etiamnū _recitant Laudoniensis omnes nobiles, juxta et ignobiles_.” Ut supra, p. 253, b. We are not left to impute these slanders to personal malice, or to the miserable shifts of an unprincipled individual, who, having rashly committed himself by advancing a falsehood, attempts to maintain his credit by bold assertions and fresh calumnies. For, in the very same year in which Hamilton’s last work appeared, we find another popish author writing in the following terms: “Johne Kmnox your first apostel, quha caused ane young woman in my lord Ochiltreis place fal almaist dead, because sche saw his maister Satthan in ane black mannis likenese with him, throuche ane bore of the dure: quha was also ane manifest adulterare bringand furth of Ingland baith the mother and the dochter whom he persuadit {325} that it was lesum to leve her housband, and adhere unto him, making ane fleshe of himself, the mother, and the dochter, as if he wald conjoyne in ane religione, the auld synagogue of the Jeuis with the new fundat kirk of the Gentiles.” In another place he introduces the account of his second marriage with these words: “That renegat and perjurit priest schir Johane Kmnox, quha efter the death of his first harlot, quhilk he mareit incurring eternal damnation be breking his vou and promise of chastitie, quhen his age requyrit rather that with tearis and lamentations he sould have chastised his flesh and bewailit the breaking of his vou, as also the horribil incest with his gudmother in ane killogie of Haddingtoun.” Burne’s Disputation concerning the Controversit Headdis of Religion, p. 102, 143. Parise, 1581. But Burne, and even Hamilton, were outstripped in calumny by that most impudent of all liars, James Laing, who published in Latin an account of the lives and manners of the heretics of his time. There are few pages of his book in which he does not abuse our Reformer; but in (what he calls) his Life, he has exceeded any thing which was ever dictated either by personal malice, or by religious rancour. “Statim,” says he, “ab initio suæ pueritiæ omni genere turpissimi facinoris infectus fuit. Vix excesserat jam ex ephebis, cum patris sui uxorem violarat, suam novercam vitiarat, et cum ea, cui reverentia potissimum adhibenda fuerat, nefarium stuprum fecerat.” His bishop having, forsooth, called him to account for these crimes, he straightway became inflamed with the utmost hatred to the catholic religion. “Deinde non modo cum profanis, sed etiam cum quibuscunque sceleratissimis, perditissimis, et potissimum omnium hæreticis est versatus, et quo quisque erat immanior, sceleratior, crudelior, eo ei carior et gratior fuit.――Ne unum quidem diem sceleratissimus hæreticus sine una et item altera meretrice traducere potuit.――Continuo cum tribus meretricibus, quæ videbantur posse sufficere uni sacerdoti, in Scotia convolat.――Ceterum hic lascivus caper, quem assidue sequebatur lasciva capella, partim perpetuis