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youthful actors was no less a celebrity than Michel Montaigne. 
He remembered Buchanan with respect in after years, and names 
him among the greatest poets of the day. Buchanan returned to 
Paris in 1544, and was there associated with Turnebus and Muretus 
in the College of Cardinal le Moine, in that city, and there he 
seems to have remained with great distinction till 1547, when he 
was induced to remove with Govea to the University of Coimbra. 
He was there persecuted by the officers of the Inquisition, who had 
not forgotten “ Franciscanus,” and he was ultimately confined to a 
monastery, where he commenced his renowned translation of the 
Psalms, which won for him the well-known title conferred by Henry 
Stephans, “ Poetarum hujus sseculi facile princeps.” After two 
years he was released, and ultimately returned to Paris in 1553. 
Soon afterwards he became attached to the family of the Comte de 
Brissac, who governed the French dominions in Italy, whither 
Buchanan accompanied him as tutor to his son, and after five years 
residence with that nobleman, having been his companion through- 
out his campaigns, he at last, as serious trouble threatened France, 
returned to his native country in 1560, after a continuous absence 
of twenty-one years. He was now fifty-four years of age, having 
spent more than thirty of them in continental life. 
The passage in which Montaigne mentions his remembrance of 
Buchanan is worth referring to. It does credit to his self-esteem. 
He is speaking of his proficiency in Latin, and enumerates among 
his preceptors Buchanan, calling him that great Scottish poet. Of 
all these he says, “ they often told me that I had that language 
(Latin) in my youth so ready to my hand that they were afraid to 
address me.” He goes on to say, “ Buchanan, whom I afterwards 
saw in the suite of M. le Marechal de Brissac, told me that he had 
a design of writing a book on the education of children, and meant 
to take me as an example.” (“ Essays,” 1-25). 
I have thus hastily sketched the career of Buchanan before he 
again, and finally, set foot in his native land, to be involved in the 
eddies of the recent Reformation, and the still more exciting 
troubles of Queen Mary’s reign, mainly because I was anxious to 
outline his previous vicissitudes, and to show what manner of man 
he was, among what scenes he had been trained, whose words form 
my theme to-night. When he returned to Scotland, he found that 
