ON NOT BEING BUCHANAN: ARTHUR JOHNSTON’S MAGNUM OPUS Roger P. H. Green It may be that to the international world of neo-Latinists the poetry of Arthur Johnston is less familiar than that of George Buchanan. This was not the perception of his contemporaries, nor is it true of Scottish scholars more recently: while Buchanan was (as he often still is) famed as ‘easily the chief of poets of our age’, as his publisher – not of course unaffected by commercial interests or personal affection for Buchanan – claimed,1 Johnston received comparable tributes from at least one contemporary;2 and in the preface to that monument of later Scottish Latin poetry, the Delitiae poetarum Scotorum, Johnston is praised as the leading light of his own time, a fit follower of Buchanan, the sun which has now set.3 Robert Crawford has recently referred to the two poets as ‘Apollos of the North’,4 and in the late nineteenth century Johnston was the subject of a useful two-volume edition by W. D. Geddes,5 long before there was any thought of replacing Ruddiman’s edition and commentary on Buchanan.6 Arthur Johnston7 was born in Caskieben, a small village in north-east Scotland, in about 1579.8 He was educated locally, and then in the univer- sity of Aberdeen, and much later would be its rector from 1637 to 1641, the year of his death. His poems were printed there, and he always kept close links with the learned men of Aberdeen, many of them doctors like him- self; but he was also for much of his life a typical Scot abroad, especially in 1 H. and R. Estienne (eds.), Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica, (Geneva?, n.d. [1565/6]). 2 David Wedderburn. See W. D. Geddes (ed.), Musa Latina Aberdonensis III, Poetae Minores, (Aberdeen, 1910) 432–436. 3 Delitiae poetarum Scotorum huius aevi illustrium (Amsterdam, 1637). The preface was written by Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet. 4 R. Crawford (ed.), Apollos of the North: selected poems of George Buchanan and Arthur Johnston (Edinburgh, 2006). 5 W. D. Geddes (ed.) Musa Latina Aberdonensis I and II (Aberdeen, 1892 and 1895). 6 The new edition proceeds apace under the direction of Philip Ford. Ruddiman’s work is Georgii Buchanani Opera Omnia . Edinburgh 1715; reprinted with slight changes and with a preface by P. Burman at Leiden in 1725. 7 Not to be confused with John Johnston, probably unrelated: see J. K. Cameron (ed.), Letters of John Johnston and Robert Howie (St. Andrews and London, 1963): xv and n. 2. 8 For the date, see Geddes I xxvii–xxix, showing that the date of 1587 is not possible. 444 roger p. h. green Padua, where he qualified as a doctor, and Sedan, where he held the Chair of Physic. He returned to England and Scotland c. 1622, and was medicus regius to King James VI and I and King Charles I. This and much more is well illustrated in a wide portfolio of verse as various as that of Buchanan but distinctly different in matter and tone. The last decade of his life saw him specialising in religious verse, notably a small book of fourteen Psalms and other works printed in 1633 and then a complete set of poetic Psalm paraphrases of 1637.9 Editions followed in 1642 (Middleburg: he had long been popular in the Low Countries) and 1657 (London). It is fair to say that for both poets their greatest claim to fame was their poetic Psalm paraphrases, which offered the reader the opportu- nity for meditation and delight, and showed well the writer’s skill in the interpretation and recasting of scripture, his metrical expertise and liter- ary appreciation. Words like ‘translation’ and ‘paraphrase’ do them scant justice.10 Though visually less impressive than Buchanan’s polymetric set (except for Psalm 119, where Johnston has a sudden starburst of metres) his work is a remarkable achievement. It is independent of his predeces- sor, and there is little evidence of a desire to emulate him, still less of the critical tone, perhaps fostered by politicians, which has been detected.11 That is certainly not the impression to be gained from the important poem addressing the reader of the 1637 and later editions of the Psalm paraphrases. In this poem he poses the question of why he retraces the steps of the Highland-born bard and takes up the Buchananesque lyre, when nobody recast the great Homer or Vergil or the works of Lysippus and Apelles. His opella may perhaps serve to enhance Buchanan’s by com- parison, as the moon does the sun, or as his victims did the great Achilles. Perhaps, like Marsyas, he deserves punishment for presumption; or he is simply mad. But if you want the real explanation, as he says in the follow- ing passage, it is this: Cinxit Iessiaden Buchananus veste, pyropis Quae simul et cocco nobiliore nitet, 30 haec, ego quam dono, nec gemmis picta nec ostro est, 9 Canticum Salomonis . ., London 1633, and Paraphrasis poetica Psalmorum Davidis . ., (Aberdeen, 1637). On these see R. P. H. Green, “George Buchanan, Arthur Johnston and William Laud”, Scottish Literary Review, 2, 1 (2010), 5–21. 10 See Roger P. H. Green “Poems and not just paraphrases: doing justice to Buchanan’s Psalms” in Syntagmatia: Essays on neo-Latin Literature in honour of Monique Mund-Dopchie and Gilbert Tournoy, edd. D. Sacré and Jan Papy, (Louvain, 2009), 415–429. 11 R. P. H. Green, ‘George Buchanan, Arthur Johnston and William Laud’..