Those very qualities, however, which now render his character less amiable, fitted him to be the instrument of Providence for advancing the Reformation among a fierce people, and enabled him to face dangers, and to surmount opposition, from which a person of a more gentle spirit would have been apt to shrink back. By an unwearied application to study and to business, as well as by the frequency and fervour of his public discourses, he had worn out a constitution naturally strong. During a lingering illness, he discovered the utmost fortitude, and met the approaches of death with a magnanimity inseparable from hist character.-Robertson. The ringleader in all these insults on Majesty was John Knox, who possessed an uncontrolled authority in the Church, and even in the civil affairs of the nation, and who triumphed in the contumelious usage of his sovereign. The political principles of the man, which he communicated to his brethren, were as full of sedition as his theological were full of rage and bigotry. His conduct showed that he thought no more civility than loyalty due to any of the female sex.-David Hume. That fals apostat priest, Enemie to Christ, and mannis (man's) salvation, A fanatical incendiary-a holy savage-the son of violence and barbarism-the religious Sachem of religious Mohawks.Whitaker. Of all the benefits I had that year (1571) was the coming of that maist notable profet and apostle of our nation, Mr. Johne Knox, to St. Andrews, who, be the faction of the Queen occupeing the castell and town of Edinburgh, was compellit to remove therefra, with a number of the best and chusit to come to St. Andrews. I heard him teache there the prophecies of Daniel, that simmar and the wintar following. I had my pen and my little buike, and tuk away sic things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text, he was moderat the space of an half hour; but when he enterit to application, he made me so to grew (thrill) and tremble, that I could not hald a pen to writ. He was very weik. I saw him, everie day of his doctrine, go hulie and fear (slowly and warily) with a furring of masticks about his neck, a staffe in the an hand, and gud, godlie Richard Ballenden, his servand, haldin up the other oxter (arm-pit) from the abbey to the parish-kirk, and he, the said Richard, and another servand lifted up to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first entry: bot, er he haid done with his sermone, he was sa active and vigorous, that he was lyk to ding the pulpit in blads (beat the pulpit in pieces) and flie out of it.— Fames Melville, "Diary." God is my witness, whom I have served in the spirit in the gospel of his Son, that I have taught nothing but the true and solid doctrine of the gospel of the Son of God, and have had it for my only object to instruct the ignorant, to confirm the faithful, to comfort the weak, the fearful, and the distressed, by the promises of grace, and to fight against the proud and rebellious by the Divine threatenings. I know that many have frequently complained, and do still complain, of my too great severity; but God knows that my mind was always void of hatred to the persons of those against whom I thundered the severest judgments.-John Knox. The light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church within the same, the mirror of godliness, and pattern and example to all true ministers in purity of life, soundness of doctrine, and boldness in reproving of wickedness.-Bannatyne. I know not if ever so much piety and genius were lodged in so weak and frail a body. Certain I am that it will be difficult to find one in whom the gifts of the Holy Spirit shone so bright, to the comfort of the Church of Scotland.-Smeton. A man of wit, much good learning, and earnest zeal.Ridley, "Strype's Life of Grindal." Knox bore a striking resemblance to Luther in personal intrepidity and in popular eloquence. He approached nearest to Calvin in his religious sentiments, in the severity of his manners, and in a certain impressive air of melancholy which pervaded his character, and he resembled Zwingleius in his ardent attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and in combining his exertions for the reformation of the Church with uniform endeavours to improve the political state of the people. -Dr. Thomas M'Crie. 1 "Mr. Melville was a Doctor of Divinity, and as long as episcopal persecution admitted, did sit with great renown in the prime chair we had of that faculty."--Baillie. "The Of all Knox's publications, the most famous in its day was First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women." The admission of women to the government of nations is in this attacked with extraordinary and by no means illogical vehemence. "To promote a 16 John Knox-George Buchanan. I happened to ask where John Knox was buried. Dr. Johnson burst out, "I hope in the highway. I have been looking at his reformations."-Boswell. George Buchanan. 1506-1582. That notable man, Mr. George Bucquhanane-remains alyve to this day in the yeir of God 1566 years, to the glory of God, to the gret honour of this natioun, and to the comfort of thame that delyte in letters and vertew. That singulare wark of David's Psalmes in Latin meetre and poesie, besyd mony other, can witness the rare graices of God gevin to that man.-John Knox. A serpent daring calumniator-leviathan of slander-the second of all human forgers and the first of all human slanderers.- Whitaker. George Buchanan had sometimes, as I have heard, been a preacher in St. Andrews; after his long travells he was employed by our church and state to be a teacher to King James and his family of his faithfulness in this charge he left, I believe, to the world good and satisfactory tokens. The eminency woman, says Knox, " to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and, finally, it is a subversion of all equity and justice.' The gist of his argument is, 1. that women are intended for subjection to men; 2. that female government was not permitted among the Jews; 3. that it is contrary to apostolical injunctions; 4. that it leads to the perversion of governments, &c. This Blast was met by a counterblast. An answer appeared called "An Harboron for Faithful Subjects." The accession of Queen Elizabeth made such a refutation necessary. It was the production of John Aylmer, who had been tutor to Lady Jane Grey. It is odd to note the poor opinion Aylmer has of women, in spite of his intimacy with one who might at least have exalted the sex in his eyes. This literary chevalier thus speaks of the "most part" of those whose cause he espouses; he describes them as "fond, foolish, wanton, flibbergibs, tatlers, trifling, wavering, witles, without counsel, feable, careles, rashe, proud, daintie, nise, tale-bearers, eves-droppers, rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse-minded, and in every wise doltified with the dregges of the devil's dounge-hill!" Is the real source of Mr. Carlyle's eloquence at last disclosed?-ED. 1 "It is," says Chalmers (quoted by Croker), "a little odd, though Boswell has overlooked it, that Knox was buried in a place which soon after became, and ever since has been, a highway-i.e., the old churchyard of St. Giles, in Edinburgh. George Buchanan-John Foxe. 17 of this person was so great that no society of men need be ashamed to have been moderated by his wisdom.-Baillie, "Historical Vindication." In a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries, in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on this ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, exclaimed, "Ah, Doctor Johnson! what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman ?" "Why, sir," said Johnson, after a little pause, "I should not have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I will now say of him as a Scotchman-that he was the only man of genius his country ever produced."—Boswell. His De jure Regni apud Scotos, a spirited and elegant dialogue betwixt the author and Thomas Maitland, in which the true principles of Government are delivered; next the distinction betwixt a King and a Tyrant is explained; and the whole concludes with insisting that kings are accountable to their subjects; that this is the condition of kingship, particularly in Scotland, and that tyrants may be judged and even put to death without blame, nay, with the highest honour, by their abused subjects. There is a singular freedom of spirit in this tract, especially for the time when it was written, and it gives me a high idea of the honesty or boldness of this writer, that he presumed to address a discourse of this sort to his pupil, King James the Sixth. This strong love of liberty, to which his warm temper and elevated genius naturally inclined him, was catched, or at least much confirmed in him, by his familiarity with the classical story of the Greeks and Romans, the great doctors of civil liberty to all countries and ages.-Dr. Hurd. John Foxe. Burnet, Strype, and all our best historians have derived their principal information and documents from John Foxe.-George Townsend. It has The work of John Foxe is one of the most useful, most important, and most valuable books we still possess. never been superseded.—Church of England Q. Review. The "Acts and Monuments" of John Foxe, more usually called his "Book of Martyrs," must have a place amongst the principal historical works of the sixteenth century. None C 18 John Foxe-Lord Dorset. certainly can be compared to it in its popularity and influence. Four editions of these bulky folios were published in the reign of Elizabeth; the first in 1563. It may not be too much to say that it confirmed the Reformation in England. Every parish (by order of the council or the bishops, we forget which) was to have a copy in the church; and every private gentleman, who had any book but the Bible, chose that which stood next in religious esteem.-Edinburgh Review, 1831. As he hath been found most diligent, so most strictly true and faithful in his transcriptions.-Strype. How learnedly he wrote, how constantly he preached, how piously he lived, and how cheerfully he died, may be seen at large in the life prefixed to this book.-Fuller, Lord Dorset. An amiable and elegant man, equally noted for the severity of his satire and the sweetness of his manners. . . . Dorset possessed the rare secret of uniting energy with ease in his striking compositions. His verses to Mr. Edward Howard, to Sir Thomas Sh. Serfe; his epilogue to the Tartuffe ; his song written at sea in the first Dutch war; his ballad on Knotting, and on Lewis XIV., may be named as examples of this happy talent. Warton. The best good man with the worst-natured muse-Rochester. Lord Dorset was a generous, good-natured man. He was so oppressed with phlegm that till he was a little heated with wine he scarce ever spoke. But he was upon that exaltation, a very lively man. Never was so much its nature in a pen as in his, joined with so much good-nature as was in himself, even to excess; for he was against all punishing, even of malefactors. He was bountiful, even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable to a fault; for he commonly gave all he had about him, when he met an object that moved him. But he was so lazy that tho' the king seemed to court him to be a favourite, he would not give himself the trouble that belonged to that post. He hated the court and despised the king (Charles II.) when he saw he was neither generous nor tender-hearted.-Burnet. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells the truth, he distinguished by his beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those |