Upon his return to France, he became a student in the Scotish College of Paris. On the tenth of October 1527, he was incorporated a bachelor of arts, and he received the higher degree next March. During the following year, 1529, he was a candidate for the office of procurator of the German nation; but his blind compatriot Robert Wauchope, afterwards archbishop of Armagh, was elected for the ninth time. Buchanan was thus repulsed on the fifth of May, but on the third of June he was more successful. The university of Paris being frequented by students from various countries, they were distributed into four classes or nations. What was termed the German nation, comprehended the Scotish academics.

P Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, p. 313.

9" Georgius Buchananus Scotus," says Bulæus, " nationis Germanica procurator electus anno 1533." (Hist. Universitatis Parisiensis, tom v, p. 935.) This date is most probably erroneous; for Buchanan was then tutor to the earl of Cassilis. Mr. Chalmers quotes the authority of the register of the Scotish College, which the late Principal Gordon had inspected at his request. A man who had only to ascertain the chronology of a single academic, was less obnoxious to negligence or inadvertency, than he who had to ascertain that of five hundred. Bulæus has exhibited many dates which are manifestly inaccurate; but his work consists of six volumes in folio. Mr Innes, who was a member of the university of Paris, varies from both these writers. Buchanan, he remarks, back to Paris A. D. 1527, and upon proof of his being made batchelor of arts in the university of St. Andrews, he was, according to the privilege our Scotish universities enjoyed in those times in Paris, admitted to the same degree in that university, and commenced master of arts in April 1528, and in June 1530, he was elected one of the four procuratorɛ.'* (Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland, vol i, p. 314.)

"came

Before this period, the tenets of Luther had begun to be widely disseminated, and to second the prepossessions of young and ingenuous minds. Buchanan, on his return to Paris, was caught by the spreading flame. His Lutheranism seems to have exposed him to new mortifications; for after he had discovered his attachment, he continued for the space of nearly two years to struggle with the iniquity of fortune. At the expiration of that term, he was appointed a regent or professor in the College of St. Barbe, where he taught grammar for about three years. His eminent qualifications for such an employment will not be questioned; but his services seem to have procured him a very inadequate remuneration. In an elegy apparently composed during this period of his life, he exhibits a dismal picture of the miseries to which the Parisian professors of humanity were then exposed. It opens with the subsequent lines.

Ite leves nugæ, sterilesque valete Camœnæ,
Grataque Phoebeo Castalis unda choro:

Ite, sat est primos vobiscum absumpsimus annos,
Optima pars vitæ deperiitque meæ.

Quærite quem capiat jejuna cantus in umbra:
Quærite qui pota carmina cantet aqua.
Dulcibus illecebris tenerum vos fallitis ævum,
Dum sequitur blandæ carmen inerme lyræ.
Debita militiæ molli languescit in umbra,
Et fluit ignavis fracta juventa sonis.

Ante diem curvos senium grave contrahit artus,
Imminet ante suum mors properata diem :
Ora notat pallor, macies in corpore toto est,
Et tetrico in vultu mortis imago sedet.
Otia dum captas, præceps in mille labores
Irruis, et curis angeris usque novis.
Nocte leves somnos resolutus compede fossor
Carpit, et in mediis nauta quiescit aquis:
Nocte leves somnos carpit defessus arator,
Nocte quies ventis, Ionioque mari :
Nocte tibi nigræ fuligo bibenda lucerna,
Si modo Calliopes castra sequenda putes:
Et tanquam Libyco serves curvata metallo

Robora, et Herculea poma ferenda manu,
Pervigil in lucem lecta atque relecta revolves,
Et putri excuties scripta sepulta situ.
Sæpe caput scalpes, et vivos roseris ungues,
Irata feries pulpita sæpe manu.

Hinc subitæ mortes, et spes prærepta senectæ,
Nec tibi fert Clio, nec tibi Phoebus opem,

The poverty which then attended the professors of polite literature, he has delineated more forcibly towards the close.

"Quis porro non indignetur," says Budæus, « eam disciplinam et professionem quæ omneis alias complectitur, atque intra suum orbem coercet, quæ suis finibus singulas quasi architectonico jure circumscribit, a schola Parisiensi (quæ ut metropolis sit ipsa omnium scholarum, et censeatur: omnium (ut opinor) ipsarum bona venia et assensione licet) inscitia temporum, et pauperie in re literaria facta, e numero disciplinarum exauctoratam esse ? e præsidiisque ejectam Palladis, atque ejus ære dirutam?" (De Philologia, f. xxii. Excudebat Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 1532, 4to.) Budæus and Cardinal du Bellay induced Francis the first to allot an annual stipend to public professors of the learned lan guages; and Castellanus afterwards exerted his influence with the same

Denique quicquid agis, comes assidet improba egestas,
Sive poema canis, sive poema doces.
Bella gerunt urbes septem de patria Homeri:
Nulla domus vivo, patria nulla fuit.
Æger, inops patrios deplorat Tityrus agros,
Statius instantem vix fugat arte famem.
Exul Hyperboreum Naso projectus ad axem,
Exilium Musis imputat ille suum.
Ipse Deus vatum vaccas pavisse Pheræas
Creditur, Æmonios et numerasse greges.
Calliope longum cœlebs cur vixit in ævum ?
Nempe nihil doti quod numeraret erat.
Interea celeri cursu delabitur ætas,

Et queritur duram tarda senecta famem:
Et dolet ignavis studiis lusisse juventam,
Jactaque in infidam semina mæret humum ;
Nullaque maturis congesta viatica canis,
Nec faciles portus jam reperire ratem.
Ite igitur Musæ steriles, aliumque ministrum
Quærite: nos alio sors animusque vocat.

This elegy, which is the first in the order of arrangement, was perhaps the first in the order of composition. It was apparently in the year 1529 that he began to teach in the College of St. Barbe: he must therefore have commenced his professorial functions about the age of twenty-three. Muretus began to teach in the archiepiscopal College of Auch at the earlier age

munificent prince to confirm so useful an establishment. (Regii Vita Guilielmi Budæi, p. 44. Paris. 1540, 4to. Gallandii Vita Petri Castellani, p. 49. Paris. 1674, 8vo.)

5 Buchanani Elegia i. Quam misera sit conditio docentium literas bymanieres Lutetia.

of eighteen; and at the same age Philelphus read lectures on eloquence to a numerous auditory in the university of Padua."

If the elegy was actually composed about this period, the new employment to which the author alludes was evidently that of superintending the studies of a young Scotish nobleman. Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassilis, who was residing near the College of St. Barbe, having become acquainted with Buchanan, admired his literary talents, and was delighted with his conversation. He was therefore solicitous to retain so accomplished a preceptor; and their closer connection probably commenced in the year 1532. The first work that Buchanan committed to the press, was a translation of the famous Thomas Linacre's rudiments of Latin grammar; which he inscribed to Lord Cassilis, " a youth of the most promising talents, and of an excellent disposition." This Latin version was printed by R. Stephanus in 1533.

After he had resided with his pupil for the term of five years, they both returned to Scotland. At this period, the earl had probably at

Jos. Scaligeri Confutatio Fabulæ Burdonum, p. 451.

Shepherd's Life of Poggio Bracciolini, p. 254. Liverpool, 1802, 4to. *The chronology is still unsettled. Mr. Ruddiman supposes him to have begun teaching in the College of St. Barbe in the year 1526: but for the office of a professor he was not qualified till 1528, when he was created master of arts; and even under the date of June the third 1529, his name, according to Mr. Chalmers, occurs in the register of the Scot