The summer day of the poet is one of unclouded splendor.

The time so tranquil is and clear,

That nowhere shall ye find,
Save on a high and barren hill,

An air of passing wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,

Than they were painted on a wall,
No more they move or steir.

The rivers fresh, the caller streams
O'er rocks can swiftly rin,

The water clear like crystal beams,

And makes a pleasant din.

The condition of the Scottish laborer must have been, at that time, more comfortable than it is at present, and the climate warmer; for Hume describes those working in the fields as stopping at mid-day, 'noon meat and sleep to take,' and refreshing themselves with 'caller wine' in a cave, and 'sallads steep'd in oil.' At length'the gloaming comes, the day is spent,' and the poet concludes in the following strain of pious gratitude and delight:

What pleasure, then, to walk and see
End-lang a river clear

The perfect form of every tree

Within the deep appear.

The salmon out of cruives and creels,

Uphailed into scouts,

The bells and circles on the weills

Through leaping of the trouts.

O sure it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing,
With trumpet and with shalm.

Through all the land great is the gild

Of rustic folks that cry;

Of bleating sheep fra they be kill'd
Of calves and rowting kye.

All labourers draw hame at even,

And can to others say,

Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
Whilk sent this summer day.

GEORGE BUCHANAN, who by early and intense study acquired all the freedom and fluency of a native in the Latin tongue, and who has been called the Scottish Virgil, was born in Dumbartonshire, in the month of February 1506. His parents were poor, and he had also in his childhood, the misfortune to lose his father, so that his early training devolved entirely upon a widowed mother who had, besides him, a number of other children.

By great care and prudent management she succeeded in obtaining for him the rudiments of an education, and his maternal uncle, perceiving in him the promise of future eminence, sent him to the university of Paris. After having remained two years in Paris, Buchanan returned to Scotland and finished his studies at the university of St. Andrews, of one of the colleges of which he afterward became master. He was now invited by King James the Fifth to become tutor to the Earl of Murray, and having previously adopted the sentiments of Luther, he, while employed in his new vocation, wrote a satirical poem upon the monks, which gave such offence to the clergy generally, that he was obliged to take refuge on the continent, from which he did not return to Scotland till 1560. It was during his long residence abroad that Buchanan acquired that familiarity with the Latin tongue, which rendered him so skillful a writer of Latin poetry; for as, during a period of more than twenty years, much of which he spent in teaching, either in France or in Portugal, he made that language the common medium of communication with his scholars, it became to him more familiar even, than his mother tongue.

Though he had embraced the Protestant faith, yet Buchanan's reception at the court of Mary, when he returned to Scotland, was not only favorable but even flattering. He assisted her in her studies, was employed to regulate the universities, and became principal of St. Leonard's College in the university of St. Andrews. He joined, however, the Earl of Murray's party against the queen, and was appointed tutor to James the Sixth, whose pedantry was probably, in some degree, the result of his instructions.

In 1571, Buchanan violently attacked the conduct and character of the queen, in a Latin work entitled Detectio Mariæ Reginæ. After the assassination of his patron, Regent Murray, he still continued to enjoy the favor of the dominant party, whose opinions that the people are entitled to judge of the conduct of their governors, and control it, he maintained with great spirit and ability in a treatise, De Jure Regni, published in 1579. Having by this work offended his royal pupil, he passed, in retirement, the last few years of his life, during which he composed in Latin, his well-known History of Scotland, which was published in 1582, under the title of Rerum Scoticarum Historia. He died during the same year in such abject poverty as not to leave the means of defraying the ordinary expenses of his funeral. As a Latin historical writer, Buchanan's style, it is conceded, unites the excellencies of both Livy and Tacitus. Like the former, however, he is sometimes too declamatory, and largely embellishes his narrative with fables. 'If his accuracy and impartiality,' says Dr. Robertson, 'had been in any degree equal to the elegance of his taste, and to the purity and vigor of his style, his history might be placed on a level with the most admired compositions of the ancients. But, instead of rejecting the improbable tales of chronicle writers, he was at the utmost pains to adorn them; and has clothed, with all the beauties and graces of fiction, those legends which formerly had only its wildness and extravagance.'

Buchanan's poetical performances are numerous; but the most important is a Latin paraphrase of the Psalms of David. This great work was commenced in a monastery in Portugal, about 1550, continued afterward in France, and completed in Scotland after Mary had assumed the duties of sovereignty. He also wrote, about the same time, the most finished and beautiful of his productions, the Epithalamium-a poem occasioned by Mary's first marriage. Of Buchanan's minor poems, his Ode on the First of May is absolutely inimitable. This season of the year usually excites emotions of 'vernal joy;' but in this ode, the circumstances which the poet has selected, are of a kind that appear inexpressibly grand. We shall, therefore, venture here to present a translation of the work, adhering as closely to the original as the difference between the languages will permit :

THE FIRST OF MAY.

Hail to thee, delicious day,
Fair and sacred first of May!

Sacred unto wine and mirth,

Where the game and feast have birth

Sacred to the gentle dance

Where the Graces' dark eyes glance.

Hail! delight and shining grace!
Ever following the pace

Of the aye revolving year,
Time's unwearied traveller!
When spring's life-inspiring rays
Lit the world in other days,
Those delicious days of old

In the blessed age of gold,

Such unceasing mildness charm'd

Fields which soft Favonius warm'd:

Earth's unsown fertility

Gave forth fruits spontaneously.

Such a warmth of æther smiles

Ever on the blessed Isles,

And the fields where sad decay

And old age held never sway!

Such a gentle murmur blows

Through the silent grove where flows

Lethe's quiet water on,

Fraught with sweet oblivion!

When God sends his judgment fires,

Purging earth till sin expires,

Perchance an air like this will cherish!

Ethereal souls that can not perish.

Hail! glory of the fleeting age

Praiseworthy in man's pilgrimage—
Image of earth's early bloom,

And type of life beyond the tomb.

To the above translation from the Latin of Buchanan, we add the follow

ing version of another ode by the late accomplished Robert Hogg.

ON NEÆRA.

My wreck of mind, and all my woes,
And all my ills, that day arose,

When on the fair Neæra's eyes,
Like stars that shine,

At first, with hapless fond surprise,
I gazed with mine.

When my glance met her searching glance,
A shivering o'er my body burst,

As light leaves in the green woods dance
When western breezes stir them first;
My heart forth from my breast to go,
And mine with hers already wanting,
Now beat, now trembled, to and fro,
With eager fondness leaping, panting.
Just as a boy, whose nourice woos him,
Folding his young limbs in her bosom,
Heeds not caresses from another
But turns his eyes still to his mother,
When she may once regard him watches,
And forth his little fond arms stretches.
Just as a bird within the nest

That can not fly, yet constant trying,
Its weak wings on its tender breast
Beats with the vain desire of flying.

Thou, wary mind, thyself preparing
To live at peace, from all ensnaring,
That thou might'st never mischief catch,
Plac'd'st you, unhappy eyes, to watch
With vigilance that knew no rest,
Beside the gateways of the breast.

But you, induc'd by dalliance deep,
Or guile, or overcome by sleep;
Or else have of your own accord
Consented to betray your lord;

Both heart and soul then fled and left
Me spiritless, of mind bereft.

Then cease to weep; use is there none

To think by weeping to atone;

Since heart and spirit from me fled,

You move not by the tears you shed;

But go to her, entreat, obtain;

If you do not entreat, and gain,

Then will I ever make you gaze

Upon her, till in dark amaze

You sightless in your sockets roll,

Extinguish'd by her eyes' bright blaze,

As I have been depriv'd of heart and soul.

In 1584, two years after Buchanan's death, JAMES THE SIXTH himself ventured into the magic circle of poetry, and published a volume entitled Es

says of a Prentice in the Divine art of Poesie. The young king's verses, considering that he was not yet eighteen years of age, are certainly very creditable to him; and we shall therefore quote, in the original spelling, the following poem from the volume alluded to:

ANE SCHORT POEME OF TYME.

As I was pausing in a morning aire,
And could not sleip nor nawyis take me rest,
Furth for to walk, the morning was so faire,
Athort the fields, it seemed to me the best.
The East was cleare, whereby belyve I gest
That fyrier Titan cumming was in sight,
Obscuring chaste Diana by his light.

Who by his rising in the azure skyes,

Did dewlie helse all thame on earth do dwell.
The balmie dew through birning drouth he dryis,
Which made the soile to savour sweit and smell,
By dew that on the night before downe fell,
Which then was soukit up by the Delphienus heit
Up in the aire: it was so light and weit.

Whose hie ascending in his purpour chere

Provokit all from Morpheus to flee:

As beasts to feid, and birds to sing with beir,
Men to their labour, bissie as the bee:
Yet idle men devysing did I see,

How for to drive the tyme that did them irk,
By sindrie pastymes, quhile that it grew mirk.

Then woundred I to see them seik a wyle,
So willingly the precious tyme to tine:
And how they did themselfis so farr begyle,
To fushe of tyme, which of itself is fyne.
Fra tyme be past to call it backwart syne
Is bot in vaine: therefore men sould be warr,
To sleuth the tyme that flees fra them so farr.

For what hath man bot tyme into this lyfe,
Which gives him dayis his God aright to know?
Wherefore then sould we be at sic a stryfe,

So spedelie our selfis for to withdraw
Evin from the tyme, which is on nowayes slaw
To flie from us, suppose we fled it noght?
More wyse we were, if we the tyme had soght.

But sen that tyme is sic a precious thing,
I wald we sould bestow it into that
Which were most pleasour to our heavenly King.
Flee ydilteth, which is the greatest lat;
Bot, sen that death to all is destinat,

Let us employ that tyme that God hath send us,
In doing weill, that good men may commend us.