His royal pupil did not treat Buchanan's History with due
respect; he caused it to be proclaimed at the Merkat Cross, and ordered
every one to bring his copy "to be perused and purged of the offensive and
extraordinary matters." In the reign of Charles II. the University of
Oxford ordered Buchanan's _De jure regni_, together with certain other
works, to be publicly burnt on account of certain obnoxious propositions
deducible from them; such as "Wicked kings and tyrants ought to be put to
death." He published a paraphrase of the Psalms of David in verse, which
has been much praised. The Jesuits were not very friendly critics of our
author, for they asserted that Buchanan showed in his life little of the
piety of David, and stated that during thirty years he did not deliver a
single sermon, even on Sundays. "But who is ignorant," observes M. Klotz,
"of the lust of these men for calumny?"
Another poet had occasion to adopt the same mode of escape which Buchanan
successfully accomplished, but with less happy results. This was Nicodemus
Frischlin, a German poet and philosopher, born in the duchy of Wuertemberg
in 1547. At an early age he showed great talents; honours clustered
thickly on his brow. At the age of twenty years he was made Professor of
Belles-Lettres at Tubingen; he received from the Emperor Rudolph the
poetic crown with the title of _chevalier_, and was made Count Palatin as
a reward for his three panegyrics composed in honour of the emperors of
the House of Austria.
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