of England, when he was only Princefs of Orange, and faying, that a certain Roman-catholic hif torian had fpoken to her difadvantage, the replied, that if princes would not be blamed, they ought not to commit actions that were ⚫ blameable.'

Nothing can exceed what Buchanan wrote to his friend Vinet, regent of the college at Bourdeaux, a little before his death, and which Thuanus has preferved in the fecond book of his life: This only I defire, to quit with as little noife as poffible, that company which I am fo unfit to keep, they being living, and I 'dead.'

Having before mentioned his poems, fomething must now be added of his profe writings. They confit of a tranflation of Linacer's grammar from English into Latin; his dialogue on the royal right in Scotland, and his hiftory of that country,

The dialogue is written on the model of thofe of Cicero, whofe ftyle he exactly imitates without pilfering, or fervilely copying him, as the Ciceronians did in the time of Erafmus. He alfo expreffes his thoughts ima ftyle no lefs fimple and natural than elegant.

He wrote it during the greatest troubles in Scotland, and dedicated it in 1579 to King James his pupil, who did not in the least profit by it.

He introduces this prince himfelf converfing with Thomas Maitland, whom he reprefents as returning from abroad into Scotland, and being furprised at the manner in which their kings are treated; for the Scotch at that time were utter enemies to arbitrary power,

and thought they had a right to oblige their princes to obferve their laws; inftead of which, the French and other nations, the Low Countries only excepted, had fubmitted to the yoke.

As to his hiftory of Scotland, he could not have comprifed in a fhorter compafs all the tranfactions of the kingdom, from the time of Alexander the Great, when the Scots pretend that they began to have kings, to the year 1571, with which the hiftory ends. Buchanan has alfo joined to the brevity of Salluft, the elegance and precision of Livy; for thefe are the two authors whom he principally defigns to imitate. I do not think that there is any modern hiftorian who has fucceeded better in imitating the hiftorians of antiquity, nor any poet of these latter times, who approaches more nearly to the ancient poets.

The twelve laft years of Buchanan's life were employed on his hiftory. He died at Edinburgh, February 28, 1582, aged 76.

their tranfparent faces." The judicious Mr. de Wicquefort obferves, that Mr. Walfingham, who was employed in this negociation, was one of the ableft men that England ever produced; that the intereft of the reformed, wherewith he was charged, was a very nice affair; and that he had to deal with Charles IX. and his mother, the most fufpicious andreacherous of princes; notwithstanding which he acquitted himself with great honour. To which it can be no exception, that he did not fufpect the court of France's perfidioufnefs; being himself an honeft man, he could never imagine that fo black a villainy could enter into man's heart, as the maffacre of Paris, executed by order of the defpicable Charles IX-From our ambaffador's letters it appeared that his expences were fo great, very probably in gaining intelligence, that, to ufe his own words, fometimes he had neither furniture, money, nor credit,

In order to keep the queen his mittress's powerful, treacherous, and ambitious neighbours fo well employed at home, that they might not be able to give England any difturbance, he laid the foundation of the civil wars in France; and alfo of thofe in the Low Countries; which put a final ftop to the vaft defigns of the house of Auftria, Upon which occafion he told the queen, at his return from his embaffy to France, That fhe had no reason to fear the Spaniard; for, though he had a strong appetite, and a good digestion, yet he had given him fuch a bone to pick, as would take him up twenty years at leaft, and break his teeth at laft; fo her majefty had no

more to do, but to throw into the fire he had kindled, fome English fuel from time to time, to keep it burning.'

In the beginning of the year 1573, he was appointed one of the principal fecretaries of state, fworn a privy counfellor, and knighted fome time after. Being put into that place of great truft, he exerted himself in a very uncommon manner; for he had devoted abfolutely himfelf, his life, time, and ettate, in the fervice of his queen and country; and, to compafs his ends, he guided himfelf by fuch maxims as thefe, recorded by Lloyd in his State-worthies: He faid that an habit of fecrecy is policy and virtue. To him men's faces fpoke as much as their tongues, and their countenance's were indexes of their hearts. He would fo befet men with questions, and draw them on, and pick it out of them by piece-meals, that they difcovered themselves whether they answered or were filent.

He ferved himself of the factions at court, as the queen his mistress did, neither advancing the one, nor depreffing the other: familiar with Cecil, allied to Leicester, and an oracle to Suffex. He could overthrow any matter by undertaking it, and move it fo as it must fall. He never broke any bufinefs, yet carried many he could difcourfe any matter with them that most oppofed; fo that they, in oppofing it, promoted it. His fetches and compass to his defigned fpeech were things of great patience and ufe. So patient was this wife man, that his native place never faw him angry, the univerfity never paffionate, and the court never difcompofed. Reli£4

E

gion

gion was, in his judgment, the intereft of his country, and it was the delight of his foul; therefore he maintained it as fincerely as he profeffed it: it had his head, his heart, and his purfe. He laid the great foundation of the Proteftant conftitution, as to its policy, and the main plot against the Popish, as to its ruin.'

Thus it was that he was one of the great engines of ftate, and of the times, high in the queen's favour, and a watchful fervant over the fafety of his miftrefs. As long as he lived, her crown and life were preferved from daily attempts and confpiracies, chiefly by his vigilance and addrefs. His conftant method, for that purpose, was the utmoft fecrecy, patience, and the beft intelligence poffible; he maintaining, as we are affured, no lefs than fifty-three agents in foreign courts, and eighteen fpies. By thefe means he undermined all the plots of the Papifts, Jefuits, and other private as well as public enemies of this nation. He out did the Jefuits,' fays Lloyd, in their own bow, and over-reached them in their own equivocations and mental refervations; never fettling a lie, but warily draw ing out and difcovering truth. So good was his intelligence, that he was confeffor to most of the Papifts before their death, as they had been to their brethren before their treafons. For two piftoles an order, he had all the private pa rers of Europe. Bellarmine read his lectures at Rome one month, and Reynolds had them to confute the next. Few letters efcaped his hands, whofe contents he could read, and not touch the feals.

The queen of Scots letters were

all carried to him by her own fer. vant, whom she trufted, and decyphered to him by one Philips, as they were fealed again by one Gregory; fo that neither that queen, or her correfpondents, ever perceived either the feal defaced, or the letters delayed, to her dyingday. He had the wonderful art of weaving plots, in which be fy people were fo entangled that they could never escape, but were fometimes fpared upon fubmiffion, at other hanged for example.He would cherish a plot fome years together, admitting the con+ fpirators to his own and the queen's prefence familiarly, but dogging them out watchfully: his fpies: waited on fome men every hour for three years; and, let they could not keep counfel; he difpatched them to foreign parts, taking in new fervants." But as Sir Robert Naunton obferves, it is inconceivable why he íuffered Dr. Parry to play fo long on the hook, before he hoifed him up. That Parry, intending to kill the queen, made the way of his access by betraying of others, and im peaching of the priests of his own correfpondency, and thereby had accefs and conference with the queen, and alfo oftentimes familiar and private conference with Walfingham, will not be the quere of the mystery; for the fecretary might have had his end of dif covery on a future maturity of the treafon. But that, after the queen knew Parry's intent, why the fhould then admit him to private difcourfe, and Walfingham to fuffer it, confidering the condition of all affailings, and permit him to go where and whither he lifted, and only on the fecurity of a dark

сед