That is really Buchanan in a nutshell. He followed the bent of his genius, and did not pick and choose his work, but performed, to the best of his ability, the task placed before him by Destiny. He lived up to his nature and his Fate, did with his might what his hand found to do, then took up the next undertaking that came along, and handled it in the same fashion. He waited upon ‘time and the hour’ rather than sought to force its hand--a very good way, if not indeed the best way, to confront life and its problems, for those who are wise enough and strong enough to do it. He made himself master of the spirit, ideas, and style of the great writers and thinkers of classic antiquity, because it was the work that lay nearest to his hand, and because he liked it--passionately--and could not rest until it was all and easily his own, and not because he thought he could make it pay, whether in money or reputation, or both. Except in the case of the unlucky and unfinished _Sphere_, he did not sit down to compose poetry deliberately and in cold blood, at the rate of so many scores or hundreds of lines before breakfast or dinner, as certain ‘poets’ are said to have done, or do. His best work of this kind was struck out of him like the fire from the flint, by the demand of the occasion, or the suggestion of friends, or an inspiration or impulse that came upon him at the moment. It was the request of James V. (1537) that led to his becoming the most powerful satirist of his time and country, much above Lyndsay, at least on a level with Dunbar, and second only to Burns. His ‘Psalms’ were written (1550-51) to kill time while imprisoned in a Portuguese monastery. His Elegies, Epigrams, Tragedies, Masques, Addresses (1530-66) were thrown off in answer to the call of the moment and the circumstances. The _Detectio Reginæ_ (1569-71) was composed at the desire of the great anti-despotic and reforming party to which he belonged. The ‘Admonition to the Trew Lordis’ and the ‘Chameleon’ were political tracts for the times designed to stimulate the flagging zeal of the friends of freedom. The _De Jure_ (1570-79) was inspired by a present and a foreseen necessity of making Liberty impregnable as against the reactionaries of Absolutism. The _History_ was undertaken and completed (1569-82) less for a scientific than for a patriotic and politico-paideutic purpose, to set his country and its constitution in a true light before the world, and to help in moulding its future king into the constitutional ruler of a free people.