unvarnished truth, though perhaps not the whole of it, can be better inferred from Buchanan than from Skelton. [8] Sir David Brewster, when Principal of the United College of St. Leonard and St. Salvador, had a residence close to St. Leonard’s roofless church. In 1853, Sir David told to a breakfast-party of students, which included Dr. Wallace and the writer, that his house embraced all that existed of Buchanan’s old dwelling-house, and pointed out one particular part of the ancient outer wall thick enough to resist the artillery of Buchanan’s day. Dr. Johnson’s general contempt for Scotland, which did not keep silence in St. Andrews, could not resist the inspiration of the _genius loci_ of St. Leonard’s so far as to prevent his generously recognising Buchanan’s claim to immortality as being as fair as modern Latinity can give, and ‘perhaps fairer than the instability of vernacular languages admit.’ [9] Carlyle’s estimate of Knox I accept and credit as the estimate of as penetrating an insight and as true a conscience as ever uttered the verdicts of history; but it is the estimate of a mind that could discover more to approve in the storm than in the sunshine, and who too readily infers noble motives from splendid results. I believe all the good he imputes to Knox and his life-battle for truth, and I don’t believe sufficiently in the vileness of human nature to believe in any of the charges of immorality which rival ecclesiastics have persisted in relating against him. But for all that, I am not blind to his human imperfections. I am far from thinking him to be a perfect man, much less a perfect Christian. His wild joy and unbridled merriment over the dying miseries of Cardinal Beaton and of Mary of Guise would be scarcely in harmony with the budding benevolence of a half-reformed cannibal. His virtues were genuine, and not hypocritical, but they were essentially Pagan virtues--gifts of nature, tested and strengthened, but not acquired, through his experiences as a notary and an ecclesiastic. INDEX _Admonition to Trew Lords_, the, 130. Æschylus, 15. _Agamemnon_, 15. Arius, 91. Ascham, Roger, 81. Atonement, the, 90. Augustine, 99. Aurelius, Marcus, 100.