be his private sentiments with regard to ecclesiastical polity, he seems to have adhered with sufficient steadiness to the Presbyterian party and his personal influence must at this crisis have rendered him an object of suspicion and displeasure to the pusillanimous monarch. Dr Mackenzie confidently asserts that he had become obnoxious by printing Buchanan's history of Scotland: and other authors have also supposed that he was the identical Alexander Arbuthnot who held the office of king's printer'. It is remarked by Mr Ruddiman that this office was evidently inconsistent with his duty as principal of a college, situated at the distance of eighty miles from the press. Mr Chalmers, by referring to the writ of privy seal which denominates the king's printer a burgess of Edinburgh, professes to have decisively established the fact that he was a different person from the celebrated principal'. This proof is not however so decisive as the writer seems to suppose: for, as Mr Sibbald has pertinently remarked, Gavin Douglas, though the son of a powerful nobleman, and himself a dignified ecclesiastic, was also a burgess of Edinburgh". The ¶ Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers, vol. iii. p. 192. Man's Censure of Ruddiman's Philological Notes on Buchanan, p. 99. Aberdeen, 1753, 12mo. s Ruddiman's Anticrisis, p. 26. Edinb. 1754, 8vo. * Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman, p. 72. u Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, vol. iii. p. 336. situation of a printer was not formerly regarded as incompatible with the dignity of the academic life the celebrated Adrian Turnebus, while he held the office of king's printer, was also Professor of Greek in the University of Paris. Arbuthnot was soon placed beyond the reach of kingly restraint. He died at Aberdeen on the tenth of October, 1583, before he had completed the age of forty-five. On the twentieth of the month his remains were interred in the College Church. His cotemporary James Melvin represents him as" a man of singular gifts of learning, wisdom, godliness, and sweetness of nature :" and his character has thus been delineated by the impartial hand of Spotswood: "He was greatly loved of all men, hated of none, and in such account for his moderation with the chief men of these parts, that without his advice they could almost do nothing which put him in a great fashrie, whereof he did oft complain. Pleasant and jocund in conversation, and in all sciences expert; a good poet, mathematician, philosopher, theologue, lawyer, and in medicine skilful; so as in every subject he could promptly discourse, and to good purpose". ▾ See extracts from Melvin's manuscript account of his own life, inserted in Man's Censure of Ruddiman, p. 99.—Melvin, perhaps with some degree of friendly partiality, has pronounced Arbuthnot one of the most learned men of whom Europe could at that time boast. w Spotswood's Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 335 His death appears to have been regarded as a severe calamity to the national church, and to the national literature. The following elegy was composed by the celebrated Andrew Melvin, Principal of New College, St Andrews: Flere mihi si fas privata incommoda, si fas Flerem ego te, mihi te ereptum, pater Arbuthnete ! Delicia humani generis, dulcissime rerum ; Quem Musæ et Charites blando aluere sinu ; Et Suada et Sophiæ vis bene juncta simul; Et pudor, et probitas, non habuere parem ; Et terram, et pontum, et sidera perdomuit. Folix: hæc tua me commoda flere nefas x. With respect to ecclesiastical polity Arbuthnot and Melvin seem to have entertained very different sentiments: Melvin, it is well known, was a strenuous promoter of the Genevan system of equality; while Arbuthnot is said to have favoured the aristocratical jurisdiction of episcopacy'. THREE poems have lately been published under. the name of Alexander Arbuthnot; and various circumstances have induced me to ascribe them to the excellent man whose life I have now attempted to delineate. That he was a successful cultivator of poetry, is evident from the testimony of Archbishop Spotswood. The poems in question appear to have been written by a clergyman. They were written during the age of Principal Arbuthnot. They breathe the humane and liberal spirit which he is said to have possest. One circumstance however seems to destroy this hypothesis. In the colophon of The Miseries of a Pure Scolar, that poem is said to have been composed in the year 1572: Alexander Arbuthnot was at that time Principal of King's College; and yet the author represents himself as languishing in a state of indigence. This difficulty will be removed if we suppose that some error has been committed in transcription. In Mr Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, this colophon has perhaps been transferred from its proper place, in Spotswood, Refutatio Libelli de Regimine Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, p. 44. Lond. 1620, 8vo. order to be appended to the last of Arbuthnot's pieces that occurs in the series. From the specimens which have been preserved, Arbuthnot may be pronounced an ingenious and pleasing poet. The Pruises of Wemen is a gay production which must have recommended him in a very powerful manner to the favour of the softer sex. Of that sex he appears to have entertained a higher opinion than a late writer" and in blazoning its merits he has displayed no inconsiderable portion of friendly zeal. The following stanzas are produced as a specimen of the composition: The wysest thing of wit That ever Nature wrocht: Bot fickilnes of thocht. Ane marchandyce of gritest pryce That ever ony bocht. The brichtest thing, bot baill, That ever creat bein; The gayest and best gain; Z "A celebrated author who attained the utmost limits of ecclesiastical dignity, affirms, the Scotish women were amorous; and that kisses were less valued in Scotland than touching the hand in Italy. This might be true. Modesty is an acquired idea: and no female bears the burden of chastity, when an opportunity offers to lay it down!" |