But that Buchanan, from the alleged ‘hackney’ period, and from ‘hackney’ causes, ‘spak evil’ of Morton ‘in all places and at all occasions,’ is not only incredible when we remember the high character and intellectual tastes of the man, but inconsistent with the facts of the situation. If Buchanan had desired to abuse Morton in a vindictive spirit, he had the amplest opportunity in his _History_. But what are the facts? There is not a word of depreciation, but many of praise, more or less direct. He does full justice to Morton’s great powers and wise foresight, and in accordance with a rule which he held ought to be applied to public men, screens his defects. He describes him exactly as he was, a fearless and skilful military leader, and a sagacious, firm, and patriotic statesman. He even goes out of his way a little to state facts in Morton’s favour, recording the energy and self-sacrifice which he once and again displayed in rising from a sick-bed of very serious prostration and redeeming a dangerous crisis to which he knew no one else was equal, and in relating the last negotiations which Morton conducted with Elizabeth and her council pays a due compliment to his diplomatic dexterity and merit. Detractors have said that he stopped in his _History_ when on the threshold of Morton’s Regency, because he did not wish to advertise an adversary. But it was really death, not animosity, that stayed the narrator’s hand. By a weird prescience, Buchanan forecast the hour of his exit from time to a nicety, if such a term may be employed in such a connection. He worked up to within a month of his death; and then, when asked whether he meant to go on with his work, he said he had now another work to do; and when further asked what that was, he said it was the work of ‘dying,’ to which he addressed himself in the fashion we have already seen--a fashion not unworthy of a ‘Stoik philosopher.’ _Not so Facile_