Note 472 — PREFACE (continued 3)

Alexander Cockburn, Knox's pupil, according to the inscription on a brazen tablet, erected to his memory in the aisle of the old Church of Ormiston, was born in the year 1535-6.—(Collection of Epitaphs, &c., p. 342, Glasgow, 1834, 12mo; Stat. Acc. Haddington, p. 179.) The following is the inscription alluded to, as still extant at Ormiston:—

"Hic conditur Mag. Alexander Cockburn, Primogenitus Joannis Domini Ormiston et Alisonæ Sandilands, ex preclara familia Calder, qui natus 13 Januarij 1535: Post insignem Linguarum Professionem, Obiit anno ætatis suæ 28, cal. Sept."

As Cockburn was born in 1535-6, he must have died in 1564. The tablet referred to also contains Buchanan's lines. Omnia quæ longa, &c., celebrating his learning, and lamenting his premature fate. Dempster likewise quotes these lines and another elegy on his death, by Buchanan. (Opera, vol. ii. pp. 106, 120,) and says, that Alexander Cockburn, who had spent several years abroad, published various works, of which he had only seen three, the titles of which he specifies; but he mistakes the date of his death, in placing it in 1572, and his age, as 25.—(Hist. Eccles. p. 182.)