Buchanan, Claudius, D.D., vice-provost of the College of Fort William, in Bengal, well known for his exertions in promoting an ecclesiastical establish- ment in India, and for his active support of mission- ary and philanthropic labors, was born on the 12th of March, 1766, at Cambuslang, a village near Glasgow. At the age of twenty-one he made his way to London, where he succeeded in attracting the attention of the Rev. John Newton, by whose influence he was sent to Cambridge, where lie was educated at the expense of Henry Thornton, Esq., whom he afterward repaid. Buchanan went out to India in 1796 as one of the East India Company's chaplains, and, on the institution of the I lollege of Fort William in Bengal in 1800, he was made professor of the Greek, Latin, and English clas- sics, and vice-provost. During his residence in India he published his Christian Researches in Asia (5th ed. Lend. 1812, 8vo), a book which attracted considerable attention at the time, and which lias gone through a Dumber of editions. In 1804 and 1805 he gave vari- ous sums of money to the universities of England and Scotland, to be awarded as prizes for essays on the diffusion of Christianity in India. He returned to England in 1808, and during the remainder of his life continued, through the medium of the pulpit and the press, to enforce his views. His reply to the state-
ments of Charles Buller, Esq., M.P., on the worship of the idol Juggernaut, which was addressed to the East India Company, was laid on the table of the House of Commons in 1813 and printed. He died at Broxbourne, Herts, February 9, 1815, being at the pe- riod of his death engaged in superintending an edition of the Scriptures for the use of the Syrian Christians who inhabit the coast of Malabar. He published also The Colonial Ecclesiastical Establishment (2d ed. Lond. 1803, 8vo) -.—Sermons (Edinb. 1812, 8vo) .—An Apolo- gy for promoting Christianity in India (Lond. 1813, 8vo). j His Lfe, by the Rev. Hugh Pearson, was published in 1819 (Lond. 2 vols. 8vo ; 5th ed. 1846).
Buchanan, George, was born in 1506 at Kil- lairn, in Dumbartonshire, and, after having studied at the University of Paris and served for a year in the army, he passed A.B. at St. Andrew's 1525. In 1532 he was appointed tutor to the Earl of Cassilis, with whom he remained in France during five years. Re- turning from Paris with the earl, he was made tutor to the natural son of James V. Two satires, Palinodia and Franciscanus, which he wrote on the monks, soon drew down their vengeance upon him, and he was im- prisoned, but was fortunate enough to escape. Once more visiting the Continent, he successively taught at Paris, at Bordeaux, and at Coimbra, at which latter city the freedom of his opinions again caused his im- prisonment. He next spent four years at Paris as tu- tor to the Marshal de Brissac's son. During this Con- tinental residence he translated the Medea and Alces- tis of Euripides, and began his Latin Version of the Psalms. In 1560 he returned to his native land, and embraced Protestantism. In 1566 he was made" prin- cipal of St. Leonard's College at St. Andrew's, and in 1567 was chosen as preceptor to James VI. When subsequently reproached with having made his royal pupil a pedant, Buchanan is said to have replied that "it was the best he could make of him." Buchanan died poor, in 1582. His principal work is Historia Re~ rum Scoticarum (Edinb. 1582, fol. ; in English, Lond. 1690, fol.). As a Latin poet, he ranks among the high- est of the modern, especially for his version of the Psalms. All his writings are given in Opera omnia, historica, etc., curante Rud.limanno (Edinb. 1715, 2 vols. 4to) ; another complete edition was published by Bur- man (Lugd. Bat. 1725, 2 vols.).
Buchanites, a fanatical sect wbich arose in Scot- land 1783. An ignorant but shrewd woman, named Elspeth Buchan (born 1738), gave out that she was the Spirit of God, the mysterious woman in Rev. xii in whom the light of God was restored to men. She professed to communicate the Holy Spirit, and pre- tended that she had brought forth a man-child, "who was to rule with a rod of iron," in the person of the Rev. Hugh White, minister of the Relief Presbytery at Irvine, who, though an educated man, gave him- self up to this delusion. A number of persons joined them. Driven from Irvine by a popular tumult, they made a settlement at New Cample, enjoying commu- nity of goods, and living in concubinage and adultery. Mrs. Buchan promised her deluded followers "trans- lation" instead of death, but unfortunately died her- self March 29, 1791. The community held together for a while, but Mr. White left them in 1792 and went to Virginia, where he became a Universalist preacher. The establishment was removed to Crocketford, where its last survivor, Andrew Innes, died in 1845. — Train, The Buchanites from first to last (Edinb. 1846, 18mo).
Buck, Charles, an English Independent minis- ter, was born in 1771. He served the churches at Shcerness, Hackney, and London, and died in 1815. He is the author of A Theological Dictionary (Lond. 1802, 2 vols. 8vo), which has since been considerably enlarged by Dr. Henderson (Lond. 1847, 8vo), arid has had a wide circulation both in England and America. Though too small to suffice as a book of reference, it