Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/121

Rh sented with a small sum of money for subsistence till a situation worthy of his talents should be found.

After having suffered so much from the inquisition, Buchanan could not be very ambitious of Portuguese preferment, and the promise of the king not being likely to be hastily fulfilled, he embarked in a Greek vessel at Lisbon and sailed for England. To England, however, he certainly had no partiality; and though Edward VI. was now on the throne, and doing all he could to advance the work of reformation, and though some very advantageous offers were made to induce him to settle in that country, he proceeded direct to France, where he arrived in the beginning of 1553. It was at this time that Buchanan wrote his poem, Adventus in Galliam, in which his contempt and resentment of the Portuguese, and the treatment he had received, together with his affection for the French nation, are strongly expressed. Perhaps it would be too much to say that the French nation was attached to Buchanan, but many individuals of it certainly were, and immediately on his arrival in Paris he was appointed to a regency in the college of Boncourt. In this station he remained till 1555, when he was engaged by the celebrated Comte de Brissac, to act as domestic tutor to his son, Timoleon de Cosse. To this nobleman he had addressed a poetical tribute after the capture of Vercelli, an event which occurred in September, 1553; and to him also he dedicated his tragedy of Jepthes in the summer of 1551. The Comte, who seems not to have been insensible to this species of flattery, next year called the poet into Italy, where ha himself presided over the French dominions, and charged him with the education of his son. Though much of his time had been spent amidst the tumults of war, the Marshal de Brissac was a man of a, liberal mind, who, living in a state of princely magnificence, cultivated an acquaintance with the most eminent scholars. During his campaigns he had often been accompanied by men of learning, and had the discernment to discover in the preceptor of his son, powers of mind equal to any station in society. He therefore treated him with the utmost deference, often placing him at the council board among his principal officers, and on the most important occasions thought it no discredit to take the benefit of his superior sagacity. When committed to the tuition of Buchanan, Timoleon de Cosse was only twelve years of age, and he parted with him at the age of seventeen. He was afterwards distinguished for his bravery, for his acquaintance with military science, and his literary attainments were such as reflected honour on a young nobleman destined for the profession of arms. His short but brilliant career terminated at the siege of Mucidan, where he fell by a musket ball, aged only twenty-six years. During the five years of his connexion Avith this illustrious family, Buchanan's residence was alternately in France and Italy, and as his pupil was destined to the profession of arms, and had different masters to attend him, he found leisure for prosecuting his poetical studies, and formed the design, and composed part of his philosophical poem De Spfiera, which he addressed to his pupil. His future avocations prevented him from completing this poem. He likewise published the first specimen of his version of the Psalms, and his translation of the Alcestes of Euripides, which he inscribed to Margaret, daughter of Francis I., a munificent princess, afterwards married to the Duke of Savoy. His ode on the surrender of Calais was also composed while in Brissac's family. But much of his spare time was employed in a manner still more important in examining the grounds of his religious belief, and settling to his own satisfaction the great question (that has ever since, more or less, agitated Europe) between the Romish and the reformed churches. That he had all along inclined to the side of the reformed, is indisputable; but he had never relinquished his connexion Avith the ancient church,