Born at Killearn, Stirlingshire, Feb. 1506. Educated at Parish School. In Paris, studying Latin, 1520–22. Served with French troops in Scotland under Albany, 1523. To St. Andrews 1524; B.A., 3 Oct. 1525. To Paris, 1526. B.A., Scottish College, Paris, 10 Oct. 1527; M.A., Mar. 1528. Elected “Procurator of German nation,” 3 June 1529; taught in Coll. of St. Barbe, 1529–32. Tutor to Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, 1532–36. Returned to Scotland. Tutor to a natural son of King James, 1537–38. Arrested on charge of Lutheranism, Jan. 1539; escaped from prison and fled to London, and thence to Paris and Bordeaux. Taught Latin in College of Guienne, 1539–42. Returned to Paris; taught in College of Cardinal Le Moine, 1544–47. To Portugal; to Coll. at Comibra, 1547. Returned to England, 1552; to Paris 1553, taught in Coll. of Boncourt. Tutor to son of Count de Brissac, 1555–60. Returned to Scotland; classical tutor to Queen. Joined Reformed Church; sat in assemblies of 1563–67; Moderator, 1567; Principal of St. Andrews, 1566. To England as secretary to Commission respecting Queen Mary, 1568. Returned to St. Andrews, Jan. 1569. Tutor to King James, Aug. 1569 to May 1578. Director of Chancery 1570; Keeper of Privy Seal, 1570–78. Died, at Edinburgh, 29 Sept. 1582. Buried there, in churchyard of Grey Friars. Works: “Jephthes,” 1554; “De Caleto nuper ab Henrico II…. recepta Carmen,” 1558; “Franciscanus,” 1566; “Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica,” 1566; “Elegiæ, Silvæ, Hendecasyllabi,” 1567; De Maria Scotorum Regina totaque ejus contra Regem conjuratione” (anon.), 1571; “An Admonition direct to the Trew Lordis Mantenairs of the Kingis graces authoritie” (under initials: M. G. B.), 1571; “Baptistes,” 1578; “De Jure Regni apud Scotos Dialogus,” 1579; “Rerum Scoticarum Historia,” 1582. Posthumous: “De Sphæra, Libri V.,” 1587; “Satyra in Cardinalem Lotharingum,” 1590; “De Prosodia libellus,” 1596; “Tragœdiæ Sacræ & exteræ,” 1597; “Vita ab ipso scripta,” 1608; “Poemata Omnia,” 1615; “The Chameleon,” 1710; “Letters,” 1711. He translated: Linacre’s “Rudimenta Grammatices,” 1533; Euripide’s “Alcestis,” 1557; “Medea and Alcestis,” 1567. Collected Works: edited by T. Ruddiman (2 vols.), 1715.

Personal

  When we cam to his chalmer we fand him sitting in chaire, teatching his young man that servit him in his chalmer to spell a, b, ab; e, b, eb; etc. Efter salutation Mr. Andre sayes, “I sie, sir, yie are nocht ydle.” “Better this,” quoth he, “nor stelling sheipe, or sytting ydle, quhilk is als ill.” Thereafter he schew ws the Epistle Dedicatorie, quhilk, when Mr. Andre had read, he tauld him that it was obscure in sum places, and wanted certean words to perfyt the sentence. Sayes he “I may do no mair for thinking on another matter.” “What is that?” says Mr. Andre. “To die,” quoth he; “bot I leave that and manie ma things for yow to helpe.”

  Roughhewn, slovenly, and rude, in his person, behaviour, and fashion; seldom caring for a better outside than a rugge-gown girt close about him: yet his inside and conceipt in poesie was most rich, and his sweetness and facilitie in verse most excellent.

  Cheery, impressible George Buchanan; a Presbyterian, austere but half way through, with a face like a Scotch Socrates, although more apt than Socrates to take offence, familiar with Latin as with his native tongue, full of anecdote and good talk, familiar also with languages and people round about, and liking Scotland all the better for experience in other lands.

  While his title to learning is thus beyond dispute, the rest of his character has been the subject of vehement controversy. Nor is it a character easy to read. Some points will be generally allowed. With him the love of education was not merely a virtue but a passion, early conceived and never abandoned. But he was not only a professor but a man of the world. The world in which he lived was distracted by the deepest and widest controversy in modern history; between tradition and the new learning, between absolute and constitutional government, between the romanist and the reformed doctrines and discipline. In this controversy, not only in the field of literature, but of action, Buchanan took a prominent part on the side of the reformers. He is still deemed a traitor, a slanderer, and an atheist by some, while to others he is a champion of the cause of liberty and religion, and one of its most honoured names. His character may perhaps be more justly represented as combined of strange contradictions; he was at the same time humane and vindictive, mirthful and morose, cultured and coarse, fond of truth, but full of prejudices. It is these contradictions and his great learning and literary power which make him so striking a figure in the history of Scotland and of literature.

De Jure Regni, 1579

  There is a singular spirit of freedom in this tract, especially for the time when it was written, and it gives me a high idea of the honesty or boldness of this writer, that he presumed to address a discourse of this sort to his pupil, King James the Sixth. This strong love of liberty, to which his warm temper and elevated genius naturally inclined him, was catched or at least much confirmed in him by his familiarity with the classical story of the Greeks and Romans, the great doctors of civil liberty to all countries and ages. The whole was written with a view to the late dealings about the Queen of Scots. The dialogue, as to its manner, is very masterly, except that there seems a little affectation in conducting it according to the Socratic method.

  The dialogue of our illustrious countryman Buchanan, “De Jure Regni apud Scotus,” though occasionally disfigured by the keen and indignant temper of the writer, and by a predilection (pardonable in a scholar warm from the schools of ancient Greece and Rome) for forms of policy unsuitable to the circumstances of modern Europe, bears nevertheless, in its general spirit, a closer resemblance to the political philosophy of the eighteenth century, than any composition which had previously appeared.

  The opinions which Knox embodied chiefly in fierce declamations, and which he advocated mainly with a view to religious interests, were soon after systematised and at the same time secularised by Buchanan in a short dialogue entitled, “De Jure Regni apud Scotos,” which was published in 1579, and which bears in many respects a striking resemblance to some of the writings that afterwards issued from the Jesuits. In Buchanan, however, we find none of those countless subtleties and qualifications to which the Catholic theologians commonly resorted in order to evade the decisions of the Fathers or the schoolmen, nor do we find anything about the deposing power of the Pope. The principles that were enunciated were perfectly clear and decisive: they were derived exclusively from reason, and they were directed equally against every form of tyranny.

  For Buchanan’s politics were too advanced for his age. Not only Catholic Scotsmen, like Blackwood, Winzet, and Ninian, but Protestants like Sir Thomas Craig and Sir John Wemyss, could not stomach the “De Jure Regni.” They may have had some reason on their side. In the then anarchic state of Scotland, organization and unity under a common head may have been more important than the assertion of popular rights. Be that as it may, in 1584, only two years after his death, the Scots parliament condemned his Dialogue and History as untrue, and commanded all possessors of copies to deliver them up, that they might be purged of “the offensive and extraordinary matters” which they contained. The “De Jure Regni” was again prohibited in Scotland, in 1664, even in manuscript; and in 1683, the whole of Buchanan’s political works had the honour of being burned by the University of Oxford, in company with those of Milton, Languet, and others, as “pernicious books, and damnable doctrines, destructive to the sacred persons of Princes, their state and government, and of all human society.” And thus the seed which Buchanan had sown, and Milton had watered (for the allegation that Milton borrowed from Buchanan is probably true, and equally honourable to both), lay trampled into the earth, and seemingly lifeless, till it tillered out, and blossomed, and bore fruit to a good purpose, in the Revolution of 1688.

  The political views for which Buchanan contended appear in the present day sufficiently commonplace; but that they are commonplace and out of date is due in great measure to the successful efforts of writers like Buchanan himself.

History of Scotland, 1582

  In his old age he applied himself to write the Scots’ History, which he renewed with such judgment and eloquence, as no country can show a better.

  His style is so natural and nervous, and his reflections on things are so solid,… that he is justly reckoned the greatest and best of our modern authors.

  The last twelve or thirteen years of his life were spent in writing the History of his country, in which he has united the brevity and force of Sallust, with the elegance and perspicuity of Livy.

  If his accuracy and impartiality had been, in any degree, equal to the elegance of his taste, and to the purity and vigour of his style, his history might be placed on a level with the most admired compositions of the ancients. But, instead of rejecting the improbable tales of chronicle writers, he was at the utmost pains to adorn them; and hath clothed, with all the beauties and graces of fiction, those legends which formerly had only its wildness and extravagance.

  Though the early portion of it is unmistakably fabulous, it is written throughout with great animation and force. For the part of it which relates to the history of the sixteenth century, he is an original and contemporary authority, and from his official position it may reasonably be assumed that he had access to the most trustworthy sources of information for the later portion of his history. Though an ardent party man, he had a strong sense of justice, a good judgment, and a love of truth. His narrative is enriched with wise and just political reflections, and his sentiments are almost always liberal, and for the time even radical. This feature of his History drew down upon it the vengeance of all who were attached to Romanism, all the enemies of freedom and all the lovers of despotism; even at this day, there are some who utterly detest the political principles of George Buchanan.

Poems

  Buchanan’s paraphrase continues to be read in the principal schools of Scotland, and perhaps in those of some other countries. Lauder’s attempt to supersede it by that of Johnston proved unsuccessful. During the lifetime of Buchanan, it had begun to be introduced into the schools of Germany; and its various measures had been accommodated to appropriate melodies, for the purpose of being chanted by academics. Pope Urban VII., himself a poet of no mean talent, is said to have averred that it was a pity it was written by so great a heretic, for otherwise it should have been sung in all churches under his authority.

  The most distinguished among the Latin poets of Europe in this age was George Buchanan, of whom Joseph Scaliger and several other critics have spoken in such unqualified terms, that they seem to place him even above the Italians at the beginning of the sixteenth century. If such were their meaning, I should crave the liberty of hesitating. The best poem of Buchanan, in my judgment, is that on the Sphere, than which few philosophical subjects could afford better opportunities for ornamental digression. He is not, perhaps, in hexameters inferior to Vida, and certainly far superior to Palearius. In this poem, Buchanan descants on the absurdity of the Pythagorean system, which supposes the motion of the earth. Many good passages occur in his elegies, though we may not reckon him equal in this metre to several of the Italians. His celebrated translation of the Psalms I must also presume to think overpraised: it is difficult, perhaps, to find one, except the 137th, with which he has taken particular pains, that can be called truly elegant or classical Latin poetry. Buchanan is now and then incorrect in the quantity of syllables, as indeed is common with his contemporaries.

  Buchanan in his Latin was a poet-scholar, not a scholar who wrote verse. He shows himself in these poems generous in friendship although quick in scorn, graceful in compliment, and concerned chiefly with affairs of men, though he knew how to write a May-Day poem that was a joy even to Wordsworth. Ascham agreed with the learned throughout Europe in regarding George Buchanan as the best Latin poet of his time. Probably he was, as many thought him, the best of Latin poets since the days when Latin was their mother tongue.

General

  That notable man, Mr. George Bucquhanane—remains alyve to this day, in the yeir of God 1566 years, to the glory of God, to the gret honour of this natioun, and to the comfort of thame that delyte in letters and vertew. That singulare wark of David’s Psalmes, in Latin meetre and poesie, besyd mony uther, can witness the rare gracies of God gevin to that man.

  I meane not of such infamous inuectiues, as Buchanans or Knoxs Chronicles: and if any one of these infamous libels remaine vntill your daies, vse the law vpon the keepers thereof.

  A serpent—a daring caluminator—leviathan of slander—the second of all human forgers, and the first of all human slanderers.

  In a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries, in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on this ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, exclaimed, “Ah, Doctor Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman?”—“Why, sir,” said Johnson after a little pause, “I should not have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I will now say of him as a Scotchman,—that he was the only man of genius his country ever produced.”

  George Buchanan is justly considered one of the brightest ornaments of his country, both as a poet and an historian.

  A man justly entitled to the epithet great, if the true criteria of such a character are originality of genius, and the impression left by it upon his age. His intellect, naturally fearless and inquisitive, caught an early and eager hold of the principles of the Reformation; and having gone abroad, and fallen into the toils of the inquisition, persecution completed what nature had begun.

  His Satire is of the contemptuous order. He was one of those satirists who do not profess to tickle, nor pretend to that happy temperament which makes a man, with a smiling good-natured face and a perfectly-balanced system, smile while he strikes, and wound without an imputation on his good-nature…. I fancy Buchanan was, for the most part, very impassioned and serious in the satirical work he took in hand. Waving the question of art, which would of course deal with productions on a different principle, I confess I would rather have as a friend, and specially as an ally, the man who on the surface looks the more ferocious and bloodthirsty of the two. Of Erasmus’s good nature and general friendliness I have the highest opinion; but I think it likely that Buchanan had the deeper heart, and generally the deeper moral nature.

  There could be no better type of the man of letters of his time, in whom the liberality of the cosmopolitan was united with the exclusiveness of the member of a very strait and limited caste. He had his correspondents in all the cities of the Continent, and at home his closest associates were among the highest in his own land. Yet he was the son of a very poor man, born almost a peasant and dying nearly as poor as he was born. From wandering scholar and pedagogue he became the preceptor of a King, and the associate of princes; but he was not less independent, and he was scarcely more rich in the one position than the other. His pride was not in the high consultations he shared or the national movements in which he had his part, but in his fine Latinity and the elegant turn of those classical lines which all his learned compeers admired and applauded. The part that he played in history has been made to look odious by skilled critics; and the great book in which he recorded the deeds of his contemporaries and predecessors has been assailed violently and bitterly as prejudiced, partial, and untrue. But nobody has been able to attack his Latin or impair the renown of his scholarship; and perhaps had he himself chosen the foundation on which to build his fame, this is what he would have preferred above all. History may come and politics go, and the principles of both may change with the generations, but Latin verse goes on for ever: no false ingenuity of criticism can pick holes in the deathless structure of an art with which living principles have had nothing to do for a thousand years and more.

  Comparatively few have an intelligent notion of the nature and scope of his works; and the stereotyped criticisms which have passed current from generation to generation are sufficient evidence that some of those few have talked about them rather than read them. His only works which are popularly known by name are the “History of Scotland” and the paraphrase of the Psalms, regarding the latter of which his biographer Irving wrote in the early part of the present century that it was read in many schools as a text-book of the Latin language. In the present day many of the class of readers to whom Irving refers, and not a few of their teachers, would be unable to say in what language the famous paraphrase was composed.