George Buchanan a distinguished reformer and Latin poet, is perhaps the only man but one whom Scotland has ever produced who was acknowledged by the acclamations of Europe to be the princeps - " Poetarum sui seculi facile princeps " - the decidely first in the art he cultivated, not only in his country but of his age. This applies, however, only to poets writing in Latin or Greek. He was born at Killearn in Stirlingshire, on the western bank of the rivulet of Blane, in February 1506. -As Richardson writes, "Triumphant even the yellow Blane, Though by a fen defaced, Boasts that Buchanan's early strain Consoled her troubled breast."

He belonged to a family which was rather ancient than rich. He was the third son of Thomas, second son of Thomas Buchanan of Drumikill, ;who, having received the farm of Moss, otherwise called Mid-Leowen, from his father, was called Thomas Buchanan of Moss. George's father died of the stone in the flower of his age, and owing to the insolvency of his grandfather about the same time, his mother, Agnes, daughter of James Hariet of Trabrown, was left in extreme poverty, with five sons and three daughters. Her brother, James Hariet, is said to have sent him, (after he had, according to a doubtful tradition, received the rudiments of his education at a school supposed to have been then established at Killearn,) about 1520, to Paris, where he improved his knowledge of Latin, acquired the Greek language without the aid of a tutor, and began to cultivate his poetical talents. He seems to have possessed a knowledge of the Gaelic, (which Dr. Irving incorrectly conjectures to have been the current speech of his native district at that period, there being evidence that the Macfarlanes who occupied the wild region of the Dumbarton Highlands in the vicinity, spoke English before his time, although they also 'use the Celtic to this day,) for it is related that when in France, having met with a woman who was said to be possessed with the devil, and who professed to speak all languages, he accosted her in Gaelic, and as neither she nor her familiar returned any answer, he entered a protest that the devil was ignorant of that tongue,-a trait of humour in entire accordance with the gravity of his after character. The death of his uncle, two years afterwards, having deprived him of his resources, he returned to Scotland in 1522. It is stated that at this time his poverty was so great that in order to get back to his native country, he joined the corps then in course of being raised in France as auxiliaries to the duke of Albany in Scotland. In 1523, after a twelve month spent at home for the recovery of his health, being then only seventeen years of age, he served as a common soldier with the French auxiliaries, and proceeded with them when, under the command of the regent Albany in person, they marched across the borders, and about the end of October of that year laid siege to the castle of Wark, from which they were compelled to retreat. After one campaign he became tired of a military life, and the fatigue and hardships he had endured on this occasion so much affected his health, which in his youth seems not to have been robust, that he was confined to his bed for the remainder of the winter. The brief notice he gives of this in his short biography of himself, would seem to imply that he considered this service a useful part of education. His words are " studio rei militaris cognoscendae in castra est perfectus." "The exercise which I commend first," says Milton, "is the exact use of their weapon, to guard and to strike safely with edge or point; this will keep them healthy, nimble, strong and well in breath, is also the likeliest means to make them grow large and tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage, which, being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to them of true fortitude and patience, will turn into a native and heroic valour, and make them hate the cowardice of doing wrong." Milton wrote these words about the year 1650, a time when recent events had given him good cause to appreciate the effect of such a character upon a nation's welfare, and to comprehend the distinction between the logic of the school men, and the logic of Oliver Cromwell, and of

------ brands,

Well wielded in some hardy hands,

And wounds by Galileans given.

In the ensuing spring Buchanan and his brother, Patrick, entered students at the university of St. Andrews, and he took the degree of bachelor of arts, October 3, 1525, at which time he was a pauper or exhibitioner. In the following summer he accompanied John Mair, or Major, then professor of logic in St. Salvador's college, St. Andrews, to Paris, and became a student in the Scottish college there. In March 1528 he took the degree of AI.A., and in June 1530, after being the previous year defeated as a candidate, he was chosen procurator of the German Nation, which comprehended the students from Scotland. The principles of Luther having, about this time, made considerable progress on the Continent, Buchanan, whose mind was more embued with the spirit of classical antiquity than with the trammels of the Catholic church, readily adopted them, and became a steady friend to the Reformation. He had in 1529 received the appointment of professor in the college of St. Barbe, where he taught grammar for three years, without deriving much remuneration from his labours. In an elegy, apparently composed about this period, he paints in forcible and gloomy colours the miseries to which the professors of humanity in Paris were then exposed.

In 1532, whilst at this college, he became tutor to Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassillis, "a youth of the most promising talents, and of an excellent disposition," then residing near the college of St. Barbe, and to his lordship lie inscribed his first work, being a translation of the famous Thomas Linacre's Rudiments of Latin Grammar; which was published in 1533.