that it is of little importance whether the supreme magistrate be denominated king, duke, emperor, or consul; but with regard to the distinguishing qualities of a good king, no writer has expressed himself with higher enthusiasm. His general principles seem to be incontrovertible; though it may certainly be admitted that some of his illustrations are not introduced with sufficient caution. That his chief scope was to prepare the nation for receiving Murray as their lawful sovereign, is another calumny which party zeal has frequently propagated; it is a calumny totally unsupported by any degree of probable evidence that could satisfy an unprejudiced mind. Buchanan, like other men who have attained to superlative distinction, had his personal and political enemies; and for every action of his life the worst motives have too often been assigned. He was animated with an ardent and disinterested love of mankind; and it was upon the most enlarged principles that he undertook to instruct them in their dearest rights. The best commentary on his immortal work is the memorable revolution of 1688.

D

An ardent love of freedom was long a charaçteristic of the Scotish nation. Mair and Boyce had, in their historical productions, vindicated with becoming zeal the unalienable rights of the people; but to Buchanan must unquestionably

These two writers had completely imbibed the maxims of a free go.

be awarded the high praise of having been the earliest writer who established political science on its genuine basis. The southern part of this island had likewise produced political speculators: Sir John Fortescue had endeavoured to trace the line of distinction between an absolute and a limited monarchy; and Sir Thomas More had engrafted his novel theories on the description of an imaginary commonwealth. More afterwards forgot the liberal speculations of his youth: in his Utopia, he inculcates the doctrine of religious toleration, and yet he lived to assume the odious

vernment. Mair, who was a doctor of the Sorbonne, inculcates some of the leading doctrines that were afterwards methodized and embellished by his pupil Buchanan: "Populus liber primo regi dat robur, cujus potestas a toto populo dependet; quia aliud jus Fergusius primus rex Scotia non habuit: et ita est ubilibet, et ab orbe condito erat communiter. Hoc propter reges Judææ a Deo institutos dico. Si dicas mihi ab Henrico septimo Henricus octavas jus habet, ad primum Anglorum regem ascendam, quærendo a quo ille jus regni habuit; et ita ubivis gentium procedam. Et quod jus a populo habuit dicere necesse est, quia aliud dare non potes: sed sic est quod totus populus in Robertum Bruseum consensit, de republica Scotica optime meritum. Tertio arguitur ad eandem conclusionem probandam: Regem et posteros pro demeritis populus potest exauthorare sicut et primo instituere." (Major De Gestis Scotorum, p. 175, edit. Edinb. 1740, 4to.) The whole of the passage from which I have extracted this specimen is extremely curious.

During the minority of King James, several coins were struck with a very remarkable inscription. One side presents a naked sword, supporting a crown on its point, and surrounded with this legend: PRO. ME. SI. MEREOR. IN. ME. "Hoc lemma," says Ruddiman, " (quo et suum adversus reges ingenium prodit) Georgium Buchananum Jacobi VI. præcep. torem subministrasse omnes consentiunt." (Andersoni Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotia Thesaurus, p. 103. Edinb. 1799, fol.)

r Basil. 1518, 4to.

character of a persecutor. That he was himself a victim of divine retribution, it would be indecent to affirm: but it is a historical fact that he was wantonly sacrificed by the execrable tyrant whom he had served with too much zeal. On the solid foundation which had been laid by Buchanan, a spacious edifice was afterwards reared by Milton, Sidney, and Locke; names which every enlightened Briton will always recollect with peculiar veneration. That two of them were republicans, need not alarm the most zealous friends of a legitimate monarchy: if the same individuals had flourished at a more recent period, they would undoubtedly have entertained different sentiments. The principles which prompted stern resistance to the wide encroachments of the house of Stewart, are perfectly compatible with those which recommend a cordial attachment to the house of Hanover.

In the seventy-fourth year of his age, 'Buchan

s See Dr. Symmons's Life of Milton, p. 519.

The sagacity and erudition of Mr. Chalmers again obstruct our pro. gress. "Ruddiman," he remarks, " gives a sceptical note, which seems to discover his doubts of an assertion, which has never been supported by proof. Yet he saw only part of the truth. He did not perceive, what appears to have been the fact, that of this life Sir Peter Young was the author. (Life of Ruddiman, p. 68.) Mr. Ruddiman's note, the first on Buchanan's life, is very far from being sceptical; as any person capable of reading it may easily satisfy himself. The reasons which have here convinced Mr. Chalmers, are such as will make no impression on any sound skull. His first reason is, that on the fifteenth of March 1579-80, Randolph advised Young to write Buchanan's life! But the biographical tract in question, as appears from the concluding sentence, was written

an composed a brief sketch of his own life. To this task he was urged by some of his numerous

when Buchanan was in the seventy-fourth year of his age: it was therefore written before the beginning of February 1580, that is, at least a month before Randolph's letter. His second and last reason is, that " Dr. Thomas Smith says expressly, That Peter Young wrote briefly the life of Buchanan." This therefore is a very formidable train of argumentation. "Cujus vitam compendio descripsit," says Dr. Smith in the seventeenth page of his life of Sir Peter Young; but in another part of the same work, he only mentions as a probable conjecture what he had before asserted in positive terms: "Nullus dubito, quin D. Junius importunis D. Thomæ Randolphi, qui crebris in Scotia legationibus functus fuerat, aliorumque precibus et postulationibus obsecutus, Georgii Buchanani, summi sui amici, vitam descripserit." (Vita Petri Junii, p. 29.) This mode of writing history must have recommended Dr. Smith to the particular regard of the author of the "New Anecdotes." But if Young actually wrote a life of Buchanan, are we under the necessity of concluding that he must have written the identical life which has uniformly been ascribed to Buchanan himself? Mr. Chalmers's notion of evidence is extremely ludicrous. This tract is written in a strain of dignified simplicity, highly becoming an illustrious character who had undertaken to be his own historian; but if the same events and circumstances had been related by a friend, they would undoubtedly have been related in a different manner. On the characteristics of style, I found no argument, for that would. be superfluous. The time of its original publication has not been ascertained; but it underwent several impressions before the death of Young. It has invariably been ascribed to Buchanan; and yet neither Sir Peter, nor his learned son Patrick Young, ever informed the world of its spu riousness.

"This writer, whoever he were,” proceeds the learned critic, “ talks of John Major as being in extrema senectute, in 1524, when he was only fifty-five." The period of Mair's birth is neither known to Mr. Chalmers nor to any other person; for Dr. Mackenzie's date is a mere figment. George Crawfurd, the most industrious of his biographers, could discover no better datum than this incidental notice of Buchanan: he accordingly refers the birth of Mair to the year 1446.-" He speaks of Henry VIII. as jam seniore, in 1539, when he was but forty-eight." And therefore he speaks as any man of learning might do without hesitation. Consult Aulus Gellius, Noctes Attice, lib. x, cap. xxviii." He makes

friends;" and the annals of literature supplied him with abundant instances of autobiography. The practice, as we learn from Tacitus, was not unusual among the ancient Romans, though not a single specimen has descended to our times. Augustus wrote an account of his own life, consisting of thirteen books; but it has perished with the other literary monuments of that prince. The work of Josephus is the only specimen of this mode of composition which antiquity has bequeathed. More recent examples are exhibited by Erasmus and Cardan; who have likewise been followed in the same tract by Thuanus, Huet, Herbert, Hume, Gibbon, Franklin, Rousseau, Wakefield, and five hundred authors beside. In Cardan and Rousseau

Buchanan meet Cardinal Beaton at Paris, in 1539, a twelve-month after he had returned to Scotland: I am thence led to suspect, that Buchanan made his escape from St. Andrew's, by the way of London, to Paris, not in 1539, but in 1538, when he might have met the cardinal." The dates on the margin are not those of the author, but of the editor. In his history, Buchanan however informs us that he did not leave his native country till 1539; and therefore this redoubtable critic may suspect what he pleases. Because Cardinal Beaton was at Paris in 1538, he could not also be at Paris in 1539, is the next proposition." I could run through the whole life, and shew similar fooleries, and some malignity, in every page of it.” Αὐτῷ ταῦτά σοι δίδωμ ̓ ἔχειν.

u" Hæc de se Buchananus, amicorum rogatu," is the colophon of some of the early editions.

"Ac plerique suam ipsi vitam narrare, fiduciam potius morum, quam arrogantiam arbitrati sunt. Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem, aut obtrectationi fuit: adeo virtutes iisdem temporibus optime æstimant ur, quibus facillime gignuntur."

TACITI Vita Agricolæ, p. 4, edit. Boxhornii. y Augusti Temporun: Notatio, Genus, et Scriptorum Fragmenta, curante J. A. Fabricio, p. 190. Hamb. 1727, 4to.