Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/398

Volusene and the rudiments of Greek. He continued to enjoy the esteem and confidence of Sadolet, who had only one fault to find with him—his solitary and taciturn disposition (Sad. Epist. ii. 383).

In 1539 he published at Lyons, through the press of Gryphius, his little known and very scarce ‘Commentatio quædam Theologica quæ eadem precatio est .... in Aphorismos dissecta,’ 8vo, which is little more than brief passages of scripture turned into prayers, and is so rare that his editors and biographers were unable to see a copy, and could only quote its title from the catalogue of the library of De Thou. In 1543, at the same press, he published the work on which his fame rests, ‘De Animi Tranquillitate Dialogus, Lugduni apud Seb. Gryphium, ,’ 4to, four hundred pages. In form, this work is an imaginary conversation held in a garden on the heights of Fourvières overlooking Lyons, between the author and two friends. In substance it reminds us of the ‘Consolation of Philosophy’ of Boethius. Without being commonplace, it is full of sense, and at once reasonable and Christian. It seems to have had considerable popularity, and brought to its author well-deserved fame. It was reprinted at Leyden in 1637 under the editorship of David Echlin, and reissued with a new title-page, ‘Hagæ Comitis, 1642.’ The subsequent editions are those of Edinburgh, 1707 and 1751, the latter edited by G. Wishart. To the editions of 1637, 1707, and 1751 a brief life is prefixed, anonymous, but written by Thomas Wilson (who also called himself ‘Volusenus’), and is appended to his edition of the ‘Poemata’ of his father-in-law, Archbishop Patrick Adamson [q. v.], 1619–18. An Italian translation was printed at Sienna in 1574.

Gesner met Volusene at Lyons in 1540, and speaks of him as ‘juvenili adhuc ætate; et magnam ab ejus eruditione perventuram ad studiosos utilitatem expectamus’ (Bibl. Univ. 245). Barthélemy Aneau, in the dedication to the Earl of Arran of his French translation of the ‘Emblems of Alciat’ (Lyons, 1549), states that he undertook the work by the advice of ‘M. Florent. Volusen,’ whose virtues and knowledge of the arts, sciences, and the Greek, Latin ‘Escossoise,’ French, Italian, and Spanish languages, he highly extols. Among the epigrams of G. Ducher is one addressed to Volusene (G. Ducheri Epigrammaton lib. ii. 1538, p. 50). In the meantime, though he never left the church of Rome, his opinions seem to have gravitated towards those of the reformers. In a letter to Cromwell, dated 20 June 1536 (Letters and Papers, x. 488), he states that he is writing a short apology for the king on throwing off his submission to Rome, and shall bring it with him, showing that he was then contemplating a visit to Britain, and in his ‘De Animi Tranquillitate’ he speaks with much praise of Ochino, Peter Martyr, and Paul Lacisa.

In 1546 Volusene, then contemplating a return to Scotland, wrote to Sadolet asking his advice as to the course he should adopt in his native land in reference to the religious dissensions. The cardinal's reply is among his letters (Sad. Epist. iii. 433). Soon afterwards he seems to have resigned his appointment at Carpentras, but had hardly commenced his journey to Scotland when he was attacked by illness, and died at Vienne in Dauphiné in 1546 or early in 1547. Buchanan, to whom he was well known, and to whom he had given a copy of Munster's ‘Dictionarium Hebraicum’—now in the library of the university of Edinburgh—commemorated his untimely death in one of the happiest of his epigrams.

Dempster (Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot. lib. xix.) has not noticed either of the genuine works of Volusene, but has attributed to him two other books, ‘Philosophiæ Aristotelicæ Synopsis’ and ‘De Consolatione.’ No trace of either can be found. It is probable that Dempster confused the ‘Philosophicæ Consolationes’ of Sadolet with the ‘De Animi Tranquillitate.’ Volusene is also credited by several of his biographers with a volume of ‘Poemata,’ London, 1619, 4to; the volume referred to seems, however, to be the ‘Poemata’ of Archbishop Adamson, which includes four Latin poems of Volusene, which appear in the ‘De Animi Tranquillitate,’ and of which three were again printed in the ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum,’ 1637 (ii. 539–44). The longest of these poems is included in the ‘Epigrammatum libri octo’ of Ninian Paterson (Edinburgh, 1678, 8vo), with an English translation by Paterson. Another translation of this ode appears in at least three editions of Blair's ‘Poems’ (1747, 1802, and 1826), but R. Anderson in his ‘Life of Blair’ prefixed to the edition of 1826 says that ‘all evidence external and internal is against the ascription of this feeble version … to the author of “The Grave.”’ It is not impossible that Volusene was the compiler or editor of a brief anonymous ‘Latinæ Grammatices Epitome,’ printed by Gryphius at Lyons in 1544, to which are prefixed six elegiacs by ‘Floren. Vol.’ [Adamsoni Poemata cum aliis opusculis studio F. Voluseni expolita, 1619–18; Mackenzie's Lives … of … Writers of the Scots Nation,