_Scottish Martyrs, and Prosecutions for Heresy._――We are indebted to John Fox, the industrious English martyrologist, for a great part of the facts respecting our countrymen who suffered for the reformed doctrine. John Davidson, minister of Prestonpans, composed, in Latin, an account of Scottish martyrs, which, if it had been preserved, would have furnished us with more full information respecting them. Calderwood, however, had the use of it, when he compiled his history. A late author has said, that “most of those martyred seem to have been weak illiterate men; nay, they appear even to have been deficient in intellect.” Cursory Remarks, prefixed to Scottish Poems of 16th century, i. 24. I must take it for granted, that this author had not in his eye Patrick Hamilton, whose vigorous understanding discovered truth in the midst of darkness worse than Cimmerian, who obtained the praises of Luther, Melanchthon, and Lambert of Avignon, and of whom a modern historian has said that he received “the eternal fame of being the proto‑martyr of the freedom of the human mind.” Nor George Wishart, whose learning, fortitude, and mild benevolence, have been celebrated by writers of every description. But even among those who suffered from Hamilton to Wishart, there was scarcely one who was not above the ordinary class, both as to talents and learning. Henry Forrest, who suffered at St Andrews in 1530, for possessing a copy of the New Testament, and affirming that Patrick Hamilton was a true martyr, had been, though a young man, invested with the orders of Bennet and Colet. Fox, 895. Knox, 19. Spotswood, 65. David Straiton was a gentleman, and brother to the laird of Lauriston. He was instructed in the protestant principles by John Erskine of Dun, who had newly arrived from his travels. In 1534, he was committed to the flames at Greenside, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. His fellow‑sufferer, {355} Norman Gourlay, was in secular orders, and “a man of reasonabell eruditioun.” He had been abroad, and had married upon his return, which was the chief offence for which he suffered. “For,” says Pitscottie, “they would thole no priest to marry, but they would punish, and burn him to the dead; but if he had used then ten thousand whores, he had not been burnt.” History, p. 150, 152. Fox, 896. Knox, 21, 22. Spotswood, 66. In 1538, two young men of the most interesting characters suffered, with the greatest heroism, at Glasgow. The one was Jerom Russel, a cordelier friar, “a young man of a meek nature, quick spirit, and of good letteris;” the other was a young gentleman of the name of Kennedy, only eighteen years of age, and “of excellent ingyne for Scottische poetry.” Knox, 22. Spotsw. 67. Keith, 9. During the same year, five persons were burnt on the Castle‑hill of Edinburgh: Robert Forrester was a gentleman; Sir Duncan Simson was a secular priest; Beveridge and Kyllor were friars. The last of these had (according to the custom of the times) composed a