It is of course a pity that we do not possess an account and criticism of Morton’s singularly able and interesting rule in Scotland by so original a contemporary observer as Buchanan. That it would, in all respects, have been favourable, is not likely, for the reasons already noticed. That it would have been consciously unjust is incredible in the light of such treatment of Morton by Buchanan as we have, much of which must have been written after Morton’s violent and unjust execution. Indeed, one could almost wish to be sure that the ‘hackney’ story was true, as it would show how superior the ‘Stoik philosopher’ can rise to petty and personal considerations when he has to discharge the high function of narrator and judge of public events. That his delineation of men and events would have been conspicuously able is as certain as any such matter can be, notwithstanding good Sir James’s remark that ‘in his auld dayes he was become sleperie and cairless, and followed in many things the vulgair oppinion, for he was naturally populaire,’ etc. There is no sign of this alleged falling off into sleepiness and carelessness in Buchanan’s _History_. The last chapter is as well thought out and written as the first. You may think him wrong, but you can have no doubt about the distinctness of his explanation of the sequence of events and the motives and aims of historic characters, while the style in no respect falls below the unsurpassed standard of prose Latinity maintained throughout the entire work. One grows a little suspicious of Sir James’s judgment when his reasons for it are considered. Buchanan had come, he says, to ‘follow in many things the vulgair oppinion, _for_ he was naturally populaire’; that is to say, he was democratic in spirit. Of course he was. He felt it to be his mission in life to oppose Regal Absolutism in behalf of public liberty, and never let slip an opportunity of maintaining that all sovereignty originated from the people, and was justifiable only as it subserved their advantage. The courtly Sir James did not like this. He was a good deal of what Thackeray has immortalised as a ‘Snob.’ He might very well be called Sir ‘Jeames,’ and when he says Buchanan had been ‘maid factious,’ we must not forget that the ‘faction’ Sir J. had in his eye was the ‘faction’ of Liberty against Tyranny, and how far that can be justly called a faction will be settled by different critics according to their different tastes.