The ablest literary man in Scotland, contemporary with Mary, was George Buchanan; the Earl of Murray was his patron, and Secretary Cecil his admirer. The first publication regarding the Queen, came from his pen; it was written with consummate ability, but with a dishonest, though not unnatural leaning to the side which was the strongest at the time, and which his own interests and views of personal and family aggrandizement pointed out as the most profitable. The eloquence of his style, and the confidence of his statements, gave a bias to public opinion, which feebler spirits laboured in vain to counteract.--Less powerful as an author, but not less virulent as an enemy, Knox next appeared in the lists, and, unfurling the banner of what was then considered religion, converted every doubt into conviction, by appealing to the bigotry and the superstition of the uninformed multitude. Yet Knox was probably conscientious, if the term can be applied with propriety to one who did not believe that the Church of Rome possessed a single virtuous member.--In opposition to the productions of these authors, is the "Defence of Mary's Honour," by Lesley, Bishop of Ross, an able but somewhat declamatory work, and as liable to suspicion as the others, because written by an avowed partisan and active servant of the Queen. A crowd of inferior compositions followed, useful sometimes for the facts they contain, but all so strongly tinctured with party zeal, that little reliance is to be placed on their accuracy. Among these may be enumerated the works of Blackwood and Caussin, who wrote in French,--of Conæus, Strada, and Turner, (the last under the assumed name of Barnestaple,) who wrote in Latin,--and of Antonio de Herrera, who wrote in Spanish.