239 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.