Epilogue — Wherein We Have a Great Man Greatly Moved
It is said that when the Earl of Moray, in France, received from the messengers sent out to him the news that he was chosen Regent of Scotland, he bowed his head in a very stately manner and said little more than ‘Sirs, I shall strive in this as in all things to do the Lord’s will.’ He added not one word which might enhance or impair so proper a declaration; he remained invisible to his friends for the three or four days he needed to be abroad; and when he set out for the north, travelled in secret and mostly by night—and still chose to keep apart. As secret in his hour of success as he had been in those of defeat, admirable as his sobriety may be, we must make allowances for the mortification of a learned man, Mr. George Buchanan, who, having laboured to be of the heralding party, found himself and his baggage of odes of no more account than any other body. Was the chilly piety of such a reception as my lord had vouchsafed them all the acknowledgment he cared to admit of ancient alliances, of sufferings shared, of hopes kept alive by mutual fostering? Could a man look forward to any community of mind in the future between a prince who would not recognise his old friends and those same tried friends frozen by such a blank reply to their embassage? Mr. Buchanan urged these questions upon his fellow-legate, Sir James Melvill of Halhill—a traveller and fine philosopher, who, with less latinity than the learned historian, had, I think, more phlegm. When Mr. Buchanan, fretfully exclaiming upon the isolation of his new master, went on to concern himself with poor Scotland’s case, and to muse aloud upon Kings Log and Stork, Sir James twiddled his thumbs; when the humanist paused for a reply, he got it. ‘Geordie, my man,’ said Sir James, ‘my counsel to you is to bide your good time, and when that time comes to ca’ canny, as we have it familiarly. Remember you, that when you sang your bit epithalamy at the marriage-door of Log, our late King, although he never stinted his largess (but rewarded you, in my opinion, abundantly), he had no notion in the world what you were about, and (as I believe) paid you the more that you might end the sooner. Late or soon you will be heard by our new gracious lord, and late or soon recompensed. He too will desire you to stop, my man: not because he does not understand you, but because he understands you too well. Mark my words now.’ This was a curious prophecy of Sir James’s, in one sense curiously fulfilled. In the very middle of his oration the orator was desired to stop by the subject of it.
Not until the Regent was in Edinburgh did a chance present itself to Mr. Buchanan of declaiming any of his Latin. This, be it said, was no fault of Mr. Buchanan’s, who, if abhorrence of the old order and acceptance of the new, expressed with passion at all times of the day, can entitle a man to notice, should certainly have had it before. Some, indeed, think that he got it by insisting upon having it; others that he proved his title by exhibiting the heads of a remarkable work which afterwards made some stir in the world: he was, at any rate, summoned to the Castle, and in the presence of the Lord Regent of Scotland, of the Lords Morton, Crawfurd, Atholl, Argyll, and Lindsay, of the Lairds of Grange and Lethington, and of others too numerous to mention, was allowed to deliver himself of an oration, long meditated, in the Ciceronian manner.
The occasion was weighty, the theme worthy, the orator equal. Tantæ molis erat was the burden of his discourse, wherein the late miseries of God’s people were shown clearly to be, as it were, the travail-pangs of the august mother of new-born Scotland. From these, by a series of circuits which it would be long to follow, he passed to consider the Hero of the hour; and you may be sure that the extraordinary dignity and reserve which this personage had recently shown were not forgotten. They were, said the orator, reasonable, not only as coming from a man who had never failed of humility before God, but as crowning a life-long trial of such qualities. The child is father of the man. Who that had ever known this magnanimous prince had seen him otherwise than remote, alone in contemplation, unspotted from the world? In a peroration which was so finely eloquent that enthusiasm broke in upon it and prevented it from ever being finished, he spoke to this effect:—
‘It is furthermore,’ he said, ‘a singular merit of your lordship’s, in these days of brawl and advertisement, that you have always approved, and still do approve yourself one who, like the nightingale (that choice bird), avoids the multitude, but enriches it, quasi out of the dark. For as the little songster in his plain suit of brown, hardly to be seen in the twiggy brake, pours forth his notes upon the wayfarer; so has your lordship, hiding from the painful dusty mart, ravished the traffickers therein to better things by your most melodious, half-hidden deeds. O coy benefactor of Scotland! O reluctantly a king! O hermit Hercules! O thou doer-of-good-by-stealth!’ Here he turned to the Lords of the Privy Council. ‘Conscript Fathers, we have prevailed upon our Cincinnatus to quit his plough lest haply the State had perished; but with him have come to succour us those virtues which are his peculiar—to which, no less than to those which he hath in community with all saviours of Commonwealths, our extreme tribute is due. Let us respect Austerity whenas we find it, respect True Religion, respect Abnegation, respect, above all, the tender feelings of Blood and Family, lacerated (alas!) of late in a princely bosom. Great and altogether lovely are these things in any man: in a statesman how much the more dear in that they are rare! But a greater thing than austerity and the crown of true religion is this, Conscript Fathers, that a man should live through blood-shedding, and not see it; that he should converse with bloody men, and keep clean hands! For King David said, “I will wash my hands in innocency,” and said well, having some need of the ablution. Conscript Fathers! this man hath the rather said, “But I will keep my hands innocently clean, lest at any time lustral water fail me and I perish.” O wise and honourable resolve——’
Irrepressible applause broke in upon this peroration, and just here. The Regent was observed to be deeply moved. He had covered his face with his hand; he could not bear (it was thought) to hear himself so openly praised. When silence was restored, in obedience to his lifted hand, speaking with difficulty, he said, ‘I thank you, Mr. Buchanan, for your honourable and earnest words; none the less honourable in yourself in that the subject of your praise is unworthy of them. Alas! what can a man do, set in the midst of so many and great dangers, but keep his eyes fixed upon the hope of his calling? He may suffer grievous wounds in the heart and affections, grievous bruises to the conscience, grievous languors of the will and mind: but his hopes are fixed, his eyes are set to look forward; he cannot altogether perish. Yourself, sir, whose godly office it is to direct the motions of princes and governors that way which is indeed the way, the truth, and the life, can but add to the obligations which this young (as new-born) nation must feel towards you, by continuing me steadfast in those things for which you praise me. I am touched by many compunctious thorns—I cannot say all that I would. I have suffered long and in private—I feel myself strangely—I am not strong enough as yet. So do you, Mr. Buchanan, so do you to me-ward, that I may run, sir; and that, running—please the Lord and Father of us all—that, running, I may obtain.’
It was felt on all hands that more would have been a superfluity. Mr. Buchanan was very ready to have continued; but my Lord Regent had need of repose; and my Lord of Morton moved the rest of their lordships that they go to supper: which was agreed to, and so done.
The End