Chapter XXVI: Part 26

The brilliant exploits begun by the sack of Leon and Realejo [v.04 p.0656] by the English under Davis have, even in their variety and daring, a sameness which deprives them of interest, and the wonderful confederacy is now seen to be falling gradually to pieces. The skill of Davis at sea was on one occasion displayed in a seven days' engagement with two large Spanish vessels, and the interest undoubtedly centres in him. Townley and Swan had, however, by this time left him, and after cruising together for some time, they, too, parted. In 1688 Davis cleared Cape Horn and arrived in the West Indies, while Swan's ship, the "Cygnet," was abandoned as unseaworthy, after sailing as far as Madagascar. Townley had hardly joined the French buccaneers remaining in the South Sea ere he died, and the Frenchmen with their companions crossed New Spain to the West Indies. And thus the Pacific, ravaged so long by this powerful and mysterious band of corsairs, was at length at peace.

The West Indies had by this time become hot enough even for the banded pirates. They hung doggedly along the coasts of Jamaica and Santo Domingo, but their day was nearly over. Only once again--at the siege of Carthagena--did they appear great; but even then the expedition was not of their making, and they were mere auxiliaries of the French regular forces. After the treachery of the French commander of this expedition a spirit of unity and despairing energy seemed reawakened in them; but this could not avert and scarcely delayed the rapidly approaching extinction of the community.

The French and English buccaneers could not but take sides in the war which had arisen between their respective countries in 1689. Thus was broken the bond of unity which had for three-quarters of a century kept the subjects of the two nations together in schemes of aggression upon a common foe. In the short peace of 1697-1700 England and France were using all their influence, both in the Old World and in the New, to ingratiate themselves into the favour of the king of Spain. With the resumption of hostilities in 1700 and the rise of Spain consequent upon the accession of the French claimant to the throne the career of the buccaneers was effectually closed.

But the fall of the buccaneers is no more accounted for fully by these circumstances than is their rise by the massacre of the islanders of Santo Domingo. There was that in the very nature of the community which, from its birth, marked it as liable to speedy decline.

The principles which bound the buccaneers together were, first the desire for adventure and gain, and, in the second place, hatred of the Spaniard. The first was hardly a sufficient bond of union, among men of different nationalities, when booty could be had nearly always by private venture under the colours of the separate European powers. Of greater validity was their second and great principle of union, namely, that they warred not with one another, nor with every one, but with a single and a common foe. For while the buccaneer forces included English, French and Dutch sailors, and were complemented occasionally by bands of native Indians, there are few instances during the time of their prosperity and growth of their falling upon one another, and treating their fellows with the savagery which they exulted in displaying against the subjects of Spain. The exigencies, moreover, of their perilous career readily wasted their suddenly acquired gains.

Settled labour, the warrant of real wealth, was unacceptable to those who lived by promoting its insecurity. Regular trade--though rendered attractive by smuggling--and pearl gathering and similar operations which were spiced with risk, were open in vain to them, and in the absence of any domestic life, a hand-to-mouth system of supply and demand rooted out gradually the prudence which accompanies any mode of settled existence. In everything the policy of the buccaneers, from the beginning to the end of their career, was one of pure destruction, and was, therefore, ultimately suicidal.

Their great importance in history lies in the fact that they opened the eyes of the world, and specially of the nations from whom these buccaneers had sprung, to the whole system of Spanish-American government and commerce--the former in its rottenness, and the latter in its possibilities in other hands. From this, then, along with other causes, dating primarily from the helplessness and presumption of Spain, there arose the West Indian possessions of Holland, England and France.

A work published at Amsterdam in 1678, entitled _De Americaensche Zee Roovers_, from the pen of a buccaneer named Exquemelin, was translated into several European languages, receiving additions at the hands of the different translators. The French translation by Frontignières is named _Histoire des avanturiers qui se sont signalez dans les Indes_; the English edition is entitled _The Bucaniers of America._ Other works are Raynal's _History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies_, book x., English translation 1782; Dampier's _Voyages_; Geo. W. Thornbury's _Monarchs of the Main, &c._ (1855); Lionel Wafer's _Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America_ (1699); and the _Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, &c._, and _Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France_ of Père Charlevoix. The statements in these works are to be received with caution. A really authentic narrative, however, is Captain James Burney's _History of the Buccaneers of America_ (London, 1816). The _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial Series (London, 1860 et seq.), contains much evidence for the history of the buccaneers in the West Indies.

(D. H.)

BUCCARI (Serbo-Croatian _Bakar_), a royal free town of Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary; situated in the county of Modru[vs]-Fiume, 7 m. S.E. of Fiume, on a small bay of the Adriatic Sea. Pop. (1900) 1870. The Hungarian state railway from Zákány and Agram terminates 2½ m. from Buccari. The harbour, though sometimes dangerous to approach, affords good anchorage to small vessels. Owing to competition from Fiume, Buccari lost the greater part of its trade during the 19th century. The staple industry is boatbuilding, and there is an active coasting trade in fish, wine, wood and coal. The tunny-fishery is of some importance. In the neighbourhood of the town is the old castle of Buccarica, and farther south the flourishing little port of Porto Ré or Kraljevica.

From a photo by Brogi.]

BUCCINA (more correctly _B[=u]c[)i]na_, Gr. [Greek: Bukanê], connected with _bucca_, cheek, and Gr. [Greek: Buzô], a brass wind instrument extensively used in the ancient Roman army. The Roman instrument consisted of a brass tube measuring some 11 to 12 ft. in length, of narrow cylindrical bore, and played by means of a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The tube is bent round upon itself from the mouthpiece to the bell in the shape of a broad C and is strengthened by means of a bar across the curve, which the performer grasps while playing, in order to steady the instrument; the bell curves over his head or shoulder as in the modern helicon. Three Roman buccinas were found among the ruins of Pompeii and are now deposited in the museum at Naples. V. C. Mahillon, of Brussels[1] has made a facsimile of one of these instruments; it is in G and has almost the same harmonic series as the French horn and the trumpet. The buccina, the cornu (see HORN), and the tuba were used as signal instruments in the Roman army and camp to sound the four night watches (hence known as _buccina prima, secunda, &c._), to summon them by means of the special signal known as _classicum_, and to give orders.[2] Frontinus relates[3] that a Roman general, who had been surrounded by the enemy, escaped during the night by means of the stratagem of leaving behind him a _buccinator_ (trumpeter), who sounded [v.04 p.0657] the watches throughout the night.[4] Vegetius gives brief descriptions of the three instruments, which suffice to establish their identity; the tuba, he says, is straight; the buccina is of bronze bent in the form of a circle.[5]

The buccina, in respect of its technical construction and acoustic properties, was the ancestor of both trumpet and trombone; the connexion is further established by the derivation of the words Sackbut and _Posaune_ (the German for trombone) from buccina. The relation was fully recognized in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, as two translations of Vegetius, published at Ulm in 1470, and at Augsburg in 1534, clearly demonstrate: "Bucina das ist die trumet oder pusan"[6] ("the bucina is the trumpet or trombone") and ("Bucina ist die trummet die wirt ausz und eingezogen"[7] ("the bucina is the trumpet which is drawn out and in"). A French translation by Jean de Meung (Paris, 1488),[8] renders the passage (chap. iii. 5) thus: "Trompe est longue et droite; buisine est courte et reflechist en li meisme si comme partie de cercle." On Trajan's column[9] the tuba, the cornu and the buccina are distinguishable. Other illustrations of the buccina may be seen in François Mazois' _Les Ruines de Pompéi_ (Paris, 1824-1838), pt. iv, pl. xlviii. fig. 1, and in J.N. von Wilmowsky's _Eine römische Villa zu Nennig_ (Bonn, 1865), pl. xii. (mosaics), where the buccinator is accompanied on the hydraulus. The military buccina described is a much more advanced instrument than its prototype the _buccina marina_, a primitive trumpet in the shape of a conical shell, often having a spiral twist, which in poetry is often called _concha_. The buccina marina is frequently depicted in the hands of Tritons (Macrobius i. 8), or of sailors, as for instance on terra-cotta lamp shown by G.P. Bellori (_Lucernae veterum sepulcrales iconicae_, 1702, iii. 12). The highly imaginative writer of the apocryphal letter of St Jerome to Dardanus also has a word to say concerning the buccina among the Semitic races: "Bucca vocatur tuba apud Hebreos: deinde per diminutionem buccina dicitur." After the fall of the Roman empire the art of bending metal tubes was gradually lost, and although the buccina survived in Europe both in name and in principle of construction during the middle ages, it lost for ever the characteristic curve like a "C" which it possessed in common with the cornu, an instrument having a conical bore of wider calibre. Although we regard the buccina as essentially Roman, an instrument of the same type, but probably straight and of kindred name, was widely known and used in the East, in Persia, Arabia and among the Semitic races. After a lapse of years during which records are almost wanting, the buccina reappeared all over Europe as the busine, buisine, pusin, busaun, pusun, posaun, busna (Slav), &c.; whether it was a Roman survival or a re-introduction through the Moors of Spain in the West and the Byzantine empire in the East, we have no records to show. An 11th-century mural painting representing the Last Judgment in the cathedral of S. Angelo in Formis (near Capua), shows the angels blowing the last trump on busines.[10]

There are two distinct forms of the busine which may be traced during the middle ages:--(i) a long straight tube (fig. 2) consisting of 3 to 5 joints of narrow cylindrical bore, the last joint alone being conical and ending in a pommel-shaped bell, precisely as in the curved buccina (fig. 1); (2) a long straight cylindrical tube of somewhat wider bore than the busine, ending in a wide bell curving out abruptly from the cylindrical tube (fig. 3).

The history of the development of the trumpet, the sackbut and the trombone from the buccina will be found more fully treated under those headings; for the part played by the buccina in the evolution of the French horn see HORN.

(K. S.)

[1] See _Catalogue descriptif_ (Ghent, 1880), p. 330, and illustration, vol. ii. (1896), p. 30.

[2] Livy vii. 35, xxvi. 15; Prop. v. 4, 63; Tac. _Ann._ xv. 30; Vegetius, _De re militari_, ii. 22, iii. 5; Polyb. vi. 365, xiv. 3, 7.

[3] _Stratagematicon_, i. 5, § 17.

[4] For another instance see Caesar, _Comm. Bell. Civ._ ii. 35.

[5] Vegetius, op. cit. iii. 5.

[6] Idem, ii. 7.

[7] Idem, iii. 5.

[8] A reprint edited by Ulysse Robert has been published by the Soc. des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1897).

[9] See Conrad Cichorius, _Die Reliefs der Traiansaule_, 3 vols. of text and 2 portfolios of heliogravures (Berlin, 1896, &c.), Bd. i. pl. x. buccina and tubae; pl. viii. buccina; pl. lxxvi. buccina and two cornua; pl. xx. cornu, &c.; or W. Froehner, _La Colonne de Trajan_ (Paris, 1872), vol. i. pl. xxxii., xxxvi., li., tome ii. pl. lxvi., tome iii. pl. cxxxiv., &c.

[10] See F.X. Kraus, "Die Wandgemälde von San Angelo in Formis," in _Jahrbuch der kgl. preuss. Kunstsamml._ (1893), pl. i.

BUCCLEUCH, DUKES OF. The substantial origin of the ducal house of the Scotts of Buccleuch dates back to the large grants of lands in Scotland to Sir Walter Scott of Kirkurd and Buccleuch, a border chief, by James II., in consequence of the fall of the 8th earl of Douglas (1452); but the family traced their descent back to a Sir Richard le Scott (1240-1285). The estate of Buccleuch is in Selkirkshire. Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleuch (d. 1552) distinguished himself at the battle of Pinkie (1547), and furnished material for his later namesake's famous poem, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_; and his great-grandson Sir Walter (1565-1611) was created Lord Scott of Buccleuch in 1606. An earldom followed in 1619. The second earl's daughter Anne (1651-1732), who succeeded him as a countess in her own right, married in 1663 the famous duke of Monmouth (_q.v._), who was then created 1st duke of Buccleuch; and her grandson Francis became 2nd duke. The latter's son Henry (1746-1812) became 3rd duke, and in 1810 succeeded also, on the death of William Douglas, 4th duke of Queensberry, to that dukedom as well as its estates and other honours, according to the entail executed by his own great-grandfather, the 2nd duke of Queensberry, in 1706; he married the duke of Montagu's daughter, and was famous for his generosity and benefactions. His son Charles William Henry (d. 1819), grandson Walter Francis Scott (1806-1884), and great-grandson William Henry Walter Montagu Douglas Scott (b. 1831), succeeded in turn as 4th, 5th and 6th dukes of Buccleuch and 6th, 7th, and 8th dukes of Queensberry. The 5th duke was lord privy seal 1842-1846, and president of the council 1846. It was he who at a cost of over £500,000 made the harbour at Granton, near Edinburgh. He was president of the Highland and Agricultural Society, the Society of Antiquaries and of the British Association. The 6th duke sat in the House of Commons as Conservative M.P. for Midlothian, 1853-1868 and 1874-1880; his wife, a daughter of the 1st duke of Abercorn, held the office of mistress of the robes.

See Sir W. Fraser, _The Scotts of Buccleuch_ (1878).

BUCENTAUR (Ital. _bucintoro_), the state gallery of the doges of Venice, on which, every year on Ascension day up to 1789, they put into the Adriatic in order to perform the ceremony of "wedding the sea." The name _bucintoro_ is derived from the Ital. _buzino d' oro_, "golden bark," latinized in the middle ages as _bucentaurus_ on the analogy of a supposed Gr. [Greek: boukentauros], ox-centaur (from [Greek: bous] and [Greek: Kentauros]). This led to the explanation of the name as derived from the head of an ox having served as the galley's figurehead. This derivation is, however, fanciful; the name _bucentaurus_ is unknown in ancient mythology, and the figurehead of the bucentaurs, of which representations have come down to us, is the lion of St Mark. [v.04 p.0658] The name bucentaur seems, indeed, to have been given to any great and sumptuous Venetian galley. Du Cange (_Gloss._, _s.v._ "Bucentaurus") quotes from the chronicle of the doge Andrea Dandolo (d. 1354): _cum uno artificioso et solemni Bucentauro, super quo venit usque ad S. Clementem, quo jam pervenerat principalior et solemnior Bucentaurus cum consiliariis_, &c. The last and most magnificent of the bucentaurs, built in 1729, was destroyed by the French in 1798 for the sake of its golden decorations. Remains of it are preserved at Venice in the Museo Civico Correr and in the Arsenal; in the latter there is also a fine model of it.

The "Marriage of the Adriatic," or more correctly "of the sea" (_Sposalizio del Mar_) was a ceremony symbolizing the maritime dominion of Venice. The ceremony, established about A.D. 1000 to commemorate the doge Orseolo II.'s conquest of Dalmatia, was originally one of supplication and placation, Ascension day being chosen as that on which the doge had set out on his expedition. The form it took was a solemn procession of boats, headed by the doge's _maesta nave_, afterwards the Bucentaur (from 1311) out to sea by the Lido port. A prayer was offered that "for us and all who sail thereon the sea may be calm and quiet," whereupon the doge and the others were solemnly aspersed with holy water, the rest of which was thrown into the sea while the priests chanted "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." To this ancient ceremony a sacramental character was given by Pope Alexander III in 1177, in return for the services rendered by Venice in the struggle against the emperor Frederick I. The pope drew a ring from his finger and, giving it to the doge, bade him cast such a one into the sea each year on Ascension day, and so wed the sea. Henceforth the ceremonial, instead of placatory and expiatory, became nuptial. Every year the doge dropped a consecrated ring into the sea, and with the words _Desponsamus te, mare_ (We wed thee, sea) declared Venice and the sea to be indissolubly one (see H. F. Brown, _Venice_, London, 1893, pp. 69, 110).

BUCEPHALUS (Gr. [Greek: boukephalos]), the favourite Thracian horse of Alexander the Great, which died in 326 B.C., either of wounds received in the battle on the Hydaspes, or of old age. In commemoration Alexander built the city of Bucephala (Boukephala), the site of which is almost certainly to be identified with a mound on the bank of the river opposite the modern Jhelum.

See especially Arrian v. 20; other stories in Plutarch, _Alex._ 6; Curtius vi. 8. For the identification of Bucephala, Vincent A. Smith, _Early Hist. of India_ (2nd ed., 1908), pp. 65, 66 note.

BUCER (or BUTZER), MARTIN (1491-1551), German Protestant reformer, was born in 1491 at Schlettstadt in Alsace. In 1506 he entered the Dominican order, and was sent to study at Heidelberg. There he became acquainted with the works of Erasmus and Luther, and was present at a disputation of the latter with some of the Romanist doctors. He became a convert to the reformed opinions, abandoned his order by papal dispensation in 1521, and soon afterwards married a nun. In 1522 he was pastor at Landstuhl in the palatinate, and travelled hither and thither propagating the reformed doctrine. After his excommunication in 1523 he made his headquarters at Strassburg, where he succeeded Matthew Zell. Henry VIII of England asked his advice in connexion with the divorce from Catherine of Aragon. On the question of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Bucer's opinions were decidedly Zwinglian, but he was anxious to maintain church unity with the Lutheran party, and constantly endeavoured, especially after Zwingli's death, to formulate a statement of belief that would unite Lutheran, south German and Swiss reformers. Hence the charge of ambiguity and obscurity which has been laid against him. In 1548 he was sent for to Augsburg to sign the agreement, called the _Interim_, between the Catholics and Protestants. His stout opposition to this project exposed him to many difficulties, and he was glad to accept Cranmer's invitation to make his home in England. On his arrival in 1549 he was appointed regius professor of divinity at Cambridge. Edward VI. and the protector Somerset showed him much favour and he was consulted as to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer. But on the 27th of February 1551 he died, and was buried in the university church, with great state. In 1557, by Mary's commissioners, his body was dug up and burnt, and his tomb demolished; it was subsequently reconstructed by order of Elizabeth. Bucer is said to have written ninety-six treatises, among them a translation and exposition of the Psalms and a work _Deregno Christi_. His name is familiar in English literature from the use made of his doctrines by Milton in his divorce treatises.

A collected edition of his writings has never been published. A volume known as the _Tomus Anglicanus_ (Basel, 1577) contains those written in England. See J.W. Baum, _Capito and Butzer_ (Strassburg, 1860); A. Erichson, _Martin Butzer_ (1891); and the articles in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ (by A.W. Ward), and in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_ (by Paul Grünberg).

BUCH, CHRISTIAN LEOPOLD VON, BARON (1774-1853), German geologist and geographer, a member of an ancient and noble Prussian family, was born at Stolpe in Pomerania on the 26th of April 1774. In 1790-1793 he studied at the mining school of Freiberg under Werner, one of his fellow-students there being Alexander von Humboldt. He afterwards completed his education at the universities of Halle and Göttingen. His _Versuch einer mineralogischen Beschreibung von Landeck_ (Breslau, 1797) was translated into French (Paris, 1805), and into English as _Attempt at a Mineralogical Description of Landeck_ (Edinburgh, 1810); he also published in 1802 _Entwurf einer geognostischen Beschreibung von Schlesien (Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien_, Band i.). He was at this time a zealous upholder of the Neptunian theory of his illustrious master. In 1797 he met Humboldt at Salzburg, and with him explored the geological formations of Styria, and the adjoining Alps. In the spring of the following year, von Buch extended his excursions into Italy, where his faith in the Neptunian theory was shaken. In his previous works he had advocated the aqueous origin of basaltic and other formations. In 1799 he paid his first visit to Vesuvius, and again in 1805 he returned to study the volcano, accompanied by Humboldt and Gay Lussac. They had the good fortune to witness a remarkable eruption, which supplied von Buch with data for refuting many erroneous ideas then entertained regarding volcanoes. In 1802 he had explored the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne. The aspect of the Puy de Dôme, with its cone of trachyte and its strata of basaltic lava, induced him to abandon as untenable the doctrines of Werner on the formation of these rocks. The scientific results of his investigations he embodied in his _Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien_ (Berlin, 1802-1809). From the south of Europe von Buch repaired to the north, and spent two years among the Scandinavian islands, making many important observations on the geography of plants, on climatology and on geology. He showed that many of the erratic blocks on the North German plains must have come from Scandinavia. He also established the fact that the whole of Sweden is slowly but continuously rising above the level of the sea from Frederikshald to Abo. The details of these discoveries are given in his _Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland_ (Berlin, 1810). In 1815 he visited the Canary Islands in company with Christian Smith, the Norwegian botanist. His observations here convinced him that these and other islands of the Atlantic owed their existence to volcanic action of the most intense kind, and that the groups of islands in the South Sea are the remains of a pre-existing continent. The physical description of the Canary Islands was published at Berlin in 1825, and this work alone is regarded as an enduring monument of his labours. After leaving the Canaries von Buch proceeded to the Hebrides and the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Palaeontology also claimed his attention, and he described in 1831 and later years a number of Cephalopods, Brachiopods and Cystidea, and pointed out their stratigraphical importance. In addition to the works already mentioned von Buch published in 1832 the magnificent _Geological Map of Germany_ (42 sheets, Berlin). His geological excursions were continued without interruption till his 78th year. Eight months before his death he visited [v.04 p.0659] the mountains of Auvergne; and on returning home he read a paper on the Jurassic formation before the Academy of Berlin. He died at Berlin on the 4th of March 1853. Von Buch had inherited from his father a fortune more than sufficient for his wants. He was never married, and was unembarrassed by family ties. His excursions were always taken on foot, with a staff in his hand, and the large pockets of his overcoat filled with papers and geological instruments. Under this guise, the passer-by would not easily have recognized the man whom Humboldt pronounced the greatest geologist of his time.

A complete edition of his works was published at Berlin (1867-1885).

BUCHAN, EARLS OF. The earldom of Mar and Buchan was one of the seven original Scottish earldoms; later, Buchan was separated from Mar, and among the early earls of Buchan were Alexander Comyn (d. 1289), John Comyn (d. c. 1313), both constables of Scotland, and Henry Beaumont (d. 1340), who had married a Comyn. John Comyn's wife, Isabel, was the countess of Buchan who crowned Robert the Bruce king at Scone in 1306, and was afterwards imprisoned at Berwick; not, however, in a cage hung on the wall of the castle. About 1382 Sir Alexander Stewart (d. c. 1404), the "wolf of Badenoch," a son of King Robert II., became earl of Buchan, and the Stewarts appear to have held the earldom for about a century and a half, although not in a direct line from Sir Alexander.[1] Among the most celebrated of the Stewart earls were the Scottish regent, Robert, duke of Albany, and his son John, who was made constable of France and was killed at the battle of Verneuil in 1424. In 1617 the earldom came to James Erskine (d. 1640), a son of John Erskine, 2nd (or 7th) earl of Mar, whose wife Mary had inherited it from her father, James Douglas (d. 1601), and from that time it has been retained by the Erskines.

Perhaps the most celebrated of the later earls of Buchan was the eccentric David Steuart Erskine, 11th earl (1742-1829), a son of Henry David, 10th earl (d. 1767), and brother of Henry Erskine (_q.v._), and of Thomas, Lord Erskine (_q.v._). His pertinacity was instrumental in effecting a change in the method of electing Scottish representative peers, and in 1780 he succeeded in founding the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Among his correspondents was Horace Walpole, and he wrote an _Essay on the Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson_ (1792), and other writings. He died at his residence at Dryburgh in April 1829, leaving no legitimate children, and was followed as 12th earl by his nephew Henry David (1783-1857), the ancestor of the present peer. The 11th earl's natural son, Sir David Erskine (1772-1837), who inherited his father's unentailed estates, was an antiquary and a dramatist.

[1] In August 1908, during some excavations at Dunkeld, remains were found which are supposed to be those of Alexander Stewart, the "wolf of Badenoch."

BUCHAN, ELSPETH (1738-1791), founder of a Scottish religious sect known as the Buchanites, was the daughter of John Simpson, proprietor of an inn near Banff. Having quarrelled with her husband, Robert Buchan, a potter of Greenock, she settled with her children in Glasgow, where she was deeply impressed by a sermon preached by Hugh White, minister of the Relief church at Irvine. She persuaded White and others that she was a saint with a special mission, that in fact she was the woman, and White the man-child, described in Revelation xii. White was condemned by the presbytery, and the sect, which ultimately numbered forty-six adherents, was expelled by the magistrates in 1784 and settled in a farm, consisting of one room and a loft, known as New Cample in Dumfriesshire. Mrs Buchan claimed prophetic inspiration and pretended to confer the Holy Ghost upon her followers by breathing upon them; they believed that the millennium was near, and that they would not die, but be translated. It appears that they had community of wives and lived on funds provided by the richer members. Robert Burns, the poet, in a letter dated August 1784, describes the sect as idle and immoral. In 1785 White and Mrs Buchan published a _Divine Dictionary_, but the sect broke up on the death of its founder in spite of White's attempts to prove that she was only in a trance. Even White was eventually undeceived. Andrew Innes, the last survivor, died in 1848. See J. Train, _The Buchanites from First to Last_ (Edinburgh, 1846).

BUCHAN, PETER (1790-1854), Scottish editor, was born at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in 1790. In 1816 he started in business as a printer at Peterhead, and was successful enough to be able eventually to retire and devote himself to the collection and editing of Scottish ballads. His _Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland_ (1828) contained a large number of hitherto unpublished ballads, and newly discovered versions of existing ones. Another collection made by him was published by the Percy Society, under the title _Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads_ (1845). Two unpublished volumes of Buchan's ballad collections are in the British Museum. He died on the 19th of September 1854.

BUCHANAN, CLAUDIUS (1766-1815), English divine, was born at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, and educated at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. He was ordained in 1795, and after holding a chaplaincy in India at Barrackpur (1797-1799) was appointed Calcutta chaplain and vice-principal of the college of Fort William. In this capacity he did much to advance Christianity and native education in India, especially by organizing systematic translations of the Scriptures. An account of his travels in the south and west of India, which added considerably to our knowledge of nature life, is given in his _Christian Researches in Asia_ (Cambridge, 1811). After his return to England in 1808, he still took an active part in matters connected with India, and by his book entitled _Colonial Ecclesiastical Establishment_ (London, 1813), he assisted in settling the controversy of 1813, which ended in the establishment of the Indian episcopate.

BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506-1582), Scottish humanist, was born in February 1506. His father, a younger son of an old family, was the possessor of the farm of Moss, in the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire, but he died at an early age, leaving his widow and children in poverty. His mother, Agnes Heriot, was of the family of the Heriots of Trabroun, Haddingtonshire, of which George Heriot, founder of Heriot's hospital, was also a member. Buchanan is said to have attended Killearn school, but not much is known of his early education. In 1520 he was sent by his uncle, James Heriot, to the university of Paris, where, as he tells us in an autobiographical sketch, he devoted himself to the writing of verses "partly by liking, partly by compulsion (that being then the one task prescribed to youth)." In 1522 his uncle died, and Buchanan being thus unable to continue longer in Paris, returned to Scotland. After recovering from a severe illness, he joined the French auxiliaries who had been brought over by John Stewart, duke of Albany, and took part in an unsuccessful inroad into England (see the account in his _Hist. of Scotland_). In the following year he entered the university of St Andrews, where he graduated B.A. in 1525. He had gone there chiefly for the purpose of attending the celebrated John Major's lectures on logic; and when that teacher removed to Paris, Buchanan followed him in 1526. In 1527 he graduated B.A., and in 1528 M.A. at Paris. Next year he was appointed regent, or professor, in the college of Sainte-Barbe, and taught there for upwards of three years. In 1529 he was elected Procurator of the "German Nation" in the university of Paris, and was re-elected four times in four successive months. He resigned his regentship in 1531, and in 1532 became tutor to Gilbert Kennedy, 3rd earl of Cassilis, with whom he returned to Scotland about the beginning of 1537.

At this period Buchanan was content to assume the same attitude towards the Church of Rome that Erasmus maintained. He did not repudiate its doctrines, but considered himself free to criticize its practice. Though he listened with interest to the arguments of the Reformers, he did not join their ranks before 1553. His first production in Scotland, when he was in Lord Cassilis's household in the west country, was the poem _Somnium_, a satirical attack upon the Franciscan friars and monastic life generally. This assault on the monks was not displeasing to James V., who engaged Buchanan as tutor to one of his natural [v.04 p.0660] sons, Lord James Stewart (not the son who was afterwards the regent Murray), and encouraged him to a still more daring effort. In these circumstances the poems _Palinodia_ and _Franciscanus & Fratres_ were written, and, although they remained unpublished for many years, it is not surprising that the author became an object of bitterest hatred to the order and their friends. Nor was it yet a safe matter to assail the church. In 1539 there was a bitter persecution of the Lutherans, and Buchanan among others was arrested. He managed to effect his escape and with considerable difficulty made his way to London and thence to Paris. In Paris, however, he found his enemy, Cardinal David Beaton, who was there as an ambassador, and on the invitation of André de Gouvéa, proceeded to Bordeaux. Gouvéa was then principal of the newly founded college of Guienne at Bordeaux, and by his exertions Buchanan was appointed professor of Latin. During his residence here several of his best works, the translations of _Medea_ and _Alcestis_, and the two dramas, _Jephthes (sive Votum)_ and _Baptistes (sive Calumnia)_, were completed. Montaigne was Buchanan's pupil at Bordeaux and acted in his tragedies. In the essay _Of Presumption_ he classes Buchanan with Aurat, Béza, de L'Hopital, Montdore and Turnebus, as one of the foremost Latin poets of his time. Here also Buchanan formed a lasting friendship with Julius Caesar Scaliger; in later life he won the admiration of Joseph Scaliger, who wrote an epigram on Buchanan which contains the couplet, famous in its day:--

"Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes;
Romani eloquii Scotia limes erit?"

In 1542 or 1543 he returned to Paris, and in 1544 was appointed regent in the college of Cardinal le Moine. Among his colleagues were the renowned Muretus and Turnebus.

In 1547 Buchanan joined the band of French and Portuguese humanists who had been invited by André de Gouvéa to lecture in the Portuguese university of Coimbra. The French mathematician Élie Vinet, and the Portuguese historian, Jeronimo de Osorio, were among his colleagues; Gouvéa, called by Montaigne _le plus grand principal de France_, was rector of the university, which had reached the summit of its prosperity under the patronage of King John III. But the rectorship had been coveted by Diogo de Gouvéa, uncle of André and formerly head of Sainte-Barbe. It is probable that before André's death at the end of 1547 Diogo had urged the Inquisition to attack him and his staff; up to 1906, when the records of the trial were first published in full, Buchanan's biographers generally attributed the attack to the influence of Cardinal Beaton, the Franciscans, or the Jesuits, and the whole history of Buchanan's residence in Portugal was extremely obscure.

A commission of inquiry was appointed in October 1549 and reported in June 1550. Buchanan and two Portuguese, Diogo de Teive and Jo[=a]o da Costa (who had succeeded to the rectorship), were committed for trial. Teive and Costa were found guilty of various offences against public order, and the evidence shows that there was ample reason for a judicial inquiry. Buchanan was accused of Lutheran and Judaistic practices. He defended himself with conspicuous ability, courage and frankness, admitting that some of the charges were true. About June 1551 he was sentenced to abjure his errors, and to be imprisoned in the monastery of S[=a]o Bento in Lisbon. Here he was compelled to listen to edifying discourses from the monks, whom he found "not unkind but ignorant." In his leisure he began to translate the Psalms into Latin verse. After seven months he was released, on condition that he remained in Lisbon; and on the 28th of February 1552 this restriction was annulled. Buchanan at once sailed for England, but soon made his way to Paris, where in 1553 he was appointed regent in the college of Boncourt. He remained in that post for two years, and then accepted the office of tutor to the son of the Maréchal de Brissac. It was almost certainly during this last stay in France, where Protestantism was being repressed with great severity by Francis I., that Buchanan ranged himself on the side of the Calvinists.

In 1560 or 1561 he returned to Scotland, and in April 1562 we find him installed as tutor to the young queen Mary, who was accustomed to read Livy with him daily. Buchanan now openly joined the Protestant, or Reformed Church, and in 1566 was appointed by the earl of Murray principal of St Leonard's College, St Andrews. Two years before he had received from the queen the valuable gift of the revenues of Crossraguel Abbey. He was thus in good circumstances, and his fame was steadily increasing. So great, indeed, was his reputation for learning and administrative capacity that, though a layman, he was made moderator of the general assembly in 1567. He had sat in the assemblies from 1563.

Buchanan accompanied the regent Murray into England, and his _Detectio_ (published in 1572) was produced to the commissioners at Westminster. In 1570, after the assassination of Murray, he was appointed one of the preceptors of the young king, and it was through his tuition that James VI. acquired his scholarship. While discharging the functions of royal tutor he also held other important offices. He was for a short time director of chancery, and then became lord privy seal, a post which entitled him to a seat in the parliament. He appears to have continued in this office for some years, at least till 1579. He died on the 28th of September 1582.

His last years had been occupied with two of his most important works. The first was the treatise _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_, published in 1579. In this famous work, composed in the form of a dialogue, and evidently intended to instil sound political principles into the mind of his pupil, Buchanan lays down the doctrine that the source of all political power is the people, that the king is bound by those conditions under which the supreme power was first committed to his hands, and that it is lawful to resist, even to punish, tyrants. The importance of the work is proved by the persistent efforts of the legislature to suppress it during the century following its publication. It was condemned by act of parliament in 1584, and again in 1664; and in 1683 it was burned by the university of Oxford. The second of his larger works is the history of Scotland, _Rerum Scoticarum Historia_, completed shortly before his death (1579), and published in 1582. It is of great value for the period personally known to the author, which occupies the greater portion of the book. The earlier part is based, to a considerable extent, on the legendary history of Boece. Buchanan's purpose was to "purge" the national history "of sum Inglis lyis and Scottis vanite" (_Letter to Randolph_), but he exaggerated his freedom from partisanship and unconsciously criticized his work when he said that it would "content few and displease many."

Buchanan is one of Scotland's greatest scholars. For mastery over the Latin language he has seldom been surpassed by any modern writer. His style is not rigidly modelled upon that of any classical author, but has a certain freshness and elasticity of its own. He wrote Latin as if it had been his mother tongue. But in addition to this perfect command over the language, Buchanan had a rich vein of poetical feeling, and much originality of thought. His translations of the Psalms and of the Greek plays are more than mere versions; the smaller satirical poems abound in wit and in happy phrase; his two tragedies, _Baptistes_ and _Jephthes_, have enjoyed from the first an undiminished European reputation for academic excellence. In addition to the works already named, Buchanan wrote in prose _Chamaeleon_, a satire in the vernacular against Maitland of Lethington, first printed in 1711; a Latin translation of Linacre's Grammar (Paris, 1533); _Libettus de Prosodia_ (Edinburgh, 1640); and _Vita ab ipso scripta biennio ante mortem_ (1608), edited by R. Sibbald (1702). His other poems are _Fratres Fraterrimi_, _Elegiae_, _Silvae_, two sets of verses entitled _Hendecasyllabon Liber_ and _Iambon Liber_; three books of _Epigrammata_; a book of miscellaneous verse; _De Sphaera_ (in five books), suggested by the poem of Joannes de Sacrobosco, and intended as a defence of the Ptolemaic theory against the new Copernican view.

There are two editions of Buchanan's works:--(a) _Georgii Buchanani Scoti, Poetarum sui seculi facile principis, Opera Omnia_, in two vols. fol., edited by Ruddiman (Edinburgh, Freebairn, 1715); (b) edited by Burman, 4to, 1725. The _Vernacular Writings_, [v.04 p.0661] consisting of the _Chamaeleon_ (_u.s._), a tract on the Reformation of St Andrews University, _Ane Admonitioun to the Trew Lordis_, and two letters, were edited for the Scottish Text Society by P. Hume Brown. The principal biographies are:--David Irving, _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan_ (Edinburgh,1807 and 1817); P. Hume Brown, _George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer_ (Edinburgh, 1890), _George Buchanan and his Times_ (Edinburgh, 1906); Rev. D. Macmillan, _George Buchanan, a Biography_ (Edinburgh, 1906). Buchanan's quatercentenary was celebrated at different centres in Scotland in 1906, and was the occasion of several encomia and studies. The most important of these are: _George Buchanan: Glasgow Quatercentenary Studies_ (Glasgow, 1906), and _George Buchanan, a Memoir_, edited by D.A. Millar (St Andrews, 1907). A verse translation of the _Baptistes_, entitled _Tyrannicall-Government Anatomized_ (1642), has been attributed to Milton; its authorship is discussed in the _Glasgow Quatercentenary Studies_. The records of Buchanan's trial, discovered by the Portuguese historian, G.J.C. Henriques, were published by him under the title _George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition. The Records of his Trial, with a Translation thereof into English, Facsimiles of some of the Papers, and an Introduction_ (Lisbon, 1906).

BUCHANAN, JAMES (1791-1868), fifteenth president of the United States, was born near Foltz, Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on the 23rd of April 1791. Both parents were of Scottish-Irish Presbyterian descent. He graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1809, studied law at Lancaster in 1809-1812, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He served in the lower house of the state legislature in 1814-1816, and as a representative in Congress from 1821 to 1831. As chairman of the judiciary committee he conducted the impeachment trial (1830) of Judge James H. Peck, led an unsuccessful movement to increase the number of Supreme Court judges and to relieve them of their circuit duties, and succeeded in defeating an attempt to repeal the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction by writ of error to the state courts in cases where federal laws and treaties are in question. After the dissolution of the Federalist party, of which he had been a member, he supported the Jackson-Van Buren faction, and soon came to be definitely associated with the Democrats. He represented the United States at the court of St Petersburg in 1832-1833, and there negotiated an important commercial treaty. He was a Democratic member of the United States Senate from December 1834 until March 1845, ardently supporting President Jackson, and was secretary of state in the cabinet of President Polk from 1845 to 1849--a period marked by the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and negotiations with Great Britain relative to the Oregon question. After four years of retirement spent in the practice of his profession, he was appointed by President Pierce minister to Great Britain in 1853.

Up to this time Buchanan's attitude on the slavery question had been that held by the conservative element among Northern Democrats. He felt that the institution was morally wrong, but held that Congress could not interfere with it in the states in which it existed, and ought not to hinder the natural tendency toward territorial expansion through a fear that the evil would spread. He voted for the bill to exclude anti-slavery literature from the mails, approved of the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, and disapproved of the Wilmot Proviso. Fortunately for his career he was abroad during the Kansas-Nebraska debates, and hence did not share in the unpopularity which attached to Stephen A. Douglas as the author of the bill, and to President Pierce as the executive who was called upon to enforce it. At the same time, by joining with J.Y. Mason and Pierre Soule in issuing the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, he retained the good-will of the South.[1] Accordingly on his return from England in 1856 he was nominated by the Democrats as a compromise candidate for president, and was elected, receiving 174 electoral votes to 114 for John C. Frémont, Republican, and 8 for Millard Fillmore, American or "Know-Nothing."

His high moral character, the breadth of his legal knowledge, and his experience as congressman, cabinet member and diplomat, would have made Buchanan an excellent president in ordinary times; but he lacked the soundness of judgment, the self-reliance and the moral courage needed to face a crisis. At the beginning of his administration he appointed Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, territorial governor of Kansas, and Frederick P. Stanton of Tennessee, secretary, and assured them of his determination to adhere to the popular sovereignty principle. He soon began to use his influence, however, to force the admission of Kansas into the Union under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the settlers. Stanton was removed from office for opposing the scheme, and Walker resigned in disgust. This change of policy was doubtless the result of timidity rather than of a desire to secure re-election by gaining the favour of the Southern Democracy. Under the influence of Howell Cobb of Georgia, secretary of the treasury, and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, secretary of the interior, the president was convinced that it was the only way to avoid civil war. Federal patronage was freely used to advance the Lecompton measure and the compromise English Bill, and to prevent Douglas's election to the Senate in 1858. Some of these facts were brought out in the famous Covode Investigation conducted by a committee of the House of Representatives in 1860. The investigations, however, were very partisan in character, and there is reason to doubt the constitutional power of the House to make it, except as the basis for an impeachment trial.

The call issued by the South Carolina legislature just after the election of Lincoln for a state convention to decide upon the advisability of secession brought forward the most serious question of Buchanan's administration. The part of his annual message of the 4th of December 1860 dealing with it is based upon a report prepared by Attorney-General Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania. He argued that a state had no legal right to secede, but denied that the federal government had any power forcibly to prevent it. At the same time it was the duty of the president to call out the army and navy of the United States to protect federal property or to enforce federal laws. Soon after the secession movement began the Southern members of the cabinet resigned, and the president gradually came under the influence of Black, Stanton, Dix, and other Northern leaders. He continued, however, to work for a peaceful settlement, supporting the Crittenden Compromise and the work of the Peace Congress. He disapproved of Major Anderson's removal of his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in December 1860; but there is probably no basis for the charge made by Southern writers that the removal itself was in violation of a pledge given by the president to preserve the _status quo_ in Charleston harbour until the arrival of the South Carolina commissioners in Washington. Equally unfounded is the assertion first made by Thurlow Weed in the London _Observer_ (9th of February 1862) that the president was prevented from ordering Anderson back to Fort Moultrie only by the threat of four members of the cabinet to resign.

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On the expiration of his term of office (March 4, 1861) Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 1st of June 1868. His mistakes as president have been so emphasized as to obscure the fact that he was a man of unimpeachable honesty, of the highest patriotism, and of considerable ability. He never married.

See George Ticknor Curtis, _The Life of James Buchanan_ (2 vols., New York, 1883), the standard biography; Curtis, however, was a close personal and political friend, and his work is too eulogistic. More trustworthy, but at times unduly severe, is the account given by James Ford Rhodes in the first two volumes of his _History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_ (New York, new edition, 1902-1907). John Bassett Moore has edited _The Works of James Buchanan, comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence_ (Philadelphia, 1908-1910).

[1] This "manifesto," which was bitterly attacked in the North, was agreed upon (October 18, 1854) by the three ministers after several meetings at Ostend and at Aix-la-Chapelle, arranged in pursuance of instructions to them from President Pierce to "compare opinions, and to adopt measures for perfect concert of action in aid of the negotiations at Madrid" on the subject of reparations demanded from Spain by the United States for alleged injuries to American commerce with Cuba. In the manifesto the three ministers asserted that "from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members"; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second Santo Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually destroy the fair fabric of our Union"; and recommended that "the United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba as soon as possible." To Spain, they argued, the sale of the island would be a great advantage. The most startling declaration of the manifesto was that if Spain should refuse to sell "after we shall have offered a price for Cuba far beyond its present value," and if Cuba, in the possession of Spain, should seriously endanger "our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union," then "by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we have the power."