Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan

Front Cover
Bell and Bradfute, 1807 - Biography - 318 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 257 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks : methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam...
Page xi - Buchanan ; and he, too, seems to have been the first scholar who caught from the ancients the noble flame of republican enthusiasm. This praise is merited by his neglected though incomparable tract, ' De Jure Regni,' in which the principles of popular politics, and the maxims of a free government, are delivered with a precision, and enforced with an energy, which no former age had equalled, and no succeeding has surpassed.
Page 293 - Latin poesy,' says this mild contemporary, 'much honoured in other countries, pleasant in conversation, rehearsing at all occasions moralities short and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing where he wanted. He was also religious, but was easily abused, and so facile, that he was led by every company that he haunted, which made him factious in his old days, for he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him; for he was become careless, following in many things the vulgar opinion;...
Page 235 - ... if there be found in his book one sentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suiting with every low decrepit humor of their own, though it were Knox himself, the reformer of a kingdom...
Page 161 - ANE DETECTIOUN OF THE DUINGES OF MARIE QUENE OF SCOTTES, touchand the murder of hir husband, and hir conspiracie, adulterie, and pretensed mariage with the Erie Bothwell, And ane defence of the trew Lordis, mainteineris of the Kingis graces actioun and authoritie. Translatit out of the Latine quhilke was written by GB With oval portrait of Mary Queen of Scots by G.
Page 170 - ... the cat. His venerable preceptor, who might have pardoned the remark, was perhaps offended with the mode in which it was uttered : he threw aside his book with indignation, and bestowed upon the delinquent that species of scholastic discipline which is deemed most ignominious. The Countess of Mar, being attracted by the wailing which ensued, hastened to the scene of his disgrace ; and, taking the precious deposit in her arms, she demanded of Buchanan, how he presumed to lay his hand on the Lord's...
Page 308 - Turnebus, who was associated with him in the same college, and whose decisions will not be rashly controverted, has characterized him as a man of consummate erudition. Most of the ancient writers had limited their aspiring hopes to one department of literature; and even to excel in one demands the happy perseverance of a cultivated genius.
Page 235 - Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, but that such...
Page 246 - Although the bounty of nature and the instruction of your governors may at present secure you against this error, yet am I compelled to entertain some slight degree of suspicion, lest evil communication — the alluring nurse of the vices — should lend an unhappy impulse to your still tender mind, especially as I am not ignorant with what facility the external
Page 168 - My Lady Mar was wise and sharp, and held the king in great awe, and so did Mr. George Buchanan. Mr. Peter Young was more gentle, and was...

Bibliographic information