14-. 1. 43
GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY 1907
Dfl
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION, - ix
/' GEORGE BUCHANAN, - i
By REV. PRINCIPAL LINDSAY, D.D.
BUCHANAN'S CONNECTION WITH THE UNIVERSITY
AND GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF GLASGOW,- 33
By ROBERT RENWICK.
VERSE TRANSLATIONS, 42
By T. D. ROBB, M.A., and the
REV. A. GORDON MITCHELL, D.D.
JOHN REID'S SCOTTISH TRANSLATION OF
BUCHANAN'S HISTORY IN 1634, - 47
By F. J. AMOURS, B.A.
NOTE ON THE FIRST ENGLISH (AS DISTINGUISHED FROM SCOTS) TRANSLATION OF BUCHANAN'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, 53
By F. T. BARRETT.
/ AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF GEORGE BUCHANAN'S BAPTISTES ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN MILTON, - - 61
By J. T. T. BROWN.
vi CONTENTS
/PAGE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY HUMANISM AS ILLUSTRATED
BY THE LIFE AND WORK OF GEORGE
BUCHANAN, - 174
By T. D. ROBB, M.A.
v DE JURE REGNI A PUD SCOTOS, - 211
By W. S. MCKECHNIE, D.Phil.
THE FRANCISCAN-. SOME FOOTNOTES,- - 297
By GEO. NEILSON, LL.D.
NOTES ON SOME Music SET TO BUCHANAN'S
PARAPHRASE OF THE PSALMS, - - 333
By REV. GEORGE BELL, Mus.D.
A GENEALOGICAL NOTE, - 346
By A. W. GRAY BUCHANAN.
THE PORTRAITS OF GEORGE BUCHANAN, - 350
By WILLIAM CARRUTHERS, F.R.S., London.
GEORGE BUCHANAN'S MARGINALIA, - - 382
By REV. P. H. AITKEN, B.D., B.Sc.
CATALOGUE OF PRINTED BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS,
CHARTERS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS, - - 393
By DAVID MURRAY, M.A., LL.D.
ANA, - 543
INDEX, - - - 546
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GEORGE BUCHANAN, NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY,
LONDON, - Frontispiece
ILLUSTRATION OF BERNE EPISODE, FROM LAVATER'S
"DE SPECTRIS," - 312
GEORGE BUCHANAN, VANSON-BEZA ENGRAVING, - 320
GEORGE BUCHANAN, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, SENATE
ROOM, 328
GEORGE BUCHANAN, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, LIBRARY, 336 GEORGE BUCHANAN, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, - 344
GEORGE BUCHANAN, GRANTHOMME IN BOISSARD'S
"ICONES," 352
" GEORGE BUCHANAN," ROYAL SOCIETY PORTRAIT, 360
" GEORGE BUCHANAN," HOUBRAKEN, AFTER DR. MEAD'S
PAINTING, 368
"GEORGE BUCHANAN," RAEBURN'S COPY OF EARL
BUCHAN'S "TITIAN," - 376
"GEORGE BUCHANAN," PAINTING BELONGING TO W.
CROSS BUCHANAN CHRISTIE, ESQ., 380
MARGINALIA ON "BASILEI OPERA," 387
MOTTO FROM BUCHANAN'S COPY OF PLUTARCH'S " LIVES," 392
PROBABLE AUTOGRAPH FROM BUCHANAN'S COPY OF
"PROCLUS," - ... 2
PREFACE
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE QUATERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS.
IN honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Buchanan, an academic celebration of great interest and brilliancy was held at St. Andrews in July, 1906. As the place where Buchanan studied, where he for some time resided, and where he was Principal of St. Leonard's College, it was in every way appropriate that the Celebrations in his honour should centre in the University of St. Andrews. The Universities and the leading learned Societies of Scotland, and the Universities of Paris and Bordeaux, appointed delegates for a General Committee of Organisation. That Committee, with much foresight, tact, and success, made all arrangements, and carried out the whole proceedings in a manner worthy of the lustre of the occasion.
The Celebrations began on Friday, 6th July, with a Memorial Service in the University Chapel, followed by an Oration on Buchanan in the United College Hall by the Right Honourable Lord Reay. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, LL.D., as Rector of St. Andrews University, presided at the Oration, which was a learned, eloquent, and exhaustive appreciation of the career of Buchanan, especially viewed as a scholar-poet and a reformer in religion and politics. Thereafter Honorary Degrees of St. Andrews University were conferred upon a large number of distinguished persons, most of whom were present as delegates at the Celebra- tions. In the evening a Dinner was held in the Hall of the Students' Union, at which Principal Donaldson, LL.D., who presided, proposed the toast of Buchanan's memory in happy terms, dwelling largely upon his educational influence as still exceedingly active throughout the first half of the nineteenth
x THE CELEBRATIONS
century. The next day, Saturday, yth July, was devoted by the delegates to sightseeing in the old city and visiting the Cathedral, Castle, and ancient University buildings and historical sites. On both days the weather was beautiful and bright. A garden party in the United College grounds on the afternoon of the second day concluded the series of functions, which were a source not only of much public interest, but also of great gratification to all who participated in them.
Supplementary to these official and national Celebrations at St. Andrews, it was decided, after a conference in Glasgow, to hold a Celebration, to some extent on merely local lines, in Glasgow also. The movement, deriving much of its force from the energetic initiative of the Hon. the Lord Provost, Mr. William Bilsland (himself, like Buchanan, connected with Killearn), quickly elicited manifestations of public support, which led to a gradual expansion of the programme. A representative General Com- mittee 1 was formed, under the presidency of the Lord Provost, and the work went briskly forward in the hands of the genial
1 The General Committee comprised the following members : Very Reverend Principal Story, Professors Ferguson, Cooper, Jones, Medley, and Phillimore, Glasgow University ; Sir W. R. Copland, John Hutchison, LL.D., High School ; John G. Kerr, LL.D., Allan Glen's School; Alan E. Clapperton, B.L., Dr. M'Vail, David Murray, LL.D., Dr. Freeland Fergus, William George Black, George Neilson, LL.D., J. T. T. Brown, William Young, R.S.W., J. D. G. Dalrymple, ofWoodhead, F.S.A., President of the Glasgow Archaeological Society ; James A. Reid, Dean of Faculty of Procurators ; Allan MacLean, Robert King, Dean of Guild; John Wordie, Arthur Forbes, James Buchanan, M.A., Sir A. W. Leith Buchanan, Bart., A. W. Gray Buchanan, P. G. Keyden, Andrew Buchanan, Allan F. Baird, Charles Russell, LLD., William Wallace, LLD., Editor, Glasgow Herald; William Stewart; J. M. Smith, Editor, Evening News ; Neil Munro ; Andrew Mudie, Evening Citizen ; F. T. Barrett, W. J. S. Paterson, J. L. Galbraith, Rev. Patrick H. Aitken, B.D., B.Sc., John Clark, M.A.; Bailies Shaw Maxwell, Edward Watson, J. P. Maclay, Bruce Murray; Councillors Hugh Alexander, Robert Graham, J. W. Stewart, Primrose, William Maclay, Alex. Murray, R. M. Mitchell, Cleland, Kirkpatrick ; Treasurer D. M. Stevenson ; River Bailie Archibald Campbell ; Deacon Convener Kirkwood ; Preceptor John Macfarlane, George Eyre Todd, Rev. Donald Macmillan, D.D., Rev. Prof. George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D., Rev. Principal Lindsay, D.D., James MacLehose, M.A., J. L. Morison, M.A., Sir Archibald C. Lawrie, LL.D., Rev. John Smith, D.D., W. S. McKechnie, LL.B., D.Phil., A. M. Williams, M.A., Sir Samuel Chisholm, Bart., LL.D., Sir John Ure Primrose, Bart., LL.D., James Bilsland, R. B. Macouat, Rev. Alex. Gordon Mitchell, D.D., Colonel C. M. King, R. Jameson of Ardunan ; D. Wilson of Carbeth ; Dr. R. M. Buchanan, Robert Motherwell, Very Rev. Dean Hutchison, D.D., F. C. Buchanan, Row; Rev. Robert Munro, B.D., James Paton, Art Galleries; Rev. Morrison Bryce, Rev. David Macrae, A. M. Shannan, A.R.S.A., J. L. Eskdale, William Jacks, LL.D. ; Honorary Secretary, John S. Samuel, F.R.S.E.
PILGRIMAGE TO THE MOSS xi
and vigorous Hon. Secretary, Mr. John S. Samuel. As the result of many meetings and much correspondence, a comprehensive scheme was drawn up, the execution of which was delegated to various sub-committees,1 and a series of functions was arranged. The degree of success attained, while in part to be ascribed to the harmonious work of the sub-committees, was mainly due to the hearty public response made in the West of Scotland to the suggestion that Buchanan's memory might becomingly receive Quatercentenary honours in Glasgow. The programme comprised :
A Pilgrimage to the Poet's Birthplace (Aug. n);
An Address in the Bute Hall of Glasgow University by the Rev. Principal Thomas M. Lindsay, accompanied by a choral rendering, in the old music, of some of Buchanan's psalms (Nov. i);
The toast of Buchanan's Memory proposed at the Jubilee Banquet of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (Nov. 2) by Professor Hume Brown, LL.D., a distinguished biographer of Buchanan;
An Exhibition, in the University Library Hall, of Buchanan books, charters, portraits, etc. (Oct. 31 — Nov. 17), including a special Buchanan session of the Glasgow Archaeological Society shortly before the close of the Exhibition;
A Memorial Volume, to contain, besides Principal Lindsay's Address, a number of first-hand contributions to the history and criticism of Buchanan's work.
THE PILGRIMAGE.
The Pilgrimage, which took place on Saturday afternoon, nth August, was the result of an invitation, equally kind and happy, given by Sir Archibald Lawrie, (himself a descendant of George Buchanan's brother), to all persons interested to visit The
1 The Special Sub-Committees were the following : Committee on Principal Lindsay's Address— Professors Cooper, D.D., and Medley, M.A., Very Rev. Dean Hutchison, D.D., James MacLehose, M.A., J. L. Morrison, M. A., John Hutchison, LL.D. ; W. S. McKechnie, LL.B., D.Phil, Convener. Committee on Exhibition — Professors Cooper, D.D., and Ferguson, LL.D., Revs. Donald Macmillan, D.D., A. Gordon Mitchell, D.D., Morrison Bryce, Baldernock ; Messrs. F. T. Barrett, W. G. Black, J. L. Galbraith, Neil Munro, George Neilson, James Paton, Wm, Young, R.S.W., A. W. Gray Buchanan ; David Murray, LL.D., Convener. Com- mittee on Memorial Volume — Rev. Principal Lindsay, D.D., Rev. D. Macmillan, D.D., W. S. McKechnie, D.Phil., David Murray, LL.D., A. Gordon Mitchell, D.D., Rev. P. H. Aitken, B.D., B.Sc., Very Rev. Dean Hutchison, D.D., F. T. Barrett, A. W. Gray Buchanan, J. T. T. Brown, J. D. G. Dalrymple, J. L. Morison, James MacLehose ; George Neilson, Convener. The pilgrimage arrangements were committed to the Council of the Glasgow Archaeological Society and specially to the President Mr. J. D. G. Dalrymple, and the Hon. Secretaries Mr. William George Black, and Mr. Arch. H. Charteris, M.A , LL.B.
xii THE PILGRIMAGE
Moss, Dumgoyne, the birthplace of Buchanan, and now the inheritance of Sir Archibald. The house is beautifully situated on the bank of the little winding river Blane, a few yards away from the site of the cottage in which it is believed Buchanan first saw the light — " on the water of Blane, in the province of Lennox in Scotland, in the year of Christ's salvation 1506, about the calends of February." l
The pilgrims were many, comprising representatives of Stirling- shire families and delegates and members of societies, such as the Society of Antiquaries, the Glasgow Archaeological Society, the Sir Walter Scott Club, Glasgow, the Old Glasgow Club, the Poets' Club, the Buchanan Society, and the Glasgow Stirlingshire and Sons of the Rock Society.2 Most of the party proceeded by train to Dumgoyne Station, walking thence to The Moss, where they were courteously received by Sir Archibald and Miss Lawrie. After a brief inspection of the beautiful demesne, the visitors assembled on the lawn under the presidency of their host. It was a fine afternoon, and in the sunshine the company drew together beside the trees on the lawn at the back of the house.
1 " Georgius Buchananus in Levinia Scotiae provincia natus est ad Blanum amnem, anno salutis Christianae millesimo quingentesimo sexto circa kalendas Februarias, in villa rustica, familia magis vetusta quam opulenta." — Vita Buchanani. Doubts have been expressed on the point whether this date means 1506 old Scots style (ending the year in March) or 1507 in the modern, then known as the Roman computation. The Vita Buchanani is almost certainly, as it has always been believed to be, an autobiography, and in that light it is reasonable to suppose that as Buchanan throughout the Historia Rerum Scoticarum (which was being written at the date of the Vita Buchanani] used the Roman computation, beginning the year with January, he can scarcely have adopted a different mode for the Vita. (See in the Historia instances sub annis 1437 (lib. x. cap. 59), 1452 (xi. 37), 1532 (xiv. 42), 1539 (xiv. 55), 1543 (xv. 2), 1563 (xvii. 42), 1564 (xvii. 43). The inference, however, may admit of discussion, and it is unnecessary to foreclose it here.
2 Among those present were Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath, the Hon. the Lord Provost of Glasgow (Mr. William Bilsland) and Mrs. Bilsland, the Very Rev. M. B. Hutchison, D.D., Rev. P. M'Adam Muir, D.D., Rev. A. Gordon Mitchell, D.D., Killearn ; Rev. Robert Munro, B.D., Old Kilpatrick ; Rev. M. Bryce, Baldernock ; Mr. D. Hay Fleming, LL.D., Edinburgh; Dr. D. C. M'Vail, Mr. W. S. McKechnie, LL.B., D.Phil. ; Colonel King of Antermony, Mr. George Eyre Todd, Bailie William Maclay, Bailie Bruce Murray, Preceptor John Macfarlane, Mr. James Buchanan, M. A. , Preses of the Buchanan Society ; Mr. A. M'F. Shannan, A.R.S.A. ; Mr. J. D. G. Dalrymple, F.S.A. ; Mr. A. R. H. Buchanan, Mr. Samuel Elliott, New York; Mr. John S. Samuel, F.R.S.E., Mr. William George Black, Secretary of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Mr. George Neilson, etc.
ODE TO BUCHANAN xiii
Sir Archibald, in his expressions of welcome, explained that the house in which Buchanan was born stood just in front of the present edifice near the drive. He expressed the pleasure it gave him that the memory of Buchanan was so widely revered, as evidenced by the large and representative gathering there that day.
The Very Rev. Dean M. B. Hutchison, then read the following Latin ode which he had composed to the memory of Buchanan :
PANEGYRICUS IN GEORGIUM BUCHANANUM SCOTUM.
Te, Buchanane, hodie grato celebramus amore,
Stirps eadem nobis, dissimile ingenium. Inter nostrates hodie quis carmine docto,
Castalidum sellers audet adire lyram ? Eximium Nomen ! psalmos, epigrammata, leges
Scotorum, prisci temporis acta canis. Historicus, Vatesque, gerens Moderamina cleri,
Corrector regis voce simulque manu. Tuque Viator, et usque Politicus, usque Professor :
Te dignum praebes quodque subire jugum. Militiae in castris, et in aula discere Pacis
Artes baud vetitum : nulla aliena tibi. Quis tantos variosque potest ornare labores?
Tot superare modes indole quisve valet? Multicolor Nostro fuit experientia vitae :
At dominus rerum flectere fata doces. Sed quid plura? Virum laurus donemus honore,
Tempora postremis qui meliora dabat. Serve sagax CHRIST: , CHRISTI mysteria nosti,
Cor penetrans Fidei, praescius augur ades. Vere propheta, tibi verbum debemus in annos, —
"Relligio est CHRISTI facta fidemque sequi." Undique conveniunt Gives itidemque Togati
Frontem immortali cingere fronde tuam. Plaudite, Vallis ubi Blanus sub monte susurrat
In pontum repens, ruraque triste fugit ; Glascua, namque tuis in stratis Ille solebat,
Multa puer volvens, carpere saepe viam. Tolle, peritorum nobiscum turma per orbem,
Humanistarum te, Buchanane, caput. Salve, salve iterum, Lumen Boreale refulgens,
Grande Caledoniae perpetuumque decus !
[We sing Buchanan's praise with grateful heart, Our blood the same, our genius wide apart : For who to-day of all our learned throng Can strike, as he, the Latin lyre in song?
xiv ADDRESS AT THE MOSS
A Psalm, an Epigram, or History,
Or Scotland's Laws come all alike to thee ;
Poet and Moderator o' the Kirk beside,
With voice and hand correcting kingly pride !
Travel and Politics and Professor's Chair —
Worthy wert thou the yoke of each to bear.
Of War in camp, in court of Peace the arts
Thou learnedst — nought withholden from thy parts.
Who now adorns so many differing toils?
Or whose the gift to win such various spoils?
Of many a hue thy life was woven, still
Thou bendedst circumstance to do thy will.
Why more? To-day we laurel-crown the Sage
Who paved the way for this our better age.
Far-seeing Christian, to the very core
Thou penetratedst of the Christian lore.
"Christ's works and faith to. follow" — thine the word—
"There lies the true religion of the Lord."
So here from all around meet Town and Gown,
To set upon thy brow the immortal crown.
Rejoice, yon vale, where 'neath Ben Lomond, Blane
Sad "Farewell" whispers to her native plain.
Let Glasgow join : her streets in long past days
The Boy, full deep in thought, was wont to pace.
Extol, ye Learned, wherever scattered,
Of Humanists the Prince and Head !
Thrice hail ! thou Northern Light, streaming afar,
Of Caledonia the perpetual star ! [M.B.H.]
Mr. George Neilson, after briefly sketching Buchanan's bio- graphy, discussed his place as a poet, asking if he was not the last of the Latins, a finished product of the new Latin and Greek learning before literature and thought alike transfused themselves into their modern phases ? No poet before him since the decline of Rome had reached a higher plane of expression ; no poet after him so skilfully combined such elegance of technique and diction with such pungent thought. He could himself have little suspected that the Neo-Latin literature was already a thing of the past. He was in a sense its latest word, and his light shone with an almost solitary splendour. It was a dying glory. Buchanan was the sunset of the Renaissance. His work, as a whole, apart from its special interest in the story of Humanism, illustrated and typified the debt of Scotland to France. Of Buchanan himself it was lawful to say that he had some imperfections. As Scott said to excuse the foibles of Reuben Butler, the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster. That he took sides was true: the
VISIT TO KILLEARN xv
necessities of his time made him a politician — the necessities of his time and the needs of his country. A man of virile intellect, a deep student, a biting wit, a resolute and stubborn spirit, forceful rather than persuasive, Buchanan illustrated not only the praefer- vidum ingenium of his race, but the haughtiness of soul and the pride which had long before his day come to be regarded as national attributes. Out of careers like his the nations were wont to devise their heroes and to weave their garlands of memories. Scotsmen still assuredly greet across the ages in his person the fearless and tenacious spirit of Scottish liberty, when at the outset of another century they renew, in their tribute to Buchanan's memory, the laurel which the sixteenth century bestowed.
Lord Provost Bilsland, in name of the company, thanked Sir Archibald Lawrie and Miss Lawrie for their public spirit and kindness in inviting them there, and for the hospitality so cordially manifested.
Mr. James Buchanan, the President of the Buchanan Society, moved a vote of thanks to Dean Hutchison and Mr. Neilson.
After refreshments, served on the lawn, the party took leave of the host and hostess and drove to Killearn. There, under the skilful guidance of the Rev. Alex. Gordon Mitchell, a well-graced student and translator of Buchanan's poems, a visit was paid to the Buchanan obelisk in the village, to the ruined church, and to the modern church of Killearn. Before the company separated, Mr. Samuel Elliott, expressing his pleasure at being present as an American representative, proposed a vote of thanks to the Celebrations Committee. To this the Lord Provost responded. Dr. D. C. M'Vail proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. John S. Samuel, who replied.
EXHIBITION OF BOOKS AND RELICS.
A very valuable feature of the St. Andrews celebrations in July had been an exhibition of literary relics, consisting partly of books which had belonged to Buchanan himself, but being chiefly a bibliographical collection, showing a large number of the editions of Buchanan's various works and books relative to him from the sixteenth century down to the present day. Mr. Mait- land Anderson, the learned librarian of St. Andrews University, well deserved the congratulations he received from the savants at
xvi EXHIBITION OF RELICS
the Celebrations there on the success of his effort to bring together a fully representative collection, as nearly complete as time and circumstance allowed, of the books which attest Buchanan's vogue during his own time, and his reputation through the centuries between us and him. At Glasgow it was resolved to arrange for a re-exhibition of these Buchanan memorials, along with such additions as the further opportunity made possible. Mr. David Murray, was happily able to take the matter in hand. Mr. James L. Galbraith, Glasgow University Librarian, and Mr. F. T. Barrett, City Librarian, were associated in the task of collecting and arranging the exhibits — the burden and heat of the day in this respect falling on Mr. Galbraith, who conducted all correspondence with exhibitors and negotiations as to transmission and insurance. The task of collection and arrangement was simplified by the resources of the Glasgow libraries in supplying a large proportion of the books to be shown. Ready helpers were not wanting, such as Sir Archibald Lawrie, Sir A. W. Leith Buchanan, and Mr. Alex. Gray Buchanan. On all sides there was a hearty response to the application for rare volumes ; St. Andrews University was cordial and generous in the aid it afforded ; other Universities and the Faculty of Advocates, with equal courtesy, made available some of their cherished possessions. Public and private collections were in the same spirit forthcoming for the occasion. In addition to books and charters, portraits in considerable number were brought together. Although the personal relics were few, and the portraits not in all respects satisfactory, the exhibition as a whole appears to have been regarded from the first as a catholic and worthy grouping of material to show the stature of Buchanan and his impress upon his world.
The importance of the exhibition, however, lay in its biblio- graphical side. The volumes ran to several hundreds ; they comprised books which belonged to Buchanan, a profusion of editions of his works, and a selection of that vast literature of biography, criticism, and political controversy which is perhaps the final attestation of his force in history and his place among men of letters. It was therefore matter of congratulation that Mr. Murray was able to undertake the preparation of a bibliographical catalogue. The series of volumes themselves, carefully displayed in the cases by Mr. Galbraith so as to register the growth of Buchanan's reputation, gained not a little in interest, both historic
BUCHANAN BOOKS ETC. xvii
and critical, when the catalogue showed the various editions of his works and translations of them, as well as the tractates of con- troversy in orderly relation, with occasional notes, bibliographical and biographical, interspersed. No contemptible beginning in Buchanan bibliography was that made by Thomas Ruddiman two centuries ago; but the unused material available during these Celebrations, by the combined labours of Mr. Maitland Anderson, Mr. Galbraith, Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Murray, was such as to make possible a great advance towards a definitive bibliography.
The authorities of Glasgow University readily granted the use of the upper Library Hall for the exhibition, which was opened in presence of a large number of invited guests.
Lord Provost Bilsland, as chairman of the Celebrations Com- mittee, in opening the proceedings, expressed gratification at the large response to the invitation issued on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition. He referred to the previous celebrations at St. Andrews, and remarked that it was in no spirit of rivalry that they in Glasgow had arranged that there should be some fitting celebration in connection with the University of Glasgow. They also sought that Buchanan should be recognised not only as a scholar, but as a statesman and a patriot, and they were all very proud that Buchanan was a West-country man. At the preliminary meeting, held in the City Chambers, a very deep interest was manifested, and the sympathetic and most helpful support of the revered Principal of the University, Principal Story, and of the University authorities, encouraged them to go forward. Buchanan was a very warm friend of the University of Glasgow, and they also knew that he influenced Mary Queen of Scots and the Regent Morton in generous benefactions to the University, while he gifted a most valuable collection of his own books. These would form a very important feature of the exhibition. The owners of books, pictures, and other memorials had most willingly lent them to the exhibition, and the committee had been deeply indebted to Mr. David Murray for his admirable catalogue and bibliography, which would no doubt form a permanent addition to the records connected with Buchanan. The exhibition would serve an excellent purpose by deepening the interest in Buchanan and his life, and also his work for education in Scotland, and by showing this generation how much they were indebted to him. The committee in charge
b
xviii OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION
of the celebrations were deeply indebted to Principal Story. He had much pleasure in calling upon Principal Story to declare the exhibition open.
Principal Story l said, — The Lord Provost had spoken of the support and encouragement received from the University members, and had mentioned himself in particular. He could not accept at all any portion of the praise which the Lord Provost was inclined to give them for encouraging that demon- stration. The Lord Provost would remember that when he spoke to him at first, he (the Principal) was inclined to dissuade him, thinking that the celebrations at St. Andrews were likely to call out as much enthusiasm and as much sympathy as was to be found for the memory of Buchanan ; but they had been pleasantly disappointed, and the large number who had come there that day had shown that they were not calculating upon the depth of the feeling with regard to Buchanan which still existed, he was proud to say, in Scotland. There was no doubt his memory had suffered from its politics. Just as in Germany they might speak in vain about Erasmus unless they mentioned Luther, in Scotland they might speak in vain about Knox without mentioning the great humanist Buchanan ; and the debt which they owed to him for the impetus he gave to education and for the influence he exercised throughout Europe in her anxiety for learning and culture was not to be forgotten. They could not express themselves too warmly about it. He was delighted to see the different and interesting mementoes of Buchanan which were there, and which would repay examination. He was able that morning unexpectedly to add a little item to the things that were on the table. He found that he was in possession of a photograph of an old contemporary portrait which had hung for many a long day in the mansion-house of Auchinleck, and the photograph he spoke of, that photograph of Buchanan, was given to him by his friend, the last of the Boswells, so that it had a kind of double interest — first, as a contemporary portrait ; and second, as having been till now in the possession of that house. He hoped that the articles there exhibited would not merely be looked at and gaped at as curiosities and novelties, but that they would really be regarded with sympathetic eye, and that all those who had made it their business for some
1 This was the last public function in which Principal Story was able to take part. He died on Jan. 13, 1907.
BOOKS AND RELICS DESCRIBED xix
time to promote that show would feel that their opinion had been corroborated, and that there were those in Scotland by hundreds who were proud to remember and do reverence to the memory of George Buchanan.
Professor George Adam Smith moved a vote of thanks to Principal Story for opening the exhibition, and to the University authorities for giving the room for its display. They all felt that no gathering of the kind would be complete without the presence of Principal Story. No one could have more fitly opened the exhibition than the scholar who himself had done so much to illustrate and adorn so many periods of Scottish history, and no more suitable shelter for such an exhibition could be found than within the walls of that University.
Mr. David Murray said, — I would like, in a few words, to direct attention to some of the objects brought together in connection with this Commemoration. In the first place, we have a series of charters and other documents relating to the family of George Buchanan; five charters between 1461 and 1491, in favour of Thomas Buchanan his great grandfather ; others of later date in favour of Robert Buchanan his grandfather and Thomas Buchanan his father; and an interesting document of 1513, which mentions Agnes Heriot his mother, himself, and his brothers Patrick and Alexander. Then there are about a dozen portraits and copies of portraits of George Buchanan, and one belonging to the University believed to be a portrait of his brother Patrick ; and a large number of engraved portraits. In one of the cases will be found Boissard's Icones, which contains the earliest and probably the most authentic likeness in existence, having appeared as early as 1598, that is sixteen years after his death. There are several views of The Moss, Buchanan's birthplace, but the original house has long since gone ; views of the College de Sainte Barbe, where he taught, and of which he records his experiences in his elegy, Quam misera est conditio docentium literas humaniores Lutetiae. These are followed by views of Coimbra, whither he was called to be a professor in 1547 ; a photographic reproduction of part of the original proceedings in his trial before the Inquisition ; a photograph of the Convent of San Benito, where he was imprisoned ; a drawing of the Castle Vennel of Stirling, where he lived when acting as tutor to King James VI. ; photographs of his monument in the Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, and of his monument at Killearn. The
xx BOOKS GIFTED BY BUCHANAN
University of St. Andrews has lent us eleven volumes which were presented to the Library of St. Leonard's College by Buchanan. The first on the list is the De Gloria of Hieronymus Osorius, who was a fellow professor at Coimbra; and as the volume was published there in 1549, it may have been a presentation copy, but at any rate must have been acquired when he was there. Our own University Library has supplied nineteen volumes presented to it by Buchanan in 1578, when Andrew Melville was principal. All are in good condition and in their original bindings, one of which is a very pretty piece of work. The Strabo of 1516 bears the autographs of Patrick Buchanan and of Jacques Goupil, the famous physician of Paris. In a separate case there are other two volumes which belonged to Buchanan, one a Bible of 1532 and the other the Academicae quaestiones of Cicero, published at Paris in 1544. It bears his signature, and a former proprietor, D. Lyndesy of Edinburgh, has noted this and also that it cost him 30 shillings Scots in 1614.
An inscription on the portrait in the National Portrait Gallery proclaims it to be the face and features of Buchanan, and adds, " If you would know his mind search his writings." Turning to these, we see him not merely as a master of the Latin language, but as a clear and resolute thinker, and a writer of great force and point with an admirable gift of expression. He was acknowledged to be the most eminent poet of his time, and his poetry still lives not merely because of the excellence of its Latinity, and its beauty of form, but because it possesses the qualities of true poetry.
We have before us a goodly representation of his writings. His earliest work, the Rudimenta grammatices, was at least thirteen times printed between 1533 and 1556, and of these editions eight are on view. The Jephthah was published in 1554, and was at least four times reprinted separately, and about 120 times further along with others of his works. It has been five times translated into English; three times into French (one translation passing through four editions) ; into Italian and German ; and twice into Polish. There have been upwards of a hundred separate editions of his Paraphrase of the Psalms^ and many more along with others of his works. It has been translated both into English verse and English prose. His renderings have been twice set to music, by Joannes Servinus
PUBLICATION OF BUCHANAN'S WORKS xxi
in 1579 and by Statius Olthovius in 1585. The former was published at Lyons in five parts, and is so rare that most people thought that Thomas Dempster, who mentions it, was romancing. But there it is, and we have to thank Trinity College, Dublin, for sending it. The music of Olthovius was frequently reprinted. A dozen different editions are on exhibition.
Many of Buchanan's works were published in a somewhat haphazard fashion. The Psalms were in the hands of Henri Estienne for a considerable time, and when they were published this was apparently done without his knowledge. Many of his poems seem to have circulated in manuscript before they were printed. His Elegies were not published until 1567, but Joachim du Bellay had published a translation of the first one, under the title, U Adieu aux Muses, as early as 1552. The Franciscan was first printed in 1566, but as it got the author into trouble many years before, it must have been known in manuscript. The manuscript versions of his works do not appear to have been uniform either as regards contents or text. A selection from Buchanan's poems is appended to the second edition of Beza's poems published in 1569, presumably at Geneva. The selection differs in many important details from that of other editions and the textus receptus of Ruddiman.
Notwithstanding the labours of Ruddiman and David Irving, there is still a good deal to be learned regarding Buchanan and his friends and the history of his various works, by a careful examination of the numerous editions, when brought together in an exhibition such as this.
Buchanan was a man of mark and filled a large place in his day. He knew every one worth knowing in France, England, and Scotland. His dedications are all addressed to people of importance, and their terms indicate that he too was considered to be a person of importance.
The Library of this University has a large number of editions of Buchanan's works, mostly in the Hamilton and Euing col- lections. The late Sir William Hamilton was born in Glasgow. He was a student here, and his father, grandfather, and grand- uncle were professors here. He was intimately acquainted with the modern Latin poets, and at one time thought of writing Buchanan's life and publishing a critical edition of his works. William Euing was an esteemed citizen of Glasgow, a man
xxii FUNCTION IN BUTE HALL
of culture, a sound bibliographer, and a steady and judicious book collector. On his death in 1874 he bequeathed his library, rich in works relating to Scotland and to Scotsmen, to this University. The Hamilton collection is placed in a room at one end of this hall (the Upper Hall of the University Library) and the Euing in two rooms at the other end, while beyond it is the invaluable library of Dr. William Hunter, which has also supplied a few items for the exhibition.
Professor Ferguson made acknowledgment on behalf of the contributors.
Professor Jones, in moving a vote of thanks to the Lord Provost, also took occasion to refer to the connection between the University and George Buchanan, one of the greatest scholars, if not the greatest scholar, of this country.
THE QUATERCENTENARY ADDRESS.
The chief of the series of functions took place on the evening of ist November. In the Bute Hall the Rev. Principal Lindsay, of the United Free College, delivered his address.1
The audience reflected the widespread interest taken in the occasion. Invitations had been issued to about sixty scientific and antiquarian societies and public institutions, and the delegates, to the number of about two hundred and fifty in all, met in the Hunterian Museum.2
1 Before the Celebrations Committee drew up their programme the Glasgow University Historical Society had arranged for an address from Dr. Lindsay on Buchanan ; but, on a request from the Celebrations Committee, they readily agreed that it should form part of the larger movement. The whole arrangements for the meeting, held by the co-operation of the University authorities in the Bute Hall, were in the hands of the Glasgow University Historical Society, especially the presidents, Professor Dudley J. Medley, M.A. ; Rev. Professor Cooper, D.D., and Mr. W. S. McKechnie ; and hon. secretary, Mr. John L. Morison, M.A.
2 Among those present were Professors Reid, Sir Thomas M'Call Anderson, Stewart, Ferguson, Robertson, Cleland, Jack, Bower, Biles, Murdoch Cameron, Jones, Smart, Glaister, Cooper, Muir, Phillimore, Medley, Sir Hector C. Cameron, Samson Gemmell, Latta, Kerr, Dixon, Gregory, Gloag, Noel Paton, Davies, and the Right Rev. the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Dr. Niven ; Rev. Dr. John Smith, Partick ; Bailies Edward Watson, Shaw, Bruce Murray, and Campbell; Treasurer Stevenson, Dean of Guild Mason, Deacon-Convener Kirkwood, Master of Works Steele, Mr. A. W. Myles, Town Clerk ; Mr. James Nicol, City Chamberlain , Sir William R. Copland ; the Provosts of Paisley, Dumbarton, Govan, Partick, Clydebank, and Renfrew ; Professors G. A. Smith and Denney; Mr. Charles Russell, LL.D., Mr. John G. Kerr, LL.D., Mr.
QUATERCENTENARY ADDRESS xxiii
While the representatives of the different bodies l were gathering, an organ recital was given by Mr. Herbert Walton of the Cathedral. Shortly after eight o'clock the delegates, headed by the Chief City Officer, Mr. Macleod, and the Bedellus, Mr. Finlayson, proceeded to the Bute Hall.
Lord Provost Bilsland took the chair, having on his right Principal Lindsay and on his left Mr. David Murray. Grouped in semi-circle on the platform and occupying seats in front of the area were the other representatives. The spacious hall was filled, the audience including many ladies. Academic or official dress was worn.
The proceedings began with Psalm L, followed during the course of the function by Psalms XXIII. and C., in George Buchanan's paraphrase, all sung in the original Latin to the old music by members of the choir of the Cathedral under the conductorship of Mr. Herbert Walton. The music, trans- ferred from the contemporary rendering to the modern notation
John Hutchison, LL.D., Mr. Wm. Jacks, LL.D., Mr. James Curie, Melrose ; Mr. James MacLehose, Mr. Alan E. Clapperton, Mr. J. Peddie Steele, M.D., LL.D., of Florence; Mr. James A. Reid, Dr. W. L. Reid, Mr. David Murray, LL.D., Mr. J. D. G. Dalrymple, Monsieur F. J. Amours, Officier de 1'Instruction Publique, Mr. T. D. Robb, M.A., Mr. James Buchanan, M.A., Mr. J. N. Kiep, Mr. Archibald Craig, M.A., LL.B., Mr. John Keppie, Mr. George Eyre Todd, Very Rev. Dean Hutchison, D.D., Mr. A. M. Lindsay, M.A., ex-Treasurer Alex. Murray, Dr. D. C. M'Vail, Leonard Gow, LL.D., Rev. Dr. Donald Macmillan, Mr. John S. Samuel, and Mr. J. L. Morison.
!The Lord Provost and Magistrates, the University Court, the University Senate, Lecturers, etc. , at the University, the General Council of the University, United Free Church College, Glasgow, the Quatercentenary Celebrations Com- mittee, Anderson's College Medical School, Andersonian Naturalists' Society, Baillie's Institution Governors, Ballad Club, Buchanan Institution, Buchanan Society, Consular Association, Educational Institute of Scotland, Presbytery of Dumbarton, Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Faculty of Procurators, Glasgow Archaeological Society, Glasgow Art Club, Glasgow Athenaeum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Stirlingshire Society, Institute of Accountants, Institute of Architects, Institute of Journalists, Institute of Engineers and Shipbuilders, Iron and Steel Institute, Merchants' House, Natural History Society, Old Glasgow Club ; Parish Councils of Glasgow, Govan, Cathcart, Eastwood, and Killearn ; Provosts and Town Clerks of adjacent burghs ; Royal Glasgow Philosophical Society, St. Mungo's College Governors, St. Mungo's College Teaching Staff ; School Boards of Glasgow, Govan, Cathcart, Maryhill, Eastwood, and Killearn ; Scottish Patriotic Association, Sir Walter Scott Club, Society of Accountants, Society of Literature and Art, Stirling's Library Governors, Students' Representative Council, Students' Union, Technical College Governors, Technical College Teaching Staff, Trades' House, U.F. Presbytery of Dumbarton, Water of Endrick Society, and West of Scotland Agricultural College.
xxiv PRINCIPAL LINDSAY
by the Rev. Geo. Bell, M.A., Mus.D., was printed on the programmes distributed among the audience.
The Lord Provost, in introducing the Rev. Principal Lindsay, referred to the historic interest attaching to the occasion. It was fitting, he said, that this tribute should be paid to learning in that ancient seat of learning for which Buchanan did so much in his own day. But Buchanan was more than a mere student. He considered that others should have the benefits of learning, and no doubt to him and to his influence on his contemporaries was due no small share of the credit for the favourable position as to education our nation had so long enjoyed. They were doing honour to one who had for his most intimate friends the foremost scholars of Europe, one who carried with credit the name of Scotland wherever learning was valued. It was a source of deep regret to them all that the venerable Principal of the University was unable to be there to preside on that most interesting occasion. He alone could with fitting dignity and eloquence have re- presented the scholarship of Glasgow and its ancient University in the praise of Buchanan. Glasgow, although such a busy hive of industry, with its ships in every sea and its trade all over the world, possessed a University strong on the classical side, with its traditions going back beyond Buchanan's time, and yet was possessed to-day in an outstanding degree of all of the equipments for the adequate teaching of modern science. It was most appropriate that town and gown should be associated in the celebrations of that evening. Buchanan was a statesman as well as a scholar, and the influence from his life and from his love of education had shed its beneficent rays not only on scholars, but on citizens of every rank. It was their privilege to welcome there that evening a historian of European distinction, who was to deliver the memorial address. Principal Lindsay required no introduction to Glasgow audiences, especially those of the University. He was an authority of the foremost standing on European history. They had laid on him that evening a heavy task, yet a task that, from his accurate knowledge of the history of Europe during Buchanan's lifetime, no one was better able to perform. He was to address them on a figure unique in the history of Scotland, a busy but earnest student who left Scotland to bring back and maintain a fame such as no Scotsman had
VOTES OF THANKS xxv
reached before his day, and few, if any, since. European men of learning among Buchanan's contemporaries esteemed him as a scholar in the very front rank. His classical renown, along with his potency as a practical reformer, had earned for him that place in our national history that had led to these various commemorations of his four-hundredth anniversary. The future historians of Buchanan would recall the celebrations at St. Andrews, the visit to Buchanan's birthplace and the exhibition of memorials, and, above all, the oration of Principal Lindsay.
[The Address, revised, is given in extenso at pp. 1-32.] Professor Medley said : — As one of the Presidents of the University Historical Society, I have been entrusted with the pleasant duty of purposing to convey to Principal Lindsay the hearty thanks of this great, and representative assembly, for his able, interesting, and humorous address. You, my Lord Provost, in your remarks at the opening of the Exhibition yesterday, claimed George Buchanan for Scotland. I venture to think that the address this evening gives him his true position, 'and that in the light of what the lecturer has said, he may be claimed back for Europe. Indeed, that is the reason why this great gathering has come together in order to celebrate his memory. However interesting he may be to us in Scotland as a religious reformer, and as a political philosopher, we must remember that Protestantism was no new thing — there were Protestants throughout the Middle Ages — while the democratic sentiments of his political writings were perhaps the echo of the teaching of the Huguenot, and even the Jesuit writers of the time abroad, who, each as it suited them, were advocating the sovereignty of the people. It is as the foremost scholar of his day that George Buchanan has a unique claim upon us, and I cannot help remarking that it is a matter of peculiarly happy omen, that at the present moment in the evolution of our national education, and in a city so full of the modern spirit as this city of ours, so large an assembly should be willing to come together to celebrate the memory of a man whose highest educational effort was the composition of Latin verses, and whose whole contribution to learning was expressed in what we often impertinently call a dead language. We are grateful to Dr. Lindsay for putting the stores of his learning at our disposal on this most interesting occasion, and
xxvi BANQUET
we are glad to know that the address to which we have listened this evening, will have a foremost place in the memorial volume which is being prepared to perpetuate the memory of these celebrations.
On the motion of the Rev. Professor Reid, D.D., a vote of thanks was heartily accorded to Mr. Walton and the Cathedral Choir for their valuable services, and on the motion of Sir William Robertson Copland a similar compliment was paid to the Lord Provost, not only for presiding on this occasion but also for his services as Chairman of the George Buchanan Celebrations Committee. The Honorary Secretary of the Committee (Mr. John S. Samuel) also received the thanks of the meeting for his services.
BANQUET.
As the Jubilee of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (founded in 1856) was to be celebrated by a Banquet about the same time as the celebrations, it was thought desirable to merge with the function a special recognition of the Buchanan festivities. Accordingly the Jubilee Dinner of the Society was made at the same time a commemoration of the Buchanan Quatercentenary.
The banquet was held in the Windsor Hotel on the evening of 2nd November. Mr * J. D. G. Dalrymple, the president of the society, occupied the chair, and the croupiers were the three vice-presidents, Rev. Professor Cooper. Mr. George Neilson, and Mr. J. T. T. Brown. The company numbered about 150 gentlemen.1
Commemorative elements of the Banquet, as applicable to Buchanan, were visible on the toast list, upon which the mottoes were the words of Buchanan himself, selected by Mr J. T. T. Brown. The chief commemorative function of the evening,
1 Those present included the Lord Provost (Mr. William Bilsland), Sir A. W. Leith Buchanan, Bart., the Lyon King-at-Arms, Sir J. Balfour Paul ; Sir John Ure Primrose, Bart., LL.D. ; Sir W. R. Copland, Sir Archibald Lawrie, LL.D., Very Rev. Dean Hutchison, D.D., Mr. J. P. Steele, M.D., LL.D., of Florence; Professor Davidson, of Aberdeen ; Principal Lindsay, D.D., the Deacon-Convener (Mr. Kirkwood), Professor Ferguson, LL.D., Professor Hume Brown, LL.D., Dr. Honeyman, Mr. David Murray, LL.D., Mr. James A. Reid, Dean of the Faculty of Procurators, Professor Medley, Mr. William Wallace, LL.D., Rev. Dr. Gordon Mitchell, Rev. Dr. Donald Macmillan, Messrs. D. Hay Fleming, LL.D., J. M. Munro, Neil Munro, A. W. Gray Buchanan, William Young, James Buchanan and Messrs. W. G. Black and A. H. Charteris, joint Hon. Secretaries of the Society.
TOAST OF BUCHANAN'S MEMORY xxvii
however, was the quatercentenary toast proposed by Professor Hume Brown. His speech was in the following terms :
Mr. Chairman, Croupiers, and Gentlemen, — I am called upon to ask you to pay your votive homage to the memory, the immortal memory, of George Buchanan. While I am keenly conscious of the honour of proposing this toast, I can hardly conceal from myself the fact that I am to some extent engaged in a work of supererogation. The eloquent tributes paid to Buchanan during the last few days are still ringing in our ears. Only two days ago the venerable Principal of your University — a sterling Scot, if ever there was one, and of the true spiritual lineage of Knox and Buchanan and Andrew Melville — Dr. Story, passed a eulogy on Buchanan, characterized by all that verve and incision of which he is a master ; and only last evening, in his impressive oration, Principal Lindsay spoke of Buchanan with an eloquence which I must be content to follow with unequal steps. And, not so long ago, my friend, Dr. Neilson, standing by the very spot which gave the great man birth, paid a tribute to him which must have satisfied even the exacting homage of your honoured civic chief, who, as I understand, was reared under the very shadow of that towering column which commemorates Buchanan in his native Killearn. In these circumstances it might seem appropriate, and even becoming, that we should pay our vows in eloquent silence — with these echoes in our ears. But from the cradle to the grave we mortals are strangled by the bonds of convention, and one of these conventions is that a toast such as that with which I am charged should be accompanied by a commentary.
Gentlemen, if I interpret your feelings aright, we are honouring Buchanan this evening at once as a great writer, a great man, and a great Scotsman. Of his distinction as a writer there can surely be no question. For fully two hundred years he stood forth as Scotland's representative in the European republic of letters. To an astonished world, as his contemporaries assure us, he revealed the wondrous fact that the hyperborean North was capable of producing poetic genius. And, in truth, Buchanan achieved a feat in literature which it is given to only a few great ones to achieve : he wrote a book which is a representative product of the age to which he belonged ; for such we must consider his Trans- lation of the Psalms, expressing as it did in consummate form the ideals of the two great movements of the sixteenth century — enlightened piety conjoined with humane culture. It is true that,
xxviii TOAST OF BUCHANAN'S MEMORY
through the circumstance of his having written in a dead language, much of his virtue has gone out of him. Yet he may still remain an inspiration. One of the greatest of modern scholars, Jacob Bernays, in his life of the younger Scaliger, has sought to define the characteristics of Buchanan's poetic genius, and he finds its specific distinction in " French grace combined with Scottish solidity." Could there be a happier ideal after which Scottish artists and men of letters should diligently strive ? And may I not say in passing that, in point of fact, this is precisely the ideal at which certain artists of your own city have striven, and have even brilliantly realized?
But, Mr. Chairman, Buchanan was not only a great writer : he was, likewise, what does not necessarily follow — a great man. We have the consenting testimony to the fact from contemporaries who were themselves acknowledged to be among the great. When all is said, the measure of our worth, the measure of our moral and mental stature, is determined by the quality of the friends we keep and by the judgment they form of us. From this judgment there can be no appeal. Buchanan's friends were among the choicest spirits of Europe — men illustrious in letters, in arms, and in statesmanship, and illustrious by their virtue. Let me name but two of them — Roger Ascham, the purest and gentlest of souls, and Hubert Languet, of whom it is enough to say that he was the revered friend and master of the " last of the knights," the high-minded Sir Philip Sidney. There was indeed in Buchanan a soul of goodness as well as of greatness. Some of you may have read that beautiful letter, written with the trembling hand of age, in which he recommends the son of a friend to the Reformer Beza. Through that letter there surely passes the finest breath of humanity — noble gratitude, delicate sympathy, and a living interest in the highest welfare of aspiring youth. And where shall we find a finer incident in the lives of great men than that recorded by James Melville, and to which Principal Lindsay referred last evening — Buchanan, on the brink of the grave, teaching his man-servant the letters of the alphabet? It is a typical incident of a career consecrated with passion to the enlightenment of his fellows.
But, Mr. Chairman, we are so constituted that we cannot give our hearts even to the greatest of our countrymen if they do not eminently represent our national characteristics and sympathize with our national aspirations. It was the supposed lack of
ARCH^OLOGICAL MEETING xxix
patriotism on the part of the great Goethe that kept the hearts of his countrymen so long alienated from him. In the case of Buchanan we can have no such reserves. He was a Scotsman to the core of him — bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. His virtues, his failings, were those of his own people. Is there another proof of his patriotism needed than the fact that, through long years of disease, he toiled at his History of Scotland, with the express object of assuring to his country her due place among the nations ? But his patriotism was no foolish Chauvinism. In writing the national story, as he says in his own pithy phrase, his aim was to clear it of " Scottish vanity " as well as of " English lies." And, finally, let us not forget that he was the father of that famous phrase, praeferuidum tngenium Scotorum, for which so many Scottish orators have been grateful to him in the past and many more will be grateful to him in the future.
On these grounds, gentlemen, which I feel I have so inade- quately stated, I call upon you to drink in silence to the immortal memory of George Buchanan, one of the great spirits who have presided over our national destinies, who is one of the chief glories of our common country, and of whom one not too friendly to him has said that his countrymen would do well to grave his image in durable marble.
MEETING OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS AT THE BUCHANAN EXHIBITION.
What might be called a Buchanan Quatercentenary sitting of the Glasgow Archaeological Society was held on i5th November. It was the fiftieth annual general meeting of the Society. As the entire evening was to be devoted to com- munications on subjects connected with George Buchanan, it was arranged to hold the meeting in the Exhibition, while it was still open, in the Hall of the University Library. Mr. J. D. G. Dalrymple, the President, occupied the chair, and there was a large attendance.
Mr. David Murray said he was perfectly satisfied, from the examination he had made, that to anyone who would devote the necessary time and care there was a great deal yet to be learned regarding Buchanan's life and career. There was nothing new they could learn regarding Buchanan himself as an outstanding man> one of the biggest men of his age, and
xxx THOMAS MAITLAND
one of the greatest men that this country had ever produced. In reference to his biography, however — and he did not mean any disrespect to his biographers — he thought that there were still two questions that required specific study — that was to explain to this later world why Buchanan was such a great man. He was described on the title-page of his Paraphrase of the Psalms as the greatest poet of the age, and he had come down as that to the present time, but, as a matter of criticism, nobody, so far as he knew, had yet taken it up and shown why that statement was correct. He thought that someone might take it up and deal with Buchanan as a poet, not as a Latinist, for there had been great Latinists besides him. And then the other question that required specific study was Buchanan as a thinker. He thought there was still great room for so dealing with him.
Mr. W. S. McKechnie read a paper on "Thomas Maitland," one of the prolocutors in Buchanan's celebrated dialogue, De Jure Regni. He was a brother of the famous Secretary Mait- land of Lethington. They first heard of him as having matriculated at St. Andrews. Then at an early period he was found studying in France, and using great zeal for the Reformed faith, being instrumental 'in the conversion of Thomas Smeaton, afterwards Principal of Glasgow University. At a later period they found the same Thomas Maitland proceeding to Flanders with Lord Seton in order to obtain the help of Spanish gold for Queen Mary from the Duke of Alva, then engaged in crushing Protestantism in the Netherlands. The last glimpse they got of him was travelling through France with Smeaton, to Italy, Maitland dying during the journey.
Mr. Gray Buchanan, Mr. J. T. T. Brown, Monsieur F. J. Amours, and Mr. George Neilson each made a short statement in outline of the propositions set forth in their contributions to this volume.
THE MEMORIAL VOLUME.
It only remains to indicate as briefly as may be the aim and scope of this volume. The controlling idea of its design was to make it a Festschrift — to use a German term which has no current English equivalent — in which an endeavour should be made to group along with Principal Lindsay's address
MEMORIAL VOLUME xxxi
a number of specialist studies by which, on at least some lines, the historical criticism of Buchanan's works might be advanced. The opportunity seemed favourable for such a hope, and although the accomplished volume differs in some details from what was at first projected, the committee entrusted with the preparation of the Memorial Volume has no desire to excuse imperfections on the ground of any material discrepancy between design and execution.
The nucleus of the volume, Principal Lindsay's Address, is a broad survey of Buchanan's career in its outstanding aspects. The essay which gained the prize of one hundred guineas given by Dr. Peddie Steele of Florence was with the courteous goodwill of Dr. Steele offered by the essayist, Mr. T. D. Robb, and was welcomed as a becoming accessory to the volume. Mr. Robb's essay specialises on Buchanan's great place in the classical movement of literature in the sixteenth century. Mr. Wm. Carruthers, F.R.S., contributing by special invitation of the editorial committee, deals with the outward semblance of Buchanan as exhibited in the portraits — a subject on which he has already made important propositions. Mr. David Murray's annotated catalogue, showing the extraordinary diffusion of Buchanan's works throughout Europe in his own time, as well as the re-issues in subsequent centuries, applies to his reputation one of the permanent tests of its endurance; for literary renown after a century or two can exhibit no more signal proof of an author's continuing life than the frequency with which his biography or his work continues to engage the printing press. The Rev. Dr. Bell's chapter on the old musical settings of Buchanan's verse will perhaps, for not a few readers, emphasise the force of the bibliographical evidences of his widespread contemporary fame. Nor is bibliography necessarily impersonal : the Rev. Patrick H. Aitken's comments on the marginal scholia and variant readings marked on the pages of the stately and well kept classical tomes, which were once the companions of Buchanan's studies, contain matter of service for discovering what manner of student he was. He reminded the Inquisition in 1550 in good round terms that the company he had frequented in Paris for many years was that of the most cultured society that city could boast; it is evident from the books he owned that his tastes as a bookman were not less select. They were those of a scholar who revealed his
xxxii MEMORIAL VOLUME
self-reliant pride in the inscription, Omnia mea mecum porto. Peacham's allusion to Buchanan's "rugge gown" quoted by Mr. John Edwards may be as new to many as Ben Jonson's stricture on his corrupting the ear of James VI. for Latin verse. Mr. A. W. Gray Buchanan's short chapter on the pedigree may well remind us that Buchanan was, as he himself claimed, a man of family, albeit "ancient rather than opulent." It was only his political and ecclesiastical principles that were demo- cratic; his life is tinged throughout with aristocracy. There was more than a jest in his preferring a mitre to a cowl. Queen Mary, Randolph tells us, might have made him an abbot, "but he cannot preach." His verses on a meeting of bishops in France are the compliments of a poet, who writes as socially on their own plane. This side of the man was finely brought out in the courtly lines he made in honour of Archbishop Dunbar's dinner party in his palace at Glasgow, when in accordance with classical etiquette — doubtless in compliment to Buchanan — the company "equalled the number of the Muses." Mr. Renwick's note on his connection with Glasgow University brings out a gratifying relationship between Queen Mary, Buchanan, and the interests of national education. Contributions to criticism proceed from various standpoints. Translation is perhaps the most gracious form of criticism. Snatches of verse renderings are given by two experienced students of that cult, the Rev. Dr. Gordon Mitchell and Mr. T. D. Robb. Early prose renderings of Buchanan's History, one of 1634 in Scots, the other of later date in English, are edited by Monsieur Amours and Mr. Barrett from manu- scripts supposed in each case to be unique. The annotations of the Franciscanus exhibit something of the poet's method of workmanship, where they disclose the historical foun- dations on which his satire was built. Mr. J. T. T. Brown in like manner traces, in the Baptistes, the influence of history in the sixteenth century j while his main theme, although illustrating the political influence of the poem, in translations, on the history of the Stewart line, is a problem of poetical influence and a question of the authorship of a translation, in which the characteristics of a Puritan politician appear in singular com- bination with a gift of majestic diction. There is thus a distinct connection in theme with that treated by Mr. W. S. McKechnie. The dialogue De Jure Regni is the philosophical discussion
MEMORIAL VOLUME xxxiii
of the problem of tyranny — the problem of the tragedy of Baptistes — and Mr. McKechnie's essay on the dialogue presents in a new grouping the facts for a revised verdict on that famous deliverance on political science. Thus scrutinised, after the lapse of three and a half centuries since the treatise was penned to meet the temporary exigencies of a national crisis, its permanent political sagacity may well appear from the fact that so much of its essential doctrine has been both illustrated and justified by the subsequent course of European history.
These diverse yet convergent studies, general and special, cover a considerable field of criticism, history, and exposition, and may warrant the hope that, as some contribution to the vital knowledge of Buchanan's life and thought, they will not unfitly take their place in the Glasgow Memorial of the Quatercentenary of his birth.
GEO. NEILSON.
QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES
GEORGE BUCHANAN
THE u Scot Abroad " was as common in the sixteenth century as in the twentieth. German artists, like Albert Diirer, sketched him, and Frenchmen made epigrams about him. Every country from Muscovy to Spain knew him ; but France was his second fatherland and Paris his sacred city.
George Buchanan was one of those wandering Scots, better known than his neighbours, for he had a richer literary faculty and was an actor in one of the most stirring scenes in his country's history. He had, like most of them, a long pedi- gree and an empty purse, and more fortunate than many, he won an honourable position in his own country long before his death.
Born at Killearn in February, 1506, he was a Celt by the father's side, was proud of his Highland blood, and always took pains to let the world know that whatever good qualities the Lowland Scots might possess, they were, after all, second-rate Scotsmen. The boy was an apt scholar, and an uncle furnished him with the money needed to send him to Paris to study in its famous University, the goal of every Scottish student's ambition. He went there in 1520 — the
2 STUDENT LIFE IN PARIS
year in which Luther electrified Europe by burning the Pope's Bull ; in which Magellan sailed through the straits which bear his name and first of all Europeans floated on the unknown Pacific ocean ; in which Raffael Sanzio died.
The boy of fourteen was thrown into the seething caldron of Parisian student life. He was too young to be consciously influenced by the warring forces of that time of strife and of change ; and yet they set their mark upon him and deter- mined his future career. We have good reason to believe that he was not housed in one of the many colleges, and we may be well assured that he did not live in one of the pensionates or students' boarding-houses which were open to the sons of wealthy men, and to these alone.1 He must have done what perhaps the majority of his fellow-students did then, — hired a small garret room at an exorbitant rent 2 in one of the many streets which clustered round the Place Maubert, or in the Rue d'Ecosse near the College of Ste. Barbe, streets which have survived all the alter-
1The students of Paris were divided into four, or perhaps five, classes, according to the way in which they were lodged : the bursars, who belonged to one of the numerous colleges and lived within it ; the pensionaires, who could afford to live in a boarding- house kept usually by a scholar of repute ; the cameristes, rich young men who lived in a private set of rooms under the charge of a tutor ; and the martinets, who hired small apartments and lived under no supervision. To these were added the galoches, who were students who had attended classes for ten or even twenty years. Cf. Quicherat, Histoire de Sainte-Barbe (1860, Paris), i. 76.
2 " What expenses ! The hire of a little room, dirty and confined, costs more than all one's expenses at Louvain, even when one lives there in a luxurious fashion." Illustrium et clarorum inrorum epistolae (Leyden, 1617), p. 61 (Letter of J. Dryander to G. Cassander).
STUDENT LIFE IN PARIS 3
ations of the centuries. So many contemporary descriptions of students have descended to us that we have no difficulty in seeing the boy's daily life and its surroundings. We can fancy him getting up from his poor bed in a corner of the tiny garret very early, for he had to be at his class by six o'clock, lighting his little lantern, washing and dressing, (though I have my doubts if either operation was frequent,1) slinging the strap which held pen and ink-bottle round his neck, tucking the case which held his precious papers under his arm, descending the long narrow stairs, drawing the bolts of the low outer door, fastening on his pattens to keep his feet above the filth of the streets, wending his way to one of the many class-rooms belonging to the German Nation?1 It was a small dirty room, with rushes or straw for a carpet, and a three-legged stool for the sole bit of furniture. The teacher sat on the stool, his Virgil in the one hand and a stout cane in the other. The pupils sat on their heels and wrote on their knees. The boy lived mostly on bread, taking no small pains to conceal it until he reached his
JThe details of the personal habits of Paris students in the sixteenth century are better left unwritten.
2 From 1252 on to 1792 the University of Paris was organised in seven orders or corporations — the three * superior ' Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine, and the four Nations which made the Faculty of Arts. The Nations were, that of France, which included students from the South of France and of Europe, that of Germany or the students of the North of Europe, and those of Normandy and Picardy for the students of these districts. At the head of each of the three superior Faculties was a Dean and at the head of each Nation a Procurator. Students from Scotland and England belonged to the German Nation.
4 LATIN VERSE-MAKING
garret ; for some of the older students lived by robbing the smaller and younger ones of their scanty viands. One small student has left on record that he was so frequently pillaged that he was days without food and often chased dogs when he saw them carrying a bone, that he might have something to gnaw.1 The life was so hard, the environment so demoralising, that only the strong were able to survive it. Feeble- ness, physical or moral, was death. No wonder that two years of it broke Buchanan's health and that he was fain to return to his native land when his uncle's death cut off supplies.
What had he gained to repay him for these hardships ? He had spent almost all his time in mastering the art of making Latin verses, partly under compulsion and partly, he tells us, because he liked it. That was the net result of it all.
Scholarship, that hardest of taskmasters, had already claimed him. What mattered semi-star- vation, cold, dirt, stench, if the boy could only learn the secrets of the style of the great poets of antiquity, and experience the intense joy of being able to imitate the cadence of their verse ? Even in our own busy materialist age there are men who succumb to the witchery of Latin verse-making, and are never happier than when they are attempting to rival the great masters of antiquity. In the sixteenth century the power of the sorcery was stronger and the devotion of its victims more intense.
Those two years in Paris fixed Buchanan's
1H. Boos, Thomas und Felix Platter (Leipzig, 1876), p. 20.
THE NEW LEARNING AND THE OLD 5
fate. He was drawn perforce to the scholar's life, and to the New Learning which was then fighting the old. In the battle between Scholastic and the Classics, Buchanan was clearly on the side of the Classics from the beginning. Whether the lad had any means of knowing during these prentice years of his, what the old learning as practised in Paris was, is unknown ; but the chances are that a curious Scotch youth would use all his opportunities. The Halls in which the great Scholastic debates, intellectual tourna- ments, were held stood open to all who belonged to the University, and were crowded by a mob of students and teachers who welcomed each intellectual thrust with shouts of applause as if they had been " in the theatre at Pompeii." Henri Lorit,1 a Swiss student, writing to Erasmus (1517), relates how he had attended one of these great debates, and says that he could scarcely restrain his laughter at the deadly earnestness with which the disputants argued and the audience listened to long debates about mere nothings. Both sides, he tells us, handled our first parents severely, because they would eat apples when harmless pears were abundant. He was glad to get back to his Horace.
There is nothing to tell us whether Buchanan ever heard of or thought about the writings of
1 Henri Lorit, from Glarus (Glareanus), became a well-known Humanist. He corresponded with Erasmus and Zwingli. He kept a pension or boarding-house for Swiss students in Paris, and flattered himself that he had organised it on the model of the Roman Republic. The older pupils formed a Senate, in which the Preceptor was consul and the others were the comitia. Herminjard, Correspondence des Reformateurs dans les pays de langue fran$aise, i. 31.
6 IN THE SCOTS COLLEGE
Luther which had reached Paris in the early months of 1519, and were being eagerly read by all who had any pretensions to learning ; but the boy could scarcely have missed seeing Melanchthon's sarcastic pamphlet against the theologians of the Sorbonne hawked about the streets of the student quarter in spite of legal prohibition in the year I52I.1
Back in Scotland he took part in the disastrous expedition of the Duke of Albany — merely to see, he said, what war was like. His curiosity cost him a severe illness. On his recovery he went to St. Andrews ; but the lad who had tasted the New Learning in Paris had nothing but contempt for the scholastic prelections of John Mair, who was then supposed to shed a lustre on his native land, and who is now remembered by the jibe of Rabelais and the epigram of Buchanan.2
A year later he was in Paris — this time a bursar at the Scots College, which gave him lodging and food. The accommodation in such a small college was so wretched and the food so scanty and bad that he probably fared worse than during his earlier visit. It is said that Scotch students cultivate the muses on a little oatmeal. Buchanan's fare was
1 Herminjard, Correspondence des Rdformateurs dans les pays de langue fran^aise (Geneva, 1878), i. 70 n. ; cf. Memoires d>un Bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francis /. (Paris, 1854), p. 104.
2 In the imaginary library of St. Victor in Paris, Pantagruel found " Majoris, De modo faciendi puddinos? near " Bedae, De optimitate triparum." Buchanan's epigram was : —
In Joannem solo cognomento Majorem,
ut ipse in fronte libri sui scripsit. Cum scateat nugis solo cognomine Major,
Nee sit in immense pagina sana libro : Non mirum titulis quod se veracibus ornat :
Nee semper mendax fingere Greta solet.
REGENT AT STE. BARBE 7
less wholesome — mouldy bread, unsavoury fish,1 and red vinegar dignified with the name of wine. He soon made his mark. He graduated in 1528, and next year was selected to be one of the regents at Ste. Barbe, the most renowned college in Paris. Buchanan was fairly launched on his career.
The promotion from scholar to teacher did not ensure an easier life. The college gave him lodging and food ; for the rest he was dependent on the scanty fees of pupils. In the most auto- biographical of his poems, " On the woes of teachers of the humanities in Paris," he has depicted the hardships of his self-chosen lot. After studies prolonged far into the night, the tired young regent flung himself on his bed to be wakened by the hoarse voice of the college watcher announcing that it was four o'clock. At five the college bell clanged, and teacher and students gathered in a bare room. Then his worst trials began. The students were sleepy (and who can blame them?); they cared nothing for the sublime passages of Virgil or Horace. They yawned and yawned ; one contemplated a great hole in his boots, another mourned the loss of his stockings, a third was writing home-letters instead of taking notes ; the teacher lost all patience, his formidable rod came into play, and the yawns gave place to groans and sobs. Then came Mass, and after it an insufficient meal. The classes were resumed, the scenes of the morning repeated themselves ; then came a scanty supper, and the wearied teacher began his night work again. The picture is surely overdrawn.
1 Compare the description of Erasmus in his Colloquy,
8 THE NEW LEARNING IN PARIS
Buchanan found time during these years to make the acquaintance of many distinguished Humanists. He was a friend of the great Bude ; he was familiar with the Cop household ; he had leisure enough to pen biting epigrams on the enemies of the New Learning.
Whatever his lot was we are told that the young Scot revolutionised the teaching of the college, and through it of the University. He discarded the antiquated Latin grammar of Alexander de Ville- dieu, adopted the grammar of Linacre, the English Humanist, translated it into Latin, and made it his text-book. He became one of the leading classical scholars in Paris.
Let us look at his surroundings. Humanism or erudition had been growing in Paris during the fifteen years between Buchanan's first coming and his appointment as regent at the college of Ste. Barbe. Ever since young Francis de Valois had ascended the throne of France, he had cherished the dream of creating a great Humanist College which would be for the New Learning what the medieval University of Paris had been for the old. Erasmus was to be at its head, and he was ex- pected to gather round him the flower of European scholarship. Bude, the greatest Humanist France had produced, had drafted the scheme, and Mar- guerite of Navarre, the king's sister and the patroness of struggling students and reformers, had done her best to keep her brother up to the mark. But Erasmus was too cautious to surrender his liberty, and knew himself too well to believe that he could rule a band of scholars. Other difficulties combined for years to prevent the creation of the
THE ROYAL LECTURERS 9
new institution. In 1530, however, a beginning was made. College, in the sense of buildings, there was none ; but a band of distinguished scholars was collected who were variously called "the royal lecturers/' the "readers of the King in the University," or more simply, "professors in the University." The first chairs established were those of Greek and Hebrew ; then followed soon afterwards Latin and Mathematics and several others. The year 1530, therefore, marks an era in French scholarship. Between 1530 and 1547, Pierre Danes, a French nobleman, Toussain, the friend of Erasmus, Strazel, Cheradame and Corone taught Greek ; Guidacerius, one of Marguerite of Navarre's Italian scholars, Vatable, Paradis and Restaud de Coligny, Hebrew ; Orence Fine and Duhamel, Mathematics and Geography ; Latomus and Galland, Latin ; Vicomercato, Greek and Latin Philosophy; and Vidius, Medicine. These "royal professors " were almost all Frenchmen, all about the same age, and all imbued with the spirit of free enquiry. They made the new institution what it was meant to be — an association of teachers all inspired with the thought of intellectual progress, insisting on freeing knowledge from the traditions of the medieval church, bending all their energies to display the intellectual treasures of antiquity to the present and to future generations. They made it the opposite of the University — no exclusive corporation, wedded to the past and impervious to new light from whatever quarter it might come, but a throbbing heart of intellectual life making knowledge circulate through France.
The class-rooms of these " royal professors " were
io ESTIENNE'S BOOKSHOP
open to all well-conducted students who desired to learn more than they were taught in the old colleges. The subjects of their prelections were advertised on placards posted up at the corners of the streets in the student quarters. Time, which wears away strong things, sometimes preserves the most fragile. Two of these placards gazed upon by French students in 1532 have remained stored In the University archives. One says : " To- morrow morning, at 7 o'clock, in the College de Cambrai, Agathias Guidacerius, royal professor, will continue his lecture on the Psalms — subject of lecture the XXth Psalm. On Tuesday, at two o'clock one of his pupils will teach the Hebrew Alphabet and the grammar of Moses Rinitius." Another reads : " On Monday, at 2 o'clock, in the College de Cambrai, P. Danes, professor royal in the Greek language, will comment on the book of Aristotle. ..." The old placard is torn, and we do not know what book of Aristotle was to be commented upon.
The great printing house of the Estiennes was affiliated by the King to the new royal college — a second fount of learning. Robert Estienne's book- shop in the street St. Jean de Beauvais became the meeting place of scholars. There came Guillaume Bude", the professors in the Royal College, Lefevre d'Etaples, the elder Scaliger, Petit, Clement Marot, and many more. The shop was often graced by the presence of the gentle and learned Queen of Navarre. Francis I. himself frequently visited his favourite printer, and brought the grandees of the Court in his train. Buchanan, reserved Scot as he was, must have often visited this club of
THE SORBONNE n
learned men (his epigrams show that he knew some of them) ; for the great printer and publisher, who once kept the King waiting for him until he had corrected a precious proof sheet, delighted to welcome every one with a rising reputation for scholarship.
The foundation of the Royal College had other consequences than furnishing a centre for the New Learning. It was looked upon as a challenge to the old University which that close corporation was not slow to answer. The University was dominated by its theological faculty, the Sor- bonne,1 and the Sorbonne was ruled by Noel Beda, a fanatical Schoolman as pitiless as he was fearless — a man in whom the reactionary spirit of the 1 6th century was incarnate. Beda knew his power and was not afraid to use it in things great or small. He ruled the old University of Paris, which for two centuries and a half had been the last court of appeal for every intellectual question, and had frequently resisted the decisions of both Pope and King. He could for the most part count on the support of that peculiarly conservative body, the Parlement of Paris. He had to back him the ablest of the King's ministers, the Chancellor Duprat, who hated all learning and every project of reform. More than all he could command the fanaticism of the larger portion of the citizens and students of Paris. He was a narrow-minded, conscientious, fearless partizan — the forerunner of
lln 1253 Robert Sorbon, chaplain to St. Louis, King of France, founded a college which afterwards gave its name to the Faculty of Theology. These colleges were all originally hospices for poor students ; latterly they became schools with teachers or regents, the poor students remaining as bursars.
12 STUDENT PARTY SONGS
those leaders of the Catholic League who, half a century later, preferred to convulse the kingdom by civil war rather than admit the claims of Henry IV. to the throne of France. It is pos- sible, too, that his organisation of the more fanatical students furnished the precedent of a still more formidable association which still exists. For in the years when Buchanan was teaching in Ste. Barbe, a Spanish student much older than his fellows haunted the class-rooms of the colleges and was seen limping along the streets of the students' quarter. He had a longish oval face, high narrow forehead, and keen black eyes which blazed with an excitement otherwise sternly suppressed. He spoke but seldom, answered in monosyllables to most questions ; but he went about watchfully observant of every- thing and everyone in the great city. His name was Inigo de Recalde de Loyola, and he was soon to be known as Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. The streets of the student quarter resounded with vocal warfare. As he went about he heard the savage party song of the Sorbonnist student wishing every innovator a speedy death :
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 defiant answer ran thus :
La Sorbonne, la bigotte
La Sorbonne se taira ! Son grand hoste, TAristote, De la bande s'ostera !
STUDENT PARTY SONGS 13
Et son escot, quoi qu'il coste, Jamais ne soulera !
La Sorbonne, la bigotte,
La Sorbonne se taira ! Qui a des ailes si hotte (se les ote (?)), Car plus il ne volera ! Et de Lyra, qui radotte, Desormais ne se lira!
La Sorbonne, etc.
Bonaventura cagotte Plus ne s'aventuera ! Thomas, qui tourne et tricotte, Plus rien ne taquinera! La Sorbonne, etc.
Ocean portera la hotte, Et ailleurs hoquinera ! Durand et telle cohorte, Longtemps plus ne durera ! La Sorbonne, etc.
La ou la Clarte se boute, L'obscurite sortira ! L'Evangile qu'on rapporte Le Papisme chassera! La Sorbonne, etc.
La Saincte Escriture toute Purement se preschera, Et toute doctrine sotte Des hommes on oublira ! La Sorbonne, etc.
Jesus-Christ, qui nous conforte, Es Coeurs des siens regnera ! Quoy que Sorbonne fagotte, La Foy plus esclairera !
La Sorbonne, la bigotte,
La Sorbonne se taira i 1
1 Bulletin de la Socitte de VHistoire de Protestantisme francaise, xii. 129. This anti-Sorbonnist students' song of 1530 was sung to the tune : Je tiens la femme bien sotte^ etc. I have not been able to recover the whole of the Sorbonnist song.
i4 BEDA AND THE NEW LEARNING
The first form which Loyola's celebrated Society took was an association of Romanist students bound to combat heresy in every form, suggested, I have little doubt, by the association of Sorbonnist students who obeyed Beda.
Nicholas Beda was whole-hearted in his detes- tation of novelties of all kinds. The medieval Latin was good enough for him, and he had no desire to see his students acquainted with the literature of a pagan antiquity. Greek was a dangerous speech ; it was the mother of heresy. Hebrew was the language of Judaism and ought not to pollute the ears of Christians. The study of both led to disastrous consequences ; for it took the interpretation of Scripture out of the hands of the Church and gave it over to scholars. In his eyes the slightest concession to the New Learning was to be denounced. To exchange the time-honoured grammar of Alexander Ville- dieu for that of Linacre was as bad as to doubt papal infallibility. Hence it was that religious reformers, the admirers of the New Learning, and those who felt the thrill of the Renaissance were forced into fellowship though their ends and aims of life might be very different. Clement Marot and men like him were ranked among the religious reformers, although it is probable that they had come to no decision on the burning religious question of the day.
The founding of the Royal College in 1530 was the beginning of a long struggle which gradually developed into the religious wars which convulsed France for half a century. Men had to take sides. Buchanan did not hesitate, as many a
BUCHANAN IN PORTUGAL 15
biting epigram against the obscurantists of the Sorbonne testifies.
After three years' drudgery in the College of Ste. Barbe, Buchanan left it to become tutor and guardian of the young Earl of Cassilis. This led to his return to his native land and to his introduction to the court of James V. His name twice appears in the accounts of the king's Treasurer as receiving so many ells of " Pareis blak" to make a gown and other liveries becom- ing a scholar. Incited, it is said, by his royal master, and imitating Rabelais, he wrote a long and trenchantly sarcastic poem against the Fran- ciscans, where scurrilous stories of the I4th and 1 5th centuries were combined with much more modern scandal in a scathing attack, couched in elegant latinity, on the venerable and degenerate Order. No royal favour could protect the author. He had to flee the country, and in due time reappeared in his beloved Paris.
This time it was no city of refuge. Cardinal Beaton, as bitter an obscurantist as Noel Beda himself, had determined to revenge the Francis- cans by the punishment of the daring satirist. He was in the French capital as the ambassador from Scotland, and the Scotch alliance meant a great deal to France at the moment. Buchanan betook himself quietly to Bordeaux, where his intimate friend Andre de Gouvea was at the head of a college where the New Learning was culti- vated with enthusiasm. A Chair of Latin was soon found for the Scotch Humanist, and he spent some happy and prolific years there.
It was this connection with Gouvea which led to
1 6 BUCHANAN IN THE INQUISITION
Buchanan's disastrous expedition to Portugal. The King of Portugal, John 1 11.^ desirous to introduce the New Learning into his country, proposed to restore the old and decayed University of jCojm- bra, and invited Gouvea to undertake the task. Gouvea collected a band of scholars in whom he trusted, and took them with him to Portugal. Buchanan was naturally included. He must have had some hesitation, when he remembered how powerful the monks were in that kingdom.
Andre de Gouyea^died about the end of 1 547, and Buchanan's troubles began soon afterwards. He, with other professors in the Coimbra College, was seized, conveyed to Lisbon, and brought before the Inquisition there. Biographers have had to pass over Buchanan's experiences in Portugal because their only authority was a brief account contained in his autobiography, and various con- jectures have been hazarded about the reasons for his seizure and trial. They have been attributed, with more or less plausibility, to the enmity of Cardinal Beaton, to the vengeance of the Fran- ciscans, or to the desire of the new but powerful Society of Jesus to gain possession of the College at Coimbra. Within the last few weeks full infor- mation has been placed at our disposal. The records of the Inquisition at Lisbon have been searched and the official minutes of the trial of Buchanan and his companions in tribulation have been published. We now know that, in conse- quence of information laid before the Holy Office, the Inquisitor General of Portugal, Cardinal Prince Dom Henrique, issued a commission ordering its members to make inquiries in Paris concerning
THE INQUISITION AT LISBON 17
" the mode of life and habits of the Portuguese and the foreigners who came to this kingdom (Portugal) to reside and teach in the University of Coimbra."1 They were ordered in all secrecy to hear the evidence of Friar Joam Pinheiro and "such other witnesses as he might indicate." The commission is dated October i7th, 1549. The * inquest began on November 22nd, and the last witness was examined on December 2ist, 1549. Six months later (June 27th, 1550) the report of the depositions was forwarded to the Inquisitor General who laid it before the Supreme Council. The commission had been ordered to make inquiries about all the professors at Coimbra ; their depositions refer to three only, Buchanan and two Portuguese, Joam da Costa, Principal since the death of Gouvea, and Diogo de Tieves. A trial was ordered. The three persons inculpated in the depositions were examined again and again. After each examination a summary of the questions and answers appears to have been read over and signed by the judges and the prisoner. It is from these records, attested by the name of Buchanan, signed in his clear handwriting, that our knowledge of his treatment comes.
The names of the accusers were not revealed. The Inquisition was always careful to keep the accusers hidden. But the records of the trial make it evident that neither Cardinal Beaton, nor the Franciscans, nor the Jesuits had anything to do with the accusation. The Society of Jesus did
1 George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition : the records of his trial with a translation thereof into English, facsimiles of some of the papers, and an introduction, by Guilherme J. C. Henriques. Lisboa, 1906 (December).
B
1 8 THE INQUISITION AT LISBON
gain possession of the College of Coimbra, but not till five years after Buchanan's trial. His fellow prisoners believed that the real accuser was Diogo Gouve"a, the uncle of Andre, who had been deposed from the office of Principal to make room for his nephew and the new professors, and had deter- mined to revenge himself. The evidence appears to justify their suspicions that private malice set in motion the machinery of the Holy Office.
The depositions against Buchanan declared that he was "badly disposed to the faith," that he "was / of the sect_of Luther."1 or at least consorted with men like Nicholas Cop who were of that sect, that he had made jokes about the usages of the Church, that he had eaten flesh during Lent, that he had argued, quoting St. Augustine as his authority, that the body of our Lord was in the Eucharist only symbolically (como em synal somente), and that while in Scotland he had consorted with Jews and had partaken with them their Paschal Feast.
It ought to be remembered that at this time Buchanan had never seriously studied the religious question which was disturbing Europe. He had maintained the position of Erasmus and most of the Humanists. He was content to represent himself as a faithful son of the medieval Church, but at liberty to criticise its abuses. From this point of view the answers he made to the questions based on the depositions appear to be singularly straightforward, prudent and courageous. He avowed that he had had doubts, that he had been
1 Nothing shows the place Luther held in the Reformation of the sixteenth century like the fact that reformers of all kinds and in all countries were commonly called followers of Luther.
THE INQUISITION AT LISBON 19
attracted by certain Lutheran doctrines, that his mind had wavered more than once ; he admitted that he had written against the Franciscans, and gave reasons for so doing ; he declared that he had never consorted with Jews in Scotland (adding with a touch of sarcasm that there were no Jews in his country) ; and in the end he professed himself willing to submit to the Church.
His conduct contrasts very favourably with that of the other accused, and it should be noted that he was not charged, as they were, with any offences against morals.
In the end Buchanan was sentenced to make full abjurajd£n__gf fris errors, and to be imprisoned in the monastery ojf S t. jBento_ at the pleasure of the * Inquisitor General. During his confinement he solaced himself with translating the Psalms into J-atin verse and with other poesies. After a detention of about seven months the Cardinal Prince permitted him to leave the monastery on condition that he did not quit the town of Lisbon, and on the last day of February (1552) he was set completely at liberty. He left Portugal in a Cretan ship which took him to England.
Between the date of his escape from Portugal and his settlement in Scotland, Buchanan was in France, sometime a regent in one of the colleges in Paris, sometime tutor and private secretary in the household of Marshal de Brissac.
Hitherto Buchanan had been simply a Humanist, content to live and die a member of the medieval Church, although he knew and fearlessly satirised its many abuses. During the last five years of his life in France he set himself seriously to
20 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE
consider the great religious problem of his age, in order to determine what side he ought to take. Slowly, as became a scholar, he decided that he must throw in his lot with the reformation party. < / It is worth while to notice his surroundings when he came to the momentous resolution.
Francis I. had alternately favoured and perse- cuted the French reformers — now receiving them at his court, again joining in expiatory processions and encouraging mad persecutions in superstitious terror at the mutilation of some famous statue or relic. His policy became more repressive towards the end of his reign. His son, Henry II., from — the first set himself to stamp out ruthlessly the new religion. The Chambre ardente was instituted for the purpose. The prisons were soon full of accused. The Conciergerie, 1 where water oozed through the walls of the cells built below the level of the river Seine, and the Grand Chatelet, whose dungeons were so small that the wretched inmate could neither stand upright nor lie at full length, were
1 The Conciergerie was the most dreaded :
Ne preschez plus la ve'rite',
Maistre Michel ! Contenue en 1'Evangille, II y a trop grand danger
D'estre mene" Dans la Conciergerie. Lire, lire, lironfa.
II y trop grand danger
D'estre mene" Dans la Conciergerie Devant les chapperons fourrez
Mai informez
Par les gens pleins de menterie. Lire, lire, lironfa.
(Le Chansonnier Huguenot du XVIe sihle (Paris, 1870), pref. xv). Michel was one of the companions of Farel, then a preacher at Meaux.
FRENCH PROTESTANTISM 21
the most dreaded. Few were acquitted ; almost all, once arrested, suffered torture and then death. This sanguinary severity produced a reaction. We hear of municipal magistrates intervening to protect their Protestant fellow- citizens from the ecclesiastical courts ; of town's police conniving at the escape of heretics ; of a procurator at law suspended from his office for such connivance ; and of civil courts which could not be persuaded to pass more than nominal sentences. But the strongest symptom of the reaction was the way in which men who had hitherto been indifferent felt themselves compelled to investigate the causes which gave rise to heroic martyrdoms, and who, after investigation, took the side of the oppressed. Buchanan was only one of many who during these years of persecution declared in France for the reformation — his most distinguished companion in the faith being Antoine du Bourg, the son of the famous chancellor.
It is well also to know what was the reforma- tion movement to which he gave his adherence, . French Protestantism had been changing since 1540. It was no longer a Christian mysticism supplemented by careful study of the Scriptures ; it had advanced beyond the stage of individual followers of Luther and Zwingli ; it had become united, presenting a solid phalanx to its foes ; it had rallied round a manifesto, which was at once a completed scheme of doctrine, a prescribed mode of worship, and a code of morals ; it had found a leader who was both a master and a commander-in-chief. It was to the theology of Calvin, with its mingled sob and hosanna, then
22 BUCHANAN IN SCOTLAND
firing the hearts of oppressed nations, that Buchanan gave himself. When he returned to his native land in 1561 he attached himself to the reformed party in Scotland.
In Scotland Buchanan attained at once a position of dignity and consideration he had never previously reached. He became a favourite at Court, read Livy with Queen Mary, and, under the spell of that most fascinating woman, one of the fairest flowers of the French Renaissance, addressed to her some of his best verses.1 The
— deathjof JDarnley changed admiration into detesta- tion. He believed, rightly or wrongly, with the majority of his nation at the time, that the Queen had murdered her husband, and his advanced political principles did not allow him to think that queenship ought to be pleaded as an excuse for such a crime. He penned the
>/ memorable Detectio, wherein the proofs of her guilt were arranged with remorseless skill. He was one of the commissioners sent by the rulers of the nation to England to defend their conduct in deposing and imprisoning their Queen. He was made later one of the tutors to the young King. He became a Director in Chancery and Keeper of the Privy Seal. Scotland was proud of his learning, of the fact that in every land where the New Learning had penetrated, her dis- tinguished son was acknowledged to stand in the first rank of men of letters. She laid him to rest in the burying-place of the Greyfriars, Edinburgh.
1 " Do quod adest : opto quod abest tibi : dona darentur
Aurea, sors animo si foret aequa meo. Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulciscere donis : Et quod abest, opta tu mihi : da quod adest."
A GREAT TEACHER 23
How are we to estimate Buchanan's genius, and what place are we to assign to him ?
To that question it must be answered that he distinguished himself pre-eminently in three different departments of work which do not usually go together. He was great as a teacher, great as a poet, and above all, great as a political thinker.
I think that the first has scarcely been suffi- ciently referred to. We are told that the young unknown regent of Ste. Barbe revolutionised the teaching of his college, and, through it and gradu- ally, the classical teaching among the numerous colleges of the whole University of Paris. He discarded the old and cumbrous methods of teach- ing latinity which were in use, and he incurred the wrath of the dignitaries by his insistence. His edition of the Latin grammar of Linacre is more than a translation. One has only to compare it with the rival which it superseded, the grammar of Alexander Villedieu, to see the difference in simplicity and thoroughness, The effects of his influence may be traced for more than a century in the traditions of teaching in France and in England. His Latin version of the Psalms long held its place as a model for Latin versification. Books survive still which contain collections of Buchanan's choicest phrases made for the benefit of young scholars.1 He was a great teacher and he loved his work. In the last authentic glimpse we have of him, barely a
1 For example : Sacrarum et profanarttmque phrasium poeti- tarum thesaurus, recens perpolitus et numeriosior factus, by J. Buckler (London, 1642).
24 BUCHANAN, A POET
year before his death, he was found teaching. Andrew and James Melville went to see the aged scholar. " That September," says James, in his delightful Diary, " in tyme of vacans, my uncle, Mr. Andro, Mr. Thomas Buchanan, and I, heiring that Mr. George Buchanan was weak, and his Historic under the press, past ower to Edinbruche annes earend, to visit him and sie the wark. When we cam to his chalmer, we fand him sitting in his chaire, teaching his young man that servit him in his chalmer to spell a, b, ab ; e, b, eb, etc. Efter salutation, Mr. Andro sayes, ' 1 sie, Sir, yie are nocht ydle.' ' Better this/ quoyh he, ' nor stelling sheipe, or sitting ydle, quhilk is als ill ! ' " 1
/• His own generation was prodigal of its praise of his poetry. Guy Patin said that Virgil had never written finer verses. The irascible Julius Caesar Scaliger, who knew better to depreciate than to extol, declared that Latin literature had reached its climax in Buchanan's verses. If these be dismissed, as they must, as specimens of the hyperbole in which Humanists indulged, there remains the more sober estimate of Henry Estienne, who was not given to exaggeration, that Buchanan was the foremost poet of his age. We may accept the judgment if we remember what the age was. It was the time when Humanism held sway in Northern Europe and the literature of Humanism was for the most part imitative rather than creative. The New Learning, as it was called, had revived
1 The Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville (Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842), p. 120.
BUCHANAN, A POET 25
the study of the treasures of a cultured literary antiquity, and the beauty of style displayed in Virgil and Horace made the generation some- what ashamed of the rugged uncouthness of the vernacular of Europe. It unduly despised its mother-tongues, and believed that cultured thought could only find expression in the revived use of the apt words, deft phrases, and rhythmical cadences of a dead language.1 Cultured men and women everywhere read, wrote, and spoke Latin. Queen Elizabeth frequently demolished troublesome ambassadors in torrents of impro- vised latinity. " She is a very wise Queen, and has eyes that can flame," wrote one of the unfortunates to his master.2 The time was coming when the power acquired over Latin and Greek would be used to mould and enrich with all the graces of style and expression the languages of modern Europe. It had already come for Italy. It was on the verge of coming for England and for France. But Buchanan belonged to the transition period. He used Latin, especially Latin verse, and used it in a way that none excelled. Whatever Virgil and Horace, Catullus and Martial had done, Buchanan could imitate, and imitate to the life. Yet after all it was only imitation at the best. His verses excite the admiration of the intellect ; they only
1 Petrarch regretted that Dante had not written the Divina Comedia in Latin, and Ulrich von Hutton wrote to a friend that he had not believed that the vernacular was a fit vehicle for literature until he had seen the use Luther made of German.
2 " Cette reine est extremement sage, et a des yeux terribles " (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1595-97, P- xxi).
26 BUCHANAN'S PSALTER
occasionally stir the heart. It is Buchanan's glory that his adoption and use of a style which was not his own has been unable to conceal completely the real poetic fire which burned within him. In a way he had his reward. His audience, contem- porary audience, was infinitely wider than had he chosen the vernacular. His poems were read in every country of Europe from Poland to England, from Scandinavia to Italy. The editions * of his Psalms were innumerable. His Psalter was the work which spread his fame most widely. Nor was its popularity to be wondered at. It fed the two great passions of the age — religion and a zeal for the classics. To take delight in singing and chanting the Psalms was not confined to the adherents of the Reformation. The later medieval Church viewed with indul- gence the translation of the Psalter into the vernacular when it frowned on the possibility of the multitude reading the whole of the Scrip- tures in their mother tongue. Clement Marot's translation of the Psalms into French verse was as popular at Romanist Paris as at Protestant Geneva.1 Francis I. delighted to sing these Psalms, and was heard crooning them softly on his death-bed. They were equally enjoyed at the Court of his son Henry II., where it was the fashion for the king, the queen, and favoured courtiers to select one Psalm which they called
1 The first edition of Clement Marot's Psalms appeared in Paris in 1541 and in Geneva in 1542. It contained thirty psalms. The Paris edition contained also rhymed versions of the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ave Maria. To that published in Geneva was added "la maniere d'administrer les sacrements selon la coutume de 1'Eglise ancienne et comme on 1'observe a Geneve."
DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS 27
" their own," and which they constantly hummed. Henry, who was a great huntsman, had for "his own" Psalm xlii., Comme un cerf alttre brame apres I'eau courante, and Catherine, long a child- less and always a neglected wife, had for " her own" Psalm vi., the " Psalm of Sorrow." The fashion set by the Court spread downwards among the people, and Bernard Palissy tells us. " Vous eussiez vu le dimanche les compagnons de metier se promener par les prairies, bocages et autres lieux plaisants, chantant par troups les Psaumes." Buchanan's version, in the metres of the Odes of Horace, gratified in the same way a cosmopolitan audience, and was known throughout Europe. Dainty editions of his collected poems were found everywhere, and men and women of culture in all lands hailed him as the first poet of his age.
Buchanan has been blamed for his neglect of the vernacular and his use of Latin as his vehicle of expression. It has been said that he " bartered immortality for an immediate fame." I take leave to doubt the judgment. The verses of Dunbar and David Lindsay are a sealed book to this generation. How many of us know that Buchanan did write a nervous Scotch prose ? How many have read, or even heard of the " Chamaeleon " ?
Yet, to my judgment the works of Buchanan] which have done most to influence and mould mankind were his tragedy of the Baptist and his celebrated De Jure Regni apud Scotos. They were both written in Latin, and it was by translations that they reached the hearts of succeeding genera- tions. I set the two together, for the poet places in the mouth of the hero of the play, John the
28 THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY
. Baptist, the sentiments he stated calmly in his * great political treatise ; while Herod and Herodias assert the divine right of kings to govern wrongly if it so pleased them. Buchanan teaches in both that the people have their inalienable rights, in- cluding in the last resort the sacred right of insurrection ; that the kingly power has its limita- tions ; that kingship is based on a mutual recog- nition of the rights of the people and the rights of the sovereign. He holds up to the scorn and wrath of his audience the sentiments which he makes Herodias declaim :
Now shall the stubborn multitude be taught
To speak of kings with due restraint, or learn
The lesson to their cost. And they shall find
That, be the king's high ordinance right or wrong,
The people must take all submissively,
The right and wrong, and make no murmuring.1
He teaches what are political commonplaces now — but anything but commonplaces when he uttered them. The sixteenth century was the age of kingly autocracy. It was a time when feudalism with its liberties and its lawlessness had been broken ; when the monarch's power was supreme ; when the commonalty was dumb. We Scotsmen ought to be proud to remember that in the inter- views of Knox with Mary Stuart, and in these treatises of Buchanan, we have almost the first clash of autocratic kingship and the power of the people hitherto unknown. In the interviews a young Queen, whose training from childhood had stamped indelibly on her character that kingship
1 The Sacred Dramas of George Buchanan translated into English Verse^ by Archibald Brown, Minister of the Parish of Legerwood (Edinburgh, 1906), pp. 156, 157.
THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY 29
meant unlimited aristocratic privileges before which everything had to give way, who had seen that none in France dared dispute the will of her sickly dull boy-husband, simply because he was king, was suddenly confronted with something above and beyond her comprehension. " What have ye to do with my marriage ? Or what are ye within this commonwealth ? " " A subject born within the same " was the answer, " and albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor baron within it, yet has God made me (however abject I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same." Modern democracy was born in that answer. It found reasoned speech in the treatises of Buchanan.
It is not to be wondered at that the book De Jure Regni was solemnly condemned by the Scots Parliament (I584),1 that its translation and
1 Cf. Ane act for punisment of the authoris of the slanderous and untrew calumneis spokin aganis the Kingis Majestic^ his counsell and procedingis, or to the dishonour and prejudice of his Hienes, his parentis, progenitouris, crown and estate : . . . great harme and inconvenient hes fallin in this realme cheiflie sen the beginning of the civill trublis occurrit in the tyme of his Hienes minoritie throw the wikit and licentious publict and privat spechis and untrew calumneis of diverss his subjectis . . . stering up his Hienes subjectis thairby to mislyking, seditioun, unquietnes, and to cast of thair dew obedience to his Majestic . . . thairfoir it is statute and ordinit be our soverane lord and [his] thrie estatis [in] this present Parliament, that . . . ATTOUR becaus it is understand unto his Hienes and to his thrie estatis, that the buikis of the Cronicle and de jure regni apud Scotos maide be umquhill mr. george buchannan and imprentit sensyne contenis syndrie offensive materis worthie to be delete, it is thairfoir statute and ordinit that the havaris of the saidis tua volumis in thair handis inbring and deliver the same to my lord secretare or his deputis within fourtie days efter the publicatioun hereof, to the effect that the saidis tua volumis may be perusit and purgit of the offensive and extraordi- nare materis specifiit thairin not meit to remane as accordis of trewth to the posteritie, under the pane of tua hundreth poundis
30 THE BAPTISTES
circulation were prohibited by the Privy Council of 1664, and that in 1683 the University of Oxford had it publicly burnt in front of their schools. Such treatment seldom slays the books subjected to it ; it rather tends to give them a longer life. Translations were published at times which suggest that they were needed to hearten peoples bent on securing constitutional liberties and deliverance from autocratic oppression. One appeared in Dutch in 1598 during the crisis of the long fight between Maurice of Orange and Philip II. of Spain, and reappeared in 1610. Another, in English, was published in 1680, just at the time when the nation feared everything from the succession of James II. A third, in German, in 1821, manifested the discontent of the German- speaking nations at the reactionary governments which followed the overthrow of Napoleon.
The tragedy of the Baptist es was translated into many European languages. Buchanan wrote it, he informed the Lisbon Inquisitors, with his mind full of the tyranny of Henry VIII. displayed in the judicial murder of Sir Thomas More,1 and, as men read it in French, English, and Dutch, they no doubt applied it to similar misdeeds of v autocratic despots familiar to them.
What are we to think of the man himself apart
of everie persoun failleing herein — and . . . ony . . . not responsable to pay ... to be punisit in thair personis (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, iii, 296).
1"Itaque cum primum potui ut illinc evasi meam sententiam de Anglis explicavi, in ea tragoedia quae est de Jo. Baptista, in qua quantum materiae similitude patiebatur mortem et accusationem Thomae Mori repraesentavi, et speciem tirannidis illius temporis ob oculos posui." Henriques, George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition, Lisbon, 1906, p. 36.
BUCHANAN'S CHARACTER 31
from his learning and his latinity, his poetry and his politics ? We have not much to go upon. No devoted James Bos well dogged his footsteps to treasure and preserve his looks, his words, and his daily doings. But we have something. His portraits survive — a strong heavyish face, more Scotch than comely, not without humour lurking in the eyes and at the corners of the mouth. Few of his innumerable letters have survived, but most that do, disclose his kindliness- endeavours to commend to powerful friends some struggling and deserving young Scotsman. His contemporaries are mostly silent about him ; yet we have sayings from some who were men of the most diverse characters. The gay poet Ronsard declared that there was nothing of the pedant about him but the cap ' and gown ; Beza, after Calvin's death the greatest Reformed divine in Europe, the courtly French pastor whom Catherine de' Medici tried to charm somewhat in the fashion of Mary Stuart with John Knox, always speaks of him as a great man, greater than himself. Buchanan somehow impressed those with whom he came in contact as a man of incalculable force of character. His pupils loved him — witness Montaigne. Even the ill-tempered Scaliger, the man who so roundly abused Erasmus, has nothing but kindly words to give to Buchanan. He must have been a lovable man to charm that old despot as he did. A man sententious, I should say, of abrupt speech, his discourse savoured with dry grim Scottish humour — witness James Melville already quoted. He had boundless courage ; a cousin wished him to alter some sentences in his
32 BUCHANAN, MARY, KNOX
history lest he should offend the king : " Tell me, man," he said, " giff I have tauld the treuthe?" "Yis, Sir, I think sa." -Then I'll byd his fead and all his kin's."
Scotland received three great gifts in the sixteenth century, and our country would be immeasurably poorer had it missed any one of them. All came to it from France. All were per- sonified in three persons of striking individuality. The Reformation lived in John Knox. The Renaissance, revelling in the ideas of a brilliant but decadent Imperial Rome, with its love of beauty in painting, architecture and sculpture, with its joy in living, its keen appreciation of delicacy in form and colour was brought to our shores by Mary Stuart. Erudition, which brought back to life the thoughts of classical antiquity and was to mould modern literature, was disclosed to the young Scotsmen of his generation by George Buchanan. Yet perhaps the greatest gift he gave to his native land was himself — a genuine Scot to the marrow of his bones, who had attained an almost unique position among the learned men of Europe, by his native abilities no doubt, but also by his unwearied industry, by the undaunted way in which he fronted poverty, danger, and continual disappointments. He stamped his image on generations of his countrymen.
T. M. LINDSAY.
BUCHANAN'S CONNECTION WITH THE UNIVERSITY & GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF GLASGOW
WRITING in the year 1660, a few months before he was appointed principal of the University of Glas- gow, and enumerating some of the " famous men of our university and city," Robert Baillie includes in the list " George Buchannan, borne in Srathblaine, 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 ; he left our library a parcel of good Greek books, noted with his hand."1
About eighty years previous to the date of Baillie's letter, and in Buchanan's lifetime (4th February, 1578-9), another principal of the College, " Maister Andro Melvin," with the regents, rector, and dean of faculty, put their names to a document recounting " the singular favour that ane honorable man, Maister George Buchannan, teachar of our Soverain Lord in gude lettres, hes borne and shawen at all times to our college." In consideration of this
1 Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club), iii. p. 402. A list of the books presented by Buchanan to the University in 1578 is printed in the bibliography by Mr. David Murray, being the con- cluding article of the present volume.
c
34 GLASGOW COLLEGE
" singular favour " the office-bearers of the College set to " Jhonne Buchannan, present occupyar of our landis of Ballagan, and to his airis and assignais, our landis and stedding of Ballagan in the parochin of Kilmarannok, for the space of nyntein yeiris nixt following : Payand tharefor yeirlye ten bollis gude and sufficient ait meil, laying the samyn in to our College of Glasgow, upoun his awin expenss, of the measure of the town of Glasgow."1 Successive tacks of these lands, for payment of the original rent, were subsequently granted to members of the Buchanan family till the year 1655, when, "in respect the saids lands lyes neir the Hielands, and at great distance from the said universitie, and lyes contiguous or near by Sir Johne Colquhoun of Luss his lands of Balloche," they were conveyed in excambion to Sir John, for payment to the College of a yearly feu-duty of £12 Scots, besides a yearly contribution of ten bolls meal " out of the said Sir John Colquhoune his lands callit of Temple of Garscub quhilk lyes near the said universitie."2
So far as has been noticed, the only direct grant of lands or rents made by royalty to the College, while Buchanan was in this country, consisted of the gift by Queen Mary of parts of the lands and revenues of the Friars Preachers of Glasgow in 1563. In 1566-7 the Queen conveyed to the magistrates and community of Glasgow all the church lands in the city then at her disposal, and the whole of these endowments, with slight excep- tions, were transferred to the College. King James ratified the transfer, and likewise, during Morton's
1 Munimenta Almae Universitatis Glasguensis, i. pp. 123-4. *Ibid. pp. 347-8.
BUCHANAN IN GLASGOW 35
regency, gave to the College a new constitution, accompanied by a grant of the parsonage of Govan. It is possible that Buchanan may have been partly instrumental in procuring the King's charters, there- by earning the gratitude of Andrew Melville and his colleagues, but the expressions used by Principal Baillie, who specially mentions Queen Mary as a donor, show that something else must be looked for. From the few facts now ascertainable, it seems not unlikely that Melville and the others whose statements in 1578 and 1660 have been quoted had prominently in view the gift of 1563. The precise date was i3th July, when the Queen was in Glasgow, having stayed in the city for a few days during her progress through the western shires. Buchanan had returned from France to Scotland some months before this, and, as is well known, had become a regular attender at court, officiating as classical tutor to the young Queen. In the preceding February he and another were appointed to interpret writings in the Spanish language, ''that the Queen's grace and counsale mycht thairefter understand the samyn " ; and about that time he was in receipt of an annual pension of ^250 Scots, paid by the lord high treasurer. That he occasionally accompanied the court when moving from place to place is not improbable, and it is at least certain that he was in Glasgow on the day when the Queen, likewise there, gifted the Friars' property to the College. From Glasgow Protocols it is ascertained that on i3th July, 1563, "Mr. George Balquhannan " was "in the house of James Grahame, dwelling in Glasgow," and that there, in presence of witnesses, he formally resigned in favour of John M ' Lawchtlane and spouse
36 AUCHTNTROIGE
his half of the lands of Auchintroige, " lying in the earldom of Levenax." At this time the financial position of the College, never perhaps very flourishing in the past, was at low ebb ; and it was otherwise disorganised on account of the departure of its chan- cellor, Archbishop Betoun, and other members, pre- Reformation clerics whose benefices alone might have sufficed for their maintenance. In 1563 the resident chief of the College was John Davidson, usually designated principal regent, but styling himself on a title page " maister of the Paedagog of Glasgw."2
1 Glasgow Protocols, No. 756. As stated in Mr. J. Guthrie Smith's History of Strathendrick, the family of M'Lachlan had possessed Auchintroige for hundreds of years, and therefore it is likely that Buchanan's interest in them consisted of a wadset or mortgage. On repayment of the money secured by the wadset, M'Lauchtlane would be reinstated in the lands.
Other references to Buchanan in the printed Protocols may be noticed. On Qth November, 1561, John Galbrayth, in Balgair, who was authorised to act for " Mr. George Buchquhannan," under letters of attorney granted by Queen Mary on 22nd October, appeared in Glasgow and produced a charter, subscribed there on 8th November, whereby William Conynghame of Cragganis conveyed to Buchanan an annual rent of 20 merks payable from the lands of Yoker (Protocol No. 1420). It may reasonably be inferred that Buchanan was in this country at the date of these writings, and the Protocol thus indicates that his return from France was at least three months earlier than can be ascertained from other sources. In Protocol No. 761, a facsimile of which is there given, it is recorded that "William Galbrayth of Balgair, as procurator for maister George Buchquhennan," appeared in the house of William Hegait, notary in Glasgow, on loth November, 1563, and there renounced the annual rent of 20 merks payable from Yoker. These two transactions may have related to an investment or loan of money, and, if so, the principal would be repaid when the annual payment was discharged.
2"Ane Answer to the Tractive set furth be Maister Quintine Kennedy, commendatar, Abbote of Crosraguell," etc., "maid be Maister Johne Davidsone, maister of the Paedagog of Glasgw. Imprentit at Edinburgh by Robert Lekprewik, 1563." For identification of Principal Davidson with the minister of Hamilton, see Glasgow Protocols, Nos. 2112-3.
QUEEN MARY'S GIFT 37
Davidson had passed some time at Paris University, and he may possibly have met Buchanan there ; but whether they had a previous intimacy or not, it may, in the absence of definite information as to preliminaries, be conjectured that the two scholars conferred together in Glasgow, and that, after discussing the condition of the College, Buchanan cordially used his court influence for its advantage. Consistent with this surmise, it is evident that the Queen's sympathy was roused, and the formal document granted by her vividly describes the state of the buildings and revenues, and the urgent need for assistance. " Forsamekile," it pro- ceeds, "as within the citie of Glasgw ane College and Universite was devisit to be hade, quhairin the youthe micht be brocht up in letres and knawlege, the commoune welth servit, and vertew incressit ; off the quhilk College ane pairt of the sculis and chalmeris being biggit the rest thairof, alsweill duellingis as provisioune for the pouir bursouris and maisteris to teche, ceissit, sua that the samyn apperit rather to be the decay of ane universitie nor ony wyse to be reknit ane establisset fundatioun. And we, for the zele we beir to letres, and for the gude will we have that vertew be incressit within oure realme, have foundit and erectit five pouir childrene bursouris within the said College, to be callit in all tymes cuming Bursouris of oure Foundatioune." For furnishing these "poor children" with food, clothing, and other necessaries, certain lands and rents of the dispersed Friars Preachers were bestowed, and the " maister of the said College and Universite, now present and being for the time," meaning Davidson and his successors, were
38 BALLAGAN
authorised to uplift the revenues and apply them for behoof of the bursars.1
Among the endowments thus acquired by the College were "ten bollis ferme meill to be taken up yeirlie of certane landis within the boundis of the Levinax " ; and these lands, as explained by a note written on the deed of gift, in a handwriting not much more recent than the original, consisted of " Ballagan in the Lennox, within the paroche of Kilmaronok."5 Ballagan, a small estate lying on the south-east shore of Loch Lomond, had, in 1451, been bequeathed to the Friars by Isabel, Duchess of Albany and Countess of Lennox, for the repose of the souls of her father, husband, and three sons, all of whom had, with relentless severity, been beheaded soon after James I. began his personal reign, and also of another son who died in exile.3 In fortification, apparently, of their title, King James VI., by his royal authority and also as earl of Lennox, granted to the masters and regents of the reconstituted College the lands of Balagane, to be held in mortmain, the masters rendering therefor prayers for the weal of the granter and his successors. This was done by a charter dated roth June, 1578, and eight months afterwards the lands, as already mentioned, were set to one who was presumably a kinsman of Buchanan, in consideration of the singular favour which the latter had borne to the College. The fact that this acknowledgment was made in a tack of lands which formed part of the
1 Munimenta, p. 67, No. 40 ; Glasgow Charters, i. pt. ii. p. 129.
2 Ibid. i. p. xvii. No. 40.
3 Munimenta Fratrum Predicatorum de Glasgu (Maitland Club), p. 171, No. 29.
GLASGOW GRAMMAR SCHOOL 39
endowments contained in the gift of 1563 lends accumulative support to the view that for what was then given by Queen Mary the College was largely indebted to the good offices of "ane honorable man, maister George Buchanan."
The Grammar School of Glasgow, in which, according to Principal Baillie, as above quoted, Buchanan was "bred," was, from the Reformation till the passing of the Education Act in 1872, managed by the Town Council. In Buchanan's boyhood it was, to some extent, under dual control. In cathedral cities, and in early times, the chancellor had usually the direction of educational concerns ; and that this system prevailed in Glasgow was judicially determined in 1494 when the Archbishop found that the oversight and government of the Grammar School had been vested in the chan- cellor for time immemorial.1 Fourteen years afterwards (1508) Master Martin Rede, who was then chancellor, appointed Master John Rede as master of the Grammar School, but the provost of the burgh and other burgesses asserted that they possessed the right of admitting him.2 To settle the question, both parties referred themselves to the Foundation and Letters of the late Master Simon Dalgleis, but what farther pro- cedure took place at that time is not recorded. The document appealed to has not been preserved, though, happily, an abstract made by the compiler of the City's Inventory of Writs (1696) gives the gist of it. From this abstract it appears that, in the year 1460, Simon Dalgleis, then holding the offices of Precentor
1 Glasg. Charters, pt. ii. p. 89.
2 Protocol No. 342 in Diocesan Registers.
40 SITE OF GRAMMAR SCHOOL
in the Cathedral and Official or Judge in the Con- sistory Court, gifted a tenement on the west side of the High Street " in favouris of Master Alexander Galbraith, rector and master of the Grammar School, and as master of that School, and to his successors in office, for his and his scholars performing some Popish rites, whereby the said Master Simon appoints the Magistrates and Councell of this burgh patrons, governors and defenders of said donation." It is to be regretted that details do not occupy the place of the curt allusion to "popish rites," but on the point of patronage the abstract is more satisfac- tory. How far that provision operated in the time of the chancellors cannot be explicitly ascertained ; but, as already mentioned, the Magistrates and Council appear to have stepped into full possession subsequent to the Reformation. The site acquired in 1460 was retained for the school till near the close of the eighteenth century, and is now occupied partly by the central fire engine station and adjoining properties and partly by Ingram Street, which superseded Grammar School Wynd. A few paces to the north was the place of the Grey Friars, while the Black Friars occupied more extensive premises on the other side of High Street. Grammar School boys, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, would thus be daily familiar with the appearance of both classes of Friars as they followed their respective vocations.
Buchanan's attendance at the Grammar School was probably during the mastership of John Rede, about whom nothing is known subsequent to his appointment unless he can be identified with the churchman of that name who owned a property
JOHN REDE, SCHOOLMASTER 41
on the south side of Ratounraw, and who was chancellor of Aberdeen in I537.1 However this may be, it is interesting to notice, as illustrating the practice in school appointments, that in 1538 the scribe of the consistory of Aberdeen, " in name and behalf of ane rycht wirschipfull dark, maister Jhone Reid, cancellar of Abirdene, and commissar generall of Aberden, exponit to the provest and consale how he had chosen ane abill, convenyent, discreit man, to be maister of thair gramer skoull, callit maister Robert Skeyne, .- . . becaus the admissioun and presentatioun of the said maister pertenit to him, as he allegit.":
R. RENWICK.
1 Glasgow Protocols, No. 1306.
2 Aberdeen Burgh Records, i. p. 151.
JOANNIS CALVINI EPICEDIUM.
WHOSO believes no soul survives the grave,
Or, thinking so, lives such a life as Death
Must whelm in penance of eternal Hell,
He well may weep man's destiny, well deplore
Death while he lives, and even infect dear friends
With grieving. But for thee, now caught away,
Thee, Calvin, — though friends lose, and envious Death
Arrests untimely all thy great attempt —
The unpermitted tear must dry; no mock
Of idle pomp must mar thy obsequies,
No wretched, fond complaint. For thou art free.
Care and the burden of this heavy world
Are fallen from thee. Thou attain'st the stars,
And, nearer God, enjoyest whom to know
Was thy perpetual toil, beholding truth
Most pure in His clear noon; and, satiate
With draughts of Godhead, lead'st eternal life
Unvext : neither dispirited with grief,
Nor lifted up with hope of worthless joy,
Nor slain with fear, nor plagued in blood or bone.
This day, delivered from all bitter care, The stars receive thee, from thine exile, home. 'Tis thy nativity. Thy soul has crossed The threshold into everlasting day, Prevailing now serene o'er mortal fear And fortune's tyranny. For, as the Soul, Stealing into the body, quickens and stirs The sluggard clay, pouring through every limb
ELEGY ON CALVIN 43
A nimble vigour ; and as, when it departs,
Nothing remains save the offensive corpse,
Sallow, putrescent; such to the Soul is God, —
Soul of the soul. Whatever life lacks Him
Is phantom : sunshine lasts a little while,
And then the grave receives in solid dark
The vain illusion of a Godless life.
But when the soul has breathed from God, no gloom
May darken it; vain fancies flee away;
And naked truth shows worthy to be seen
In that long day no vespers knell to close.
Into this haven the heavens sing thee home : Yet though in mild tranquillity of peace Thou leav'st our noises far, somewhat of thee Remains. Death's jealousy could not remove All Calvin from the earth. Thy work abides A monument for ever among men ; And when, by slow degrees, the flickering hate Of unjust faction shall have ceased to flame, Renown of thee shall flood to every shore Where pure religion shines.
Thou hast been feared
And shalt be. Clemens, so falsely styled; the twain Pauls, twins in fraud and vice; Julius The Mad ; and his brother in impious hate, Pius, — all these have feared thee ; and even so Shall baseless superstition dread thy name, And the shadow of men's heritage from thee.
Who holds at any time the Roman chair
In savage tyranny, cowing with sword and flame,
And arrogates all offices of Hell —
A Pluto in dominion o'er the dead,
A Harpy in gross theft, a Fury armed
With fire, a Charon levying his toll,
A savage Cerberus with triple crown, —
Him shall thy light dismay, thy truth confound,
And the terrific lightning of thy tongue
Smite; and all the penal wrath he wields
Shall turn on him hurled down by death to Hell.
44 TO PATRICK BUCHANAN
He shall be Tantalus and thirst in vain, Tired Sisyphus and roll the backing rock, Prometheus gnawed by vultures, or as those That poured for ever at the leaky jars, Or groan upon Ixion's racking wheel.
Miscellaneorum, No. xxiv. T. D. ROBB.
TO
HIS BROTHER, PATRICK BUCHANAN,
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 in this :
That dreadless now thou boldest where thou art
The meed eterne of holy life in bliss.
Epigrammatum Liber II. No. xxiii.
TO JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR, REGENT OF SCOTLAND.
SHOULD any say that worthy Mar Was meek in peace and brave in war — That, whensoe'er he drew the sword, Or 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 with storms on every hand,
TO QUEEN MARY 45
To his great spirit looked for rest And found a haven in his breast — We nothing but the truth would tell, Yet should we not portray 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.
Miscellaneorum, No. xxv.
TO MARY
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS QUEEN OF SCOTS. THE EPIGRAM OF GEORGE BUCHANAN.
LADY, whose happy lot it is to wield The Scottish sceptre handed down to thee By an innumerable ancestry — Thou to whose worth thy royal lot must yield, Who, in a soul by dauntless valour steeled, Thy sex excell'st, whose virtues would agree With riper years, in whom nobility Rarer than all thy kindred is revealed,
Deign to accept these songs of kingly seer, Born in their Latin guise 'neath Northern Sky Remote from Cirrha and Castalian spring. And yet my ill-born offspring dared not I Expose to death lest thence I should appear Displeased with what to thee did pleasure bring : For what the author's wit may not bestow Haply the songs will to thy genius owe.
Dedication of ' Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica'
46 LOVE AND CHASTITY
LOVE.
WHAT winged boy art thou? Love is my name. Who is thy sire? A glance's kindly flame. When wast thou born? With the first vernal blossom. Thy home? The hall of a great-hearted bosom. Who nursed thee? Comely youth in early grace. And with what fare? With charms of winning face. Thy comrades? Splendour, ease, wealth, joyance, light. Why hath a boy such fierce desire for fight? My greedy hopes impel and trembling fears. Hast thou no dread when dismal death appears? None. Why? Because before this brief hour fly As oft as ten times do I live and die.
Epigrammatiim Liber II. No. xxix.
TO CHASTITY.
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 never more die.
Miscellaneorum. No. ii. A. GORDON MITCHELL.
JOHN REID'S SCOTTISH TRANSLATION OF BUCHANAN'S HISTORY IN 1634
THE Glasgow University Library possesses the earliest translation of Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia. The manuscript, bearing the press-mark BE;. ^.3, is a portly volume, small folio size, of nearly eight hundred pages, averaging from thirty- five lines to the page at the beginning, to fifty-five towards the end, when the writing becomes very small and difficult to read. A cursory glance gives the impression that the book was written by several hands ; but possibly the differences in the penmanship can be explained by the fact that the copy was done in sections at different times. The transcribing was completed on the 1 2th of December, 1634, as appears from the note at the end of the last page :
' Pridie Idus Decembris, Anno reparatae salutis
There is an earlier date at the end of Book VII. 1 The aucht book, 12 aug. 1634.'
The following inscription is at the bottom of the first page :
' Ex dono notw/w domtm Thomae Stuart de Cult- nesse equitis aurati. Febr. 21, 1693.'
48 THE REIDS
Wodrow, in his Collections upon the Life of Mr. George Buchanan,1 describes the donor, Sir Thomas Stewart of Coltness as ' that worthy and eminently religious gentleman, and considerable sufferer for our Reformation principle espoused by Buchanan.' An interesting account of his life and * sufferings ' will be found in the ' Coltness Collection ' (Maitland Club, 1842), pp. 52-98.
The first page begins with the following title :—
'The historic of Scotland, first writen in the Latine tungue by that famous and learned man George Buchanan, and afterward translated in to the Scottische tungue by John Read Esquyar, brother to James Read, person of Banchory Ternam while he lived. They both ly interred in the parishe church of that towne seated not farre from ye banks of the river of Dee, expecting the general resur- rection and the glorious appeiring of Jesus Christ there redimer/
James Reid (d. 1602), the first minister of Ban- chory after the Reformation, played a prominent part in the ecclesiastical history of his time, and was the father of several distinguished sons ; one of them, Alexander, was a famous anatomist and surgeon ; another, Thomas, poet, philosopher and Latin secretary to James VI., left his library to the college of Aberdeen.
The name of John Reid does not seem to occur anywhere in contemporary records. He is mentioned for the first time in Archdeacon Nicolson's Scottish Historical Library, 1702. After quoting the greater part of the title given above, the Archdeacon adds :
' In the Preface to the Manuscript Calderwood
1 Wodrow MSS,, vol. xiv. p. 112.
BUCHANAN'S TRANSLATOR 49
(MS. Fol. in Bibl. Glasc.), this John is said to have been Servitur and writer to Master George Buchanan : so that perhaps the History was thus translated by the author himself, and only tran- scribed by his Amanuensis.'
On the other hand Wodrow, in his MS. Life, p. 112, as above, having copied Nicolson's state- ment, remarks on it : ' This I doubt is a mis- information, and hath hapned by ye Archdeacons mistaking notes of what he heard. At least, I have not observed this in the MS. Calderwood.' I may add that further search in the Manuscript and in the printed editions of Calderwood's History has been equally unsuccessful. So the stereotyped epithet 'servitur and writer' so often joined to John Reid's name is not so authentic as might be desired.
Another doubtful note is struck in Dugald Stewart's Life of Thomas Reid. The great philosopher was a direct descendant of James Reid, and in his memorandums concerning his family he recorded that the translator of the History was called Adam, and was one of James Reid's sons. D. Stewart seems inclined to believe that Dr. Reid's account may be correct, as the statement concerning John rests on an authority altogether unknown (being written in a hand different from the rest of the MS.).
In Scott's Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae John Reid is called son, not brother, of James. That is probably a slip ; but it has been accepted elsewhere as correct.
The Manuscript contains a complete translation of the History, except that in the first books
50 MS. 'HISTORIE'
blanks have been left where Buchanan indulged in quotations from Latin poets. The intention was probably to fill up the blank spaces with poetical renderings in the vernacular. In two or three cases the attempt has been made ; judging from the result, we need not regret that the remaining spaces have been left unfilled. Single lines have a prose rendering, or have been left in the original Latin. One exception deserves to be noted. At the end of the Second Book, Buchanan, reminding one of his critics that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, quotes a line of Juvenal :
' Loripedem rectus derideat, ^Ethiopem albus.'
This has been rendered by a good homely Scottish proverb :
" Let him have ane wholle pow That calls his neighbour nittie now."
The chief characteristic of the translation is its close literalness, as will appear from a comparison of the following extract with the Latin text. The passage occurs near the end of the Eighth Book. It is a fair specimen of the * Scottische tungue ' as it was written in the beginning of the seventeenth century.
" He recomended to James Douglass his oversea wow. He vowed to goe to Syria and tak part in the holie warm against the comon enimie of all Cristianes ; bot because himself being hendered be the daylie broyllw w'in his realme, and yl now become seik he could not performe his vow, he hartlie besought James Douglass after his decease to carrie his heart to Jerusalem and cause it be
BUCHANAN IN SCOTTISH 51
buried ther. Quho, esteming the charge most honorable and ane notable argument of the king's favor towards him, the nixt yeir after the kingw death imediatelie wl ane strong garisoun of noble youths took jorney. Bot as he sailed alongst the coast of Spaine, heiring ther that the king of Arragon had warres against (corrected to w') the same enimies against qm he sould fight in Syria, judging it to no purpose in qlk part he^ supported the Crystiane affairs, joyned himself wl the Spaniards, and after some prosperous conflicts quhar as he contemned the enimie as ane fleier and couard, thinking wl his awne people to doe some valiant turne, unwarlie sett wpon the Sara- cens, and being drawne wpon ambuscat, himself was slaine w' the greater part of his people. The principall men of his freindis that parised ther wer Wm< Sinclar and Robert Logane. This was don the nixt yeir after the kings death, qlk was 1330."
" Commendavit item Jacobo Duglassio votum suum transmarinum : voverat enim in Syriam proficisci, ac Belli Sacri, adversus omnium Christi- anorum communes hostes, partem capessere. Sed quoniam ipse, vel rerum domi perturbatione impe- ditus, vel senio et morbo fractus, se voto solvere non posset, orare impense, ut Duglassius cor, ipso defuncto, Hierosolymam ferret, ibique sepeliendum curaret. Id munus ille honorificum, et illustre amoris Regii erga se argumentum interpretatus, proximo post Regis mortem anno, cum firma cohorte juvenum nobilium, profectionem adornat. Sed dum littus Hispaniae legit, audito, grave bellum ibi Regi Aragonum esse, adversus eundem
52 DEATH OF DOUGLAS
hostem, cum quo in Syria dimicandum esset ; nihil interesse ratus, quo in loco rem Christianam juvaret, se cum Hispanis conjungit : ac post aliquot prosperas pugnas, cum hostem, ut fugacem et imbellem, contemneret, aliquid cum suis seorsum audendum ratus, in Saracenorum aciem incautius incurrit, ac protractus in insidias, cum parte majore suorum interemtus fuit. Perierunt ex amicis praecipui, Gulielmus Sinclarus et Robertus Loganus. Haec inciderunt in annum proximum post Regis mortem, qui fuit M.CCC.XXX."
F. J. AMOURS.
NOTE ON THE FIRST ENGLISH (AS DISTINGUISHED FROM SCOTS) TRANSLATION OF BUCHANAN'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND
IN June 1899 the late Mr. John Oswald Mitchell, LL.D., presented to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, a folio volume containing an English translation of Buchanan's History, dated 1659, in contemporary manuscript. The history of the volume is not known, except so far as indicated by the three inscriptions following :
"Ex Libris Joannes Gibson, Glas : yth Nove [?] 1684." " Ex Libris Joannis Gibson, 4th febr 1685. Glasg." "ex Libris Johannes Buchananus de Auchnaven."
The last inscription is obviously much later than the two first, and may be of the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century. The volume has suffered slightly from damp in the upper margin, but is generally in good con- dition, and is complete.
The volume measures 14-^ inches in height by 9J inches in width, and consists of 268 leaves of strong stout paper. Following three blank leaves is the title, i leaf, verso blank ; then the dedica- tion, i leaf (2 pp.) ; catalogue of the kings of Scotland, i leaf, verso blank; text, 250 leaves;
54 TRANSLATION OF 1659
index, 9 leaves, with three blank leaves at end. The pages are numbered in an old but apparently not a contemporary hand. In the numbering the verso of the title is disregarded, so that the text begins on the seventh leaf with folio 6 (recto). Page numbers 188, 202, and 303 are omitted, and 199, 203, and 304 repeated; the text ending on p. 504 (recto), the verso being blank.
The manuscript appears to be in the same hand throughout, although the writing varies in size, and is an excellent piece of clear and careful calligraphy. The writer has arranged the con- cluding lines of some of the " books " in the form of an inverted pyramid. Spaces for the headings of the " books" have been left for all except the first, which is duly filled in. Each reign in the History is marked by a headline, giving the ordinal number of the King, thus :
VII. King. LVIII. King. CVIII. King.
The number of lines to a full page varies rather widely, some having no more than 50, while others have 65 and even 70.
The title-page is drawn in imitation of type, and reads as follows :
<3Elte. | Hist : of | .Stcrtlanb | Written in Latine By. | <&ZQTiQt JSuchanan | Dedicated To | J am.e0. | The sixth KING of | <3c0tlattfo [ Interpreted By ane English Gentle- man. \ Otia si tollas periere cupidinis arcus \ LONDON. | Printed for Joshua Kirton at the Kings Armes, in \ ST. Pauls Church Yeard. | 1659. |
The first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth lines are in black-letter, the portions in italic and small
MITCHELL LIBRARY MS. 55
capitals above are so written in the original, and the remainder of the title-page is drawn in a Roman hand.
The catalogue of the Kings of Scotland occupies the first page of the sixth leaf (numbered 4), and is closely written in double column. The reference page numbers do not agree with the present numbering, from which it would appear that there has been some earlier numbering not now discernible.
The index at the end occupies 36 closely written columns, and is headed "A Table of the most remarkable words and things contained in the foregoing 20 Books." It is full, and apparently very carefully made, but the pages given do not relate to the present numbering of the book. Personal names are entered under the Christian name : David Spenser under David.
There can be no doubt that this manuscript is a copy of the translation of the History of which an account is given in the latter part of the following extract from The Life of Thomas Ruddiman, by George Chalmers, Lond. 1794, 8vo, p. 350:
Several editions of Buchanan's History were printed abroad, without any republication at home, during the effluxion of many years. While it was deemed unsafe to publish the original, in Britain, a translation of it would hardly be printed in this island. It was translated, during his own age, into the Scottish tongue, by John Reed, Esquyar, who seems to have been Buchanan's servitur and writer. Yet, this translation remains still unpublished.1 And, it was amidst the confusions, which succeeded the death of Cromwell, that such a history was thought suitable to the fashion of the times, in an English dress. On the loth of March, 1658-9,
1 In the library of the College of Glasgow ; and see Nicolson's Hist. Lib., edit. 1776, p. 34 ; and Mr. Whitaker's Vindication, v. 2, p. 353. [Original footnote.]
56 SUPPRESSED TRANSLATION
there was entered, on the register of the stationers' company, The History of Scotland, translated from the Latin of Buchanan, a Scott. This translation had not, however, been published at the epoch of the Restoration. It was still in the press during June 1660. And, the government, being alarmed at the sound, effectually suppressed the publication * of what was then deemed pernicious to monarchy, but has since dropped into oblivion, as unworthy of notice. Whether the copy was destroyed, or preserved, cannot now be known. But, certain it is, that a similar writing was published in 1690, at a more propitious sera.
As examples of the method and quality of the translation, there are appended the author's dedica- tion of his work to his pupil King James VI., and a passage from Book X. of the History (chapters 38-39 of Burmann's arrangement of the text), relative to James I., and following upon a narrative of events of 1430.
DEDICATION. To JAMES (the Sixth) KING | OF | SCOTLAND | GEORGE
BUCHANAN | wishes much health |
When after 24 yeares travell I at length returned into my own country I made it my first businesse to recollect such papers of mine as had been by the malice of the late times scattered about
xThe following transcript from the books of Privy Council will probably be deemed curious, by some, and ridiculous, by others — " His majesty, having received information this day in council [7 June 1660] that, Mr. Kirkton, dwelling at the sign of his majesty's arms, a book- seller, is now printing, in the English tongue, George Buchannan's History of Scotland and De Jure Regni apud Scotos, which are very pernicious to monarchy, and injurious to his majesty's blessed pro- genitors : his majesty hath thereupon ordered, by the advice of the council, and doth hereby require, that the warden, or master, of the company of stationers do forthwith make diligent search for and seize upon both the original and all the impressions made thereof, and deliver them to one of his majesty's principal secretaries of state. And it is further ordered by his majesty, that the said warden, or master, and the said Kirkton, do make their personal appearance, at this board, on Wednesday next, the I3th instant, to receive his majesty's further pleasure, and thereof not to fayle at their perils." [Original footnote.]
BUCHANAN'S DEDICATION 57
and otherwise ill-treated. By which I found that partly through the over officiousnes of friends in posting out imperfect editions, partly through the immoderat licentiousnesse of transcribers (taking upon them the power of censure) many things were at every ones pleasure much altered and some vilely corrupted. Whilest I sought a remedy for these inconveniences the sudden importunity of friends destroyed my whole design ; who all (as it were with a generall confederacy) desyred me to lay aside smaller workes, which served rather for the delight of the ears than instruction of the mind, and to addresse my pen to the history of our nation, as becomming both my age and my countrimens expectation, since I could not find a subject more plausible to others or more immortall to myself.
Now, (to omit all other considerations) whereas our Brittain is the onely famous Island in the world, and the history of it comprehends the most remarkable affairs of all pairts, there is hardly one to be found in an age that durst undertake, or was able to go through with, so weighty an employment. It was also no small incentive to me, when I considered that this my pains would be both a payment of duty and the performance of an acceptable service to you, since it seemed to me an absurd and shamefull thing that you, who in that nonage had run through the histories of (almost) all nations, and retained many of them in your memory, should remain (as it were) a stranger at home.
Moreover, being disabled by incurable unhealthinesse, from performing the charge committed to me of improoving your intellectualls, I thought the best course I could take to make some satisfaction for this my non-attendance, was a sort of wrytting applicable to the mind, resolving hereby to send you faithfull monitors out of Historic, for your advice in consultation, and vertuous imitation in performance ; there being among your Ancestors persons eminent in all laudible qualities, and such as no posterity will have cause to disown. And to say nothing of the rest, you will not find in any records of history a parallel to our David. Now, if the Divine bounty (which was so enlarged in these not only most miserable but wicked times) favour us so much as that you may be the pattern of mothers' benedictions to their children (according to the words of the royall prophet) we may with reason hope that this Authority, which seemes to hasten towards the ruine and destruction of all things, may be stopped in
58 CHURCH UNDER JAMES I.
its career, untill the time in which the eternal decree shall give the appointed period to all humane affairs.
From Edinburgh Septemb. 4.
HISTORY— BOOK X., CHAPS. 38-39.
[James I.] So, having thoroughly purged the rest of the kingdome, he applyed himselfe to the restoring of the ecclesiasticall order; who would not be corrected by the magistrates, since throughout England [sic], princes being diverted by warres, the Clergy had, by degrees, withdrawen themselves from under their Jurisdiction, and obeyed only the Bishop of Rome, who connived at their debaucheries, perceaving it was for his profit, and encouradged their insolence, that by their power he might have the Kings the more devoted to him — wherefore, the King resolved by all meanes he could to stop their tyranny, for, perceaving it was not in his power to help what was past, nor to turne unworthy persons out of those places of which they were possest, but resolving to provide better for the future, he addressed himselfe to the ordering of schooles of learning, and the encouradgment of them with bountie and countenance, since they were the seminaries of all degrees, and that from theme as from the fountain sprang whatever was great or excellent in any part of the nation. Nor did he onlie encourage Learned Doctors with rewards, but himself was often present at their disputations, and whensoever he had leisure from his state affaires, willingly gave attendance to learned exercises, extreamly endeavoring to cleare the mindes of the nobility from that false conceipt, That learning drawes people aside from managment of businesse to sloth and lazines, softens their martiall spirits, and either crushes or weakens all their generous inclinations, as if monks, persons otherwyse unnecessary, were only to be confined to places of study, as to a bridewell. But these priests degene- rating from the innocence and frugality of their predecessors, wholly deserted the culture of their mindes for the care of their bodies. Nor were the rest of the clergy greater esteemers of learning, chieflie by this meanes, that ecclesiasticall preferment were either conferred upon the most lazy persons of noble families, and such as were wholly unserviceable for any other
MENDICANT FRIARS 59
employment, or intercepted by the deceipt of the Romanists, and the honour of priesthood was whollie the wadges of services not alwayes honestly employed ; for aggravatio[n] of which was added also another inconvenience, and a very great one, for the corruption of church discipline, the order of friers mendicants, — who at first, upon the pretense of a more severe life, had easily persuaded the people more willingly to hearken to them, then their own curats (gross both in bodie and minde) who, on the other side, as they grew richer still began to despise their function, to bargaine with the brotherhood (so they were pleased to call themselves) and hire them for yearly pensions to preach certaine sermons evrie yeare to the people ; themselves flocking into the townes, to lazy consorts of singing, like magick inchantments (none knowing qt they said), never looking after their cure but when their tithes were to be collected ; by degrees exempting themselves also from that easie but daily labour of singing in the churches at certain houres, hiring poor priestlings to supply their places, in singing and saying mass, muttering out certaine portions of psalmes allotted for evry day, one while taking yr turnes in the verses, another while putting choruss's betwixt, like a tragedy, which ended with an imaginary death of Christ. The fraternity also their hierlings nether durst offend their masters on whom they had all their dependance, nor were able to endure their insolence, mingled with so much avarise. So they took a middle way to make them pay yr pensions more readily, often bitterly inveighing against their luxury and avarice, to the attentive people, and when they had sufficiently ranted against them for their terrour and the endeare- ment of the people, then they began to consider themselves as being members of the same tribe, and to instruct the people, however matters were managed, yet that the order was sacred, that no lay magistrate had any power to punish them, that they were to be left to God alone, and the pope of Rome (whom they made in a manner equall with God in power) and becaus their avarice increasing so much by their luxury they could not hope for sufficient gaine by them, the fraternity found out for themselves a new sort of tyranny, applying all their sermons to the merit of workes. Thence came purgatory and the purifying of soules there detained (at the pope's pleasure) by the sacrifice of the mass, by sprinkling of holy watter, by almes, by offerings at shrines, pardones, pilgrimages, and adorations of reliques.
60 MITCHELL LIBRARY MS.
This trade being driven by the fraternity, in a short time they arrogated to themselves an autority both over the living and the dead.
As far as I am aware, nothing is known as to the identity of the translator, described on the title-page as " Ane English Gentleman " ; but there may perhaps be grounds for thinking, from the spelling "ane" on the title-page, more common in Scotland than in England, and from the fact that the volume was in a Glasgow library as early as 1684, that the manuscript is the work of a Scottish penman.
F. T. BARRETT.
AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF
GEORGE BUCHANAN'S BAPTISTES
ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN MILTON
THE English rendering of the Baptistes, now reprinted, was published in London anpjiymously, as a pamphlet, in the year 1643^ (new style), without any hint of its being a translation of a work of George Buchanan. It is a small quarto of fourteen leaves, with title page: " Tyrannicall- Government Anatomized, or a Discourse concerning Evil-Councellors, being the Life and Death of John the Baptist, and Presented to the King's most Excellent Majesty by the Author. Die Martis 30 Januarii 1642. It is ordered by the Committee of the House of Commons concerning Printing that this Book be forthwith printed and published. John White. London. Printed for John Field, 1642." On the verso of the title is: "The Collo- cutors and Complaynants, or Persons speaking," — the translation, with subtitle, " The Life and Death of John the Baptist," beginning on page 3 and ending on page 28.
How far such a pamphlet may have helped to stimulate political thought, it is impossible to say ; nowhere, so far as I am aware, is it noticed by any seventeenth century writer ; and most probably,
62 PECK'S NEW MEMOIRS OF MILTON
like myriad other pamphlets of that age of "hoarse disputes," written with an immediate and transitory purpose, it passed out of sight as soon as the first ardour of the disputants had subsided, and the "wonderful and happy reformation of the Church" was believed by the popular party to be an accomplished fact.
After a century of oblivion it was brought back to the light by the Rev. Francis Peck, an antiquary of catholic interests and omnivorous reading, whose researches lay mainly in the field of seventeenth century history and literature. A copy of the pamphlet which had come accidentally into his possession furnished the incentive to a number of literary studies, eventually published collectively in 1 740 in his New Memoirs of Milton s Life and Poetical Works. The evolution of that bulky volume is rather remarkable. Peck's initial discovery that the "dialogue in long prose para- graphs" concealed a poem written by John Milton was made after a perusal of the first twenty lines of the pamphlet. With never a doubt about the truth of the attribution, he began at once — the better to qualify himself for editing the poem, — to read " over the rest of Milton's poetical and most of his prose works," dipping also, "and often pretty deep, into a great variety of other books" where something for his purpose might be found.
For upwards of a year, with keen enjoyment and unflagging enthusiasm, he worked at his self- imposed task, transcribing the text "line by line to restore and write it out of prose into verse " ; annotating the poem, almost line by line, to explain J its political allusions ; collecting " explanatory and
HISTORICAL ANNOTATIONS 63
critical notes on divers passages in Milton's other poems"; also, some "to observe how he (Milton) follows and improves upon Spenser and Shake- speare,"— all this in order that "the reader might the better understand the poem and him that
wrote it."
The historical annotations proceeded on the assumption that Milton intended Herod to represent v Charles I.; Herodias and her daughter, "the one character of Henrietta Maria;" Malchus, Arch- bishop Laud ; Gamaliel, Bishop Williams ; John the Baptist, William Prynne ; the " Chorus of Jews," a "chorus of English Puritans" ; Jerusalem, the City of London. So too the words on the title page, "and presented to the King's most excellent Majesty by the Author," led him to discuss at great length whether Milton himself or some friend of the poet had had audience of the King, and whether the presentation was more likely to have been made before 1638, when he set out on his foreign travel, or subsequent to 1639, when he returned to England. Further, the better to suit his conjectures, he asserted that Milton sent the poem to press on 3oth January, 1641, not 1642 as set forth on the title page. His editorial labours were almost finished before he ever heard of George Buchanan's Baptistes, At this point Peck may be allowed to speak in propria persona. "Discoursing," he says, "one day (6th February, 1738), when I was last in town, with a learned gentleman, about all these matters, he told me that if he remembered right Buchanan had a Latin poem entitled Baptistes. He wished me, therefore, to compare the English piece I
64 BUCHANAN'S BAPTISTES
had in my hands with the Latin of Buchanan. Accordingly away I went that evening to Mr. Fletcher Gyles, and asked for Buchanan's poems, where I found a tragedy called Baptistes, and, to my great amaze, perceived that my English poem was a direct translation of it, and the closest thing of the kind, I think, which I ever saw. Here then was a double discovery. The English poem which I had in my hands was not an original ; and again Milton was not the author-, he could now be no more than the translator of it."
A double discovery like the one thus naively recorded would have disconcerted most editors, but it disturbed Peck not at all. Instead of cancelling his annotations and parallel passages, and starting de novo, he unwisely published nearly everything that he had formerly written, evidently believing "that the conjectures" by which he had hoped " to prove Milton the author would equally hold good to prove him the translator'' The qualifying phrases added throughout the introduction and notes, necessitated by the discovery of the Latin poem, tend rather to weaken than strengthen his case as finally presented.1
*A few specimens of Peck's notes on the political allusions of the poem may be given here for the benefit of readers who cannot easily consult the New Memoirs. The citations by line are to the numbers of this edition :
i. 89 "Besides new rites.
" By new rites the translator would be thought to mean extempore prayer and preaching." (Then follows a long quotation from Laud's Diary.}
i. 112 "filling Herod's ear
With feigned utterances.
" Here the translator would be thought to describe Laud and the rest of the bishops as misrepresenting everybody to the King."
PECK'S TEXT 65
At this point let me say a word as to Peck's text of the poem. His intention from the first appears to have been not to reprint the pamphlet of 1643, but only his own transcription of it in blank verse. He found, he tells us, " when scanning and tran- scribing the work," that "the sense now and then appeared to be obscure " and " here and there . . . the measure itself would not hit right." " But," he adds, "when I met with the original, that instructed me to adjust everything. The first of these diffi- culties (that of some passages being a little obscure) I then found was chiefly owing to the haste and mistakes of the printer's compositor . . . and again when the measure itself would not hit right, there something I then found was always dropped by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor. Now, as to the last of these difficulties, the Latin helped me with ease to correct all the transpositions I met
i. 309 "Counterfeit piety doth often cloke, etc.
" Here the translator would be thought to glance with an evil eye on the king's piety as if it were counterfeit ; and after vesting Laud with a guarded stole (a cope or popish robe edged with some old rabbinical phylactery) surmise that he too is an atheist.3'
ii. 93 "While thou promisest
New Kingdoms to the vulgar.
" About this time Brightman and several others began to preach up the Millennium," etc.
ii. 99 "thou reincit'st
The Romans a new war.
"The Romans, i.e. The Scots."
iii. 207 " Neither wert thou the first that did attempt
These to beguile.
"Here the translator, if I err not, would make the Archbishop sneer at John Wiclif, Lord Cobham and all the Lollards and Puritan preachers and chiefs who at any time after succeeded them."
Annotations like the above might have passed had the poem been as Peck thought it was when he wrote them, an original work of John Milton ; accompanying a translation of Buchanan's Baptistes they are absurd.
E
66 TEXTUAL EMENDATION
with : and as to the second sort (the English of some lines or pieces of lines being dropped by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor), as there was hardly any possibility of retrieving exactly the very words they had dropped, yet here also the Latin enabled me everywhere to supply all their omissions with something very near what was dropped, as the same of course must needs be always a translation of those very words which the translator had to translate." It looks as if Bentley's famous edition of Paradise Lost had been Peck's model in editing the translation of the Baptistes. Bentley's " amanuensis " and supposititious " editor " are nearly related to Peck's "compositor" and 4 'transcriber," and as culprits they receive from their eighteenth century censors pretty much the same treatment. It is certainly as true to say of many of Peck's emendations and interpolations as it was of Bentley's, " that they can always be detected by their own silliness and unfitness." As examples of his textual emendation of the Baptistes, here are only a few specimens :
i. 284 " Piety and truth
With shamefastness and faith are fled from thee, Faith of the better age, a common guest Hath lately left, etc.
" As Faith is mentioned in the second line, I think we should read Justice (as I have altered it in the poem) in the third line."
ii. 59 "And if I do not err (then) you shall hear
From him (himself) much more than fame hath publisht. " I have added the words then, himself ^ to complete the measure." x
1 This is just one instance where an editor transcribing the pamphlet into blank verse would be very liable to fall into error. Vide § iii. infra.
TEXTUAL EMENDATION 67
ii. 308 "Rise, O Lord,
And help thy people (Rise, O Parent best! Both God and Parent).
" Here again something being dropped by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor, I have added these words Rise, O Parent best! to answer the Latin. And these, Both God and Parent (a paraphrase of the former) to fill up the measure."
iv. 102 " If seeking, agitating and providing
Naught may avail, 'tis better to sit still
(Do nought at all) than to make work in vain,
And be to others (made) a mocking stock.
" Here again something being dropped by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor, I have added the words enclosed to complete the measure and answer the Latin."
iv. 223 "What man is he that having once begun (To leave his prison and) a race to run Desires not instantly the goal to gain.
" Here again something being dropped by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor, I have added the words en- closed to answer the Latin."
These are examples of emendations intended to improve the metre : I may give a few others, showing his additions, "to fill out the sense." They are all single lines or distiches, each being prefaced with his tiresome formula — " Here again something being dropped by the carelessness, etc." :
(a) and my own blood Upon the ground seems let out.
(b) Ever just things in publick to profess.
(c) Here is there any room at all for doubt.
(d) But if perverse against me they persist
(All must be slighted to preserve my Crown).
(e) And up and down amongst you daily walketh.
(/) O Death, the bad man's fear, the good man's hope !
(g) Heaven speed all well !
(h) Or aught else which thy mind esteems more dear.
68 PECK'S ARGUMENT
In many instances he silently alters the text, and it is only by collating his version with the pamphlet, which he did not print in the New Memoirs, that one can get to know the extent of his tinkering.
I hope, in what I have said about Peck's editing, I have done him no injustice. His New Memoirs is not by any means without value. I only saw the book after my own transcription of the pamphlet into blank verse was in type ; but on collating his rendering and mine, I found that at one place he had suggested an excellent verbal correction which in all likelihood would have escaped me. I found also that some things noted by myself had been anticipated by him, which gave me all the more confidence in bringing them into my own argument.
It is in the presentment of the argument that Peck altogether fails. It would have been far better for him had he never heard of George Buchanan's Baptistes. If his book had been published before his " double discovery " was made, his cardinal error in maintaining that the poem was an original work of John Milton would no doubt in time have been exposed, and the great body of annotations rendered of little or no value ; but the poem itself, as a translation, would not necessarily have been involved in the overthrow of the argument. A claim advanced for Milton as the translator would have been unprejudiced. But presented as it was, it is not surprising that the New Memoirs should have been uninfluential. Later biographers of the poet have silently ignored it. Even in the encyclopaedic work of
BUCHANAN'S BIOGRAPHERS 69
Professor Masson, Peck is only once or twice cited for very minor points of biography. Irving, in his Life of George Buchanan, referring to Peck, says : " One of Milton's biographers has ascribed to that immortal poet an English version of the Baptistes ; but his opinion is not authorized by the slightest vestige of evidence, either historical or internal : and his persevering observations on the subject exhibit a very curious and entertaining specimen of antiquarian argumentation." And Professor Hume Brown is not less emphatic : he says, "Long afterwards, in the critical year 1642, a translation of the Baptistes was published under the suggestive title, ( Tyrannical Government Anatomized, being the Life and Death of John the Baptist.' By one of his editors this translation was assigned to no less a person than Milton. We know that Milton read and admired Buchanan, but this translation is not his." In a footnote to the last sentence, he adds, " Professor Masson assures me of this."1 The learned editor of Nova Solyma? unless I am mistaken, is the only critic of recent times who has expressed a contrary opinion : he thinks Peck "should not have been non-suited off hand." " Non-suited off hand," it seems to me, succinctly describes the earlier proceedings, and what I would ask for now is a fair and impartial re-hearing of the case. There are good grounds for the application. The New Memoirs of Milton,
1 George Buchanan, a Biography, by P. Hume Brown. Edinburgh, 1890.
2 Nova Solyma, The Ideal City, or Jerusalem Regained, an anonymous Romance written in the time of Charles I., with Introduction, Translation, Literary Essays and a Bibliography by the Rev. Walter Begley. London (John Murray), 1902.
j
70 BAPTISTES: ITS INTERPRETATION
printed by subscription and issued in a limited edition, is a work rarely met with now-a-days outside public libraries. The most important document in the case, Tyrannicall Government Anatomized, one of the rarest of rare seventeenth- century pamphlets, now reprinted for the first time, has hitherto been accessible to very few people indeed. There is, besides, new evidence. Let me therefore state the case briefly.
II.
The Baptistes has been invested with a deeper meaning and a new interest by the recently recovered records of the trial of George Buchanan before the Inquisition at Lisbon.1 The key to its interpretation, lost for 350 years, has happily been found again. It is known now that the drama, although deriving its plot from an incident of Jewish history, was really written as a political allegory, expressing the strong feelings of the author on ecclesiastical affairs in England during the reign of Henry VIII. The dramatis per sonae are to be sought for among English men and women, — Henry VIII., Anne Bullen, and Sir Thomas More being three of the leading characters.
1 George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition : The Records of his Trial\ Guilherme I. C. Henriques : Lisbon, 1906. In the Confession or Statement prepared by George Buchanan (still extant in his autograph) and submitted to the Inquisitors, there is this interesting passage relating to his Baptistes : Itaque cu primu potui ut illinc evasi meam sentetiam de anglis explicavi, in ea tragcedia quae est de Jo. Baptista, in qua quatum materiae similitude patiebatur mortem et accusationem thomae mori repraesentavi, et sped em tirannidis illius temporis ob oculos posui. P. 28.
SIR THOMAS MORE 71
Buchanan himself testifies that he composed the tragedy soon after his escape from England in 1539, in order to show the nature of the accusation preferred against More, and to expose the tyranny of that bad time.1 Although not printed until 1578, the drama must have been known either through its having been acted by the students of the College of Guyenne at Bordeaux, in which Buchanan was a regent, or from manuscript copies passing from hand to hand ; otherwise there would have been no occasion for mentioning it and explaining its interior meaning to the inquisitors. It was translated into French and Dutch before
1 None of the biographers ever suspected that Buchanan had Sir Thomas More in his mind when he composed Baptistes : but the statement to the Inquisitors is positive. If, therefore, we are to recognise More in John Baptist, Henry VIII. and Anne Bullen must represent Herod and Herodias. As historical portraits the likenesses are certainly not striking. In 1539 Buchanan was still a Roman Catholic, and it may be that like Hall and Sandars, adherents of the old faith, he regarded Queen Anne as the real instigator of the executions of Fisher and More. Fuller in his Church History, commenting on a statement of a chronicler, curiously enough, likens her to "another Herodias." According to a more recent writer Henry himself was disposed to blame the Queen. "When an account of More's execution was brought to him he was playing at tables with the queen ; and (as the probable story goes) he looked sternly at her and after saying ' Thou art the cause of this man's death,' withdrew in evident perturbation to the solitude of his chamber." ( The Cabinet Hist, of England^ London, 1845, vol. vi- P- 2I3-) The identification of Cromwell as Malchus, and Cranmer as Gamaliel, is even more difficult considering how both endeavoured to get the Chancellor to take the oath of supremacy and so save his head. There are, however, a few slight touches in the drama that might be explained as historical allusions to More, e.g.) iv. 177 and iii. 23, but they are not by any means certain. Buchanan, like a bird in the hands of the fowler, would, no doubt, be glad to break the net and escape in the best way he could from , the Inquisitors ; and his interpretation of the tragedy, it seems to me, may better not be pushed too far or taken too literally.
72 THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
the end of the sixteenth century : the earliest English version, strange to relate, was made by a subject of Charles I., and sent forth, with parliamentary sanction, as a manifesto against the tyranny of that unfortunate monarch.
Was the English translator John Milton ? The question is more easily asked than answered, but it is surely worth asking. The intrinsic evidence is more considerable, as I hope to show, than at first sight appears ; but before examining it, let us consider for a little the a priori probability of the attribution in the light of Milton's biography.
It is demonstrable from his works, that Milton read and greatly admired Buchanan. One at least of his Latin poems, In Quintum Novembris, written when he was 17 years of age, shows acquaintance with the Franciscanus, and probably also with the Somnium.1 Another, In Adventum Veris, three years later in date, no less witnesses to the influence of the Scottish poet.2 An entry in his Common Place Book, in use at Horton (1632-38), when he "enjoyed complete holiday, turning over Latin and Greek authors," discovers him still intent on Buchanan.8 In Lycidas, which belongs to the close of 1637, the well known lines :
Were it not better done as others use To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair —
1Line 85, long misunderstood, was at last cleared up by the Franciscanus, v. 47. Editors are agreed that Milton adverts to Buchanan's poem.
2 Line 9,— an allusion to Buchanan's Grataque Phoebo Castalis unda choro. El. i. 2.
3 Milton's Common Place Book, Camden Society Publications.
JOHN MILTON 73
are by general agreement regarded as a passing allusion to the favourite nymphs of Buchanan. And to me it seems that another and far more famous passage of the Elegy, too familiar to need particular citation, is reminiscent of lines in the Baptistes, rendered thus by the English translator:
But if you should read Or teach the prophets' oracles, and show The track or steps of your own holy life, Then your authority is stricken mute, Then like dumb dogs that bark not, here you fret And fume about your sheepcotes, but the wolves, Which of you drive away? The wolves said I? — You are the wolves yourselves, and flay your flock, Clothed with their wool ; their milk doth slake your
thirst,
Their flesh your hunger: thus yourselves you feed, But not your flock.
Again, in the Defensio Secunda, written in 1654, there is direct mention of the author of Baptistes : 11 True poets are the objects of my reverence and my love, the constant source of my delight. I know that most of them, from the earliest time down to Buchanan, have been the strenuous enemies of despotism."1 There is no need to labour the point ; these instances are enough to prove intimate knowledge of Buchanan.
Towards the end of 1639, while still searching for a subject suitable for the great poem which he hoped one day to write, and for which he
1Poetas equidem vere dictos et diligo et colo, et audiendo saepissim& delector ; illorum etiam plerosque tyrannis esse scio inimicissimos, si vel k primis exorsus ad Buchananum usque nostrum recenserem. Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano, Milton's Prose Works, edited by Robert Fletcher, London, 1833, p. 714.
74 JOHN MILTON
had been secretly preparing himself by ''industrious and select reading," we find Milton tentatively jotting down Baptistes in one of his MSSM now in Trinity College, Cambridge, as a theme to be considered for dramatic treatment. That fact is of itself deeply significant. Is it not reasonable to suppose that he would carefully read and digest Buchanan's Baptistes in order to note how his master had handled the subject? In one of the interesting autobiographical confidences which abound in his prose writings, there is mention of frequent "versing in English or other tongue," in which, as he tells us, he excelled.1 May our English translation not be a study of Buchanan and at the same time one of those metrical exercises ?
Another important fact not to be overlooked is the date of the publication of the translation in the guise of a pamphlet. It synchronizes with Milton's five pamphlets in defence of religious liberty, which were all published, three of them anonymously, between 1640 and 1643. As much as any of them, it was a tract for the times, "doctrinal and exemplary to a nation." In thought and diction there is remarkable likeness at many points to those early prose works, to which indeed it might be regarded as complementary. The five pamphlets are unquestionably important documents, to be taken into account by everyone who comes to pronounce judgment on the question under discussion.
iaThe Reason of Church Government," Milton's Prose Works, edn. supra, p. 43.
THE INTRINSIC EVIDENCE 75
III.
Coming now to the Translation, it will be evident to every one who reads it attentively that it is the work of a scholar-poet. The translator, who- ever he was, has followed Milton's " well- warranted" rule, — " not to give an inventory of so many words, but to weigh their force."1 His version is true: it is, indeed, Baptistes in English. Nothing but the language is changed ; and even in the English the sonorous tone of the original has been caught. On every page there are Latin constructions and idioms, and in not a few places " the contorted and gnarled structure," which Professor Masson points to as one of the marked characteristics of Milton's poetry. These will be obvious enough to every reader, and need not detain us now. Limit of space will not permit exhaustive exami- nation of the long excursus prefixed by Professor Masson to his edition of Milton's Poetical Works? It is largely based on Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, and proves little more than that anomalies, most essentially Elizabethan, or Shake- spearian, can be well illustrated by examples from Milton. Nearly every one of the anomalies could equally well be illustrated by examples from the translation. But for our present purpose it would be labour lost ; for, while showing the translator to have inherited the Elizabethan syntax, it would not in the least help to throw light on the question under discussion. One
1 " The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce " (translated by Milton). Milton's Prose Works, edn. supra, p. 174. 2 London: Macmillan & Co., 1874.
76 MILTON'S SYNTAX
or two points, however, may deserve passing notice.
(a) As an example of grammatical superfluity, Masson mentions " Milton's frequent use of the adverbial form from hence, from thence, from whence, instead of the simpler adverbs hence, thence, whence." The translation furnishes several examples, e.g. :
Part iv. 296 From hence comes fear to evil men, from thence
Good hope to good men. v. 124 From whence against thy prophets doth arise.
(b) Irregularities in Concord and Government, e.g. a singular verb with a plural nominative :
Sonnet, xiii. Thy worth and skill exempts thee.
P.L. vi. 815. Kingdoms and powers and glory appertains.
P.L. viii. 222-3. all comeliness and grace
Attends thee. Lyddas, 6, 7. Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your seasons due.
Such irregularities are, strictly speaking, Eliza- bethan, but they are common in Milton. In the translation there are several examples :
i. 221 And that the King's prerogative and power
Lies open to derision.
iii. 139 Dill, mint, rue, garlic, nettles or green hay, Does not escape you.
Peck, taking these, and others, to be errors of " the transcriber or compositor," silently corrected them.
(c) The pronouns call for no special remark, except the neuter possessive its. Milton used the old form his or her for our its. In Shakespeare its occurs at least ten times,1 but in Milton's
1 See the list in A new and complete Concordance or Verbal Index to Words, Phrases and Passages in the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare : by John Bartlett (Macmillan & Co.), 1894, voce Its.
MILTON'S PROSODY 77
poetry is only used three times, once in the Ode to the Nativity, twice in Paradise Lost, i. 254 and iv. 813. There are eight instances of it in the trans- lation.1 We should perhaps also note the violation of government in iv. 237, where the pronoun He is used for Him, an exact parallel of Paradise Lost, ii. 814. In both cases God is spoken of.
(d) The omission of the verb to be, also Eliza- bethan, is common in the translation, but lines ii. 49-56 are strikingly Miltonic in construction, and perhaps deserve special citation.
" Milton was very learned and critical in all matters of prosody. He would not have objected therefore to the most microscopic examination of his verse in search of the mechanical causes or accompaniments of the poetic effects." The state- ment is Professor Masson's, and may serve as an apology for the examination that follows. It may be tedious to some, but it is absolutely necessary. On the intrinsic evidence, indeed, the attribution of the translation to Milton must stand or fall. Through the labyrinths of Milton's prosody, Mr. Robert Bridges, himself a poet, will be the guide. His brilliant study of English prosody on the basis of Milton's practice being now the acknowledged standard work on the subject, the Translation must be tried by his criteria.2
1 In the translation the neuter possessive its first appears at Part iii.
I. 90, in the soliloquy of John the Baptist. It occurs in that short passage five times. The other three instances occur in Part iv.
II. 161, 241 and 289.
2 Milton's Prosody, an Examination of the Rules of Blank Verse in Milton's Later Poems, with an account of the Versification of Samson Agonistes and General Notes by Robert Bridges, Hon. Fellow C.C.C. Oxford (Henry Frowde), 1901.
78 MILTON'S PROSODY
Premising that " typical blank verse may be described as obeying three conditions — (i) It has ten syllables, (2) it has five stresses, and (3) it is in rising rhythm, that is, the stresses are upon the even syllables " — he proceeds to examine the verse of Paradise Lost under three heads: (i) To the number of the syllables being ten, (2) to the number of the stresses being five, and (3) to the stresses falling on the even syllables.
I. SUPERNUMERARY SYLLABLES (i) at the end of the line and (2) in other parts of the line. Of such extra syllables at the end of the line — e.g.
\. 38 Of rebel angels by whose aid aspi(ring). viii. 216 Imbued, bring to their sweetness no sati(ety).
— Mr. Bridges observes that they occur more rarely in Milton than in other writers. Of extra syllables in other parts of the line he gives six examples from Comus, but remarks that when Milton came to write Paradise Lost he had entirely discarded these by elision. In the translation there are lines, to be noticed immediately, with an extra syllable at the end, but none with an extra syllable in other parts of the line. And here we may note that while in the Early Poems Milton frequently used words ending in ion with the older full pro- nunciation— e.g.
ComuS) 603 With all the grisly legi-ons that troop. „ 641 Or ghastly furies appariti-on.
— he had abandoned the practice when he wrote Paradise Lost. In the translation we have several examples, among others :
i. 47 By which delusi-ons he draws the looks, ii. 97 This our rebellious nati-on to rest.
MILTON'S PROSODY 79
II. POETIC ELISIONS come next. By "elision," it may be as well to explain, Mr. Bridges " does not mean that the elided syllable should be ' cut out' of the pronunciation, but simply that Milton regarded his open vowels as ' elided ' like open vowels in Latin, that is, he intended that they should not count in the scansion." The elisions "common in Shakespeare/' Milton, when he came to write Paradise Lost, had " reduced and brought under law." His rules are four :
"(a) The first is the rule of open vowels. All open vowels may be elided, whether long, short, double, or combined ; and whether both the vowels be in the same word, or divided between two : and h is no letter." Words like being, doing, flying, riot, violent, Israel fall under this rule. The following lines are given by Mr. Bridges from Paradise Lost, as illustrations of the rule. The vowels italicized indicate the elisions :
i. 15 Above the Aom&n mount, while it pursues.
i. 39 To set himself in glory above his peers.
ii. 703 Strange horror seize thee and pangs unfelt before,
iv. 848 Virtue m her shape how lovely ; saw and pined,
ix. no Not in themselves all their known virtue appears.
v. 407 N0 Yngrateful food; and food alike those pure.
x. 12 For still they knew, and ought to have still
remembered.
ix. 1082 And rapture so oft beheld; those heavenly shapes,
ix. 746 Though kept from man, and worthy to b^ admired,
ix. 152 He effected. Man he made, and for him built,
x. 467 As lords, a spacious world, to our native heaven.
x. 468 Little inferiour, by my adventure hard.
x. 758 Thou didst accept them: wilt thou enjoy the good,
xii. 611 For God is als0 m sleep, and dreams advise.
x. 567 With spattering noise rejected, oft they assayed.
8o MILTON'S PROSODY
There are not many lines in the transla- tion coming under this rule. The following are examples :
iv. 196 Lest unadvisedly some cause be offered. iii. 73 / ha& rather they should seek me constant here. ii. 297 Bemg once our Father utterly forsake. ii. 60 Much more than fame hath publisht. Nor do I marvel.1
And w may be disregarded as a vowel, as in words like power, toward, follower, e.g.
x 1092. Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek.
There are a few lines in the translation that require the w rule for their scansion, inter alia :
i. 247 By God's appointment, there's no power of man.
iv. 171 Neither do I resist : how am I able.
v. 176 The Prophet's followers that I may relate.
iv. 133 He with no fear is moved, O Power Divine!
The second rule, pure r. Of unstressed vowels separated by r the first may be elided, as in the words nectarous, weltering, suffering^ glimmering, etc. Also when the written vowel is compound, as conqueror, labouring, neighbour- ing, honouring, endeavouring, etc." Examples in the translation are numerous, but I give only these :
i. i O this old wretched age, the neighboring bounds.
i. 279 With flattering poison thou inchauntst our thoughts.
ii. 39 The wavering vulgars' fury being raised.
iii. 33 Who hath bereft us of all differences.
iv. 226 Who by night wandering in the stormy sea.
^marvel falls under rule (y) infra.
. MILTON'S ELISIONS 81
"(7) The third rule, of pure /. Unstressed
vowels before pure / may be elided, as in the words
popular, populous, articulate, credulous, groveling,
perilous, etc." The chief exercise of this elision,
Mr. Bridges points out, " is in the termination of
words, especially adjectives in ble, the le being
treated as pronounced el or /." Examples from
the translation are these :
iv. 7 Unto the Commons wrath and with my per/1. v. 130 Slaughter with violence, fraud, theft and rapine, iv. 13 He subt/ly by the vulgar would be thought.
" Adjectives in ble which seem to offer an alter- native elision in the middle of the word, as miserable, suffer the elision of the termination preferably to the other, however opposed to present taste or use this may be." In the translation the word miserable seems always to require the full number of syllables, the a being long : and the same is true of other words in able, vide Part ii. detestable, miserable, profitable ; Part iv. insuperable, inex- orable, inevitable. In one instance (v. 201) — None can be made by f6rtune miserable
— the le is extra-metrical and conforms to Milton's usage (vide Bridges, p. 8).
" ($) The fourth rule is of the elision of unstressed vowels before n. e before final n does not require the n to be pure, e.g. Heaven, even, seven, etc. Other vowels, and e before n not final, require the n pure, e.g. business, hardening, original, etc." These examples from the trans- lation will suffice ; the elision is common : —
ii. 277 Whose nod makes all things tremble heawn adorned, iii. 178 Do thine own bus/ness and let ours alone.
F
82 MILTON'S PROSODY
CONTRACTIONS, like elisions, are (i) either of com- mon speech, e.g. the perfect tenses and participles in ed. Milton, as Mr. Bridges observes, often wrote these with final /, as they are pronounced. So is it in the translation : e.g. hoodwinkt, refresht, possest, past, opprest, banisht, publisht, quaft, perisht, checkt, supprest, overpast, shipwract, whipt, establisht ; (2) poetical contractions, common to all poetry: e.g. o'er, e'er; (3) perfect participles in en : falFn, ris'n, chos'n, etc., common to all poetry. Mr. Bridges remarks on Milton's preference for the contracted form of the termination of the second person singular of verbs : thinkst, seekst, formdst, commandst. The same preference is observable throughout the translation : inchauntst, disturbst, attempst, deceivst, mayst, forbidst, shutst, swelst, etc. j1 (4) it is not to be expected that the Translation, written probably between 1634 and 1638, certainly before 1643, should exhibit all the refinements of rhythm of Paradise Lost. It does not do so. Extrametrical lines which do not respond to any of the four laws enunciated by Mr. Bridges are still rendered rhythmical by vowel contraction, e.g. : z
i. 157 If he transgress why do you not confute him
ii. 107 Thou /fodst done little mischief, for the safety
ii. 309 And help thy people. To OUT adversaries
iii. 1 1 7 Nor do I so much wonder at the gentiles
iv. 1 80 The <?/her heavenly, merciful and mild
iv. 78 Who by his own perverseness might have perished
III. The variety in number of stresses next receives attention. Mr. Bridges begins with "lines
1 The participles and second person singular of verbs are so printed in the pamphlet, which almost certainly was set up in the printing shop from a MS. in the form of blank verse.
2 The vowels are " glided " and slightly shortened.
VERSE STRESSES 83
with only four stresses." " It is common," he says, " for one stress in the line to be absent, or to be so much weaker than the others that it may be considered as failing."
(1) The omitted stress may be the first, and is rare. Mr. Bridges' example is :
And in luxurious cities where the n6ise. i. 498.
From the translation one example may be given : v. 12 But in a dish to have the Baptist's he'ad.
" The conjunction and often occurs in stress places in Milton's verse where stressing it would make the verse ridiculous." So it is in the translation :
i. 8 Broken before me and the sacred g61d. i. 146 Us that are ancient: and let each one live.
(2) The stress may be omitted in the second place, e.g.,
Served 6nly to disc6ver sights of w6e. i. 64. From the translation these are examples :
i. 31 With misery had hardly tdken heart, i. 40 That dignity himself unless he ch6ose. ii. 222 Or p61itic oration can express.
(3) The stress may fail in the third place, e.g.,
A diingeon h6rrible on all sides r6und. i. 61.
From the translation these are examples :
i. 28 And n6 small niimber of his purpled c6urt i. 29 Begdn to dignify the Jewish laws.
(4) The stress may fail in the fourth place, a very common form, e.g.,
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heaven, i. 124.
84 MILTON'S PROSODY
In the translation it is also common, e.g., i. 44 Deceives with shew of sanctity severe.
(5) Or it may fail in the fifth place, No light but rather darkness visible.
This is peculiar to Paradise Lost, and is very rare. I do not think an absolute example occurs in the translation. Mr. Bridges also observes that some- times lines with only three full stresses are met with, e.g.,
Transfix us to the b6ttom of this giilf. i. 329. So in the translation : iv. 217 To the beginning of a 16nger life.
IV. OF INVERSION OF RHYTHM. — Mr. Bridges points out " that the stress may be shifted on to the odd syllable in any place in the line. It is then described as inverted. . . . Inversion is most common in the first foot, next in the third and fourth, very rare in the second, and most rare in the fifth." So it is in the translation.
(1) Inversions of the First Foot, e.g.,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace, i. 65. From the translation these are examples :
i. 9 Rent from the posts, whate'er the greedy will.
i. 30 We with this hope refresht, though well near tired.
i. 53 Him only now the people all admire.
(2) Inversions of the Second Stress, e.g.,
A mind n6t to be changed by time or place, i. 253.
THE VERSE-BREAKS 85
From the translation these are examples :
i. 141 You shoot far from the mark, that you suppose, ii. 244 As I am to myself if I must serve.
(3) Inversions of the Third Stress, e.g.,
For one restraint, 16rds of the world besides, i. 32.
From the translation these are examples :
i. 26 Such as it is whfch by our foes themselves, i. 266 Litigious men peace in their looks do feign.
(4) Inversions of the Fourth Stress, e.g.,
Illumine, what is low raise and support, i. 23. From the translation these are examples :
ii. 258 Then he will force to stoop, then he will cast. ii. 272 With intricate debate that I conceive.
(5) Inversions of the Fifth Stress, e.g.,
Beyond all past example and fiiture. x. 840. Which of us who beholds the bright siirface. vi. 472.
From the translation these are examples :
iii. 378 Being a simple hearted man reject me. ii. 152 This hath been ever my care and ciistom.
V. ON THE CAESURA OR BREAK IN THE VERSE. — 11 A blank verse," says Mr. Bridges, "tends to divide itself into two balancing parts ; and a natural rhythmical division may generally be felt in lines which contain no grammatical pause. But where there is any grammatical pause it is that which determines the break . . . and when the verse is handled in a masterly manner the break may occur well in any part of the line. . . . There are sometimes two or more breaks in a
86 MILTON'S PROSODY
line : the frequence of these with the severity of the breaks is a distinction of Milton's verse."
Now, in the Translation, not only are the breaks varied according to the sense throughout all the ten syllables, but very often there are two or more breaks in a line, e.g.,
i 2 3 45 6 7 89 10 This new come prophet who is not a man.
(1) iv.3oi Life, | that abhorring goodness dost affect 1+9
(2) i. 12 All's lost, | and we have been a mocking stock 2 + 8
(3) ii. 117 Can shew thee, | thou shaltplenteously receive 3 + 7
(4) v. 175 Where may I find, | O who will tell me where 14 + 6
(5) i. 54 Leaving their cities. | Noblemen and kings 5 + 5
(6) i. 6 Our holy things profaned, | our country slaved 6 + 4 (?) i- 35 Whose parentage is holy, | who was bred 7 + 3
(8) ii. 43 Draw not your mind from equity, | what seems 8 + 2
(9) i. 98 Reputed by the common people, | Saints 9 + 1
(10) in. 1 5 I only | the rest idle ] did defend 3 + 4 + 3
(11) iii.58 I'll do *t, | I'll surfer z't | ay indeed I will 2 + 3 + 5
(12) iv.252 But, | O you hypocrites, | in show severe 1 + 5+4
( 1 3) v. 34 Your kingdom, Sir, 1 1 need not | which I deem 4 + 3 + 3
Part Third alone would furnish many more examples, but these will suffice.
VI. As regards the diction, there are, I believe, only a very few words in the Translation not found in Milton's Poetical Works, the more re- markable being, estuate (estuating), amove, extirped'. all occur in Elizabethan writers. The fact is of little importance, for, "of the 8000 words of Milton's total poetical vocabulary," Professor Masson tells us, " he would not be surprised if from 2000 to 3000 occur only once." The verb attribute — "and attribute our labours industry," iv. 20, is accented as in Paradise Lost, viii. 107,
CONCLUSION 87
"The swiftness of those circles Attribute." So, too, the word Cdnventicles, ii. 20, is accented on the first syllable as in Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VL, in. i. 1 66.
IV.
Let us ask now what is the result of our examina- tion. The translation was published in 1643 as a pamphlet on the popular side, at the very moment when Milton was waging war with all his might against the English bishops. In a quest for the anonymous translator, therefore, we may without hesitation exclude the Cavalier poets and High Churchmen ; and if we do so, who is there on the other side possessing the qualifications necessary, except John Milton? He was a Latinist in the front rank, and the greatest English poet of the age, though then unrecognized by his country- men. What writer other than he, flourishing in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, could handle blank verse as it is handled in the translation, with such full harmony, correct diction, rhythmical felicity ? The extrinsic evidence itself would prompt that question though it might falter in the answer. But the intrinsic can be much more positive. Tested by what are now accepted as the best criteria, the translation exhibits at every turn the disciplined prosody of Milton. There are the inversions of rhythm, the happy interchange of vowels and consonants, the pleasing variety in the breaks — the crowning distinction of Milton's verse.
88 CONCLUSION
Some things may even indicate when the translation was made. In Comus, Milton was still so far under the influence of Shakespeare and other poets as to allow himself the use of an extra-metrical syllable at places other than the end of the line, a liberty which he wholly renounced when he came to write Paradise Lost. In his Early Poems he also occasionally used the older full pronunciation of words like legi-ons, appariti-on, consci-ence, a practice abandoned before 1662. Now, in the translation an extra-metrical syllable is found only at the end of a line, while words ending in ion are, now and again, still scannable in the old-fashioned way — little niceties of prosody that seem to suggest that it was written after 1634, the date of Comus. It may very well be one of the " private studies " or metrical exer- cises written at Horton when the young poet was diligently qualifying himself for higher flights.
But some one may ask : How comes it that Milton never claimed the translation, if it was his ? An answer is easy. The publication of a trans- lation of the Baptistes, and with such a brazen title-page,1 in 1643, must have been attended with a considerable degree of danger: between 1649 and 1 66 1 Milton was wholly immersed in State business : after the Restoration the danger would certainly not be less than in 1643, but greater. Some of George Buchanan's works had the honour to be burnt in England, both before 1640 and after
xThe presentation to the King, on the title page of the pamphlet, is undoubtedly ironical, but as Baptistes was originally dedicated to James VI., the translator adroitly left for himself a loophole of escape.
CONCLUSION 89
1 66 1, and the author of the pamphlet might very easily have found himself in the clutches of the law had the authorship been brought home to him. That will be accepted as at least a reasonable explanation for anonymity, but I believe there is a better, which may