to make him prisoner; but it so happened that this letter got into the hands of some of Buchanan's good friends. The death of the Scottish King, however, and a pestilence that raged fiercely through Aquitaine, dispelled these fears.

Then came a letter from the King of Portugal, commanding Gouvea to come home, and bring with him persons learned in Greek and Latin, to teach the classics, and the rudiments of the Aristotelian philosophy, in the schools which he was then establishing with great solicitude and expense. Buchanan gladly accepted this invitation. For as all parts of Europe were either in flames of foreign and civil war, actually raging, or were likely to be soon involved in the conflagration, he looked on that single place of retreat as one where he might be out of the way of tumults, and thought that, in the society to be found there, he should not feel himself a stranger, but rather as one surrounded with his dearest friends. For there were many there with whom he had been long on terms of intimacy, and whose works had made them eminent throughout the world.

He therefore not only freely went himself, but persuaded his brother Patrick to join so eminent a circle. And for some time matters went on very well, until André Gouvea was caught away by death, not, indeed, premature to himself, but to his friends calamitous. For no sooner was he removed, than enemies and rivals first beset them with intrigues, and then assailed them with unmasked hostility, until at length three of them, Buchanan being one, were thrown into prison, and, after long and severe confinement, brought out to trial, subjected to prolonged accusations, and then thrown back again into durance. But the accusers were never named.

On Buchanan they vented the bitterest enmity. For he was a foreigner, and knew few there that were not in bonds, or overwhelmed with trouble, or had not marked him for revenge. The poem written against the Franciscans was brought against him, which he had been careful to have excused to the King of Portugal, before he left France, although none of them knew its contents; for he had only given one copy to the King of Scotland, by whose command

he wrote it. It was made a crime in him that he ate flesh in Lent, although there is no one in all the Peninsula who abstains from it. So were certain sayings indirectly spoken against the Monks, which to no one, except a Monk, could appear criminal. They were also most gravely offended that, in a familiar conversation with some young Portuguese, when the eucharist was mentioned, he had said that he thought Augustine inclined much to the party which the Church of Rome condemns. Two other witnesses, as he afterwards found, deposed that they had heard from very many persons that Buchanan thought badly of the religion of Rome. But, to make the story short, when the Inquisitors had wearied both him and themselves for nearly a year and a half, at length, that they might not seem to have troubled for nothing one that was not altogether unknown, they shut him up in a monastery for several months, that he might be taught more exactly by the Monks; men who were not altogether devoid of humanity, but utterly ignorant of all religion. It was principally at this time that he translated many of the psalms of David into various kinds of

verse.

After all this, when he was restored to liberty, and applied to the King for permission to return to France, His Majesty prayed him to remain, and gave him a small daily allowance, until some suitable provision could be made for him. But, wearied with long delay, and continued uncertainty as to what employment he might find, or when it might come, he took passage at Lisbon in a vessel bound from Crete, and returned to England. In England, however, he did not remain, although he received some respectable proposals. For everything was unsettled there, under the young King: the great men were disagreed, and the people still in a state of agitation and discontent, in consequence of recent troubles. He therefore went over to France, just about the time when the siege of Metz was raised. At the pressing instance of several friends, he wrote a poetical piece on that siege, although very unwilling to put any production of his in the way of many other valued friends, and especially Melin S. Gelais, whose

erudite and elegant verses on the same subject were already in circulation.

From France he was called into Italy by Carlo Cossé, of Brescia; who then commanded in Piedmont, with great credit to himself, being sometimes in Italy, and sometimes in France; and there Buchanan remained five years with his son Timoleone, until the year 1560. The greatest part of this time he devoted to sacred literature, that he might form a more accurate judgment concerning the points which were then the subject of almost universal controversy, but which began to be settled in his own country, the Scotch being now delivered from the tyranny of the Guises. On his return, in the year 1563, he became a member of the Church of Scotland. He also published several of his writings, now recovered, so to speak, from the wreck of former times. Others which are scattered about among his friends, he commits to fortune. He is now in his seventyfourth year, living with King James VI., whose tutor he became in the year 1565, and, broken down under the infirmities of age, longs to put into port.

He died in Edinburgh, September 28th, 1582, aged seventy-six.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

A Lecture, by the late Robert Ripley, Esq., M.D.,
of Whitby.

(Concluded from page 354.)

THE movements we have been examining are those of which the mind is conscious and over which the will exercises complete control. Reference has been made to another class of movements and actions over which the will has no power, and which are subservient to what are called the nutritive functions, as digestion, circulation, &c. The various organs concerned in those processes are principally supplied with nervous influence from the sympathetic or ganglionic system of nerves; and although there is not sufficient proof that they are necessarily dependent upon this part of the nervous system for their activity, there can

be no doubt that they are greatly influenced through its medium, by varying conditions of the body or mind. All the sympathies between the actions of organs concerned in the vital functions are probably effected through the agency of these nerves. Numerous experiments have been made on living animals to ascertain how far they are subservient to sensation and motion. The results are somewhat contradictory; which is not to be wondered at, considering the great amount of violence used and injury done before they are exposed. In the natural or healthy state, they convey no sensation to the mind; thus, we are not conscious of the movements of the heart or stomach: but when any disease occurs in, or when any irritation is applied to, the organs supplied by them, they have the power of informing us, by the sensation of pain or uneasiness, that something is going wrong and wants correction; a prospective provision clearly evincing the care, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator.

As to the power of motion, as before observed, we have no control over the movements of the organs supplied by this system; but some of them (the heart, for instance) are greatly affected by mental emotions, probably through it. It seems also, from numerous experiments, that irritation applied to it has the effect of quickening the movements of the organs to which it is distributed. The wisdom of endowing the organs so necessary to the continuance of life with nervous influence independently of our will and attention, is evident enough. As Paley says, "How happy is it that our vital motions are involuntary! We should have enough to do if we had to keep our hearts beating, and our stomachs at work. Did these things depend, we will not say upon our effort, but upon our biding, our care, or our attention, they would leave us leisure for nothing else. We must have been continually upon the watch, and continually in fear: nor would this constitution have allowed of sleep." Another admirable provision is, that which enables these organs to carry on their respective actions without any of that lassitude or weariness which always results from continued exertion of the voluntary muscles, and which renders rest absolutely necessary for them. "One would expect,"

says Paley, in speaking of the heart, "that this wonderful machine would soon work itself out. Yet shall it go on night and day for eighty years together, at the rate of one hundred thousand strokes every twenty-four hours, having at every stroke a great resistance to overcome; and shall continue this action for this length of time without disorder and without weariness."

Intermediate between the movements which are under the control of the will, and those which are independent of it, that is, between the animal and organie functions, there is another and a very important class of movements; the instinctive reflex, or excito motory, as they have been called from the manner of their excitation. All of them are the result of the application of stimulus, which may be either external or internal: they take place independently of the will of the individual, and are not directed by him to any definite end. They predominate greatly in the lower classes of animals; are indeed, in many instances, almost the only actions manifested by them; and whilst in man they are rendered partly subordinate to his powerful reason, they display themselves in full force during childhood or when the mind is weakened by disease. A few instances will best illustrate their nature. If we cut off a snake's head, and then wound the middle of its body, the neck turns towards the wounded part as it would have done with the head on. If the head of a frog be removed, the animal will lie apparently dead; but if its toe be pinched, its leg will be drawn up. In both these cases it is evident, will and feeling can have nothing to do with the action: they are both reflex movements; an impression is made on the nerves of sensation in the part irritated, and this being carried to the cerebro spinal axis or centre, is thence reflected by the motory nerves to the muscles put into action. The act of sucking in an infant appears to be directly excited by the contact of the nipple with the lips, without the consciousness of the individual being necessarily involved; for instances have occurred in which it has been energetically performed by infants born without brain; and a similar result has followed the removal of the brain in young dogs.