Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/120

414 monstrosities of character, that ought long ago to have buried his name in oblivion.

In the year 1547 Buchanan again shifted his place, and, along with his Portuguese friend, Andrew Govea, passed into Portugal. Govea, with two brothers, had been sent for his education into France, by John III. of Portugal, who having now founded the university of Coirabra, recalled him to take the principal superintendence of the infant establishment. Aware, at the same time, that his whole kingdom could not furnish a sufficiency of learned men to fill the various chairs, his majesty commissioned Govea to bring a number of learned men with him for that purpose. The persons selected were George Buchanan, his elder brother Patrick, Gruchius, Geruntasus, Tevius, and Vinetus, all of whom had already distinguished themselves by the publication of learned works. Arnoldus Fabricius, John Costa, and Anthony Mendez, the two latter natives of Portugal, completed the establishment, and all of them, Patrick Buchanan and Fabricius excepted, had, under Govea, been teachers in the college of Guienne. France, at this period, threatened to be the scene of great convulsions, and Buchanan regarded this retirement to Portugal as an exceedingly fortunate circumstance, and for a short time his expectations were fully realized. Govoa, however, died in less than a twelvemonth, and, deprived of his protection, the poor professors soon found themselves exposed to the jealousy of the natives on account of being foreigners, and to the unrelenting bigotry of the priests because they were scholars. Three of their number were very soon immured in the dungeons of the inquisition, and, after a tedious confinement, brought before that tribunal, which, unable to convict them of any crime, overwhelmed them with reproaches, and remanded them to their dungeons, without permitting them so much as to know who were their accusers. Buchanan did not escape his share of this persecution. Franciscanus was again revived against him, though the inquisitors knew nothing of that poem; for he had never parted with a copy, save that which he gave to his own king, James V., and he had taken care to have the whole affair properly explained to the Portuguese monarch before he set foot in his dominions. He was also charged with eating flesh in Lent, a practice quite common in Portugal at that time, and with having asserted that Augustine's opinion of the Eucharist coincided with the protestant rather than with the Romish views on the subject, and two witnesses were found to declare that he was an enemy to the Roman faith. More merciful than on many other occasions, the inquisition, after dealing with Buchanan for upwards of a year and a half, sentenced him to be confined in a monastery for some months, that lie might by the inmates be better instructed in the principles and practice of religion. Fortunately, the monks to whose care Buchanan was thus consigned were not without humanity, though he found them utterly ignorant of religion; and he consoled himself by planning, and in part executing, his unrivalled paraphrase of the Psalms of David, which placed him immeasurably above all modern Latin poets, and will transmit his name with honour and admiration to the latest posterity. That this was a task imposed upon him by his ghostly guardians, is an idle tale totally devoid of foundation. The probability is that the poor monks were incapable of appreciating his labours, but he seems to have gained their good will, for he was restored to his liberty, and soliciting the king's permission to return to France, was requested to remain, and pre-