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condition, I composed a dialogue on the prerogatives
of the Scottish crown, in which I endeavoured to
explain, from their very cradle, if I may adopt that
expression, the reciprocal rights and privileges of
kings and their subjects. Although the work seemed
to be of some immediate utility by silencing certain
individuals, who, with importunate clamours, rather
inveighed against the existing state of things than
examined what was conformable to the standard of
reason, yet in consequence of returning tranquillity,
I willingly consecrated my arms to public concord.
But having lately met with this disputation among
my papers, and supposed it to contain many precepts
necessary for your tender age (especially as it is so
conspicuously elevated in the scale of human affairs),
I have deemed its publication expedient, that it may
at once testify my zeal for your service, and admonish
you of your duty to the community. Many circum-
stances tend to convince me that my present exer-
tions will not prove fruitless, especially your age yet
uncorrupted by perverse opinions, a disposition above
your years spontaneously urging you to every noble
pursuit; a facility in obeying not only your precep-
tors, but all prudent monitors�a judgment and dex-
terity in disquisition which prevents you from paying
much regard to authority, unless it be confirmed by
solid argument. I likewise perceive that by a kind
of natural instinct you so abhor flattery�the nurse of
tyranny, and the most grievous pest of a legitimate
monarchy�that you as heartily hate the courtly sole-
cisms and barbarisms as they are relished and affected
by those who consider themselves as the arbiters of
every elegance, and who, by way of seasoning their
conversation, are perpetually sprinkling it with
majesties, lordships, excellencies, and, if possible,
with expressions still more putid. 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 suspi-
cion, 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 senses yield to seduc-
tion. I have therefore sent you this treatise, not
only as a monitor, but even as an importunate and
sometimes impudent dun, who in this turn of life
may convey you beyond the rocks of adulation, and
may not merely offer you advice, but confine you to
the path which you have entered; and if you should
chance to deviate, may reprehend you, and recall
your steps. If you obey this monitor, you will insure
tranquillity to yourself and to your subjects, and will
transmit a brilliant reputation to the most remote
posterity." The eagerness with which this work was
sought after by those of Buchanan's own principles
on the Continent is manifested by a letter from one
of his correspondents. "Your dialogue De Jure
Regni;" says this epistle, "which you transmitted to
meby Zolcher, the letter-carrier of our friend Sturmius,
I have received�a present which would be extremely
agreeable to me if the importunate entreaties of some
persons did not prevent me from enjoying it; for the
moment it was delivered into my hand Dr. Wilson
requested the loan of it; he yielded it to the impor-
tunity of the chancellor, from whom the treasurer
procured a perusal of it, and has not yet returned it;
so that, to this day, it has never been in my custody."
Amidst multiplied labours Buchanan was now
borne down with the load of years, aggravated by
the encroachments of disease. His poetical studies
seem now to have been entirely suspended, but his
history of Scotland was unfinished, and was pro-
bably still receiving short additions or finishing
touches. His life, too, at the request of his friends,
he compiled when he had reached his seventy-fourth
year, and his epistolary correspondence, which was at
one time very extensive, was still continued with some
of the friends of his earlier days. He had been
long in the habit of writing annually, by some of the
Bordeaux merchants, to his old friend and colleague
Vinetus, and one of these letters, written in March,
1581, the year before his death, gives a not unpleas-
ing picture of his state of feeling. "Upon receiving
accounts of you," he says, "by the merchants who
return from your courts, I am filled with delight,
and seem to enjoy a kind of second youth, for I am
there apprised that some remnants of the Portu-
guese peregrinations still exist. As I have now
attained to the seventy-fifth year of my age, I some-
times call to remembrance through what toils and in-
quietudes I have sailed past all those objects which
men commonly regard as pleasing, and have at
length struck upon that rock beyond which, as the
ninetieth psalm very truly avers, nothing remains
but labour and sorrow. The only consolation that
now awaits me, is to pause with delight on the
recollection of my coeval friends, of whom you are
almost the only one who still survives. Although
you are not, as I presume, inferior to me in years,
you are yet capable of benefiting your country by
your exertion and counsel, and even of prolonging,
by your learned compositions, your life to a future
age. But I have long bade adieu to letters. It is
now the only object of my solicitude, that I may
remove with as little noise as possible from the
society of my ill-assorted companions�that I who
am already dead, may relinquish the fellowship of
the living. In the meantime I transmit to you the
youngest of my literary offspring, in order that
when you discover it to be the drivelling child
of age, you may be less anxious about its brothers.
I understand that Henry Wardlaw, a young man
of our nation, and the descendant of a good family,
is prosecuting his studies in your seminary with no
inconsiderable application. Although I am aware
of your habitual politeness, and you are not ignorant
that foreigners are peculiarly entitled to your atten-
tion, yet I am desirous he should find that our
ancient familiarity recommends him to your favour."
Thuanus, who had seen this epistle in the possession
of the venerable old man to whom it was addressed,
says it was written with a tremulous hand, but in a
generous style.
The last of Buchanan's productions was his history
of Scotland, which it is doubtful whether he lived
to see ushered fairly into the world or not. By the
following letter to Mr. Randolph, dated at Stirling
in the month of August, 1577, it would appear that
this work was then in a state of great forwardness:
"Maister, I haif resavit diverse letters from you, and
yit I haif ansourit to naine of thayme, of the quhylke
albiet I haif mony excusis, as age, forgetfulness,
besines, and desease, yit I wyl use nane as now
except my sweirness and your gentilness, and geif
ye thynk nane of theise sufficient, content you with
ane confession of the falt wtout fear of punnition to
follow on my onkindness. As for the present, I am
occupiit in wryting of our historie, being assurit to
content few and to displease mony tharthrow. As
to the end of it, yf ye gett it not or thys winter be
passit, lippen not for it, nor nane other writyngs
from me. The rest of my occupation is wyth the
gout, quhylk haldis me busy bath day and nyt.
And quhair ye say ye haif not lang to lyif, I truist
to God to go before you, albeit I be on fut and ye
ryd the post [Randolph was post-master to the
queen's grace of England] prayin you als not to
dispost my host at Newerk, Jone of Kilsterne.