ast he contrived to escape in a ship bound for England, which,
however, he found as little congenial as Portugal, and with as short a
delay as possible he returned to that Lutetia which he loved. Arrived
there, he would seem to have resumed his old work as schoolmaster in one
of the colleges, no way advanced, despite his fame and adventures, from
the first post he had held when little more than a boy, though he was
now between forty and fifty, and one of the best-known scholars of his
time. A few years later he became a member of the household of the
Marechal de Brissac as tutor to his son, and with him spent five years,
partly in Italy in the province of Liguria where the Marechal was
governor. For the first time he would seem to have been treated with
honour, and his advice taken in affairs of state and public business
generally, and here he tells us he devoted much of his time to the study
of sacred literature, so that he might be able to form a matured
judgment as to the controversies which were tearing the world asunder.
In the year 1560, his services being no longer required by his pupil,
Buchanan at last decided upon returning to his native country. "The
despotism of the Guises," he says, "was over, and the religious
excitement had begun to calm down." It would appear that though his
convictions had so long been on the side of the Reform, he had not yet
publicly made himself known as a member of that party. And his return to
Scotland was made with the full intention so to do.

Such was the wandering and uncertain career of the scholar and man of
letters of the sixteenth century. Perhaps Buchanan's temper was less
compliant, his character less easily adaptable to the society in which
he found himself, than most; but it may be doubted whether this was the
cause of the very small advancement in life to which he had come, since
he was complaisant enough to indite many fine verses in praise of people
who gave him a banquet or a shelter, and he seems to have gone nowhere
without making friends. He had got abundant reputation, however, if not
much else, and was known wherever he went as the celebrated poet, which
doubtless was agreeable to him if not very profitable. But it gives us a
certain insight into the life of the literary class in his time to see
so notable a man wandering from one place to another, professor or
regent or private tutor as it happened, never well off, never secure,
often in the position of a depen