Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/123

Rh assailed with the most vehement invective. He also now put the finishing- hand to his Franciscanus, which he published, with a dedication to his friend and patron, the Earl of Murray. Through the interest of this nobleman, Buchanan was nominated to be principal of St Leonard's college, St Andrews, in 1566. In November this year, his name appears as one of the auditors of the faculty quester's accounts in the university of St Andrew's, where he had now fixed his residence. The chamber which he occupied, as principal of St Leonard's, is now pail of a private dwelling house, and is supposed to have undergone scarcely any transformation. The following inventory of its furniture, in 1544, has been preserved:―"Twa standard beds, the foreside of aik and the northside and the fuits of fir―Item ane feather bed and ane white plaid of four ells and ane covering woven o'er with images―Item another auld bed of harden filled with straw with ane covering of green―Item ane cod―Item ane inrower of buckram of five breeds part green part red to zaillow―Item ane Hunters counter of the middlin kind Item ane little buird for the studzie―Item ane furm of fir and ane little letterin of aik on the side of the bed with ane image of Jerom―Item ane stool of elm with ane other chair of little pine―Item ane chimney weighing―Item ane chandler weighing ." In 1566, and the two ensuing years, he was one of the four electors of the rector, and by each of the three officers who were successively chosen was nominated a prorector; and in the public register he is denominated by the honourable title which, in publishing his Psalms, Stephanus had bestowed on him. As principal of the college, he delivered occasional prelections on theology, as well as at the weekly meetings of the clergy and other learned men of the district, held for expounding the Scriptures, then styled the exercise of prophesying, and in the general assembly of the Scottish church he sat as a doctor from the year 1563 to 1567, in which last year he had the honour of being chosen moderator. This same year he published another collection, consisting of Elegiæ Silvæ Hendecasyllabi, to which was prefixed an epistle to his friend Peter Daniel, the learned editor of Virgil, with the commentary of Servius, in which he gives several notices respecting his avocations, and especially respecting his poetical works. "Between the occupations of a court, and the annoyance of disease, I have hardly," he remarks, "been able to steal any portion of time which I could devote to my friends or to myself, and I have therefore been prevented from maintaining a frequent correspondence with them, and from collecting my poems which lie so widely dispersed. For my own part I was not extremely solicitous to recall them from perdition, for the subjects are generally of a trivial nature, and such as at this period of life are at once calculated to inspire me with disgust and shame. But as Pierre Montauré, and some other friends, to whom I neither can nor ought to refuse any request, demanded them with such earnestness, I have employed some of my leisure hours in collecting a portion, and placing it in a state of arrangement. With this specimen, which consists of one book of elegies, another of miscellanies, and a third of hendecasyllables, I in the meantime present you. When it shall suit your convenience, I beg you will communicate them to Montaure, des Mesmes, and other philological friends, without whose advice I trust you will not adopt any measure relative to their publication. In a short time I propose sending a book of iambics, another of epigrams, another of odes, and perhaps some other pieces of a similar description. All these I wish to be at the disposal of my friends, as I have finally determined to rely more on their judgment than on my own. In my paraphrase of the Psalms, I have corrected many typographical errors, and have likewise made various alterations. I must therefore request you to advise our friend Stephanus not to publish a new edition without my knowledge. Hitherto