[230] A skull represented as Buchanan’s has long been shown in the
College of Edinburgh. It is extremely thin, and being long ago shown in
company with that of a known idiot, which was, on the contrary, very
thick, it seemed to form a commentary upon the popular expression which
sets forth density of bone as an invariable accompaniment of paucity of
brain. The author of a diatribe called _Scotland Characterised_, which
was published in 1701, and may be found in the _Harleian Miscellany_,
tells us that he had seen the skull in question, and that it bore ‘a
very pretty distich upon it [the composition of Principal Adamson, who
had caused the skull to be lifted]—the first line I have forgot, but
the second was:
“Et decus es tumulo jam, Buchanane, tuo.”’
[231] [Dr David Hay Fleming has shown that the contemporary evidence is
all in favour of the Covenant’s having been signed _in_ the Greyfriars’
Church, and not in the churchyard; see a chapter by him in Mr Moir
Bryce’s _Old Greyfriars’ Church, Edinburgh_ (1912). And in the same
book Mr Moir Bryce has proved that the small strip of ground long
erroneously believed to be the Covenanters’ prison was not separated
off till 1703-4, and that the Covenanters were interned on a much
larger area to the east, now built over.]