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She turned has, and furth her wayis went;
But tho began mine aches and torment,
To see her part and follow I na might;
Methought the day was turned into night.

The 'King's Quhair' was written while James was confined in Windsor Castle, and it is supposed that he wrote several poems descriptive of humorous rustic scenes after he ascended the Scottish throne; none of these, however, can be identified.

James was followed in comparatively rapid succession by such writers as Henryson, Dunbar, Douglass and Lyndsay, of whom Warton remarks that 'they displayed a degree of sentiment and spirit, a command of phraseology, and a fertility of imagination not to be found in any contemporary English poets.'

ROBERT HENRYSON, the first of these writers, followed king James after an interval of about a half a century. Of this poet there are no personal memorials farther than that he was a schoolmaster of Dunfermlane, and that he died about 1508. His principal poem is The Testament of Cresseid, being a sequel to Chaucer's romantic poem Troilus and Cresseide. Henryson also wrote a series of fables, thirteen in number, and some miscellaneous poems chiefly of a moral character. One of his fables is the common story of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, which he treats with much humor and characteristic description, and concludes with the following beautifully expressed moral:--

Blissed be simple life, withouten dreid;
Blissed be sober feast in quieté;

Wha has eneuch of no more has he neid,

Though it be little into quantity.

Grit abundance, and blind prosperity,

Oft timis make ane evil conclusion;

The sweetest life, theirfor, in this country,

Is of sickerness, with small possession.

To these lines we may add the following pointed though fanciful descrip

tion of

THE GARMENT OF GOOD LADIES.

Would my good lady love me best,
And work after my will,

I should a garment goodliest
Gar make her body till.1

Of high honour should be her hood,
Upon her head to wear,
Garnish'd with governance, so good
Na deeming should her deir.2

1 Cause to be made to her shape.

2 No opinion should injure her.

Her sark1 should be her body next,
Of chastity so white:

With shame and dread together mixt,
The same should be perfyte.2

Her kirtle should be of clean constance,
Lacit with lesum3 love;

The mailies of continuance,
For never to remove.

Her gown should be of goodliness,
Well ribbon'd with renown;
Purfill'ds with pleasure in ilk place,
Furrit with fine fashioùn.

Her belt should be of benignity,
About her middle meet;

Her mantle of humility

To thole both wind and weit.8

Her hat should be of fair having,
And her tippet of truth;
Her patelet of good pansing,9
Her hals-ribbon of ruth 10

Her sleeves should be of esperance,

To keep her fra despair:
Her glovis of good governance,

To hide her fingers fair.

Her shoen should be of sickerness,
In sign that she not slide;
Her hose of honesty, I guess,
I should for her provide.

Would she put on this garment gay,

I durst swear by my seill,11

That she wore never green nor gray

That set12 her half so weel.

WILLIAM DUNBAR, the poet who follows Henryson, was born at Salton, in 1465. Of his early life little is farther known than that, though poor, he was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he is represented to have taken the degree of master of arts in 1479, when not yet fifteen years of age. Having, soon after he closed his studies, entered the Franciscan Order of Friars, he travelled for a number of years in Scotland, England, and France, as a novitiate of that Order, preaching, and living by the alms of the pious—a mode of life which he himself afterward acknowledged involved him in the constant exercise of falsehood, deceit, and flattery. In 1490, Dunbar, when in the twenty-fifth year of his age, returned to 3 Lawful.

1 Shift.

4 Eyelet-holes for lacing her kirtle. 6 Each.

9 Thinking.

11 Salvation.

2 Perfect.

5 Parfilé (French), fringed or bordered.
7 Endure.
8 Wet.
10 Her neck-ribbon of pity.

12 Became.

his own country, and having soon after renounced his sordid profession, entered into the service of the king. He was employed from that time until 1500, in some subordinate, though not unimportant capacity, in connection with various foreign embassies, and thus visited Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, besides England and Ireland. He could not, in such a mode of life, fail to acquire much of that knowledge of mankind which forms so important a part of the education of a poet.

1

For these various services, 'Dunbar, in 1500, received from the king an annual pension of ten pounds, soon afterward increased to twenty, and eventually to eighty." He is supposed to have been employed by James about this time, in some of the negotiations preparatory to the marriage of that prince with the princess Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh of England, which took place in 1503. It was on this occasion that Dunbar wrote the Thistle and the Rose, one of his allegorical poems.

For a number of years after this important marriage, Dunbar continued to reside at court, regaling his royal master with various poetic compositions, and probably also with his conversation, the charms of which, if we may judge from his writings, must have been very great. His situation, however, was far from being happy; for he seems constantly to have repined at the servile course of life which he was condemned to lead, and to have anxiously longed for some more independent means of subsistence. But he sadly realized that while the great listen with delight to the flattering compliments of the learned, they seldom adequately reward their merit. He died in 1530, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

The poetic genius of Dunbar, in the judgment of Sir Walter Scott, and also of Mr. Ellis, was superior to that of any other poet that Scotland ever produced; and it is a matter of great surprise, therefore, that, with few exceptions, his poems should have remained in the obscurity of manuscript for nearly two centuries after they were written. 'These poems may be divided into three classes, the Allegorical, the Moral, and the Comic; besides which there is a vast number of productions composed on occasions affecting himself alone, and which may, therefore, be called Personal poems.'2 His principal Allegorical poems are the Thistle and the Rose, a Nuptial Song to celebrate the union of King James with the princess Margaret, The Dance, and The Golden Terge. Perhaps the most remarkable of all his poems is 'The Dance.' It describes a procession of the seven deadly sins in the infernal regions, and for strength and vividness of painting, would bear a comparison with any other poem in the language. From this great poem we offer the following brief extract:

Let see, quoth he, who now begins ---
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins

Begoud to leap at anes.

And first in all the Dance was Pride,
With hair wiled back, and bonnet on side,

1 Pinkerton.

.1

Like to mak vaistie wanes ;1
And round about him as a wheel,
Hang all in rumples? to the heel
His kethat3 for the nanes.4

Mony proud trumpour with him trippit;
Through scaldand fire aye as they skippit,
They grinned with hideous granes.
Then Ire came in with sturt and strife;
His hand was aye upon his knife,

He brandished like a bear,
Boasters, braggarts, and bargainers,
After him, passit in to pairs,

'5

All boden in 'feir of weir,' 5

In jacks, and scrips, and bonnets of steel;
Their legs were chained down to the heel;
Froward was their effeir:

Some upon other with brands beft,6

Some jaggit others, to the heft,

With knives that sharp could shear.

Next in the Dance followed Envy,
Filled full of feid and felony,

Hid malice and despite:

For privy hatred that traitor trembled;
Him followed mony freik" dissembled,
With feigned wordis white:

And flatterers into men's faces;

And backbiters in secret places,

To lee that had delight;

And rouners of fals lesings,
Alas! that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quit.

Next him in Dance came Covetice,
Root of all evil and grund of vice,
That never could be content:
Caitiffs, wretches, and ockerars,8
Hood-pykes, hoarders, and gatherers,
All with that warlock went:

9

Out of their throats they shot on other
Het molten gold, methought, a fother,10
As fire-flaught maist fervent;

Ay as they toomit them of shot,

Fiends filled them new up to the throat

With gold of all kind prent.11

Of Dunbar's moral poems the most solemn and impressive is the one in which he represents a Thrush and a Nightingale taking opposite sides in a debate upon earthly and spiritual affections, the Thrush ending

line.

Something touching puffed-up manners appears to be hinted at in this obscure 2 Large folds. 3 Robe.

4 For the occasion.

6 Gave blows.

9 Misers.

5 Arrayed in the accoutrements of war.

7 Contentious persons.

10 Great quantity.

8 Usurers.

11 Every coinage.

every stanza with a recommendation of 'A lusty life in Love's service,' and the Nightingale with the more melodious declaration that 'All love is lost but upon God alone.' From this poem we present, with much pleasure, the following stanzas :—

THE MERLE AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

In May, as that Aurora did upspring,
With crystal een chasing the cluddes sable,
I heard a Merle with merry notis sing

A sang of love, with voice right comfortable,
Again' the orient beamis, amiable,
Upon a blissful branch of laurel green;
This was her sentence sweet and delectable,
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

Under this branch ran down a river bright,

Of balmy liquor, crystalline of huc,
Again' the heavenly azure skyis light,
Where did upon the tother side pursue
A Nightingale, with sugared notis new,
Whose angel feathers as the peacock shone;
This was her song, and of a sentence true,
All love is lost but upon God alone.
With notis glad, and glorious harmony,
This joyful Merle, so salust she the day,
While rung the woodis of her melody,
Saying, Awake ye lovers of this May;
Lo, fresh Flora has flourished every spray,
As nature has her taught, the noble queen,

The field been clothit in a new array;

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

Ne'er sweeter noise was heard with living man,
Na made this merry gentle Nightingale;
Her sound went with the river as it ran,
Out through the fresh and flourished lusty vale;
O Merle quoth she, O fool! stint of thy tale,
For in thy song good sentence is there none,
For both is tint, the time and the travail
Of every love but upon God alone.

Cease, quoth the Merle, thy preaching, Nightingale:
Shall folk their youth spend into holiness?

Of young sanctis, grows auld feindis, but fable;

Fye, hypocrite, in yeiris tenderness,

Again' the law of kind thou goes express,

That crookit age makes one with youth serene,
Whom nature of conditions made diverse:

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Fool, remember thee,
That both in youth and eild, and every hour,
The love of God most dear to man suld be;
That him, of nought, wrought like his own figour,

1 Age.

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