an early predilection for poetry; and he likewise executed a complete Paraphrase of the Psalms. Their respective versions have repeatedly been associated together; but as Le Clerk has very properly sug gested, this was a comparison which Beza ought not so rashly to have hazarded. "B DEATH AND CHARACTER OF BUCHANAN. (From the same.) UCHANAN expired a short while after five o'clock, on the morning of Friday the 28th of September, 1582. He was then in the seventy-seventh year of his age. His remains were interred in the cemetery of the Grey-friars ; and his ungrateful country never afforded his grave the common tribute of a monumental stone. After an interval of some years, his tomb was opened; and his skull, or at least a skull supposed to be his, was, by the intervention of Principal Adamson, deposited in the library of the university of Edinburgh. It is so thin as to be transparent. "The death of this illustrious man was less commemorated by the surviving poets than might reasonably have been expected. Some poetical tributes were however produced on the occasion. Andrew Melvin, who had frequently celebrated him while alive, did not fail to discharge the last debt of lettered friendship. siasm. living than of the dead. An obelisk, boisterous; nor did the exquisite nineteen feet square at the base, cultivation of his mind entirely deand extending to the height of one fend him from the general contabundred and three feet, was lately gion. He was subject to the nice erected to his memory at the village and irritable feelings which freof Killearn. The plan was sug- quently attend exalted genius; engested by the late Robert Dunmore, thusiastic in his attachment, and Esq. to a very numerous company violent in his resentment; equally assembled in the house of a gentle- sincere in his love and in his hatred, man in that vicinity. Professor His friends, among whom he num Richardson, well known as a suc- bered some of the most distinguishcessful cultivator of polite literature, ed characters of that æra, regarded was present on the occasion. A him with a warmth of affection subscription was immediately open- which intellectual eninence cannot ed, and nearly completed by those alone secure. Of an open and classical quests; and one of their generous disposition, he displayed number, the late Mr. Craig, a ne- the enviable qualities which render phew of Thomson, furnished the domestic intercourse profitable and architectural design as his contribu- interesting. The general voice had gion. To this memorial of departed awarded him a pre-eminence in ligenius the intelligent traveller re- terature that seemed to preclude all sorts with veneration and enthu- hopes of rivalship: but his estimate of his own attainments was uniformly consistent with perfect modesty; and no man could evince himself more willing to acknowledge genuine merit in other candidates for fame. This affability, united to the charms of a brilliant conversation, rendered his society highly acceptable to persons of the most opposite denomination. His countenance was stern and austere, but his heart soft and humane. In his writings, he inculcates the principles of pa triotism and benevolence; and in his commerce with the world, he did not depart from his solitary spe culations. His patriotism was of that unadulterated species which flows from general philanthropy: his large soul embraced the common family of mankind, but his affections taught him that his first regards were due to the barren land from which he derived his birth. Notwithstanding his long habituation to an academical life, his manners betrayed none of the peculiarities of a mere pedagogue. During his "Buchanan had experienced many of the vicissitudes of human life, and, in every situation, had adhered to those maxims of conduct which he deemed honourable. His integrity was stern and inflexible: what has been regarded as the least immaculate part of his character, naturally resulted from the prominent qualities of a mind which could not sufficiently accommodate itself to the frailties of mankind. The misdeeds of the ill-fated queen were, in his opinion, such as dissolved every tie by which he might once be bound: her conduct, he supposed, had not only destroyed her hereditary claims of allegiance, but had even reflected disgrace and infamy on human nature. This sentiment, whatever may be the legitimacy of its origin, was certainly entertained by Buchanan; who has accordingly vented his unbounded indignation in terms which cannot otherwise be justified. But the age in which he lived was rude and latter latter years, when his constitution was broken by complicated diseases, and his mind sick of terrestrial objects, he became negligent in his dress, and perhaps somewhat inattentive to the ceremonials of private intercourse; but his general character was that of a man conspicuous for the urbanity of his wit. His conversation was alternately facetious and instructive. George Buchanan's wit is still proverbial among his countrymen; and a motley collection of his supposed repartees and adventures is one of the most common books in the libraries of the Scottish peasantry. His humour was however of a more dignified denomination than it is there represented; nature seemed to have intended him for the ornament and reformation of a court. The native elegance of his mind, and the splendor of his reputation, secured him the utmost respect and deference from such of his countrymen as were not separated from him by the rancour of political zeal and although he even assumed considerable latitude in censuring the errors of exalted station, yet the dignified simplicity of his manners prevented his liberties from exciting resentment. Conscious of personal worth and of intrinsic greatness, he did not fail to assert his own privileges: mere superiority of rank was not capable of alluring him to a servile and degrading attachment; but it was equally incapable of provoking his envy or malice. In the course of his chequered life, he found hinself not unfrequently exposed to the miseries of poverty; but his philosophical mind never learned to stoop to the suggestions of sordid prudence. Although he at length enjoyed one of the great offices of the crown, and possessed other sources of emolument, yet his liberality seems to have increased in proportion to his opulence; he purchased no estates, and had no hoards of. treasure to bequeath. Of his prodigality or ostentation no evidence occurs: it is not therefore unreasonable to conclude, that the principal charms of his wealth ́ arose from its application to benevolent purposes. Of the truth of the Christian religion, and consequently of its eternal moment, his conviction seems to have been complete and uniform. Sir James Melvil, although his political enemy, has candidly represented him as a man of piety. The nature of his attachment to the Reformation was consistent with his usual wisdom: he eagerly hailed the dawn of an æra which promised to relieve the world of enormous delusion, and of enormous profligacy; but he certainly could not approve the excesses of a party which evinced sufficient inclination, as soon as it possessed sufficient power, to tyrannize over the consciences of mankind. The extravagances of John Knox, with whom he appears to have been personally acquainted, and who was undoubtedly a most powerful cham pion in a cause of which they entertained the same general sentiments, have received no splendid encomiums from the historical pen of Buchanan. He was too delicate to devour popular creeds, and too enlightened to applaud the fierce spirit of intoleration in men who had themselves been roused to strenu ous action by the bitterness of persecution. "Nor was the genius of Buchanan less variegated than his life. In his numerous writings, he discovers a vigorous and mature combi nation of talents which have seldom been found united in equal perfection. According to the common opinion opinion, intellectual superiority is almost invariably circumscribed by one of the two grand partitions which philosophers have delineated; it is either founded on the predominancy of those capabilities which constitute what is termed the imagination, or of those which in contradistinction are denominated the understanding. These different powers of exertion, though certainly not incompatible with each other, are but rarely found to coalesce in equal maturity. Buchanan has however displayed them in the same hig degree of perfection. To an imagination excursive and brilliant, he unites an undeviating rectitude of judgment. His learning was at once elegant, various, and profound: Turnebus, who was associated with him in the same college, and whose decisions will not be rashly controverted, has characterized him as a man of consummate erudition. Most of the ancient writers had limited their aspiring hopes to one department of literature; and even to excel in one, demands the happy perseverance of a cultivated genius. Plato despaired of gaining a reputation by his poetry; the poetical attempts of Cicero, though less contemptible perhaps than they are commonly represented, would not have been sufficient to transmit an illustrious name to future ages. Buchanan has not only attained to excellence in each species of composition, but in each species has displayed a variety of excellence in philosophical dialogue and historical narrative, in lyric and didactic poetry, in elegy, epigram, and satire, he has never been equalled in modern, and hardly surpassed in ancient times. A few Roman poets of the purest age have excelled him in their several provinces; but none of them has evinced the same capability of uni versal attainment. Horace and Livy wrote in the language which they had learned from their mothers; but its very acquisition was to Bu chanan the result of much youthful labour, Yet he writes with the purity, the elegance, and freedom of an ancient Roman. Unfettered by the classical restraints which shrivel the powers of an ordinary mind, he expatiates with all the characteristic energy of strong and original sentiment; he produces new combinations of fancy, and invests them with language equally polished and appropriate. His diction uniformly displays a bappy vein of elegant and masculine simplicity; and is distinguished by that propriety and perspicuity, which can only be attained by a man perfectly master of his own ideas, and of the language in which he writes. The His ariety of his poetical measures is immense, and to each species he imparts its peculiar grace and harmony. The style of his prose exhibits correspondent beauties; nor is it chequered by phraseologies unsuitable in that mode of composition. diction, whether in prose or verse, is not a tissue of centos; he imitates the ancients as the ancients imitated each other. No Latin poet of modern times has united the same ori ginality and elegance; no bistorian has so completely imbibed the genius of antiquity without being be trayed into servile and pedantic imi tation. But his works may legiti mately claim a higher order of merit; they have added no inconsiderable influx to the general stream of human knowledge. The wit, the pungency. the vehemence, of his ecclesiastical satires, must have tended to foment the genial flame of reformation; and his political speculations are evidently those of a man who had nobly scared beyond the narrow limits of his age. DIGNITIES [03] DIGNITIES, DISATSERS, AND PURSUITS OF JAMES BRUCE, Esa. [FROM MR. MURRAY'S ACCOUNT WO different objects occupied of His Life and WRITINGS.] into Abyssinia, in which most of the "TWO learned had placed the sources of the at tion. One of them was the transit of Venus over the sun, which was to happen in June 1769. He wished to observe that phenomenon, which was visible only in the northern part of the globe; but this could not be done without undertaking a long and dangerous journey through Armenia, and the regions to the north of it, inhabited by the wandering Tartars. The vast distance between Asia Minor and a place suitable for observing the transit, seems to have made less impression on his mind than it reasonably ought to have done. He had procured routes of the way to the shores of the Caspian, and probably would have attempted to reach them, if other difficulties had not prevented him. But he had lost all his astronomical instruments at Bengazi, and observations of such importance required the most improved which had yet been constructed. He had written to his friends in France and England, requesting them to purchase for him such instruments as he described. Their answers discouraged him greatly. They informed him, that no instrument fit for his purpose could be procured in time, as all the best artists were already engaged by the different astronomers who intended to observe the transit. This disappointment was aggravated by accounts, which he received from England, of absurd and disrespectfhi stories relating to himself and travels, which had been circuJated there by some persons envious of his reputation. "The other project was a journey Nile. The discovery of these had been long held out as an achievement worthy of the ambition of kings, and had taken deeper possession of Mr. Bruce's mind than any other project. But as this could not be accomplished in a scientific manner, without the aid of astronomical instruments, he was obliged to await the issue of the application that he made to his friends, and which he had too much reason to apprehend would be unfavourable. "In the beginning of March, 1768, he left Aleppo. In his way to Tripoly, he came to the Asi, or Orontes, the ford of which could not be distinguished, as the river was swollen with the rains from the mountains. The natives treacherously pointed out a place where there had formerly been a bridge, at which, having attempted to pass, he and his horse fell suddenly into a deep and rapid current, out of which he escaped with the greatest difficulty. "He thence travelled slowly along the Phoenician shore, and halted se veral days at Tripoly, Beirout, Tortosa, and other places on the way, where he had friends, or wished to gratify curiosity. "Soon after arriving at the hospi table mansion of M. Clerembaut, he received letters from his friends in Europe, informing him, that they had procured, and would ship for Alexandria, a quantity of astronomical instruments. As these were to be dispatched for Egypt, and well-founded reasons inclined him to doubt of the success of a journey into the north of Asia, he resolved |