Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI

The Literature of the Reformation, and the latter part of the Sixteenth Century.

IN the preceding pages an account was given of the pre-reformation literature of Scotland; in this chapter the class of writings more immediately associated with the revolution will be treated. In this connection, the writings of Sir David Lyndsay had more influence among the people in hastening on the Reformation than those of any other man of the age in Scotland. It is a singular and notable fact that Lyndsay was not interfered with, nor accused of heresy in the Church, though he made many bold attacks upon the priesthood and the corrupted doctrine of the Roman Church: probably it was his rank and position that saved him from the heresy hunters of the times. Whether he ever actually renounced his general adherence to the Roman Catholic faith is uncertain. His name, however, is always reckoned among those of the early adherents of the Scottish Reformation. His death took place before the reformed party in Scotland had assumed a distinct attitude toward the government of the kingdom, or had even formed themselves into an open congregation; but, if he cannot be exactly counted as one of the Protestant Reformers, we must at least regard him as a great power in preparing the national mind for the reception of the radical revolution, which triumphed in Scotland within a few years after his death.¹ In fact, Lyndsay was a real and worthy Reformer. He openly and bravely stood up and exposed the abuses of the government of his country, and held up to scorn the corruptions of the Church; he was not afraid to denounce the host of traditions, of puerile fancies, and inherited prejudices, which had been venerated for centuries; he felt keenly for the hard lot of the toiling mass of his countrymen, and the whole force of his nature and power over the language was thrown into his writings, with the aim of mitigating the suffering of the people. Having honestly faced the storm, he has had his reward in the grateful remembrance of succeeding generations.

¹ Poetical Works of Sir D. Lyndsay, edited by Dr. Laing, 2 Volumes, 1871, Memoir, Volume I., pages 45‒50. “Had Lyndsay survived for a few years beyond the actual term of his life, we need scarcely doubt he would have joined himself to the Lords of the Congregation in the abjuration of Popery; but it cannot be said that, at any period of his life, he had actually renounced his general adherence to the Romish Faith.” Compare Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Knox, pages 17, 25, 324; 1855. “His poems were very famous among his countrymen; but they were admired not so much for their poetical charms as for their powerful help to the good cause of the Reformation.”――Minto’s _Characteristics of the English Poets_, pages 143‒144.

Little is known about the early days of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount; but it appears that he was employed at the court of Scotland during the greater part of his life. For a period of nearly fifty years, excepting the short time that the Earl of Angus held James V. in captivity, Lyndsay seems to have been constantly engaged in various offices in the royal household. About the year 1529, he was appointed chief Herald, or Lyon King of Arms, as it is called, and he held this office till his death. In the latter part of the reign of James V. he was occasionally sent on foreign embassies in the service of the government. He died about the year 1555.¹

¹ Dr. Laing’s Memoir, pages 12‒22, 29, Chalmers’s Edition of the Poetical Works of Sir D. Lyndsay, Volume I., pages 11‒14, 17, 36; 1806.

Lyndsay was not a great poet nor a man of very remarkable genius; all his works had practical aims, and were intended to produce moral results. He was well informed, familiar with the history of his own and other countries, and his writings are interspersed with many historical allusions. He had a fund of genuine humour, and his satire is often pungent and stinging; but his taste was rather coarse, which, however, was partly the fault of his age, and sprang out of the state of society. If his style had been pitched on a higher key, it is certain that his writings would not have been so popular, and that his influence as a reformer must have been greatly circumscribed. Some of Lyndsay’s productions were printed in his own lifetime, but it is uncertain if any of the existing early impressions had the advantage of his own revision when passing through the press.¹ The earliest collection of his writings extant is the edition which was published in France in 1558. From this date to the year 1614 there was no fewer than fourteen editions of his works published, including the two French and the three English ones. His writings were not only very popular among all ranks of the Scots; they were also well received in England and France, and were printed in Holland and in Ireland. It is reported that his poems were read by the children in the schools,² but there is little evidence of this; though for three or four generations his writings were to be found in almost every household throughout the kingdom.

¹ “Some of his works were undoubtedly circulated during his own life in a printed form, but of the existing early impressions, it cannot positively be asserted that any one of them had the advantage of his own superintendence.” Dr. Laing’s edition, Preface. Volume I., page 1.

² Chalmers said that Lyndsay’s poetical works were read in the schools. Works of Sir David Lyndsay, Volume I., pages 83‒91.

In the days of Lyndsay the orthography of the vernacular language was not definitely fixed, and the spelling of the same word is often varied in his writings. He sometimes makes violent changes in words to suit the necessity of his rhyme, and occasionally carries this so far as to obscure the sense. But he had a copious command of words, and used a great variety of all sorts of terms. His chief object was to instruct and to make himself intelligible to the common people; in his own words――

“Howbeit that divers devote cunning clerks In Latine tongue has written sundrie books, Our unlearned knows little of their works, More than they do the ravying of the rooks. Wherefore to colliers, carters, and to cooks, To Jok and Thome my rhyme sall be directed, With cunning men howbeit it will be lacked.”¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., page 248, Dr. Laing’s edition; see also pages 65‒66, 231. In those days it was common to make apologetic prefaces for composing works in the vulgar tongue; the great Chaucer deemed it needful to do this, also Lydgate, Gavin Douglas, and the author of the _Complaynt of Scotland_, as already mentioned; even in the reign of Charles I., Abacue Bysett, in the preface to the _Rolment of Courtes_, apologised for “using my awin natural Scottish language.”

He went on to state that when the Romans held universal sway, “the ornate Latin was their proper lingo;” but if St. Jerome, who translated the Scriptures into Latin, had been born in Argyle, he assuredly would have written his books in Gaelic. He argues that all the books necessary for the commonweal and our salvation should be translated into the language of the people. His works are full of moral sentences and proverbial phrases, but many of his words are obsolete, and others which he freely used are regarded as profane slang; in fact, some of his expressions can only be characterised as swearing at large; on the whole, his language gives a sad impression of the state of society in pre-reformation times.

Lyndsay’s first poem, “The Dreme,” in which he began his attack upon the clergy and the Church, was written in 1528. It contains a deplorable picture of the religious orders. Pride had usurped the place of humility amongst them, sensual pleasure had banished chastity; the lords of religion were more absorbed in counting their money than in observing their rule and attending to their duty, as ambition had so utterly blinded them. In his Complaynt, written in 1529, and addressed to the King, Lindsay warns his royal master to keep his eyes upon the clergy, to cause them to perform their functions, to preach and to administer the sacraments according to the injunctions of Christ, to put aside their vain traditions by which the silly people were deluded, as in praying to graven images, and making superstitious pilgrimages, expressly against the Lord’s command. He recalls the examples of the kings of Israel, who were punished for assenting to idolatry, and then instances David and Solomon, who suffered no images to stand in the Temple, and their reward was heavenly bliss, which should also be granted to the King of Scotland if he followed in their footsteps.¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 39, 59‒60. All the references are to Dr. Laing’s edition, unless otherwise noted.

Lyndsay’s next production, “The Testament and Complaynt of the King’s Papyngo,” that is, the king’s parrot, was written in 1530. He brings out this bird to laugh at clerical persons and the attendants of the court, and uses his satirical faculty with much effect, ridiculing in turn the courtiers, flatterers, and clergy. One of the latter is made to reply in these words:――

“No marvell is, though we religious men Degenerated be, and in our life confused: But sing, and drink, none other craft we ken, Our spiritual Fathers has us so abused: Against our will, these swindlers been intrusted.

* * * * *

Great pleasure were to hear a bishop preach, A Deane, or Doctor in Divinity, An Abbot who could well his convent teach, A Parson flowing in philosophy: I tine my time, to wish what will not be; Were not the preaching of the Begging Friars Tint were the faith among the Seculars. As for their preaching, said the parrot, I them excuse, for why, they been so thrall To Property, and her worthy daughters two, Dame Riches, and fair lady Sensuall, That may not use no pastime spirituall; And in their habits, they take such delite, They have renounced russat and raploch¹ white.”²

¹ A coarse woollen cloth.

² Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 99, 101. “The first edition of this poem, and indeed of any of Lyndsay’s poems, is that printed at London by John Byddell in the year 1538.” Dr. Laing.

The “Supplication to the King, in Contemplation of Side Tails,” is an extremely curious commentary on the dress of the period. Lyndsay here directs his satire against the long trains and veiled faces of the ladies; but rarely lets slip an opportunity of having a fling at the clergy and the monastic orders, as the following lines bear witness:――

“But, I think most abuse, To see men of religion, Gar beir their tails throw the street, That folks may behold their feet, I trow Sanct Bernard nor Sanct Blais, Gart never man beir up thair clais; Peter, nor Paul, nor Sanct Andrew, Gart nevir beir up thair tails, I trow, But, I laugh best to see a Nun, Gar beir her tails abone her bun, For nothing else as I suppose, But for to show her lily white hose: In all thair rules they will not find, Who should beir up their tails behind.”

To show the power of fashion, he asserts that even moorland Meg, who milked the ewes, will immediately counterfeit the queen’s dress, and have her kirtle with its tail wherever she goes. In summer when the streets are dry, the long tails of the ladies’ dresses raise such a dust, he says, that no one can walk near them without covering their mouth and nose and eyes, and many other rather comical effects of wearing long tails are noticed.¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 130‒135.

In the short poem “Kitteis Confession,” Lindsay directed his satire against auricular confession, and exposes this source of priestly influence with much pungency and some happy touches of humour. He pursued a similar end in “the Tragedie of the Cardinal,” but with less spirit and energy. To a rather general account of Cardinal Beaton’s life, and his end in the castle of St. Andrews, he adds an admonition and a warning to the bishops, and another to princes; the latter concludes with the following:――

“Wherefore I counsel every Christian king, Within his realm to make reformation, And suffer no more rogues to reign Abuse Christ’s true congregation: Failing thereof, I make narration, That ye princes, and prelates, all at once, Shall burnt be in hell, soul, blood, and bones.”¹

¹ Poetical Works, pages 136‒140, 157. The tragedy of “The Cardinal” was printed at London in 1547. In the prologue to this composition, Lyndsay referred to a work on Boccaccio――“The Fall of Princes,” which was translated into English by Lydgate, and published at London in 1494, and again in 1527.

The most remarkable of all Lyndsay’s works is his play, “The Satire of the Three Estates.” It is a curious production, and in the history of dramatic literature comes under the class of what is called moralities or moral plays.¹ In its construction a number of real and allegorical characters are brought upon the scene, such as king humanitas, diligence, wantonness, good counsel, the bishop, the abbot, and the parson; the shoemaker and his wife, the tailor and his wife, the cottar and his wife, the old man, common theft, oppression, and many other mixed characters. Much ingenuity in the marshalling of these various characters is displayed in order to suit the action of the play; though it is hardly possible for such a multitudinous rally to exhibit a natural succession of incidents throughout so long a performance. The action of the play, however, is sustained with wonderful spirit, and occasionally with comic effect. The characters sometimes express themselves in very coarse and obscene language, and there is much of what would be called swearing, and would not be tolerated on the stage of the present day or anywhere else; yet, there is not the slightest reason to doubt that the “Satire of the Three Estates” is a pretty faithful representation of the state of society in Scotland in pre-reformation times.

¹ The full title is――“Ane Pleasant Satire of the Three Estates, in Commendation of Virtue and Vituperation of Vice.”

The play, as its title imported, is a satire on the chief ranks of the kingdom. But, as usual with Lyndsay, the burden of his rhyme and the force of his lash falls upon the religious orders. He proceeds from point to point, and charges them with a catalogue of immoralities which is appalling. The bishops, with their lordly riches and immoral modes of life, are represented in the most glaring colours, as are also the abuses of their courts and the oppressions of the poor people. The pardoner and his ways of extorting money are handled with boldness and effect. It is forcibly shown that the priesthood had entirely neglected to instruct the people in the religion of Christ; and that most of the clergy were utterly ignorant of the Scriptures. It must be added that the language itself which imparts this information affords evidence of the fearful corruption of the nation: the profane swearing, the obscene words and phrases, the extreme licentiousness, and the lack of delicacy, which pervades the performance, all shows that there was great need for a reformation.

In the course of the play the abbot is called upon to tell how he has performed the duties of his office, and he replies in these words:

“Touching my office, I say to you plainly, My monks and I, we live richt easily; There is no monks, from Carrick to Crail, That fairs better, and drinks more helsum ale. My prior is a man of great devotion: Therefore, daily, he gets a double portion.”

Next, the abbot is asked how he has kept his three vows, and returns this answer:――

“Indeed, richt well, till I got home my bulls, In my abbey, when I was sure professor; Then did I live, as did my predecessor. My parmours are both as fat and fair, As any wench intill the town of Ayr. I send my sons to Paris to the schools, I trust in God that they shall be no fools. And all my daughters I have well provided. Now judge ye if my office be well guided.”¹

¹ Works, Volume II., pages 263, 264. For evidence that the monks lived luxuriously and drank large quantities of ale and wine, see Mackintosh’s _History of Civilisation in Scotland_, Volume I., pages 431, 433. New Ed., 1892.

On being asked whether he can preach, the Parson replies:――

“Though I preach not, I play at the caiche:¹ I wait there is not one among you all, More fairly can play at the football; And for the carts, the tables, and the dice, Above all parsons, I may bear the prize. Our round bonnets, we make them now four-nuicked, Of richt fine stuff, if you list, come and luke it. Of my office I have declared to thee; Speir what ye please, ye get no more of me.”²

¹ A game of hand-ball.

² Lyndsay’s Works, Volume II., pages 264, 265.

There was no theatre at the time in Scotland, and the satire of the “Three Estates” was acted in the open air, upon the green. It was first played at Linlithgow, on the 6th of January, 1540, in the presence of the King and Queen, the ladies of the court, the bishops, and a great assemblage of the people. It was again acted at Cupar Fife, on the playfield, about the year 1552; and at Edinburgh in 1554, before the Queen Regent, the nobles, and a large gathering of the people. On the latter occasion the performance of the play began at nine in the morning and continued till six at night; but it appears from the play itself that there were short intervals, when the chief auditory retired for refreshments.¹

¹ Works, Volume I., pages 33‒35, Preface. Volume II., pages 346‒348, and Chalmers’s edition, Volume I., pages 356‒358. Dr. Laing holds that there is no evidence that Lyndsay’s play was acted at Cupar in 1535, as had been supposed by Chalmers and others.

Some information respecting dramatic exhibitions of the period may be obtained from the records of Edinburgh. According to these, in June, 1554, the provost and council ordered the treasurer to pay the workmen, the merchants, the carters, and others, who furnished the gear to the convoy of the moirs to the abbey, and for the play which was acted the same day, the sum of thirty-seven pounds, sixteen shillings, and fourpence, “provided always that the master of work deliver to the dean of guild the hand-scene and canvass, to be kept to the behoof of the town.” On the 27th of the same month the treasurer was ordered to pay the sum of twenty-four pounds for the making of the playing place. On the 20th of July the town council ordered the payment of forty-two pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence, to complete the playfield “now building in the Greenside.” On the 18th of August the council directed that the twelve minstrels who passed before the convoy and the players on Sunday last should be paid forty shillings. The play-gear it seems belonged to the town, as the council ordered the treasurer to pay Walter Binning the sum of five pounds for making the play-gear, painting the hand-scene and the players’ faces, “provided always that the said Walter make the play-gear underwritten, forthcoming to the town, when required, and which he has now received――eight play-hats, a king’s crown, a mitre, a fool’s hood, a sceptre, a pair of angel-wings, two angel-hair, and a chaplet of triumph.”¹ On the occasion of Queen Mary’s marriage with the Dauphin of France in 1558, the magistrates of Edinburgh voted various sums of money for plays and triumphs;² and there are many indications that the people delighted in rude plays and pageants.

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume II., pages 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199.

² Ibid., Volume III., pages 26, 28. So different was the progress of the drama in England and Scotland, that before the year 1633 nineteen playhouses had been opened in London, while on our side of the Border there was hardly one worth the name of a theatre.――Percy’s _Essay on the Origin of the English Stage_, page 151.

Sir David Lyndsay’s other works are “Squire Meldrum,” and “The Monarchy” or “A Dialogue between Experience and a Courtier of the miserable Estate of the World.” The first is a kind of rhymed tale of chivalry, though the hero of the story lived at the time, and Lyndsay reported that he received some of his information from the lips of the champion himself; and thus by a mixture of fact and romance, he has woven a long and pretty animated poem. The many exploits of the heroic squire are narrated with much energy throughout a performance extending to nearly two thousand lines.¹ In 1553 Lyndsay finished his longest work, the Monarchy, which extends to 6333 lines. In this work, his chief object seems to have been, to make use of the great events recorded in history for the purpose of illustrating general positions. After a review of the most notable events narrated by Moses, and of the four great ancient monarchies――Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, of whose history he evinces some knowledge, he proceeds to handle the spiritual monarchy of the Pope. In this he was more in his element, and soon shows that none of the rulers of the ancient monarchies ever had such powerful armies to uphold their authority throughout their dominions, as the Pope of Rome actually commanded. He illustrated his view by referring to the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, and the vast legions of priests, vicars, monks, friars, and nuns――all holding under the Pope, and mentioned the enormous privileges and powers which this army had obtained in every Christian kingdom. He then goes on to show that the Popes had abused their power, by corrupting religion, by enslaving and oppressing the people without mercy; and he lashes the occupant of the chair of St. Peter and all his hosts down to the begging friars on the street, and the pardoners that hawked the country selling salvation. Waxing bolder, he predicts the downfall of the temporal power of the Pope, and fixes the day of God’s judgment of the world to be――“in four hundred and forty-seven years” from the date when he wrote. This remarkable work concluded with these words:――

“And speed me home, with heart sighing full sore, And entered in my Oritore. I took paper, and there began to write This misery, as ye have heard afore. All gentle readers heartily I implore For to excuse my rural rude indite, Though Phareseis will have at me despite, Who would not that their craftiness were kend: Let God be Judge! And so I make an end.”²

¹ Much information about Squire Meldrum will be found in Chalmers’s Notes to Lyndsay’s Poems, and in Dr. Laing’s Notes, also in Pinkerton’s Ancient Scottish Poems, 1786, and in his Scottish Poems, reprinted from scarce editions, 1792. The rhymed story itself was probably composed about the year 1543.

² Works, Volume II., pages 104‒105. The three-volume Library edition containing a complete text of Lyndsay’s works, published about eighteen years ago, was enriched with the curious information and the careful research of the late Dr. Laing. Another work of a different character, may be noticed――“The Register of Arms of the Scottish Nobility and Gentry,” executed in the year 1542, under Lyndsay’s direction, as Lyon Herald. The arms are carefully drawn, and properly blazoned; indeed they are among the most creditable products of Scottish art which now remain of that period. It contains the arms of the Royal Family of Scotland; and the arms in full blazonry of many of the ancient nobles, and the shields and quarterings of 194 of the principal families in the country. The original volume has been preserved in the Advocates’ Library since 1698, having been acquired with Balfour’s Manuscript Collections. A limited impression of an exact facsimile of the original Register was published at Edinburgh in 1821, by W. and D. Laing. In 1879, another impression limited to 250 copies, was published by Mr. Paterson, at Edinburgh, which was also edited by the late Dr. Laing. There is a pretty full account of Sir David Lindsay, in the first volume of the Lives of the Lindsays, by Lord Lindsay; in Tytler’s Lives of Scottish Worthies, and other sources easily accessible. In short, students that wish to understand the state of Society in Scotland immediately before the Reformation, must make themselves familiar with the writings of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount.

There were other writers of rhymes in Scotland, who attacked the abuses of Catholicism, though their names are not so well known as Sir David Lyndsay’s. Killor, a friar, who was burnt for heresy, is reported to have composed a tragedy on the crucifixion of Christ, in which the Catholic clergy was attacked. About the same time James Stewart, son of Lord Methven, wrote short poems and ballads satirising the priesthood. James Wedderburn, a poet of some note, the son of a merchant, was born in Dundee about the beginning of the sixteenth century. According to the Bannatyne manuscript, he was the author of three short poems, commencing respectively with the following lines:――“My love was ♦fals and full of flatterie,” “I think thir men are very fals and vain,” “O man, transformit and unnaturall.” It is also reported that he composed two dramatic pieces, which were acted at Dundee about the year 1540; in both of which the Catholic clergy were attacked, but these are now lost.¹ James Wedderburn and his brother Robert are the reputed authors of another and a very important production of the Reformation period. This is the curious collection known by the title of “The Gude and Godlie Ballads.”² It is true that this singular book may appear to modern taste as “only a tissue of blasphemy and absurdity;” but it is equally true that these rhymed parodies and ballads had a real influence upon the mind of the people in connection with the Reformation movement; and the historian is not at liberty to ignore anything which was conducive to that revolution, on the ground of its being unpleasant to existing notions of taste. The mixture of sacred and profane subjects was quite common in Catholic places of worship, both in Scotland and in other countries long before the Reformation.

♦ “falss” replaced with “fals”

¹ Calderwood, Volume I.; Dalzell’s Cursory Remarks, page 31; Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Poetry.

² The references are to the edition of 1868 edited by Dr. Laing, unless otherwise noted. The original title of the collection is――“A compendious Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs.” The earliest printed edition of it, yet discovered, is that of 1578, but it appears from the title page that there were earlier printed editions: it passed through several editions in the later years of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, but very few copies of these early impressions are now known to exist. See Dr. Laing’s Preface, pages 6‒7; Notes, pages 211‒215.

The collection naturally falls into three divisions: the first doctrinal, embracing a short Catechism, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, which are repeated both in prose and in metre. The second part contains versions of twenty-two psalms, and a number of hymns mostly translations from the German. The third comprises secular songs, but they are parodied, or mixed up with religious opinions. During the Reformation era the practice of adopting rude popular songs along with their airs to sacred subjects was common in several countries. In Scotland, the initial line or the chorus of the ballads then popular among the people were transferred to hymns of devotion; this as may be seen in the collection of “Godly Ballads,” often resulted in an odd kind of parody.¹ Though the association of the coarsely profane and the sacred appears to be ridiculously out of character, it is, nevertheless, certain that compositions of this description had a powerful effect in contributing to the change of the religious opinions. From allusions which occur in them to the Queen Regent, the Pope, and the Priesthood, it is evident that some of them were written during the heat of the Reformation; and that ballads touching the Roman Catholic religion, were circulated among the people, appears from the national records.² Though these ballads were popular among the common people, who could easily appreciate words sung to popular airs, it is not probable, however, that many of the pieces in the collection had been printed in Scotland before the Reformation. It is hardly necessary to say, that the book was never authorised by the General Assembly, nor known to have been used in the public service of the Church.³

¹ The source of the song and the tune is seen in the well-known lines――“Hay now, the day dawns,” which stands as the opening words of one of the godly ballads. To give it a religious turn it is put into the following connection:――

“Hay now, the day dawns, Now Christ on us calls, Now gladness on our waves, Appears anone. Now the word of God reigns, Who is King of all Kings, Now Christ’s flock sings The night is near gone.”

The refrain “The night is near gone,” closes each stanza to the end of the ballad. “Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, in the reign of James IV., mention the tune, ‘now the day dawns,’ and ‘the jolly day now dawns,’ as one that was well known to the common minstrels.” There are several versions of early ballads which begin with the words, ‘the day dawns,’ and close each stanza with――‘the night is near gone.’ Alexander Montgomery, who wrote in the reign of James VI., composed a short lyric poem which opened with, ‘haw the day dawns,’ and adopted the refrain――‘the night is near gone.’ The fine plaintive air called ‘Hey tuttie tuitie,’ was from a very early period sung with the foregoing words; but it is best known from Burns’s address, ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.’ Dr. Laing, Notes, page 256, page 168. Poems of A. Montgomery, pages 219‒221, 314; 1821.

² See under pages 77, et seq.; Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Knox, pages 323, 325; 1855.

³ Godly Ballads, Preface, pages 8‒9, 43, 47.

Touching the authorship of the “Godly Ballads” in the form that we now have them, little can be said with certainty. As indicated above, it has sometimes been attributed to James Wedderburn, while other early authorities attribute the collection to two brothers of his, John and Robert Wedderburn; all the three flourished in the second quarter of the century. The earliest reference to the book is by James Melville, in the year 1570 when speaking of his own education; he says that, at that time he first saw Wedderburn’s songs, and learned several of them by heart, with a great diversity of tunes. Melville does not mention Wedderburn’s Christian name; and although the Wedderburns may have translated some of the psalms, recast or composed some of the songs in this collection, there is no available information for distinctly assigning the contents of the book to the respective translators and authors. A number of the psalms were versified, printed, and circulated in England and in Scotland before the Reformation. In the former country Coverdale compiled a book of psalms and spiritual songs which was printed about the year 1539; and four of the psalms in this collection are almost verbatim with four of those in the book of “Godly Ballads;” and the presumption seems reasonable that they had been taken from Coverdale’s collection. The chief source of modern hymnology, however, is Germany. The Hussites in the fifteenth century had their devotional songs; Luther’s collection of hymns was published in 1524, and it was enlarged from time to time by himself and others. As these hymns were written in the vernacular tongue and many of them set to popular airs, they were admirably suited for private instruction as well as for public worship.¹ These hymns accompanied with the music which the people understood and loved, formed one of the strong points of the German Reformation. The poetic inspiration that glowed in the heart and stirred the soul of the German Reformer, joined with his sublime confidence, rang out in many of his popular hymns.²

¹ Dr. Laing’s Preface, pages 8‒25, 33‒39. Regarding the variety and extent of German hymns, Dr. Laing in his preface and notes to the “Godly Ballads,” gives a good deal of information. He notices the collections of Dr. Wackerangel and the Chevalier Bunsen; Miss C. Winkworth’s “Lyra Germanica,” first and second series, 1859. As to more recent works on German hymnology, he mentions “Hymns translated or imitated from the German, by the Rev. George Walker,” 1860. A Lecture by Professor Mitchell of St. Andrews, entitled, “The Wedderburns, and their work on the Sacred Poetry of the Scottish Reformation, in its historical relation to that of Germany,” 1867. “The Scottish Reformation; a historical sketch by Professor Lorimer,” see pages 27‒29, 60.

² In 1521 Charles the Fifth issued the first of a series of enactments for extinguishing heresy in the Netherlands; and in 1522 two monks were burned at the stake in Brussels. This execution moved Luther to write a stirring hymn, of which the following is one of the stanzas:――

“Quiet their ashes will not lie: But scattered far and near, Stream, dungeon, bolt, and grave defy, Their foeman’s shame and fear. Those whom alive the tyrant’s wrongs To silence could subdue, He must, when dead, let sing the songs Which in all languages and tongues, Resound the wide world through.”

Quoted by G. P. Fisher in his work, The Reformation, page 287; 1873.

A number of the spiritual songs in the collection of “Godly Ballads” are derived or founded upon German hymns of the Reformation period: others are merely modifications of the original songs current among the Scots at the time; while others are entirely of a satirical turn, directed against Roman Catholicism, and naturally sprang out of the struggle of the Reformation in Scotland. It is the two latter that are of most importance in connection with the subject in hand. In one of the spiritual songs the burden of a very old ballad is retained――“The wind blaws cauld.” It is found in the following connection:――

“The wind blaws cauld, furious and bauld, This lang and mony a day―― But Christ’s mercy we man all die, Or keep the cauld wind away.

* * * * *

Then be not wo, see that ye pray To Peter, James, nor John, Nor yet to Paul, to save your soul, For power have they none.

Save Christ only, that died on tree, He may both loose and bind: In others more, if ye trust so, On you blaws cauld the wind.”¹

¹ Ibid., pages 165, 166‒168, 158‒161, 184.

Another satirical ballad refers to events when the Protestants, under the name of “the Congregation,” had taken matters into their own hands, in the year 1559, and it retains the following refrain:――“Hay trix, tryme go trix, under the green-wood tree.” The drift of the effusion is directed against the Pope and all the religious orders, the cardinals, bishops, priests, abbots, and monks and nuns are each in turn severely handled, and charged with obscene immoralities.¹ The doctrines of Catholicism are also boldly, fearlessly, and effectively attacked in these rude ballads. Not a tenet of Romanism is spared. All are treated with scorn and contempt. Of the fire of purgatory, it is said, there is not left a spunk; and the reek, that was sold so dear, is said to have fallen into utter disrepute. The monks having long neglected to pray for the souls of the founders of the monasteries――“their souls were left to burn and biss” as they might. Touching the worship of saints, it is said:――“I wat St. Peter, nor St. Paul, nor yet any saint, can save your soul, though many lies make many brawl.” Relics, the adoration of images, indulgence, the mass, and other doctrines of Catholicism, are treated with sharp and bitter derision.² It is easy to understand the effect of this upon the mind of the people; and in connection with other influences the tone and spirit of these ballads and rhymes tended to intensify the Protestantism of the Scots.

¹ Gude and Godly Ballads, pages 166‒168. “‘The wind blaws cauld.’ This is the burden of an English song in praise of Christmas, entitled ‘A pleasant country ditty,’ merrily showing how to drive the cold winter away.”――Dr. Laing, Notes, page 255.

² Ibid., pages 163‒165, 167, 169‒173, 175‒177, 183‒186.

John Knox was more remarkable as a reformer and a preacher than as a writer and a thinker. He was aware of this himself, for he said that, “considering myself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud, by tongue and living voice, in these most corrupt days, than to compose books for the age to come.” That he did his duty to his country and to society, as thus conceived by himself, is matter of history. Looking to his life and the important work which he so actively contributed to effect, the writings that he produced are surprising. His compositions it must be remembered were hastily prepared, under the pressure of many disquieting influences, or amid constant and exciting occupation.¹ Neither great elaboration nor the finer graces of style can be expected from him; yet, for all the unpropitious circumstances under which he laboured, his writings in the language of the people will compare favourably with those of any of his contemporaries in Britain. He had a good command of his mother tongue: his style is equally remarkable for strength, clearness, and vehemence. He never leaves any doubt about his meaning; as he held his opinions firmly, so he expressed them with all the force of his nature; his thoughts and judgments are thrown out, with a rapidity and animation which is striking and effective. He had a keen vein of humour in his constitution, and frequently adopted a strain of remark and expression of a grotesque and humorous character; and sometimes touches of sarcasm and bitter scorn occur in his compositions. His humour is often coarse and even vulgar; but this was partly the fault of his age, and partly a result of the kind of work that fell to him.

¹ The Works of John Knox, collected and edited by Dr. Laing, Volume VI., page 229. Preface, pages 85, 89. This edition of our national reformer’s writings in six volumes is a great literary monument to his memory. It has placed his life and work in a clearer and juster light. The learned editor bestowed much and unusual care on the execution of his task; and he deserves our warmest gratitude for his research, his unwearying industry, and his devotion to the accomplishment of a worthy object. Dr. Laing did his work in a manner that cannot fail to command the respect of his countrymen, while the principle of Protestantism retains a hold upon their minds.

Knox’s works may be described as mostly admonitory and historical. In the department of theology itself he produced nothing, except a treatise on predestination. As a writer, he is best known by his History of the Reformation in Scotland. He began it in 1559, and finished the fourth book, bringing the narrative down to 1564, in 1566. He left a few marginal notes and materials for a continuation of the history, which were used by others after his death in compiling the fifth book, and also the volume of memorials published under the name of Richard Bannatyne. Many references have been made to his history in the preceding chapters of this work, and quotations given, which render any lengthy account of its contents and character unnecessary. Its historical value and general accuracy have now been fully recognised. When narrating events which happened under his own eyes, it could hardly be expected that he should always be able to refrain from bitter reflections on his opponents; but his humour for abusing them he has often carried to an extreme length. The only excuse for the coarse expressions and hard epithets which he hurls at their heads must be sought in the corrupt and immoral state of society, and the inflamed and enraged feelings of the people around him.

Knox’s admonitory writings consist of his public letters, such as the “Admonition to the Faithful in England,” “to the Godly,” “to the Professors of the Faith,” his “Letter to the Queen Regent,” “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regime of Women,” and others of a similar description. In this department he was particularly strong; he had a special faculty for scolding, and employed it with much effect. Many examples of this might be quoted from his writings. In his “Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God’s Truth in England,” which was printed and circulated in 1554, there are some passages touching Queen Mary and those at the head of the government of England, which are extremely vehement. “And, now, does she not manifestly show herself to be an open traitress to the imperial Crown of England, contrary to the just laws of the realm, to bring in a stranger, and make a proud Spaniard king? to the shame, dishonour, and the destruction of the nobility; to the spoil from them and theirs of their honours, lands, possessions, chief offices, and promotions; to the utter decay of the treasure, commodities, navy, and fortifications of the realm; to the abasing of the yeomanry, to the slavery of the commons, to the overthrow of Christianity, and God’s true religion, and, finally, to the utter subversion of the whole estate and commonwealth of England.”¹

¹ Works, Volume III., page 294, et seq.

After the death of Queen Mary, Knox wrote, in 1559, “A brief Exhortation to England for the speedy embracing of the Gospel.” In this tract, which was printed at Geneva, he at once strikes the keynote and states what should be done: “Touching reformation of religion, you must at once so purge and expel all dregs of papistry, superstition, and idolatry, that thou, O England, must judge and hold execrable whatsoever God hath not sanctified unto thee by his word, or by the action of our master Christ Jesus. The glistening beauty of vain ceremonies, the keeping of things pertaining nothing to edification, by whomsoever they were invented, justified, or maintained, ought at once to be removed, and so trodden under the obedience of God’s word, that continually this sentence of thy God be present in thy heart and ready in thy mouth:――‘Not that which appears good in thy eyes, shalt thou do to the Lord thy God, but what the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that shalt thou do: add nothing to it, diminish nothing from it.’”¹ He then proceeds at length to admonish and counsel them to embrace the gospel, and to cast aside the devices of men, and to rest only on the word of God.

¹ Works, Volume V., page 515, et seq.

In the Reformer’s letter to the Queen Regent of Scotland in 1558, which was printed the same year, there are also some characteristic and important passages. The following is one:――“As Satan by craft hath corrupted the most holy ordinance of God’s precepts, I mean of the first table, in the place of the spiritual honouring of God, introducing men’s dreams, inventions, fantasies; so hath he, abusing the weakness of man, corrupted this precept of the second table, touching the honour which is due to parents, under whom are comprehended princes and teachers; for the devil hath so blinded the senses of many, that they cannot, or at the least, will not, learn what appertains to God, and what to Cæsar. But, because the Spirit of God hath said, ‘Honour the king,’ therefore whatsoever they command, be it right or wrong, must be obeyed. But heavy shall the judgment be which apprehends such blasphemers of God’s majesty, who dare be so hold as to affirm that God hath commanded any creature to be obeyed against himself. Against God it is, that for the commandment of any prince, be he never so potent, men shall commit idolatry, embrace a religion which God hath not approved by his word, or confirm by their silence wicked and blasphemous laws made against the honour of His Majesty. Men, I say, that do so, give no true obedience; but as they are apostates from God, so are they traitors to their princes, whom by flattery they confirm in rebelling against God.” After citing several examples from the Old Testament, he continues: “But, Madame, more profitable it is that the pestilent tumours be expelled with pain, than that they be nourished to the destruction of the body. The papistical religion is a moral pestilence, which shall assuredly bring to death eternal the bodies and souls from the which it is not purged in this life. And therefore take heed betimes, God calls upon you, beware that ye shut not yourself up.... I come to you in the name of the eternal God, and of Christ Jesus his Son, to whom the Father hath committed all power, whom he hath established Sovereign Judge over all flesh, before whose throne ye must make account with what reverence ye hear such as he sends. It shall not excuse you to say or to think, that ye doubt whether I be sent of God or not. I cry unto you, that the religion which the princes and the blinded papists maintain with fire and sword, is not the religion of Christ; that your proud prelates are none of Christ’s bishops. I admonish you that Christ’s flock is oppressed by them; and therefore I require, and that yet again, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that with impartiality I may be heard to preach, to reason, and to dispute, in that cause, which ye deny; ye declare yourself to bear no reverence to Christ, nor love to his true religion.”¹

¹ Works, Volume IV., pages 440‒443.

The Roman Catholic clergy did not show much energy in their writings, nor in their arguments in defence of their religion in England and Scotland; no very memorable effort of eloquence or argument was put forth within the Island during the progress of the Reformation. Those who desired to maintain the ancient worship unimpaired, staked the issue more upon the fire and sword principle than on reasoning and discussion; and they were wise in their generation, for when it came to this, the palmy days of a conservative priesthood were well-nigh past. There were a few, however, from the humbler ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, that came forward and wrote in defence of their faith. Quintin Kennedy, the abbot of Crossraguel, ♦Ninian Winzet, a schoolmaster, and James Tyrie, a Scottish Jesuit, were the only controversialists on the Catholic side in Scotland, whose writings have been preserved.

♦ “Ninan” replaced with “Ninian”

Ninian Winzet was born in 1518, in the burgh of Renfrew. He received a liberal education, and was appointed schoolmaster of the Grammar School of Linlithgow about the year 1551. Winzet himself said, in 1562, that his happiest days were “spent in teaching of the Grammar School of Linlithgow about the space of ten years;” but, at the command of Dene Patrik Kinloquhy, preacher in Linlithgow, and of his superintendent, “when I, for denying only to subscribe their phantasy and factioun of faith, was expelled and shut out of that, my kindly town, and from my tender friends there, whose perpetual kindness I hoped that I had conquest.” The superintendent mentioned was John Spotiswoode, whose jurisdiction extended from Dunbar to Stirling; and it appears that Winzet then made a severe attack upon the creed of the Reformers. He was a priest as well as a schoolmaster, and he was one of the ablest and boldest defenders of Catholicism in Scotland. He held out vigorously, and addressed questions to Knox and other reformed preachers; as he had asked and received the permission of Queen Mary to address the Protestant leaders touching certain doctrines, order, and forms, approved by them. In the end of February, 1562, Winzet, as a first instalment, specially addressed three questions to John Knox and the reformed preachers of Scotland touching their vocation, which were stated thus:――“1. Is John Knox a lawful minister? Since we read, that none should take the honour of ministration of God’s Word and sacraments on him, except he be lawfully called thereto, either by God immediately, or by a man having power to promote thereto. 2. If John Knox be not a lawful bishop, how can they be lawfully ordained by him? If he cannot show himself a lawful bishop, how can ye superintendents or other inferior preachers, elected and ordained by him, not having power thereto, judge yourselves to be lawful ministers in the Church of God? 3. If John Knox and ye affirm yourselves lawful by reason of your science, and that ye are permitted always, if ye be not admitted by these Churches, whom ye serve, why have ye preached manifestly a great error and schism in your congregation, contending with tooth and nail, some lords and gentlemen to have greatly failed, administering your communion in bypast times to their own households and tenants, since the lords and gentlemen were men of science; by their own judgment, in that case, was permitted by their said servants to that office, who affirm themselves to be a Church of God?” Knox referred to these questions in his sermons, but he never sent a written rejoinder to Winzet. Three tractates of Winzet’s were published at Edinburgh on the 21st of May, 1562, in which the position of Knox was boldly assailed. He said:――“I exhort ye cause your prophet, John Knox, and your superintendent, John Spotiswoode, to impeach saints Hierome and Augustine as leading witnesses in the premises; and cause them deliver their answer in write, for these holy Fathers books are patent to us and them. And some of our faithful brethren have written several times to them both, and got no answer in write, but waste wind again. But peradventure, albeit, these two, your champions, dare not for shame answer in this matter, ye will appeal to the rest of your learned theologians of a great number in Scotland and Geneva. But to them we oppose all the Christian Catholics in Africa, Asia, and Europe.”

It seems that Winzet had some influence in the court of Queen Mary, and he continued his attacks on the leaders of the Protestants. His “Last Blast of the Trumpet of God’s Word,” printed at Edinburgh, 31st July, 1562, was directed “against the usurped authority of John Knox and his Calvinistic brethren, intruded preachers, etc.” Only a fragment of five leaves of the original edition is known to be extant. As mentioned in a preceding chapter, the printer of the book was seized and imprisoned, and Winzet narrowly escaped. He gained a ship bound for Flanders, and reached Antwerp on the 13th of September, and immediately proceeded to Louvain. His Book of Four Score and Three Questions was published at Antwerp in 1563, to which he added a postscript personally addressed to John Knox. For some time he was connected with the University of Paris; and in 1577 Winzet was appointed Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James, at Ratisbon, by a bull of Pope Gregory XIII. At Ratisbon Winzet continued to labour industriously till his death, which occurred on the 21st of September, 1592, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His writings consists of certain tracts, already mentioned, and The Book of Four Score and Three Questions, proposed to the Calvinistic preachers in Scotland, and written in the vernacular: these were reprinted in a volume issued by the Maitland Club in 1835. He also translated into Scots the once well-known work on dogmatics, entitled, Commonitorium pro Catholicæ fidei antiquate et univeritate, adversus profanas omnium Hæreseon nouationes, written in the fifth century by Vincentius, Abbot of the monastery of Lerinum; and Winzet, in the title page to his translation, called it “a right goldin buke, written in Latin about eleven hundred years past,” and he prefaced it with an address to Mary Queen of Scots. He was further credited with making translations of Optatus, Tertullian, and other fathers, which are not now known to exist. But two of his Latin treatises have been preserved――one entitled Flagellum Sectariorum, and the other Velitatio adversus Georgium Buchananum. The first treated the question whether obedience should be shown to kings or ministers; he handled this subject because the teaching of the Calvinists tended to unsettle all legitimate authority, and in his treatment of the subject he showed considerable research; it also dealt with the subject of the Vocation of the Calvinistic ministers. The second was a political pamphlet of one hundred and thirty-three pages――an answer to Buchanan’s Dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos――and it was published in 1582. Winzet’s argument against Buchanan was that kings must be paramount, and that the people had no right to rebel against them, until the Church declared a king unfit to rule.

The Scottish Text Society issued an excellent edition of Winzet’s works in 1888‒90, which contains his writings and translations in the Scottish language, and also a useful glossary, valuable introductions, and notes.

Kennedy was the fourth son of Gilbert, the second Earl of ♦Cassillis, and was appointed abbot in 1548. He attended the Provincial Council of the clergy held in Edinburgh in 1549, and had the reputation of being a learned man. His treatise entitled, “A Compendious Tractive, conform to the Scriptures of Almighty God, Reason and Authority,” etc., was published in 1558. It was praised by his friends, and in latter times by Bishop Keith, and others. It is hardly necessary to say, that the Abbot’s chief and final argument was whatever the Church of Rome said must be true and right. Kennedy’s “Tractive” was answered by John Davidson, principal of the University of Glasgow, in a book printed at Edinburgh in 1563.¹ The Abbot’s next work was an “Oration,” printed in the year 1561, mainly intended to demolish a position held “by a famous preacher called John Knox.” After some correspondence had passed between Kennedy and Knox, a public discussion took place between them, on the subject of the Mass, at Maybole, in September, 1562, when the discussion lasted three days, and ended as disputes of the kind usually end, without either of the parties convincing the other. In 1563, Knox published a curious and rather interesting narrative of this three days’ talk. The following are the concluding sentences:――“And therefore, must I say, the Mass standeth groundless, and the greatest patron thereof, for all his sicker riding, hath once lost his stirrups, yea, is altogether, set beside his saddle. And yet the common brute goes, that you, my Lord, your flatterers and collaterals, brag greatly of your victory obtained in disputation against John Knox; but I will not believe you to be so vain, unless I shall know the certainty by your hand writ. Let all men now judge upon what ground the sacrifice of the Mass stands. The heavenly Father hath not planted within his Scriptures such a doctrine; it follows, therefore, that it ought to be routed out of all godly men’s hearts.”²

♦ “Cassilis” replaced with “Cassillis”

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 153‒155. The Writings of Kennedy were printed in the first volume of the Wodrow Miscellany, together with some correspondence that passed between him and John Willock. Davidson’s answer to Kennedy’s book is also printed in this Miscellany.

“Among the persons who accompanied Queen Mary from France was her preacher and confessor, Réni Benoist. He was a divine of some note, and produced two or three small treatises, in a vain endeavour to conciliate differences of opinion in matters of religious faith and practice. One of these was a Latin epistle, addressed to the most learned John Knox and other Protestant ministers, dated from Holyrood House, the 10th of November, 1561. It was translated by a certain friar, and was ‘greatly boasted of’ or commended. At the urgent request of some of his brethren, David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, wrote an answer, passage by passage, to what he calls ‘this pithless Epistle.’ This answer, including the Epistle itself, was printed soon after, but it is of such rarity that only one single copy has been discovered; but having recently been reprinted; it is now beyond the chance of destruction.” Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 151‒152. It was reprinted by the Bannatyne Club, 1860.

² Works, Volume VI., pages 219‒221.

The latest of Knox’s writings was a tract published in vindication of the reformed religion, in answer to a letter of Tyrie, a Jesuit.¹ It was composed in 1568, and printed at St. Andrews ♦in 1572. Knox gives a portion of Tyrie’s letter in separate paragraphs, then his own comments follow, and thus each in turn succeed the other to the end of the discussion. The Jesuit began by asking――“What words, if any, would apply to those new formed Kirks, and especially of your invisible Kirk of Scotland, not yet eight years old, he is convicted.... Wherefore if ye cannot show what place of the world afore three hundred years your Kirk was into, it follows of necessity, that it is not a kirk.” The argument is the very old one, namely, that there is but one Church――the Roman Church. Knox answers this point at great length, and closes with these words:――“We say yet again, that whensoever the Church of Rome shall be reduced to the state in which the Apostles left her, we are assured that she shall vote in our favour, against all such as shall deny us to be a Church, if God continue us in the simplicity which this day is mocked of the world.”² The other points which the Jesuit advances touching the Reformed Church, are forms of the arguments always used by the Roman Catholic writers. Such as, that the Protestant Church had no succession from Christ; that there is a continual succession of doctrine which has never varied in the Catholic Church, but has prevailed in all ages. With more truth and reason, he refers to the differences of the Protestants among themselves, and specially notes the contrast between some of the congregations of Germany and those of Scotland. Immediately after Knox’s answer, Tyrie prepared a refutation, which was published at Paris in 1573, but ere this Knox was dead. In March, 1574, the General Assembly had under consideration an answer to James Tyrie’s book, composed by John Duncanson, minister of the King’s household.³

¹ James Tyrie was born near Perth in 1543, and it is supposed that he spent some time at the University of St. Andrews. Early in the year 1563 he left Scotland with Father Edmund Hay, the Jesuit, to follow his theological studies at the University of Louvain. In August of that year he visited Rome, and there joined the society of Jesus. He was afterwards appointed professor of philosophy and theology in the Jesuit College of Clermont, at Paris. His elder brother, David Tyrie of Drumkilbo, embraced the reformed faith, and the Jesuit was naturally anxious to reclaim him to the mother Church, and addressed to him several letters, including the one submitted to Knox. Tyrie in 1590 became Provincial of the Jesuits in France; he was in Rome in 1591; and two years later he was appointed assistant to the General of the Jesuits for the provinces of France and Germany. He died at Rome in March, 1597, leaving behind him for publication several manuscripts to the library of the professed house “Il Geni.” Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 475‒478.

♦ duplicate word “in” removed

² Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 486‒497.

³ Ibid., pages 497‒511, 475‒476; _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 289, 361.

The longest of Knox’s polemical works is his treatise on predestination, published at Geneva in 1560. It was directed against an anonymous adversary, and its full title was, “An Answer to a great number of blasphemous cavillations written by an Anabaptist and an adversary to God’s eternal predestination; and confuted by John Knox, minister of God’s word in Scotland; wherein the author so discovers the craft and falsehood of that sect, that the godly, knowing that error, may be confirmed in the truth by the evident word of God.”¹ At that time the doctrine of predestination itself, as well as other tenets of the Anabaptists, had evoked much controversy. But, before saying anything about Knox’s contribution to the mass of this class of theological literature, it is necessary to refer briefly to the writings of Calvin himself, and to those of some of his predecessors and contemporaries.

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V. “And, that it was prepared for the press before his final return to Scotland is sufficiently clear, when we consider how fully his time was afterwards occupied, and this renders it probable that it may have been chiefly written at Dieppe in 1559, during the interval of his application for permission, which was denied him, to pass through England on his way to his native country. That the author had no opportunity of correcting the sheets while at press seems also evident.... This task of revising the work at press seems to have been done by William Whittingham, an Englishman.” Dr. Laing, pages 15‒17. Knox’s treatise on predestination was reprinted in 1591.

At an early stage in the history of Christian doctrine the idea of an eternal decree of God began to arise. The notion of predestination was held with varying degrees of definiteness, and it early became associated with the freedom of the will. But the crude psychology of the Fathers was entirely subordinated to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation.¹ About the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries conflicting doctrines touching sin, grace, and liberty, were advanced and maintained. Original sin was supposed to have entailed utter ruin upon the human race; but Celestius and Pelagius both denied the natural depravity of man; and it was out of these controversies that the doctrine of predestination, or the eternal decree sprang. When St. Augustine carried the notion of original sin to its logical consequences, he arrived at the following statement of his doctrine:――“As all men have sinned in Adam, they are justly exposed to the vengeance of God, because of this hereditary sin and guilt of sin.” He could see nothing in the natural power of man to choose between good and evil, but only a liberty to do evil, since the regenerated man alone can will aright. In short, Augustine held that all mankind were in a state of depravity; that those alone will be saved to whom the grace of God is imparted: in this way he led up to the eternal decree.²

¹ Several theories of the mind, or the soul, and the relation between the soul and the body, were held during the early centuries of Christianity. Some considered the soul as forming the medium between the purely spiritual in man, the ideal principle of reason, and the merely animal or the grosser and sensual elements of his nature. They also fancied that this threefold notion of the organ of the human mind was supported by Scripture. Several of the early Fathers, especially those of the Alexandrian school, adopted the triple division of the mind; while others, like Tertullian, adhered to the old opinion that man consists of soul and body only. A few of the Gnostic sects carried the triple notion so far as to divide men themselves into three classes, according as the one or the other of the three constituents prevailed to the apparent exclusion of the others. “Accordingly, it is not every man who is composed of three parts, but he only who has received the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the third part.”――Hagenbach’s _History of Doctrines_, Volume I., pages 141‒143, 180, 183, 184; 1846; also Baur.

This is not the place to enter into a full exposition of the curious theories of the mind which prevailed in the early centuries of the Christian era. It may be stated, however, that the anthropology of the Fathers was very different from that of the present time; although the problems demanding explanation were much the same, the modern conceptions of mind and matter have little or no resemblance to the ideas of Origen, Tertullian, Augustine, and the rest of the Fathers. Touching the origin of the soul itself, there were three principal theories:――1, The pre-existence of all souls; 2, The continual creation of souls by divine agency; 3, The traduction of souls by natural procreation. Of these in their order: The first theory taught that all the souls and finite spirits in the universe were formed simultaneously at the beginning, and prior to the creation of matter: the intellectual universe thus preceded the sensible universe. The souls of men, therefore, existed before the creation of Adam. This theory is allied to the Pythagorean and Platonic speculations. The second theory maintained that God immediately created a new soul in every instance that a new human being was born. The body, however, was not created in this manner, it was naturally propagated. The third theory held that both the soul and the body of the human individual are propagated. But the last view fell into disrepute; and in the Middle Ages, the notion of the special and the continual creation of new souls generally prevailed.

² Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume I., pages 297, 300‒302, 304. “According to Augustine, not only was physical death a punishment inflicted upon Adam and all his posterity, but he looked upon original sin itself as being in some sense a punishment of the first transgression, though it was also a real sin, and can therefore be imputed to every individual. But it is on this point, viz., the imputation of original sin, that his views differed from all former opinions, however strict they were. He endeavoured to clear himself from the charge of Manichæism (in opposition to Julian) by designating sin not a substance, but a vitium, a languor; he even charged his opponent with Manichæism.” ――Ibid., page 302. See also Wiggers.

Pelagius and Celestius, on the other hand, held, along with other heresies, that every human being is a moral agent, and must be accountable for himself; hence it naturally followed that sin was a voluntary act of the individual. According to this ethical view, every infant is in the same state as Adam was before the fall; so that neither sin nor virtue is innate, but the one as well as the other develops itself when man comes to exercise his liberty, for which he alone is responsible. Touching liberty and grace, however, Pelagius admitted that man in his moral efforts had need of the Divine aid; the grace of God assisted man in various ways, although he thought that it is something external, merely added to a man’s own efforts. In short, Pelagius’s theory assumed that man had it in his power to choose between good and evil. These opinions were condemned at Carthage in 412; again, in a synod of the North-African bishops at the same place, in 418. The controversy was hot, and the Emperor Honorius put a check to his external manifestation.¹

¹ Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume ♦I., pages 200, 300, 302. The chief tenets of Pelagius, the heresiarch of the fifth century, have been summarised as follows:――“1. Adam was created mortal, so that he would have died whether he had sinned or not. 2. Adam’s sin has only affected himself, and not the human race. 3. New-born infants are in the same condition in which Adam was before the fall. 4. The whole human race dies neither in consequence of Adam’s death, nor of his transgression; nor does it rise from the dead in consequence of Christ’s resurrection. 5. Infants obtain eternal life, though they should not be baptized. 6. The Law is as good a means of grace as the gospel. 7. There were some men, even before the appearance of Christ, who did not commit sin.”――Wiggers, Volume I., page 60. Gieseler, section 87. Some of Pelagius’s writings are preserved, among others, a treatise on “Free Will.” Many works were written against the Pelagians.

♦ volume number added by transcriber.

Still the peculiar views of Augustine were not recognised in the east; even in the west his notion of predestination never became universally popular in the Roman Catholic Church. As we approach the Reformation period it is evident that the doctrines of Augustine did not prevail. Instead of free grace through the mercy of God and the merits of Christ, the supererogatory works of the saints formed a ladder by which the greatest sinner might easily mount to heaven, provided he paid enough for the privilege, or left his lands to the Church. It was therefore natural that the Reformers should look back to the belief of the primitive Church, and receive with gladness some of the tenets of St. Augustine.

Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion was first published in 1536. Although in subsequent editions it was greatly enlarged, the principles which he then enunciated were pretty consistently maintained to the end of his days.¹ Knox followed Calvin, with little deviation, in dogma and doctrine. In 1559 he was very anxious “to read Calvin upon Isaie, and his Institutes revised,” but the common troubles at that time were forcing him to forego such important things.² Calvin in his Institutes gives four chapters of the third book, 21‒24, to the treatment of election and predestination. He was aware of the difficulties of the subject, and discussed it with a sobriety of judgment, a sense of responsibility, and a power of intellect, rarely matched in theological literature. But the line of argument that he followed, the definite issue that he arrived at, and the evidence from Scripture which he adduced to confirm the doctrine of predestination, are not satisfactory.³ After he had expounded, illustrated, and repelled objections to the doctrine of predestination, exhibiting much power, logical skill, and ingenuity, the eternal decree is still hard to reconcile with the moral attributes of a just and beneficent God of the universe.⁴ On a pure moral principle the doctrine of the eternal decree as stated by Calvin cannot be consistently maintained. He asserts that the will of God is the supreme rule of right, and that the mere fact of his willing anything makes it to be right. Indeed, Calvin seems to have been controlled in the treatment of predestination by practical religious considerations. His point of view is unphilosophical, and moral truth and consistency were subordinated in his mind to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation. That God should voluntarily and knowingly condemn myriads of his creatures to endless torture, merely because He so willed it, is certainly not an elevated conception. On the other side, the doctrine of predestination afforded to all who adopted it, ample scope for insisting on the duty of submission to the will of God; and for inveighing against the pride and self-conceit of those who might pretend that their own merits entitled them to claim a right to heaven, instead of being absolutely indebted for it to God’s pleasure, grace, and benignity.

¹ The first edition of his Institutes, printed at Basle, is now extremely rare, not more than half a dozen copies are known to exist. It is a small octavo volume of 514 pages, with five pages more of index placed at the end. The whole work is described as one book, divided into six chapters. A second edition appeared at Strasburg in 1539. It contained seventeen chapters, the original matter being about doubled. This edition is also very scarce. The other editions are those of 1543, 1545, 1550, 1553, 1554, and an entirely new edition in 1559, containing his last revisal, and from it all the subsequent editions were printed. An English translation was published at London in 1561.

Dyer, in his Life of Calvin, says that passages favourable to a mild and tolerant treatment of heretics which appeared in the earlier editions were expunged or made more intolerant in the latter ones.――pages 357, 358. Calvin’s final conclusions on the punishment of heretics and allied matters are given in the fourth book of the Institutes, chapter 12, section 1‒13.

² Knox’s Works, Volume VI., page 101.

³ When answering the objection, that predestination was a stumbling-block, Calvin said, “I admit that profane men lay hold on the subject of predestination to carp, or snare, or cavil, or scoff. But if their petulance frightens us, it will be necessary to conceal all the principal articles of faith, because they and their fellows scarcely leave one of them unassailed with blasphemy. A rebellious spirit will display itself no less insolently when it hears that there are three persons in the Divine essence, than when it hears that God, when he created man, foresaw everything that was to happen to him. Nor will they abstain from their jeers when told that little more than five thousand years have elapsed since the creation of the world; for they will ask, Why did the power of God slumber so long in idleness? In short, nothing can be stated that they will not assail with derision. To quell their blasphemies, must we say nothing concerning the divinity of the Son and the Spirit? Must the creation of the world be passed over in silence! No. The truth of God is too powerful, both here and everywhere, to dread the slanders of the ungodly.”――Chapter 21, section 4.

⁴ “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life, or to death.” “The will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything which He wills must be held to be righteous, by the mere fact of His willing it. Therefore, when it is asked why the Lord did so, we must answer, Because He pleased. But if you proceed further to ask why He pleased, you ask for something greater than the will of God, and nothing such can be found. Let human temerity then be quiet, and cease to inquire after what exists not, lest, perhaps, it fails to find what does exist.”――Chapter 21, section 5.――Chapter 23, section 2.

The doctrines of Calvin were opposed in his own lifetime by Jerome Bolsec, Sebastia Castellio, and others. Bolsec openly impugned the doctrine of the eternal decree of predestination, and fought over the points involved with Calvin himself. He had little difficulty in showing that the human mind was unable to cope with the eternal and unalterable counsel of God, or to lay down dogmatically what its issue must be in relation to mankind. Castellio vehemently attacked the Calvinistic doctrines, and especially assailed the tenet of election by grace, with the weapons of acute thought and satire. Both maintained that the eternal decree tended to fatalism, and made God the author of sin, as everything happened according to an inexorable purpose. Calvin answered both opponents, and prepared a public declaration of the doctrine of predestination, which was approved by the consistory of Geneva. The controversy, however, went on; but Calvin boldly faced all his enemies, and fought with an energy and a resoluteness which at last commanded a large measure of success.¹

¹ Dyer’s Life of Calvin, pages 168‒172, 265‒283, 388; Henry’s Life of Calvin, Volume I., page 289.

In Geneva Calvin had many difficulties to contend against. There were anabaptists in the city who sometimes caused disturbance, and anti-Unitarian doctrines had also sprung up. After the burning of Servetus, his disciples published several libels and attacks upon Calvin. These parties were bitterly opposed to various points of his system of theology, and one of their onslaughts was written in the following strain:――“Moreover, though you affirm yours to be the true doctrine, they say that they cannot believe you. For since your God very often says one thing, and thinks and wills another, it is to be feared that you may imitate him, and deceive men in like manner. I myself was once taken with your doctrine; and though I did not quite understand it, I defended it, because I so much esteemed your authority, that it seemed to me forbidden even to think differently from you. But now, when I hear the objections of your adversaries, I know not what to reply.” He concludes with the request to Calvin, “If you have any good arguments let me know them.”¹ The anabaptists were annoying, and though often persecuted, not only in Switzerland, but also in Germany, England, and other countries, they continued to spread and multiply.

¹ Dyer’s Life of Calvin, pages 66, 366‒367, 446, et seq.; Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 12‒15; Dorner’s History of Protestant Theology, Volume I.; Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume II., pages 200‒206.

As already mentioned, it was against one of the anabaptist class that Knox composed his book on predestination. Many of this unknown writer’s objections to the Calvinistic tenets he states with much force; and, although he insists throughout that his opponent’s inferences are not deducible from their doctrines, this is not always the case.¹ In the sixth section of his book “the adversary” advanced the following statements on the Calvinistic conception of God:――“Of all sorts and sects of men, I have judged them to be the most abhorred who are called Atheists, that is to say, such as deny that there is a God. But now, methinks these careless men are much more to be abhorred; my reason is because they be more injurious to God than the Atheists; for it is less injurious to a man to believe that he is not, than to call him a cruel man, a tyrant, and an unjust person; so are they less injurious to God who believe that he is not, than they that say he is unmerciful, cruel, and an oppressor. Now what greater cruelty, tyranny, and oppression, can be, than to create the most part of the human race to everlasting damnation? so that by no manner of way they can escape and avoid the cruel decree and sentence against them. Seeing that the philosopher Plato judged them unworthy to live and to be suffered in any commonwealth who spoke evil of God, what ought the judgment to be of such men who have so wicked an opinion of God? Whatever our judgment be of them, and whatsoever their deserving be, let us labour rather to win them than to lose them. But, forasmuch as he that touches pitch is in danger of being defiled therewith, therefore ought we to walk warily with such men that we be not defiled and infected of them; seeing that now-a-days this horrible doctrine does fester even as the disease of a canker, which infects from one member to another until it has occupied the whole body, unless it be cut away; even so this error hath already infected from one member to another a great number. The Lord grant them the true meaning and understanding of His word, whereby they may be healed and the sickness cut off, the member being saved.”

¹ Dr. Laing thought that the author of this book, which Knox set himself to refute, was Robert Cooke, one of the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel. Knox’s Works, Volume V., page 16.

Knox answers this reasoning in a carping way. He does not attempt to grapple with the real difficulty; the inconsistency of the decree of predestination and special election of only a small number of the human race to everlasting happiness; while the great majority is inevitably doomed to endless suffering. He merely says――“Because that in all this your long discourse, ye more show your malice, which unjustly against us ye have conceived, than that either you expunge our belief, either yet promote your false opinion. I will not spend time to recompense your dispute. Only this I will offer in the name of all my brethren: that if you will be able, in the presence of a lawful judge and magistrate, evidently to convict us that either we speak evil of God, either yet that by our writings, preaching, or reasoning, it justly can be proved that our opinion is evil of His eternal majesty, power, and wisdom, and goodness, that then we refuse not to suffer the same punishment which by the authority of Plato ye judge us worthy of.... What is your study to win us, and whether our doctrine be a horrible error or not, I do not now dispute. Thus you reason:――

“‘God created man a very good thing; and dare you say that God ordained a very good thing to destruction? thus God delights in the destruction of that which is good. Man at his creation was a just and innocent creature, for before the transgression there was no evil neither in Adam nor in us; and think you that God ordained his just and innocent creatures to condemnation? What greater tyranny and unrighteousness can the most wicked man in the world, yea, the devil himself, do, than to condemn the innocent and just person? Hereby may we see that these careless men are more abominable than the Atheists who believe that there is no God. But these affirm God to be as bad as the devil, yea, and worse; forasmuch as the devil can only tempt a man to death, but he can compel none to fall into condemnation; but God may not only tempt, but also compel by his eternal decree the most part of the race to destruction, and has so done, as they say, so that of necessity, and only because it was his pleasure and will――then must God be worse than the devil; for the devil only tempted man to fall, but God compelled them to fall by his immutable decree. Oh, horrible blasphemy!’”¹

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 88‒90.

To these questions Knox has given no satisfactory answer, nor has anyone else. They have engaged the minds of many writers, but so far as theological exposition is concerned, they remain in much the same state at the present day; though few cultivated preachers would now attribute the wrathful and avenging character to God, which it was common to do in the sixteenth century. The statement of the theory of the eternal decree in any form is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in connection with the doctrine of the conditional and limited salvation of the human race, especially when it is deemed right to employ all the examples of what is called the pouring out of God’s wrath upon the enemies of the Jews, and upon the Jews themselves, when their turn came. From one standpoint this is the weak side of Calvinism; yet to many it has been, and is now, exceedingly fascinating to imagine that they know the eternal counsel of God, and are able to formulate His will and intention.

One other quotation and then I will leave this subject. “If God reprobated man before the foundation of the world, then God reprobated man before he had offended; and if God reprobated and damned man before he offended, then is death the reward of God’s ordinance before the world, and not the reward of sin. But the apostle teaches us, that by sin death entered into the world, and also that death is the reward of sin. I pray you, does either God’s law, or man’s law, condemn any man before he has offended? I am certain ye are not able to prove it to be so; then ought you to be ashamed to burden God with such unrighteous judgment. Does not God rather forgive the offence already committed? Let him be your God who condemns the innocent before he offended; but he shall be my God who pardons and forgives the offence already committed, who in his very wrath thinks upon mercy. And so with Job will I conclude,――‘The great God casts away no man.’” Knox’s answer to this is as follows:――“How ignorantly and how impudently ye confound the eternal purpose of God’s reprobation with the just execution of his judgments I have before declared, and therefore here it only rests to admonish the reader that most unjustly ye accuse us in that ye say, that we hold and teach that God damned man before he offended. This ye be never able to show in any of our writings; for constantly, in word and writing, we affirm that man willingly fell from God, and made himself a slave to Satan before that death was inflicted upon him; and so neither make we death to be the reward of God’s ordinance, neither do we burden Him with unrighteous judgments.”¹ This reasoning is not to the point; the adversary’s objections are deductions from the theory of the eternal decree of predestination, election, and reprobation, which were all fixed before the foundation of the world. It is no refutation to say that his opponent cannot find the words which he used in their writings. How could man “have willingly fallen from God,” when, according to their theory, God had it all inexorably settled before the creation? These are questions which the human mind cannot settle dogmatically; they are immeasurably beyond its powers. But when men assume that they can form definite ideas and pronounce true judgments upon these mysterious and in a sense inscrutable matters, and enforce people to profess their belief in them, suffering and persecution often ensued, and men are tortured and put to death for not believing what they are unable to understand; not only so, but for not believing things which no human being has ever yet been able fully to comprehend. The arrogance of those that presume to fix what the eternal counsel of the Godhead is and must be, can hardly be expected to manifest much respect for the people who do not think and believe as they do. We need not be surprised, therefore, that intolerance was a characteristic of men that professed to know the eternal counsel and will of the Supreme Being. Seeing that they were thoroughly convinced and firm in their faith, they deemed it their highest duty to compel others to adopt their creed, that they too might have a chance of entering into the glories of heaven, and of escaping the torments of hell. It is easy for us now, with more varied, wider, and more minute knowledge of nature and mankind, to point out the weak side of the great men of the sixteenth century; but we are bound, at the same time, to recognise the noble and unfaltering spirit which the leaders of the Reformation displayed, however much we may deplore the use of coercive means which they were far too eager to wield.

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 110, 111.

Perhaps the most interesting class of Knox’s writings is his letters, of which upwards of a hundred are included in Dr. Laing’s edition of his works. They chiefly relate to the Reformation and the historical events of the time; and many of them are valuable. His letters also show him in a more amiable light than that in which he is usually represented. He had a warm and tender heart, and for all his reputed harshness of demeanour and his inflexible firmness of purpose, he was by no means a man of blood; indeed there is no evidence that he was ever accessory to the death of any one for his religious opinions. In his history of the Reformation there are passages full of comic humour. The description of the scene that happened in Edinburgh, at the close of the procession on St. Giles’ day, is a fair example of his wit――“The people began to cry down with the idol, down with it; and so without delay it was pulled down.... Then might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the crosses, off goes the surplices, round caps corner with the crowns. The Gray Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first got to the house; for such a sudden fray never came among the generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”¹

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume I., page 260.

The Literature of the Reformation in Scotland may be said to close with George Buchanan, whose life was prolonged to a comparatively old age. Buchanan was born on the lands of Moss, in Stirlingshire, in the beginning of February, 1506. The spot of his birth was a few yards from the river Blane, and about two miles to the south-east of the village of Killearn. On his father’s side he was of Celtic descent, and probably Gaelic was his mother tongue; and, at least, it is clear that he was quite familiar with that language; as he had the feeling and intuition of a Celt, which was manifested throughout his writings. He probably received the elements of his education at the schools of Killearn and Dumbarton. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Paris, in which he spent two years, mainly devoted to Latin, and writing verse in that language. He returned to Scotland in weak health in 1522, and it was nearly a year ere he recovered. In 1525, Buchanan proceeded to St. Andrew’s University to complete his first stage in the curriculum of Arts, and, as mentioned in a preceding page, he was under the teaching of John Mair. In October, 1525, he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts, so it appears that his studies in Paris must have been recognised by the Faculty of St. Andrews. Buchanan returned to Paris in the summer of 1526, and entered the Scots College; and in March, 1528, he graduated Master of Arts. Shortly after, he commenced his teaching career as a regent in the University of Paris. He returned to Scotland in 1535, and immediately became closely connected with the Court of James V. At this time he wrote the poem entitled “Somnium,” which gave great offence to the order of the Franciscans, who thenceforth in Scotland, England, France, Portugal, and Italy, pursued him with every weapon at their command. Buchanan was engaged by James V. as tutor to one of his natural sons――Lord James Stuart, then a child, not the James who was afterwards known as the Regent Moray, but another natural son of the King, of the same name, who died in 1558. Thus Buchanan was brought into very close connection with the Court, and then the King prompting him to write more satires against the Franciscans, he produced two severe writings against them. But the resentment of the friars and the clergy was roused, and Buchanan soon realised that even the countenance of the King would not protect him from their wrath; and, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, he escaped and fled to England, and shortly after proceeded to France. From this time (1539), for upwards of twenty years, Buchanan was mainly engaged as a professor in the Universities of France and Portugal, and occasionally acted as a private tutor to the sons of personages of high rank. At this period thought, creeds, doctrines, and opinions, were in a state of great agitation and transition throughout Europe, which rendered the calling of a public teacher one of extreme difficulty and danger. Buchanan did not escape the anxieties, the troubles and dangers then associated with his mode of life; for he had often to face privation, and to encounter extreme difficulties and perplexities in his career abroad. In March, 1547, under an engagement to act as a professor in the Faculty of Arts in the University of Coimbra, Buchanan proceeded to Portugal, and left France. For a short time, under the management of Gouvéa, the principal of the institution, everything succeeded delightfully, but he suddenly died in the end of the year 1547.

The following year Buchanan and other humanists connected with the college were assailed by the Jesuits, and public charges of heresy were made against them. Buchanan and other two were seized and imprisoned in a dungeon. After long confinement they were brought to trial, and for several days subjected to the most cruel reproaches, although no accusers were even named, and they were sent back to prison. Towards Buchanan the Jesuits were especially bitter; they accused him of writing a poem against the Franciscans, and of having eaten flesh during Lent, and that in conversation with some young Portuguese, when the subject of the Eucharist was mentioned, he had said that Augustine was far more with the heretics than the Church in his teaching on that subject. After the inquisitors for a year and a half had worn out Buchanan’s patience and their own, they shut him up for some months in a monastery, in order that he might be more accurately instructed by the monks, who proved neither unkindly nor ill disposed, though they were utterly ignorant of religious truth. It was mainly at this time that Buchanan translated a number of the Psalms into various measures. At length, being restored to liberty, he embarked at Lisbon in a Cretan ship, and sailed for England, where he arrived towards the end of 1552; but shortly after proceeded to France, where he was again engaged in public and private teaching, sometimes in Italy and sometimes in France. After having experienced many vicissitudes in foreign lands, in 1561 Buchanan returned to his native country, after an absence of twenty-two years.

On his return to Scotland, Buchanan became allied with the Protestant party. He was not, however, a reformer in the same sense as Knox or Calvin; he had more of the characteristics of a humanist and a scholar, a man of genius and of letters. Buchanan became connected with the court, and in 1562 he was acting as classical tutor to Queen Mary; and in February, 1563, he was appointed to interpret documents written in foreign languages, “that the Queen and council might thereafter understand the same.” He addressed several of his short poems to Mary herself, and he wrote and addressed a remarkable poem to her on the birth of James VI. in 1566. The Earl of Moray, as Commendator of the Priory of St. Andrews, appointed Buchanan principal of St. Leonard’s College in 1566, an office which he held till 1570. Afterwards Buchanan became attached to the party opposed to the Queen, and was closely associated with the Regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. In 1570 he was appointed tutor to the young King, and directed to devote attention to his education; and, along with Peter Young, Buchanan was in 1572 and 1578 confirmed by acts of the Privy Council in his office as “Master” to the King. When Lennox became Regent, Buchanan was made Director of Chancery, and then Keeper of the Privy Seal, an office which he held till 1578; and in virtue of this office, he had a seat in parliament. He died on the 28th of September, 1582, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., page 234; Volume II., pages 181, 689, 702, 708. Very full information of the life and of the writings of Buchanan will be found in Dr. Irving’s Memoirs, published in 1807, the second edition in 1817. Buchanan kept up a literary correspondence with some of the most learned and famous scholars of the age. A very able, discriminative, and exceedingly interesting biography of Buchanan, by Mr. P. H. Brown, was published in 1890; it is the best account of the life and works of this great Scotsman which has yet appeared.

Although Buchanan wrote very little in the language of the people, his Latin works have had much influence, not only in Scotland but also on the Continent. He was universally recognised as an elegant Latin poet, and a very successful writer of classic prose.

A review of his Latin poems does not come within the scope of this work, but his prose writings demand some notice. His largest and most popular work is the History of Scotland in twenty books. Though the early portion of it is unmistakably fabulous, it is written throughout with great animation and force. For the part of it which relates to the history of the sixteenth century, he is an original and contemporary authority, and from his official position it may reasonably be assumed that he had access to the most trustworthy sources of information for the later portion of his history. Though an ardent party man, he had a strong sense of justice, a good judgment, and a love of truth. His narrative is enriched with wise and just political reflections, and his sentiments are almost always liberal, and for the time even radical. This feature of his History drew down upon it the vengeance of all who were attached to Romanism, all the enemies of freedom and all the lovers of despotism; even at this day, there are some who utterly detest the political principles of George Buchanan. The personal responsibility of kings for their conduct which he emphatically asserted in his history, was the most unpalatable of all opinions, and it met with virulent and bitter opposition.

But the work in which Buchanan most fully and logically developed the principles of political freedom is the De Jure Regni apud Scotos, published in 1579. This work was written in the form of a dialogue, and is a masterly compend of political thought. It at once excited a large degree of attention.¹ The principles which he enunciated were clear and decisive; they were derived from reason and experience, and unflinchingly directed against every form of tyranny. The argument was put in the following form:――Men were naturally formed for society, but in order to arrest the internal broils that sprang up among them, they created kings, and in order to restrain the power of their kings, they enacted laws. As the community is the source of legal power it is greater than the king, and may therefore judge him; and since the laws are intended to restrain the king in case of collision, it is for the people, not for the ruler, to interpret them, as otherwise they could have no assurance that their interests would be safe. It is the duty of the king to associate himself with the law, and to govern exclusively according to its decisions. A king is one that rules by law, and in accordance with the interests of the people; but a tyrant is one that rules by his own will, and contrary to the interests of the people. An opinion has been promulgated that a king who is hampered by recognised constitutional ties, may be resisted if he violates them, but that a tyrant who reigns where no constitution exists must be always obeyed; this view, however, is wholly false. The people may justly make war against such a ruler, and may pursue him till he be slain. Buchanan illustrated and sent home these political opinions by examples drawn from history. He had also the merit of completely disentangling politics from the puerile conceits and endless subtleties of the Catholic theologians.

¹ There were several editions of the dialogue published in a separate form, in 1580, 1581, one at Glasgow 1750; one at London 1765; and it has been repeatedly translated into English: besides it was printed with all the editions of Buchanan’s works, except the first. As we have seen, it was condemned by the Scottish parliament in 1584, but probably this had little effect in retarding its circulation. At the end of last century there was a manuscript version of the dialogue in English, in the Lambeth Library. In 1680, a translation was published, but the place of printing was concealed: English translations of it appeared at Edinburgh, 1691; at London, 1689, 1721, 1799.

There have been many editions of Buchanan’s other works, of the history there have been at least twenty editions. His translation of the Psalms into Latin metre was long and universally admired, and has passed through numerous editions both in England and Scotland, and in other countries. In the beginning of the present century Dr. Irving wrote――“Buchanan’s paraphrase continues to be read in the principal schools of Scotland, and perhaps in those of some other countries. Lauder’s attempt to supersede it by that of Johnston proved unsuccessful. During the lifetime of Buchanan, it had begun to be introduced into the schools of Germany; and its various measures had been accommodated to appropriate melodies, for the purpose of being chanted by academics. Pope Urban VII., himself a poet of no mean talent, is said to have averred that it was a pity it was written by so great a heretic, for otherwise it should have been sung in all churches under his authority.”――Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Buchanan, pages 130‒131.

Buchanan’s writings in the Scottish dialect are two political pamphlets, which were written in support of the King’s party, one entitled “An Admonitioun direct to the trew Lordis maintenaris of Justice and Obedience to the King’s Grace,” and the other called the “♦Chamaeleon.” They both originated from the critical state of the Kingdom immediately after the murder of the Regent Moray, and show the keen and practical interest which Buchanan took in the politics of his day; and also his insight into the real position of the nation at the time. In the Admonitioun his chief contention is that the only hope for religion and liberty in Scotland depended on the safety of the young King; and the aim of the pamphlet was to show the King’s supporters the national ruin that would issue from the defeat of their cause. He insisted that the Hamiltons were the chief enemies of the King’s cause. The Chamaeleon was directed against Maitland of Lethington, who had joined the Queen’s followers, and used his talents and energy to subvert the King’s party; and he more than any one else was the moving spirit of Mary’s party. Lethington was then in the Castle of Edinburgh, and tidings having reached him that such a pamphlet was forthcoming, on the night of the 14th of April, 1571, Captain Melvin was sent from the Castle to Lekpreuik’s house to seize him, and if possible to obtain the manuscript of the offensive pamphlet. The printer, however, having had warning, made his escape; but the publication of the Chamaeleon was stopped, and it was not printed till 1710. Lekpreuik went to Stirling, and there he printed in the summer of 1571 Buchanan’s Admonitioun direct to the trew Lordis. These two pamphlets of Buchanan are very good specimens of Scottish prose literature; although the form of his sentences is in the Latin style, the expression is clear and effective. The Scottish Text Society have recently published Buchanan’s two Scottish pamphlets, edited by Mr. P. Hume Brown.

♦ “Chamaelon” replaced with “Chamaeleon”

The teaching of the reformed preachers has prepared the Scots for the reception of the political opinions proclaimed by Buchanan: they were in harmony with the spirit of the time, and had a great influence. They offer a striking contrast to the slavish opinions then entertained by the majority of the English clergy. The English Church for more than a hundred and fifty years was the servile handmaid of monarchy, and the steady enemy of political liberty and freedom,¹ while the body of the English Puritans and the Scotch clergy struggled hard against the despotism of the Crown, and the clergy of the Church of England. They constantly taught the doctrine of the divine right of kings; and insisted that passive obedience and absolute submission to the will of the king was the first and highest duty of the people. The clergy of Scotland taught and preached a very different doctrine; they, at least, were not afraid of rebellion when it was necessary, and to maintain that it was unlawful for the people to rise against their King, if he proved an unworthy ruler or had encroached upon their freedom, would have been the last thing that they would have thought of.

¹ Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, Volume I., page 415. Jeremy Taylor said: “Eternal damnation is prepared for all impenitent rebels in hell with Satan the first founder of rebellion. Heaven is the place of good, obedient subjects, and hell the prison and dungeon of rebels against God and their prince.”――Homily on Wilful rebellion. Quoted in Lecky’s History of Rationalism, Volume II., page 149.

The Scottish poets of the later half of the sixteenth century were not of high rank, and therefore need not detain us long. None of their writings appear to have been very popular, and they did not exercise much influence on the people. The name of Sir Richard Maitland, of Lethington, a lawyer, a Lord of Session, and a Privy Councillor, in the reign of Queen Mary, is associated with the history of Scottish poetry more from the fact of his having been a collector of the verses and poems of others, than for the importance of his own compositions. He was born in 1494, and after a long, an active, and honourable life, during the last twenty years of which he was deprived of his eyesight, died in March 1586, at the great age of ninety. His poems were all written after his sixtieth year, and they bear the impress of the sober reflection of mature age. None of his verses are soaring or glowing, but they contain some very pointed references to the state of society and the events of the period. The subjects of most of his poems are lamentations for the disturbed state of his country, such as the feuds amongst the nobles, the discontent of the common people, complaints against the courts for long delay in deciding cases, and the depredations of the border thieves. Touching a remedy for the delay of law suits, Maitland advised the King to increase the number of judges, and to augment their salaries out of the funds of the abbacies, parsonages, and provestries, which were then at the disposal of the Crown. His poems were first printed in a separate and complete form in 1830 by the Maitland Club; some of them, however, had appeared before in Pinkerton’s Ancient Scottish Poems, and in other collections of early poetry.¹

¹ Pinkerton’s Ancient Scottish Poems, Volume II., page 275‒345, 349‒353. Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, Volume III., pages 76, 319.

Maitland’s collections of early Scottish poetry consists of two volumes, containing two hundred and seventy-two pieces, and specimens of these have long been before the public. He was the author of a book entitled The History and Chronicle of the House and Surname of Seytoun, which was printed for the Maitland Club in 1829.

George Bannatyne was a writer of verses, but was more remarkable as a collector of early poetry, with the history of which department of our vernacular literature his name is inseparably associated. He formed his collection in the year 1568, when a young man, while the plague was raging in Scotland. His manuscript is neatly transcribed, and extends to eight hundred pages folio. He was engaged on it for three months. In the beginning of the manuscript he states that he was forced to have recourse to old and mutilated copies. There are only a few of his own compositions in the collection, two of which deal with amatory subjects. He concludes the manuscript with an address to the reader in the following words:――

“Here ends this book, written in time of pest, When I fra labour was compelled to rest, Into the three last months of this year, From our Redeemer’s birth, to know it here, Ane thousand is, five hundred, threescore eight. Of this purpose no more needs be taught. So, till conclude, God send us all good end, And after death eternal life us send.”¹

¹ Many particulars about the poems contained in this manuscript may be seen in Ancient Scottish Poems, published by Lord Hailes in 1770; in Pinkerton’s Ancient Scottish Poems; in a volume printed by the Bannatyne Club, containing a memoir of the worthy collector, Bannatyne; by Sir Walter Scott, and in several of the writings of the late Dr. Laing, relating to the early poetry of Scotland.

Only a few of Bannatyne’s own poems are preserved, and they have not much poetical merit, though they are interesting as the effusions of one that was so instrumental in transmitting to posterity the early poetry of bygone generations.

Alexander Scott wrote poetry during this period, and his poems were edited by the late Dr. Laing, but nothing has been definitely ascertained concerning his parentage or profession. From his writings it appears that he was married; but his wife deserted him, and fled with some wanton man; however, after expressing his sorrow for this mishap, he avowed his determination to choose another wife, and to forget the faithless one. His poems are mostly founded on subjects of an amatory character, and he often shows a considerable degree of fancy and harmony. The longest of his productions is entitled “A New-Year’s Gift to Queen Mary when she came first hame,” but it has little poetic merit. His “Justing between Adamson and Sym” appears to be an imitation of “Christ’s Kirk of the Green.”¹

¹ Alexander Scott’s Poems, 1821. Dr. Irving’s History of Scottish Poetry, pages 417‒424. Eighteen of his pieces are included in Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, Volume III., pages 115‒175.

Alexander Arbuthnot was born in 1538 at Pitearles, in Mearns, and educated at the University of St. Andrews. In 1561 he passed to France, and for five years prosecuted the study of the law under Cujacius, in the University of Bruges. He returned to Scotland in 1566, with the intention of following the profession of law, but was induced to enter the ministry, and became an able adherent of the Reformation. He was highly respected for his learning and knowledge, and in 1568 was appointed Principal of the University of Aberdeen. He took an active part in the proceedings of the Church Courts, and was twice elected Moderator of the General Assembly. To the study of theology he joined the study of letters, and was the author of an elegant Latin work entitled “Orations on the Origin and Dignity of the Law,” which was printed at Edinburgh in 1572. In his poems, which are in the Scottish language, he mostly confines himself to subjects of a serious cast, and some of his pieces are pervaded with a pleasing air of melancholy and a warm benignity. He died in 1583, regretted by his contemporaries, who united in recording his virtues.¹

¹ Spottiswood; Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum II., page 120. Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, Volume I., pages 114‒117, 283.

Only four or five of Arbuthnot’s poems are preserved. The most lively of them is the one entitled “The Praise of Women,” which extends to 224 lines, and contains a very warm encomium of the fair sex. His effusion entitled “The Miseries of a Poor Scholar,” is rather an interesting composition, and shows that he had a vein of keen and glowing, though somewhat carping, sentiment.¹

¹ These two poems are included in Pinkerton’s _Ancient Scottish Poems_, Volume I., pages 138‒155; and quotations are given in Dr. Irving’s History of Scottish Poetry, pages 432‒436.

Among the writers of rhyme of this period may be mentioned John Davidson, who was born about the year 1549 at Dunfermline. He studied at the University of St. Andrews from 1567 to 1570; and afterwards became a Regent of St. Leonards College. He was a strong adherent of the Reformation; and took a warm interest in promoting education amongst the people. He wrote a metrical panegyric on John Knox, entitled “A Brief Commendation of Uprightness,” which was printed at St. Andrews in 1573. The aim of this rhymed production is to record in popular language the memorable service that the Reformer rendered to the nation. Every stanza of the poem closes with the word uprightness. About the same time he composed a poem called “A Dialogue between a Clerk and a Courtier,” which was printed in the beginning of the year 1574. It contains an exposure of a practice adopted by the Regent Morton for the purpose of retaining at his own disposal a large part of the thirds of benefices, by uniting two, three, or four churches under the care of one minister, thus restoring the abuse of pluralities. Morton was much offended at the outspoken style of the poem; and its author was cited and convicted before a court at Haddington, and banished from the country. Lekpreuik, the printer of the rhyme, was also prosecuted, and imprisoned for some time in the Castle of Edinburgh.¹ They were indicted on an Act of Parliament, of 1551, “against blasphemous rhymes.” There is little in Davidson’s book that could have given reasonable ground of alarm to any well regulated government, as it merely describes a subject of public interest in a comparatively sober manner. Davidson returned to Scotland after the fall of Morton, and, as we have seen in preceding pages, took an active part in the proceedings of the Church.

¹ Poetical Remains of John Davidson, 1829; Melville’s Diary, pages 27, 28; Life of Knox, pages 447‒460; 1855. Annals of Scottish Printing, by Dickson and Edmond, pages 205, 270‒71.

The literary merits of the piece, which offended the Regent, are not great. The versification, however, is easy, and the conversation is carried on in a natural and spirited style. Shortly after its publication, Davidson composed a poem to the memory of Robert Campbell of Kinyeancleugh, a man that had shown his attachment to the reformed religion by his steadfast support of Knox. Campbell died while endeavouring to shelter Davidson from the effects of persecution, and the latter gratefully commemorated the virtues of his protector. The poem was published in 1595. Having returned from exile, Davidson was appointed minister of the parish of Liberton in 1579. Afterwards he incurred the displeasure of the King, and had to leave his charge, and retired to England. After his return he preached at various places in and around Edinburgh; and in 1596 he became minister of Prestonpans. But owing to his opposition to the King’s scheme of Church polity, he was imprisoned for a time, and afterwards his action was restricted to his own parish. After a life of activity and earnest work, he died in 1604, leaving behind him a collection of papers relating to the ecclesiastical history of Scotland.¹

¹ Poetical Remains of J. Davidson; Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of Melville_, Volume I., pages 131‒132, 449‒453. Davidson’s other writings consisted of a letter in answer to Dr. Bancroft’s attack on the Church of Scotland: an account of Scottish Martyrs, written in Latin, but this work is now lost; though Calderwood had the use of it when he compiled his history: a Catechism entitled, “Some helps for young scholars in Christianity,” Edinburgh, 1602, which was reprinted in 1708. “A little before his death he penned a treatise, De Hostibus Ecclesiæ Christi, wherein he affirms the erecting of bishops in this Kirk is the most subtle thing to destroy religion that ever could be devised.” ――Row’s History.

There were several other minor versifiers in the latter part of this century, but their productions are hardly of sufficient importance to warrant any lengthy notice. Robert Semple was a versifier of some repute in his day; he wrote a poem on the siege of the Castle of Edinburgh, which was printed in 1573. Another of his rhymes is entitled, “The Legend of the Bishop of St. Andrews;” this was an attack upon the character of Archbishop Adamson; but Semple’s compositions are rather coarse. Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, Volume I.; Pinkerton’s List of the Scottish Poets; Birrel’s Diary, page 14; Ramsay’s Evergreen, Volume I., pages 67, 71.

There were also a number of anonymous poems and rhymes relating to public events, published about this time.――“The Testament and Tragedy of the late King Henry Stuart of good memory;” another, “A declaration of the Lord’s just Quarrel,” both were printed in 1569; and are very bitter against Queen Mary. “A Tragedy in the form of a Dialogue, in commemoration of the merits and fate of the regent Moray,” was published in 1570. This performance has little or no poetic value; many of the author’s expressions are in extremely bad taste. Some parts however of the Regent’s public service was clearly stated, and his subjection of the borderers was narrated quite distinctly. This rhyme is printed in Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century. “The Lamintation of Lady Scotland,” which was published in 1572, is a production of a similar description; but it contained some important information regarding the state of the people; and the oppressive character of the nobles was very plainly stated. Lady Scotland concluded with a fling at the practices of the dignitaries of the Roman Church. Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century. There were several rhymers who frequented the court of James VI., some of them Englishmen, but their writings are of little interest.――Dr. Irving’s History of Scotish Poetry, pages 461‒470.

Alexander Montgomery was one of the most eminent and popular of the Scottish poets of the later half of the sixteenth century. Of his life and character very few facts are known. He seems to have been for sometime employed in the service of James VI.; while it also appears that he experienced some of the vicissitudes of favour which so often fall to the lot of the courtier. It is supposed that he died about 1609. Several of his short poems occur in Bannatyne’s manuscript, and must have been composed forty years before his death.¹ Montgomery’s poems are numerous, embracing sonnets and short pieces of very varied degrees of merit. It has been supposed that his taste was partly formed by the study of the Italian poets, as some of his quaint turns of fancy betray their Italian origin. He has written on many subjects, and tried his ingenuity in a variety of measures, but his happiest efforts were those of a lyric cast. To him amorous subjects afforded the most common themes for the exercise and the display of his powers. He had a good command of language, and, like some of his predecessors, especially of words of abuse and scorn.²

¹ Poems of Alexander Montgomery, by Dr. D. Laing; Biographical Notices, pages 5‒16; 1821.

² The production entitled “The flyting between Montgomery and Polwart” (Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth) teems with the coarsest and most abusive strings of terms to be found in any language. It is equally as coarse and vulgar as the performance between Dunbar and Kennedy, in the same department. Montgomery began the sport with the following lines:――

“Polwart, yee peip like a mouse amongst thornes; Na cunning yee keipe. Polwart, yee peip; Ye look like a sheipe, and yee had twa hornes. Polwart, yee peip like a mouse amongst thornes. Beware what thou speiks, little foule earth tade; With thy Cannigate breiks, beware what thou speiks, Or there sal be wat cheiks for the last that thou made. Beware what thou speiks, little foule earth tade.” ――Page 103.

The quantity of low slang that occurs in this composition is very great, and many of the words are still current among the lowest class in Scotland.

His greatest effort is “The Cherrie and the Slae,” a poem of considerable ingenuity, extending to one hundred and fourteen stanzas, comprising one thousand five hundred and ninety-five lines. The poem begins in an amatory mood, and ends with a moral. Though the allegory is rather obscure, and the thought too dim, many of the stanzas are rich in imagery and smooth in diction. It was very popular, and continued to be printed till a recent period.¹

¹ As far as known, the first edition of _The Cherrie and the Slae_ was published at Edinburgh in 1597; in that year two editions were printed by Robert Waldegrave. Several stanzas were afterwards added by the author to an impression which appeared in 1615, from the press of Andrew Hart. The subsequent editions were――one at Edinburgh, 1536; another there, 1675; another, 1706; and one inserted in Ramsay’s Evergreen, 1724; one at Aberdeen, 1645: and editions printed at Glasgow in 1668, 1746, 1751, 1754, 1757, and 1768; and a modernised edition printed at Edinburgh, 1779: The Scottish Text Society issued a complete edition in 1886‒87, edited by Dr. James Cranstoun, with numerous notes and a very useful Glossary.

Montgomery’s sonnets were mostly all addressed to some of his contemporaries or friends, to the King, the Lords of Session, and to others, male and female. They have not much poetical merit, nor much interest now; some of his miscellaneous poems, however, are more valuable and interesting. The following lines are from his short piece headed “The Opposition of the Court to Conscience”:――

“The court some qualities requires Which conscience cannot but accuse; And specially such as aspiris Mon honest adulation use. I dar not say, and doubly deill, But court and conscience wallis not weill.

* * * * *

Sin every minioun thou must make To gar them think that thou art theirs, Howbeit thou be, behind their back, No furtherer of their affairs, But mett them moonshin ay for meill; So court and conscience wallis not weill.”¹

¹ Poems, pages 136, 137; Dr. Laing’s Edition.

Montgomery also versified several of the Psalms, and wrote many devotional verses.¹

¹ Poems, pages 247‒287.

We have already seen that James VI. was fond of displaying his learning and his theological knowledge. He was equally anxious to show his subjects and the world that he was a poet. In 1584, when only eighteen years of age, he published his first work, entitled “Essays of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesie.” This publication consists of a mixture of poetry and prose: the poems are mostly a kind of sonnet. None of them are of high merit, but, emanating from such an exalted personage, they were greatly praised, and James was soon recognised as a poet and a scholar. He appeared as a contributor to the Cambridge collection of verses on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, published in 1587. In this book the king’s verses were placed first.¹ His subsequent writings were numerous, but a review of them would not repay the trouble and the space which it would occupy. It may at once be stated that his books have contributed nothing to the advancement of an enlightened and liberal policy of government, nor to the progress of civilisation.²

¹ There is much information about the writings of James the VI. in Dr. Harris’s account of his life, 1753.

² In the list of King James’s works the following may be mentioned:――1. Ane Fruitful Meditation, containing a plain and facile exposition of the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth verses of the twentieth chapter of Revelations, in form of a sermon; set down by the most Christian king, and sincere professor and chief defender of the truth, James the Sixth, King of Scots. Edinburgh, 1588. 2. Demonology, in form of a dialogue, divided into three books, Edinburgh, 1597; again, 1600; and at London, 1603. 3. _His Majesty’s Poetical Exercises in vacant hours_, Edinburgh, 1591. 4. Instructions to his Son, Prince Henry. Basilicon Doron, 1603. 5. The True Law of Free Monarchies, 1598. 6. Counterblast to Tobacco. 7. Mysteries of State. 8. His other writings chiefly consist of speeches, declarations, and the like. There is an enumeration of them in Dr. Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica, Volume II., page 541.

Towards the end of the century, there is some indication of an improvement in the moral sentiment and tone of the popular literature. Alexander Hume, minister of Logie, who died in 1609, produced in the later years of his life a number of hymns or sacred songs. A volume which he printed at Edinburgh in 1599, contains eight hymns, a short poem on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and a prose Epistle in which he records the experiences of his youth. In the Epistle he expresses himself pretty freely respecting the corruption of the judges, and animadverts boldly on the Scottish Court.¹ His hymns are very unequal, but the versification is occasionally fluent and easy; and some of his descriptions are natural and vigorous. The following lines are taken from the hymn entitled “the Day Festival:”――

“O perfect light! which shed away The darkness from the light, And left one ruler o’er the day, Another o’er the night. Thy glory, when the day forth flies, More vively does appear, Nor at midnight unto our eyes, The shining sun is clear; The shadow of the earth anone, Removes and drawis by; Syne in the east when it is gone, Appears a clearer sky: Which soon perceives the little larks The lapwing, and the snipe; And tunes their songs, like nature’s clerks, O’er meadow, moor, and stripe.

* * * * *

What pleasure ’twere to walk and see Endlong a river clear, The perfect form of every tree Within the deep appear; The salmon out of crooves and creels Up hauled into skouts, The bells and circles on the weills Through louping of the trouts. O then it were a seemly thing, While all is still and calme, The praise of God to play and sing With cornet and with shalme.”

This is certainly a great advance from the rude and coarse rhymes of the “Gude and Godlie Ballads.” There is an ease and artless vividness of description in this beautiful hymn which renders it exceedingly pleasing to read; and it must have been more touching when sung.

¹ “Hymns or sacred songs, wherein the right use of poetry may be espied. By Alexander Hume. Whereunto are added, the experience of the author’s youth and certain precepts, serving to the practice of sanctification.” Edinburgh, 1599.

James Melville, the nephew of Andrew Melville, whose valuable and interesting Diary has been often referred to in the preceding pages of this work, also indulged in writing Scottish poetry. In early life he acted as a professor at Glasgow and at St. Andrews, and afterwards as a parish minister. He was one of the ministers that were deprived of their livings and liberty after the accession of the King to the throne of England. He died at Newcastle in 1614. He was a mild and estimable man, more remarkable for his piety than for any original poetic power. In 1599 his work entitled a “Catechism” was published at Edinburgh. The first part of it is in prose, and consists of prayers and meditations for different occasions, directions for self-examination, a form of examination for those seeking to be admitted to the communion, in the order of question and answer. The second part is in verse, and has the following title――“A Morning Vision, or Poem for the Practice of Piety, in devotion, faith, and repentance: wherein the Lord’s Prayer, Belief, and Commands, and so the whole Catechism, and right use thereof, is largely expounded.” He composed many other religious pieces in verse, but his poetry is very homely and tame; and it appears that his Catechism was not popular. His writings are interesting, however, as specimens of the native language, and for the curious and plain statement of customs and notions which prevailed in Scotland in his day.¹

¹ James Melville’s Diary, edition by Robert Pitcairn, Prefatory Notice, pages 8‒31, 45. The editor gives a list of his various works, pages 44‒48. But the Diary itself is by far the most valuable of his writings to the student of history.

The fashion of the age led the learned to make attempts to write Latin poetry and rhymes. The quantity of effort spent in learning to read and compose in the Latin language was enormous; and although this had a tendency to improve the standard of culture, it may be doubted if it was not carried too far. We are also told that “in all the schools and colleges, and from the age of six to sixteen, the youth spoke and heard nothing but Latin;” also that in their correspondence and ordinary conversation with each other, the learned used the Latin tongue.¹ Supposing this to be literally true, it can hardly be said to have been the most effective way to develop the faculties of the mind, or to advance the civilisation of the nation. This mode of culture tends to separate men of letters from the general community, and prevents them from exercising an influence over the mind of the people; and thus deprives literature of the advantages to be derived from its diffusion among all ranks of society. It may be said, indeed, that the Scottish Latinists of this period exercised an indirect influence upon the national mind, which in one sense may be granted; but after the Reformation the spell of Latin Christianity was broken, and in Protestant nations the Latin language as a formative power inevitably became greatly circumscribed. This was a consequence of the Reformation, whether learned men saw it or not, that did not effect its operation.

¹ Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, Volume II., pages 328, 330‒332. “But perhaps, the most extraordinary circumstance in the history of our literature at this period was the enthusiasm with which Latin poetry was cultivated by our countrymen; divines, lawyers, physicians, country-gentlemen, courtiers, and statesmen, devoted themselves to this difficult species of composition, and contended with each other in the various strains which the ancient masters of Roman song had employed. The principal poems in the collection entitled ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum’ were originally published, or at least written, at this time. They are of course possessed of very different degrees of merit, but of the collection in general we may say that it is equal to any of the collections of the same kind which appeared in other countries, except that which contains the Latin poems composed by natives of Italy. If this was not the classic age of Scotland, it was at least the age of classical literature in it, and at no subsequent period of our history have the languages of Greece and Rome been so successfully cultivated, or the beauties of their poetry so deeply felt and so justly imitated. Besides Andrew Melville, the individuals who attained the greatest excellence in this branch of literature were Sir Thomas Craig, Sir Robert Ayton, Hume of Godscroft, John Johnston, and Hercules Rollock.” To these may be justly added――Archbishop Adamson, who wrote sacred poetry, translations of various books of the Bible in verse, a Catechism, and other treatises in Latin. He died in extreme poverty in 1591. He also wrote several works which have never been published.

Remembering the comparatively unsettled state of the nation, the religious and theological literature produced in the later part of the century was considerable. Before this period no commentary on Scripture, nor any collection of sermons, had appeared in Scotland; for the writings on the Four Gospels of the Scottish Scholastic, John Mair, were published in Paris. But Robert Rollock, the first Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was an earnest educationalist and a warm promoter of literature, whose name is closely and honourably associated with the history of education and religious literature in Scotland. In connection with his profession, he composed commentaries on many parts of the Bible, some of which were published at Edinburgh toward the end of the century, and were shortly after reprinted at Geneva, and commended by several foreign divines. He wrote in Latin, and though his mode of exposition was not free from the fetters of the pedantic logic of Scholasticism, and themes that involved the most momentous moral issues were handled as mere abstractions. Having formed certain premises, the intermediate conclusions to which the rules of their method led, they treated these deductions as logical symbols, and reasoned them out, utterly ignoring the difficulty and the doubt which so often attends the steps of moral reasoning. Everything rested on the truth of the definitions and the premises; and to change or doubt any of these was fatal to the whole structure. Protestantism has only gradually and with difficulty extricated itself from this purely dogmatic method; and even yet we are not altogether clear of its meshes. Rollock’s good sense and feeling of the practical often appears in his commentaries on the Scripture in spite of the art of the dialectician, though in some of his Latin writings he revels in dialectics. His sermons in the Scottish dialect, published at Edinburgh in 1599, from notes taken by some of his students, are pretty concise and practical discourses, and exhibit him in a favourable light. His work entitled “God’s Effectual Calling,” originally published in Latin at Edinburgh, 1597, is rather an elaborate performance. It formed a portion of the system of theology which he taught. In this treatise Rollock touches upon a variety of topics relating to the Scriptures; and like other Protestant divines of the period, exhibits an unhesitating and firm belief in revelation. He mentions various early translations of the Old and New Testament, and briefly discusses the authorship and claims of the Vulgate. Passing to the consideration of translations into the modern tongues, he inquires whether it is lawful to translate the Bible into every modern language, whether the common prayers should be in the mother tongue, and whether the people should read the Scriptures. The arguments of the Roman Catholics against the free communication of the Bible to the people he minutely examines and effectively exposes.¹

¹ Select Works of R. Rollock: Wodrow Society, 1849, Volume I., pages 127‒160. A list of his works is given at pages eighty-nine and ninety-five of the introduction to this volume. Some of his writings were popular for several generations after his death.

Robert Bruce, whom we have seen in preceding pages, as a bold and popular preacher, was a man of strong and vigorous mind, intensely earnest, honest, and steadfast in principle. His sermons in the Scottish dialect were published at Edinburgh in 1590 and 1591; and are exceedingly interesting specimens of vernacular composition, shortly before the period when it was generally superseded by modern English. They are full of doctrinal points and arguments, remarkably regular in style and clear in expression. He had a good sense of method, and the faculty of making an intricate subject intelligible to the ordinary understanding.¹

¹ His sermons were translated into English, and published at London in 1617; they were reprinted for the Wodrow Society. ――Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, Volume I., page 18.

Robert Pont was born about 1528. Educated in St. Leonard’s College at St. Andrews, he early embraced the reformed opinions, and his name appeared among the members of the first General Assembly. From this time till his death in 1606, he took an active part in the affairs of the Church. In 1572, with the consent of the General Assembly, he accepted an appointment to act as a senator of the college of justice, and he held a seat on the bench till 1584. He was chosen minister of St. Cuthbert’s Church, Edinburgh, in 1574; the same year, he was appointed to revise all the books that were printed and published.

Pont was one of the most learned of the early ministers of the Church of Scotland. In 1566 he published A Translation and Interpretation of the Helvetian Confession. At the request of the General Assembly, he composed three sermons against sacrilege in 1594, which were published in 1599. This is an interesting subject, and has been often touched on, in preceding chapters; yet a short quotation from a well informed contemporary cannot be out of character:――“From the year of our Lord 1560 to this present time, the greatest study of all men of power of this land has been, by all kinds of inventions, to spoil the Kirk of Christ of her patrimony, by chopping and changing, diminishing of rentals, converting of victual in small sums of money, setting of feus under the value, long tackes upon tackes, with two or three life-rents, with many twenty years of a tack, annexations, erections of Kirk-rents into temporal livings and heritage, pensions, simple donations, erecting of new patronages, union of teinds, making new abbots, commendators, priors, and other papistical titles, which ought to have no place in a reformed Kirk and country, with many other corrupt and fraudful ways, to the detriment and hurt of the Kirk, the schools, and the poor, without any stay or gainsaying.”¹ His other writings chiefly related to chronology. “A new treatise on the right reckoning of the years and ages of the world and men’s lives, and of the state of the last decaying age thereof, this year of Christ, containing sundry singularities worthy of observation, concerning courses of times and revolutions of the heavens, reformation of kalendars, and prognostications,” etc., published at Edinburgh, 1599. His work, entitled Chronologiam de Sabbatis, was published at London in 1626. He also wrote a tract on the union of the kingdoms, in the form of a dialogue, which was published in 1604. In this dialogue he gives a deplorable description of the tyranny of the aristocracy, the weakness of the law, and the terrors of the judges, who trembled before the power of the nobles.²

¹ Pont’s Sermons against Sacrilege.

² History of the Church and Parish of St. Cuthbert’s, 1829; Tytler’s Life of Sir Thomas Craig, page 218; Wodrow’s Biographical Collections, Volume I.

The Reformation movement was admirably adapted to call forth any latent talent that existed in the nation; as it tended to arouse the latent powers of the mind, and to widen the range of ideas and the objects of study. After the Revolution, the department of jurisprudence began to receive more attention; and indeed, it may be said that in Scotland the teaching of the civil law only commenced at this period. Previously, the canons were the great object of study; those who delivered lectures occasionally on the civil law were in priests’ orders. It was not till the later part of the sixteenth century that the institutes and pandects began to be substituted for the sacred canons and decretals. Dr. Edward Henryson edited and wrote a preface to a collection of the acts of parliament, from 1424 to 1564, which was published at Edinburgh in 1566: this volume, however, is rather carelessly arranged.¹ Sir John Skene, the clerk registrar, edited a collection of the Acts of Parliament, from 1424 onwards to the later part of the sixteenth century, which was published at Edinburgh in 1597. He also, for the first time, published in 1609, in Latin and in English, a collection of the laws and constitutions of Scotland, from the days of Malcolm II. to the reign of James I.; to this he added a treatise on the explanation of difficult words and terms.² Although modern investigators have found many reasons for the rejection and modification of not a few of Skene’s opinions and conclusions touching the early laws of Scotland, it must be acknowledged that his labours were valuable and meritorious, and at the time of their publication threw much light on the ancient customs and laws of Scotland.

¹ Dr. Henryson is the author of a work, entitled _Commentatio Title X. Libri Secundi Institutionum de Testamentis Ordinandis_, published in 1555. It is a kind of running commentary, and it was inserted in the great work of Gerard Meerman, Novus Thesaurus Juris Civilis et Canonici. Henryson is reported to have written some other books, which are not now extant.

² Skene’s first edition of the Regiam Majestatem, was published in 1613; and the origin and authorship of this book has caused much disquisition.

Sir Thomas Craig was an eminent and successful lawyer in the reign of James VI. His best known work is the learned treatise on the feudal law, “Jus Feudale, Tribus Libris Comprehensum,” which he finished in 1603, but it was not published till 1655, forty-seven years after the author’s death. It is written in a vigorous Latin style. It obtained a wide and authoritative reputation; many translations and editions of it were published. He was a vigorous thinker, and made the first regular attempt to treat the feudalism of Scotland in a philosophic spirit. It is not surprising, however, that he failed to explain the peculiar form that feudalism had assumed in Scotland; when he wrote, feudalism was full of life in the kingdom; and it may be questioned, if a professional lawyer is the best qualified person to give a true exposition of the system in operation around him. Every one that has tried to grasp and comprehend the special form of feudalism which so long prevailed in this country, is well aware of the difficulties of the subject. As we have seen, Scotch feudalism was not a natural growth of the clan organisation. In the days of Craig, the distinctive feature of feudalism was connected with the holding of land――the customary rights and claims of the superior, and the obligation of his vassals to satisfy all his demands; but one by one, here and there, the feudal burdens were gradually lightened and outgrown, till at last the tenants of the land only paid a money rent.

William Welwood was for sometime Professor of Law in the University of St. Andrews, and published several useful treatises on juridical subjects. He wrote both in Latin and English. In one of his works, he drew a parallel of the points of resemblance between the Jewish and the Roman codes. His tract on ecclesiastical processes was intended to distinguish the forms of procedure in the civil courts, from the forms that should be used in the Church courts, touching citation, the mode of trial, and appeals. His abridgment of sea laws――one of the most useful of his productions――was the first systematic book on maritime jurisprudence which appeared in Britain. But Welwood ventured into other fields: he wrote a treatise on practical theology, which was published at Middleburgh in 1594. He had an inquiring mind, and in all his writings there is a worthy desire to turn his knowledge to the good of mankind.¹

¹ This work has the following title: “Abridgment of all Sea Laws; gathered forth of all Writings and Monuments, which are to be found among any People or Nation upon the Coasts of Great Britain and the Mediterranean Sea,” London, 1613. Watts’ Bibliotheca Britannica, Volume II., page 957. The learned Selden afterwards wrote on this subject, in the seventeenth century, and even later various points of the law relating to the sea were fiercely disputed.

This very industrious man was also connected with the progress of physics and the arts. In 1577, while teaching at St. Andrews, he obtained from the Government a patent for a new mode of raising water with greater facility from coal pits, sinks, and low places. He afterwards published an account of his plan, and of the principles upon which he calculated that it would produce the intended effect: this publication appeared in 1582. It is an interesting indication of the state of hydraulic science at the time, and of the experiments which gradually led to the discovery and to the application of its true principles.¹ In 1594, Parliament granted to two men the exclusive right of making certain pumps for raising and forcing water out of mines.²

¹ His plan of raising water has been thus summarised:――“If Welwood had persevered in his experiments, he might have accidentally made the discovery which afterwards occurred to Galileo. He proposed to produce the effect by means of a leaden pipe bent into a syphon, and extended on the exterior so as to discharge the water at a point below the surface of the well. Having shut up the two extremities of the pipe, he introduces water into both legs by an aperture at the upper point or elbow of the syphon, till they are completely full; and then closing this aperture with great exactness, and opening both ends of the syphon, he maintains that the water will flow out of the exterior or lower leg, as long as there is any in the well. It cannot, he argues, flow out of the shorter leg, for it has no head or difference of level to give it the power of issuing in that direction. It cannot flow out of both legs at the same time; for then it behoved to separate somewhere in the middle, which, according to him, is impossible, as nature abhors a vacuum. Therefore, it must flow out of the well by the longer leg. The well is supposed to be 45 cubits deep (for our author was not possessed of the important fact that water will not rise to a height above 33 feet). In other respects the principles of his demonstration are not more unscientifical than those which Galileo would have employed sixty years after the time of Welwood.” Dr. M‘Crie, Life of Melville, Volume II., pages 320‒321.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV., page 176.

But the most celebrated name in connection with the history of science in Scotland was John Napier of Merchiston. This remarkable man, who contributed so much to extend the bounds of knowledge, was born in the year 1550. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, and afterwards in France at the University of Paris. He had returned to Scotland before 1571, and for many years took an active interest in the affairs of the Church. He was twice married, and had a family of sons and daughters. Although he was of a studious and inquiring turn of mind, he was by no means a mere recluse, as he attended to his domestic duties and the business of his father, who was connected with the mint and mining operations of Scotland. In short, he interested himself in many projects, and seems to have passed a comparatively happy life. He died in the month of April, 1617.¹

¹ M. Napier’s Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston, 1834, pages 56, 91, 104‒107, 129‒131, 147‒173, 227‒234, 282, 415, 430; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 559.

The dominant feelings and the belief of the age had taken a firm hold upon Napier’s mind, as his earliest publication manifested. This was an ingenious and extremely curious book, containing an exposition of the whole Revelations of St. John. He prefaced this work with a short poetical address to Antichrist; and to his interpretation, he annexed certain oracles of Sibylla, which he conceived to agree with the Revelations and other parts of Scripture.¹ The full title of this work will perhaps give a better idea of its contents than any lengthy description: “A Plain Discovery of the Revelations of St. John, set down in two Treatises; the one searching and proving the true interpretation thereof; the other applying the same paraphrastically and historically to the text: by John Napier; with a resolution of certain doubts, moved by some well affected brethren; whereunto are annexed certain oracles of Sibylla, agreeing with the Revelations and other places of Scripture; and also an epistle omitted in the last edition, 1645. This was printed for Andrew Wilson, and sold at his shop at the foot of the Ladie’s Steps.”

¹ A Plain Discovery of the Revelations of St. John, page 61; edition 1645.

The conclusions which he draws from the introductory and expositive treatise on the Revelations of St. John were thus stated in his own words:――“Then for conclusion, by these interpretative propositions followeth four things, marvellous and notable. First, that the interpretation of every part of the Revelations is accessory or consectory to another――that is to say, it is so chained and linked together, that every mystery opens the other, to the discovery of the whole. Secondly, that the first half of the book is orderly――that is to say, it containeth in order of time the most notable accidents that concerneth God’s Church, from the time of Christ’s baptism successively to the latter day. Thirdly, that every history prophesied is limited or dated with its own number of years. Fourthly, and last of all, that whatsoever history is more orderly and summarily than plainly set down in the first orderly part of the book, the same is repeated, interpreted, or amplified in the last part of the book, which therefore we call the amplicative part of the book, dividing the whole Revelations according to the following table, before we proceed to the principal matter.”¹ The table which Napier drew is ingenious and elaborate, and his interpretation and exposition of the Book of Revelations is fully as sensible as many others that have appeared since his day. This treatise must have been comparatively popular, as the first edition was published at Edinburgh in 1593, and the fifth, corrected and amended, appeared in 1645.

In 1596, Napier published a letter, entitled “Secret Inventions, profitable and necessary in those days for the defence of this Island, and withstanding of strangers, enemies of God’s truth and religion.” The inventions which he proposed do not appear to be very hopeful, and at first sight they seem to hover between the possible and impossible; yet some of his schemes were not incredible or beyond the limits of realisation. The following are the words in which he announced the new inventions:――

“First, the invention, proof, and perfect demonstration, geometrical and algebraical, of a burning mirror, which receiving the dispersing beams of the sun, doth reflect the same beams altogether united and concurring precisely in one mathematical point, in the which point most necessarily it engenders fire, with an evident demonstration of their error who affirm this to be made a parabolic section. The use of the invention serveth for burning the enemies’ ships at whatsoever appointed distance.

“Secondly, the invention and sure demonstration of another mirror which, receiving the dispersed beams of any material fire or flame, yields also the former effect, and serveth for the like use.

“Thirdly, the invention and visible demonstration of a piece of artillery, which shot passeth not linally through the enemy destroying only those that stand on the random thereof, and from them flying idly as others do; but passeth superficially, ranging abroad within the whole appointed place, and not departing forth of the place till it hath exhausted its whole strength, by destroying those that be within the bounds of the said place. The use hereof not only serveth greatly against the army of the enemy on land; but also by sea it serveth to destroy and cut down, and one shot the whole masts and tackling of so many ships as be within the appointed bounds, so long as any strength at all remains.

“Fourthly, the invention of a round chariot made of metal of the proof of double musket, which motion shall be by those that be within the same, more easy, more light, and more speedy by much, than so many armed men would be otherwise. The use hereof, as well in moving, serveth to break the array of the enemy’s battle, and to make passage, as also in staying and abiding within the enemy’s battle, it serveth to destroy the environed enemy by continual charge and shot of harquebush through small holes; the enemy in the meantime being abashed, and altogether uncertain what defence to use against a moving mouth of metal.

“These inventions, besides devices of slaying under the water, with divers other devices and stratagems for harming of the enemies, by the grace of God and work of expert craftsmen I hope to perform.”¹

¹ M. Napier’s Memoirs of John Napier, pages 247, 248.

They afford evidence of his speculative powers, and the scientific bent of his mind struggling with the narrow resources within his reach to produce practical results. Although the existing conditions――say the requisite mechanical skill――may not admit of the immediate application of a discovery or an invention, that is no evidence of the possible value and ultimate practicability of such things. In the Introduction of this history it was observed, that the lack of combined action and organised means have always greatly retarded the realisation of many things, even after the discovery, the invention, or the knowledge of a principle, had been reached.¹ Most of the sciences began at a point too remote from the real struggle of human life to be obviously useful, and would have made no progress at all if they had waited to justify their existence by their usefulness: their progress is mainly due to their own internal, intellectual, and moral interest. If science had always been absorbed in the search after obvious utilities, the highest discoveries would never have been made, and the greatest utilities would in all likelihood have been missed.²

¹ Volume I., pages 37, 65‒71, 157‒175.

² Joseph J. Murphy. Habit and Intelligence, Volume II., pages 225, 226. “All inorganic science, at least, depends on measurement; and all other measurements ultimately depend on the measurements of space. Now space is altogether external to the mind; we think in time, and not in space; yet the measurement of time depends on that of space, and not the converse; and geometry, which is the science of the properties of space, was the earliest of the sciences.” ――Ibid.

In 1614, Napier published his Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. This work presented a mode of calculation which greatly abridged the labour and facilitated the solution of all the vast problems involving numbers. “The general idea which Napier formed was that of two flowing points, generating magnitudes by infinitely small degrees, so regulated in their respective motions, that in the one case, the successive increments would be equal to each other; and in the other case, would differ proportionately from each other in an infinitely small degree.” He had a fine faculty of exposition, and he developed his conception with unrivalled clearness. The invention was soon known throughout Europe amongst men of science. The work was speedily translated into English by Edward Wright and Henry Briggs: the former set himself to translate it, and the latter became a warm and able co-operator of Napier’s in computing improved tables. Wright finished his translation and sent it to the author for revisal in 1615. He shortly after died, and the task then devolved upon his son, Samuel Wright assisted by Briggs, and the translation was published in London, in 1616. Edward Wright had specially directed his attention to navigation, which stood greatly in need of the aid of exact science. He published a treatise at London in 1559, entitled “Certain errors in Navigation detected and corrected;” he also computed tables of latitude, and is distinguished for his sea rings, his great quadrant, his sea quadrant, and other ingenious astronomical contrivances.¹

¹ M. Napier’s Memoirs of John Napier, pages 328, 438‒444. For comprehensive views of the theory of logarithms, see the Works of Bailly, Astronomie Moderne, Tome II.; _Delambre Histoire de l’Astronomie Moderne_; _Montucla Histoire des Mathematiques_, Tome II., page 2, et seq.; Dr. Minto’s Account of Napier’s Inventions and Writings; Colin Maclaurin’s Treatise on Fluxions, and several articles in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The only other work that Napier published in his lifetime was his short treatise on the method of computing by figured rods, known by the name of Napier’s bones, 1617: it contained the most important of his minor inventions touching various numerical properties. The following is a part of his own description of it, from the dedication to the Earl of Dunfermline:――“Of which logarithms, indeed, I have found out another species much superior to the former; and intend, if God shall grant me longer life and the possession of health, to make known the method of construction, as well as the manner of using them. But the actual computation of this new canon I have left, on account of the infirmity of my bodily health, to those conversant in such studies; and especially to that truly and most learned man, Henry Briggs, public professor of geometry in London, my most beloved friend. In the meantime, however, for the sake of those who prefer to work with the natural numbers as they stand, I have excogitated three other compendious modes of calculation, of which the first is by means of numerating rods, and these I have called ‘Rabdologia.’ Another, by far the most expeditious of all for multiplication, and which on that account I have not inaptly called the promptuary of multiplication, is by means of little plates of metal disposed in a box. And lastly, a third method, namely, local arithmetic performed upon a chess-board.”¹

¹ M. Napier’s Memoirs of John Napier, pages 413‒415. The original edition of this little work is now extremely scarce.

In 1619 Napier’s son published the work which his father had left incomplete――“Logarithmorum Canonis Constructio,” that is, the method of their construction. The purpose of the work is to show the way that he conquered the second difficulty in his path to the logarithms; namely, how to calculate the numbers to be intercalculated between the terms of his progressions, in order to reap the fruits of his original conception. Though the author did not live to give it the final touches, the book is teeming with profound thought, and exhibits a grasp of the subject and a clearness of exposition which is rare even among the efforts of the highest genius. Professor Playfair has well said, “Napier’s view of the subject is as simple and profound as any which after two hundred years has yet presented itself to mathematicians. The mode of deducing the results has been simplified; but it can hardly be said that the principle has been more clearly developed.” Sir John ♦Lesly has said, “his sublime invention of Logarithms about this epoch eclipsed every minor improvement, and as far transcended the denary notation, as this had surpassed the numerical system of the Greeks.” Robert Napier in the preface to his father’s posthumous work said――“Some years ago, my father, of ever venerable memory, published the use of the wonderful Canon of Logarithms; but the construction and method of generating it, he, for certain reasons, was unwilling to commit to types, as he mentions upon the seventh and the last pages of the Logarithms; until he knew how it was judged of and criticised by those who were versed in this department of letters. But since his death, I have been assured from undoubted authority, that this new invention is much thought of by the most able mathematicians; and that nothing would delight them more than if the construction of his wonderful Canon, or so much at least as might suffice to illustrate it, were published for the benefit of the world.... I doubt, not, however, that this posthumous work would have seen the light in a far more perfect and finished state, if the author himself, who according to the opinion of the best judges, possessed among other illustrious gifts this one in particular, that he could explicate the most difficult matter by some sure and easy method, and in the fewest words――if God had granted a longer use of life. You have the doctrine of the construction of Logarithms――which here, he calls artificial numbers, for he had this treatise composed for several years before he invented the word Logarithms, most copiously unfolded, their nature, accidences, and various adaptations to their natural numbers, perspicuously demonstrated. I have thought good to subjoin to the construction a certain appendix, concerning the method of forming another and more excellent species of Logarithms, to which the inventor himself alludes in his epistle prefixed to the Rabdologia, and in which the Logarithm of unity is 0.... I have also published some lucubrations upon the new species of Logarithms, by that most excellent mathematician, Henry Briggs, public professor in London, who undertook most willingly the very severe labour of calculating this Canon, in consequence of the singular affection that existed between him and my father, the method of construction and explanation of its use being left to the inventor himself.”¹

♦ “Leslie” replaced with “Lesly” for consistency

¹ M. Napier’s Memoirs of John Napier, pages 417‒418, 445, et seq. This book contains a vast amount of information, but its author is rather too laudatory of the inventor of Logarithms.

Henry Briggs was the greatest mathematician of his day in England; he was a man of remarkable powers of mind, and of great industry. He is the author of several valuable treatises on Logarithms, his greatest work appeared in 1624, entitled “Arithmetica Logarithmica.” He died in 1630.

It was observed in the preceding volume, that there was little or no medical science among the Scots at the end of the fifteenth century.¹ According to the statement of the elder Scaliger, who visited Scotland about the middle of the sixteenth century, the kingdom did not contain more than one regular practitioner. It is known, however, that this learned man was rather fastidious in his taste and in his mode of life.² It is possible that he might have exaggerated a little, or that his information may have been incomplete. At least, this science had made some progress in the country before the end of the century; though as yet there was no medical school in the kingdom, as now understood; and Scotsmen intending to follow this profession were trained abroad.

¹ MackMackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume I., pages 414‒415.

² “At ♦Agen the elder Scaliger was now exercising the profession of a physician. That city, when he there fixed his residence, could not furnish him with a single individual capable of supporting literary conversation, and he was therefore led to cultivate an intimacy with some of the more enlightened inhabitants of Bordeaux. Buchanan, Tevius, and other accomplished scholars, who then belonged to the College of Guienne, were accustomed to pay him an annual visit during the vacation. They were hospitably entertained at his house; and he declared that he forgot the torture of his gout whenever he had an opportunity of discussing topics of learning with his guests. For the society of this singular man, who possessed some bad and many good qualities, Buchanan has expressed a natural relish” (in Latin verses).――Dr. Irving’s _Memoirs of Buchanan_, pages 45‒46.

♦ “Ageu” replaced with “Agen”

The people suffered greatly from the frequent recurrence of pestilence; and in 1568 Gilbert Skene, doctor in medicine, published at Edinburgh, “A Brief Description of the Pest,” which was the first medical treatise printed in Scotland. This treatise consists of forty-six small pages, and may be supposed to give the views of the learned of those days touching the pest. He described it as “a feverable infection, most cruel, and in sundry ways striking down many in haste. It proceeded from a corruption of the air, which has strength and wickedness above all natural putrefaction, and springs from the wrath of the just God at the sins of mankind.” He recognised, however, other causes, “as stagnant waters, corrupting animal matters and filth, the eating of unwholesome meat and decaying fruits, and the drinking of corrupt water. Great humidity of the atmosphere, dearth of victual, whereby men are forced to eat bad meat.” He adverts to the suspicious intermeddling of the comets and the shooting stars. He observed that the poor were more subject to this fearful disorder than the rich; indeed, his description of the state of the former was deplorable――“Every one is become so detestable to another, which is to be lamented, and especially the poor in the sight of the rich, as if they were not equal with them touching their creation, but rather without soul or spirit, as beasts degenerated from mankind.” This worthy doctor’s regimen for the pest, regarding both its prevention and its cure, consisted of a vast variety of curious recipes and rules of treatment, written partly in Latin and partly in English.

Dr. Peter Lowe had practised in various parts of the Continent, and returned to his native country toward the end of this century. He published a system of surgery in 1597, giving a popular view of the healing art, along with some description of cases which had occurred in his own practice. The title of Dr. Lowe’s work will give the best idea of its character:――“The Whole Course of Surgery; wherein is briefly set down the Causes, Signs, Prognostications, and Curations of all sorts of Tumours, Wounds, Ulcers, Fractures, Dislocations, and all other Diseases, usually practised by Surgeons, according to the opinion of all our ancient Doctors in Surgery: Compiled by Peter Lowe, Scotsman, Arellian Doctor in the Faculty of Surgery in Paris, and Surgeon Ordinary to the King of France and Navarre. Whereunto is annexed the Book of Presages of Hippocrates, divided into three parts; also the Protestation which Hippocrates caused his Scholars to make. The whole collected and translated. London, 1596.” Reprinted in 1597, 1612, 1634, 1654. It was regarded as a work of merit in its day, and was translated into several languages. Dr. Lowe also wrote a book entitled, “An Easy, Certain, and Perfect Method to Cure and to Prevent the Spanish Sickness. Published at London in 1596.”

About this time he was appointed by the Government to examine the persons that proposed to practise the art of surgery in the West of Scotland. He resided in Glasgow, and was the founder of the faculty of physicians and surgeons of that city.

Dr. Duncan Liddel was born in Aberdeen, 1561, and attained an eminent position as a professor of mathematics and as a physician. In the later part of the sixteenth, and the early part of the seventeenth centuries, he was a professor of mathematics and of medicine in the University of Helmstadt; he also acted as first physician to the court of Brunswick, and had a large practice among the families in the neighbourhood. He was elected to fill several posts of honour in connection with the University of Helmstadt, and achieved much celebrity. About 1608 he returned to Scotland, and directed his attention to the diffusion of science among his countrymen. He died in December, 1613. Dr. Liddel was the author of several works composed in Latin, which were well received on the Continent. His work entitled, “Disputationes Medicinales,” in four volumes, was published in 1605; and it was reprinted as late as 1720; it contained the theses maintained by himself and his pupils at Helmstadt from 1592 to 1605. In 1607 his well known work, “Ars Medica, succincte et perspicue explicata,” was published at Hamburg; a second edition was published at Lyons, 1624, and a third at Hamburg in 1628. This work was pretty highly esteemed during the seventeenth century. Like other works of the period in this department it treated largely on metaphysics as well as on medicine.¹

¹ A sketch of the life of Dr. Duncan Liddel, Aberdeen, 1730. There is also an interesting article relating to Dr. Liddel in the eleventh volume of the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, by the late Mr. A. Gibb, F.S.A., Scotland, pages 450, et seq.

Having concluded the examination of the literature of the nation in the sixteenth century; we may pause a little, and reflect on the characteristics of the works, the opinions, the sentiments, and the feelings, manifested in them. Looking backwards we find that there had been some advance in physical knowledge amongst the Scots during the century, but by no means a marked progress in this department. Although Napier announced an important invention in the department of mathematical science early in the seventeenth century, no one can fail to see that the intellectual and scientific advancement of the Scots was comparatively meagre as contrasted with the radical changes of their religious belief, their sentiments and feelings. The great intellectual revival in Europe, however, was beginning to be felt in the sixteenth century. The Copernican system of the universe was first printed in 1543, but it met with much opposition, even among the learned its acceptance was extremely slow, probably not ten men in Europe had adopted it in the sixteenth century; and there is not the slightest reason to believe that any of the chief Reformers recognised or comprehended it. Even Buchanan, though not ignorant of the Copernican system, yet in his own philosophical poem, “The Sphere,” he rejected it, and followed the Ptolemaic system. Long after their day, the far famed Lord Bacon rejected the Copernican system to the last; he also treated the valuable discoveries of Gilbert about the magnet with the most arrogant contempt. When this great philosopher assumed such an attitude to the greatest conception of his age, we can hardly suppose that the mind of the Scots had as yet been in the least affected by these scientific ideas; though it is possible that some individual Scotsmen toward the end of the century might have been aware of them; but the religious revolution was accomplished before this; and the conclusion pointed to is that the Reformation depended more upon moral causes than intellectual and scientific ones. Throughout the literature of the period it will be found that there is more evidence of change in the feelings and sentiments of the people, than of any display of increasing intellectual power.

The writers in the Scottish dialect of the latter part of the century are inferior to those of the first quarter of the century in point of intellectual power. After the Reformation there is no Scottish poet equal to Dunbar or even to Gavin Douglas, the versifiers of the close of the century stand lower than those of its opening years; the balance in conception, range of imagery, of ideas, and in appropriate construction, is on the side of the earlier poets. If, however, we look to the feelings and the sentiments which were expressed in the compositions of both, the later writers appear in a more favourable light; as the extremely coarse expressions which Dunbar and Sir David Lyndsay frequently used, were gradually cast aside, and a better moral tone observed. The improvement of the moral sentiments and the broadening of the national sympathy were indicated in various directions, as in the emphatic complaints touching the oppression of the poor and the earnest efforts to relieve them.

Thus, the revolutionary waves of the sixteenth century were mainly religious and moral, and considering the state of society, not merely in Scotland, but throughout Europe, it was not surprising that the Reformers were only partly successful. The reactionary spirit of Roman Catholicism was great, and it long presented an undaunted opposition to every form of liberal policy and moral freedom; and Rome still claims a supremacy in all matters of morality and religion. The Pope is the supreme and only visible head of this planet, appointed by God to rule over the human mind, and if necessary, to spurn the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the race. Centuries roll on, revolutions in governments, in knowledge, and in education, may be brought to pass among the nations; but the Pope remains unchanged, the same circumscribed views characterise the Popes of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

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