All this time, however, he appears not to have attacked or denied anything in creed or ritual, although there cannot be a doubt that he had his own secret doubts. The relentless persecution of the monkish enemies he had made for himself at last brought him before the Inquisition (1548) at Coimbra, in Portugal, where he was acting as ‘Regent’ in a college recently founded by the King; but although the Inquisitors had him through their hands several times, they discovered nothing against him that could properly be called heretical. He was said to have eaten flesh in Lent, but everybody did it there, when they could get it. He was said to have given it as his opinion that on the Eucharistic controversy Augustine’s opinions were more favourable to the Lutherans than to the Church; but that was merely literary or historical criticism, not heresy. Two young gentlemen testified that Buchanan was not at heart a good Catholic--which was probably true enough, but was not specific. So they shut him up, as already said, in a monastery to be taught by monks, who, though good fellows, did not know anything; and for want of something better to do, Buchanan made his famous Latin paraphrase of the Psalms. What must his Faith have been during those years? Manifestly, like that of Erasmus, less a positive assent than an abstinence from denial. Would he deny Transubstantiation or the Trinity? No, he was not ready to do anything of the kind--anyhow, not yet. It need not be maintained that in all this Buchanan, or Erasmus either, was merely seeking to save his own skin. He may have thought that it was best for the order and edification of society to let things alone. Probably too, by this time, that spirit of Stoicism, which I have shown reason for believing sank deeper into Buchanan’s nature as time went on, was beginning to assert itself. And here, in passing may I say that the common popular image of the Stoic as a gloomy, unbending, sour, cantankerous, repulsive curmudgeon, is a mistake. There is nothing in Stoicism to make him so, and as a matter of fact he was not so. Aurelius was a finished gentleman. Seneca had all the culture of his time, and was the poet of the day. Boëtius was a polished courtier. When Buchanan went over to the Reformers, it was the smartest epigrammatist going who was joining the most advanced party and leaving the ‘stupid’ party behind. To return. It was a well-known rule of the Stoics not to quarrel with the popular beliefs, but, if possible, to utilise them for good, as we see Buchanan does with the Pagan mythology in his Dirge on Calvin’s death. Socrates, their model wise man, teaches conformity to the cult of the city where the sage resides; and everybody will recollect the care with which, as his trial approached, he arranged that Esculapius should have the cock that was due him. Probably Esculapius is still receiving a good deal of that class of poultry. For a long time--indeed until he was fifty-five, the last five