IT is not unworthy of remark, that the votaries of polite learning have often evinced a warm and efficacious attachment to the cause of religious liberty. The Reformation will be found to have been promoted in every country of Europe by men distinguished for their love of elegant letters. Luther himself, if not eminent as a poet, was at least a passionate admirer of good poetry. Calvin's institution of the Christian religion has been extolled, even by Joseph Scaliger, as exhibiting an exquisite specimen of literary composition. Melanchthon was a rhetorician of considerable reputation and in his introduction to the art 2, 2 Melanchthonis Elementorum Rhetorices libri duo. Paris. 1532, 8vo. It is not however certain that this is the first edition. I have a he has undoubtedly displayed a more polished taste than many of the early labourers in the same field. Beza, by the publication of his Latin poems, acquired no mean celebrity among the scholars of the age. In the catalogue of the Scotish Reformers we discover the names of Buchanan and Lindsay the former has earned a reputation which can only decay with the love of every thing that is elegant in literature; and the latter, though of far inferior fame, is confessedly entitled to a respectable place in the early annals of Scotish poetry. Sir David Lindsay, the descendant of an ancient family, was born during the reign of James the Fourth, probably at his paternal seat the Mount near Cupar in Fife. He received, says Dr Mackenzie, his academical education in the University of St Andrews, and afterwards travelled through England, France, Italy, and Germany. With the mode in which this biographer discovered the place of his education, I am totally unacquainted: and if Lindsay has, as he alleges, presented us with such intelligence respecting his youthful travels, I am unable to discover the passage in which it is contained. He informs copy of a curious edition of Melanchthon's rhetoric, accompanied with the explications of Martinus Crusius, Professor of Greek in the University of Tubingen. It was printed at Bâle in octavo, probably in the year 1564; but the time of its impression is not specified. Melanchthon also published Erotemata Rhetorices. b Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers, vol. iii. p. 35. us in general terms, that he had travelled through diverse countries; and, in particular, he mentions the appearance of the ladies in Italy: but that he visited any of those countries during his youth, can only be known by conjecture. In the year 1513 we find him a special servant to James the Fourth; whom he attended at Linlithgow when a spectre forewarned the devoted monarch of his imminent danger. Of this singular occurrence, the following simple narrative will probably amuse the reader. "The king," says Lindsay of Pitscottie, came to Linlithgow, where he happened to be for the time at the council, very sad and dolorous, mak-. ing his devotion to God to send him good chance © Alexander Barclay, an ancient Scotish poet, has characterized this chivalrous monarch in the following terms. (Ship of Fooles. Lond. 1509, fol.) And, ye If Christen princes, whosoever ye be, ye be destitute of a noble captayne, Take James of Scotland for his audacitie And proved manhode, if ye will laude attayne: Let him have the forewarde: have ye no disdayne, Nor indignation; for never king was borne For if that he take once his speare in hande, and fortune in his voyage. In this mean time, there came a man clad in a blue gown in at the kirk door, and belted about him with a roll of linnen cloth; a pair of brotikins on his feet, to the great of his legs, with all other hose and clothes conform thereto; but he had nothing on his head, but syde red yellow hair behind and on his haffits, which wan down to his shoulders; but his forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to be a man of two and fifty years, with a great pyke-staff in his hand; and came first forward among the lords, crying and speiring for the king, saying, 'He desired to speak with him;' while, at the last, he came where the king was sitting in the desk at his prayers: but when he saw the king, he made him little reverence or salutation, but leaned down groflings on the desk before him and said to him on this manner as after follows: king! my mother hath sent me to you, desiring you not to pass, at this time, where thou art purposed; for, if thou does, thou wilt not fare well in thy journey, nor none that passeth with thee. Further, she bade thee mell with no woman, nor use their counsel, nor let them touch thy body, nor thou their's; for, if thou do it, thou wilt be confounded and brought to shame.' 66 Sir By this man had spoken thir words unto the King's Grace, the evening song was near done; and the king paused on thir words, studying to give him an answer: but in the mean time, be |