BELLENDEN

BELLENDEN, JOHN, archdeacon of Moray, occupies a conspicuous place in the literary annals of Scotland, but his personal history is still involved in some degree of obscurity. Several writers have confounded him with Sir John Bellenden of Auchinoul; an error founded only on the identity of their names, as the judge appears to have survived the archdeacon for twenty-seven years. Bellenden was probably educated in the university of St Andrews. Bale refers his birth to the eastern part of the kingdom, probably Haddington or Berwick. His education is represented as uncommonly liberal; and as he took the degree of D.D. in the university of Paris, his

Bellenden, course of academical study must have been very complete.¹
John. Dr Campbell has remarked that his phraseology occasionally savours of a French education;² it must however be recollected, that the poets of this age were too generally disposed to adopt terms of a French as well as Latin origin; and that the practice cannot be considered as peculiar to those who had been educated in France. Sir David Lindsay, in a poem supposed to have been written in the year 1530, mentions him in the following terms:

Bot now of late is starte up hastelle,
Ane cunnynge clerk quhilk wrytith craftelle,
Ane plant of poetis callit Ballendyne,
Quhose ornate markis my wit can nocht defyne:
Get he into the courte auctoritie,
He will precess Quintyn and Kenedie.³

The literary merit of Bellenden does not seem to have been disregarded by the court; but he experienced the precarious fortune which so frequently attends courtiers. For this information we are partly indebted to his poem entitled the Proheme of the Cosmographie:

And fyrst occurrit to my remembring,
How that I wes in service with the kyng,
Put to his grace in zeris tenderest,
Clerk of his comptis, thought I wes inding,
With hart and hand, and euery othir thing
That mycht hym pleis in ony maner best,
Quhill he inuy me from his service kest,
Be thayn that had the court in gouerning,
As bird but plumes heryt of the nest.

In the epistle subjoined to his translation of Boyce's history, he likewise states that he had been in the service of the king from his majesty's early infancy. It has been conjectured that he was employed in superintending the young monarch's education; but he makes no allusion to such an appointment, of which it would have been very natural to remind the king, if they had ever stood in the relation of tutor and pupil; and he very clearly informs us that his place in the royal household was that of clerk of accounts. James's preceptor was Gavin Dunbar, afterwards promoted to the archbishopric of Glasgow. Being dismissed from the king's service, as he states in the verses last quoted, Bellenden is supposed to have entered into that of Archibald earl of Angus, because a person of the same name was the earl's secretary in the year 1528. In the course of that year, Angus and some of his relations were accused of treason: John Ballentyne, who is described as his secretary, presented himself at the bar of the parliament on the 4th of September, and delivered a

written protest in the name of the earl of Angus, his brother George Douglas, and his uncle Archibald Douglas of Kilsindie, stating the reasons why they ought not to be compelled to answer to the charge of treason which had been preferred against them; and in the afternoon of the same day, the secretary again made his appearance, probably because they found such a protest altogether unavailing, and explained the conditions on which the earl was willing to surrender to his trial.⁴ But in a transaction of this nature we should expect to find him employing a lawyer rather than a clergyman; and accordingly we are informed by Hume that the individual who thus appeared for the Douglasses was "Sir John Ballandine, who was then one of their dependers, and afterward justice clerk."⁵

Whatever may have been Bellenden's employment at this period, it is certain that he was soon afterwards an attendant at court; and that at the request of the king he undertook a translation of the Roman history of Livy, and the Scottish history of Boyce.⁶ In this formidable task he appears to have been engaged in 1530 and the three ensuing years. The treasurer's accounts contain various entries respecting the remuneration of his labours: the sum total which he is there stated to have received amounts to L.114; namely, L.78 for the translation of Boyce, and L.36 for that of Livy. But this was not the only reward which he obtained. The archdeaconry of Moray had become vacant during the vacancy of the see; and two clergymen, Duncan and Harvey, having solicited the pope in favour of James Douglas, were convicted of treason, and their property escheated to the crown. The annual emoluments arising from the pensions and benefices of John Duncan, who was parson of Glasgow, and from all the property belonging to Alexander Harvey for the two successive years 1536 and 1537, were bestowed upon Bellenden. For the first grant he paid a composition of 350 marks, and for the second, of L.300.⁷ It must have been upon the present occasion that he was promoted to the archdeaconry, which had lapsed to the crown in consequence of the vacancy in the bishopric: it was perhaps about the same period that he was appointed a canon of Ross; and this appears to have been the full extent of his preferment in the church, while many worthless and illiterate men were enjoying its highest dignities and emoluments.

His translation of Hector Boyce's history of Scotland is said to have been printed in the year 1536.⁸ Neither the title-page nor the colophon exhibits the year of the im-

The kingis grace I knaw is nocht perfyte
In Latyn toung.

The cronikillis to knaw I the exhort,
Quhilk may be mirrou to thy majestie;
Thare sall thou find baith gude and evill report,
Of everik prince efter his qualitie;
Thocht thay be deid, thair deidis sall nocht dee.
Traist weill how salt be stylit in that storie
As thou deservis, put in memorie.

pression; so that the date here assigned, if it is not merely conjectural, must have been ascertained from some other document. The book was printed by Thomas Davidson, who styles himself printer to the king.¹ On the 26th of July 1533, a sum of money was paid to Bellenden "for ane Cronikle gevin to the kingis grace," but this must have been in manuscript. The printed book describes the translator as archdeacon of Moray and canon of Ross: the bishopric did not become vacant till the year 1534,² and, as we have already seen, the archdeaconry was vacated at a later period. Under the date of April 1538, when he obtained a grant of the two clergymen's emoluments for the preceding year, he was not described as a dignitary. It has likewise been stated that the work was reprinted in 1541,³ but such copies as we have had an opportunity of inspecting seem all to belong to the same edition. It was Bellenden's intention to execute a complete version of Livy, but he did not advance beyond the first five books, nor was his translation printed till the year 1522. From a manuscript in the Advocates Library, it was then published by Mr Maitland, to whose antiquarian zeal we are likewise indebted for a new edition of his other translation, as well as for some curious and interesting notices of Boyce and Bellenden.⁴ The archdeacon is reported to have continued the history of Scotland for one hundred years subsequent to the period at which the printed narrative closes,⁵ and a passage in his Proheme of the History seems to imply that he had at least formed such a project.

Bring nobyll dedis of mony yeris gone
Als fresche and recent to our memorie
As thay war bot in-to our dayis done,
That nobyll men may haue faith land and glorie
For their excellent brut of victorie.
And yit becaus my tymes hes bene so schort,
I thynk, quhen I haue oportunitie,
To ring their bell in-to ane othir sort.⁶

These two works exhibit the most ample specimen of ancient Scottish prose that has descended to our times, and are distinguished beyond most others by their fluency and neatness of style. Bellenden frequently surprises a modern reader by the happy vivacity of his expressions;

nor can we peruse these translations without being convinced that his learning and talents had qualified him for original composition. In his version of the Scottish historian, he does not adhere very scrupulously to his author; he has assumed the liberty of adding, as well as of retrenching, and may therefore be considered as having exceeded the proper limits of a translation. He has at all events produced a very curious, and, to those who have a competent knowledge of the language, a very entertaining work. To his version of Boyce's history he has subjoined an epistle, addressed to James the Fifth, and written in a strain of manly freedom: of the distinction between a king and a tyrant, and of the miseries to which wicked princes have generally been exposed, he speaks in bold and unequivocal terms, which may excite some degree of surprise, but which cannot fail of exciting a high degree of respect for his character.⁷ Bellenden was then a dignitary of the church, and might still hope for preferment; and in all ages ambitious churchmen have been sufficiently disposed to encourage sovereigns in their most flagrant attempts to encroach on the liberties of their subjects; but the conduct of the worthy archdeacon, and of some other benefited clergymen of the ancient Scottish church, must completely exempt them from this censure. John Mair, who was provost of St Salvator's College, and treasurer of the chapel royal, and Hector Boyce, who was principal of King's College, canon of Aberdeen, and rector of Tyrie, have each written the history of their native country, and have each evinced a laudable zeal in vindicating the unalienable rights of the people. If such sentiments were cherished by some of the catholic clergy, it is not surprising that they should animate the breast of Buchanan, who had never been accustomed to pace in the trammels of the church, and who had more completely imbibed the spirit of classical antiquity.

Whatever might be the liberality of his political sentiments, Bellenden seems to have been unprepared for any change in the national religion.⁸ Stern and unbending virtue is not on all occasions to be expected among mankind: truths which threaten the extinction of dignity and emolument cannot so easily be embraced; nor must we forget the invincible force of prejudices, admitted in early youth,

Bellenden, and cherished through a lengthened life. The archdeacon of Moray is represented as a strenuous opponent of the reformation, which he did not live to see completed.¹ He is said to have visited Rome, and there to have terminated his career in 1550.² The particular object of his journey has not been recorded: nor are we better informed with respect to his age; but if he was entered at the university in 1508 and died in 1550, we may conjecture that he had scarcely exceeded his sixtieth year. In this academical record however we are only guided by the identity of names, without the aid of any additional evidence.

Bellenden has been extolled as a master of every branch of divine and human learning,³ and his attainments have even extorted applause from the zealous bishop of Ossory, John Bale, who has so frequently treated the papists with unrelenting severity. In his poetical remains, which are not numerous, he frequently displays an excursive fancy, with considerable taste and skill as a versifier; and it is therefore to be regretted that so few of his compositions have been preserved. The most poetical of his works is the Proheme of the Cosmographie; the principal incidents are borrowed from the ancient fiction of the choice of Hercules,⁴ but he has imparted to his copy the characteristic air of an original. Nor is his Proheme of the History destitute of poetical merit. These two poems, as well as the metrical prologue to his translation of Livy, bear internal evidence of having been composed for the instruction of the young king. Two copies of his unpublished prologue on the conception of Christ are to be found in Bannatyne's MS.

Beside the works already enumerated, Bellenden is said to have composed a tract on the Pythagorean letter, De Litera Pythagoræ; nor is there any necessity to adopt Dr Mackenzie's emendation, and substitute Vita ad Litera: the letter of Pythagoras was ipsis, which he had selected as his favourite in consequence of certain emblematical properties indicated by its form. Vossius has mentioned Bellenden as the author of a work on cosmography,⁵ but this is evidently his translation of Boyce's preliminary description of Scotland. It was stated by Dr Campbell that many of his writings were then in the possession of persons of distinction in Scotland; and he particularly mentions that several of his poems were in the possession of Laurence Dundas, apparently the professor of humanity at Edinburgh.⁶ It is not however improbable that all these were merely the works with which we are still acquainted, and that the poems to which he alludes were modern transcripts. (x.)