Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/326

 knew not; they imagined wickedness in their hearts and practised it: their delight is in lies: they conspired together, and laid their net to destroy him guiltless: the very abjects came together against him, they gaped upon him with their mouths, they sharpened their tongues like a serpent, working deceitfully; they compassed him about with words of malice, and hated, and fought against him without a cause.

"He endured their reproach with fortitude, suffering wrongfully."

"Unhappy vanity!" exclaims Samuel Ayscough, who preserves the inscription, "thus endeavouring, as it were, to carry on the deception with God, which he was convicted of at the bar of literary justice: how much better would it have been to let his name sink in oblivion, than thus attempt to excite the pity of those only who are unacquainted with the history of his life; and, should it raise a desire in any person to inquire, it must turn their pity into contempt."

In Bower, we contemplate a man of considerable merit in a literary point of view, debased by the peculiar circumstances in which he entered the world. A traitor to his own original profession of faith, he never could become a good subject to any other. His subsequent life was that of an adventurer and a hypocrite; and such at length was the dilemma in which he involved himself by his unworthy practices, that, for the purpose of extricating himself, he was reduced to the awful expedient of denying upon oath the genuineness of letters which were proved upon incontestible evidence to be his. Even, however, from the evil of such a life, much good may be extracted. The infamy in which his declining years were spent, must inform even those to whom good is not good alone for its own sake, that the straight paths of candour and honour are the only ways to happiness, and that money or respect, momentarily enjoyed at the expense of either, can produce no permanent or effectual benefit.

, an historical writer of the fifteenth century, was born at Haddington, in 1385. At the age of eighteen, he assumed the religious habit; and after finishing his philosophical and theological studies, visited Paris in order to study the laws. Having returned to his native country, he was unanimously elected Abbot of St Colm, in the year 1418. After the death of, the historian, (see that article,) he was requested, by Sir David Stewart of Rossyth, to undertake the completion of the Scotichronicon, or Chronicles of Scotland, which had been brought up by the above writer only to the 23d chapter of the fifth book. In transcribing the part written by Fordoun, Bower inserted large interpolations. He completed the work in sixteen books, which brought the narrative to the death of James the First; and he is said to have been much indebted for materials to the previous labours of Fordoun. Bower, like Fordoun, wrote in a scholastic and barbarous Latin; and their work, though it must be considered as one of the great fountains of early Scottish history, is characterised by few of the essential qualities of that kind of composition.

, an extraordinary genius, who assumed the additional name of, from a desire of assimilating himself to the illustrious hero of Macedon, was a younger son of Robert Boyd of Pinkell in Ayrshire, who was great-grandson to Robert Boyd, great Chamberlain of Scotland. Mark Boyd was born on the 13th of January, 1562. His father having died while he was a child, he was educated under the care of his uncle, James Boyd of Trochrig, titular Archbishop of Glasgow. His headstrong temper showed itself in early youth, in quarrels with his instructors, and before he had finished his academical course, he left the care of his friends, and endeavoured to obtain some notice at court. It affords a dreadful picture of the character of Boyd, that, even in a scene ruled by such a spirit as Stuart, Earl of Arran, he was found too violent: one duel and numberless broils, in which he became engaged, rendered it necessary that he