New-York tribune., 1907-08-17
GEORGE BUCHANAN.
The Famous Scotch Poet PORTRAYED
by Andrezo Lang.
From The Edinburgh Scotsman.


What are Keats?" said the young officer
when asked by the young lady if ne liked
Keats" Who is George Bucnanan?" the in
teiilsent Sightseer asks when he behods relics
of that famous in the University Library
of St Andrews. George born In about
l5D6. at u farm called The Moss. near killearn.
ia the LennoX. His family, not in any way
markable, was. he tells US, reduced almost to
extremity OF want" while his father may have
thought, like Mr.. Harris on the birth Of Mrs.
Harris's last, that George "one too many,
II not two George could speak both Gaelic
and Scots, like many Highlanders; he learned
Latin, perhaps at the Grammar School of GlaS
gov; he went TO Paris at about fifteen, lived
most uncomfortably and learned more Latin and
more Greek than Scotland at that time pos
sessed. Returning to Scotland, he found that
war, waged by Albany in wet weather, was
more uncomfortable than the lodgings of poor
student in Paris, and went back TO that city.
At the Scots College. tursar. he must near
ly have been starved; nor when he graduated
I'm 1923 and became a regent dom of st.
Barbe's. were his appointments much more lux
uriOuS.
After three years Of regenting. Buchanan be-
came tutor 10 the young Earl OF Cassilis-
whether he who roasted alive till he
signed u deed, or an earlier earl. deponent know
eth not, Returning with his pupil to Scotland.
George made his way in society by his wit and
learning; wrote satire on the Franciscans
which pleased James V. and In 1884 fed to
France for reasons which ne explains different
ly in divers OF his writings. What really oc-
CURED do not know, for George, as Mr. r
8. Raft has remarked with candor "the
most unbushing liar that ever wrote British
soil'-that is. as an historian. From Paris George
went to q college in Bordeaux, where, for dis
puted number OF years, ne was a professor of
Latin. Then he migrated TO Portugal, where In
16i1 20 he got into trouble with the Inquisition.
He behaved with great cannnesS, and wrote
confession of his past life which does not pre-
cisely tally with the accounts given by him
when a free man in n Protestant country. He
abjured his errors, and while in durance did the
Psalms into Latin verse Released he went to
England then to France, and in 1861 returned
TO Scotland, where, whatever his religious opin-
ions may have been, it was perilous to be Il
Catholic and safe and profitable TO be Cal
whist. He read Latin with Queen Mary, adu-
lated and begged from her in Latin verse (he
was busy at that work just before Darnley's
murderl, obtained grant of abbey, whence
he drew little profit. and when Mary a
prisoner in England he accompanied to York
and probably to London, in a new black velvet
probably the author of ''The Book of Articles
put in against her by her accomplices, and in
1871 published his mendacious and scurrilous
Detection of her doingS. He became princf-
pai of ST. Ieonard's College in st. Andrews, was
tutor to James VI wrote political pamphlets
including the frankly anarchist "De Jure
Regni" and completed a long, uncrticai and q
most misleading Latin History OF Scotland He
said that il would please few and offend many
and it contains in one place account OF Darn
Ieys murder which leaves Boutwell, out and ac-
cuses the Hamiltons He died full OF years, but
not of wealth.
We have seen who George Buchanan was
But he was reckoned the greatest of poets in
the age of Ronsard-that Is he was the most
eopious and, setting his many false quantities
aside (perhaps they all made false quantities.
the most vigorous and graceful of Latin versi-
ders While Latin was still read. his psalms