Buchanan, George, the best Latin poet of his time, perhaps inferior to none since the Augustan age, was born in February 1566. This accomplished scholar and distinguished wit was not descended of a family remarkable for its rank. He had no occasion for the splendour of ancestry. He wanted not a reflected greatness, the equivocal, and too often the only ornament of the rich and noble. The village of Kilmarnock, in Stirlingshire, Scotland, was the place of his nativity; and the abject poverty in which his father died might have confined him to toil at the lowest employments of life, if the generosity of an uncle had not assisted him in his education, and enabled him to pursue for two years his studies at Paris. But that short space was scarcely elapsed, when the death of his benefactor made it necessary that he should return to his own country, and forsake, for a time, the paths of science.

He was yet under his 20th year, and surrounded with the horrors of indigence. In this extremity, he enlisted as a common soldier under John duke of Albany, who commanded the troops which France had sent to assist Scotland in the war it waged, at this period, against England. But nature had not destined him to be a hero. He was disgusted with the fatigues of one campaign; and, fortunately, John Major, then Buchanan, professor of philosophy at St Andrew's, hearing of his necessity and his merit, afforded him a temporary relief. He now became the pupil of John Matz, a celebrated teacher in the same university, under whom he studied the subtleties of logic: and contracting an attachment to his master, he followed him to Paris. There, after having encountered many difficulties, he was invited to teach grammar in the college of St Barbe. In this flattery occupation he was found by the earl of Caflis; with whom having remained five years at Paris, he returned into Scotland. He next acted as preceptor to the famous earl of Murray, the natural son of James V. But while he was forming this nobleman for public affairs, he found that his life was in danger; and from enemies, whose vindictive rage could suffer no abatement, and who would not scruple the most dishonourable means of gratifying it.

The scandalous lives of the clergy had, it seems, excited his indignation; and, more than reasoning or argument, had estranged him from the errors of Popery. The Franciscan monks, in return to the beautiful but poignant satires he had written against them, branded him with the appellation of atheus; a term which the religious of all denominations are too apt indiscriminately to lavish where they have conceived a prejudice; and, not satisfied with the outrage of abuse and calumny, they conspired his destruction. Cardinal Beaton gave orders to apprehend him, and bribed King James with a very considerable sum to permit his execution. He was seized upon accordingly; and the first genius of his age was about to perish by the halter, or by fire, to satisfy a malignant resentment, when, escaping the vigilance of his guards, he fled into England. Henry VIII., at all times the slave of caprice and passion, was then burning, on the same day, and at the same stake, the Lutheran and the Papist. His court did not suit a philosopher or a satirist. After a short stay, Buchanan crossed the sea to France; and, to his extreme disappointment, found, at Paris, Cardinal Beaton, as ambassador from Scotland. He retired privately to Bordeaux, dreading, perhaps, new misfortunes, and concerned that he could not prosecute his studies in obscurity and silence. Here he met Andrew Govea, a Portuguese of great learning and worth, with whom he had formerly been acquainted during his travels, and who was now employed in teaching a public school. He disdained not to act as the assistant of his friend; and during the three years he resided at this place, he composed the tragedies which do him so much honour. It was here, also, that he wrote some of the most pleasant of those poems, in which he has rallied the muses, and threatened to forfeit them, as not being able to maintain their votary. About this time, too, he presented a copy of verses to the emperor Charles V. who happened to pass through Bordeaux.

His enemies, meanwhile, were not inactive. Cardinal Beaton wrote about him to the archbishop of Bordeaux; and by every motive which a cunning and a wicked heart can invent, he invited him to punish the most pestilent of all heretics. The archbishop, however, was not so violent as the cardinal. On inquiring into the matter, he was convinced that the poet had committed a very small impropriety; and al- Buchanan lowered himself to be pacified. But fortune was not long to continue her smiles. Andrew Govea being called by the king of Portugal, his master, to establish an academy at Coimbra, he entreated Buchanan to accompany him. He obtained his request; and had not been a year in his own country, when he died, and left his associate exposed to the malice of his inveterate enemies the monks. They loudly objected to him, that he was a Lutheran; that he had written poems against the Franciscans; and that he had been guilty of the abominable crime of eating flesh in Lent. He was confined to a monastery till he should learn what these men fancied to be religion: and they enjoined him to translate the Psalms of David into Latin verse; a task which every man of taste knows with what admirable skill and genius he performed.

On obtaining his liberty, he had the offer of a speedy promotion from the king of Portugal; the issue of which, his aversion to the clergy did not allow him to wait. He hastened to England; but the perturbed state of affairs during the minority of Edward VI. not giving him the promise of any lasting security, he set out for France. There he had not been long, when he published his Jephtha, which his necessities made him dedicate to the marshal de Brissac. This patron did not want generosity, and could judge of merit. He sent him to Piedmont, as preceptor to his son Timoleon de Coffi. In this employ he continued several years; and during the leisure it afforded him, he fully examined the controversies which now agitated Europe; and he put the last hand to many of the most admired of his smaller poems.

When his pupil had no longer any use for him, he passed into Scotland, and made an open profession of the reformed faith. But he soon quitted his native country for France; which appears to have been more agreeable to his taste. Queen Mary, however, having determined that he should have the charge of educating her son, recalled him: and till the prince should arrive at a proper age, he was nominated to the principality of St Andrew's. His success as James's preceptor is well known. When it was reproached to him, that he had made his majesty a pedant; "It is a wonder (he replied) that I have made so much of him." Makenzie relates a story concerning his tutelage of his pedantic majesty, which shows under what authority Buchanan held his pupil, and at the same time the degree of his veneration for royalty. The young king being one day at play with his fellow-pupil the matter of Erskine, Buchanan, who was then reading, desired them to make less noise. Finding that they disregarded his admonition, he told his majesty, if he did not hold his tongue, he would certainly whip his breech. The king replied, he would be glad to see who would bell the cat, alluding to the fable. Buchanan, in a psalm, threw the book from him, and gave his majesty a sound flogging. The old countess of Mar, who was in the next apartment, rushed into the room, and taking the king in her arms, asked how he dared to lay his hand on the Lord's anointed. Buchanan's answer is too delicate to be repeated.

On the misfortunes that befell the amiable but imprudent Mary, he went over to the party of the earl of Murray; and at his earnest desire he was prevailed upon to write his "Detection;" a work which his greatest admirers have read with regret. Having been lent with other commissioners to England, against his mistress, he was, on his return, rewarded with the abbacy of Crofs Regal; made director to the chancery; and some time after lord privy council and privy seal. He was likewise rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with a pension of £100 a-year. The twelve last years of his life he employed in composing his History of Scotland. After having vied with almost all the more eminent of the Latin poets, he contended with Livy and Sallust the palm of eloquence and political sagacity. But it is to be remembered with pain, that, like the former of these historians, he was not always careful to preserve himself from the charge of partiality. In the year 1582, he expired at Edinburgh, in the 76th year of his age.

Various writers who have mentioned this author, speak of him in very different language, according to their religious and political principles. From his works, however, it is evident, that, both as a Latin poet and prose writer, he hath been rarely equalled since the reign of Augustus; nor is he less deserving of remembrance as a friend to the natural liberties of mankind, in opposition to usurpation and tyranny. "The happy genius of Buchanan (says Dr Robertson), equally formed to excel in prose and verse, more various, more original, and more elegant, than that of almost any other modern who writes in Latin, reflects, with regard to this particular, the greatest lustre on his country." To his memory an obelisk 100 feet high was erected by subscription in 1788, at Killearn the place of his nativity, designed by Mr J. Craig nephew to the celebrated poet Thomson.

The following is a list of his works. 1. Rerum Scoticarum, &c. 2. Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica. 3. De jure regni apud Scotos Dialogus. 4. Psalmus civ. cum judicio Barclaii, &c. 5. Psalmus cxx. cum analysi organica Beuzerti. 6. Baptistes, five Catastomia. 7. Alcælis, tragodia. 8. Tragedia sacra, et extera. 9. De Calo recepto carmen, apud Stephan. 10. Franciscanus et Fratres, &c. 11. Elegiae, Silvae, &c. 12. Despera Herborna. 13. Poemata. 14. Satyra in cardinalem Lotharingium. 15. Rudimenta grammatices, Tho. Linacri ex Anglico sermone in Latinum vers. 16. An admonition to the true lords. 17. De profidia. 18. Chamaeleon, 1572. 19. Ad viros fulisci epistle. 20. Litera reginae Scoticae ad com. Bothwell. 21. A detection of the doings of Mary queen of Scots, and of James earl of Bothwell, against Henry Lord Darnly. 22. Vita ab ipso scripta biennio ante mortem, cum commentario D. Rob. Sibbaldi, M. D. 23. Life of Mary queen of Scots. These have been severally printed often, and in various countries. An edition of them all collected together was printed at Edinburgh in 1704, in 2 vols. folio.