Menage, who has written one in the very same terms, affirms that Buch

anan, as well as himself, was indebted to the prose of Libanius.

Μὰψ ἐμὲ λοιδορεις, μὰψ, Ζωίλε, καὶ σε ἑπαινῶ·
Οὗ γάρ ἐμοῖς, οὗ σοῖς πίστις ἔνεστι λόγοις.

As Commendator of the Priory of St Andrews, the Earl of Murray had the right of nominating the Principal of St. Leonard's College, and about 1566 he appointed Buchanan to that office, Buchanan sat as a member of the General Assembly of the National Church, convened at Edinburgh on the 25th of December 1563, and was appointed one of the commissioners for revising "The Book of Discipline." He was also a member of the Assembly which met at Edinburgh on the 25th of June, 1567, and on that occasion, though a layman, he was chosen moderator.

The conduct of Queen Mary had excited against her the just indignation of a large portion of her subjects; and Buchanan, who had formerly praised her immoderately, now attacked her in terms equally unmeasured, heaping upon her all the stores of invective which his copious vocabulary afforded. We are no admirers of that weak and flagitious woman; but Buchanan had been treated by her with courtesy and kindness-had even received very considerable benefits at her hands; and assuming that his former praises were sincerely bestowed, because he believed them merited, when the object of those praises had put on a character the reverse of that for which they were intended, though neither his defence nor even his approbation of her new character would by any reasonable person have been required; yet the exposure, the reprobation, and punishment of her faults, her follies, and her crimes, would have come more becomingly from another hand than his.

In 1570 Buchanan was appointed one

of the preceptors of the young King, then only four years of age. Various anecdotes are told of Buchanan's severity; and the impression he left on the mind of his pupil appears to have been anything but an agreeable one. Francis Osborne (Advice to a Son, p. 19) relates that King James used to say of a person in high place about him, that he ever trembled at his approach, it minded him so of his pedagogue. There is no saying how far the severity of the pedagogue, taken along with other circumstances connected with his birth, may have tended to produce that extreme timidity of character which marked the royal pedant through life. All the tutor's pains, though they may have forced into him some "glancings and nibblings of knowledge," did not, however, succeed in imparting any love for his principles of government. King James regarded his History of Scotland as an infamous invective; and admonished his heir-apparent to punish such of his future subjects as should be guilty of retaining it in their custody. It may be said that it would have been no easy matter to have made a hero, or even an average king, out of such materials as were to be found in the character of James, from whatever parentage inherited. Still we cannot help thinking that Buchanan must have committed some grievous faults in his education; for he evidently had it in his power to produce some impression -and the impression he made was entirely of the genus pedant. Homer tells us that the precept which Peleus impressed particularly upon his son Achilles was—

Αἱὲν αριστεύειν, καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων

And the sorts of excellence which he sought after were such as might be supposed to have been pointed out to him by his tutors, his father Peleus, and the centaur Chiron. James, too, had some vague glimmering of an idea of excelling--but of excelling in what? in writing bad prose and worse verse-for we

have carefully read some of his works, and we cannot agree with his panegyrists that they exhibit any degree of excellence, except perhaps that of producing a laugh by their transcendent absurdity. As to the "purity of style" which some have found in them, we can only say that to us the style or lan

guage appear on a level with the logic, tion. In short, James's idea of his vowhich is of the most despicable descrip- cation was—

"To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar school."

It was unfortunate for Buchanan that his country's language was so rude and unformed at the time he wrote, for no writer, we apprehend, can hope to live, who writes in any other but his own side, supporting a crown on its point, for nothing else, cannot fail to be held "land's language." But Buchanan, if

SALAMINIAN TRIUMPH-SONG.

Sound Io Poean, Hellas!-the cloud is scattered now:
Thy shielded Pallas leaps with joy on Sunium's sacred brow;
Rend, rend thy robe, proud Xerxes, and curse thy coward slaves,
Flee while the chastised Hellespont is trembling 'mid his caves.
To Susa's towers thine eagle back may bear his wounded wing,
But Asia's million widows deep will curse her ruthless King.

They came in clustered thousands, like locusts on our shore,
And Europe bridged with Asia to let her myriads o'er ;
From India's golden rivers-from Bactra's wastes of sand;
From green Arabia's pearly Isles, and sage Chaldea's land;
From where the Scythian wanders by Maeotis' lonely shore;
From where the wild Chalybian lists, the Euxine's wilder roar;
From Syria's cedar'd mountains, and Damascus' gardens fair;
And the children of the lotus'd Nile, with brutish gods were there,
And rich Phenicia's oaken oars, their falcon swiftness lent,
Cilicia's weight of gleaming prows the burdened ocean bent.

But vain from Babylonian towers, Chaldea's flattering seers Read fortune in the eyes of heaven-her eyes were red with tears. And mystic Mithras flamed in vain, amid his burning zone; For Father Zeus his thunder grasped, and scathed is Persia's throne, And Phoebus girded for the fight, and Delphi's rocks can tell, The Pythian God protects his shrine both warily and well.

They came with chains and slaughter-they drank our rivers dry, And Tempe's swains o'er wasted fields, and trampled vineyards sigh. But little dreamt the millions of those many coloured bands, The wit of quick Athenian brain, the weight of Spartan hands; Break down the mountains, tyrant, and chain the subject sea, But freedom's adamantine heart is rock too hard for thee.

No tears for good Leonidas-he died upon his shield; And sweet is death in such a cause, on such a battle field. His mother's brow is garlanded, and proud is she to tell, Her son, on red Thermopylæ, for Spartan freedom fell. Deep from the Pythian Adytum the voice of Fate was sent,"Heracleid blood for Greece must flow." "I go," he said, and went, Aye, blythe to battle went he, as to banquet reveller goes; For well the doom-devoted King did love the feast of blows. The old Heracleid blood is bright with everlasting fame; And Sparta in her heart of hearts will write her hero's name.

Stout soldier, Eurybiades—receive the wreath thy due,
Thy hand and heart are quick to wrath, but quick to justice too.

Smile, sacred Justice, from thy heaven on thy peculiar child,
Him of unswerving spirit—yet of eye so calm and mild;
His hands are pure, his shield is bright, and good betides the cause
In whose behalf his righteous sword just Aristides draws.

Strew, strew your flowers, Athenian maids, shed the triumphal wine!
Welcome Themistocles, ye sons of Cecrops' golden line!
Sing, silver springs of Castalie !—sing fount of Hippocrene!
Descend bright-voiced Calliope, the Muses' tuneful Queen!
Come with thy flowery wealth of song, the saviour youth to hail;
Citheron, nod thy wild woods all, and wake thy every gale!
The key of his bright mind hath oped the destiny of Greece;
And from its stormy chambers brought the olive branch of peace.

Ye sun-walked rocks of Salamis, amid your caves rejoice;
And thou, our old Ægean, laugh with thy multitudinous voice!
Oh, well may leap thy gleaming waves, like goats on Oetas' hills,
As o'er their purple tumult far our Io Poean thrills.

WHAT MIGHT BE DONE FOR THE EVANGELIZATION OF EDINBURGH. To the Editor of Lowe's Magazine.

MORNINGSIDE, December 1846. DEAR SIR,-In your last number I promised a few sentences on the way in which I thought that the home missionary work might be effectually carried on in Edinburgh-that is, by the ministers of various denominations, each assuming a district, and by the aid of his own church, who might furnish him with the means and the agency, providing as far as in them lay for its religious and educational wants. I farther hinted at the arrangement of these ministers meeting by rotation in each other's houses, but not for the purpose of control, and only for that of mutual counsel and encouragement. I would bave each to operate in his own sphere with the full, the unimpaired sense, of an individual and independent vitality -nor would I have this feeling checked or overborne by the authority of any superintending body whatever. This would just land us in the delays and other disadvantages of an unwieldy committeeship, and restrain the hand of immediate action from setting forth upon its task. Yet there were a mighty benefit in these meetings, though not vested with any power. The right assignation of new districts would require the knowledge of what had been previously done, and could be easily settled in the course of friendly deliberation. And they could compare each other's methods, and profit by each other's experience, and devise more effectual ways for speeding onward the work; and in these as well as a thousand other nameless respects, could mightily encourage each other's hearts and strengthen each other's hands. And many are the interesting questions that would fall to be discussed upon such occasions— the proper size and population for a district the immense good of a female superadded to a general school-the education that would best tell on the domestic habits of comfort and cleanli

ness

-the adoption of sanatory expedients by the reinoval of nuisances

N

the kind of Sabbath service that should be provided, and how the attendance upon it might be fostered and recruited from the various seminaries in the place—above all, the immense efficacy and charm which lay in the visits of a well-appointed, because a well-principled agency, each assuming his own little group of households, and converting it into a home-walk for all the duties and charities of the gospel.

We do hope that our Free Church ministers will freely and fully take part in such a glorious combination. We know that many of them have already selected their districts for the work and labour of love which we have now specified. Let all who are thus engaged meet together as we have ventured to recommend, and in our town of Edinburgh we could have a miniature Evangelical Alliance. Were such to be formed in other towns also, we might thus have a basis of induction sufficiently extensive and firm, on which to rear an edifice of greater promise than we can at all look for from any attempts which have been made hitherto.

There is one great benefit that would ensue from such an intercommunion between the Free Church ministers and those of other denominations. They might come to see from our example, what I am persuaded they do not yet fully comprehend-the mighty advantage of a general fund. Without this,

we should never have been able to maintain our church as it came out at the Disruption, and far less should we have been able to extend it. Even as it is, and though we have made an addition of about two hundred regular charges in less than four years, we have not yet overtaken the supply of our own adherents, and never made any inroad at all on the outfield territory. Let us not then feel independent of aid from others in this great work, or think that by the strength of our own solitary arm we shall conjure up the means for so vast an achievement as