ny innocent lady in
her bower, while the lords of her Council, grim lords whom it is strange
to associate with this pretty pose of royal simplicity, discussed around
her the troublous affairs of the most turbulent kingdom in Christendom:
and after her dinner, in the languor of the afternoon, one wonders if
the lovely lady was diligent over her Livy or rather seduced her
preceptor to talk about Paris, that much-desired Lutetia which he had so
longed for, as no doubt in the bottom of her heart she too was sometimes
doing. The two so unlike each other--the beautiful young princess not
quite twenty, the old scholar and schoolmaster though a poet withal,
drawing near the extreme boundaries of middle age, and worn with much
struggling against the world and poverty--would yet find a subject and
mutual interest far apart from the book, which made endless conversation
possible, and many a pleasant comparison of experiences so different.
Buchanan had dedicated a book to one of those fair and famous Margarets
who adorned Paris at that epoch, and presumably knew her or something of
her state, and could understand her Majesty of Scotland's allusions, and
knew something of the gossip of the Court, or at least could pretend to
do so, as a man who was aware what was expected of a courtier. It is
possible indeed that Mary was truly studious, and liked her Livy as her
contemporary did, the gentle Lady Jane who had so sad a fate; but it is
much more likely, we think, that the big volume lay open, while the
scholar's eyes glowed and shone with cherished reminiscences of that
enchanting city in which his best days had flown, and Mary Stewart
responded to his recollections with all her gay wit and charm of
pleasant speech. Many are the tragic associations of Holyrood: it is
well to note that other companions more sober than Signor Davie, more
calm than Chastelar, shared now and then the Queen's leisure. Grave
commentators conclude that it spoke well for her Majesty's Latinity that
Buchanan put her on Livy; for my part I have no doubt that these two
unlikely gossips, after perhaps a sentence or two, forgot about Livy,
and talked of their Paris all the time.

Buchanan took the opportunity of this quiet and prosperous period, when
all was hopeful in the nation as well as in his own prospects, to
publish the poetical version of the Psalms which had occupied his
enforced leisure in the Portuguese monastery years before. They had not
yet seen the