BUCHANAN, GEORGE, one of the most learned men of the 16th c., and a distinguished poet and historian, was b. of poor parents in Killearn, in the co. of Stirling, in Feb., 1506. He was sent to the university of Paris by his uncle, who died two years after wards, leaving B. without the means of prosecuting his studies. He returned home, served in one campaign against the English, and entered St. Andrews university in 1524, where, in the following year, he took Ins degree of B.A. In 1526, lie went to Paris, and became a student in the Scots college there. He subsequently obtained a professorship in the college of St. Barbe, but returned to Scotland about 1537. During his residence on the continent, B. adopted the tenets of the reformed faith. A satire entitled ,,Qoannium, exposing the Franciscans, brought down upon him the wrath of the priests; and.he had resolved upon seeking safety in his old college at Paris, when king James V. took him under his protection, and intrusted him with the education of one of his illegitimate sons. At the request of the king, B. wrote another and more pungent satire against the monks, entitled Franciscanus, increasing their anger, and rousing especially the bitter hatred of the powerful cardinal Beaton, who after a time procured B.'s arrest, and even went so far as to offer the king money for his life. Though to James was entirely due the pub lication of the offensive satire, he did not interfere to protect the poet, who, however, contrived to effect his escape to Paris. After spending some years at Bordeaux and Paris in tuition, he accompanied the learned Portuguese, Govea, to the university of Cohn bra, in Portugal, as one of his associates. After the death of Govea, B. was arrested as a heretic, and was for some time detained in a monastery, where he began his splendid Latin metrical version of the Psalms. In 1551, being restored to liberty, lie went to England; but soon afterwards went to Paris. About 1560, he returned to Scot land, where he made an open confession of Protestantism. His reputation as a scholar gained for him a good reception at the court of the young queen, Marv, whose classical tutor lie became. But his religious and political principles attached him to the party of the regent Moray, by whose influence he was appointed principal of St. Leonard's college, in St. Andrews university, in 1566. In the following year, lie was chosen mod
erator of the general assembly—a very high honor for a layman. The doings of Mary, which scandalized the Scottish public, disgusted her tutor also, and he accompanied the regent Moray to England, in order to give evidence against her before the commissioners appointed by Elizabeth to inquire into her guilt. His Detectio Maria Regina, laid before these functionaries, was industriously circulated by the English court. In 1570, B. was appointed tutor to the young king, James VI. (afterwards .'awes I.), who owed to him all the erudition of which in later life lie was so vain. No considerations of the future position of his pupil were allowed to interfere with B.'s treatment of him, which was strict, if not even stern; and in dedicating his .De Jars Regal aped Scotos to the young monarch in 1579. he warned him against favorites with a freedom remarkable not only in a subservient but in any age. In 1570, B. was appointed director of chancery, which lie soon resigned, and in the same year was made keeper of the privy seal, an office which he retained until within a short time of his death. The latter years of his life were devoted to the composition of his History of Scotland (published in 1582) He died thirty days after its publication, on the 28th Sept., 1582, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard. Edinburgh. As a scholar, B. was unrivaled in his age; and he wrote Latin poetry "with the purity and elegance of an ancient Roman." He was alike humorous, sarcastic, and profound. This History, written in Latin, is remarkable for the richness, force, and perspicuity of its style, though it has been found fault with for the partiality of its narration of contemporary events; and two years after the author's death, it, as well as De Jerre Regni, etc., was condemned by the Scottish parliament, and every per son possessed of copies was ordered to surrender them within 40 days, in order that they might be purged of " the offensive and extraordinary matters" they contained. '1 wo collected editions of B.'s works have been published—one by Iluddiman in 1715, 2 vols. folio; and another by Burman, Leyden, in 2 vols. quarto, in 1725. The translations that have yet appeared are far from doing justice to the original.