Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/279

Rh he came to a little village, where he obtained some refreshment. He now bent his steps to Vienna, where, professing himself of the Dominican order, he was brought to preach before the emperor Maximilian II, and soon became a favourite at the court of that sovereign. His fame reverting to Rome, Pope Pius III., sent a letter to the emperor, desiring him to be sent back as one that had been condemned for heresy. The emperor adopted the more humane course of giving him a safe conduct out of Germany. Reaching England about the year 1560, Craig heard of the Reformation which had taken place in his native country, and, returning thither, offered his services to the church. He found, however, that the long period of his absence from the country (twentyfour years,) had unfitted him to preach in the vernacular tongue, and he was therefore obliged for some time to hold forth to the learned in Latin. Next year, having partly recovered his native language, he was appointed to be the colleague of Knox in the parish church of Edinburgh, which office he held for nine years. During this period, he had an opportunity of manifesting his conscientious regard to the duties of his calling, by refusing to proclaim the banns for the marriage of the queen to Bothwell, which he thought contrary to the laws, to reason, and to the word of God. For this he was reproved at the time by the council; but his conduct was declared by the General Assembly two years after to have been consistent with his duty as a faithful minister. About the year 1572, he was sent by the General Assembly to preach at Montrose, "for the illuminating the north; and when he had remained two years there, he Mas sent to Aberdeen, to illuminate these dark places in Mar, Buchan, and Aberdeen, and to teach the youth in the college there." In 1579, Mr Craig being appointed minister to the king, (James VI.) returned to Edinburgh, where he took a leading hand in the general assemblies of the church, being the compiler of part of the second book of Discipline, and, what gives his name its chief historical lustre, the writer of the, signed in 1580, by the king and his household, and which was destined in a future age to exercise so mighty an influence over the destinies of the country.

John Craig was a very different man from the royal chaplains of subsequent times. He boldly opposed the proceedings of the court, when he thought them inconsistent with the interests of religion, and did not scruple on some occasions to utter the most poignant and severe truths respecting the king, even in his majesty's own presence. In 1595, being quite worn out with the infirmities of age, he resigned his place in the royal household, and retired from public life. He died on the 4th of December, 1600, aged eighty-eight, his life having extended through the reigns of four sovereigns.

CRAIG,, an eminent mathematician, nourished at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 1 8th centuries. The only circumstance known respecting his life is, that he was vicar of Gillingham in Dorsetshire. The following list of his writings is given in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica,—"Methodus figurarum, lineis rectis et curvis comprehensarum: quadraturas determinandi. London, 1685, 4to.—Irætatus Matbematicus, de figurarum curvilinearum, &c. et locis geometricis. London, 1692, 1693, 4to.—Theologiæ Christiana Principia Mathematics. London, 1699, 4to. Reprinted, Leipsic, 1755.—De Calculo fluentium, lib. ii. et de optica analytics, lib. ii. London, 1718, 4to.—The quantity of the Logarithmic Curve; translated from the Latin, Phil. Trans. Abr. iv. 318. 1698. Quantity of Figures geometrically Irrational. lb. 202. 1697.—Letter containing solutions of two Problems: 1, on the solid of Least Resis-