r.

[Sidenote: His miraculous Escape.]

This highly distinguished but long forgotten _alumnus_ of St Andrews
University was born in Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500, of honest
parents, and received the first rudiments of his education in his
native city. It was probably while he was still there that he had
vouchsafed on his behalf those wonderful interpositions of Providence,
which remained through life engraven on his heart, and which he thus
relates in his preface to his Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul
to Timothy, published at Leipzig in 1551. "Certe ab infantia [Diabolus]
me saepe incautum opprimere voluit, et perdere non tam insidiis et
crudelitate hostium, quam praecipitio in ignem et aquam. Verum ille, qui
servavit me inter omnia pericula et infantem de gradibus patris mei
cadentem in acervum lapidum advectorum ad extruendum supremum tabulatum
in aedibus, et reptantem manibus in cacumine altissimi montis, ex cujus
declivi vel praerupto, divinitus in alterum latus in quo facilis erat
descensus, subito perveni."[283] With even more than his usual licence,
Dr D'Aubigne thus recounts this adventure: He "was fond of going with
other boys of his own age to the heights which environ Edinburgh. The
great rock on the summit of which the castle stands, the beautiful
Calton Hill, and the picturesque hill called Arthur's Seat, in turn
attracted them. One day, it was in 1512, Alexander and his friends,
having betaken themselves to the last-named hill, amused themselves by
rolling over and over down a slope which terminated in a precipice.
Suddenly the lad found himself on the brink; terror deprived him of his
senses; some hand grasped him and placed him in safety, but he never
knew by whom or by what means he had been rescued. The priests gave the
credit of this escape to the paper with which they had provided him, but
Alexander himself attributed it to God and his father's prayers."[284]

[Sidenote: Discussions with Patrick Hamilton.]

Alesius, or Alane as he was still called, being of good abilities, was
early sent to the university, and seems to have been one of the first
set of students who entered St Leonard's College (the college founded by
Prior John Hepburn, with the consent of Archbishop Alexander Stuart)
after its opening in 1512. His studies appear to have been prosecuted
there in the usual way, and in 1515 he became a determinant, or took the
degree of B.A.;[285] and, probably after acting for a few