George Buchanan

GEORGE BUCHANAN
The following Volumes are now ready:—
GEORGE BUCHANAN
BY ROBERT WALLACE
COMPLETED BY J CAMPBELL SMITH
FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES
PUBLISHED BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and the printing from the press of Messrs. T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh.
The concluding chapter of the book I intended to serve the purpose of prologue and epilogue, but on reflection I find that readers both in and out of Scotland may desire to be told a little more about Robert Wallace, M.A., D.D., and M.P., a collocation of titles of honour, so far as I know, unexampled. He was a minister of the Church of Scotland from the summer of 1857 to the autumn of 1876; was in succession the minister of Newton-on-Ayr, of Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, and of Old Greyfriars’, Edinburgh, in which last he succeeded Dr. Robert Lee, as also in the leadership of the Liberal Party of the Church of Scotland. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Glasgow, pretty much, it was believed, through the influence of Dr. Caird, the most eloquent preacher and one of the most profound theologians of our day. After Dr. Wallace became editor of the Scotsman he resigned his chair of Church History, his church, and even his licence to preach, and he left in abeyance the title of D.D., and became in his time, as a barrister-at-law, plain Mr. Robert Wallace. But the degree of a university is, I believe, indelible, and he will always be Dr. Wallace to me. His degree of M.A., like mine, was conferred by the University of St. Andrews in April 1853 after four years’ study, during which we attended simultaneously every Humanity class. He was first in every literary class, and by far the best classical scholar of my day. Dr. Alexander, the venerable professor of Greek, who had taught for thirty years, pronounced him the best student he had ever taught.
His splendid classical attainments, the erudition necessary to the chair of Church History, his extensive and distinguished practice as a debating gladiator in Church Courts, especially the General Assembly, perhaps even his experience in the solid, stolid, non-mercurial House of Commons, all fitted him, as few men have been fit, to do justice to the life, labours, and supreme European culture of George Buchanan.