Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/127

Rh tinued to be standards of instruction for a very short time, and have long been utterly forgotten. The second commission to which we have referred, was appointed by the parliament of 1578, to visit the colleges, to reform such things as tended to popery, to displace unqualified persons, and to establish such persons therein as they should judge fit for the education of youth. The university of St Andrews was the subject of the first experiment. Having found many things to alter and redress, the commissioners prepared a scheme of reformation, which was ratified by parliament. This document, written in the Scottish tongue by George Buchanan, is still preserved. The plan of improvement is skilfully delineated, and evidently pre-supposes that there A\as no want of learned men in the nation, but it was never carried into effect.

With the regents Murray, Lennox, and Mar, Buchanan was cordially united; but Morton in the end forfeited his good-will by the plans of self-aggrandizement which he so sedulously pursued; and it was principally by his advice and that of Sir Alexander Erskine that Morton was deposed, and the reins of government put into the king's hands, though he was yet only in his twelfth year, he was of course a member of the privy council appointed for the young monarch, but seems to have been displaced on Morton's return to power; and we are uncertain if he ever again held any political office. It is probably to this short period of political influence that we are to ascribe the following anecdote of Buchanan, related by Dr Gilbert Stuart in his Observations concerning the Public Law and the Constitutional History of Scotland:―"In feudal times," that writer observes, "when the sovereign upon his advancement to the royalty was to swear fidelity to his subjects, and to pay homage to the laws, he delivered his naked sword into the hands of the high constable. 'Use this in my defence,' said he, 'while I support the interests of my people; use it to my destruction when I forsake them.' In allusion to this form, Buchanan made a naked sword to be represented on the money coined in the minority of James VI., with these words, Pro me; si mereor, in me."

A list of twenty-four Scotsmen has been preserved, whom, on the king's assuming the reins of government, Elizabeth thought it necessary to attach to her interest by pensions, and among these Buchanan stands at £100 per year; no contemptible sum in those days, and the same that was assigned to some of the first nobles of the land. There is no evidence that he ever received this gratuity, or that it was offered to him. Mackenzie, however, states it as a certainty, and adds, that the composition of his "De Jure Regni apud Scotos," was the grateful service he performed in return,―an assertion not likely, considering that the doctrines of this book were not very consonant to the views of that high minded princess. The "De Jure" was composed principally with a view to instruct his royal pupil in what belonged to his office.

In 1576, he prepared his Baptistes, and dedicated it to the young king, with a freedom of sentiment bordering upon disrespect, which is to be regretted, because if his lessons had been conveyed in a less dictatorial manner, there would have been more likelihood of their being attended with advantage. "This trifle may seem," he says, " to have a more important reference to you, because it clearly discloses the punishment of tyrants, and the misery which awaits them even when their prosperity is at the highest. Such knowledge I consider it not only expe-