In the explication of the fifth article of the Creed, is a particular account of the four places in hell; _infernus damnatorum_, _puerorum_, _purgandorum_, et _patrum_. The following proof is given of our Saviour’s descent into hell, to deliver the saints who had been confined in the last mentioned place until the time of his death. “Also ye same deliuerāce was prophesit be the prophet Osee: Ero mors tua, o mors, ero morsus tuus o inferne. _O dede_ (says our saluiour) {424} _I sal be thi dede――O hel I sal byte the_. The man yat bytes ony thing, he takis part to him, and lattis part remaine behind. Sa our saluiour passand doune to hell, he fulfyllit this prophesie, takand part of saulis out fra hell with him, and leiffand part behind him. Quhom tuk he with him? bot thame that was haly and gud, quhilk was haldin thair as presonaris,” Fol. cviii. Upon the whole, this catechism has been written with great care, and the style is by no means bad. It is singular that it should have been so little noticed by the writers of that age, and that it does not appear who was its compiler. The provincial council describe it merely as “a certain book written in the vulgar and Scottish dialect,――librum quendam vulgari et Scotico idiomate conscriptum;” and having examined and approved of it, they commit to the archbishop, as primate, the care of seeing it printed. As it was printed at his expense, and as his name appears on the title‑page and colophon, it has been usually called Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism. But there is not the least reason for thinking that the primate would have taken the trouble to compose a book consisting of 411 pages quarto, even although he had been in other respects qualified for the task. Bale, in his account of Scottish writers, mentions “Joannes Wouram, vel Wyrem,” whom he calls “a canon regular in St Andrews;” and he ascribes to him “a catechism in his vernacular language, scripsit in vulgari sermone catechismum fidei.” Scriptores M. Brytanniæ Post. Pars, p. 224. I have little doubt that John Winram, sub‑prior of the abbey of St Andrew, and afterwards superintendent of Fife, is the person to whom Bale refers. Could he be the author of the catechism under consideration? Though early regarded as favourable to the reformed opinions, Winram did not leave the popish church until a very late period; and his conduct, during the intermediate struggle, was extremely ambiguous, and often contradictory. The clergy frequently availed themselves of his talents, and of his reputation with the people, to diminish the odium of their obnoxious measures, or to recommend their partial and inefficient plans of reform. He was employed to preach at the trial of Wishart, and was present at the trials of Wallace and Mill. Fox, 1155, 1158, 1161, edit. 1596. He was a member of the provincial council which met in 1549, {425} and is styled, in the register, “ecclesiæ metrop. primitialis, S. Andreæ _canonicus regularis_, supprior, theologiæ