Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1906 — Scotland's Great Genius. [ARTICLE]

Scotland's Great Genius.

one of those interesting literary conversations the record of which adds so much to the charm of .Boswell’s “Johnson” the name of George Buchanan, one of the greatest scholars of the sixteenth century and the most exquisite Latinist of modern times, was mentioned. A Scotsman who was present, knowing the doctor’s antipathies and seeing, as be thought, an opportunity of cornerirife him, said, “Ah, Dr. Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan had be been an Englishman?” “Why, sir,’’ said Johnson after a little pause, “1 should not have said of Buchanan had he been an Englishman what I will now say of him as a Scotsman—that he was the only man of genius his country has produced.” Buchanan's consummate ability was recognized by his contemporaries; but, like many another genius before and since, he had his share of “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” He read Livy with Mary, queen of Scots, and was appointed tutor to her son, James I. Political intrigues drove him to the continent, where he taught at Bordeaux and had Montaigne among his pupils. In his old age he returned home and wrote his “History of Scotland” and died so poor that his means were insufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral.— London Express.