orton's power which had
brought about the re-establishment of peace and order to which he refers
in the dedication of his book. And it is a feasible conjecture that it
was by his crafty suggestion that the Regent's fictitious plaints of
being weary of his high office and desiring nothing more than that the
King's Majesty should take the government into his own hand, were
ingeniously twisted so as to give his dismissal the air of a gracious
consent to Morton's own wishes. An old man like Buchanan, well
acquainted with the wiles of logic and the pretexts of state, was more
likely to use an advantage in which there is a certain grim humour, and
to take the adversary in his own toils, than such an inexperienced
politician as young Mar, or any of the undistinguished nobles who
carried out that stratagem. Whether Buchanan supported his old pupil,
Mar, in his attempt to seize the governorship of the castle and the
King's person out of the hands of his uncle, or in what aspect he was
regarded when Morton returned to the head of affairs, we have no means
of knowing. Whatever his influence might be at the King's ear or amid
the secret meetings of the malcontents, neither as Lord Privy Seal nor
as King James's tutor did he come in public collision with any public
authority. His action, whenever he appears publicly, is perfectly
characteristic of his real position and faculties. He took part in a
commission for the establishment of a system of municipal law: he was
one of the Church's commissioners on two occasions in determining her
policy and discipline. When the reform of the Universities of Scotland,
so often taken up since then, and so slow to be accomplished, was
brought under the consideration of Parliament, Buchanan was one of the
chief of the commissioners appointed to consider it. He is reported to
have been the author of a scheme of reconstruction to be employed in the
University of St. Andrews; and it is interesting to find in this new
system that special attention was enjoined to be given to Greek, and
that the study of Hebrew was also recommended to the students. The
latter language, we believe, still remains an established part of the
studies of young men in preparation for the ministry in the Church of
Scotland. Buchanan desired that the Principal of his own College, St.
Leonards, should lecture on Plato. And he made a present of a number of
Greek books, still carefully preserved, to Glasgow University, though
why he