144 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
hedge a king,” and the pomp and circumstance of royalty; and 
Buchanan, while maintaining his own view, is pleased to grant great 
weight and some sympathy to that of his friend. He starts with 
the propositions — not new in these days, but in those audacious and 
dangerous — that all government exists for the people and from the 
people, and lays this down as a fundamental axiom, admitting of no 
controversy. His friend does not directly assent to the principle, or 
impugn it; but he says “Oh, I understand you. You are one of 
those who like republics, like Venice or Borne, or the Massilians.” “No,” 
rejoins Buchanan, “you do me great injustice; that is not my opinion. 
It is not the form of government in these states which I think com- 
mendable, but the equity of their institutions. The doge of Venice 
is as much a king as any other, and we need not quarrel about 
names.” He goes on, perhaps a little tediously, and interrupted by 
brief sounds of assent from his friend, to illustrate these principles. 
He takes the analogy of a physician, who must know the laws of 
nature before he can apply them; and of science and the arts, which 
must be studied and mastered before they are successfully reduced 
to practice, and maintains that government is an art. He recurs fre- 
quently to both these illustrations, and it is amusing to surmise that 
from the last his royal pupil, who did not carry out his preceptor’s 
lessons otherwise, probably derived that idea of kingcraft of which 
he considered himself so great a master. He goes on to consider the 
just place of constitutional law, and the authority of parliaments in 
their relation to kingly authority, holding the monarch not to be above 
the law, but yet with a power of tempering by his royal prerogative, 
the necessary inequalities of its letter. He then proceeds to point 
out how much a monarch’s personal observance of law tends to 
encourage the obedience and good order of his subjects. This part 
of his theme he winds up with the most striking passage of the 
treatise, a passage of splendid Latinity, and of the truest and highest 
eloquence. His friend sneers, or is made to sneer, at the constitu- 
tional safeguards with which he surrounds his monarch. Buchanan, 
in reply, draws a picture of his ideal ruler. He breaks out into an 
impassioned description of a patriot king. “ Can any honour, dignity, 
might, or majesty be described or be conceived in any man greater than 
to be able by speech, intercourse, reputation, aspect, and the tacit 
influence of example, to bring back the dissolute to moderation, the 
