Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/159

 the justification spoken of by St James is different from that spoken of by St Paul: For the justification by good works, which St James speaks of, only justifies us before man; but the justification by faith, which St Paul speaks of, justifies us before God: And that all, yea even the best of our good works, are but sins before God."

"And," adds Mackenzie, with true Jacobite sarcasm, "whatever may be in this doctrine of our author's, I think we may grant to him that the most of all his actions which he valued himself upon, and reckoned good works, were really great and heinous sins before God, for no good man will justify rebellion and murder."

Without entering into the controversies involved by this proposition, either as to the death of Cardinal Beaton, or the accusations against Queen Mary, we may content ourselves with quoting the opinion entertained of Balnaves by the good and moderate Melville; he was, according to this writer, "a godly, learned, wise, and long experimented counsellor." 'A poem' by Balnaves, entitled, "An advice to headstrong Youth," is selected from Bannatyne's manuscript into the Evergreen.  , takes his title to a place in this work from a source of fame participated by no other individual within the range of Scottish biography; it is to this person that we are indebted for the preservation of nearly all the productions of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Though the services he has thus rendered to his country were in some measure the result of accident, yet it is also evident that, if he had not been a person of eminent literary taste, and also partly a poet himself, we should never have had to celebrate him as a collector of poetry. The compound claim which he has thus established to our notice, and the curious antique picture which is presented to our eye by even the little that is known regarding his character and pursuits, will, it is hoped, amply justify his admission into this gallery of eminent Scotsmen.

George Bannatyne was born in an elevated rank of society. His father, James Bannatyne, of the Kirktown of Newtyle, in the county of Forfar, was a writer in Edinburgh, at a time when that profession must have been one of some distinction and rarity; and he was probably the person alluded to by Robert Semple, in "The Defens of Grissell Sandylands:"—

It also appears that James Bannatyne held the office of to the Lords of Session, in which office his eldest son (afterwards a Lord of Council and Session) was conjoined with him as successor, by royal precept dated May 2, 1583. James Bannatyne is further ascertained to have been connected with the very ancient and respectable family of Bannachtyne, or Bannatyne of Camys, [now Kames] in the island of Bute. He was the father, by his wife Katharine Tailliefer, of twenty-three children, nine of whom, who survived at the time of his death, in 1583, were "weill, and sufficiently provydit be him, under God."

George Bannatyne, the seventh child of his parents, was born on the 22nd day of February, 1545, and was bred up to trade. It is, however, quite 