;
Nor had I ventured such an ill-born thing
To lay before thee, but for fearing more
To miss the little chance of pleasing thee,
Whose understanding gives a merit not in me."

Buchanan followed this publication by various others, and strangely
enough, while still enjoying the royal favour brought out his
_Franciscanus_, his _Fratres Fraterrimi_, and other satires specially
directed against the monks: which, however, seem to have done him no
harm, for he talks in 1567 of "the occupations of a court," which kept
him from bestowing the time and trouble he wished on the preparation of
his various books for the press. Whether the readings from Livy went on
all this time we have no record; but when Queen Mary married Darnley,
and when her son was born, Buchanan would still seem to have occupied
the position of Court poet, and celebrated both events by copies of
verses as flattering, as well as elegant, as the dedication. From the
first of these we may quote the lines in which Buchanan proves,
notwithstanding his long absence and cosmopolitan training, that the
native brag of the Scot was as strong in him as if he had never left his
native shores. It could scarcely be to flatter either of the bridal pair
that he burst forth into this celebration of "the ancient Kingdom."

"For herein lies the glory of the Scot,
To fill the woods with clamour of the chase;
To swim the stream, and cold and heat defy,
And hunger and fatigue. To guard their land
Not with deep trench or wall, but with the force
Of arms, contemning life for honour's sake;
To keep their troth, to reverence the bonds
Of friendship, to love virtue and not gifts.
Such acts as these secured throughout the land
Freedom and peace, when war raged o'er the world,
And every other nation was constrained
To change its native laws for foreign yoke,
The fury of the Goth stopped here; the onslaught fierce
Of the strong Saxon, and the tribes more strong,
The Dane and Norman, who had conquered him,
Nay, in our ancient annals live the tales
Of Roman victory stayed--the Latin tide
Which neither south wind checked, nor Parthia bleak,
Nor waves of Meroi, nor the rushing Rhine,
Was here arrested by this only race
Before whose face the Roman paused and held
The frontier of his empire, not by lines
Of hill and river, but by walls and towns,
By Caledonian axes o