CANTO I.

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SPECIMENS WITH MEMOIRS OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

With an Introductory Essay,

BY THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.

COMPLETE

VOL. I.

M.DCCC.LX.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

We propose to introduce our 'Specimens' by a short Essay on the Origin

and Progress of English Poetry on to the days of Chaucer and of Gower.

Having called, in conjunction with many other critics, Chaucer 'the

Father of English Poetry,' to seek to go back further may seem like

pursuing antenatal researches. But while Chaucer was the sun, a certain

glimmering dawn had gone before him, and to reflect that, is the object

of the following pages.

Britain, when the Romans invaded it, was a barbarous country; and although

subjugated and long held by that people, they seem to have left it nearly

as uncultivated and illiterate as they found it. 'No magnificent remains,'

says Macaulay, 'of Latian porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain.

No writer of British birth is to be reckoned among the masters of Latin

poetry and eloquence. It is not probable that the islanders were, at any

time, generally familiar with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From

the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many

centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic--it was not driven

out by the Teutonic--and it is at this day the basis of the French,

Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never

to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground

before the German.' It was in the fifth century that that modification

of the German or Teutonic speech called the Anglo-Saxon was introduced

into this country. It soon asserted its superiority over the British

tongue, which seemed to retreat before it, reluctantly and proudly, like

a lion, into the mountain-fastnesses of Wales or to the rocky sea-beach

of Cornwall. The triumph was not completed all at once, but from the

beginning it was secure. The bards of Wales continued to sing, but their

strains resembled the mutterings of thunder among their own hills, only

half heard in the distant valleys, and exciting neither curiosity nor awe.

For five centuries, with the exception of some Latin words added by the

preachers of Christianity, the Anglo-Saxon language continued much as it

was when first introduced. Barbarous as the manners of the people were,

literature was by no means left without a witness. Its chief cultivators

were the monks and other religious persons, who spent their leisure in

multiplying books, either by original composition or by transcription,

including treatises on theology, historical chronicles, and a great

abundance and variety of poetical productions. These were written at first

exclusively in Latin, but occasionally, in process of time, in the Anglo-

Saxon tongue. The theology taught in them was, no doubt, crude and

corrupted, the history was stuffed with fables, and the poetry was rough

and bald in the extreme; but still they furnished a food fitted for the

awakening mind of the age. When the Christian religion reached Great

Britain, it brought necessarily with it an impulse to intellect as well

as to morality. So startling are the facts it relates, so broad and deep

the principles it lays down, so humane the spirit it inculcates, and so

ravishing the hopes it awakens, that, however disguised in superstition

and clouded by imperfect representation, it never fails to produce, in all

countries to which it comes, a resurrection of the nation's virtue, and a

revival, for a time at least, of the nation's political and intellectual

energy and genius. Hence we find the very earliest literary names in our

early annals are those of Christian missionaries. Such is said to have

been Gildas, a Briton, who lived in the first part of the sixth century,

and is the reputed author of a short history of Britain in Latin. Such was

the still more apocryphal Nennius, also called, till of late, the writer

of a small Latin historical work. Such was St Columbanus, who was born

in Ireland in 560; became a monk in the Irish monastery of Benchor; and

afterwards, at the head of twelve disciples, preached Christianity, in its

most ascetic form, in England and in France; founded in the latter country

various monasteries; and, when banished by Queen Brunehaut on account of

his stern inflexibility of character, went to Switzerland, and then to

Lombardy, proselytising the heathen, and defending, by his letters and

other writings, the peculiar tenets of the Irish Church in reference to

the time of the celebration of Easter and to the popular heresies of the

day. He died October 2, 615, in the monastery of Bobbio; and his religious

treatises and Latin poetry gave an undoubted impulse to the age's progress

in letters.

About this period the better sort of Saxons, both clergy and laity, got

into the habit of visiting Rome; while Rome, in her turn, sent emissaries

to England. Thus, while the one insensibly imbibed new knowledge as well

as devotion from the great centre, the other brought with them to our

shores importations of books, including copies of such religious classics

as Josephus and Chrysostom, and of such literary classics as Homer. About

680, died Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, one of the first who composed in

Anglo-Saxon, and some of whose compositions are preserved. Strange and

myth-like stories are told by Bede about this remarkable natural genius.

He was originally a cow-herd. Partly from want of training, and partly

from bashfulness, when the harp was given him in the hall, and he was

asked, as all others were, to raise the voice of song, Caedmon had often

to abscond in confusion. On one occasion he had retired to the stable,

where he fell into a sound sleep. He dreamed that a stranger appeared to

him, and said, 'Caedmon, sing me something.' Caedmon replied that it was

his incapacity to sing which had brought him to take refuge in the stable.

'Nay,' said the stranger, 'but thou hast something to sing.' 'What shall I

sing?' rejoined Caedmon. 'Sing the Creation,' and thereupon he began to

pour out verses, which, when he awoke, he remembered, repeated, and to

which he added others as good. The first lines are, as translated into

English, the following:--

Now let us praise

The Guardian of heaven,

The might of the Creator

And his counsel--

The Glory!--Father of men!

He first created,

For the children of men,

Heaven as a roof--

The holy Creator!

Then the world--

The Guardian of mankind!

The Eternal Lord!

Produced afterwards

The Earth for men--

The Almighty Master!'

Our readers all remember the well-known story of Coleridge falling asleep

over Purchas's 'Pilgrims'; how the poem of 'Kubla Khan' came rushing

from dreamland upon his soul; and how, when awakened, he wrote it down,

and found it to be, if not sense, something better--a glorious piece

of fantastic imagination. We knew a gentleman who, slumbering while in

a state of bad health, produced, in the course of a few hours, one or

two thousand rhymed lines, some of which he repeated in our hearing

afterwards, and which were full of point and poetry. We cannot see that

Caedmon's lines betray any weird inspiration; but when rehearsed the next

day to the Abbess Hilda, to whom the town-bailiff of Whitby conducted him,

she and a circle of learned men pronounced that he had received the gift

of song direct from heaven! They, after one or two other trials of his

powers, persuaded him to become a monk in the house of the Abbess, who

commanded him to transfer to verse the whole of the Scripture history. It

is said that he was constantly employed in repeating to himself what he

had heard; or, as one of his old biographers has it, 'like a clean animal

ruminating it, he turned it into most sweet verse.' In this way he wrote

or rather improvised a vast quantity of poetry, chiefly on religious

subjects. Thorpe, in his edition of this author, has preserved a speech

of Satan, bearing a striking resemblance to some parts of Milton:--

'Boiled within him

His thought about his heart,

Hot was without him,

His due punishment.

"This narrow place is most unlike

That other that we formerly knew

High in heaven's kingdom,

Which my master bestowed on me,

Though we it, for the All-Powerful,

May not possess.

* * * * *

That is to me of sorrows the greatest,

That Adam,

Who was wrought of earth,

Shall possess

My strong seat;

That it shall be to him in delight,

And we endure this torment,

Misery in this hell.

* * * * *

Here is a vast fire,

Above and underneath.

Never did I see

A loathlier landscape.

The flame abateth not

Hot over hell.

Me hath the clasping of these rings,

This hard-polished band,

Impeded in my course,

Debarred me from my way.

My feet are bound,

My hands manacled;

Of these hell-doors are

The ways obstructed,

So that with aught I cannot

From these limb-bonds escape.

About me lie

Huge gratings

Of hard iron,

Forged with heat,

With which me God

Hath fastened by the neck.

Thus perceive I that he knoweth my mind,

And that he knew also,

The Lord of hosts,

That should us through Adam

Evil befall,

About the realm of heaven,

Where I had power of my hands."'

Through these rude lines there flashes forth, like fire through a thick

dull grating, a powerful conception--one which Milton has borrowed and

developed--that of the Evil One feeling in his dark bosom jealousy at

young Man, almost overpowering his hatred to God; and another conception

still more striking, that of the devil's thorough conviction that all

his plans and thoughts are entirely known by his great Adversary, and

are counteracted before they are formed--

'Thus perceive I that he knoweth my mind.'

Compare this with Milton's lines--

'So should I purchase dear

Short intermission, bought with double smart.

_This knows_ my Punisher; therefore as far

From granting he, as I from begging peace.'

Caedmon saw, without being able fully to express, the complex idea of

Satan, as distracted between a thousand thoughts, all miserable--tossed

between a thousand winds, all hot as hell--'pale ire, envy, and despair'

struggling within him--fury at man overlapping anger at God--remorse and

reckless desperation wringing each other's miserable hands--a sense of

guilt which will not confess, a fear that will not quake, a sorrow that

will not weep, a respect for God which will not worship; and yet,

springing out of all these elements, a strange, proud joy, as though

the torrid soil of Pandemonium should flower, which makes 'the hell he

suffers seem a heaven,' compared to what his destiny might be were he

either plunged into a deeper abyss, or taken up unchanged to his former

abode of glory. This, in part at least, the monk of Whitby discerned;

but it was reserved for Milton to embody it in that tremendous figure

which has since continued to dwindle all the efforts of art, and to

haunt, like a reality, the human imagination.

Passing over some interesting but subordinate Saxon writers, such as

Ceolfrid, Abbot of Wearmouth; Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury; Felix of

Croyland; and Alcuine, King Egbert's librarian at York, we come to one

who himself formed an era in the history of our early literature--the

venerable Bede. This famous man was educated in the monastery of

Wearmouth, and there appears to have spent the whole of his quiet,

innocent, and studious life. He was the very sublimation of a book-worm.

One might fancy him becoming at last, as in the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid,

one of the books, or rolls of vellum and parchment over which he con-

stantly pored. That he did not marry, or was given in marriage, we are

certain; but there is little evidence that he even ate or drank, walked

or slept. To read and to write seemed the 'be all and the end all' of

his existence. Important as well as numerous were his contributions

to literature. He translated from the Scriptures. He wrote religious

treatises, biographies, and commentaries upon portions of Holy Writ.

Besides his very valuable Ecclesiastical History, he composed various

pieces of Latin poetry. His works in all were forty-four in number: and

it is said that on the very day of his death (it took place in 735) he

was dictating to his amanuensis, and had just completed a book. His works

are wonderful for his time, and not the less interesting for a fine

cobweb of fable which is woven over parts of them, and which seems in

keeping with their venerable character. Thus, in speaking of the Magi who

visited the infant Redeemer, he is very particular in describing their

age, appearance, and offerings. Melchior, the first, was old, had gray

hair, and a long beard; and offered 'gold' to Christ, in, acknowledgment

of His sovereignty. Gaspar, the second, was young, and had no beard;

and he offered 'frankincense,' in recognition of our Lord's divinity.

Balthasar, the third, was of a dark complexion, had a large beard, and

offered 'myrrh' to our Saviour's humanity. We should, we confess, miss

such pleasant little myths in other old books besides Bede's Histories.

They seem appropriate to ancient works, as the beard is to the goat

or the hermit; and the truth that lies in them is not difficult to

eliminate. The next name of note in our literary annals is that of the

great Alfred. Surely if ever man was not only before his age, but before

'all ages,' it was he. A palm of the tropics growing on a naked Highland

mountain-side, or an English oak bending over one of the hot springs of

Hecla, were not a stranger or more preternatural sight than a man like

Alfred appearing in a century like the ninth. A thousand theories about

men being the creatures of their age, the products of circumstances, &c.,

sink into abeyance beside the facts of his life; and we are driven to the

good old belief that to some men the 'inspiration of the Almighty giveth

understanding;' and that their wisdom, their genius, and their excellency

do not proceed from them-selves. On his deeds of valour and patriotism it

is not necessary to dwell. These form the popular and bepraised side of

his character, but they give a very inadequate idea of the whole. On one

occasion he visited the Danish camp--a king disguised as a harper; but

he was, all his life long, a harper disguised as a king. He was at once

a warrior, a legislator, an architect, a shipbuilder, a philosopher,

a scholar, and a poet. His great object, as avowed in his last will,

was to leave his people 'free as their own thoughts.' Hence he bent the

whole force of his mind, first, to defend them from foreign foes, by

encouraging the new naval strength he had himself established; and then

to cultivate their intellects, and make them, as well as their country,

worth defending. Let us quote the glowing words of Burke:--'He was

indefatigable in his endeavours to bring into England men of learning in

all branches from every part of Europe, and unbounded in his liberality

to them. He enacted by a law that every person possessed of two hides of

land should send their children to school until sixteen. He enterprised

even a greater design than that of forming the growing generation--to

instruct even the grown, enjoining all his sheriffs and other officers

immediately to apply themselves to learning, or to quit their offices.

Whatever trouble he took to extend the benefits of learning among his

subjects, he shewed the example himself, and applied to the cultivation

of his mind with unparalleled diligence and success. He could neither

read nor write at twelve years old, but he improved his time in such

a manner, that he became one of the most knowing men of his age, in

geometry, in philosophy, in architecture, and in music. He applied

himself to the improvement of his native language; he translated several

valuable works from Latin, and wrote a vast number of poems in the Saxon

tongue with a wonderful facility and happiness. He not only excelled in

the theory of the arts and sciences, but possessed a great mechanical

genius for the executive part. He improved the manner of shipbuilding,

introduced a more beautiful and commodious architecture, and even taught

his countrymen the art of making bricks; most of the buildings having

been of wood before his time--in a word, he comprehended in the greatness

of his mind the whole of government, and all its parts at once; and what

is most difficult to human frailty was at the same time sublime and

minute.'

Some exaggeration must be allowed for in all this account of Alfred the

Great. But the fact that he left a stamp in his age so deep,--that

nothing except what was good and great has been ascribed to him,--that

the very fictions told of him are of such _vraisemblance_ and magnitude

as to FIT IN to nothing less than an extraordinary man,--and that, as

Burke says, 'whatever dark spots of human frailty may have adhered to

such a character, are entirely hid in the splendour of many shining

qualities and grand virtues, that throw a glory over the obscure period

in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our

knowledge,'--all proclaim his supremacy. Like many great men,--like

Julius Caesar, with his epilepsy--or Sir Walter Scott and Byron, with

their lameness--or Schleiermacher, with his deformed appearance,--a

physical infirmity beset Alfred most of his life, and at last carried

him off at a comparatively early age. This was a disease in his bowels,

which had long afflicted him, 'without interrupting his designs, or

souring his temper.' Nay, who can say that the constant presence of such

a memento of weakness and mortality did not operate as a strong, quiet

stimulus to do with his might what his hand found to do--to lower pride,

and to prompt to labour? If Saladin had had for his companion some such

faithful hound of sorrow, it would have saved him the ostentatious flag

stretched over his head, in the hour of wassail, with the inscription,

'Saladin, Saladin, king of kings! Saladin must die!'

Alfred wrote little that was original, but he was a copious translator.

He rendered into the Anglo-Saxon tongue--which he sought to enrich with

the fatness of other soils--the historical works of Orosius and of Bede;

nay, it is said the Fables of Aesop, and the Psalms of David--desirous,

it would seem, to teach his people morality and religion, through the

fine medium, of fiction and poetry.

Alfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, is the name of another important

contributor to Saxon literature. He wrote a grammar of his native

language, which procured him the name of the 'Grammarian,' besides a

collection of homilies, some theological treatises, and a translation

of the first seven books of the Old Testament. In imitation of Alfred,

he devoted all his energies to the instruction of the common people,

constantly writing in Anglo-Saxon, and avoiding as much as possible the

use of compound or obscure words. After him appeared Cynewulf, Bishop of

Winchester, Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, and others of some note. There

was also slowly piled up in the course of ages, and by a succession of

authors, that remarkable production, 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.' This

is thought to have commenced soon after the reign of Alfred, and

continued till the times of Henry II. Previous, however, to the Norman

invasion, there had been a decided falling off in the learning of the

Saxons. This arose from various causes. Incessant wars tended to

conserve and increase the barbarism of the people. Various libraries

of value were destroyed by the incursions of the Danes. And not a few

bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, began to consider

learning as prejudicial to piety-and grammar and ungodliness were

thought akin. The effect of this upon the subordinate clergy was most

pernicious. In the tenth century, Oswald, Archbishop of Canterbury,

found the monks of his province so grossly ignorant, not only of

letters, but even of the canonical rules of their respective orders,

that he required to send to France for competent masters to give them

instruction.

At length came the Conqueror, William, and one battle gave England to

the Normans, which had cost the Romans, the Saxons, and the Danes so

much time and blood to acquire. The people were not only conquered, but

cowed and crushed. England was as easily and effectually subdued as was

Ireland, sometime after, by Henry II. But while the Conquest was for a

season fatal to liberty, it was from the first favourable to every

species of literature, art, and poetry. 'The influence,' says Campbell,

'of the Norman Conquest upon the language of England was like that of a

great inundation, which at first buries the face of the landscape under

its waters, but which, at last subsiding, leaves behind it the elements

of new beauty and fertility. Its first effect was to degrade the Anglo-

Saxon tongue to the exclusive use of the inferior orders, and by the

transference of estates ecclesiastical benefices, and civil dignities to

Norman possessors, to give the French language, which had begun to

prevail at court from the time of Edward the Confessor, a more complete

predominance among the higher classes of society. The native gentry of

England were either driven into exile, or depressed into a state of

dependence on their conqueror, which habituated them to speak his

language. On the other hand, we received from the Normans the first

germs of romantic poetry; and our language was ultimately indebted to

them for a wealth and compass of expression which it probably would not

have otherwise possessed.'

The Anglo-Saxon, however, held its place long among the lower orders,

and specimens of it, both in prose and verse, are found a century after

the Conquest. Gradually the Norman tongue began to amalgamate with it,

and the result was, the English. At what precise year our language might

be said to begin, it is impossible to determine. Throughout the whole of

the twelfth century, great changes were taking place in the grammatical

construction, as well as in the substance of the Anglo-Saxon. Some new

words were imported from the Norman, but, as Dr Johnson remarks, 'the

language was still more materially altered by the change of its sounds,

the cutting short of its syllables, and the softening down of its

terminations, and inflections of words.' Somewhere between 1180 and

1216, the majestic speech in which Shakspeare was to write 'Macbeth'

and 'King Lear,' Lord Bacon his 'Advancement of Learning,' Milton his

'Paradise Lost' and 'Areopagitica,' Burke his 'Reflections,' and Sir

Walter Scott the Waverley Novels, and whose rough, but manly accents

were to be spoken by at least a hundred million tongues, commenced its

career, and not since Homer,

"on the Chian strand,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea,"

had a nobler era been marked in the history of literature. For here was

a tongue born which was destined to mate even with that of Greece in

richness and flexibility, to make the language of Cicero and Virgil seem

stiff and stilted in comparison, and, if not to vie with the French in

airy grace, or with the Italian in liquid music, to excel them far in

teeming resources and robust energy. Memorable and hallowed for ever be

the hour when the 'well of English undefiled' first sparkled to the day!

Previous to this the chief of the poets, after the Conquest, were

Normans. The country whence that people came had for some time been

celebrated for poetry. France was, as to its poetic literature, divided

into two great sections--the Provençal and the Northern. The first was

like the country where it flourished--gay, flowery, and exuberant; it

swam in romance, and its rhymers delighted, when addressing large

audiences under the open skies of their delightful climate, to indulge

in compliment and fanfaronade, to sing of war, wine, and love.

The Normans produced a race of simpler poets. That some of them were men

as well as singers, is proved by the fact that it was a bard named

Taillefer who first broke the English ranks at the battle of Hastings.

After him came Philippe de Thaun, who tried to set to song the science

of his day; Thorold, the author of a romance entitled 'Roland;' Samson

de Nauteuil, the translator of Solomon's Proverbs into French verse;

Geoffrey Gaimar, who wrote a Chronicle of the Saxon kings; and one

David, a minstrel of no little note and power in his day. But a more

remarkable writer succeeded, and his work, like Aaron's rod, swallowed

up all the productions of these clever but petty poets. This was Wace,

commonly called Maistre Wace, a native of Jersey. In 1160, or as some

say 1155, Wace finished his 'Brut d'Angleterre' which is in reality a

translation into French of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote a History

of Britain from the imaginary Brutus of Troy down to Cadwallader in

689. Literature owes not a little to Wace's poem. He collected into

a permanent shape a number of traditions and legends--many of them

interesting--which had been floating through Europe, just as Macpherson

preserved in Ossian not a few real fragments of the songs of Selma. And,

as we shall see immediately, Wace's production became the basis of the

earliest of English poems.

Maistre Wace is the author also of a History of the Normans, which he

calls 'Roman de Rou;' or, 'The Romance of Rollo.' He was a great favourite

with Henry II., who bestowed on him a canonry in the Cathedral of Bayeux.

Besides Wace, there flourished about the same time Benoit, who wrote a

History of the Dukes of Normandy; and Guernes, a churchman of Pont St

Maxence in Picardy, who wrote in verse a Life of St Thomas à Becket.

At the beginning of the century following the Conquest, the chief authors,

such as Peter of Blois, John of Salisbury, Joseph of Exeter, and Geoffrey

of Monmouth, all wrote in Latin. Layamon, however, a priest of Ernesley-

upon-Severn, used the vernacular in a poem which, as we have already

hinted, was essentially a translation of Wace's 'Brut d'Angleterre.' The

most remarkable thing about Layamon's poem is the language in which it is

written-language in which you catch English in the very act of chipping

the Saxon shell, or, as Campbell happily remarks, 'the style of Layamon is

as nearly the intermediate state of the old and new languages as can be

found in any ancient specimen --something like the new insect stirring its

wings before it has shaken off the aurelia state.'

Between Layamon and Robert of Gloucester a good many miscellaneous

strains--some of a satirical, others of an amatory, and others again of

a legendary and devout style--were produced. It was customary then for

minstrels, at the instance of the clergy, to sing on Sundays devotional

strains on the harp to the assembled multitudes. At public entertainments,

during week-days, gay ditties were common. One of these is extant, but

is too coarse for quotation. It is entitled 'The Land of Cokayne,' an

allegorical satire on the luxury and vice of the Church, given under the

description of an imaginary paradise, in which the nuns are represented

as houris, and the black and grey monks as their paramours. 'Richard of

Alemaine' is a ballad, composed by an adherent of Simon de Montfort, Earl

of Leicester, after the defeat of the Royal party at the battle of Lewes

in 1264. In the year after that battle the Royal cause rallied, and the

Earl of Warren and Sir Hugh Bigod returned from exile, and helped the King

in his victory. In the battle of Lewes, Richard, King of the Romans, his

brother Henry III., and Prince Edward, with many others of the Royal

party, were taken prisoners.

[Note: See 'Richard of Alemaine,' Percy's Reliques, vol. ii., p. 2.]

The spirit and the allusions of this song shew that it was composed by

Leicester's party in the moment of their victory, and not after the

reaction which took place against their cause, and it must therefore

belong to the thirteenth century. To this period, too, probably belongs

a political satire, published by Ritson, and which Campbell thus charac-

terises:--'It is a ballad on the execution of the Scottish patriots, Sir

William Wallace and Sir Simon Frazer. The diction is as barbarous as we

should expect from a song of triumph on such a subject. It relates the

death and treatment of Wallace very minutely. The circumstance of his

being covered with a mock crown of laurel in Westminster Hall, which Stow

repeats, is there mentioned, and that of his legs being fastened with iron

fetters "_under his horse's wombe_" is told with savage exultation. The

piece was probably indited in the very year of the political murders which

it celebrates, certainly before 1314, as it mentions the skulking of

Robert Bruce, which, after the battle of Bannockburn, must have become

a jest out of season.'

Campbell quotes a love-ditty of this period, which is not devoid of

merit:--

'For her love I cark and cave,

For her love I droop and dare,

For her love my bliss is bare,

And all I wax wan.

'For her love in sleep I slake,[1]

For her love all night I wake,

For her love mourning I make

More than any man.'

[1] 'In sleep I slake:' am deprived of sleep.

And another of a pastoral vein:--

'When the nightingale singës the woods waxen green,

Leaf, grass, and blossom springs in Avril I ween,

And love is to my heart gone, with one spear so keen,

Night and day my blood it drinks, my heart doth me teen.'

About a hundred years after Layamon (in 1280) appeared a poet not

dissimilar to him, named Robert of Gloucester. His surname is unknown, and

so are the particulars of his history. We know only that he was a monk of

Gloucester Abbey, that he lived in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I.,

and that he translated the Legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and continued

the History of England down to the time of Edward I. This work is wonder-

fully minute, and, generally speaking, accurate in its topography as well

as narrative, and was of service to Selden when he wrote his Notes to

Drayton's 'Polyolbion.' It is more valuable in this respect than as a

piece of imagination.

He narrates the grandest events--such as the first crusaders bursting

into Asia, with a sword of fire hung in the firmament before them, and

beckoning them on their way--as coolly as he might the emigration of a

colony of ants. Yet, although there is little animation or poetry in his

general manner, he usually succeeds in riveting the reader's attention;

and the speeches he puts into the mouths of his heroes glow with at

least rhetorical fire. And as a critic truly remarks--'Injustice to the

ancient versifier, we should remember that he had still only a rude

language to employ, the speech of boors and burghers, which, though it

might possess a few songs and satires, could afford him no models of

heroic narration. In such an age the first occupant passes uninspired

over subjects which might kindle the highest enthusiasm in the poet of

a riper period, as the savage treads unconsciously in his deserts over

mines of incalculable value, without sagacity to discover or inplements

to explore them.' We give the following extracts from Robert of

Gloucester's poem:--

THE SPOUTS AND SOLEMNITIES WHICH FOLLOWED KING ARTHUR'S CORONATION.

The king was to his palace, tho the service was ydo,[1]

Yled with his meinie,[2] and the queen to her also.

For they held the old usages, that men with men were

By themselve, and women by themselve also there.

When they were each one yset, as it to their state become,

Kay, king of Anjou, a thousand knightës nome[3]

Of noble men, yclothed in ermine each one

Of one suit, and served at this noble feast anon.

Bedwer the botyler, king of Normandy,

Nome also in his half a fair company

Of one suit for to serve of the hotelery.

Before the queen it was also of all such courtesy,

For to tell all the nobley that there was ydo,

Though my tongue were of steel, me should nought dure thereto.

Women ne kept of no knight in druery,[4]

But he were in arms well yproved, and atte least thrye.[5]

That made, lo, the women the chaster life lead,

And the knights the stalwarder, and the better in their deed.

Soon after this noble meat, as right was of such tide,

The knights atyled them about in eachë side,

In fields and in meadows to prove their bachlery,[6]

Some with lance, some with sword, without villany,

With playing at tables, other attë chekere,[7]

With casting, other with setting,[8] other in some other mannere.

And which so of any game had the mastery,

The king them of his giftës did large courtesy.

Up the alurs[9] of the castle the ladies then stood,

And beheld this noble game, and which knights were good.

All the three extë dayës[10] ylastë this nobley,

In halle's and in fieldës, of meat and eke of play.

These men come the fourth day before the kingë there,

And he gave them large gifts, ever as they worthy were.

Bishoprics and churches' clerks he gave some,

And castles and townës knights that were ycome.

[1] 'Tho the service was ydo:' when the service was done.

[2] 'Meinie:' attendants.

[3] 'Nome': brought.

[4] 'Druery.' modesty, decorum.

[5] 'Thrye:' thrice.

[6] 'Bachlery:' chivalry, courage, or youth.

[7] 'Chekere:' chess.

[8] 'With casting, other with setting:' different ways of playing at

chess.

[9] 'Alurs:' walks made within the battlements of the castle.

[10] 'Extë dayës:' high, or chief days.

AN OLD TRADITION.

It was a tradition invented by the old fablers that giants brought the

stones of Stonehenge from the most sequestered deserts of Africa, and

placed them in Ireland; that every stone was washed with juices of

herbs, and contained a medical power; and that Merlin, the magician, at

the request of King Arthur, transported them from Ireland, and erected

them in circles on the plain of Amesbury, as a sepulchral monument for

the Britons treacherously slain by Hengist. This fable is thus

delivered, without decoration, by Robert of Glocester:--

'Sir king,' quoth Merlin then, 'such thingë's ywis

Ne be for to shew nought, but when great need is,

For if I said in bismare, other but it need were,

Soon from me he would wend, the ghost that doth me lere.'[1]

The king, then none other n'as, bid him some quaintise

Bethink about thilk cors that so noble were and wise.[2]

'Sir King,' quoth Merlin then, 'if thou wilt here cast

In the honour of men, a work that ever shall ylast,

To the hill of Kylar[3] send in to Ireland,

After the noble stonës that there habbet[4] long ystand;

That was the treche of giants,[5] for a quaintë work there is

Of stonës all with art ymade, in the world such none is.

Ne there n'is nothing that me should myd[6] strength adownë cast.

Stood they here, as they doth there, ever a woulde last.'

The king somdeal to-lygh[7], when he heardë this tale:

'How might,' he said, 'such stonës, so great and so fale,[8]

Be ybrought of so far land? And yet mist of were,

Me would ween that in this landë no stone to wonke n'ere.'

Sir king,' quoth Merlin, 'ne make nought an idle such laughing;

For it n'is an idle nought that I tell this tiding.

For in the farrest stude of Afric giants whilë fet [9]

These stones for medicine and in Ireland them set,

While they wonenden in Ireland to make their bathë's there,

There under for to bathë when they sick were.

For they would the stonës wash and therein bathe ywis;

For is no stone there among that of great virtue n'is.'

The king and his counsel rode the stones for to fet,

And with great power of battle if any more them let.

Uther, the kingë's brother, that Ambrose hett[10] also,

In another namë ychosë was thereto,

And fifteen thousand men, this deedë for to do,

And Merlin for his quaintise thither went also.

[1] If I should say any thing out of wantonness or vanity, the spirit

which teaches me would immediately leave me.

[2] Bade him use his cunning, for the sake of the bodies of those noble

and wise Britons.

[3] 'Kylar:' Kildare.

[4] 'Habbet:' have.

[5] 'The treche of giants:' 'The dance of giants.' The name of this

collection of immense stones.

[6] 'Myd:' with.

[7] 'Somdeal to-lygh:' somewhat laughed.

[8] 'Fale:' many.

[9] Giants once brought them from the furthest part of Africa.

[10] 'Hett:' was called.

ARTHUR'S INTRIGUE WITH YGERNE.

At the feast of Easter the king sent his sond,[1]

That they comen all to London the high men of this lond,

And the ladies all so good, to his noble feast wide,

For he shouldë crown here, for the high tide.

All the noble men of this land to the noble feast come,

And their wivës and their daughtren with them many nome,[2]

This feast was noble enow, and nobliche ydo;

For many was the fair lady that ycome was thereto.

Ygerne, Gorloys' wife, was fairest of each one,

That was Countess of Cornëwall, for so fair n'as there none.

The king beheld her fast enow, and his heart on her cast,

And thoughtë, though he were wise, to do folly at last.

He made her semblant fair enow, to none other so great.

The earl n'as not therewith ypayed[3], when he it under get.

After meat he nome his wife myd[4] sturdy med enow,

And, without leave of the king, to his country drow.

The king sentë to him then, to byleve[5] all night,

For he must of great counsel havë some insight.

That was for nought. Would he not, the king sent yet his sond,

That he byleved at his parlement, for need of the lond.

The king was, when he n'oldë not, anguyssous and wroth.

For despite he would a-wreak be he sworë his oath,

But he come to amendëment. His power attë last

He garked, and went forth to Cornëwall fast.

Gorloys his castles a store all about.

In a strong castle he did his wife, for of her was all his doubt,

In another himself he was, for he n'oldë nought,

If cas[6] come, that they were both to death ybrought.

The castle, that the earl in was, the king besieged fast,

For he might not his gins for shame to the other cast.

Then he was there seen not, and he speddë nought,

Ygerne, the countessë, so much was in his thought,

That he nustë none other wit, ne he ne might for shame

Tell it but a privy knight, Ulfyn was his name,

That he trustë most to. And when the knight heard thia,

'Sir,' he said, 'I ne can wit, what rede hereof is,

For the castle is so strong, that the lady is in,

For I ween all the land ne should it myd strengthë win.

For the sea goeth all about, but entry one there n'is,

And that is up on hardë rocks, and so narrow way it is,

That there may go but one and one, that three men within

Might slay all the laud, ere they come therein.

And nought for then, if Merlin at the counsel were,

If any might, he couthë the best rede thee lere.'[7]

Merlin was soon of sent, pled it was him soon,

That he should the best rede say, what were to don.

Merlin was sorry enow for the kingë's folly,

And natheless, 'Sir king,' he said, 'there may to mast'ry,

The earl hath two men him near, Brithoel and Jordan.

I will make thyself, if thou wilt, through art that I can,

Have all the formë of the earl, as thou were right he,

And Olfyn as Jordan, and as Brithoel me.'

This art was all clean ydo, that all changed they were,

They three in the others' form, the solve as it were.

Against even he went forth, nustë[8] no man that cas;

To the castle they come right as it even was.

The porter ysaw his lord come, and his most privy twei,

With good heart he let his lord in, and his men bey.

The countess was glad enow, when her lord to her come

And either other in their arms myd great joy nome.

When they to beddë come, that so long a-two were,

With them was so great delight, that between them there

Begot was the best body, that ever was in this land,

King Arthur the noble man, that ever worthy understand.

When the king's men nuste amorrow, where he was become,

They fared as wodëmen, and wend[9] he were ynome.[10]

They assaileden the castle, as it should adown anon,

They that within were, garked them each one,

And smote out in a full will, and fought myd there fone:

So that the earl was yslaw, and of his men many one,

And the castle was ynome, and the folk to-sprad there,

Yet, though they haddë all ydo, they ne found not the king there.

The tiding to the countess soon was ycome,

That her lord was yslaw, and the castle ynome.

And when the messenger him saw the earl, as him thought,

That he had so foul plow, full sore him of thought,

The countess made somedeal deol,[11] for no sothness they nustë.

The king, for to glad her, beclipt her and cust.

'Dame,' he said,' no sixt thou well, that les it is all this:

Ne wo'st thou well I am alive. I will thee say how it is.

Out of the castle stillëlich I went all in privity,

That none of minë men it nustë, for to speak with thee.

And when they mist me to-day, and nuste where I was,

They fareden right as giddy men, myd whom no rede n'as,

And foughtë with the folk without, and have in this mannere

Ylore the castle and themselve, and well thou wo'st I am here.

And for my castle, that is ylore, sorry I am enow,

And for my men, that the king and his power slew.

And my power is to lute, therefore I dreadë sore,

Lestë the king us nyme[12] here, and sorrow that we were more.

Therefore I will, how so it be, wend against the king,

And make my peace with him, ere he us to shamë bring.'

Forth he went, and het[13] his men if the king come,

That they shouldë him the castle yield, ere he with strength it nome.

So he come toward his men, his own form he nome,

And leaved the earl's form, and the king Uther become.

Sore him of thought the earlë's death, and in other half he found

Joy in his heart, for the countess of spousehed was unbound,

When he had that he would, and paysed[14] with his son,

To the countess he went again, me let him in anon.

"What halt[15] it to tale longë? but they were set at one,

In great love long enow, when it n'oldë other gon;

And had together this noble son, that in the world his pere n'as,

The king Arthur, and a daughter, Anne her namë was.

[1] 'Sond' message.

[2] 'Nome:' took.

[3] 'Ypayed:' satisfied.

[4] 'Myd:' with.

[5] 'Byleve:' stay.

[6] 'Cas:' chance.

[7] 'Lere:' teach.

[8] 'Nustë:' knew.

[9] 'Wend:' thought.

[10] 'Ynome:' taken.

[11] 'Deol:' grief.

[12] 'Nyme:' take.

[13] 'Het:' bade.

[14] 'Paysed:' made peace.

[15] 'Halt:' holdeth.

The next name of note is Robert, commonly called De Brunne. His real name

was Robert Manning. He was born at Malton in Yorkshire; for some time

belonged to the house of Sixhill, a Gilbertine monastery in Yorkshire;

and afterwards became a member of Brunne or Browne, a priory of black

canons in the same county. When monastical writers became famous, they

were usually designated from the religious houses to which they belonged.

Thus it was with Matthew of Westminster, William of Malmesbury, and John

of Glastonbury--all received their appellations from their respective

monasteries. De Brunne's principal work is a Chronicle of the History of

England, in rhyme. It can in no way be considered an original production,

but is partly translated, and partly compiled from the writings of Maistre

Wace and Peter de Langtoft, which latter was a canon of Bridlington in

Yorkshire, of Norman origin, but born in England, and the author of an

entire History of his country in French verse, down to the end of the

reign of Edward I. Brunne's Chronicle seems to have been written about

the year 1303. We extract the Prologue, and two other passages:--

THE PROLOGUE.

'Lordlingës that be now here,

If ye willë listen and lere,

All the story of England,

As Robert Mannyng written it fand,

And in English has it shewed,

Not for the leared but for the lewed;[1]

For those that on this land wonn

That the Latin ne Frankys conn,[2]

For to have solace and gamen

In fellowship when they sit samen,

And it is wisdom for to witten

The state of the land, and have it written,

"What manner of folk first it wan,

And of what kind it first began.

And good it is for many things,

For to hear the deeds of kings,

Whilk were fools, and whilk were wise,

And whilk of them couth[3] most quaintise;

And whilk did wrong, and whilk right,

And whilk maintained peace and fight.

Of their deedës shall be my saw,

In what time, and of what law,

I shall you from gre to gre,[4]

Since the time of Sir Noe:

From Noe unto Eneas,

And what betwixt them was,

And from Eneas till Brutus' time,

That kind he tells in this rhyme.

For Brutus to Cadwallader's,

The last Briton that this land lees.

All that kind and all the fruit

That come of Brutus that is the Brute;

And the right Brute is told no more

Than the Britons' timë wore.

After the Britons the English camen,

The lordship of this land they nameu;

South and north, west and east,

That call men now the English gest.

When they first among the Britons,

That now are English then were Saxons,

Saxons English hight all oliche.

They arrived up at Sandwiche,

In the kings since Vortogerne

That the land would them not werne, &c.

One Master Wace the Frankës tells

The Brute all that the Latin spells,

From Eneas to Cadwallader, &c.

And right as Master Wacë says,

I tell mine English the same ways,' &c.

[1] 'Lowed:' ignorant.

[2] 'Conn:' know.

[3] 'Couth:' knew.

[4] 'Gre:' step.

KING VORTIGERN'S MEETING WITH PRINCESS KODWEN.

Hengist that day did his might,

That all were glad, king and knight,

And as they were best in glading,

And wele cop schotin[1] knight and king,

Of chamber Rouewen so gent,

Before the king in hall she went.

A cup with wine she had in hand,

And her attire was well-farand.[2]

Before the king on knee set,

And in her language she him gret.

'Lauerid[3] king, Wassail,' said she.

The king asked, what should be.

In that language the king ne couth.[4]

A knight the language lered[5] in youth.

Breg hight that knight, born Bretoun,

That lered the language of Sessoun.[6]

This Breg was the latimer,[7]

What she said told Vortager.

'Sir,' Breg said, 'Rowen you greets,

And king calls and lord you leets.[8]

This is their custom and their gest,

When they are at the ale or feast.

Ilk man that louis quare him think,

Shall say Wosseil, and to him drink.

He that bidis shall say, Wassail,

The other shall say again, Drinkhail.

That says Wosseil drinks of the cup,

Kissing his fellow he gives it up.

Drinkheil, he says, and drinks thereof,

Kissing him in bourd and skof.'[9]

The king said, as the knight 'gan ken,[10]

Drinkheil, smiling on Rouewen.

Rouwen drank as her list,

And gave the king, sine[11] him kist.

There was the first wassail in deed,

And that first of fame gede.[12]

Of that wassail men told great tale,

And wassail when they were at ale,

And drinkheil to them that drank,

Thus was wassail tane[13] to thank.

Fele sithës[14] that maiden ying,[15]

Wassailed and kist the king.

Of body she was right avenant,[16]

Of fair colour, with sweet semblant.[17]

Her attire full well it seemed,

Mervelik[18] the king she quemid.[19]

Out of measure was he glad,

For of that maiden he were all mad.

Drunkenness the fiend wrought,

Of that paen[20] was all his thought.

A mischance that time him led,

He asked that paen for to wed.

Hengist wild not draw a lite,[21]

But granted him, allë so tite.[22]

And Hors his brother consented soon.

Her friendis said, it were to don.

They asked the king to give her Kent,

In douery to take of rent.

Upon that maiden his heart so cast,

That they asked the king made fast.

I ween the king took her that day,

And wedded her on paien's lay.[23]

Of priest was there no benison

No mass sungen, no orison.

In seisine he had her that night.

Of Kent he gave Hengist the right.

The earl that time, that Kent all held,

Sir Goragon, that had the sheld,

Of that gift no thing ne wist

To[24] he was cast out with[25] Hengist.

[1] 'Schotin:' sending about the cups briskly.

[2] 'Well-farand:' very rich.

[3] 'Lauerid:' lord.

[4] 'Ne couth:' knew not.

[5] 'Lered:' learned.

[6] 'Sessoun:' Saxons.

[7] 'Latimer:' _for_ Latiner, or Latinier, an interpreter.

[8] 'Leets:' esteems.

[9] 'Skof:' sport, joke.

[10] 'Ken:' to signify.

[11] 'Sine:' then.

[12] 'Cede:' went.

[13] 'Tane:' taken.

[14] 'Sithës:' many times.

[15] 'Ying:' young.

[16] 'Avenant:' handsome.

[17] 'Semblant:' countenance.

[18] 'Mervelik:' marvellously.

[19] 'Quemid:' pleased.

[20] 'Paen:' pagan, heathen.

[21] 'Wild not draw a lite:' would not fly off a bit.

[22] 'Tite:' happeneth.

[23] 'On paien's lay:' in pagan's law; according to the heathenish

custom.

[24] 'To:' till.

[25] 'With:' by.

THE ATTACK OF RICHARD I. ON A CASTLE HELD BY THE SARACENS.

The dikes were fullë wide that closed the castle about,

And deep on ilka side, with bankis high without.

Was there none entry that to the castle 'gan ligg,[1]

But a strait kaucë;[2] at the end a draw-brig,

With great double chainës drawen over the gate,

And fifty armed swainës porters at that gate.

With slingës and mangonels they cast to king Richard,

Our Christians by parcels casted againward.

Ten sergeants of the best his targe 'gan him bear

That eager were and prest[3] to cover him and to were.[4]

Himself as a giant the chainës in two hew,

The targe was his warant,[5] that none till him threw.

Eight unto the gate with the targe they yede,

Fighting on a gate, under him they slew his steed,

Therefore ne would he cease, alone into the castele

Through them all would press; on foot fought he full wele.

And when he was within, and fought as a wild lión,

He fondred the Sarazins otuynne,[6] and fought as a dragon,

Without the Christians 'gan cry, 'Alas! Richard is taken;'

Then Normans were sorry, of countenance 'gan blaken,

To slay down and to' stroy never would they stint,

They left fordied[7] no noye,[8] ne for no wound no dint,

That in went all their press, maugre the Sarazins all,

And found Richard on dais fighting, and won the hall.

[1] 'Ligg:' lying.

[2] 'Kaucë:' causey.

[3] 'Prest:' ready.

[4] 'Were:' defend.

[5] 'Warant:' guard.

[6] 'He fondred the Sarazins otuynne:' he formed the Saracens into two

parties.

[7] 'Fordied:' undone.

[8] 'No noye:' annoy.

Of De Brunne, Warton judiciously remarks--'Our author also translated

into English rhymes the treatise of Cardinal Bonaventura, his

contemporary, _De coena et passione Domini, et paenis S. Mariae

Virgins_. But I forbear to give more extracts from this writer, who

appears to have possessed much more industry than genius, and cannot at

present be read with much pleasure. Yet it should be remembered that

even such a writer as Robert de Brunne, uncouth and unpleasing as he

naturally seems, and chiefly employed in turning the theology of his age

into rhyme, contributed to form a style, to teach expression, and to

polish his native tongue. In the infancy of language and composition,

nothing is wanted but writers;--at that period even the most artless

have their use.'

Here we may allude to the introduction of romantic fiction into English

poetry. This had, as we have seen, reigned in France. There troubadours

in Provence, and men more worthy of the name of poets in Normandy, had

long sung of Brutus, of Charlemagne, and of Rollo. And thence a class,

called sometimes Joculators, sometimes Jongleurs, and sometimes

Minstrels, issued, harp in hand, wandering to and fro, and singing tales

of chivalry and love, composed either by themselves, or by other poets

living or dead. (We refer our readers to our first volume of Percy's

'Reliques,' for a full account of this class, and of the poetry they

produced.) These wanderers reached England in due time and brought with

them compositions which found favour and excited emulation, or at least

imitation, in our vernacular genius. Hence came a great swarm of

romances, all more or less derived from the French, even when Saxon in

subject and style; such as 'Sir Tristrem,' (which Sir Walter Scott tried

in vain to prove to be written by the famous Thomas the Rhymer, of

Ercildoun, or Earlston, in Berwickshire, who died before 1299;) 'The

Life of Alexander the Great,' said to be written by Adam Davie, Marshall

of Stratford-le-Bow, who lived about 1312; 'King Horn,' which certainly

belongs to the latter part of the thirteenth century; 'The Squire of Low

Degree; 'Sir Guy;' 'Sir Degore;' 'The King of Tars;' 'King Robert of

Sicily;' 'La Mort d'Arthur;' 'Impodemon;' and, more lately, 'Sir Libius;'

'Sir Thopas;' 'Sir Isenbras;' 'Gawan and Gologras;' and 'Sir Bevis.'

Richard I. also formed the subject of a very popular romance. We give

extracts from it:--

THE SOLDAN SALADIN SENDS KING RICHARD A HORSE.

'Thou sayst thy God is full of might:

Wilt thou grant with spear and shield,

To detryve the right in the field,

With helm, hauberk, and brandës bright,

On strongë steedës good and light,

Whether be of more power,

Thy God almight, or Jupiter?

And he sent rue to sayë this

If thou wilt have an horse of his,

In all the lands that thou hast gone

Such ne thou sawest never none:

Favel of Cyprus, ne Lyard of Prys,[1]

Be not at need as he is;

And if thou wilt, this samë day,

He shall be brought thee to assay.'

Richard answered, 'Thou sayest well

Such a horse, by Saint Michael,

I would have to ride upon.----

Bid him send that horse to me,

And I shall assay what he be,

If he be trusty, withoutë fail,

I keep none other to me in battail.'

The messengers then homë went,

And told the Soldan in present,

That Richard in the field would come him unto:

The rich Soldan bade to come him unto

A noble clerk that couldë well conjure,

That was a master necromansour:

He commanded, as I you tell,

Thorough the fiendë's might of hell,

Two strong fiendë's of the air,

In likeness of two steedës fair,

Both like in hue and hair,

As men said that there were:

No man saw never none sich;

That one was a mare iliche,

That other a colt, a noble steed,

Where that he were in any mead,

(Were the knight never so bold.)

When the mare neigh wold,

(That him should hold against his will,)

But soon he wouldë go her till,

And kneel down and suck his dame,

Therewith the Soldan with shame

Shouldë king Richard quell,

All this an angel 'gan him tell,

That to him came about midnight.

'Awake,' he said, 'Goddis knight:

My Lord doth thee to understand

That thee shalt come an horse to land,

Fair it is, of body ypight,

To betray thee if the Soldan might;

On him to ride have thou no drede

For he thee helpë shall at need.'

The angel gives king Richard several directions about managing this

infernal horse, and a general engagement ensuing, between the Christian

and Saracen armies,

He leapt on horse when it was light;

Ere he in his saddle did leap

Of many thingës he took keep.--

His men brought them that he bade,

A square tree of forty feet,

Before his saddle anon he it set,

Fast that they should it brase, &c.

Himself was richëly begone,

From the crest right to the tone,[2]

He was covered wondrously wele

All with splentës of good steel,

And there above an hauberk.

A shaft he had of trusty werk,

Upon his shoulders a shield of steel,

With the libards[3] painted wele;

And helm he had of rich entaile,

Trusty and true was his ventaile:

Upon his crest a dovë white,

Significant of the Holy Sprite,

Upon a cross the dovë stood

Of gold ywrought rich and good,

God[4] himself, Mary and John,

As he was done the rood upon,[5]

In significance for whom he fought,

The spear-head forgat he nought,

Upon his shaft he would it have

Goddis name thereon was grave;

Now hearken what oath he sware,

Ere they to the battaile went there:

'If it were so, that Richard might

Slay the Soldan in field with fight,

At our willë evereachone

He and his should gone

Into the city of Babylon;

And the king of Macedon

He should have under his hand;

And if the Soldan of that land

Might slay Richard in the field

With sword or spearë under shield,

That Christian men shouldë go

Out of that land for evermo,

And the Saracens their will in wold.'

Quoth king Richard, 'Thereto I hold,

Thereto my glove, as I am knight.'

They be armed and ready dight:

King Richard to his saddle did leap,

Certes, who that would takë keep

To see that sight it were sair;

Their steedës rannë with great ayre,[6]

All so hard as they might dyre,[7]

After their feetë sprang out fire:

Tabors and trumpettës 'gan blow:

There men might see in a throw

How king Richard, that noble man,

Encountered with the Soldan,

The chief was toldë of Damas,

His trust upon his marë was,

And therefor, as the book[8] us tells,

His crupper hungë full of bells,

And his peytrel[9] and his arsowne[10]

Three mile men might hear the soun.

His mare neighed, his bells did ring,

For greatë pride, without lesing,

A falcon brode[11] in hand he bare,

For he thought he wouldë there

Have slain Richard with treasoun

When his colt should kneelë down,

As a colt shouldë suck his dame,

And he was 'warë of that shame,

His ears with wax were stopped fast,

Therefore Richard was not aghast,

He struck the steed that under him went,

And gave the Soldan his death with a dent:

In his shieldë verament

Was painted a serpent,

With the spear that Richard held

He bare him thorough under his sheld,

None of his armour might him last,

Bridle and peytrel all to-brast,

His girthës and his stirrups also,

His ruare to groundë wentë tho;

Maugre her head, he made her seech

The ground, withoutë morë speech,

His feet toward the firmament,

Behinde him the spear outwent

There he fell dead on the green,

Richard smote the fiend with spurrës keen,

And in the name of the Holy Ghost

He driveth into the heathen host,

And as soon as he was come,

Asunder he brake the sheltron,[12]

And all that ever afore him stode,

Horse and man to the groundë yode,

Twenty foot on either side.

When the king of France and his men wist

That the mast'ry had the Christian,

They waxed bold, and good heart took,

Steedës bestrode, and shaftës shook.

[1] 'Favel of Cyprus, ne Lyard of Prys:' Favel of Cyprus, and Lyard of

Paris, horses of Kichard's.

[2] 'Tone:' toes.

[3] 'Libards:' leopards.

[4] 'God:' our Saviour.

[5] 'As he was done the rood upon:' as he died upon the cross.

[6] 'Ayre:' ire.

[7] 'Dyre:' dare.

[8] 'The book:' the French romance.

[9] 'Peytrel:' the breast-plate or breast-band of a horse.

[10] 'Arsowne:' saddle-bow.

[11] 'falcon brode:' F. bird.

[12] 'Sheltrou:' 'schiltron:' soldiers drawn up in a circle.

From 'Sir Degore' we quote the description of a dragon, which Warton

thinks drawn by a master:--

DEGORE AND THE DRAGON.

Degorë went forth his way,

Through a forest half a day:

He heard no man, nor sawë none,

Till it past the high none,

Then heard he great strokës fall,

That it made greatë noise withal,

Full soonë he thought that to see,

To weetë what the strokes might be:

There was an earl, both stout and gay,

He was come there that samë day,

For to hunt for a deer or a doe,

But his houndës were gone him fro.

Then was there a dragon great and grim,

Full of fire and also venim,

With a wide throat and tuskës great,

Upon that knight fast 'gan he beat.

And as a lion then was his feet,

His tail was long, and full unmeet:

Between his head and his tail

Was twenty-two foot withouten fail;

His body was like a wine tun,

He shone full bright against the sun:

His eyes were bright as any glass,

His scales were hard as any brass;

And thereto he was necked like a horse,

He bare his head up with great force:

The breath of his mouth that did out blow

As it had been a fire on lowe[1].

He was to look on, as I you tell,

As it had been a fiend of hell.

Many a man he had shent,

And many a horsë he had rent.

[1] 'On lowe:' in flame.

From Davie's supposed 'Life of Alexander' we extract a description of a

battle, which shews some energy of genius:--

A BATTLE

Alisander before is ryde,

And many gentle a knight him myde;[1]

As for to gather his meinie free,

He abideth under a tree:

Forty thousand of chivalry

He taketh in his company,

He dasheth him then fast forthward,

And the other cometh afterward.

He seeth his knightës in mischief,

He taketh it greatly a grief,

He takes Bultyphal[2] by the side,

So as a swallow he 'ginneth forth glide.

A duke of Persia soon he met,

And with his lance he him grett.

He píerceth his breny, cleaveth his shieldë,

The heartë tokeneth the yrnë;

The duke fell downë to the ground,

And starf[3] quickly in that stound:

Alisander aloud then said,

Other toll never I ne paid,

Yet ye shallen of mine pay,

Ere I go more assay.

Another lance in hand he hent,

Against the prince of Tyre he went

He ... him thorough the breast and thare

And out of saddle and crouthe him bare,

And I say for soothë thing

He brake his neck in the falling.

... with muchel wonder,

Antiochus haddë him under,

And with sword would his heved[4]

From his body have yreaved:

He saw Alisander the goodë gome,

Towards him swithë come,

He lete[5] his prey, and flew on horse,

For to save his owen corse:

Antiochus on steed leap,

Of none woundës ne took he keep,

And eke he had fourë forde

All ymade with spearës' ord.[6]

Tholomeus and all his felawen[7]

Of this succour so weren welfawen,

Alysander made a cry hardy,

'Ore tost aby aby.'

Then the knightës of Achaÿ

Jousted with them of Araby,

They of Rome with them of Mede,

Many land....

Egypt jousted with them of Tyre,

Simple knights with richë sire:

There n'as foregift ne forbearing

Betweenë vavasour[8] ne king;

Before men mighten and behind

Cunteck[9] seek and cunteck find.

With Persians foughten the Gregeys,[10]

There was cry and great honteys.[11]

They kidden[12] that they weren mice,

They broken spearës all to slice.

There might knight find his pere,

There lost many his distrere:[13]

There was quick in little thraw,[14]

Many gentle knight yslaw:

Many armë, many heved[15]

Some from the body reaved:

Many gentle lavedy[16]

There lost quick her amy.[17]

There was many maim yled,[18]

Many fair pensel bebled:[19]

There was swordës liklaking,[20]

There was spearës bathing,

Both kingës there sans doute

Be in dash'd with all their route, &c.

[1] 'Myde:' with.

[2] 'Bultyphal:' Bucephalus.

[3] 'Starf:' died.

[4] 'Heved: head.

[5] 'Lete:' left.

[6] 'Ord:' point.

[7] 'Felawen;' fellows.

[7] 'Vavasour:' subject.

[8] 'Cunteck:' strife.

[9] 'Gregeys:' Greeks.

[10] 'Honteys:' shame.

[11] 'Kidden:' thought.

[12] 'Distrere:' horse.

[13] 'Little thraw:' short time.

[14] 'Heved:' head.

[15] 'Lavedy:' lady.

[16] 'Amy:' paramour.

[17] 'Yled:' led along, maimed.

[18] 'Many fair pensel bebled:' many a banner sprinkled with blood.

[19] 'Liklaking:' clashing.

Davie was also the author of an original poem, entitled, 'Visions in

Verse,' and of the 'Battle of Jerusalem,' in which he versifies a French

romance. In this production Pilate is represented as challenging our

Lord to single combat!

In 1349, died Richard Rollo, a hermit, and a verse-writer. He lived a

secluded life near the nunnery of Hampole in Yorkshire, and wrote a

number of devotional pieces, most of them very dull. In 1350, Lawrence

Minot produced some short narrative ballads on the victories of Edward

III., beginning with Halidon Hill, and ending with the siege of Guisnes

Castle. His works lay till the end of the last century obscure in a MS.

of the Cotton Collection, which was supposed to be a transcript of the

Works of Chaucer. On a spare leaf of the MS. there had been accidentally

written a name, probably that of its original possessor, 'Richard

Chawsir.' This the getter-up of the Cotton catalogue imagined to be the

name of Geoffrey Chaucer. Mr Tyrwhitt, while foraging for materials to

his edition of 'The Canterbury Tales,' accidentally found out who the

real writer was; and Ritson afterwards published Minot's ballads, which

are ten in number, written in the northern dialect, and in an alliterative

style, and with considerable spirit and liveliness. He has been called the

Tyrtaeus of his age.

We come now to the immediate predecessor of Chaucer--Robert Langlande.

He was a secular priest, born at Mortimer's Cleobury, in Shropshire,

and educated at Oriel College, Oxford. He wrote, towards the end of the

fourteenth century, a very remarkable work, entitled, 'Visions of William

concerning Piers Plowman.' The general object of this poem is to denounce

the abuses of society, and to inculcate, upon both clergy and laity, their

respective duties. One William is represented as falling asleep among the

Malvern Hills, and sees in his dream a succession of visions, in which

great ingenuity, great boldness, and here and there a powerful vein of

poetry, are displayed. Truth is described as a magnificent tower, and

Falsehood as a deep dungeon. In one canto Religion descends, and gives

a long harangue about what should be the conduct of society and of

individuals. Bribery and Falsehood, in another part of the poem, seek a

marriage with each other, and make their way to the courts of justice,

where they find many friends. Some very whimsical passages are introduced.

The Power of Grace confers upon Piers Plowman, who stands for the

Christian Life, four stout oxen, to cultivate the field of Truth. These

are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the last of whom is described as the

gentlest of the team. She afterwards assigns him the like number of stots

or bullocks, to harrow what the evangelists had ploughed, and this new

horned team consists of Saint or Stot Ambrose, Stot Austin, Stot Gregory,

and Stot Jerome.

Apart from its fantastic structure, 'Piers Plowman' was not only a sign

of the times, but did great service in its day. His voice rings like

that of Israel's minor prophets--like Nahum or Hosea--in a dark and

corrupt age. He proclaims liberal and independent sentiments, he attacks

slavery and superstition, and he predicts the doom of the Papacy as with

a thunder-knell. Chaucer must have felt roused to his share of the

reformatory work by the success of 'Piers Plowman;' Spenser is suspected

to have read and borrowed from him; and even Milton, in his description

of a lazar-house in 'Paradise Lost,' had him probably in his eye. (See

our last extract from 'Piers.')

On account of the great merit and peculiarity of this work we proceed to

make rather copious extracts.

HUMAN LIFE.

Then 'gan I to meten[1] a marvellous sweven,[2]

That I was in wilderness, I wist never where:

As I beheld into the east, on high to the sun,

I saw a tower on a loft, richly ymaked,

A deep dale beneath, a dungeon therein,

With deep ditches and dark, and dreadful of sight:

A fair field full of folk found I there between,

Of all manner men, the mean and the rich,

Working and wand'ring, as the world asketh;

Some put them to the plough, playeden full seld,

In setting and sowing swonken[3] full hard:

And some put them to pride, &c.

[1] 'Meten:' dream.

[2] 'Sweven:' dream.

[3] 'Swonken:' toiled.

ALLEGORICAL PICTURES.

Thus robed in russet, I roamed about

All a summer season, for to seek Dowell

And freyned[1] full oft, of folk that I met

If any wight wist where Dowell was at inn,

And what man he might be, of many man I asked;

Was never wight as I went, that me wysh[2] could

Where this lad lenged,[3] lessë or more,

Till it befell on a Friday, two friars I met

Masters of the Minors,[4] men of greatë wit.

I halsed them hendely,[5] as I had learned,

And prayed them for charity, ere they passed further,

If they knew any court or country as they went

Where that Dowell dwelleth, do me to wit,[6]

For they be men on this mould, that most widë walk

And know countries and courts, and many kinnes[7] places,

Both princes' palaces, and poor mennë's cotes,

And Dowell, and Doevil, where they dwell both.

'Amongst us,' quoth the Minors, 'that man is dwelling

And ever hath as I hope, and ever shall hereafter.'

Contra, quod I, as a clerk, and cumsed to disputen,

And said them soothly, _Septies in die cadit justus_,

Seven sythes,[8] sayeth the book, sinneth the rightful,

And whoso sinneth, I say, doth evil as methinketh,

And Dowell and Doevil may not dwell together,

Ergo he is not alway among you friars;

He is other while elsewhere, to wyshen[9] the people.

'I shall say thee, my son,' said the friar then,

'How seven sithes the saddë[10] man on a day sinneth,

By a forvisne'[11] quod the friar, 'I shall thee fair shew;

Let bring a man in a boat, amid the broad water,

The wind and the water, and the boatë wagging,

Make a man many time, to fall and to stand,

For stand he never so stiff, he stumbleth if he move,

And yet is he safe and sound, and so him behoveth,

For if he ne arise the rather, and raght[12] to the steer,

The wind would with the water the boat overthrow,

And then were his life lost through latches[13] of himself.

And thus it falleth,' quod the friar, 'by folk here on earth,

The water is lik'ned to the world, that waneth and waxeth,

The goods of this world are likened to the great waves

That as winds and weathers, walken about,

The boat is liken'd to our body, that brittle is of kind,

That through the flesh, and the frailë world

Sinneth the saddë man, a day seven times,

And deadly sin doeth he not, for Dowell him keepeth,

And that is Charity the champion, chief help against sin,

For he strengtheth man to stand, and stirreth man's soul,

And though thy body bow, as boatë doth in water,

Aye is thy soulë safe, but if thou wilt thyself

Do a deadly sin, and drenchë[14] so thy soul,

God will suffer well thy sloth, if thyself liketh,

For he gave thee two years' gifts, to teme well thyself,

And that is wit and free-will, to every wight a portion,

To flying fowlës, to fishes, and to beasts,

And man hath most thereof, and most is to blame

But if he work well therewith, as Dowell him teacheth.'

'I have no kind knowing,' quoth I, 'to conceive all your wordës

And if I may live and look, I shall go learnë better;

I beken[15] the Christ, that on the crossë died;'

And I said, 'The samë save you from mischance,

And give you grace on this ground good me to worth.'

And thus I went wide where, walking mine one

By a wide wilderness, and by a woodë's side,

Bliss of the birdës brought me on sleep,

And under a lind[16] on a land, leaned I a stound[17]

To lyth[18] the layës, those lovely fowlës made,

Mirth of their mouthës made me there to sleep.

The marvellousest metelles mettë[19] me then

That ever dreamed wight, in world as I went.

A much man as me thought, and like to myself,

Came and called me, by my kindë[20] namë.

'What art thou,' quod I then, 'thou that my namë knowest?'

'That thou wottest well,' quod he, 'and no wight better.'

'Wot I what thou art?' Thought said he then,

'I have sued[21] thee this seven years, see ye me no rather?'

'Art thou Thought?' quoth I then, 'thou couldest me wyssh[22]

Where that Dowell dwelleth, and do me that to know.'

'Dowell, and Dobetter, and Dobest the third,' quod he,

'Are three fair virtues, and be not far to find,

Whoso is true of his tongue, and of his two handës,

And through his labour or his lod, his livelod winneth,

And is trusty of his tayling,[23] taketh but his own,

And is no drunkelow ne dedigious, Dowell him followeth;

Dobet doth right thus, and he doth much more,

He is as low as a lamb, and lovëly of speech,

And helpeth all men, after that them needeth;

The baggës and the bigirdles, he hath to-broke them all,

That the earl avarous heldë and his heirës,

And thus to mammons many he hath made him friends,

And is run to religion, and hath rend'red[24] the Bible

And preached to the people Saint Paulë's wordës,

_Libenter suffertis insipientes, cum sitis ipsi sapientes_.

* * * * *

And suffereth the unwise with you for to live,

And with glad will doth he good, for so God you hoteth.[25]

Dobest is above both, and beareth a bishop's cross

Is hooked on that one end to halye[26] men from hell;

A pike is on the potent[27] to pull down the wicked

That waiten any wickedness, Dowell to tene;[28]

And Dowell and Dobet amongst them have ordained

To crown one to be king, to rule them boeth,

That if Dowell and Dobet are against Dobest,

Then shall the king come, and cast them in irons,

And but if Dobest bid for them, they be there for ever.

Thus Dowell and Dobet, and Dobestë the third,

Crowned one to be king, to keepen them all,

And to rule the realmë by their three wittës,

And none otherwise but as they three assented.'

I thanked Thought then, that he me thus taught,

And yet favoureth me not thy suging, I covet to learn

How Dowell, Dobest, and Dobetter do among the people.

'But Wit can wish[29] thee,' quoth Thought, 'where they three dwell,

Else wot I none that can tell that now is alive.'

Thought and I thus, three dayës we yeden[30]

Disputing upon Dowell, dayë after other.

And ere we were 'ware, with Wit 'gan we meet.

He was long and leanë, like to none other,

Was no pride on his apparel, nor poverty neither;

Sad of his semblance, and of soft cheer;

I durst not move no matter, to make him to laugh,

But as I bade Thought then be mean between,

And put forth some purpose to prevent his wits,

What was Dowell from Dobet, and Dobest from them both?

Then Thought in that timë said these wordës;

'Whether Dowell, Dobet, and Dobest be in land,

Here is well would wit, if Wit could teach him,

And whether he be man or woman, this man fain would espy,

And work as they three would, this is his intent.'

'Here Dowell dwelleth,' quod Wit, 'not a day hence,

In a castle that kind[31] made, of four kinds things;

Of earth and air is it made, mingled together

With wind and with water, witterly[32] enjoined;

Kindë hath closed therein, craftily withal,

A leman[33] that he loveth, like to himself,

Anima she hight, and Envy her hateth,

A proud pricker of France, _princeps hujus mundi_,

And would win her away with wiles and he might;

And Kind knoweth this well, and keepeth her the better.

And doth her with Sir Dowell is duke of these marches;

Dobet is her damosel, Sir Dowell's daughter,

To serve this lady lelly,[34] both late and rathe.[35]

Dobest is above both, a bishop's pere;

That he bids must be done; he ruleth them all.

Anima, that lady, is led by his learning,

And the constable of the castle, that keepeth all the watch,

Is a wise knight withal, Sir Inwit he hight,

And hath five fair sonnës by his first wife,

Sir Seewell and Saywell, and Hearwell-the-end,

Sir Workwell-with-thy-hand, a wight man of strength,

And Sir Godfray Gowell, great lordës forsooth.

These five be set to save this lady Anima,

Till Kind come or send, to save her for ever.'

'What kind thing is Kind,' quod I, 'canst thou me tell?'--

'Kind,' quod Wit, 'is a creator of all kinds things,

Father and former of all that ever was maked,

And that is the great God that 'ginning had never,

Lord of life and of light, of bliss and of pain,

Angels and all thing are at his will,

And man is him most like, of mark and of shape,

For through the word that he spake, wexen forth beasts,

And made Adam, likest to himself one,

And Eve of his ribbë bone, without any mean,

For he was singular himself, and said _Faciamus_,

As who say more must hereto, than my wordë one,

My might must helpë now with my speech,

Even as a lord should make letters, and he lacked parchment,

Though he could write never so well, if he had no pen,

The letters, for all his lordship, I 'lieve were never ymarked;

And so it seemeth by him, as the Bible telleth,

There he saidë, _Dixit et facta sunt_.

He must work with his word, and his wit shew;

And in this manner was man made, by might of God Almighty,

With his word and his workmanship, and with life to last,

And thus God gave him a ghost[36] of the Godhead of heaven,

And of his great grace granted him bliss,

And that is life that aye shall last, to all our lineage after;

And that is the castle that Kindë made, Caro it hight,

And is as much to meanë as man with a soul,

And that he wrought with work and with word both;

Through might of the majesty, man was ymaked.

Inwit and Allwits closed been therein,

For love of the lady Anima, that life is nempned.[37]

Over all in man's body, she walketh and wand'reth,

And in the heart is her home, and her most rest,

And Inwit is in the head, and to the heartë looketh,

What Anima is lief or loth,[38] he leadeth her at his will

Then had Wit a wife, was hotë Dame Study,

That leve was of lere, and of liche boeth.

She was wonderly wrought, Wit me so teached,

And all staring, Dame Study sternëly said;

'Well art thou wise,' quoth she to Wit, 'any wisdoms to tell

To flatterers or to foolës, that frantic be of wits;'

And blamed him and banned him, and bade him be still,

With such wisë wordës, to wysh any sots,

And said, '_Noli mittere_, man, _margaritae_, pearls,

Amongë hoggës, that havë hawes at will.

They do but drivel thereon, draff were them lever,[39]

Than all precious pearls that in paradise waxeth.[40]

I say it, by such,' quod she, 'that shew it by their works,

That them were lever[41] land and lordship on earth,

Or riches or rentës, and rest at their will,

Than all the sooth sawës that Solomon said ever.

Wisdom and wit now is not worth a kerse,[42]

But if it be carded with covetise, as clothers kemb their wool;

Whoso can contrive deceits, and conspire wrongs,

And lead forth a lovëday,[43] to let with truth,

He that such craftës can is oft cleped to counsel,

They lead lords with lesings, and belieth truth.

Job the gentle in his gests greatly witnesseth

That wicked men wielden the wealth of this world;

The Psalter sayeth the same, by such as do evil;

_Ecce ipsi peccatores abundantes in seculo obtinuerunt divitias_.

Lo, saith holy lecture, which lords be these shrewes?

Thilkë that God giveth most, least good they dealeth,

And most unkind be to that comen, that most chattel wieldeth.[44]

_Quae perfecisti destrutxerunt, justus autem, &c_.

Harlots for their harlotry may have of their goodës,

And japers and juggelers, and janglers of jestës,

And he that hath holy writ aye in his mouth,

And can tell of Tobie, and of the twelve apostles,

Or preach of the penance that Pilate falsely wrought

To Jesu the gentle, that Jewës to-draw:

Little is he loved that such a lesson sheweth;

Or daunten or draw forth, I do it on God himself,

But they that feign they foolës, and with fayting[45] liveth,

Against the lawë of our Lord, and lien on themself,

Spitten and spewen, and speak foulë wordës,

Drinken and drivellen, and do men for to gape,

Liken men, and lie on them, and lendeth them no giftës,

They can[46] no more minstrelsy nor music men to glad,

Than Mundie, the miller, of _multa fecit Deus_.

Ne were their vile harlotry, have God my truth,

Shouldë never king nor knight, nor canon of Paul's

Give them to their yearë's gift, nor gift of a groat,

And mirth and minstrelsy amongst men is nought;

Lechery, losenchery,[47] and losels' talës,

Gluttony and great oaths, this mirth they loveth,

And if they carpen[48] of Christ, these clerkës and these lewed,

And they meet in their mirth, when minstrels be still,

When telleth they of the Trinity a talë or twain,

And bringeth forth a blade reason, and take Bernard to witness,

And put forth a presumption to prove the sooth,

Thus they drivel at their dais[49] the Deity to scorn,

And gnawen God to their gorge[50] when their guts fallen;

And the careful[51] may cry, and carpen at the gate,

Both a-hunger'd and a-thirst, and for chill[52] quake,

Is none to nymen[53] them near, his noyel[54] to amend,

But hunten him as a hound, and hoten[55] him go hence.

Little loveth he that Lord that lent him all that bliss,

That thus parteth with the poor; a parcel when him needeth

Ne were mercy in mean men, more than in rich;

Mendynauntes meatless[56] might go to bed.

God is much in the gorge of these greatë masters,

And amongës mean men, his mercy and his workës,

And so sayeth the Psalter, I have seen it oft.

Clerks and other kinnes men carpen of God fast,

And have him much in the mouth, and meanë men in heart;

Friars and faitours[57] have founden such questions

To please with the proud men, sith the pestilence time,

And preachen at St Paulë's, for pure envy of clerks,

That folk is not firmed in the faith, nor free of their goods,

Nor sorry for their sinnës, so is pride waxen,

In religion, and in all the realm, amongst rich and poor;

That prayers have no power the pestilence to let,

And yet the wretches of this world are none 'ware by other,

Nor for dread of the death, withdraw not their pride,

Nor be plenteous to the poor, as pure charity would,

But in gains and in gluttony, forglote goods themself,

And breaketh not to the beggar, as the book teacheth.

And the more he winneth, and waxeth wealthy in riches,

And lordeth in landës, the less good he dealeth.

Tobie telleth ye not so, takë heed, ye rich,

How the bible book of him beareth witness;

Whoso hath much, spend manly, so meaneth Tobit,

And whoso little wieldeth, rule him thereafter;

For we have no letter of our life, how long it shall endure.

Suchë lessons lordës shouldë love to hear,

And how he might most meinie, manlich find;

Not to fare as a fiddeler, or a friar to seek feasts,

Homely at other men's houses, and haten their own.

Elenge[58] is the hall every day in the week;

There the lord nor the lady liketh not to sit,

Now hath each rich a rule[59] to eaten by themself

In a privy parlour, for poorë men's sake,

Or in a chamber with a chimney, and leave the chief hall

That was made for mealës men to eat in.'--

And when that Wit was 'ware what Dame Study told,

He became so confuse he cunneth not look,

And as dumb as death, and drew him arear,

And for no carping I could after, nor kneeling to the earth

I might get no grain of his greatë wits,

But all laughing he louted, and looked upon Study,

In sign that I shouldë beseechen her of grace,

And when I was 'ware of his will, to his wife I louted

And said, 'Mercie, madam, your man shall I worth

As long as I live both late and early,

For to worken your will, the while my life endureth,

With this that ye ken me kindly, to know to what is Dowell.'

'For thy meekness, man,' quoth she, 'and for thy mild speech,

I shall ken thee to my cousin, that Clergy is hoten.[60]

He hath wedded a wife within these six moneths,

Is syb[61] to the seven arts, Scripture is her name;

They two as I hope, after my teaching,

Shall wishen thee Dowell, I dare undertake.'

Then was I as fain as fowl of fair morrow,

And gladder than the gleeman that gold hath to gift,

And asked her the highway where that Clergy[62] dwelt.

'And tell me some token,' quoth I, 'for time is that I wend.'

'Ask the highway,' quoth she, 'hencë to suffer

Both well and woe, if that thou wilt learn;

And ride forth by riches, and rest thou not therein,

For if thou couplest ye therewith, to Clergy comest thou never,

And also the likorous land that Lechery hight,

Leave it on thy left half, a largë mile and more,

Till thou come to a court, keep well thy tongue

From leasings and lyther[63] speech, and likorous drinkës,

Then shalt thou see Sobriety, and Simplicity of speech,

That each might be in his will, his wit to shew,

And thus shall ye come to Clergy that can many things;

Say him this sign, I set him to school,

And that I greet well his wife, for I wrote her many books,

And set her to Sapience, and to the Psalter glose;

Logic I learned her, and many other laws,

And all the unisons to music I made her to know;

Plato the poet, I put them first to book,

Aristotle and other more, to argue I taught,

Grammer for girlës, I gard[64] first to write,

And beat them with a bales but if they would learn;

Of all kindës craftës I contrived toolës,

Of carpentry, of carvers, and compassed masons,

And learned them level and line, though I look dim;

And Theology hath tened[65] me seven score timës;

The more I muse therein, the mistier it seemeth,

And the deeper I divine, the darker me it thinketh.

[1] 'Freyned:' inquired.

[2] 'Wysh:' inform.

[3] 'Lenged:' lived.

[4] 'Minors:' the friars minors.

[5] 'Halsed them hendely:' saluted them kindly.

[6] 'Do me to wit:' make me to know.

[7] 'Kinnes:' sorts of.

[8] 'Sythes:' times.

[9] 'Wyshen:' inform, teach.

[10] 'Saddë:' sober, good.

[11] 'Forvisne:' similitude.

[12] 'Raght:' reach.

[13] 'Latches:' laziness.

[14] 'Drenchë:' drown.

[15] 'Beken:' confess.

[16] 'Lind:' lime-tree.

[17] 'A stound:' a while.

[18] 'Lyth:' listen.

[19] 'Mettë:' dreamed.

[20] 'Kinde:' own.

[21] 'Sued:' sought.

[22] 'Wyssh:' inform.

[23] 'Tayling:' dealing.

[24] 'Rend'red:' translated.

[25] 'Hoteth:' biddeth.

[26] 'Halve:' draw.

[27] 'Potent:' staff.

[28] 'Tene:' grieve.

[29] 'Wish:' inform.

[30] 'Yeden:' went.

[31] 'Kind:' nature.

[32] 'Witterly:' cunningly.

[33] 'Leman:' paramour.

[34] 'Lelly:' fair.

[35] 'Rathe:' early.

[36] 'Ghost:' spirit.

[37] 'Nempned:' named.

[38] 'Loth:' willing.

[39] 'Lever:' rather.

[40] 'Waxeth: grow.

[41] 'Them were lever:' they had rather.

[42] 'Kerse:' curse.

[43] 'Lovëday:'lady.

[44] 'Wieldeth:' commands.

[45] 'Fayting:' deceiving.

[46] 'Can:' know.

[47] 'Losenchery:' lying.

[48] 'Carpen:' speak.

[49] 'Dais:' table.

[50] 'Gorge:' throat.

[51] 'Careful:' poor.

[52] 'Chill:' cold.

[53] 'Nymen:' take.

[54] 'Noye:' trouble.

[55] 'Hoten:' order.

[56] 'Mendynauntes meatless:' beggars supperless.

[57] 'Faitours:' idle fellows.

[58] 'Elenge:' strange, deserted.

[59] 'Rule:' custom.

[60] 'Hoten:' named.

[61] 'Syb:' mother.

[62] 'Clergy:' learning.

[63] 'Lyther:' wanton.

[64] 'Gard:' made.

[65] 'Tened:' grieved.

COVETOUSNESS.

And then came Covetise; can I him no descrive,

So hungerly and hollow, so sternëly he looked,

He was bittle-browed and baberlipped also;

With two bleared eyen as a blindë hag,

And as a leathern pursë lolled his cheekës,

Well sider than his chin they shivered for cold:

And as a bondman of his bacon his beard was bidrauled,

With a hood on his head, and a lousy hat above.

And in a tawny tabard,[1] of twelve winter age,

Allë torn and baudy, and full of lice creeping;

But that if a louse could have leapen the better,

She had not walked on the welt, so was it threadbare.

'I have been Covetise,' quoth this caitiff,

'For sometime I served Symmë at style,

And was his prentice plight, his profit to wait.

First I learned to lie, a leef other twain

Wickedly to weigh, was my first lesson:

To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair

With many manner merchandise, as my master me hight.--

Then drave I me among drapers my donet[2] to learn.

To draw the lyfer along, the longer it seemed

Among the rich rays,' &c.

[1] 'Tabard:' a coat.

[2] 'Donet:' lesson.

THE PRELATES.

And now is religion a rider, a roamer by the street,

A leader of lovëdays,[1] and a loudë[2] beggar,

A pricker on a palfrey from manor to manor,

An heap of houndës at his arse as he a lord were.

And if but his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring,

He loured on him, and asked who taught him courtesy.

[1] 'Lovëdays:' ladies.

[2] 'Loudë:' lewd.

MERCY AND TRUTH.

Out of the west coast, a wench, as methought,

Came walking in the way, to heavenward she looked;

Mercy hight that maidë, a meek thing withal,

A full benign birdë, and buxom of speech;

Her sister, as it seemed, came worthily walking,

Even out of the east, and westward she looked,

A full comely creature, Truth she hight,

For the virtue that her followed afeared was she never.

When these maidens met, Mercy and Truth,

Either asked other of this great marvel,

Of the din and of the darkness, &c.

NATURE, OR KIND, SENDING FORTH HIS DISEASES FROM THE PLANETS, AT

THE COMMAND OF CONSCIENCE, AND OF HIS ATTENDANTS, AGE AND DEATH.

Kind Conscience then heard, and came out of the planets,

And sent forth his forriours, Fevers and Fluxes,

Coughës and Cardiacles, Crampës and Toothaches,

Rheumës, and Radgondes, and raynous Scallës,

Boilës, and Botches, and burning Agues,

Phreneses and foul Evil, foragers of Kind!

There was 'Harow! and Help! here cometh Kind,

With Death that is dreadful, to undo us all!'

The lord that liveth after lust then aloud cried.

_Age the hoar, he was in the va-ward,

And bare the banner before Death: by right he it claimed._

Kindë came after, with many keenë sorës,

As Pocks and Pestilences, and much people shent.

So Kind through corruptions, killed full many:

Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed

Kings and Kaisers, knightës and popës.

Many a lovely lady, and leman of knights,

Swooned and swelted for sorrow of Death's dints.

Conscience, of his courtesy, to Kind he besought

To cease and sufire, and see where they would

Leave Pride privily, and be perfect Christian,

And Kind ceased then, to see the people amend.

'Piers Plowman' found many imitators. One wrote 'Piers the Plowman's

Crede;' another, 'The Plowman's Tale;' another, a poem on 'Alexander the

Great; 'another, on the 'Wars of the Jews;' and another, 'A Vision of

Death and Life,' extracts from all which may be found in Warton's

'History of English Poetry.'

We close this preliminary essay by giving a very ancient hymn to the

Virgin, as a specimen of the once universally-prevalent alliterative

poetry.

I.

Hail be you, Mary, mother and may,

Mild, and meek, and merciable;

Hail, folliche fruit of soothfast fay,

Against each strife steadfast and stable;

Hail, soothfast soul in each, a say,

Under the sun is none so able;

Hail, lodge that our Lord in lay,

The foremost that never was founden in fable;

Hail, true, truthful, and tretable,

Hail, chief ychosen of chastity,

Hail, homely, hendy, and amiable:

_To pray for us to thy Sonë so free!_ AVE.

II.

Hail, star that never stinteth light;

Hail, bush burning that never was brent;

Hail, rightful ruler of every right,

Shadow to shield that should be shent;

Hail, blessed be you blossom bright,

To truth and trust was thine intent;

Hail, maiden and mother, most of might,

Of all mischiefs an amendëment;

Hail, spice sprung that never was spent;

Hail, throne of the Trinity;

Hail, scion that God us soon to sent,

_You pray for us thy Sonë free!_ AVE.

III.

Hail, heartily in holiness;

Hail, hope of help to high and low;

Hail, strength and stel of stableness;

Hail, window of heaven wowe;

Hail, reason of righteousness,

To each a caitiff comfort to know;

Hail, innocent of angerness,

Our takel, our tol, that we on trow;

Hail, friend to all that beoth forth flow;

Hail, light of love, and of beauty,

Hail, brighter than the blood on snow:

_You pray for us thy Sonë free!_ AVE.

IV.

Hail, maiden; hail, mother; hail, martyr trew;

Hail, kindly yknow confessour;

Hail, evenere of old law and new;

Hail, builder bold of Christë's bower;

Hail, rose highest of hyde and hue;

Of all fruitë's fairest flower;

Hail, turtle trustiest and true,

Of all truth thou art treasour;

Hail, pured princess of paramour;

Hail, bloom of brere brightest of ble;

Hail, owner of earthly honour:

_You pray for us thy Sonë so free!_ AVE, &c.

V.

Hail, hendy; hail, holy emperess;

Hail, queen courteous, comely, and kind;

Hail, destroyer of every strife;

Hail, mender of every man's mind;

Hail, body that we ought to bless,

So faithful friend may never man find;

Hail, lever and lover of largëness,

Sweet and sweetest that never may swynde;

Hail, botenere[1] of every body blind;

Hail, borgun brightest of all bounty,

Hail, trewore then the wode bynd:

_You pray for us thy Sonë so free!_ AVE.

VI.

Hail, mother; hail, maiden; hail, heaven queen;

Hail, gatus of paradise;

Hail, star of the sea that ever is seen;

Hail, rich, royal, and righteous;

Hail, burde yblessed may you bene;

Hail, pearl of all perrie the pris;

Hail, shadow in each a shower shene;

Hail, fairer than that fleur-de-lis,

Hail, chere chosen that never n'as chis;

Hail, chief chamber of charity;

Hail, in woe that ever was wis:

_You pray for us thy Sonë so free!_ AVE, &c. &c.

[1] 'Botenere:' helper.

ADVERTISEMENT.

It will be observed that, in the specimens given of the earlier poets, the

spelling has been modernised on the principle which has been so generally

approved in its application to the text of Chaucer and of Spenser.

On a further examination of the material for 'Specimens and Memoirs of the

less-known British Poets,' it has been deemed advisable to devote three

volumes to this _résumé_, and merely to give extracts from Cowley, instead

of following out the arrangement proposed when the issue for this year was

announced. In this space it has been found possible to present the reader

with specimens of almost all those authors whose writings were at any

period esteemed. The series will thus be rendered more perfect, and will

include the complete works of the authors whose entire writings are by

a general verdict regarded as worthy of preservation; together with

representations of the style, and brief notices of the poets who have,

during the progress of our literature, occupied a certain rank, but whose

popularity and importance have in a great measure passed.

It is confidently hoped that the arrangements now made will give a

completeness to the First Division of the Library Edition of the British

Poets--from Chaucer to Cowper--which will be acceptable and satisfactory

to the general reader.

Edinburgh, July 1860.

CONTENTS.

* * * * *

FIRST PERIOD.

JOHN GOWER

The Chariot of the Sun

The Tale of the Coffers or Caskets, &c.

Of the Gratification which the Lover's Passion receives from

the Sense of Hearing

JOHN BARBOUR

Apostrophe to Freedom

Death of Sir Henry de Bohun

ANDREW WYNTOUN

BLIND HARRY

Battle of Black-Earnside

The Death of Wallace

JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND

Description of the King's Mistress

JOHN THE CHAPLAIN--THOMAS OCCLEVE

JOHN LYDGATE

Canace, condemned to Death by her Father Aeolus, sends to her guilty

Brother Macareus the last Testimony of her unhappy Passion

The London Lyckpenny

HARDING, KAY, &c.

ROBERT HENRYSON

Dinner given by the Town Mouse to the Country Mouse

The Garment of Good Ladies

WILLIAM DUNBAR

The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins through Hell

The Merle and Nightingale

GAVIN DOUGLAS

Morning in May

HAWES, BARCLAY, &c.

SKELTON

To Miss Margaret Hussey

SIR DAVID LYNDSAY

Meldrum's Duel with the English Champion Talbart

Supplication in Contemption of Side Tails

THOMAS TUSSER

Directions for Cultivating a Hop-garden

Housewifely Physic

Moral Reflections on the Wind

VAUX, EDWARDS, &c.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE

Good-morrow

Good-night

THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST AND EARL OF DORSET

Allegorical Characters from 'The Mirror of Magistrates'

Henry Duke of Buckingham in the Infernal Regions

JOHN HARRINGTON

Sonnet on Isabella Markham

Verses on a most stony-hearted Maiden

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

To Sleep

Sonnets

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

Look Home

The Image of Death

Love's Servile Lot

Times go by Turns

THOMAS WATSON

The Nymphs to their May-Queen

Sonnet

THOMAS TURBERVILLE

In praise of the renowned Lady Aime, Countess of Warwick

UNKNOWN

Harpalus' Complaint of Phillida's Love bestowed on Corin, who loved

her not, and denied him that loved her

A Praise of his Lady

That all things sometime find Ease of their Pain, save only the Lover

From 'The Phoenix' Nest'

From the same

The Soul's Errand

* * * * *

SECOND PERIOD.

FROM SPENSER TO DRYDEN.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT

To Ben Jonson

On the Tombs in Westminster

An Epitaph

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

The Country's Recreations

The Silent Lover

A Vision upon 'The Fairy Queen'

Love admits no Rival

JOSHUA SYLVESTER

To Religion

On Man's Resemblance to God

The Chariot of the Sun

RICHARD BARNFIELD

Address to the Nightingale

ALEXANDER HUME

Thanks for a Summer's Day

OTHER SCOTTISH POETS

SAMUEL DANIEL

Richard II., the morning before his Murder in Pomfret Castle

Early Love

Selections from Sonnets

SIR JOHN DAVIES

Introduction to the Poem on the Soul of Man

The Self-subsistence of the Soul

Spirituality of the Soul

GILES FLETCHER

The Nativity

Song of Sorceress seeking to tempt Christ

Close of 'Christ's Victory and Triumph'

JOHN DONNE

Holy Sonnets

The Progress of the Soul

MICHAEL DRAYTON

Description of Morning

EDWARD FAIRFAX

Rinaldo at Mount Olivet

SIR HENRY WOTTON

Farewell to the Vanities of the World

A Meditation

RICHARD CORBET

Dr Corbet's Journey into France

BEN JONSON

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke

The Picture of the Body

To Penshurst

To the Memory of my beloved Master, William Shakspeare, and what

he hath left us

On the Portrait of Shakspeare

VERE, STORBER, &c

THOMAS RANDOLPH

The Praise of Woman

To my Picture

To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-glass

ROBERT BURTON

On Melancholy

THOMAS CAREW

Persuasions to Love

Song

To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side

Song

A Pastoral Dialogue

Song

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

Song

A Ballad upon a Wedding

Song

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT

Love's Darts

On the Death of Sir Bevil Grenville

A Valediction

WILLIAM BROWNE

Song

Song

Power of Genius over Envy

Evening

From 'Britannia's Pastorals'

A Descriptive Sketch

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING

Sonnet

WILLIAM DRUMMOND

The River of Forth Feasting

Sonnets

Spiritual Poems

PHINEAS FLETCHER

Description of Parthenia

Instability of Human Greatness

Happiness of the Shepherd's Life

Marriage of Christ and the Church

* * * * *

SPECIMENS, WITH MEMOIRS, OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

JOHN GOWER

Very little is told us (as usual in the beginnings of a literature) of

the life and private history of Gower, and that little is not specially

authentic or clearly consistent with itself. His life consists mainly of

a series of suppositions, with one or two firm facts between--like a few

stepping-stones insulated in wide spaces of water. He is said to have

been born about the year 1325, and if so must have been a few years

older than Chaucer; whom he, however, outlived. He was a friend as well

as contemporary of that great poet, who, in the fifth book of his

'Troilus and Cresseide,' thus addresses him:--

'O moral Gower, this bookë I direct,

To thee and the philosophical Strood,

To vouchsafe where need is to correct,

Of your benignities and zealës good.'

Gower, on the other hand, in his 'Confessio Amantis,' through the mouth

of Venus, speaks as follows of Chaucer:--

'And greet well Chaucer when ye meet,

As my disciple and my poët;

For 'in the flower of his youth,

In sundry wise, as he well couth,

Of ditties and of songës glad,

The whichë for my sake he made,

The laud fulfill'd is over all,' &c.

The place of Gower's birth has been the subject of much controversy.

Caxton asserts that he was a native of Wales. Leland, Bales, Pits,

Hollingshed, and Edmondson contend, on the other hand, that he belonged

to the Statenham family, in Yorkshire. In proof of this, a deed is

appealed to, which is preserved among the ancient records of the Marquis

of Stafford. To this deed, of which the local date is Statenham, and the

chronological 1346, one of the subscribing witnesses is _John Gower_ who

on the back of the deed is stated, in the handwriting of at least a

century later, to be '_Sr John Gower the Poet_'. Whatever may be thought

of this piece of evidence, 'the proud tradition,' adds Todd, who had

produced it, 'in the Marquis of Stafford's family has been, and still

is, that the poet was of Statenham; and who would not consider the

dignity of his genealogy augmented by enrolling among its worthies the

moral Gower?'

From his will we know that he possessed the manor of Southwell, in the

county of Nottingham, and that of Multon, in the county of Suffolk. He

was thus a rich man, as well as probably a knight. The latter fact is

inferred from the circumstance of his effigies in the church of St Mary

Overies wearing a chaplet of roses, such as, says Francis Thynne, 'the

knyghtes in old time used, either of gold or other embroiderye, made

after the fashion of roses, one of the peculiar ornamentes of a knighte,

as well as his collar of S.S.S., his guilte sword and spurres. Which

chaplett or circle of roses was as well attributed to knyghtes, the

lowest degree of honor, as to the higher degrees of duke, erle, &c.,

being knyghtes, for so I have seen John of Gaunte pictured in his

chaplett of roses; and King, Edwarde the Thirde gave his chaplett to

Eustace Rybamonte; only the difference was, that as they were of lower

degree, so had they fewer roses placed on their chaplett or cyrcle of

golde, one ornament deduced from the dukes crowne, which had the roses

upon the top of the cyrcle, when the knights had them only upon the

cyrcle or garlande itself.'

It has been said that Gower as well as Chaucer studied in the Temple.

This, however, Thynne doubts, on the ground that 'it is most certeyn

to be gathered by cyrcumstances of recordes that the lawyers were not

in the Temple until towardes the latter parte of the reygne of Kinge

Edwarde the Thirde, at whiche tyme Chaucer was a grave manne, holden in

greate credyt and employed in embassye;' and when, of course, Gower,

being his senior, must have been 'graver' still.

There is scarcely anything more to relate of the personal career of our

poet. In his elder days he became attached to the House of Lancaster,

under Thomas of Woodstock, as Chaucer did under John of Gaunt. It is

said that the two poets, who had been warm friends, at last quarrelled,

but obscurity rests on the cause, the circumstances, the duration, and

the consequences of the dispute. Gower, like some far greater bards,

--Milton for instance, and those whom Milton has commemorated,

'Blind Thamyris and blind Moeonides,

And Tiresiaa and Phineus, prophets old,'--

was sometime ere his death deprived of his sight, as we know on his own

authority. It appears from his will that he was still living in 1408,

having outlived Chaucer eight years. This will is a curious document.

It is that of a very rich and very superstitious Catholic, who leaves

bequests to churches, hospitals, to priors, sub-priors, and priests,

with the significant request '_ut orent pro me_'--a request which, for

the sake of the poor soul of the 'moral Gower,' was we trust devoutly

obeyed, although we are irresistibly reminded of the old rhyme,

'Pray for the soul of Gabriel John,

Who died in the year one thousand and one;

You may if you please, or let it alone,

For it's all one

To Gabriel John,

Who died in the year one thousand and one.'

There is no mention of children in the will, and hence the assertion of

Edmondson, who, in his genealogical table of the Statenham family, says

that Thomas Gower, the governor of the castle of Mans in the times of

the Fifth and Sixth Henrys, was the only son of the poet, and that of

Glover, who, in his 'Visitation of Yorkshire,' describes Gower as

married to a lady named Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Sadbowrughe,

Baron of the Exchequer, by whom he had five sons and three daughters,

must both fall to the ground. According to the will, Gower's wife's name

was Agnes, and he leaves to her £100 in legacy, besides his valuable

goods and the rents accruing from his aforesaid manors of Multon, in

Suffolk, and Southwell, in Nottinghamshire. His body was, according

to his own direction, buried in the monastery of St Mary Overies, in

Southwark, (afterwards the church of St Saviour,) where a monument, and

an effigies, too, were erected, with the roses of a knight girdling the

brow of one who was unquestionably a true, if not a great poet.

In Warton's 'History of English Poetry,' and in the 'Illustrations of

the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer' by Mr Todd, there will be

found ample and curious details about MS. poems by Gower, such as fifty

sonnets in French; a 'Panegyrick on Henry IV.,' half in Latin and half

in English, a short elegiac poem on the same subject, &c.; besides a

large work, entitled 'Speculum Meditantis,' a poem in French of a moral

cast; and 'Vox Clamantis,' consisting of seven books of Latin elegiacs,

and chiefly filled with a metrical account of the insurrections of the

Commons in the reign of Richard II. In the dedication of this latter

work to Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, Gower speaks of his blindness

and his age. He says, 'Hanc epistolam subscriptam corde devoto misit

_senex et cecus_ Johannes Gower reverendissimo in Christo patri ac

domino suo precipuo domino Thome de Arundell, Cantuar. Archiepö.' &c.

Warton proves that the 'Vox Clamantis' was written in the year 1397, by

a line in the Bodleian manuscript of the poem, 'Hos ego _bis deno_

Ricardo regis in anno.' Richard II. began, it is well known, to reign in

the year 1377, when ten years of age, and, of course, the year 1397 was

the twentieth of his reign. It follows from this, that for eleven years

at least before his death Gower had been _senex et cecus_, helpless

through old age and blindness.

The 'Confessio Amantis' is the only work of Gower's which is printed and

in English. The rest are still slumbering in MS.; and even although the

'Vox Clamantis' should put in a sleepy plea for the resurrection of

print, on the whole we are disposed to say, better for all parties that

it and the rest should slumber on. But the 'Confessio Amantis' is

altogether a remarkable production. It is said to have been written at

the command of Richard II., who, meeting our poet rowing on the Thames,

near London, took him on board the royal barge, and requested him to

_book some new thing_. It is an English poem, in eight books, and was

first printed by Caxton in the year 1483. The 'Speculum Meditantis,'

'Vox Clamantis,' and 'Confessio Amantis,' are, properly speaking, parts

of one great work, and are represented by three volumes upon Gower's

curious tomb in the old conventual church of St Mary Overies already

alluded to--a church, by the way, which the poet himself assisted in

rebuilding in the elegant shape which it retains to this day.

The 'Confessio' is a large unwieldy collection of poetry and prose,

superstition and science, love and religion, allegory and historical

facts. It is crammed with all varieties of learning, and a perverse but

infinite ingenuity is shewn in the arrangement of its heterogeneous

materials. In one book the whole mysteries of the Hermetic philosophy

are expounded, and the wonders of alchymy dazzle us in every page.

In another, the poet scales the heights and sounds the depths of

Aristotelianism. From this we have extracted in the 'Specimens' a

glowing account of 'The Chariot of the Sun.' Throughout the work, tales

and stories of every description and degree of merit are interspersed.

These are principally derived from an old book called 'Pantheon; or,

Memoriae Seculorum,'--a kind of universal history, more studious of

effect than accuracy, in which the author ranges over the whole history

of the world, from the creation down to the year 1186. This was a

specimen of a kind of writing in which the Middle Ages abounded--namely,

chronicles, which gradually superseded the monkish legends, and for

a time eclipsed the classics themselves; a kind of writing hovering

between history and fiction, embracing the widest sweep, written in a

barbarous style, and swarming with falsehoods; but exciting, interesting,

and often instructive, and tending to kindle curiosity, and

create in the minds of their readers a love for literature.

Besides chronicles, Gower had read many romances, and alludes to them

in various parts of his works. His 'Confessio Amantis' was apparently

written after Chaucer's 'Troilus and Cresseide,' and after 'The Flower

and the Leaf,' inasmuch as he speaks of the one and imitates the other

in that poem. That Chaucer had not, however, yet composed his 'Testament

of Love,' appears from the epilogue to the 'Confessio,' where Gower is

ordered by Venus, who expresses admiration of Chaucer for the early

devotion of his muse to her service, to say to him at the close--

'Forthy, now in his daies old,

Thou shalt him tell this message,

That he upon his later age

To set an end of all his work,

As he which is mine owen clerk,

Do make his Testament of Love,

As thou hast done thy shrift above,

So that my court it may record'--

the 'shrift' being of course the 'Confessio Amantis.' In 'The Canterbury

Tales' there are several indications that Chaucer was indebted to Gower

--'The Man of Law's Tale' being borrowed from Gower's 'Constantia,' and

'The Wife of Bath's Tale' being founded on Gower's 'Florent.'

After all, Gower cannot be classed with the greater bards. He sparkles

brightly chiefly from the depth of the darkness through which he shines.

He is more remarkable for extent than for depth, for solidity than for

splendour, for fuel than for fire, for learning than for genius.

THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN.

Of goldë glist'ring spoke and wheel

The Sun his cart hath fair and wele,

In which he sitteth, and is croned[1]

With bright stonës environed:

Of which if that I speakë shall,

There be before in special

Set in the front of his corone

Three stones, whichë no person

Hath upon earth; and the first is

By name cleped Leucachatis.

That other two cleped thus

Astroites and Ceraunus;

In his corone, and also behind,

By oldë bookës as I find,

There be of worthy stonës three,

Set each of them in his degree.

Whereof a crystal is that one,

Which that corone is set upon:

The second is an adamant:

The third is noble and evenant,

Which cleped is Idriades.

And over this yet natheless,

Upon the sidës of the werk,

After the writing of the clerk,

There sitten fivë stones mo.[2]

The Smaragdine is one of tho,[3]

Jaspis, and Eltropius,

And Vendides, and Jacinctus.

Lo thus the corone is beset,

Whereof it shineth well the bet.[4]

And in such wise his light to spread,

Sits with his diadem on head,

The Sunnë shining in his cart:

And for to lead him swith[5] and smart,

After the bright dayë's law,

There be ordained for to draw,

Four horse his chare, and him withal,

Whereof the namës tell I shall.

Eritheus the first is hote,[6]

The which is red, and shineth hot;

The second Acteos the bright;

Lampes the thirdë courser hight;

And Philogens is the ferth,

That bringen light unto this earth,

And go so swift upon the heaven,

In four and twenty hourës even,

The cartë with the brightë sun

They drawen, so that over run

They have under the circles high,

All middë earth in such an hie.[7]

And thus the sun is over all

The chief planet imperial,

Above him and beneath him three.

And thus between them runneth he,

As he that hath the middle place

Among the seven: and of his face

Be glad all earthly creatures,

And taken after the natures

Their ease and recreation.

And in his constellation

Who that is born in special,

Of good-will and of liberal

He shall be found in allë place,

And also stand in muchel grace

Toward the lordës for to serve,

And great profit and thank deserve.

And over that it causeth yet

A man to be subtil of wit,

To work in gold, and to be wise

In everything, which is of prise.[8]

But for to speaken in what coast

Of all this earth he reigneth most,

As for wisdom it is in Greece,

Where is appropred thilk spece.[9]

[1] 'Croned:' crowned.

[2] 'Mo:' more.

[3] 'Tho:' those.

[4] 'Bet:' better.

[5] 'Swith:' swift.

[6] 'Hot:' named.

[7] 'Hie:' haste.

[8] 'Prise:' value.

[9] 'Thilk spece:' that kind.

THE TALE OF THE COFFERS OR CASKETS, &c.

In a chroniquë thus I read:

About a kingë, as must need,

There was of knightës and squiers

Great rout, and ekë officers:

Some of long timë him had served,

And thoughten that they have deserved

Advancëment, and gone without:

And some also been of the rout,

That comen but a while agon,

And they advanced were anon.

These oldë men upon this thing,

So as they durst, against the king

Among themselves complainen oft:

But there is nothing said so soft,

That it ne cometh out at last:

The king it wist, anon as fast,

As he which was of high prudence:

He shope[1] therefore an evidence

Of them that 'plainen in the case

To know in whose default it was:

And all within his own intent,

That none more wistë what it meant.

Anon he let two coffers make,

Of one semblànce, and of one make,

So like, that no life thilkë throw,[2]

The one may from that other know:

They were into his chamber brought,

But no man wot why they be wrought,

And natheless the king hath bede

That they be set in privy stede,[3]

As he that was of wisdom sly;

When he thereto his timë sih,[4]

All privily that none it wist,

His ownë handës that one chest

Of fine gold, and of fine perrie,[5]

The which out of his treasury

Was take, anon he filled full;

That other coffer of straw and mull,[6]

With stonës meynd[7] he fill'd also:

Thus be they full bothë two.

So that erliche[8] upon a day

He bade within, where he lay,

There should be before his bed

A board up set and fairë spread:

And then he let the coffers fet[9]

Upon the board, and did them set,

He knew the namës well of tho,[10]

The which against him grutched[11] so,

Both of his chamber, and of his hall,

Anon and sent for them all;

And saidë to them in this wise:

'There shall no man his hap despise:

I wot well ye have longë served,

And God wot what ye have deserved;

But if it is along[12] on me

Of that ye unadvanced be,

Or else if it be long on yow,

The soothë shall be proved now:

To stoppë with your evil word,

Lo! here two coffers on the board;

Choose which you list of bothë two;

And witteth well that one of tho

Is with treasure so full begon,

That if he happë thereupon

Ye shall be richë men for ever:

Now choose and take which you is lever,[13]

But be well 'ware ere that ye take,

For of that one I undertake

There is no manner good therein,

Whereof ye mighten profit win.

Now go together of one assent,

And taketh your advisëment;

For but I you this day advance,

It stands upon your ownë chance,

All only in default of grace;

So shall be shewed in this place

Upon you all well afine,[14]

That no defaultë shall be mine.'

They kneelen all, and with one voice

The king they thanken of this choice:

And after that they up arise,

And go aside and them advise,

And at lastë they accord

(Whereof their talë to record

To what issue they be fall)

A knight shall speakë for them all:

He kneeleth down unto the king,

And saith that they upon this thing,

Or for to win, or for to lose,

Be all advised for to choose.

Then took this knight a yard[15] in hand,

And go'th there as the coffers stand,

And with assent of every one

He lay'th his yardë upon one,

And saith the king[16] how thilkë same

They chose in reguerdon[17] by name,

And pray'th him that they might it have.

The king, which would his honour save,

When he had heard the common voice,

Hath granted them their ownë choice,

And took them thereupon the key;

But for he wouldë it were see

What good they have as they suppose,

He bade anon the coffer unclose,

Which was fulfill'd with straw and stones:

Thus be they served all at ones.

This king then in the samë stede,

Anon that other coffer undede,

Where as they sawen great richés,

Well morë than they couthen [18] guess.

'Lo!' saith the king, 'now may ye see

That there is no default in me;

Forthy[19] myself I will acquite,

And beareth ye your ownë wite[20]

Of that fortune hath you refused.'

Thus was this wisë king excused:

And they left off their evil speech.

And mercy of their king beseech.

[1] 'Shope:' contrived.

[2] 'Thilkë throw:' at that time.

[3] 'Stede:' place.

[4] 'Sih:' saw.

[5] 'Perrie:' precious stones.

[6] 'Mull:' rubbish.

[7] 'Meynd:' mingled.

[8] 'Erlich:' early.

[9] 'Fet:' fetched.

[10] 'Tho:' those.

[11] 'Grutched:' murmured.

[12] 'Along:' because of.

[13] 'Lever:' preferable.

[14] 'Afine:' at last.

[15] 'Yard:' rod.

[16] 'Saith the king:' saith to the king.

[17] 'Reguerdon:' as their reward.

[18] 'Couthen:' could.

[19] 'Forthy:' therefore.

[20] 'Wite:' blame.

OF THE GRATIFICATION WHICH THE LOVERS PASSION RECEIVES

FROM THE SENSE OF HEARING.

Right as mine eyë with his look

Is to mine heart a lusty cook

Of lovë's foodë delicate;

Right so mine ear in his estate,

Where as mine eyë may nought serve,

Can well mine heartë's thank deserve;

And feeden him, from day to day,

With such dainties as he may.

For thus it is that, over all

Where as I come in special,

I may hear of my lady price:[1]

I hear one say that she is wise;

Another saith that she is good;

And some men say of worthy blood

That she is come; and is also

So fair that nowhere is none so:

And some men praise her goodly chere.[2]

Thus everything that I may hear,

Which soundeth to my lady good,

Is to mine ear a lusty food.

And eke mine ear hath, over this,

A dainty feastë when so is

That I may hear herselvë speak;

For then anon my fast I break

On suchë wordës as she saith,

That full of truth and full of faith

They be, and of so good disport,

That to mine earë great comfórt

They do, as they that be delices

For all the meats, and all the spices,

That any Lombard couthë[3] make,

Nor be so lusty for to take,

Nor so far forth restoratif,

(I say as for mine ownë life,)

As be the wordës of her mouth

For as the windës of the south

Be most of allë debonaire;[4]

So, when her list to speakë fair,

The virtue of her goodly speech

Is verily mine heartë's leech.

And if it so befall among,

That she carol upon a song,

When I it hear, I am so fed,

That I am from myself so led

As though I were in Paradise;

For, certes, as to mine avìs,[5]

When I hear of her voice the steven,[6]

Methink'th it is a bliss of heaven.

And eke in other wise also,

Full oftë time it falleth so,

Mine carë with a good pitànce[7]

Is fed of reading of romance

Of Ydoine and of Amadas,

That whilom weren in my case;

And eke of other many a score,

That loveden long ere I was bore.

For when I of their lovës read,

Mine eare with the tale I feed,

And with the lust of their histoire

Sometime I draw into memoire,

How sorrow may not ever last;

And so hope cometh in at last.

[1] 'Price:' praise.

[2] 'Chere:' mien.

[3] 'Couthë:' knows to.

[4] 'Debonaire:' gentle.

[5] 'Avis:' opinion.

[6] 'Steven:' sound.

[7] 'Pitance:' allowance.

JOHN BARBOUR.

The facts known about this Scottish poet are only the following. He

seems to have been born about the year 1316, in, probably, the city of

Aberdeen. This is stated by Hume of Godscroft, by Dr Mackenzie, and

others, but is not thoroughly authenticated. Some think he was the son

of one Andrew Barbour, who possessed a tenement in Castle Street,

Aberdeen; and others, that he was related to one Robert Barbour, who, in

1309, received a charter of the lands of Craigie, in Forfarshire, from

King Robert the Bruce. These, however, are mere conjectures, founded

upon a similarity of name. It is clear, from Barbour's after rank in

the Church, that he had received a learned education, but whether in

Arbroath or Aberdeen is uncertain. We know, however, that a school of

divinity and canon law had existed at Aberdeen since the reign of

Alexander II., and it is conjectured that Barbour first studied there,

and then at Oxford. In the year 1357, he was undoubtedly Archdeacon of

Aberdeen, since we find him, under this title, nominated by the Bishop

of that diocese, one of the Commissioners appointed to meet in Edinburgh

to take measures to liberate King David, who had been captured at the

battle of Nevil's Cross, and detained from that date in England. It

seems evident, from the customs of the Roman Catholic Church, that he

must have been at least forty when he was created Archdeacon, and this

is a good reason for fixing his birth in the year 1316.

In the same year, Barbour obtained permission from Edward III., at the

request of the Scottish King, to travel through England with three

scholars who were to study at Oxford, probably at Balliol College, which

had, a hundred years nearly before, been founded and endowed by the wife

of the famous John Balliol of Scotland. Some years afterwards, in

November 1364, he got permission to pass, accompanied by four horsemen,

through England, to pursue his studies at the same renowned university.

In the year 1365, we find another casual notice of our Scottish bard. A

passport has been found giving him permission from the King of England

to travel, in company with six horsemen, through that country on their

way to St Denis', and other sacred places. It is evident that this was

a religious pilgrimage on the part of Barbour and his companions.

A most peripatetic poet; verily, he must have been; for we find another

safe-conduct, dated November 1368, granted by Edward to Barbour,

permitting him, to pass through England, with two servants and their

horses, on his way to France, for the purpose of pursuing his studies

there. Dr Jamieson (see his 'Life of Barbour') discovers the poet's name

in the list of Auditors of the Exchequer.

Barbour has himself told us that he commenced his poem in the 'yer of

grace, a thousand thre hundyr sevynty and five,' when, of course, he

was in his sixtieth year, or, as he says, 'off hys eld sexty.' It is

supposed that David II.--who died in 1370--had urged Barbour to engage

in the work, which was not, however, completed till the fifth year of

his successor, Robert II., who gave our poet a pension on account of it.

This consisted of a sum of ten pounds Scots from the revenues of the

city of Aberdeen, and twenty shillings from the burgh mails. Mr James

Bruce, to whose interesting Life of Barbour, in his 'Eminent Men of

Aberdeen,' we are indebted for many of the facts in this narrative,

says, 'The latter of these sums was granted to him, not merely during

his own life, but to his assignees; and the Archdeacon bequeathed it to

the dean, canons, the chapter, and other ministers of the Cathedral of

Aberdeen, on condition that they should for ever celebrate a yearly mass

for his soul. At the Reformation, when it came to be discovered that

masses did no good to souls in the other world, it is probable that this

endowment reverted to the Crown.'

Barbour also wrote a poem under what seems now the strange title, 'The

Brute.' This was in reality a metrical history of Scotland, commencing

with the fables concerning Brutus, or 'Brute,' who, according to ancient

legends, was the great-grandson of Aeneas--came over from Italy, the

land of his birth--landed at Totness, in Devonshire--destroyed the

giants who then inhabited Albion--called the island 'Britain' from his

own name, and became its first monarch. From this original fable,

Barbour is supposed to have wandered on through a hundred succeeding

stories of similar value, till he came down to his own day. There can be

little regret felt, therefore, that the book is totally lost. Wynton, in

his 'Chronicle,' refers to it in commendatory terms; but it cannot be

ascertained from his notices whether it was composed in Scotch or in

Latin.

Barbour died about the beginning of the year 1396, eighty years of age.

Lord Hailes ascertained the time of his death from the Chartulary of

Aberdeen, where, under the date of 10th August 1398, mention is made of

'quondam Joh. Barber, Archidiaconus, Aberd., and where it is said that

he had died two years and a half before, namely, in 1396.'

His great work, 'The Bruce,' or more fully, 'The History of Robert

Bruce, King of the Scots,' does not appear to have been printed till

1616 in Edinburgh. Between that date and the year 1790, when Pinkerton's

edition appeared, no less than twenty impressions were published, (the

principal being those of Edinburgh in 1620 and 1648; Glasgow, 1665; and

Edinburgh, 1670--all in black letter,) so popular immediately became the

poem. Pinkerton's edition is in three volumes, and has a preface, notes,

and a glossary, all of considerable value. The MS. was copied from a

volume in the Advocates' Library, of the date of 1489, which was in the

handwriting of one John Ramsay, believed to have been the prior of a

Carthusian monastery near Perth. Pinkerton first divided 'The Bruce'

into books. It had previously, like the long works of Naerius and

Ennius, the earliest Roman poets, consisted of one entire piece, woven

'from the top to the bottom without seam,' like the ancient simple

garments in Jewry. The late respectable and very learned Dr Jamieson, of

Nicolson Street United Secession Church, Edinburgh, well known as the

author of the 'Scottish Dictionary,' 'Hermes Scythicus,' &c., published,

in 1820, a more accurate edition of 'The Bruce,' along with Blind

Harry's 'Wallace,' in two quarto volumes.

In strict chronology Barbour belongs to an earlier date than Chaucer,

having been born and having died a few years before him. But as the

first Scotch poet who has written anything of length, with the exception

of the author of the 'Romance of Sir Tristrem,' he claims a conspicuous

place in our 'Specimens.' He was singularly fortunate in the choice of

a subject. With the exception of Wallace, there is no name in Scottish

history that even yet calls up prouder associations than that of Robert

Bruce. The incidents in his history,--the escape he made from English

bondage to rescue his country from the same yoke; his rise refulgent

from the stroke which, in the cloisters of the Gray Friars, Dumfries,

laid the Red Comyn low; his daring to be crowned at Scone; his frequent

defeats; his lion-like retreat to the Hebrides, accompanied by one or

two friends, his wife meanwhile having been carried captive, three of

his brothers hanged, and himself supposed to be dead; the romantic

perils he survived, and the victories he gained amidst the mountains

where the deep waters of the river Awe are still telling of his name,

and the echoes of Ben Cruachan repeating the immortal sound; his sudden

reappearance on the west coast of Scotland, where, as he 'shook his

Carrick spear,' his country rose, kindling around him like heather on

flame; the awful suspense of the hour when it was announced that Edward

I., the tyrant of the Ragman's Roll, the murderer of Wallace, was

approaching with a mighty army to crush the revolt; the electrifying

news that he had died at Sark, as if struck by the breath of the fatal

Border, which he had reached, but could not overpass; the bloody

summer's day of Bannockburn, in which Edward II. was repelled, and the

gallant army of his father annihilated; the energy and wisdom of the

Bruce's civil administration after the victory; the less famous, but

noble battle of Byland, nine years after Bannockburn, in which he again

smote the foes of his country; and the recognition which at last he

procured, on the accession of Edward III., of the independence of

Scotland in 1329, himself dying the same year, his work done and his

glory for ever secured,--not to speak of the beautiful legends which

have clustered round his history like ivy round an ancestral tower--of

the spider on the wall, teaching him the lesson of perseverance, as he

lay in the barn sad and desponding in heart--of the strange signal-light

upon the shore near his maternal castle of Turnberry, which led him to

land, while

'Dark red the heaven above it glow'd,

Dark red the sea beneath it flow'd,

Red rose the rocks on ocean's brim,

In blood-red light her islets swim,

Wild screams the dazzled sea-fowl gave,

Dropp'd from their crags a plashing wave,

The deer to distant covert drew,

The blackcock deem'd it day, and crew;'

and last, not least, the adventures of his gallant, unquenchable heart,

when, in the hand of Douglas,--meet casket for such a gem!--it marched

onwards, as it was wont to do, in conquering power, toward the Holy

Land;--all this has woven a garland round the brow of Bruce which every

civilised nation has delighted to honour, and given him besides a share

in the affections and the pride of his own land, with the joy of which

'no stranger can intermeddle.'

Bruce has been fortunate in his laureates, consisting of three of

Scotland's greatest poets,--Barbour, Scott, and Burns. The last of these

has given us a glimpse of the patriot-king, revealing him on the brow of

Bannockburn as by a single flash of lightning. The second has, in 'The

Lord of the Isles,' seized and sung a few of the more romantic passages

of his history. But Barbour has, with unwearied fidelity and no small

force, described the whole incidents of Bruce's career, and reared to

his memory, not an insulated column, but a broad and deep-set temple of

poetry.

Barbour's poem has always been admired for its strict accuracy of

statement, to which Bower, Wynton, Hailes, Pinkerton, Jamieson, and Sir

Walter Scott all bear testimony; for the picturesque force of its

natural descriptions; for its insight into character, and the lifelike

spirit of its individual sketches; for the martial vigour of its battle-

pictures; for the enthusiasm which he feels, and makes his reader feel,

for the valiant and wise, the sagacious and persevering, the bold,

merciful, and religious character of its hero, and for the piety which

pervades it, and proves that the author was not merely a churchman in

profession, but a Christian at heart. Its defects of rude rhythm,

irregular constructions, and obsolete phraseology, are those of its age;

but its beauties, its unflagging interest, and its fine poetic spirit,

are characteristic of the writer's own genius.

APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM.

Ah! freedom is a noble thing!

Freedom makes man to have liking!

Freedom all solace to man gives:

He lives at ease that freely lives!

A noble heart may have none ease,

Nor nought else that may him please,

If freedom fail; for free liking

Is yearned o'er all other thing.

Nay, he that aye has lived free,

May not know well the property,

The anger, nor the wretched doom,

That is coupled to foul thirldom.

But if he had assayed it,

Then all perquier[1] he should it wit:

And should think freedom more to prize

Than all the gold in world that is.

[1] 'Perquier:' perfectly.

DEATH OF SIR HENRY DE BOHUN.

And when the king wist that they were

In hale[1] battle, coming so near,

His battle gart[2] he well array.

He rode upon a little palfrey,

Laughed and jolly, arrayand

His battle, with an axe in hand.

And on his bassinet he bare

A hat of tyre above aye where;

And, thereupon, into tok'ning,

An high crown, that he was king.

And when Gloster and Hereford were

With their battle approaching near,

Before them all there came ridand,

With helm on head and spear in hand,

Sir Henry the Bohun, the worthy,

That was a wight knight, and a hardy,

And to the Earl of Hereford cousin;

Armed in armis good and fine;

Came on a steed a bowshot near,

Before all other that there were:

And knew the king, for that he saw

Him so range his men on raw,[3]

And by the crown that was set

Also upon his bassinet.

And toward him he went in hy.[4]

And the king so apertly[5]

Saw him come, forouth[6] all his feres,[7]

In hy till him the horse he steers.

And when Sir Henry saw the king

Come on, forouten[8] abasing,

To him he rode in full great hy.

He thought that he should well lightly

Win him, and have him at his will,

Since he him horsed saw so ill.

Sprent they samen into a lyng;[9]

Sir Henry miss'd the noble king;

And he that in his stirrups stood,

With the axe, that was hard and good,

With so great main, raucht[10] him a dint,

That neither hat nor helm might stint

The heavy dush that he him gave,

The head near to the harns[11] he clave.

The hand-axe shaft frushit[12] in two;

And he down to the yird[13] 'gan go

All flatlings, for him failed might.

This was the first stroke of the fight,

That was performed doughtily.

And when the king's men so stoutly

Saw him, right at the first meeting,

Forouten doubt or abasing,

Have slain a knight so at a straik,

Such hardment thereat 'gan they take,

That they come on right hardily.

When Englishmen saw them so stoutly

Come on, they had great abasing;

And specially for that the king

So smartly that good knight has slain,

That they withdrew them everilk ane,

And durst not one abide to fight:

So dread they for the king his might.

When that the king repaired was,

That gart his men all leave the chase,

The lordis of his company

Blamed him, as they durst, greatumly,

That be him put in aventure,

To meet so stith[14] a knight, and stour,

In such point as he then was seen.

For they said, well it might have been

Cause of their tynsal[15] everilk ane.

The king answer has made them nane,

But mainit[16] his hand-axe shaft so

Was with the stroke broken in two.

[1] 'Hale:' whole.

[2] 'Gart:' caused.

[3] 'Haw:' row

[4] 'Hy:' haste

[5] 'Apertly:' openly, clearly.

[6] 'Forouth:' beyond.

[7] 'Feres:' companions.

[8] 'Forouten:' without.

[9] 'Sprent they samen into a lyng:' they sprang forward at once,

against each other, in a line.

[10] 'Raucht:' reached.

[11] 'Harns:' brains.

[12] 'Frushit:' broke.

[13] 'Yird:' earth.

[14] 'Stith:' strong.

[15] 'Tynsal:' destruction.

[16] 'Mainit:' lamented.

ANDREW WYNTOUN.

This author, who was prior of St Serf's monastery in Loch Leven, is the

author of what he calls 'An Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.' It appeared

about the year 1420. It is much inferior to the work of Barbour in

poetry, but is full of historical information, anecdote, and legend. The

language is often sufficiently prosaic. Thus the poet begins to describe

the return of King David II. from his captivity, referred to above.

'Yet in prison was king Davy,

And when a lang time was gane bye,

Frae prison and perplexitie

To Berwick castle brought was he,

With the Earl of Northamptoun,

For to treat there of his ransoun;

Some lords of Scotland come there,

And als prelates that wisest were,' &c.

Contemporary, or nearly so, with Wyntoun were several other Scottish

writers, such as one Hutcheon, of whom we know only that he is

designated of the 'Awle Ryall,' or of the Royal Hall or Palace, and that

he wrote a metrical romance, of which two cantos remain, called 'The

Gest of Arthur;' and another, named Clerk of Tranent, the author of a

romance, entitled 'The Adventures of Sir Gawain.' Of this latter also

two cantos only are extant. Although not perhaps deserving to have even

portions of them extracted, they contain a good deal of poetry. A

person, too, of the name of Holland, about whose history we have no

information, produced a satirical poem, called 'The Howlate,' written in

the allegorical form, and bearing some resemblance to 'Pierce Plowman's

Vision.'

BLIND HARRY.

Although there are diversities of opinion as to the exact time when this

blind minstrel flourished, we prefer alluding to him at this point,

where he stands in close proximity to Barbour, the author of a poem on

a subject so cognate to 'Wallace' as 'Bruce.' Nothing is known of Harry

but that he was blind from infancy, that he composed this poem, and

gained a subsistence by reciting or singing portions of it through the

country. Another Wandering Willie, (see 'Redgauntlet,') he 'passed like

night from land to land,' led by his own instincts, and wherever he met

with a congenial audience, he proceeded to chant portions of the noble

knight's achievements, his eyes the while twinkling, through their sad

setting of darkness, with enthusiasm, and often suffused with tears.

In some minds the conception of this blind wandering bard may awaken

ludicrous emotions, but to us it suggests a certain sublimity. Blind

Harry has powerfully described Wallace standing in the light and

shrinking from the ghost of Fawdoun, (see the 'Battle of Black-

Earnside,' in the 'Specimens,') but Harry himself seems walking in the

light of the ghost of Wallace, and it ministers to him, not terror, but

inspiration. Entering a cot at night, and asked for a tale, he begins,

in low tones, to recite that frightful apparition at Gaskhall, and the

aged men and the crones vie with the children in drawing near the 'ingle

bleeze,' as if in fire alone lay the refuge from

'Fawdoun, that ugly sire,

That haill hall he had set into a fire,

As to his sight, his OWN HEAD IN HIS HAND.'

Arriving in a village at the hour of morning rest and refreshment, he

charms the swains by such words as

'The merry day sprang from the orient

With beams bright illuminate the Occident,

After Titan Phoebus upriseth fair,

High in the sphere the signs he made declare.

Zephyrus then began his morning course,

The sweet vapour thus from the ground resourse,' &c.--

and the simple villagers wonder at hearing these images from one who is

blind, not seeing the sun. As the leaves are rustling down from the

ruddy trees of late autumn, he sings to a little circle of wayside

wanderers--

'The dark region appearing wonder fast,

In November, when October was past,

* * * * *

Good Wallace saw the night's messenger,

Phoebus had lost his fiery beams so clear;

Out of that wood they durst not turn that side

For adversours that in their way would hide.'

And while on the verge of the December sky, the wintry sun is trembling

and about to set as if for ever, then is the Minstrel's voice heard

sobbing amidst the sobs of his hearers, as he tells how his hero's sun

went down while it was yet day.

'On Wednesday the false Southron furth brocht

To martyr him as they before had wrocht,

Of men in arms led him a full great rout,

With a bauld sprite guid Wallace blent about.'

There can be little doubt that Blind Harry, during his lifetime, became

a favourite, nay, a power in the realm. Wherever he circulated, there

circulated the fame of Wallace; there, his deeds were recounted; there,

hatred of a foreign foe, and love to their native land, were inculcated

as first principles; and long after the Homer of Scotland had breathed

his last, and been consigned perhaps to some little kirkyard among the

uplands, his lays continued to live; and we know that such a man as

Burns (who read them in the modern paraphrase of William Hamilton of

Gilbertfield, a book which was, till within a somewhat recent period,

a household god in the libraries of the Scotch) derived from the old

singer much of 'that national prejudice which boiled in his breast till

the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest.' If Barbour, as we said,

was fortunate in his subject, still more was Blind Harry in his. The

interest felt in Wallace is of a deeper and warmer kind than that which

we feel in Bruce. Bruce was of royal blood; Wallace was from an ancient

but not wealthy family. Bruce stained his career by one great crime

--great in itself, but greater from the peculiar notions of the age

--the murder of Comyn in the sanctuary of Dumfries; on the character of

Wallace no similar imputation rests. Wallace initiated that plan of

guerilla warfare,--that fighting now on foot and now on the wing, now

with beak and now with talons, now with horns and now with hoofs,--which

Bruce had only to perfect. Wallace was unsuccessful, and was besides

treated by the King of England with revolting barbarity; while Bruce

became victorious: and, as we saw in our remarks on Chaucer, it is the

unfortunate brave who stamp themselves most forcibly on a nation's

heart, and it is the red letters, which tell of suffering and death,

which are with most difficulty erased from a nation's tablets. On Bruce

we look somewhat as we regard Washington,--a great, serene man, who,

after long reverses, nobly sustained, gained a notable national triumph;

to Wallace we feel, as the Italians do to Garibaldi, as a demon of

warlike power,--blending courage and clemency, enthusiasm and skill,

daring and determination, in proportions almost superhuman,--and we cry

with the poet,

'The sword that seem'd fit for archangel to wield,

Was light in his terrible hand.'

We have often regretted that Sir Walter Scott, who, after all, has not

done full justice to Bruce in that very unequal and incondite poem 'The

Lord of the Isles,' had not bent his strength upon the Ulysses bow of

Wallace, and filled up that splendid sketch of a part of his history to

be found near the beginning of 'The Fair Maid of Perth.' As it is, after

all that a number of respectable writers, such as Miss Porter, Mrs

Hemans, Findlay, the late Mr Macpherson of Glasgow, and others, have

done--in prose or verse, in the novel, the poem, or the drama--to

illustrate the character and career of the Scottish hero, Blind Harry

remains his poet.

It is necessary to notice that Harry derived, by his own account, many

of the facts of his narrative from a work by John Blair, a Benedictine

monk from Dundee, who acted as Wallace's chaplain, and seems to have

composed a life of him in Latin, which is lost. Besides these, he

doubtless mingled in the story a number of traditions--some true, and

some false--which he found floating through the country. His authority

in reference to certain disputed matters, such as Wallace's journey to

France, and his capture of the Red Rover, Thomas de Longueville, who

became his fast friend and fellow-soldier, was not long ago entirely

established by certain important documents brought to light by the

Maitland Club. It is probable that some other of his supposed

misstatements--always excepting his ghost-stories--may yet receive from

future researches the confirmation they as yet want. Blind Harry, living

about a century and a half after the era of Wallace, and at a time when

tradition was the chief literature, was not likely to be able to test

the evidence of many of the circumstances which he narrated; but he

seems to speak in good faith: and, after all, what Paley says is

unquestionably true as a general principle--'Men tell lies about minute

circumstantials, but they rarely invent.'

BATTLE OF BLACK-EARNSIDE.

Kerlie beheld unto the bold Heroun,

Upon Fawdoun as he was looking down,

A subtil stroke upward him took that tide,

Under the cheeks the grounden sword gart[1] glide,

By the mail good, both halse[2] and his craig-bane[3]

In sunder strake; thus ended that chieftain,

To ground he fell, feil[4] folk about him throng,

'Treason,' they cried, 'traitors are us among.'

Kerlie, with that, fled out soon at a side,

His fellow Steven then thought no time to bide.

The fray was great, and fast away they yeed,[5]

Both toward Earn; thus 'scaped they that dread.

Butler for woe of weeping might not stint.

Thus recklessly this good knight have they tint.[6]

They deemed all that it was Wallace' men,

Or else himself, though they could not him ken;

'He is right near, we shall him have but[7] fail,

This feeble wood may little him avail.'

Forty there pass'd again to Saint Johnstoun,

With this dead corpse, to burying made it boune.[8]

Parted their men, syne[9] divers ways they rode,

A great power at Dupplin still there 'bode.

To Dalwryeth the Butler pass'd but let,[10]

At sundry fords the gate[11] they unbeset,[12]

To keep the wood while it was day they thought.

As Wallace thus in the thick forest sought,

For his two men in mind he had great pain,

He wist not well if they were ta'en or slain,

Or 'scaped haill[13] by any jeopardy.

Thirteen were left with him, no more had he;

In the Gaskhall their lodging have they ta'en.

Fire got they soon, but meat then had they nane;

Two sheep they took beside them of a fold,

Ordain'd to sup into that seemly hold:

Graithed[14] in haste some food for them to dight:[15]

So heard they blow rude horns upon height.

Two sent he forth to look what it might be;

They 'bode right long, and no tidings heard he,

But bousteous[16] noise so bryvely blowing fast;

So other two into the wood forth pass'd.

None came again, but bousteously can blaw,

Into great ire he sent them forth on raw.[17]

When that alone Wallace was leaved there,

The awful blast abounded meikle mare;[18]

Then trow'd he well they had his lodging seen;

His sword he drew of noble metal keen,

Syne forth he went whereat he heard the horn.

Without the door Fawdoun was him beforn,

As to his sight, his own head in his hand;

A cross he made when he saw him so stand.

At Wallace in the head he swakked[19] there,

And he in haste soon hint[20] it by the hair,

Syne out again at him he could it cast,

Into his heart he greatly was aghast.

Right well he trow'd that was no sprite of man,

It was some devil, that sic[21] malice began.

He wist no wale[22] there longer for to bide.

Up through the hall thus wight Wallace can glide,

To a close stair, the boards they rave[23] in twin,[24]

Fifteen foot large he lap out of that inn.

Up the water he suddenly could fare,

Again he blink'd what 'pearance he saw there,

He thought he saw Fawdoun, that ugly sire,

That haill[25] hall he had set into a fire;

A great rafter he had into his hand.

Wallace as then no longer would he stand.

Of his good men full great marvel had he,

How they were tint through his feil[26] fantasy.

Trust right well that all this was sooth indeed,

Suppose that it no point be of the creed.

Power they had with Lucifer that fell,

The time when he parted from heaven to hell.

By sic mischief if his men might be lost,

Drowned or slain among the English host;

Or what it was in likeness of Fawdoun,

Which brought his men to sudden confusion;

Or if the man ended in ill intent,

Some wicked sprite again for him present.

I cannot speak of sic divinity,

To clerks I will let all sic matters be:

But of Wallace, now forth I will you tell.

When he was won out of that peril fell,

Right glad was he that he had 'scaped sa,[27]

But for his men great mourning can he ma.[28]

Flait[29] by himself to the Maker above

Why he suffer'd he should sic paining prove.

He wist not well if that it was God's will;

Right or wrong his fortune to fulfil,

Had he pleas'd God, he trow'd it might not bo

He should him thole[30] in sic perplexity.

But great courage in his mind ever drave,

Of Englishmen thinking amends to have.

As he was thus walking by him alone

Upon Earnside, making a piteous moan,

Sir John Butler, to watch the fords right,

Out from his men of Wallace had a sight;

The mist again to the mountains was gone,

To him he rode, where that he made his moan.

On loud he speir'd,[31] 'What art thou walks that gate?'

'A true man, Sir, though my voyage be late;

Errands I pass from Down unto my lord,

Sir John Stewart, the right for to record,

In Down is now, newly come from the King.'

Then Butler said, 'This is a selcouth[32] thing,

You lied all out, you have been with Wallace,

I shall thee know, ere you come off this place;'

To him he start the courser wonder wight,

Drew out a sword, so made him for to light.

Above the knee good Wallace has him ta'en,

Through thigh and brawn in sunder strake the bane.[33]

Derfly[34] to dead the knight fell on the land.

Wallace the horse soon seized in his hand,

An ackward stroke syne took him in that stead,

His craig in two; thus was the Butler dead.

An Englishman saw their chieftain was slain,

A spear in rest he cast with all his main,

On Wallace drave, from the horse him to bear;

Warily he wrought, as worthy man in weir.[35]

The spear ho wan withouten more abode,

On horse he lap,[36] and through a great rout rode;

To Dalwryeth he knew the ford full well:

Before him came feil[37] stuffed[38] in fine steel.

He strake the first, but bade,[39] on the blasoun,[40]

Till horse and man both fleet[41] the water down.

Another soon down from his horse he bare,

Stamped to ground, and drown'd withouten mair.[42]

The third he hit in his harness of steel,

Throughout the cost,[43] the spear it brake some deal.

The great power then after him can ride.

He saw no waill[44] there longer for to bide.

His burnish'd brand braithly[45] in hand he bare,

Whom he hit right they follow'd him na mair.[46]

To stuff the chase feil freiks[47] follow'd fast,

But Wallace made the gayest aye aghast.

The muir he took, and through their power yede,

The horse was good, but yet he had great dread

For failing ere he wan unto a strength,

The chase was great, skail'd[48] over breadth and length,

Through strong danger they had him aye in sight.

At the Blackford there Wallace down can light,

His horse stuffed,[49] for way was deep and lang,

A large great mile wightly on foot could gang.[50]

Ere he was hors'd riders about him cast,

He saw full well long so he might not last.

Sad[51] men indeed upon him can renew,

With returning that night twenty he slew,

The fiercest aye rudely rebutted he,

Keeped his horse, and right wisely can flee,

Till that he came the mirkest[52] muir amang.

His horse gave over, and would no further gang.

[1] 'Gart:' caused.

[2] 'Halse:' throat.

[3] 'Craig-bane:' neck-lone.

[4] 'Feil:' many.

[5] 'Yeed:' went.

[6] 'Tint:' lost.

[7] 'But:' without.

[8] 'Boune:' ready.

[9] 'Sync:' then.

[10] 'But let:' without impediment.

[11] 'Gate:' way.

[12] 'Unbeset:' surround.

[13] 'Haill:' wholly.

[14] 'Graithed:' prepared.

[15] 'Dight:' Make ready.

[16] 'Bousteous:' boisterous.

[17] 'On raw:' one after another.

[18] 'Meikle mare:' much more.

[19] 'Swakked:' pitched.

[20] 'Hint:' took.

[21] 'Sic:' such.

[22] 'Wale:' advantage.

[23] 'Rave:' split.

[24] 'Twin:' twain.

[25] 'Haill:'whole.

[26] 'Feil:' great.

[27] 'Sa:' so.

[28] 'Ma:' make.

[29] 'Flait:' chided.

[30] 'Thole:' suffer.

[31] 'Speir'd:' asked.

[32] 'Selcouth:' strange.

[33] 'Bane:' bone.

[34] 'Derfly:' Quickly.

[35] 'Weir:' war.

[36] 'Lap:' leaped.

[37] 'Feil:' many.

[38] 'Stuffed:' armed.

[39] 'But bade:' without delay.

[40] 'Blasoun:' dress over armour.

[41] 'Fleet:' float.

[42] 'Mair:' more.

[43] 'Cost:' side.

[44] 'Waill:' advantage.

[45] 'Braithly:' violently.

[46] 'Na mair:' no more.

[47] 'Feil freiks:' many fierce fellows.

[48] 'Skail'd:' spread.

[49] 'Stuffed:' blown.

[50] 'Gang:' go.

[51] 'Sad:' steady.

[52] 'Mirkest:' darkest.

THE DEATH OF WALLACE.

On Wednesday the false Southron forth him brought

To martyr him, as they before had wrought.[1]

Of men in arms led him a full great rout.

With a bold sprite good Wallace blink'd about:

A priest he ask'd, for God that died on tree.

King Edward then commanded his clergy,

And said, 'I charge you, upon loss of life,

None be so bold yon tyrant for to shrive.

He has reign'd long in contrare my highness.'

A blithe bishop soon, present in that place;

Of Canterbury he then was righteous lord;

Against the king he made this right record,

And said, 'Myself shall hear his confessioun,

If I have might, in contrare of thy crown.

An[2] thou through force will stop me of this thing,

I vow to God, who is my righteous king,

That all England I shall her interdict,

And make it known thou art a heretic.

The sacrament of kirk I shall him give:

Syne[3] take thy choice, to starve[4] or let him live.

It were more 'vail, in worship of thy crown,

To keep such one in life in thy bandoun,[5]

Than all the land and good that thou hast reft,

But cowardice thee aye from honour dreft.[6]

Thou hast thy life rougin[7] in wrongous deed;

That shall be seen on thee, or on thy seed.'

The king gart[8] charge they should the bishop tae,[9]

But sad[10] lords counselled to let him gae.

All Englishmen said that his desire was right.

To Wallace then he raiked[11] in their sight,

And sadly heard his confession till an end:

Humbly to God his sprite he there commend,

Lowly him served with hearty devotion

Upon his knees, and said an orison.

A psalter-book Wallace had on him ever,

From his childhood from it would not dissever;

Better he trow'd in voyage[12] for to speed.

But then he was despoiled of his weed.[13]

This grace he ask'd at Lord Clifford, that knight,

To let him have his psalter-book in sight.

He gart a priest it open before him hold,

While they till him had done all that they would.

Steadfast he read for ought they did him there;

Foil[14] Southrons said that Wallace felt no sair.[15]

Good devotion so was his beginning,

Continued therewith, and fair was his ending;

Till speech and spirit at once all can fare

To lasting bliss, we trow, for eveermair.

[1] 'Wrought:' contrived.

[2] 'An:' if.

[3] 'Syne:' then.

[4] 'Starve:' perish.

[5] 'Bandoun:' disposal.

[6] 'Dreft:' drove.

[7] 'Rougin:' spent.

[8] 'Gart:' caused.

[9] 'Tae:' take.

[10] 'Sad:' grave.

[11] 'Raiked:' walked.

[12] 'Voyage:' journey to heaven.

[13] 'Weed:' clothes.

[14] 'Feil:' many.

[15] 'Sair:' sore.

JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.

Here we have a great ascent from our former subject of biography--from

Blind Harry to James I.--from a beggar to a king. But in the Palace of

Poetry there are 'many mansions,' and men of all ranks, climes,

characters, professions, and we had almost added _talents_, have been

welcome to inhabit there. For, even as in the House Beautiful, the weak

Ready-to-halt and the timid Much-afraid were as cheerfully received as

the strong Honest and the bold Valiant-for-truth; so Poetry has inspired

children, and seeming fools, and maniacs, and mendicants with the finest

breath of her spirit. The 'Fable-tree' Fontaine is as immortal as

Corneille; Christopher Smart's 'David' shall live as long as Milton's

'Paradise Lost;' and the rude epic of a blind wanderer, whose birth,

parentage, and period of death are all alike unknown, shall continue to

rank in interest with the productions of one who inherited that kingdom

of Scotland, the independence of which was bought by the successive

efforts and the blended blood of Wallace and Bruce.

Let us now look for a moment at the history and the writings of this

'Royal Poet.' The name will suggest to all intelligent readers the title

of one of the most pleasing papers in Washington Irving's 'Sketch-book.'

James I. was the son of Robert III. of Scotland,--a character familiar

to all from the admirable 'Fair Maid of Perth,'--and of Annabella

Stewart. He was created Earl of Carrick; and after the miserable death

of the Duke of Rothesay, his elder brother, his father, apprehensive of

the further designs of Albany, determined to send James to France, to

find an asylum and receive his education in that friendly Court. On his

way, the vessel was captured off Flamborough Head by an English cruiser,

(the 13th of March 1405,) and the young prince, with his attendants, was

conveyed to London, and committed to the Tower. As there was a truce

between the two nations at the time, this was a flagrant outrage on the

law of nations, and has indelibly disgraced the memory of Henry IV.,

who, when some one remonstrated with him on the injustice of the

detention, replied, with cool brutality, 'Had the Scots been grateful,

they ought to have sent the youth to me, for I understand French well.'

Here for nineteen years,--during the remainder of the life of Henry IV.,

and the whole of the reign of Henry V.,--James continued. He was

educated, however, highly, according to the fashion of these times,

--instructed in the languages, as well as in music, painting,

architecture, horticulture, dancing, fencing, poetry, and other

accomplishments. Still it must have fretted his high spirit to be

passing his young life in prison, while without horses were stamping,

plumes glistening, trumpets sounding, tournaments waging, and echoes

from the great victories of Henry V. in France ringing around. One

sweetener of his solitude, however, he at length enjoyed. Having been

transferred from the Tower to Windsor Castle, he beheld one day from its

windows that beautiful vision he has described in 'The King's Quhair,'

(see 'Specimens.') This was Lady Jane or Joanna Beaufort, daughter of

the Earl of Somerset, niece of Richard II., and grand-daughter of John

of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. She was a lady of great beauty and

accomplishments as well as of high rank, and James, even before he knew

her name, became deeply enamoured. The passion was returned, and their

mutual attachment had by and by an important bearing upon his prospects.

In 1423, the Duke of Bedford being now the English Regent, the friends

of James renewed negotiations--often attempted before in vain--for his

return to his native land, where his father had been long dead, and

which, torn by factions and steeped in blood, was sorely needing his

presence. Commissioners from the two kingdoms met at Pontefract on the

12th of May 1423, when, in presence of the young King, and with his

consent, matters were arranged. The English coolly demanded £40,000 to

defray the expense of James's nurture and education, (as though a _bill_

were handed in to a man who had been unjustly detained in prison on

a false charge, ere he left its walls,) insisted on the immediate

departure of the Scots from France, where a portion of them were

fighting in the French army, and procured the assent of the Scottish

Privy Council to the marriage of James with his beloved Jane Beaufort.

A truce, too, with Scotland was concluded for seven years. All this was

settled; and soon after, in the Church of St Mary Overies, Southwark,

so often alluded to in the 'Life of Gower,' the happy pair were wed.

It seemed a most auspicious event for both countries, and to augur

the substitution of permanent peace for casual and temporary truces.

To Lady Jane Beaufort it gave a crown, and a noble, gallant, and gifted

prince to share it withal. On James it bestowed a lady of great beauty,

who was regarded, too, with gratitude as having lightened the load of

his captivity, and been a sunshine in his shady place, and--least

consideration--who brought him a dowry of £10,000, which was, in fact,

a remission of the fourth part of his ransom.

Attended by a magnificent retinue, the royal pair set out for Scotland.

They were met at Durham by three hundred of the principal nobility and

gentry, twenty-eight of whom were retained by the English as hostages

for the national faith. Arrived on his native soil, James, at Melrose

Abbey, gave his solemn assent on the Holy Gospels to the treaty; and

seldom have the Eildon Hills returned a louder and more joyous shout

of acclamation than now welcomed back to the kingdom of his fathers

the 'Royal Poet.' He proceeded to Edinburgh, where he celebrated Easter

with great pomp, and a month later, he and his queen were solemnly

crowned inthe Abbey Church at Scone. This was in 1424. He lived after

this only thirteen years; but the period of his reign has always been

thought a glorious interlude in the dark early history of Scotland.

He set himself, with considerable success, to curb the exorbitant

power of the nobles, sacrificing some of them, such as Albany, to his

just indignation. He passed many useful regulations in reference to

the coinage, the constitution, and the commerce of the country. He

suppressed with a strong hand some of the gangs of robbers and 'sorners'

which abounded, founding instead the order of Bedesmen or King's

Beggars, immortalised since in the character of Edie Ochiltree. He

stretched a strong hand over the refractory Highland chieftains. While

keeping at first on good terms with the English Court, he turned with a

fonder eye to the French as the ancient allies of Scotland, and in 1436

gave his daughter Margaret in marriage to the Dauphin. This step roused

the jealousy of his southern neighbours, who tried even to intercept the

fleet that was conveying the bride across the Channel, whereupon James,

stung to fury, proclaimed war against England, and in August commenced

the siege of Roxburgh Castle. The castle, after being environed for

fifteen days, was about to fall into his hands, when the Queen suddenly

arrived in the camp, and communicated some information, probably

referring to a threatened conspiracy of the nobles, which induced him

to throw up the siege, disband his army, and return northward in haste.

This unexpected step probably retarded, but could not prevent the

dreadful purpose of death which had already been formed against the

King.

In October 1436, he held his last Parliament in Edinburgh, in which,

amidst many other enactments, we find, curiously enough, a prefiguration

of the Forbes Mackenzie Act, in a decree that all taverns should be shut

at nine o'clock. In the end of the year he determined on retiring to

Perth, where (in the language of Gibbon, applied to Timour) 'he was

expected by the Angel of Death.' It is said that, when about to cross

the Frith of Forth, then called the Scottish Sea, a Highland woman, who

claimed the character of a prophetess, like Meg Merrilees in fiction,

met the cavalcade, and cried out, with a loud voice, 'My Lord the King,

if you pass this water you shall never return again alive;' but as she

was concluded to be mad or drunk, her warning was scorned. He betook

himself to the convent of the Black Friars, where Christmas was being

celebrated with great pomp and splendour. Meanwhile Robert Grahame, and

Walter, Earl of Athole, the King's own uncle, actuated, the former by

revenge on account of the resumption of some lands improperly granted

to his family, and the latter by a desire to succeed to the Crown, had

formed a plot against James's life. Several warnings, besides that of

the Highland seeress, the King received, but he heeded them not, and,

like most of the doomed, was in unnaturally high spirits, as if the

winding-sheet far up his breast had been a wedding-robe.

It is the evening of the 20th of February 1437. James and his nobles and

ladies are seated at table till deep into the night, engaged in chess,

music, and song. Athole, like another Judas, has supped with them, and

gone out at a late hour. A tremendous knocking is heard at the gate. It

is the Highland prophetess, who, having followed the monarch to Perth,

is seeking to force her way into the room. The King tells her, through

his usher, that he cannot receive her to-night, but will hear her

tidings to-morrow. She retires reluctantly, murmuring that they will for

ever rue their refusal to admit her into the royal presence. About an

hour after this, James calls for the _Voidee_, or parting-cup, and the

company disperse. Sir Robert Stewart, the chamberlain, who is in the

confidence of the conspirators, is the last to retire, having previously

destroyed the locks and removed the bars of the doors of the royal bed-

chamber and the outer room adjoining. The King is standing before the

fire, in his night-gown and slippers, and talking gaily with the Queen

and her ladies, when torches are seen flashing up from the garden, and

the clash of arms and the sound of angry voices is heard from below. A

sense of the dread reality bursts on them in an instant. The Queen and

the ladies run to secure the door of the chamber, while James, seizing

the tongs, wrenches up one of the boards of the floor and takes refuge

in a vault beneath. This was wont to have an opening to the outer court,

but it had unfortunately been built up of late by his own orders. There,

under the replaced boards, cowers the King, while the Queen and her

women seek to barricade the door. One brave young lady, Catherine

Douglas, thrusts her beautiful arm into the staple from which the bolt

had been removed. It is broken in a moment, and she sinks back, to bear,

with her descendants--a family well known in Scotland--the name of

_Barlass_ ever since. The murderers, who had previously killed in the

passage one Walter Straiton, a page, rush in, with naked swords,

wounding the ladies, striking, and well-nigh killing the Queen, and

crying, with frantic imprecations, 'This is but a woman! Where is

James?' Finding him not in the chamber, they leave it, and disperse

through the neighbouring apartments in search.

James, who had become wearied of his immurement, and thought the

assassins were gone, calls now on one of the ladies to aid him in coming

out of his place of concealment. But while this is being effected, one

of the murderers returns. The cry, 'Found, found,' rings through the

halls; and after a violent but unarmed resistance, the King is, with

circumstances of horrible barbarity, first mangled, then run through the

body, and then despatched with daggers. In vain he offers half his

kingdom for his life; and when he seeks a confessor from Grahame, the

ruffian replies, 'Thou shalt have no confessor but this sword.' It is

satisfactory to know that the Queen made her escape, and that the

criminals were punished, although the tortures they endured are such

as human nature shrinks from conceiving, and history with a shudder

records.

* * * * *

We turn with pleasure from King James's life and death to his poetry,

although there is so little of it that a sentence or two will suffice.

'The King's Quhair' is a poem conceived very much in the spirit, and

written in the style of Chaucer, whose works were favourites with James.

There is the same sympathy with nature, and the same perception of _its_

relation to and unconscious sympathy with human feelings, and the same

luscious richness in the description, alike of the early beauties of

spring and of youthful feminine loveliness, although this seems more

natural in the young poet James than in the sexagenarian author of 'The

Canterbury Tales.' There is nothing even in Chaucer we think finer than

the picture of Lady Jane Beaufort in the garden, particularly in the

lines--

'Or are ye god Cupidis own princess,

And comen are ye to loose me out of band?

Or are ye very Nature the goddess,

That have depainted with your heavenly hand

This garden full of flowers as they stand?'

Or where, picturing his mistress, he cries--

'And above all this there was, well I wot,

Beauty enough to make a world to dote.'

Or where, describing a ruby on her bosom, he says--

'That as a spark of low[1] so wantonly

Seemed burning upon her white throat.'

[1] 'Low:' fire.

Besides this precious little poem, King James is believed by some to

have written several poems on Scottish subjects, such as 'Christis Kirk

on the Green,' 'Peblis to the Play,' &c., but his claim to these is

uncertain. The first describes the mingled merrymaking and contest

common in the old rude marriages of Scotland, and, whether by James or

not, is full of burly, picturesque force.

Take the Miller--

'The Miller was of manly make,

To meet him was no mowes.[1]

There durst not tensome there him take,

So cowed he their powes.[2]

The bushment whole about him brake,

And bicker'd him with bows.

Then traitorously behind his back

They hack'd him on the boughs

Behind that day.'

Or look at the following ill-paired pair--

'Of all these maidens mild as mead,

Was none so jimp as Gillie.

As any rose her rude[3] was red--

Her lire[4] like any lillie.

But yellow, yellow was her head,

And she of love so silly;

Though all her kin had sworn her dead,

She would have none but Willie,

Alone that day.

'She scorn'd Jock, and scripped at him,

And murgeon'd him with mocks--

He would have loved her--she would not let him,

For all his yellow locks.

He cherisht her--she bade go chat him--

She counted him not two clocks.

So shamefully his short jack[5] set him,

His legs were like two rocks,

Or rungs that day.'

[1] 'Mowes:' joke.

[2] 'Powes:' heads.

[3] 'Rude:' complexion.

[4] 'Lire:' flesh, skill.

[5] 'Jack:' jacket.

Our readers will perceive the resemblance, both in spirit and in form of

verse, between this old poem and the 'Holy Fair,' and other productions

of Burns.

James, cut off in the prime of life, may almost be called the abortive

Alfred of Scotland. Had he lived, he might have made important

contributions to her literature as well as laws, and given her a

standing among the nations of Europe, which it took long ages, and even

an incorporation with England, to secure. As it is, he stands high on

the list of royal authors, and of those kings who, whether authors or

not, have felt that nations cannot live on bread alone, and who have

sought their intellectual culture as an object not inferior to their

physical comfort. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that no man or

woman of genius has sate either on the Scotch or English throne since,

except Cromwell, to whom, however, the term 'genius,' in its common

sense, seems ludicrously inadequate. James V. had some of the erratic

qualities of the poetic tribe, but his claim to the songs--such as the

'Gaberlunzie Man'--which go under his name, is exceedingly doubtful.

James VI. was a pedant, without being a scholar--a rhymester, not a

poet. Of the rest we need not speak. Seldom has the sceptre become an

Aaron's rod, and flourished with the buds and blossoms of song. In our

annals there has been one, and but one 'Royal Poet.'

THE KING THUS DESCRIBES THE APPEARANCE OF HIS MISTRESS,

WHEN HE FIRST SAW HER FROM A WINDOW OF HIS PRISON

AT WINDSOR.

X.

The longë dayës and the nightës eke,

I would bewail my fortune in this wise,

For which, against distress comfórt to seek,

My custom was, on mornës, for to rise

Early as day: O happy exercise!

By thee came I to joy out of tormènt;

But now to purpose of my first intent.

XI.

Bewailing in my chamber, thus alone,

Despaired of all joy and remedy,

For-tired of my thought, and woe begone;

And to the window 'gan I walk in hye,[1]

To see the world and folk that went forby;

As for the time (though I of mirthis food

Might have no more) to look it did me good.

XII.

Now was there made fast by the toweris wall

A garden fair; and in the corners set

An herbere[2] green; with wandis long and small

Railed about, and so with treës set

Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,

That life was none [a] walking there forby

That might within scarce any wight espy.

* * * * *

XIV.

And on the smallë greenë twistis [3] sat

The little sweetë nightingale, and sung,

So loud and clear the hymnis consecrate

Of lovë's use, now soft, now loud among,[4]

That all the gardens and the wallis rung

Right of their song; and on the couple next

Of their sweet harmony, and lo the text.

XV.

Worship, O ye that lovers be, this May!

For of your bliss the calends are begun;

And sing with us, 'Away! winter, away!

Come, summer, come, the sweet seasòn and sun;

Awake for shame that have your heavens won;

And amorously lift up your headës all,

Thank love that list you to his mercy call.

* * * * *

XXI.

And therewith cast I down mine eye again,

Where as I saw walking under the tower,

Full secretly new comen to her pleyne,[5]

The fairest and the freshest youngë flower

That e'er I saw (methought) before that hour

For which sudden abate [6] anon astert [7]

The blood of all my body to my heart.

* * * * *

XXVII.

Of her array the form if I shall write,

Toward her golden hair, and rich attire,

In fret-wise couched with pearlis white,

And greatë balas[8] lemyng[9] as the fire;

With many an emerald and fair sapphìre,

And on her head a chaplet fresh of hue,

Of plumës parted red, and white, and blue.

* * * * *

XXIX.

About her neck, white as the fair amaille,[10]

A goodly chain of small orfeverie,[11]

Whereby there hang a ruby without fail

Like to a heart yshapen verily,

That as a spark of lowe[12] so wantonly

Seemed burning upon her whitë throat;

Now if there was good, perdie God it wrote.

XXX.

And for to walk that freshë Mayë's morrow,

A hook she had upon her tissue white,

That goodlier had not been seen toforrow,[13]

As I suppose, and girt she, was a lite[14]

Thus halfling[15] loose for haste; to such delight

It was to see her youth in goodlihead,

That for rudeness to speak thereof I dread.

XXXI.

In her was youth, beauty with humble port,

Bounty, richess, and womanly featúre:

(God better wot than my pen can report)

Wisdom, largèss, estate, and cunning[16] sure,

* * * * *

In word, in deed, in shape and countenance,

That nature might no more her child advance.

[1] 'Hye:' haste.

[2] 'Herbere:' herbary, or garden of simples.

[3] 'Twistis:' twigs.

[4] 'Among:' promiscuously.

[5] 'Pleyne:' sport.

[6] 'Sudden abate:' unexpected accident.

[7] 'Astert:' started back.

[8] 'Balas:' rubies.

[9] 'Lemyng:' burning.

[10] 'Amaille:' enamel.

[11] 'Orfeverie:' goldsmith's work.

[12] 'Lowe:' fire.

[13] 'Toforrow:' heretofore.

[14] 'Lite:' a little.

[15] 'Halfling:' half.

[16] 'Cunning:' knowledge.

JOHN THE CHAPLAIN--THOMAS OCCLEVE.

The first of these is the only versifier that can be assigned to England

in the reign of Henry IV. His name was John Walton, though he was

generally known as _Johannes Capellanus_ or 'John the Chaplain.' He was

canon of Oseney, and died sub-dean of York. He, in the year 1410,

translated Boethius' famous treatise, 'De Consolatione Philosophiae,'

into English verse. He is not known to have written anything original.

--Thomas Occleve appeared in the reign of Henry V., about 1420. Like

Chaucer and Gower, he was a student of municipal law, having attended

Chester's Inn, which stood on the site of the present Somerset House;

but although he trod in the footsteps of his celebrated predecessors, it

was with far feebler powers. His original pieces are contemptible, both

in subject and in execution. His best production is a translation of

'Egidius De Regimine Principum.' Warton, alluding to the period at which

these writers appeared, has the following oft-quoted observations:

--'I consider Chaucer as a genial day in an English spring. A brilliant

sun enlivens the face of nature with an unusual lustre; the sudden

appearance of cloudless skies, and the unexpected warmth of a tepid

atmosphere, after the gloom and the inclemencies of a tedious winter,

fill our hearts with the visionary prospect of a speedy summer, and we

fondly anticipate a long continuance of gentle gales and vernal serenity.

But winter returns with redoubled horrors; the clouds condense more

formidably than before, and those tender buds and early blossoms which

were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sunshine, are

nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.' These sentences are, after all,

rather pompous, and express, in the most verbose style of the _Rambler_,

the simple fact, that after Chaucer's death the ground lay fallow, and

that for a while in England (in Scotland it was otherwise) there were

few poets, and little poetry.

JOHN LYDGATE.

This copious and versatile writer flourished in the reign of Henry VI.

Warton affirms that he reached his highest point of eminence in 1430,

although some of his poems had appeared before. He was a monk of the

Benedictine Abbey at Bury, in Suffolk. He received his education at

Oxford; and when it was finished, he travelled through France and Italy,

mastering the languages and literature of both countries, and studying

their poets, particularly Dante, Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier. When he

returned, he opened a school in his monastery for teaching the sons of

the nobility composition and the art of versification. His acquirements

were, for the age, universal. He was a poet, a rhetorician, an astronomer,

a mathematician, a public disputant, and a theologian. He was born in

1370, ordained sub-deacon in 1389, deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397.

The time of his death is uncertain. His great patron was Humphrey, Duke

of Gloucester, to whom he complains sometimes of necessitous circumstances,

which were, perhaps, produced by indulgence, since he confesses himself to

be 'a lover of wine.'

The great merit of Lydgate is his versatility. This Warton has happily

expressed in a few sentences, which we shall quote:--

'He moves with equal ease in every form of composition. His hymns and

his ballads have the same degree of merit; and whether his subject be

the life of a hermit or a hero, of Saint Austin or Guy, Earl of Warwick,

ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory,

he writes with facility. His transitions were rapid, from works of the

most serious and laborious kind, to sallies of levity and pieces of

popular entertainment. His muse was of universal access; and he was not

only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general. If a

disguising was intended by the Company of Goldsmiths, a mask before His

Majesty at Eltham, a May game for the sheriffs and aldermen of London,

a mumming before the Lord Mayor, a procession of pageants, from the

"Creation," for the Festival of Corpus Christi, or a carol for the

coronation, Lydgate was consulted, and gave the poetry.'

Lydgate is, so far as we know, the first British bard who wrote for

hire. At the request of Whethamstede, the Abbot of St Alban's, he

translated a 'Life of St Alban' from Latin into English rhymes, and

received for the whole work one hundred shillings. His principal poems,

all founded on the works of other authors, are the 'Fall of Princes,'

the 'Siege of Thebes,' and the 'Destruction of Troy.' They are written

in a diffuse and verbose style, but are generally clear in sense, and

often very luxuriant in description. 'The London Lyckpenny' is a

fugitive poem, in which the author describes himself coming up to town

in search of legal redress for a wrong, and gives some curious

particulars of the condition of that city in the early part of the

fifteenth century.

CANACE, CONDEMNED TO DEATH BY HER FATHER AEOLUS, SENDS

TO HER GUILTY BROTHER MACAREUS THE LAST TESTIMONY OF

HER UNHAPPY PASSION.

Out of her swoonë when she did abraid,[1]

Knowing no mean but death in her distrèss,

To her brothèr full piteously she said,

'Cause of my sorrow, root of my heaviness,

That whilom were the source of my gladness,

When both our joys by will were so disposed,

Under one key our hearts to be enclosed.--

* * * * *

This is mine end, I may it not astart;[2]

O brother mine, there is no more to say;

Lowly beseeching with mine wholë heart

For to remember specially, I pray,

If it befall my little son to dey[3]

That thou mayst after some mind on us have,

Suffer us both be buried in one grave.

I hold him strictly 'tween my armës twain,

Thou and Natùrë laid on me this charge;

He, guiltless, mustë with me suffer pain,

And, since thou art at freedom and at large,

Let kindness ourë love not so discharge,

But have a mind, wherever that thou be,

Once on a day upon my child and me.

On thee and me dependeth the trespàce

Touching our guilt and our great offence,

But, welaway! most àngelic of face

Our childë, young in his pure innocence,

Shall against right suffer death's violence,

Tender of limbs, God wot, full guiltëless

The goodly fair, that lieth here speechlèss.

A mouth he has, but wordës hath he none;

Cannot complain, alas! for none outràge:

Nor grutcheth[4] not, but lies here all alone

Still as a lamb, most meek of his visàge.

What heart of steel could do to him damàge,

Or suffer him die, beholding the mannère

And look benign of his twain even clear.'--

* * * * *

Writing her letter, awhapped[5] all in drede,

In her right hand her pen began to quake,

And a sharp sword to make her heartë bleed,

In her left hand her father hath her take,

And most her sorrow was for her childë's sake,

Upon whose facë in her barme[6] sleepíng

Full many a tear she wept in complainíng.

After all this so as she stood and quoke,

Her child beholding mid of her paines' smart,

Without abode the sharpë sword she took,

And rove herselfë even to the heart;

Her child fell down, which mightë not astart,

Having no help to succour him nor save,

But in her blood theself began to bathe.

[1] 'Abraid:' awake.

[2] 'Astart:' escape.

[3] 'Dey:' die.

[4] 'Grutcheth:' murmureth.

[5] 'Awhapped:' confounded.

[6] 'Barme:' lap.

THE LONDON LYCKPENNY.

Within the hall, neither rich nor yet poor

Would do for me ought, although I should die:

Which seeing, I gat me out of the door,

Where Flemings began on me for to cry,

'Master, what will you copen[1] or buy?

Fine felt hats? or spectacles to read?

Lay down your silver, and here you may speed.

Then to Westminster gate I presently went,

When the sun was at high prime:

Cooks to me they took good intent,[2]

And proffered me bread, with ale and wine,

Ribs of beef, both fat and full fine;

A fair cloth they 'gan for to spread,

But, wanting money, I might not be sped.

Then unto London I did me hie,

Of all the land it beareth the price;

'Hot peascods!' one began to cry,

'Strawberry ripe, and cherries in the rise!'[3]

One bade me come near and buy some spice;

Pepper, and saffron they 'gan me beed;[4]

But, for lack of money, I might not speed.

Then to the Cheap I 'gan me drawn,

Where much people I saw for to stand;

One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,

Another he taketh me by the hand,

'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land!'

I never was used to such things, indeed;

And, wanting money, I might not speed.

Then went I forth by London Stone,

Throughout all Canwick Street:

Drapers much cloth me offered anon;

Then comes me one cried 'Hot sheep's feet;'

One cried mackerel, rushes green, another 'gan greet,[5]

One bade me buy a hood to cover my head;

But, for want of money, I might not be sped.

Then I hied me unto East-Cheap,

One cries ribs of beef, and many a pie;

Pewter pots they clattered on a heap;

There was harp, pipe, and minstrelsy;

Yea by cock! nay by cock! some began cry;

Some sung of Jenkin and Julian for their meed;

But, for lack of money, I might not speed.

Then into Cornhill anon I yode,[6]

Where was much stolen gear among;

I saw where hung mine ownë hood,

That I had lost among the throng;

To buy my own hood I thought it wrong:

I knew it well, as I did my creed;

But, for lack of money, I could not speed.

The taverner took me by the sleeve,

'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine assay?'

I answered, 'That can not much me grieve,

A penny can do no more than it may;'

I drank a pint, and for it did pay;

Yet, sore a-hungered from thence I yede,[7]

And, wanting money, I could not speed.

[1] 'Copen:' _koopen_(Flem.) to buy.

[2] 'Took good intent:' took notice; paid attention.

[3] 'In the rise:' on the branch.

[4] 'Beed:' offer.

[5] 'Greet:' cry.

[6] 'Yode:' went.

[7] 'Yede:' went.

HARDING, KAY, &c.

John Harding flourished about the year 1403. He fought at the battle of

Shrewsbury on the Percy side. He is the author of a poem entitled 'The

Chronicle of England unto the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, in

Verse.' It has no poetic merit, and little interest, except to the

antiquary. In the reign of the above king we find the first mention of

a Poet Laureate. John Kay was appointed by Edward, when he returned from

Italy, Poet Laureate to the king, but has, perhaps fortunately for the

world, left behind him no poems. Would that the same had been the case

with some of his successors in the office! There is reason to believe,

that for nearly two centuries ere this date, there had existed in the

court a personage, entitled the King's Versifier, (versificator,) to

whom one hundred shillings a-year was the salary, and that the title

was, by and by, changed to that of Poet Laureate, _i.e._, Laurelled

Poet. It had long been customary in the universities to crown scholars

when they graduated with laurel, and Warton thinks that from these the

first poet laureates were selected, less for their general genius than

for their skill in Latin verse. Certainly the earliest of the Laureate

poems, such as those by Baston and Gulielmus, who acted as royal poets

to Richard I. and Edward II., and wrote, the one on Richard's Crusade,

and the other on Edward's Siege of Stirling Castle, are in Latin. So

too are the productions of Andrew Bernard, who was the Poet Laureate

successively to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. It was not till after the

Reformation had lessened the superstitious veneration for the Latin

tongue that the laureates began to write in English. It is almost a

pity, we are sometimes disposed to think, that, in reference to such

odes as those of Pye, Whitehead, Colley Cibber, and even some of

Southey's, the old practice had not continued; since thus, in the first

place, we might have had a chance of elegant Latinity, in the absence of

poetry and sense; and since, secondly, the deficiencies of the laureate

poems would have been disguised, from the general eye at least, under

the veil of an unknown tongue. It is curious to notice about this period

the uprise of two didactic poets, both writing on alchymy, the chemistry

of that day, and neither displaying a spark of genius. These are John

Norton and George Ripley, both renowned for learning and knowledge of

their beloved occult sciences. Their poems, that by Norton, entitled

'The Ordinal,' and that by Ripley, entitled 'The Compound of Alchemie,'

are dry and rugged treatises, done into indifferent verse. One rather

fine fancy occurs in the first of these. It is that of an alchymist who

projected a bridge of gold over the Thames, near London, crowned with

pinnacles of gold, which, being studded with carbuncles, should diffuse

a blaze of light in the dark! Alchymy has had other and nobler singers

than Ripley and Norton. It has, as Warton remarks, 'enriched the store-

house of Arabian romance with many magnificent imageries.' It is the

inspiration of two of the noblest romances in this or any language

--'St. Leon' and 'Zanoni.' And its idea, transfigured into a transcen-

dental form, gave light and life and fire, and the loftiest poetry, to

the eloquence of the lamented Samuel Brown, whose tongue, as he talked

on his favourite theme, seemed transmuted into gold; nay, whose lips,

like the touch of Midas, seemed to create the effects of alchymy upon

every subject they approached, and upon every heart over which they

wielded their sorcery.

We pass now from this comparatively barren age in the history of English

poetry to a cluster of Scottish bards. The first of these is ROBERT

HENRYSON. He was schoolmaster at Dunfermline, and died some time before

1508. He is supposed by Lord Hailes to have been preceptor of youth in

the Benedictine convent in that place. He is the author of 'Robene and

Makyne,' a pastoral ballad of very considerable merit, and of which

Campbell says, somewhat too warmly, 'It is the first known pastoral,'

(he means in the Scottish language of course,) 'and one of the best, in

a dialect rich with the favours of the pastoral muse.' He wrote also a

sequel to Chaucer's 'Troilus and Cresseide' entitled 'The Testament of

Cresseide,' and thirteen Fables, of which copies, in MS., are preserved

in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. One of these, 'The Town and

Country Mouse,' tells that old story with considerable spirit and

humour. 'The Garment of Good Ladies' is an ingenious and beautiful

strain, written in that quaint style of allegorising which continued

popular as far down as the days of Cowley, and even later.

DINNER GIVEN BY THE TOWN MOUSE TO THE COUNTRY MOUSE.

* * * Their harboury was ta'en

Into a spence,[1] where victual was plenty,

Both cheese and butter on long shelves right high,

With fish and flesh enough, both fresh and salt,

And pockis full of groats, both meal and malt.

After, when they disposed were to dine,

Withouten grace they wuish[2] and went to meat,

On every dish that cookmen can divine,

Mutton and beef stricken out in telyies grit;[3]

A lordë's fare thus can they counterfeit,

Except one thing--they drank the water clear

Instead of wine, but yet they made good cheer.

With blithe upcast and merry countenance,

The elder sister then spier'd[4] at her guest,

If that she thought by reason difference

Betwixt that chamber and her sairy[5] nest.

'Yea, dame,' quoth she, 'but how long will this last?'

'For evermore, I wait,[6] and longer too;'

'If that be true, ye are at ease,' quoth she.

To eke the cheer, in plenty forth they brought

A plate of groatis and a dish of meal,

A threif[7] of cakes, I trow she spared them nought,

Abundantly about her for to deal.

Furmage full fine she brought instead of jeil,

A white candle out of a coffer staw,[8]

Instead of spice, to creish[9] their teeth witha'.

Thus made they merry, till they might nae mair,

And, 'Hail, Yule, hail!' they cryit up on high;

But after joy oftentimes comes care,

And trouble after great prosperity.

Thus as they sat in all their jollity,

The spencer came with keyis in his hand,

Open'd the door, and them at dinner fand.

They tarried not to wash, as I suppose,

But on to go, who might the foremost win:

The burgess had a hole, and in she goes,

Her sister had no place to hide her in;

To see that silly mouse it was great sin,

So desolate and wild of all good rede,[10]

For very fear she fell in swoon, near dead.

Then as God would it fell in happy case,

The spencer had no leisure for to bide,

Neither to force, to seek, nor scare, nor chase,

But on he went and cast the door up-wide.

This burgess mouse his passage well has spied.

Out of her hole she came and cried on high,

'How, fair sister, cry peep, where'er thou be.'

The rural mouse lay flatlings on the ground,

And for the death she was full dreadand,

For to her heart struck many woful stound,

As in a fever trembling foot and hand;

And when her sister in such plight her fand,

For very pity she began to greet,

Syne[11] comfort gave, with words as honey sweet.

'Why lie ye thus? Rise up, my sister dear,

Come to your meat, this peril is o'erpast.'

The other answer'd with a heavy cheer,

'I may nought eat, so sore I am aghast.

Lever[12] I had this forty dayis fast,

With water kail, and green beans and peas,

Than all your feast with this dread and disease.'

With fair 'treaty, yet gart she her arise;

To board they went, and on together sat,

But scantly had they drunken once or twice,

When in came Gib Huntér, our jolly cat,

And bade God speed. The burgess up then gat,

And to her hole she fled as fire of flint;

Bawdrons[13] the other by the back has hent.[14]

From foot to foot he cast her to and frae,

Whiles up, whiles down, as cant[15] as any kid;

Whiles would he let her run under the strae[16]

Whiles would he wink and play with her buik-hid;[17]

Thus to the silly mouse great harm he did;

Till at the last, through fair fortune and hap,

Betwixt the dresser and the wall she crap.[18]

Syne up in haste behind the panelling,

So high she clamb, that Gilbert might not get her,

And by the cluiks[19] craftily can hing,

Till he was gone, her cheer was all the better:

Syne down she lap, when there was none to let her;

Then on the burgess mouse loud could she cry,

'Farewell, sister, here I thy feast defy.

Thy mangery is minget[20] all with care,

Thy guise is good, thy gane-full[21] sour as gall;

The fashion of thy feris is but fair,

So shall thou find hereafterward may fall.

I thank yon curtain, and yon parpane[22] wall,

Of my defence now from yon cruel beast;

Almighty God, keep me from such a feast!

Were I into the place that I came frae,

For weal nor woe I should ne'er come again.'

With that she took her leave, and forth can gae,

Till through the corn, till through the plain.

When she was forth and free she was right fain,

And merrily linkit unto the muir,

I cannot tell how afterward she fure.[23]

But I heard syne she passed to her den,

As warm as wool, suppose it was not grit,

Full beinly[24] stuffed was both butt and ben,

With peas and nuts, and beans, and rye and wheat;

Whene'er she liked, she had enough of meat,

In quiet and ease, withouten [any] dread,

But to her sister's feast no more she gaed.

[FROM THE MORAL.]

Blessed be simple life, withouten dreid;

Blessed be sober feast in quieté;

Who has enough, of no more has he need,

Though it be little into quantity.

Great abundance, and blind prosperity,

Ofttimës make an evil conclusion;

The sweetest life, therefore, in this country,

Is of sickerness,[25] with small possession.

[1] 'Spence:' pantry.

[2] 'Wuish:' washed.

[3] 'Telyies grit:' great pieces.

[4] 'Spier'd;' asked.

[5] 'Sairy:' sorry.

[6] 'Wait:' expect.

[7] 'Threif:' a set of twenty-four.

[8] 'Staw:' stole.

[9] 'Creish:' grease.

[10] 'rede:' counsel.

[11] 'Syne:' then.

[12] 'Lever:' rather.

[13] 'Bawdrons:' the cat.

[14] 'Hent:' seized.

[15] 'Cant:' lively.

[16] 'Strae:' straw.

[17] 'Buik-hid:' body.

[18] 'Crap:' crept.

[19] 'Cluiks:' claws.

[20] 'Minget:' mixed.

[21] 'Gane-full:' mouthful.

[22] 'Parpane:' partition.

[23] 'Fure:' went.

[24] 'Beinly:' snugly.

[25] 'Sickerness:' security.

THE GARMENT OF GOOD LADIES.

Would my good lady love me best,

And work after my will,

I should a garment goodliest

Gar[1] make her body till.[2]

Of high honoùr should be her hood,

Upon her head to wear,

Garnish'd with governance, so good

No deeming[3] should her deir,[4]

Her sark[5] should be her body next,

Of chastity so white:

With shame and dread together mixt,

The same should be perfite.[6]

Her kirtle should be of clean constance,

Laced with lesum[7] love;

The mailies[8] of continuance,

For never to remove.

Her gown should be of goodliness,

Well ribbon'd with renown;

Purfill'd[9] with pleasure in ilk[10] place,

Furred with fine fashioùn.

Her belt should be of benignity,

About her middle meet;

Her mantle of humility,

To thole[11] both wind and weet.[12]

Her hat should be of fair havìng,

And her tippet of truth;

Her patelet of good pansìng,[13]

Her hals-ribbon of ruth.[14]

Her sleeves should be of esperance,

To keep her from despair;

Her glovës of good governance,

To hide her fingers fair.

Her shoes should be of sickerness,[15]

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,[16]

That she wore never green nor gray

That set[17] her half so weel.

[1] 'Gar:' cause.

[2] 'Till:' to.

[3] 'Deeming:' opinion.

[4] 'Deir:' injure.

[5] 'Sark:' shift.

[6] 'Perfite:' perfect.

[7] 'Lesum:' lawful.

[8] 'Mailies:' eyelet-holes.

[9] 'Purfill'd:' fringed.

[10] 'Ilk:' each.

[11] 'Thole:' endure.

[12] 'Weet:': wet.

[13] 'Pansing:' thinking.

[14] 'Her hals-ribbon of ruth:' her neck-ribbon of pity.

[15] 'Sickerness:' firmness.

[16] 'Seill:' salvation.

[17] 'Set:' became.

WILLIAM DUNBAR

This was a man of the true and sovereign seed of genius. Sir Walter

Scott calls Dunbar 'a poet unrivalled by any--that Scotland has ever

produced.' We venture to call him the Dante of Scotland; nay, we

question if any English poet has surpassed 'The Dance of the Seven

Deadly Sins through Hell' in its peculiarly Dantesque qualities of

severe and purged grandeur; of deep sincerity, and in that air of moral

disappointment and sorrow, approaching despair, which distinguished the

sad-hearted lover of Beatrice, who might almost have exclaimed, with one

yet mightier than he in his misery and more miserable in his might,

'Where'er I am is Hell--myself am Hell.'

Foster, in an entry in his journal, (we quote from memory,) says, 'I

have just seen the moon rising, and wish the impression to be eternal.

What a look she casts upon earth, like that of a celestial being who

loves our planet still, but has given up all hope of ever doing her any

good or seeing her become any better--so serene she seems in her settled

and unutterable sadness.' Such, we have often fancied, was the feeling

of the great Florentine toward the world, and which--pained, pitying,

yearning enthusiast that he was!--escaped irresistibly from those deep-

set eyes, that adamantine jaw, and that brow, wearing the laurel, proudly

yet painfully, as if it were a crown of everlasting fire! Dunbar was not

altogether a Dante, either in melancholy or in power, but his 'Dance'

reveals kindred moods, operating at times on a kindred genius.

In Dante humour existed too, but ere it could come up from his deep

nature to the surface, it must freeze and stiffen into monumental scorn

--a laughter that seemed, while mocking at all things else, to mock at

its own mockery most of all. Aird speaks in his 'Demoniac,' of a smile

upon his hero's brow,

'Like the lightning of a hope about to DIE

For ever from the furrow'd brows of Hell's Eternity.'

Dante's smile may rather be compared to the RISING of a false and self-

detected hope upon the lost brows where it is never to come to dawn, and

where, nevertheless, it remains for ever, like a smile carved upon

a sepulchre. Dunbar has a more joyous disposition than his Italian

prototype and master, and he indulges himself to the top of his bent,

but in a style (particularly in his 'Twa Married Women and the Widow,'

and in 'The Friars of Berwick,' which is not, however, quite certainly

his) too coarse and prurient for the taste of this age.

'The Merle and the Nightingale' is one of the finest of Moelibean poems.

Beautiful is the contest between the two sweet singers as to whether the

love of man or the love of God be the nobler, and more beautiful still

their reconciliation, when

'Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,

The Merle sang, "Man, love God that has thee wrought."

The Nightingale sang, "Man, love the Lord most dear,

That thee and all this world made of nought."

The Merle said, "Love him that thy love has sought

From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone."

The Nightingale sang. "And with his death thee bought:

All love is lost, but upon him alone."

_'Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen,

Singing of love among the leaves small.'_

William Dunbar is said to have been born about the year 1465. He

received his education at St Andrews, and took there the degree of M.A.

in 1479. He became then a friar of the Franciscan order, (Grey Friars,)

and in the exercise of his profession seems to have rambled over all

Scotland, England, and France, preaching, begging, and, according to his

own confession, cheating, lying, and cajoling. Yet if this kind of life

was not propitious, in his case, to morality, it must have been to the

development of the poetic faculty. It enabled him to see all varieties

of life and of scenery, although here and there, in his verses, you find

symptoms of that bitterness which is apt to arise in the heart of a

wanderer. He was subsequently employed by James IV. in some official

work connected with various foreign embassies, which led him to Spain,

Italy, and Germany, as well as England and France. This proves that he

was no less a man of business-capacity and habits than a poet. For these

services he, in 1500, received from the King a pension of ten pounds,

afterwards increased to twenty, and, in fine, to eighty. He is said to

have been employed in the negotiations preparatory to the marriage of

James with Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., which took place in

1503, and which our poet celebrated in his verses, 'The Thistle and the

Rose.' He continued ever afterwards in the Court, hovering in position

between a laureate and a court-fool, charming James with his witty

conversation as well as his verses, but refused the benefices for which

he petitioned, and gradually devoured by chagrin and disappointment.

Seldom has genius so great been placed in a falser position, and this

has given a querulous tinge to many of his poems. He seems to have died

about 1520. Even after his death, misfortune pursued him. His works

were, with the exception of two or three pieces, locked up in an obscure

MS. till the middle of last century. Since then, however, their fame has

been still increasing. In 1834, Mr David Laing, so favourably known as

one of our first antiquarians, published a complete and elaborate edition

of Dunbar's works; and in a newspaper this very day (May 23) we see another

edition announced, in a popular and modernised shape, of the poetry of this

great old Scottish _Makkar_.

THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS THROUGH HELL.

I.

Of Februar' the fifteenth night,

Full long before the dayis light,

I lay into a trance;

And then I saw both Heaven and Hell;

Methought among the fiendis fell,

Mahoun[1] gart[2] cry a Dance,

Of shrewis[3] that were never shrevin,[4]

Against the feast of Fastern's even,

To make their observànce:

He bade gallants go graith[5] a guise,[6]

And cast up gamounts[7] in the skies,

As varlets do in France.

II.

* * * * *

Holy harlottis in hautane[8] wise,

Came in with many sundry guise,

But yet laugh'd never Mahòun,

Till priests came in with bare shaven necks,

Then all the fiends laugh'd and made gecks,[9]

Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun.[10]

* * * * *

III.

'Let's see,' quoth he, 'now who begins:'

With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins

Began to leap at anis.[11]

And first of all in dance was Pride,

With hair wyld[12] back, and bonnet on side,

Like to make wasty weanis;[13]

And round about him, as a wheel,

Hang all in rumples to the heel,

His kethat[14] for the nanis.[15]

Many proud trompour[16] with him tripped,

Through scalding fire aye as they skipped,

They girn'd[17] with hideous granis.[18]

IV.

Then Ire came in with sturt[19] and strife,

His hand was aye upon his knife,

He brandish'd like a beir;

Boasters, braggers, and barganeris,[20]

After him passed into pairis,[21]

All bodin in feir of weir.[22]

In jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel,

Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel,

Froward was their affeir,[24]

Some upon other with brands beft,[25]

Some jaggit[26] others to the heft[27]

With knives that sharp could shear.

V.

Next in the dance follow'd Envy,

Fill'd full of feud and felony,

Hid malice and despite,

For privy hatred that traitor trembled;

Him follow'd many freik[28] dissembled,

With feigned wordis white.

And flatterers into men's faces,

And backbiters in secret places

To lie that had delight,

And rowneris[29] of false lesìngs;[30]

Alas, that courts of noble kings

Of them can never be quite![31]

VI.

Next him in dance came Covetice,

Root of all evil and ground of vice,

That never could be content,

Caitiffs, wretches, and ockerars,[32]

Hood-pikes,[33] hoarders, and gatherers,

All with that warlock went.

Out of their throats they shot on other

Hot molten gold, methought, a fother,[34]

As fire-flaucht[35] most fervènt;

Aye as they tumit[36] them of shot,

Fiends fill'd them new up to the throat

With gold of all kind prent.[37]

VII.

Syne[38] Sweirness[39] at the second bidding

Came like a sow out of a midding,[40]

Full sleepy was his grunyie.[41]

Many sweir bumbard[42] belly-huddroun,[43]

Many slute daw[44] and sleepy duddroun,[45]

Him served aye with sounyie.[46]

He drew them forth into a chenyie,[47]

And Belial with a bridle-rennyie,[48]

Ever lash'd them on the lunyie.[49]

In dance they were so slow of feet

They gave them in the fire a heat,

And made them quicker of counyie.[50]

VIII.

Then Lechery, that loathly corse,

Came bearing like a bagged horse,[51]

And Idleness did him lead;

There was with him an ugly sort[52]

And many stinking foul tramort,[53]

That had in sin been dead.

When they were enter'd in the dance,

They were full strange of countenance,

Like torches burning reid.

* * * * *

IX.

Then the foul monster Gluttony,

Of wame[54] insatiable and greedy,

To dance he did him dress;

Him followed many a foul drunkàrt

With can and collep, cop and quart,[55]

In surfeit and excess.

Full many a waistless wally-drag[56]

With wames unwieldable did forth drag,

In creish[57] that did incress;

Drink, aye they cried, with many a gape,

The fiends gave them hot lead to laip,[58]

Their leveray[59] was no less.

X.

* * * * *

No minstrels play'd to them but[60] doubt,

For gleemen there were holden out,

By day and eke by night,

Except a minstrel that slew a man;

So till his heritage he wan,[61]

And enter'd by brief of right.

* * * * *

XI.

Then cried Mahoun for a Highland padyane,[62]

Syne ran a fiend to fetch Mac Fadyane,[63]

Far northward in a nook,

By he the Correnoch had done shout,[64]

Ersch-men[65] so gather'd him about

In hell great room they took:

These termagants, with tag and tatter,

Full loud in Ersch began to clatter,

And roup[66] like raven and rook.

The devil so deaved[67] was with their yell,

That in the deepest pot of hell

He smored[68] them with smoke.

[1] 'Mahoun:' the devil.

[2] 'Gart:' caused.

[3] 'Shrewis:' sinners.

[4] 'Shrevin:' confessed.

[5] 'Graith:' prepare.

[6] 'Guise:' masque.

[7] 'Gamounts:' dances.

[8] 'Hautane:' haughty.

[9] 'Gecks:' mocks.

[10] 'Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun:' names of spirits.

[11] 'Anis:' once.

[12] 'Wyld:' combed.

[13] 'Wasty weanis:' wasteful children.

[14] 'Kethat:' cassock.

[15] 'Nanis:' nonce.

[16] 'Trompour:' impostor.

[17] 'Girn'd:' grinned.

[18] 'Granis:' groans.

[19] 'Sturt:' violence.

[20] 'Barganeris:' bullies.

[21] 'Into pairis:' in pairs.

[22] 'Bodin in feir of weir:' arrayed in trappings of war.

[23] 'Chenyiet:' covered with chain-mail.

[24] 'Affeir:' aspect.

[25] 'Beft:' struck.

[26] 'Jaggit:' stabbed.

[27] 'Heft:' hilt.

[28] 'Freik:' fellows.

[29] 'Rowneris:' whisperers.

[30] 'Lesìngs:' lies.

[31] 'Quite:' quit.

[32] 'Ockerars:' usurers.

[33] 'Hood-pikes:' misers.

[34] 'Fother:' quantity.

[35] 'Flaucht:' flake.

[36] 'Tumit:' emptied.

[37] 'Prent:' stamp.

[38] 'Syne:' then.

[39] 'Sweirness:' laziness.

[40] 'Midding:' dunghill.

[41] 'Grunyie:' grunt.

[42] 'Bumbard:' indolent.

[43] 'Belly-huddroun:' gluttonous sloven.

[44] 'Slute daw:' slovenly drab.

[45] 'Duddroun:' sloven.

[46] 'Sounyie:' care.

[47] 'Chenyie:' chain.

[48] 'Rennyie:' rein.

[49] 'Lunyie:' back.

[50] 'Counyie:' apprehension.

[51] 'Bagged horse:' stallion.

[52] 'Sort:' number.

[53] 'Tramort:' corpse.

[54] 'Wame:' belly.

[55] 'Can and collep, cop and quart:' different names of

drinking-vessels.

[56] 'Wally-drag:' sot.

[57] 'Creish:' grease.

[58] 'Laip:' lap.

[59] 'Leveray:' desire to drink.

[60] 'But:' without.

[61] 'Wan:' got.

[62] 'Padyane:' pageant.

[63] 'Mac Fadyane:' name of some Highland laird.

[64] 'By he the Correnoch had done shout:' by the time that he had

raised the Correnoch, or cry of help.

[65] 'Ersch-men:' Highlanders.

[66] 'Roup:' croak.

[67] 'Deaved:' deafened.

[68] 'Smored:' smothered.

THE MERLE AND NIGHTINGALE.

In May, as that Aurora did upspring,

With crystal een[1] chasing the cluddës sable,

I heard a Merle[2] with merry notës sing

A song of love, with voice right comfortáble,

Against the orient beamis, amiable,

Upon a blissful branch of laurel green;

This was her sentence, sweet and delectable,

'A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

Under this branch ran down a river bright,

Of balmy liquor, crystalline of hue,

Against the heavenly azure skyis light,

Where did upon the other side pursue

A Nightingale, with sugar'd notës 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 notës glad, and glorious harmony,

This joyful merle, so salust[3] she the day,

While rung the woodis of her melody,

Saying, 'Awake, ye lovers of this May;

Lo, fresh Flora has flourish'd every spray,

As nature, has her taught, the noble queen,

The fields be clothed in a new array;

A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

Ne'er sweeter noise was heard with living man,

Than made this merry gentle nightingale;

Her sound went with the river as it ran,

Out through the fresh and flourish'd 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,[4] 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 saintis, grow old fiendis, but[5] fable;

Fy, hypocrite, in yearis' tenderness,

Against the law of kind[6] thou goes express,

That crooked age makes one with youth serene,

Whom nature of conditions made diverse:

A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

The Nightingale said, 'Fool, remember thee,

That both in youth and eild,[7] and every hour,

The love of God most dear to man should be;

That him, of nought, wrought like his own figour,

And died himself, from death him to succour;

Oh, whether was kythit[8] there true love or none?

He is most true and steadfast paramour,

And love is lost but upon him alone.'

The Merle said, 'Why put God so great beauty

In ladies, with such womanly havíng,

But if he would that they should loved be?

To love eke nature gave them incliníng,

And He of nature that worker was and king,

Would nothing frustir[9] put, nor let be seen,

Into his creature of his own making;

A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

The Nightingale said, 'Not to that behoof

Put God such beauty in a lady's face,

That she should have the thank therefor or love,

But He, the worker, that put in her such grace;

Of beauty, bounty, riches, time, or space,

And every goodness that been to come or gone

The thank redounds to him in every place:

All love is lost but upon God alone.'

'O Nightingale! it were a story nice,

That love should not depend on charity;

And, if that virtue contrar' be to vice,

Then love must be a virtue, as thinks me;

For, aye, to love envy must contrar' be:

God bade eke love thy neighbour from the spleen;[10]

And who than ladies sweeter neighbours be?

A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

The Nightingale said, 'Bird, why does thou rave?

Man may take in his lady such delight,

Him to forget that her such virtue gave,

And for his heaven receive her colour white:

Her golden tressed hairis redomite,[11]

Like to Apollo's beamis though they shone,

Should not him blind from love that is perfite;

All love is lost but upon God alone.'

The Merle said, 'Love is cause of honour aye,

Love makis cowards manhood to purchase,

Love makis knightis hardy at essay,

Love makis wretches full of largëness,

Love makis sweir[12] folks full of business,

Love makis sluggards fresh and well beseen,[13]

Love changes vice in virtuous nobleness;

A lusty life in Lovë's service been.'

The Nightingale said, 'True is the contrary;

Such frustis love it blindis men so far,

Into their minds it makis them to vary;

In false vain-glory they so drunken are,

Their wit is went, of woe they are not 'ware,

Till that all worship away be from them gone,

Fame, goods, and strength; wherefore well say I dare,

All love is lost but upon God alone.'

Then said the Merle, 'Mine error I confess:

This frustis love is all but vanity:

Blind ignorance me gave such hardiness,

To argue so against the verity;

Wherefore I counsel every man that he

With love not in the fiendis net be tone,[14]

But love the love that did for his love die:

All love is lost but upon God alone.'

Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,

The Merle sang, 'Man, love God that has thee wrought.'

The Nightingale sang, 'Man, love the Lord most dear,

That thee and all this world made of nought.'

The Merle said, 'Love him that thy love has sought

From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone.'

The Nightingale sang, 'And with his death thee bought:

All love is lost but upon him alone.'

Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen,

Singing of love among the leavës small;

Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein,[15]

Both sleeping, waking, in rest and in travail;

Me to recomfort most it does avail,

Again for love, when love I can find none,

To think how sung this Merle and Nightingale;

'All love is lost but upon God alone.'

[1] 'Een:' eyes.

[2] 'Merle:' blackbird.

[3] 'Salust:' saluted.

[4] 'Tint:' lost.

[5] 'But:' without.

[6] 'Kind:' nature.

[7] 'Eild:' age.

[8] 'Kythit:' shewn.

[9] 'Frustrir:' in vain.

[10] 'Spleen:' from the heart.

[11] 'Redomite:' bound, encircled.

[12] 'Sweir:' slothful.

[13] 'Well beseen:' of good appearance.

[14] 'Tone:' taken.

[15] 'Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein:' whose close

disputation made my thoughts yearn.

GAVIN DOUGLAS.

This eminent prelate was a younger son of Archibald, the fifth Earl of

Angus. He was born in Brechin about the year 1474. He studied at the

University of Paris. He became a churchman, and yet united with

attention to the duties of his calling great proficiency in polite

learning. In 1513 he finished a translation, into Scottish verse, of

Virgil's 'Aeneid,' which, considering the age, is an extraordinary

performance. It occupied him only sixteen months. The multitude of

obsolete terms, however, in which it abounds, renders it now, as a

whole, illegible. After passing through various subordinate offices,

such as the 'Provostship' of St Giles's, Edinburgh, and the 'Abbotship'

of Arbroath, he was at length appointed Bishop of Dunkeld. Dunkeld was

not then the paradise it has become, but Birnam hill and the other

mountains then, as now, stood round about it, the old Cathedral rose up

in mediaeval majesty, and the broad, smooth Tay flowed onward to the

ocean. And, doubtless, Douglas felt the poetic inspiration from it quite

as warmly as did Thomas Brown, when, three centuries afterwards, he set

up the staff of his summer rest at the beautiful Invar inn, and thence

delighted to diverge to the hundred scenes of enchantment which stretch

around. The good Bishop was an ardent politician as well as a poet, and

was driven, by his share in the troubles of the times, to flee from his

native land, and take refuge in the Court of Henry VIII. The King

received him kindly, and treated him with much liberality. In 1522 he

died at London of the plague, and was interred in the Savoy Church.

He was, according to Buchanan, about to proceed to Rome to vindicate

himself before the Pope against certain charges brought by his enemies.

Besides the translation of the 'Aeneid,' Douglas is the author of a long

poem entitled the 'Palace of Honour;' it is an allegory, describing

a large company making a pilgrimage to Honour's Palace. It bears

considerable resemblance to the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and some suppose

that Bunyan had seen it before composing his allegory. 'King Hart' is

another production of our poet's, of considerable length and merit. It

gives, metaphorically, a view of human life. Perhaps his best pieces are

his 'Prologues,' affixed to each book of the 'Aeneid.' From them we have

selected 'Morning in May' as a specimen. The closing lines are fine.

'Welcome the lord of light, and lamp of day,

Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green,

Welcome quickener of flourish'd flowers sheen,

Welcome support of every root and vein,

Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain,' &c.

Douglas must not be named with Dunbar in strength and grandeur of

genius. His power is more in expression than in conception, and hence

he has shone so much in translation. His version of the 'Aeneid' is the

first made of any classic into a British tongue, and is the worthy

progenitor of such minor miracles of poetical talent--all somewhat more

mechanical than inspired, and yet giving a real, though subordinate

glory to our literature-as Fairfax's 'Tasso,' Dryden's 'Virgil,' and

Pope's, Coper's, and Sotheby's 'Homer.' The fire in Douglas' original

verses is occasionally lost in smoke, and the meaning buried in flowery

verbiage. Still he was an honour alike to the Episcopal bench and the

Muse of Scotland. He was of amiable manners, gentle temperament, and a

noble and commanding appearance.

MORNING IN MAY.

As fresh Aurore, to mighty Tithon spouse,

Ished of[1] her saffron bed and ivor' house,

In cram'sy clad and grained violate,

With sanguine cape, and selvage purpurate,

Unshet[2] the windows of her largë hall,

Spread all with roses, and full of balm royal,

And eke the heavenly portis crystalline

Unwarps broad, the world to illumine;

The twinkling streamers of the orient

Shed purpour spraings,[3] with gold and azure ment;[4]

Eous, the steed, with ruby harness red,

Above the seas liftis forth his head,

Of colour sore,[5] and somedeal brown as berry,

For to alighten and glad our hemispery;

The flame out-bursten at the neisthirls,[6]

So fast Phaeton with the whip him whirls. * *

While shortly, with the blazing torch of day,

Abulyit[7] in his lemand[8] fresh array,

Forth of his palace royal ished Phoebus,

With golden crown and visage glorious,

Crisp hairs, bright as chrysolite or topaz;

For whose hue might none behold his face. * *

The aureate vanes of his throne soverain

With glittering glance o'erspread the oceane;

The largë floodës, lemand all of light,

But with one blink of his supernal sight.

For to behold, it was a glore to see

The stabled windis, and the calmed sea,

The soft season, the firmament serene,

The loune[9] illuminate air and firth amene. * *

And lusty Flora did her bloomis spread

Under the feet of Phoebus' sulyart[10] steed;

The swarded soil embrode with selcouth[11] hues,

Wood and forest, obumbratë with bews.[12] * *

Towers, turrets, kirnals,[13] and pinnacles high,

Of kirks, castles, and ilk fair city,

Stood painted, every fane, phiol,[14] and stage,[15]

Upon the plain ground by their own umbrage.

Of Aeolus' north blasts having no dreid,

The soil spread her broad bosom on-breid;

The corn crops and the beir new-braird

With gladsome garment revesting the yerd.[16] * *

The prai[17] besprent with springing sprouts disperse

For caller humours[18] on the dewy night

Rendering some place the gersë-piles[19] their light;

As far as cattle the lang summer's day

Had in their pasture eat and nip away;

And blissful blossoms in the bloomed yerd,

Submit their heads to the young sun's safeguard.

Ivy-leaves rank o'erspread the barmkin wall;

The bloomed hawthorn clad his pikis all;

Forth of fresh bourgeons[20] the wine grapës ying[21]

Endlong the trellis did on twistis hing;

The loukit buttons on the gemmed trees

O'erspreading leaves of nature's tapestries;

Soft grassy verdure after balmy showers,

On curling stalkis smiling to their flowers. * *

The daisy did on-breid her crownal small,

And every flower unlapped in the dale. * *

Sere downis small on dentilion sprang.

The young green bloomed strawberry leaves amang;

Jimp jeryflowers thereon leaves unshet,

Fresh primrose and the purpour violet; * *

Heavenly lilies, with lockerand toppis white,

Open'd and shew their crestis redemite. * *

A paradise it seemed to draw near

These galyard gardens and each green herbere.

Most amiable wax the emerald meads;

Swarmis soughis throughout the respand reeds,

Over the lochis and the floodis gray,

Searching by kind a place where they should lay.

Phoebus' red fowl,[22] his cural crest can steer,

Oft stretching forth his heckle, crowing clear.

Amid the wortis and the rootis gent

Picking his meat in alleys where he went,

His wivës Toppa and Partolet him by--

A bird all-time that hauntis bigamy.

The painted powne[23] pacing with plumës gym,

Cast up his tail a proud pleasand wheel-rim,

Yshrouded in his feathering bright and sheen,

Shaping the print of Argus' hundred een.

Among the bowis of the olive twists,

Sere[24] small fowls, working crafty nests,

Endlong the hedges thick, and on rank aiks[25]

Ilk bird rejoicing with their mirthful makes.

In corners and clear fenestres[26] of glass,

Full busily Arachne weaving was,

To knit her nettis and her webbis sly,

Therewith to catch the little midge or fly.

So dusty powder upstours[27] in every street,

While corby gasped for the fervent heat.

Under the boughis bene[28] in lovely vales,

Within fermance and parkis close of pales,

The busteous buckis rakis forth on raw,

Herdis of hartis through the thick wood-shaw.

The young fawns following the dun does,

Kids, skipping through, runnis after roes.

In leisurs and on leais, little lambs

Full tait and trig sought bleating to their dams.

On salt streams wolk[29] Dorida and Thetis,

By running strandis, Nymphis and Naiadis,

Such as we clepe wenches and damasels,

In gersy[30] groves wandering by spring wells;

Of bloomed branches and flowers white and red,

Platting their lusty chaplets for their head.

Some sang ring-songës, dances, leids,[31] and rounds.

With voices shrill, while all thel dale resounds.

Whereso they walk into their carolling,

For amorous lays does all the rockis ring.

One sang, 'The ship sails over the salt faem,

Will bring the merchants and my leman hame.'

Some other sings, 'I will be blithe and light,

My heart is lent upon so goodly wight.'[32]

And thoughtful lovers rounis[33] to and fro,

To leis[34] their pain, and plain their jolly woe;

After their guise, now singing, now in sorrow,

With heartis pensive the long summer's morrow.

Some ballads list indite of his lady;

Some lives in hope; and some all utterly

Despaired is, and so quite out of grace,

His purgatory he finds in every place. * *

Dame Nature's minstrels, on that other part,

Their blissful lay intoning every art, * *

And all small fowlis singis on the spray,

Welcome the lord of light, and lamp of day,

Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green,

Welcome quickener of flourish'd flowers sheen,

Welcome support of every root and vein,

Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain,

Welcome the birdis' bield[35] upon the brier,

Welcome master and ruler of the year,

Welcome welfare of husbands at the ploughs,

Welcome repairer of woods, trees, and boughs,

Welcome depainter of the bloomed meads,

Welcome the life of every thing that spreads,

Welcome storer of all kind bestial,

Welcome be thy bright beamis, gladding all. * *

[1] 'Ished of:' issued from.

[2] 'Unshet:' opened.

[3] 'Spraings:' streaks.

[4] 'Ment:' mingled.

[5] 'Sore:' yellowish brown.

[6] 'Neisthirls:' nostrils.

[7] 'Abulyit:' attired.

[8] 'Lemand:' glittering.

[9] 'Loune:' calm.

[10] 'Sulyart:' sultry.

[11] 'Selcouth:' uncommon.

[12] 'Bews:' boughs.

[13] 'Kirnals:' battlements.

[14] 'Phiol:' cupola.

[15] 'Stage:' storey.

[16] 'Yerd:' earth.

[17] 'Prai:' meadow.

[18] 'Caller humours:' cool vapours.

[19] 'Gersë:' grass.

[20] 'Bourgeons:' sprouts.

[21] 'Ying:' young.

[22] 'Red fowl:' the cook.

[23] 'Powne:' the peacock.

[24] 'Sere:' many.

[25] 'Aiks:' oaks.

[26] 'Fenestres:' windows.

[27] 'Upstours:' rises in clouds.

[28] 'Bene:' snug.

[29] 'Wolk:' walked.

[30] 'Gersy:' grassy.

[31] 'Leids:' lays.

[32] Songs then popular.

[33] 'Rounis:' whisper.

[34] 'Leis:' relieve.

[35] 'Bield:' shelter.

HAWES, BARCLAY, &c.

Stephen Hawes, a native of Suffolk, wrote about the close of the

fifteenth century. He studied at Oxford, and travelled much in France,

where he became a master of French and Italian poetry. King Henry VII.,

struck with his conversation and the readiness with which he repeated

old English poets, especially Lydgate, created him groom of the privy

chamber. Hawes has written a number of poems, such as 'The Temple of

Glasse,' 'The Conversion of Swearers,' 'The Consolation of Lovers,' 'The

Pastime of Pleasure,' &c. Those who wish to see specimens of the strange

allegories and curious devices of thought in which it abounds, may find

them in Warton's 'History of English Poetry.'

In that same valuable work we find an account of Alexander Barclay, author

of 'The Ship of Fools.' He was educated at Oriel College in Oxford, and

after travelling abroad, was appointed one of the priests or prebendaries

of the College of St Mary Ottery, in Devonshire--a parish famous in later

days for the birth of Coleridge. Barclay became afterwards a Benedictine

monk of Ely monastery; and at length a brother of the Order of St Francis,

at Canterbury. He died, a very old man, at Croydon, in Surrey, in the year

1552. His principal work, 'The Ship of Fools,' is a satire upon the vices

and absurdities of his age, and shews considerable wit and power of

sarcasm.

SKELTON.

John Skelton is the name of the next poet. He flourished in the earlier

part of the reign of Henry VIII. Having studied both at Oxford and

Cambridge, and been laureated at the former university in 1489, he was

promoted to the rectory of Diss or Dysse, in Norfolk. Some say he had

acted previously as tutor to Henry VIII. At Dysse he attracted attention

by satirical ballads against the mendicants, as well as by licences of

buffoonery in the pulpit. For these he was censured, and even, it is

said, suspended, by Nykke, Bishop of Norwich. Undaunted by this, he flew

at higher game--ventured to ridicule Cardinal Wolsey, then in his power,

and had to take refuge from the myrmidons of the prelate in Westminster

Abbey. There Abbot Islip kindly entertained and protected him till his

dying day. He breathed his last in the year 1529, and was buried in the

adjacent church of St Margaret's.

Skelton as well as Barclay enjoyed considerable popularity in his own

age. Erasmus calls him 'Britannicarum literarum lumen et decus!' How

dark must have been the night in which such a Will-o'-wisp was mistaken

for a star! He has wit, indeed, and satirical observation; but his wit

is wilder than it is strong, and his satire is dashed with personality

and obscenity. His style, Campbell observes, is 'almost a texture of

slang phrases, patched with shreds of French and Latin.' His verses on

Margaret Hussey, which we have quoted, are in his happiest vein. The

following lines, too, on Cardinal Wolsey, are as true as they are

terse:--

'Then in the Chamber of Stars

All matter there he mars.

Clapping his rod on the board,

No man dare speak a word.

For he hath all the saying,

Without any renaying.

He rolleth in his recòrds;

He sayeth, How say ye, my Lords?

Is not my reason good?

Good even, good Robin Hood.

Some say, Yes; and some

Sit still, as they were dumb.'

It is curious that Wolsey's enemies, in one of their charges against him

in the Parliament of 1529, have repeated, almost in the words of Skelton,

the same accusation.

TO MISTRESS MARGARET HUSSEY.

Merry Margaret,

As midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower;

With solace and gladness,

Much mirth and no madness,

All good and no badness;

So joyously,

So maidenly,

So womanly,

Her demeaning,

In everything,

Far, far passing,

That I can indite,

Or suffice to write,

Of merry Margaret,

As midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower;

As patient and as still,

And as full of good-will,

As fair Isiphil,

Coliander,

Sweet Pomander,

Good Cassander;

Steadfast of thought,

Well made, well wrought.

Far may be sought,

Ere you can find

So courteous, so kind,

As merry Margaret,

This midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower.

SIR DAVID LYNDSAY.

Returning to Scotland, we find a Skelton of a higher order and a

brawnier make in Sir David Lyndsay, or, as our forefathers were wont

familiarly to denominate him, 'Davie Lyndsay.' Lyndsay was descended

from a noble family, a younger branch of Lyndsay of the Byres, and born

in 1490, probably at the Mount, the family-seat, near Cupar-Fife. He

entered the University of St Andrews in the year 1505, and four years

later left it to travel in Italy. He must, however, have returned to

Scotland before the 12th of October 1511, since we learn from the

records of the Lord Treasurer that he was presented with a quantity of

'blue and yellow taffety to be a playcoat for the play performed in the

King and Queen's presence in the Abbey of Holyrood.' On the 12th of

April 1512, Lyndsay, then twenty-two years of age, was appointed

gentleman-usher to James V., who had been born that very day. In his

poem called 'The Dream,' he reminds the King of his having borne him

in his arms ere he could walk; of having wrapped him up warmly in his

little bed; of having sung to him with his lute, danced before him to

make him laugh, and having carried him on his shoulders like a 'pedlar

his pack.' He continued to be page and companion to the King till 1524,

when, in consequence of the unprincipled machinations of the Queen-

mother--who was acting as Regent--he, as well as Bellenden, the learned

translator of Livy and Boece, was ejected from his office. When, however,

in 1528, the young King, by a noble effort, emancipated himself from the

thraldom of his mother and the Douglasses, Lyndsay wrote his 'Dream,' in

which, amidst much poetic or fantastic matter, he congratulates James on

his deliverance; reminds him, as aforesaid, of his early services; and

takes occasion to paint the evils the country had endured during his

minority, and to give him some bold and salutary advice as to his future

conduct. The next year (1529) he produced 'The Complaint,' a poem in

which he recurs to former themes, and remonstrates with great freedom

and severity against the treatment he had undergone. Here, too, the

religious reformer peeps out. He exhorts the King to compel the clergy

to attend to the duties of their office; to preach more earnestly; to

administer the sacraments according to the institution of Christ; and not

to deceive their people with superstitious pilgrimages, vain traditions,

and prayers to graven images, contrary to the written command of God. He

with quaint iron says, that if his Grace will lend him

'Of gold ane thousand pound or tway,'

he will give him a sealed bond, obliging himself to repay the loan when

the Bass and the Isle of May are set upon Mount Sinai; or the Lomond

hills, near Falkland, are removed to Northumberland; or

'When kirkmen yairnis [desire] na dignity,

Nor wives na soveranitie.'

Still finer the last lines of the poem. 'If not,' he says, 'my God

'Shall cause me stand content

With quiet life and sober rent,

And take me, in my latter age,

Unto my simple hermitage,

To spend the gear my elders won,

As did Diogenes in his tun.'

This 'Complaint' proved successful, and in the next year (1530) Lyndsay

was appointed Lion King-at-Arms--an office of great dignity in these

days. The Lion was the chief judge of all matters connected with

heraldry in the realm; was also the official ambassador from his

sovereign to foreign countries; and was inaugurated in his office with

a pomp and circumstance little inferior to those of a royal coronation,

the King crowning him with his own hands, anointing him with wine

instead of oil, and putting on his head the Royal Crown of Scotland,

which he continued to wear till the close of the feast. It is of Lyndsay

in the full accoutrements of this office that Sir Walter Scott speaks in

his 'Marmion,' although he antedates by sixteen years the time when he

assumed it:--

'He was a man of middle age,

In aspect manly, grave, and sage,

As on king's errand come;

But in the glances of his eye,

A penetrating, keen, and sly

Expression found its home--

The flash of that satiric rage

Which, bursting on the early stage,

Branded the vices of the age,

And broke the keys of Rome.

On milk-white palfrey forth he paced;

His cap of maintenance was graced

With the proud heron-plume;

From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast

Silk housings swept the ground,

With Scotland's arms, device, and crest

Embroider'd round and round.

The double treasure might you see,

First by Achaius borne,

The thistle and the fleur-de-lis,

And gallant unicorn.

So bright the king's armorial coat,

That scarce the dazzled eye could note;

In living colours, blazon'd brave,

The lion, which his title gave.

A train which well beseem'd his state,

But all unarm'd, around him wait;

Still is thy name in high account,

And still thy verse has charms,

Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,

Lord Lion King-at-Arms.'

Soon after this appointment, Lyndsay wrote 'The Complaint of the King's

Papingo,' in which, through the mouth of a dying parrot, he gives some

sharp counsel to the king, his courtiers and nobles, and administers

severe satirical chastisement to the corruptions of the clergy. It is an

exceedingly clever production, and has some beautiful poetry as well as

stinging sarcasm. Take the following address to Edinburgh, Stirling,

Linlithgow, and Falkland:--

Adieu, Edinburgh! thou high triumphant town,

Within whose bounds right blitheful have I been;

Of true merchandis, the rule of this region,

Most ready to receive court, king, and queen;

Thy policy and justice may be seen;

Were devotion, wisdom, and honesty,

And credence tint, they micht be found in thee.

Adieu, fair Snawdoun! [Stirling] with thy towers hie,

Thy chapel-royal, park, and table round;

May, June, and July would I dwell in thee,

Were I a man to hear the birdis sound,

Which doth against the royal rock rebound.

Adieu, Lithgow! whose palace of pleasance

Meets not its peer in Portingale or France.

Farewell, Falkland! the forteress of Fife,

Thy velvet park under the Lomond Law;

Sometime in thee I led a lusty life.

The fallow deer to see them raik on raw [walk in a row],

Caust men to come to thee, they have great awe, &c.

In the year 1535, Lyndsay wrote his remarkable drama, 'The Satire of the

Three Estates'--Monarch, namely, Barons, and Clergy. It is made up in

nearly three equal parts of ingenuity, wit, and grossness. It is a drama,

and was acted several times--first, in 1535, at Cupar-Fife, on a large

green mound called Moot-hill; then, in 1539, in an open park near

Linlithgow, by the express desire of the king, who with all the ladies

of the Court attended the representation; then in the amphitheatre of

St Johnston in Perth; and in 1554, at Edinburgh, in the village of

Greenside, which skirted the northern base of the Calton Hill, in the

presence of the Queen Regent and an enormous concourse of spectators.

Its exhibition appears to have occupied nearly the whole day. In the

'Pictorial History of Scotland,' chapter xxiv., our readers will find a

full and able analysis with extracts of this extraordinary performance.

It is said to have done much good in opening the eyes of the people to

the evils of the Papacy, and in paving the way for the Reformation.

In 1536 Sir David, in company with Sir John Campbell of Lundie, was sent

to the Court of France to demand in marriage for James V. a daughter of

the House of Vendome; but the King chose rather to take the matter in

his own hands, and, going over in person, wedded Magdalene, daughter of

Francis. She died two months after her arrival in Scotland, universally

regretted; and Lyndsay made the sad event the subject of a poem,

entitled 'Deploration of the Death of Queen Magdalene,' whom he

designates

'The flower of France, and comfort of Scotland.'

When James subsequently married Mary of Guise, Sir David's ingenuity was

strained to the utmost in providing pageants, masques, and shows to

welcome her Majesty. For forty days in St Andrews, festivities continued;

and it was during this prolonged festival that the Lion King, as if sick

and satiated with vanities, wrote two poems, one entitled 'The Justing

between James Watson and John Barbour,' a dull satire on tournaments, &c.,

and the other a somewhat cleverer piece, entitled 'Supplication directed

to the King's Grace in Contemptioun of Side Tails,' the long trains then

worn by the ladies. It met, we presume,with the fate of _Punch's_ sarcasms

against crinoline,--the 'phylacteries' would for a season, instead of

being lessened, be enlarged, till Fashion lifted up her omnipotent rod,

and told it to be otherwise.

King James died prematurely on the 14th of December 1542, and Lyndsay

closed his eyes at Falkland, and mourned for him as a brother. From that

day forth he probably felt that there was 'less sunshine in the sky for

him.' In the troublous times which succeeded this, he had to retire for

a season from the Court, having become obnoxious to the rigid Papists on

account of his writings. After the death of Cardinal Beatoun he wrote

the tragedy of 'The Cardinal,' a poem in which the spectre of the

Cardinal is the spokesman, and which teems with good advice to all and

sundry. The execution, however, is not so felicitous as the plan. In

1548 Lyndsay went to Denmark to negotiate a free trade with Scotland. On

his return in 1550 he wrote his very pleasing and chivalric 'History of

Squire Meldrum,' founded on the actual adventures of William Meldrum,

the Laird of Cleish and Binns, a distinguished friend of the poet, who

had gained laurels as a warrior both in Scotland and in France. This

poem is, in a measure, an anticipation of the rhymed romances of Scott,

and is full of picturesque description and spirit-stirring adventure. In

1553 he completed his last and most elaborate work, which had occupied

him for years, entitled 'The Monarchic,' containing an account of the

most famous monarchies which have existed on earth, and carrying on the

history to the general judgment. From this date we almost entirely lose

sight of our poet. He seems to have retired into private life, and is

supposed to have died about the close of 1557. He was probably buried in

the family vault at Ceres, but no stone marks the spot. Dying without

issue, his estates passed to his brother Alexander, and were continued

in the possession of his descendants till the middle of last century.

They now belong to the Hopes of Rankeillour. The office of Lord Lion was

held by two of the poet's relatives successively--Sir David, his

nephew, who became Lion King in 1591, and his son-in-law, Sir Jerome

Lyndsay, who succeeded to it in 1621.

Sir David Lyndsay, unlike most satirists, was a good, a blameless, and a

religious man. The occasional loftiness of his poetic vein, the breadth

of his humour, the purity of his purpose, and his strong reforming zeal

combined to make his poetry exceedingly popular in Scotland for a number

of ages, particularly among the lower orders. Scott introduces Andrew

Fairservice, in 'Rob Roy,' saying, in reference to Francis Osbaldistone's

poetical efforts, 'Gude help him! twa lines o' Davie Lyndsay wad ding a'

he ever clerkit,' and even still there are districts of the country where

his name is a household word.

MELDRUM'S DUEL WITH THE ENGLISH CHAMPION TALBART.

Then clarions and trumpets blew,

And warriors many hither drew;

On every side came many man

To behold who the battle wan.

The field was in the meadow green,

Where every man might well be seen:

The heralds put them so in order,

That no man pass'd within the border,

Nor press'd to come within the green,

But heralds and the champions keen;

The order and the circumstance

Were long to put in remembrance.

When these two noble men of weir

Were well accoutred in their geir,

And in their handis strong burdouns,[1]

Then trumpets blew and clariouns,

And heralds cried high on height,

'Now let them go--God show the right.'

* * * * *

Then trumpets blew triumphantly,

And these two champions eagerly,

They spurr'd their horse with spear on breast,

Pertly[2] to prove their pith they press'd.

That round rink-room[3] was at utterance,

But Talbart's horse with a mischance

He outterit,[4] and to run was loth;

Whereof Talbart was wonder wroth.

The Squier forth his rink[5] he ran,

Commended well with every man,

And him discharged of his spear

Honestly, like a man of weir.

* * * * *

The trenchour[6] of the Squier's spear

Stuck still into Sir Talbart's geir;

Then every man into that stead[7]

Did all believe that he was dead.

The Squier leap'd right hastily

From his courser deliverly,[8]

And to Sir Talbart made support,

And humillie[9] did him comfort.

When Talbart saw into his shield

An otter in a silver field,

'This race,' said he, 'I sore may rue,

For I see well my dream was true;

Methought yon otter gart[10] me bleed,

And bore me backward from my steed;

But here I vow to God soverain,

That I shall never joust again.'

And sweetly to the Squier said,

'Thou know'st the cunning[11] that we made,

Which of us two should tyne[12] the field,

He should both horse and armour yield

To him that won, wherefore I will

My horse and harness give thee till.'

Then said the Squier, courteously,

'Brother, I thank you heartfully;

Of you, forsooth, nothing I crave,

For I have gotten that I would have.'

[1] 'Burdouns:' spears.

[2] 'Pertly:' boldly.

[3] 'Rink-room:' course-room.

[4] 'Outterit:' swerved.

[5] 'Kink:' course.

[6] 'Trencliour:' head.

[7] 'Stead:' place.

[8] 'Deliverly:' actively.

[9] 'Humillie:' humbly.

[10] 'Gart:' made.

[11] 'Cunning:' agreement.

[12] 'Tyne:' lose.

SUPPLICATION IN CONTEMPTION OF SIDE TAILS,[1] (1538.)

Sovereign, I mene[2] of these side tails,

Whilk through the dust and dubbës trails,

Three quarters lang behind their heels,

Express against all commonweals.

Though bishops, in their pontificals,

Have men for to bear up their tails,

For dignity of their office;

Right so a queen or an emprice;

Howbeit they use such gravity,

Conforming to their majesty,

Though their robe-royals be upborne,

I think it is a very scorn,

That every lady of the land

Should have her tail so side trailand;

Howbeit they be of high estate,

The queen they should not counterfeit.

Wherever they go it may be seen

How kirk and causey they sweep clean.

The images into the kirk

May think of their side tailës irk;[3]

For when the weather be most fair,

The dust flies highest into the air,

And all their faces does begary,

If they could speak, they would them wary. * *

But I have most into despite

Poor claggocks[4] clad in raploch[5] white,

Whilk has scant two merks for their fees,

Will have two ells beneath their knees.

Kittock that cleckit[6] was yestreen,

The morn will counterfeit the queen. * *

In barn nor byre she will not bide,

Without her kirtle tail be side.

In burghs, wanton burgess wives

Who may have sidest tailës strives,

Well bordered with velvet fine,

But following them it is a pine:

In summer, when the streetës dries,

They raise the dust above the skies;

None may go near them at their ease,

Without they cover mouth and neese. * *

I think most pain after a rain,

To see them tucked up again;

Then when they step forth through the street,

Their faldings flaps about their feet;

They waste more cloth, within few years,

Nor would cleid[7] fifty score of freirs. * *

Of tails I will no more indite,

For dread some duddron[8] me despite:

Notwithstanding, I will conclude,

That of side tails can come no good,

Sider nor[9] may their ankles hide,

The remanent proceeds of pride,

And pride proceedis of the devil;

Thus alway they proceed of evil.

Another fault, Sir, may be seen,

They hide their face all but the een;

When gentlemen bid them good-day,

Without reverence they slide away. * *

Without their faults be soon amended,

My flyting,[10] Sir, shall never be ended;

But would your grace my counsel take,

A proclamation ye should make,

Both through the land and burrowstowns,

To show their face and cut their gowns.

Women will say, This is no bourds,[11]

To write such vile and filthy words;

But would they cleanse their filthy tails,

Whilk over the mires and middings[12] trails,

Then should my writing cleansed be,

None other' mends they get of me.

Quoth Lyndsay, in contempt of the side tails,

That duddrons[13] and duntibours[14] through the dubbës trails.

[1] 'Side tails:' long skirts.

[2] 'Mene:' complain.

[3] 'Irk:' May feel annoyed.

[4] 'Claggocks:' draggle-tails.

[5] 'Raploch:' homespun.

[6] 'Cleckit:' born.

[7] 'Cleid:' clothe.

[8] 'Duddron:' slut.

[9] 'Nor:' than.

[10] 'Flyting:' scolding.

[11] 'Bourds:' jest.

[12] 'Middings:' dunghills.

[13] 'Duddrons:' sluts.

[14] 'Duntibours:' harlots.

THOMAS TUSSER.

Of Tusser we know only that he was horn in the year 1523, was well

educated, commenced life as a courtier under the patronage of Lord

Paget, but became a farmer, pursuing agriculture at Ratwood in Sussex,

Ipswich, Fairsted in Essex, Norwich, and other places; that he was not

successful, and had to betake himself to other occupations, such as

those of a chorister, fiddler, &c.; and that, finally, he died a poor

man in London in the year 1580. Tusser has left only one work, published

in 1557, entitled 'A Hundred Good Points of Husbandrie,' written in

simple but sometimes strong verse. It is our first, and not our worst

didactic poem.

DIRECTIONS FOR CULTIVATING A HOP-GARDEN.

Whom fancy persuadeth, among other crops,

To have for his spending sufficient of hops,

Must willingly follow, of choices to choose,

Such lessons approved as skilful do use.

Ground gravelly, sandy, and mixed with clay,

Is naughty for hops, any manner of way.

Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone,

For dryness and barrenness let it alone.

Choose soil for the hop of the rottenest mould,

Well dunged and wrought, as a garden-plot should;

Not far from the water, but not overflown,

This lesson, well noted, is meet to be known.

The sun in the south, or else southly and west,

Is joy to the hop, as a welcomed guest;

But wind in the north, or else northerly east,

To the hop is as ill as a fray in a feast.

Meet plot for a hop-yard once found as is told,

Make thereof account, as of jewel of gold;

Now dig it, and leave it, the sun for to burn,

And afterwards fence it, to serve for that turn.

The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,

It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth malt;

And being well brew'd, long kept it will last,

And drawing abide--if ye draw not too fast.

HOUSEWIFELY PHYSIC.

Good housewife provides, ere a sickness do come,

Of sundry good things in her house to have some.

Good _aqua composita_, and vinegar tart,

Rose-water, and treacle, to comfort thine heart.

Cold herbs in her garden, for agues that burn,

That over-strong heat to good temper may turn.

White endive, and succory, with spinach enow;

All such with good pot-herbs, should follow the plough.

Get water of fumitory, liver to cool,

And others the like, or else lie like a fool.

Conserves of barbary, quinces, and such,

With sirops, that easeth the sickly so much.

Ask _Medicus'_ counsel, ere medicine ye take,

And honour that man for necessity's sake.

Though thousands hate physic, because of the cost,

Yet thousands it helpeth, that else should be lost.

Good broth, and good keeping, do much now and than:

Good diet, with wisdom, best comforteth man.

In health, to be stirring shall profit thee best;

In sickness, hate trouble; seek quiet and rest.

Remember thy soul; let no fancy prevail;

Make ready to God-ward; let faith never quail:

The sooner thyself thou submittest to God,

The sooner he ceaseth to scourge with his rod.

MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE WIND.

Though winds do rage, as winds were wood,[1]

And cause spring-tides to raise great flood;

And lofty ships leave anchor in mud,

Bereaving many of life and of blood:

Yet, true it is, as cow chews cud,

And trees, at spring, doth yield forth bud,

Except wind stands as never it stood,

It is an ill wind turns none to good.

[1] 'Wood:' mad.

VAUX, EDWARDS, &c.

In Tottell's 'Miscellany,' the first of the sort in the English language,

published in 1557, although the names of many of the authors are not

given, the following writers are understood to have contributed:--Sir

Francis Bryan, a friend of Wyatt's, one of the principal ornaments of the

Court of Henry VIII., and who died, in 1548, Chief Justiciary of Ireland;

George Boleyn, Earl of Rochford, the amiable brother of the famous Anne

Boleyn, and who fell a victim to the insane jealousy of Henry, being

beheaded in 1536; and Lord Thomas Vaux, son of Nicholas Vaux, who died

in the latter end of Queen Mary's reign. In the same Miscellany is found

'Phillide and Harpalus,' the 'first true pastoral,' says Warton, 'in the

English language,' (see 'Specimens.') To it are annexed, too, a

collection of 'Songes, written by N. G.,' which means Nicholas Grimoald,

an Oxford man, renowned for his rhetorical lectures in Christ Church,

and for being, after Surrey, our first writer of blank verse, in the

modulation of which he excelled even Surrey. Henry himself, who was an

expert musician, is said also to have composed a book of sonnets and one

madrigal in praise of Anne Boleyn. In the same reign occur the names of

Borde, Bale, Bryan, Annesley, John Rastell, Wilfred Holme, and Charles

Bansley, all writers of minor and forgotten poems. John Heywood, called

the Epigrammatist, was of a somewhat higher order. He was the favourite

of Sir Thomas More and the pensioner of Henry VIII. He gained favour

partly through his conversational humour, and partly through his writings.

He is the author of various comedies; of six hundred epigrams, most of

them very poor; of a dialogue, in verse, containing all the proverbs then

afloat in the language; of an apologue, entitled 'The Spider and the Fly,'

&c. Heywood, who was a rigid Papist, left the kingdom after the decease

of Queen Mary, and died at Mechlin, in Brabant, in 1565. Warton has

preserved some specimens of Sir Thomas More's poetry, which do not add

much to our conception of his genius. In 1542, one Robert Vaughan wrote

an alliterative poem, entitled 'The Falcon and the Pie.' In 1521, 'The

Not-browne Maid,' (given by us in 'Percy's Reliques,') appeared in a

curious collection, called 'Arnolde's Chronicle, or Customs of London.'

In the same year Wynkyn de Worde printed a set of 'Christmas Carols,' and

in 1529 'A Treatise of Merlin, or his Prophecies in Verse.' In Henry's

days, too, there commences the long line of translators of the Psalms

into English metre, commencing with Thomas Sternhold, groom of the robes

to the King, who versified fifty-one psalms, which were published in 1549,

and with John Hopkins, a clergyman and schoolmaster in Suffolk, who added

fifty-eight more, and progressing with Whyttingham, Thomas Norton, (the

joint author, along with Lord Buckhurst, of the curious old tragedy of

'Gorboduc,') Robert Wisdome, William Hunnis, William Baldwyn, Parker, the

scholarly and celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. &c. Parker trans-

lated all the Psalms himself; and John Day published in 1562, and attached

to the Book of Common Prayer, the whole of Sternhold and Hopkins' 'Psalms,

with apt notes to sing them withall.' In Edward's reign appeared a very

different strain--the first drinking-song of merit in the language, 'Back

and sides go bare'--(see 'Specimens,' vol. 2.) This song occurs at the

opening of the second act of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' a comedy written

(by a 'Mr S.') and printed in 1551, and afterwards acted at Christ's

College in Cambridge.

In the reign of Mary, flourished Richard Edwards, a man of no small

versatility of genius. He was a native of Somersetshire, was born about

1523, and died in 1566. He wrote two comedies, one entitled 'Damon and

Pythias,' and the other 'Palamon and Arcité,' both of which were acted

before Queen Elizabeth. He also contrived masques and wrote verses for

pageants, and is said to have been the first fiddler, the most elegant

sonnetteer, and the most amusing mimic of the Court. He is the author of

a pleasing poem, entitled 'Amantium irae,' and of some lines under the

title, 'He requesteth some friendly comfort, affirming his constancy.'

We quote a few of them:--

'The mountains nigh, whose lofty tops do meet the haughty sky,

The craggy rock, that to the sea free passage doth deny,

The aged oak, that doth resist the force of blust'ring blast,

The pleasant herb, that everywhere a pleasant smell doth cast,

The lion's force, whose courage stout declares a prince-like might,

The eagle, that for worthiness is borne of kings in fight--

Then these, I say, and thousands more, by tract of time decay,

And, like to time, do quite consume and fade from form to clay;

But my true heart and service vow'd shall last time out of mind,

And still remain, as thine by doom, as Cupid hath assign'd.'

Edwards also contributed some beautiful things to the well-known old

collection, 'The Paradise of Dainty Devices.'

GEORGE GASCOIGNE.

Gascoigne was born in 1540, in Essex, of an ancient family. He was

educated at Cambridge, and entered at Gray's Inn, but was disinherited

by his father for extravagance, and betook himself to Holland, where

he obtained a commission from the Prince of Orange. After various

vicissitudes of fortune, being at one time taken prisoner by the

Spaniards, and at another receiving a reward from the Prince of three

hundred guilders above his pay for his brave conduct at the siege of

Middleburg, he returned to England. In 1575, he accompanied Queen

Elizabeth in one of her progresses, and wrote for her a mask, entitled

'The Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth.' He is said to have died at

Stamford in 1578. He is the author of two or three translated dramas,

such as 'The Supposes,' a comedy from Ariosto, and 'Jocasta,' a tragedy

from Euripides, besides some graceful and lively minor pieces, one or

two of which we append.

GOOD-MORROW.

You that have spent the silent night

In sleep and quiet rest,

And joy to see the cheerful light

That riseth in the east;

Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart,

Come help me now to sing:

Each willing wight come, bear a part,

To praise the heavenly King.

And you whom care in prison keeps,

Or sickness doth suppress,

Or secret sorrow breaks your sleeps,

Or dolours do distress;

Yet bear a part in doleful wise,

Yea, think it good accord,

And acceptable sacrifice,

Each sprite to praise the Lord.

The dreadful night with darksomeness

Had overspread the light;

And sluggish sleep with drowsiness

Had overpress'd our might:

A glass wherein you may behold

Each storm that stops our breath,

Our bed the grave, our clothes like mould,

And sleep like dreadful death.

Yet as this deadly night did last

But for a little space,

And heavenly day, now night is past,

Doth show his pleasant face:

So must we hope to see God's face,

At last in heaven on high,

When we have changed this mortal place

For immortality.

And of such haps and heavenly joys

As then we hope to hold,

All earthly sights, and worldly toys,

Are tokens to behold.

The day is like the day of doom,

The sun, the Son of man;

The skies, the heavens; the earth, the tomb,

Wherein we rest till than.

The rainbow bending in the sky,

Bedcck'd with sundry hues,

Is like the seat of God on high,

And seems to tell these news:

That as thereby He promised

To drown the world no more,

So by the blood which Christ hath shed,

He will our health restore.

The misty clouds that fall sometime,

And overcast the skies,

Are like to troubles of our time,

Which do but dim our eyes.

But as such dews are dried up quite,

When Phoebus shows his face,

So are such fancies put to flight,

Where God doth guide by grace.

The carrion crow, that loathsome beast,

Which cries against the rain,

Both for her hue, and for the rest,

The devil resembleth plain:

And as with guns we kill the crow,

For spoiling our relief,

The devil so must we o'erthrow,

With gunshot of belief.

The little birds which sing so sweet,

Are like the angels' voice,

Which renders God His praises meet,

And teach[1] us to rejoice:

And as they more esteem that mirth,

Than dread the night's annoy,

So much we deem our days on earth

But hell to heavenly joy.

Unto which joys for to attain,

God grant us all His grace,

And send us, after worldly pain,

In heaven to have a place,

When we may still enjoy that light,

Which never shall decay:

Lord, for thy mercy lend us might,

To see that joyful day.

[1] 'Teach:' _for_ teacheth.

GOOD-NIGHT.

When thou hast spent the ling'ring day

In pleasure and delight,

Or after toil and weary way,

Dost seek to rest at night;

Unto thy pains or pleasures past,

Add this one labour yet,

Ere sleep close up thine eyes too fast,

Do not thy God forget,

But search within thy secret thoughts,

What deeds did thee befall,

And if thou find amiss in aught,

To God for mercy call.

Yea, though thou findest nought amiss

Which thou canst call to mind,

Yet evermore remember this,

There is the more behind:

And think how well soe'er it be

That thou hast spent the day,

It came of God, and not of thee,

So to direct thy way.

Thus if thou try thy daily deeds,

And pleasure in this pain,

Thy life shall cleanse thy corn from weeds,

And thine shall be the gain:

But if thy sinful, sluggish eye,

Will venture for to wink,

Before thy wading will may try

How far thy soul may sink,

Beware and wake,[1] for else thy bed,

Which soft and smooth is made,

May heap more harm upon thy head

Than blows of en'my's blade.

Thus if this pain procure thine ease,

In bed as thou dost lie,

Perhaps it shall not God displease,

To sing thus soberly:

'I see that sleep is lent me here,

To ease my weary bones,

As death at last shall eke appear,

To ease my grievous groans.

'My daily sports, my paunch full fed,

Have caused my drowsy eye,

As careless life, in quiet led,

Might cause my soul to die:

The stretching arms, the yawning breath,

Which I to bedward use,

Are patterns of the pangs of death,

When life will me refuse;

'And of my bed each sundry part,

In shadows, doth resemble

The sundry shapes of death, whose dart

Shall make my flesh to tremble.

My bed it safe is, like the grave,

My sheets the winding-sheet,

My clothes the mould which I must have,

To cover me most meet.

'The hungry fleas, which frisk so fresh,

To worms I can compare,

Which greedily shall gnaw my flesh,

And leave the bones full bare:

The waking cock that early crows,

To wear the night away,

Puts in my mind the trump that blows

Before the latter day.

'And as I rise up lustily,

When sluggish sleep is past,

So hope I to rise joyfully,

To judgment at the last.

Thus will I wake, thus will I sleep,

Thus will I hope to rise,

Thus will I neither wail nor weep,

But sing in godly wise.

'My bones shall in this bed remain

My soul in God shall trust,

By whom I hope to rise again

From, death and earthly dust.'

[1] 'Wake:' watch.

THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST AND EARL OF DORSET.

This was a man of remarkable powers. He was the son of Sir Richard

Sackville, and born at Withyam, in Sussex, in 1527. He was educated and

became distinguished at both the universities. While a student of the

Inner Temple, he wrote, some say in conjunction with Thomas Norton, the

tragedy of 'Gorboduc,' which is probably the earliest original tragedy

in the English language. It was first played as part of a Christmas

entertainment by the young students, and subsequently before Queen

Elizabeth at Whitehall in 1561. Sackville was elected to Parliament when

thirty years of age. In the same year (1557) he formed the plan of a

magnificent poem, which, had he fully accomplished it, would have ranked

his name with Dante, Spenser, and Bunyan. This was his 'Mirrour for

Magistrates,' a poem intended to celebrate the chief of the illustrious

unfortunates in British history, such as King Richard II., Owen Glendower,

James I. of Scotland, Henry VI., Jack Cade, the Duke of Buckingham, &c.,

in a series of legends, supposed to be spoken by the characters them-

selves, and with epilogues interspersed to connect the stories. The work

aspired to be the English 'Decameron' of doom, and the part of it extant

is truly called by Campbell 'a bold and gloomy landscape, on which the

sun never shines.' Sackville had coadjutors in the work, all men of

considerable mark, such as Skelton, Baldwyn, a learned ecclesiastic, and

Ferrers, a man of rank. The first edition of the 'Mirrour for Magistrates'

appeared in 1559, and was wholly composed by Baldwyn and Ferrers. In the

second, which was issued in 1563, appeared the 'Induction and Legend of

Henry Duke of Buckingham' from Sackville's own pen. He lays the scene in

hell, and descends there under the guidance of Sorrow. His pictures are

more condensed than those of Spenser, although less so than those of Dante,

and are often startling in their power, and deep, desolate grandeur. Take

this, for instance, of 'Old Age:'--

'Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed,

Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four,

With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;

His scalp all piled, and he with eld forelore,

_His wither'd fist still knocking at Deaths door;_

Fumbling and drivelling, as he draws his breath;

For brief--the shape and messenger of Death.'

Politics diverted Sackville from poetry. This is deeply to be regretted,

as his poetic gift was of a very rare order. In 1566, on the death of his

father, he was promoted to the title of Lord Buckhurst. In the fourteenth

year of Elizabeth's reign he was employed by her in an embassy to Charles

IX. of France. In 1587 he went as an ambassador to the United Provinces.

He was subsequently made Knight of the Garter and Chancellor of Oxford. On

the death of Lord Burleigh he became Lord High Treasurer of England. In

March 1604 he was created Earl of Dorset by James I., but died suddenly

soon after, at the council table, of a disease of the brain. He was, as a

statesman, almost immaculate in reputation. Like Burke and Canning, in

later days, he carried taste and literary exactitude into his political

functions, and, on account of his eloquence, was called 'the Bell of the

Star-Chamber.' Even in that Augustan age of our history, and in that most

brilliantly intellectual Court, it may be doubted if, with the sole

exception of Lord Bacon, there was a man to be compared to Thomas

Sackville for genius.

ALLEGORICAL CHARACTERS FROM THE MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES.

And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,

Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent

With tears; and to herself oft would she tell

Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent

To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament

With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain,

Would wear and waste continually in pain:

Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there,

Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,

So was her mind continually in fear,

Toss'd and tormented with the tedious thought

Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;

With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,

Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,

With foot uncertain, proffer'd here and there;

Benumb'd with speech; and, with a ghastly look,

Search'd every place, all pale and dead for fear,

His cap borne up with staring of his hair;

'Stoin'd and amaz'd at his own shade for dread,

And fearing greater dangers than was need.

And next, within the entry of this lake,

Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire;

Devising means how she may vengeance take;

Never in rest, till she have her desire;

But frets within so far forth with the fire

Of wreaking flames, that now determines she

To die by death, or Veng'd by death to be.

When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence,

Had show'd herself, as next in order set,

With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,

Till in our eyes another set we met;

When from my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,

Ruing, alas! upon the woeful plight

Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight:

His face was lean, and some deal pined away

And eke his hands consumed to the bone;

But what his body was I cannot say,

For on his carcase raiment had he none,

Save clouts and patches pieced one by one;

With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,

His chief defence against the winter's blast:

His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree,

Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,

Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he,

As on the which full daint'ly would he fare;

His drink, the running stream, his cup, the bare

Of his palm closed; his bed, the hard cold ground:

To this poor life was Misery ybound.

Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,

With tender ruth on him, and on his feres,

In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;

And, by and by, another shape appears

Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers;

His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dinted in

With tawed hands, and hard ytanned skin:

The morrow gray no sooner hath begun

To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes,

But he is up, and to his work yrun;

But let the night's black misty mantles rise,

And with foul dark never so much disguise

The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while,

But hath his candles to prolong his toil.

By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,

Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,

A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath;

Small keep took he, whom Fortune frowned on,

Or whom she lifted up into the throne

Of high renown, but, as a living death,

So dead alive, of life he drew the breath:

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travel's ease, the still night's fere was he,

And of our life in earth the better part;

Riever of sight, and yet in whom we see

Things oft that [tyde] and oft that never be;

Without respect, esteeming equally

King Croesus' pomp and Irus' poverty.

And next in order sad, Old Age we found:

His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind;

With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,

As on the place where nature him assign'd

To rest, when that the sisters had untwined

His vital thread, and ended with their knife

The fleeting course of fast declining life:

There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint.

Rue with himself his end approaching fast,

And all for nought his wretched mind torment

With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past.

And fresh delights of lusty youth forewaste;

Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek,

And to be young again of Jove beseek!

But, an the cruel fates so fixed be

That time forepast cannot return again,

This one request of Jove yet prayed he

That in such wither'd plight, and wretched pain,

As eld, accompanied with her loathsome train,

Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,

He might a while yet linger forth his life,

And not so soon descend into the pit;

Where Death, when he the mortal corpse hath slain,

With reckless hand in grave doth cover it:

Thereafter never to enjoy again

The gladsome light, but, in the ground ylain,

In depth of darkness waste and wear to nought,

As he had ne'er into the world been brought:

But who had seen him sobbing how he stood

Unto himself, and how he would bemoan

His youth forepast--as though it wrought him good

To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone--

He would have mused, and marvell'd much whereon

This wretched Age should life desire so fain,

And knows full well life doth but length his pain:

Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed;

Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;

With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;

His scalp all piled,[1] and he with eld forelore,

His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door;

Fumbling, and drivelling, as he draws his breath;

For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.

And fast by him pale Malady was placed:

Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone;

Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste,

Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone;

Her breath corrupt; her keepers every one

Abhorring her; her sickness past recure,

Detesting physic, and all physic's cure.

But, oh, the doleful sight that then we see!

We turn'd our look, and on the other side

A grisly shape of Famine might we see:

With greedy looks, and gaping mouth, that cried

And roar'd for meat, as she should there have died;

Her body thin and bare as any bone,

Whereto was left nought but the case alone.

And that, alas! was gnawen everywhere,

All full of holes; that I ne might refrain

From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,

And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,

When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain

Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade

Than any substance of a creature made:

Great was her force, whom stone-wall could not stay:

Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;

With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay

Be satisfied from hunger of her maw,

But eats herself as she that hath no law;

Gnawing, alas! her carcase all in vain,

Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.

On her while we thus firmly fix'd our eyes,

That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,

Lo, suddenly she shriek'd in so huge wise

As made hell-gates to shiver with the might;

Wherewith, a dart we saw, how it did light

Right on her breast, and, therewithal, pale Death

Enthirling[2] it, to rieve her of her breath:

And, by and by, a dumb dead corpse we saw,

Heavy and cold, the shape of Death aright,

That daunts all earthly creatures to his law,

Against whose force in vain it is to fight;

No peers, nor princes, nor no mortal wight,

No towns, nor realms, cities, nor strongest tower,

But all, perforce, must yield unto his power:

His dart, anon, out of the corpse he took,

And in his hand (a dreadful sight to see)

With great triumph eftsoons the same he shook,

That most of all my fears affrayed me;

His body dight with nought but bones, pardy;

The naked shape of man there saw I plain,

All save the flesh, the sinew, and the vein.

Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,

With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:

In his right hand a naked sword he had,

That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued;

And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)

Famine and fire he held, and therewithal

He razed towns, and threw down towers and all:

Cities he sack'd, and realms (that whilom flower'd

In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest)

He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd,

Consumed, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceased,

Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd:

His face forhew'd with wounds; and by his side

There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide.

[1] 'Piled:' bare.

[2] 'Enthirling:' piercing.

HENRY DUKE OP BUCKINGHAM IN THE INFERNAL REGIONS.

Then first came Henry Duke of Buckingham,

His cloak of black all piled,[1] and quite forlorn,

Wringing his hands, and Fortune oft doth blame,

Which of a duke had made him now her scorn;

With ghastly looks, as one in manner lorn,

Oft spread his arms, stretch'd hands he joins as fast

With rueful cheer, and vapour'd eyes upcast.

His cloak he rent, his manly breast he beat;

His hair all torn, about the place it lain:

My heart so molt to see his grief so great,

As feelingly, methought, it dropp'd away:

His eyes they whirl'd about withouten stay:

With stormy sighs the place did so complain,

As if his heart at each had burst in twain.

Thrice he began to tell his doleful tale,

And thrice the sighs did swallow up his voice;

At each of which he shrieked so withal,

As though the heavens rived with the noise;

Till at the last, recovering of his voice,

Supping the tears that all his breast berain'd,

On cruel Fortune weeping thus he plain'd.

[1] 'Piled:' bare.

JOHN HARRINGTON.

Of Harrington we know only that he was born in 1534 and died in 1582; that

he was imprisoned in the Tower by Queen Mary for holding correspondence

with Elizabeth; and after the accession of the latter to the throne, was

favoured and promoted by her; and that he has written some pretty verses

of an amatory kind.

SONNET ON ISABELLA MARKHAM,

WHEN I FIRST THOUGHT HER FAIR, AS SHE STOOD AT THE PRINCESS'S WINDOW,

IN GOODLY ATTIRE, AND TALKED TO DIVERS IN THE COURT-YARD.

Whence comes my love? O heart, disclose;

It was from cheeks that shamed the rose,

From lips that spoil the ruby's praise,

From eyes that mock the diamond's blaze:

Whence comes my woe? as freely own;

Ah me! 'twas from a heart like stone.

The blushing cheek speaks modest mind,

The lips befitting words most kind,

The eye does tempt to love's desire,

And seems to say, ''Tis Cupid's fire;'

Yet all so fair but speak my moan,

Since nought doth say the heart of stone.

Why thus, my love, so kind bespeak

Sweet eye, sweet lip, sweet blushing cheek

Yet not a heart to save my pain;

O Venus, take thy gifts again;

Make not so fair to cause our moan,

Or make a heart that's like our own.

VERSES ON A MOST STONY-HEARTED MAIDEN WHO DID SORELY

BEGUILE THE NOBLE KNIGHT, MY TRUE FRIEND.

I.

Why didst thou raise such woeful wail,

And waste in briny tears thy days?

'Cause she that wont to flout and rail,

At last gave proof of woman's ways;

She did, in sooth, display the heart

That might have wrought thee greater smart.

II.

Why, thank her then, not weep or moan;

Let others guard their careless heart,

And praise the day that thus made known

The faithless hold on woman's art;

Their lips can gloze and gain such root,

That gentle youth hath hope of fruit.

III.

But, ere the blossom fair doth rise,

To shoot its sweetness o'er the taste,

Creepeth disdain in canker-wise,

And chilling scorn the fruit doth blast:

There is no hope of all our toil;

There is no fruit from such a soil.

IV.

Give o'er thy plaint, the danger's o'er;

She might have poison'd all thy life;

Such wayward mind had bred thee more

Of sorrow, had she proved thy wife:

Leave her to meet all hopeless meed,

And bless thyself that so art freed.

V.

No youth shall sue such one to win.

Unmark'd by all the shining fair,

Save for her pride and scorn, such sin

As heart of love can never bear;

Like leafless plant in blasted shade,

So liveth she--a barren maid.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

All hail to Sidney!--the pink of chivalry--the hero of Zutphen--the author

of the 'Arcadia,'--the gifted, courteous, genial and noble-minded man! He

was born November 29, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent. His father's name was

Henry. He studied at Shrewsbury, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at

Christ Church, Oxford. At the age of eighteen he set out on his travels,

and, in the course of three years, visited France, Flanders, Germany,

Hungary, and Italy. On his return he was introduced at Court, and became a

favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who sent him on an embassy to Germany. He

returned home, and shortly after had a quarrel at a tournament with Lord

Oxford. But for the interference of the Queen, a duel would have taken

place. Sidney was displeased at the issue of the affair, and retired, in

1580, to Wilton, in Wiltshire, where he wrote his famous 'Arcadia,'--that

true prose-poem, and a work which, with all its faults, no mere sulky and

spoiled child (as some have called him in the matter of this retreat)

could ever have produced. This production, written as an outflow of his

mind in its self-sought solitude, was never meant for publication, and did

not appear till after its author's death. As it was written partly for his

sister's amusement, he entitled it 'The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.'

In 1581, Sidney reappeared in Court, and distinguished himself in the

jousts and tournaments celebrated in honour of the Duke of Anjou; and on

the return of that prince to the Continent, he accompanied him to Antwerp.

In 1583 he received the honour of knighthood. He published about this time

a tract entitled 'The Defence of Poesy,' which abounds in the element the

praise of which it celebrates, and which is, besides, distinguished by

acuteness of argument and felicity of expression. In 1585 he was named one

of the candidates for the crown of Poland; but Queen Elizabeth, afraid of

'losing the jewel of her times,' prevented him from accepting this honour,

and prevented him also from accompanying Sir Francis Drake on an

expedition against the Spanish settlements in America. In the same year,

however, she made him Governor of Flushing, and subsequently General of

the Cavalry, under his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, who commanded the

troops sent to assist the oppressed Dutch Protestants against the

Spaniards. Here our hero greatly distinguished himself, particularly when

capturing, in 1586, the town of Axel. His career, however, was destined

to be short. On the 22d of September of the same year he accidentally

encountered a convoy of the enemy marching toward Zutphen. In the

engagement which followed, his party triumphed; but their brave commander

received a shot in the thigh, which shattered the bone. As he was carried

from the field, overcome with thirst, he called for water, but while about

to apply it to his lips, he saw a wounded soldier carried by who was

eagerly eyeing the cup. Sidney, perceiving this, instantly delivered to

him the water, saying, in words which would have made an ordinary man

immortal, but which give Sir Philip a twofold immortality, 'Thy necessity

is greater than mine.' He was carried to Arnheim, and lingered on till

October 17, when he died. He was only thirty-two years of age. His death

was an earthquake at home. All England wore mourning for him. Queen

Elizabeth ordered his remains to be carried to London, and to receive a

public funeral in St Paul's. He was identified with the land's Poetry,

Politeness, and Protestantism; and all who admired any of the three,

sorrowed for Sidney.

Sidney's 'Sonnets and other Poems' contain much that is quaint, but also

much that is beautiful and true; yet they are the least poetical of his

works. His 'Arcadia' is a glorious unfinished and unpolished wilderness

of fancy. It is a vineyard, the scattered clusters of which are so heavy,

that, like the grapes of Eshcol of old, they must be carried on a staff.

Here is one of those rich clusters:--

'There were hills, which garnished their proud heights with stately

trees; humble valleys, whose base estate seemed comforted with the

refreshing of silver rivers; meadows, enamelled with all sorts of

eye-pleasing flowers; thickets, which, being lined with most pleasant

shade, were witnessed so, too, by the cheerful disposition of many

well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober

security; while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved the

dams' comfort; _here a shepherd's boy, piping as though he should

never be old;_ there a young shepherdess, knitting and withal singing,

and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her

hands kept time to her voice-music.'

From 'The Defence of Poesy' we could cull, did space permit, a hundred

passages even superior to the above, full of dexterous reasoning, splendid

rhetoric, and subtle fancy, and substantiating all that has been said in

favour of Sir Philip Sidney's accomplishments, chivalric earnestness, and

richly-endowed genius.

TO SLEEP.

FROM THE 'ARCADIA.'

Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe;

The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,

The indifferent judge between the high and low.

With shield of proof shield me from out the prease[1]

Of those fierce darts despair doth at me throw:

Oh, make in me those civil wars to cease!

I will good tribute pay if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,

A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,

A rosy garland and a weary head;

And if these things, as being thine by right,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me

Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

[1] 'Prease:' press, throng.

SONNETS.

I.

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise

Seem most alone in greatest company,

With dearth of words, or answers quite awry

To them that would make speech of speech arise,

They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie

So in my swelling breast, that only I

Fawn on myself, and others do despise.

Yet Pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,

Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass;

But one worse fault, Ambition, I confess,

That makes me oft my best friends overpass,

Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place

Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace.

II.

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies,

How silently, and with how wan a face!

What! may it be, that even in heavenly place

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?

Sure, if that long with love acquainted eyes

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;

I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,

To me that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,

Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

III.

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance

Guided so well, that I obtain'd the prize,

Both by the judgment of the English eyes,

And of some sent from that sweet enemy France;

Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance;

Townfolks my strength; a daintier judge applies

His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise;

Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;

Others, because of both sides I do take

My blood from them who did excel in this,

Think nature me a man of arms did make.

How far they shot awry! the true cause is,

Stella look'd on, and from her heavenly face

Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

IV.

In martial sports I had my cunning tried,

And yet to break more staves did me address;

While with the people's shouts, I must confess,

Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride.

When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried

In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,

'What now, Sir Fool,' said he, 'I would no less.

Look here, I say.' I look'd, and Stella spied,

Who hard by made a window send forth light.

My heart then quaked, then dazzled were mine eyes;

One hand forgot to rule, th' other to fight;

Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries;

My foe came on, and beat the air for me,

Till that her blush taught me my shame to see.

V.

Of all the kings that ever here did reign,

Edward named Fourth as first in praise I name;

Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain,

Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame:

Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame

His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain,

And, gain'd by Mars, could yet mad Mars so tame,

That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late obtain:

Nor that he made the Flower-de-luce so 'fraid,

Though strongly hedged of bloody Lion's paws,

That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid.

Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause--

But only for this worthy knight durst prove

To lose his crown, rather than fail his love.

VI.

O happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear!

I saw thee with full many a smiling line

Upon thy cheerful face joy's livery wear,

While those fair planets on thy streams did shine.

The boat for joy could not to dance forbear;

While wanton winds, with beauties so divine

Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair

They did themselves (O sweetest prison!) twine:

And fain those Oeol's youth there would their stay

Have made; but, forced by Nature still to fly,

First did with puffing kiss those locks display.

She, so dishevell'd, blush'd. From window I,

With sight thereof, cried out, 'O fair disgrace;

Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place.'

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

Robert Southwell was born in 1560, at St. Faith's, Norfolk. His parents

were Roman Catholics, and sent him when very young to be educated at the

English College of Douay, in Flanders. Thence he went to Borne, and when

sixteen years of age he joined the Society of the Jesuits--a strange bed

for the rearing of a poet. In 1585, he was appointed Prefect of Studies,

and was soon after despatched as a missionary of his order to England.

There, notwithstanding a law condemning to death all members of his

profession found in this country, he laboured on for eight years,

residing chiefly with Anne, Countess of Arundel, who died afterwards in

the Tower. In July 1592, Southwell was arrested in a gentleman's house

at Uxendon in Middlesex. He was thrust into a dungeon so filthy that

when he was brought out to be examined his clothes were covered with

vermin. This made his father--a man of good family--petition Queen

Elizabeth that if his son was guilty of anything deserving death he

might suffer it, but that, meanwhile, being a gentleman, he should be

treated as a gentleman. In consequence of this he was somewhat better

lodged, but continued for nearly three years strictly confined to

prison; and as the Queen's agents imagined that he was in the secret of

some conspiracies against the Government, he was put to the torture ten

times. In despair, he entreated to be brought to trial, whereupon Cecil

coolly remarked, 'that if he was in such haste to be hanged, he should

quickly have his desire.' On the 20th of February 1595, he was brought

to trial at King's Bench, and having confessed himself a Papist and a

Jesuit, he was condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn next day, with

all the nameless barbarities enjoined by the treason laws of these

unhappy times. He is believed to have borne all his sufferings with

unalterable serenity of mind and sweetness of temper. 'It is fitting,'

says Burke, 'that those made to suffer should suffer well.' And suffer

well throughout all his short life of sorrow, Southwell did.

He was, undoubtedly, although in a false position, a true man, and a

true poet. To hope all things and believe all things, in reference to

a Jesuit, is a difficult task for Protestant charity. Yet what system

so vile but it has sometimes been gloriously misrepresented by its

votaries? Who that ever read Edward Irving's 'Preface to Ben Ezra'--that

modern Areopagitica--combining the essence of a hundred theological

treatises with the spirit and grandeur of a Pindaric or Homeric ode--has

forgot the pictures of Ben Ezra, or Lacunza the Jesuit? His work, 'The

Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty,' Irving translated from

Spanish into his own noble English prose, and he describes the author as

a man of primitive manners, ardent piety, and enormous erudition, and

expresses a hope, long since we trust fulfilled, of meeting with the

'good old Jesuit' in a better world. To this probably small class of

exceptions to a general rule (it surely is no uncharity to say this,

since the annals of Jesuitism have confessedly been so stained with

falsehood, treachery, every insidious art, and every detestable crime)

seems to have belonged our poet. No proof was produced that he had any

connexion with the treacherous and bloody designs of his party, although

he had plied his priestly labours with unwearied assiduity. He was too

sincere-minded a man to have ever been admitted to the darker secrets of

the Jesuits.

His verses are ingenious, simpler in style than was common in his time

--distinguished here by homely picturesqueness, and there by solemn

moralising. A shade of deep but serene and unrepining sadness, connected

partly with his position and partly with his foreseen destiny, (his

larger works were written in prison,) rests on the most of his poems.

LOOK HOME.

Retired thoughts enjoy their own delights,

As beauty doth in self-beholding eye:

Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,

A brief wherein all miracles summ'd lie;

Of fairest forms, and sweetest shapes the store,

Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more.

The mind a creature is, yet can create,

To nature's patterns adding higher skill

Of finest works; wit better could the state,

If force of wit had equal power of will.

Device of man in working hath no end;

What thought can think, another thought can mend.

Man's soul of endless beauties image is,

Drawn by the work of endless skill and might:

This skilful might gave many sparks of bliss,

And, to discern this bliss, a native light,

To frame God's image as his worth required;

His might, his skill, his word and will conspired.

All that he had, his image should present;

All that it should present, he could afford;

To that he could afford his will was bent;

His will was follow'd with performing word.

Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest,

He should, he could, he would, he did the best.

THE IMAGE OF DEATH.

Before my face the picture hangs,

That daily should put me in mind

Of those cold names and bitter pangs

That shortly I am like to find;

But yet, alas! full little I

Do think hereon, that I must die.

I often look upon a face

Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin;

I often view the hollow place

Where eyes and nose had sometime been;

I see the bones across that lie,

Yet little think that I must die.

I read the label underneath,

That telleth me whereto I must;

I see the sentence too, that saith,

'Remember, man, thou art but dust.'

But yet, alas! how seldom I

Do think, indeed, that I must die!

Continually at my bed's head

A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell

That I ere morning may be dead,

Though now I feel myself full well;

But yet, alas! for all this, I

Have little mind that I must die!

The gown which I am used to wear,

The knife wherewith I cut my meat;

And eke that old and ancient chair,

Which is my only usual seat;

All these do tell me I must die,

And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turn'd to clay,

And many of my mates are gone;

My youngers daily drop away,

And can I think to 'scape alone?

No, no; I know that I must die,

And yet my life amend not I.

* * * * *

If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart;

If rich and poor his beck obey;

If strong, if wise, if all do smart,

Then I to 'scape shall have no way:

Then grant me grace, O God! that I

My life may mend, since I must die.

LOVE'S SERVILE LOT.

Love mistress is of many minds,

Yet few know whom they serve;

They reckon least how little hope

Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the wit,

The sense from reason's lore;

She is delightful in the rind,

Corrupted in the core.

* * * * *

May never was the month of love;

For May is full of flowers:

But rather April, wet by kind;

For love is full of showers.

With soothing words, inthralled souls

She chains in servile bands!

Her eye in silence hath a speech

Which eye best understands.

Her little sweet hath many sours,

Short hap, immortal harms

Her loving looks are murdering darts,

Her songs bewitching charms.

Like winter rose, and summer ice,

Her joys are still untimely;

Before her hope, behind remorse,

Fair first, in fine[1] unseemly.

Plough not the seas, sow not the sands,

Leave off your idle pain;

Seek other mistress for your minds,

Love's service is in vain.

[1] 'Fine:' end.

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

The lopped tree in time may grow again,

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;

The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower:

Time goes by turns, and chances change by course,

From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;

She draws her favours to the lowest ebb:

Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web:

No joy so great but runneth to an end,

No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,

Not endless night, yet not eternal day:

The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.

Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,

That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;

That net that holds no great, takes little fish;

In some things all, in all things none are cross'd;

Few all they need, but none have all they wish.

Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

THOMAS WATSON.

He was born in 1560, and died about 1592. All besides known certainly of

him is, that he was a native of London, and studied the common law, but

seems to have spent much of his time in the practice of rhyme. His

sonnets--one or two of which we subjoin--have considerable merit; but we

agree with Campbell in thinking that Stevens has surely overrated them

when he prefers them to Shakspeare's.

THE NYMPHS TO THEIR MAY-QUEEN.

With fragrant flowers we strew the way,

And make this our chief holiday:

For though this clime was blest of yore,

Yet was it never proud before.

O beauteous queen of second Troy,

Accept of our unfeigned joy.

Now the air is sweeter than sweet balm,

And satyrs dance about the palm;

Now earth with verdure newly dight,

Gives perfect signs of her delight:

O beauteous queen!

Now birds record new harmony,

And trees do whistle melody:

And everything that nature breeds

Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds.

SONNET.

Actaeon lost, in middle of his sport,

Both shape and life for looking but awry:

Diana was afraid he would report

What secrets he had seen in passing by.

To tell the truth, the self-same hurt have I,

By viewing her for whom I daily die;

I lose my wonted shape, in that my mind

Doth suffer wreck upon the stony rock

Of her disdain, who, contrary to kind,

Does bear a breast more hard than any stock;

And former form of limbs is changed quite

By cares in love, and want of due delight.

I leave my life, in that each secret thought

Which I conceive through wanton fond regard,

Doth make me say that life availeth nought,

Where service cannot have a due reward.

I dare not name the nymph that works my smart,

Though love hath graven her name within my heart.

THOMAS TURBERVILLE.

Of this author--Thomas Turberville--once famous in the reign of Queen

Elizabeth, but now almost totally forgotten, and whose works are

altogether omitted in most selections, we have preserved a little. He

was a voluminous author, having produced, besides many original pieces,

a translation of Ovid's Heroical Epistles, from which Warton has

selected a short specimen.

IN PRAISE OP THE RENOWNED LADY ANNE, COUNTESS OF

WARWICK.

When Nature first in hand did take

The clay to frame this Countess' corse,

The earth a while she did forsake,

And was compell'd of very force,

With mould in hand, to flee to skies,

To end the work she did devise.

The gods that then in council sate,

Were half-amazed, against their kind,[1]

To see so near the stool of state

Dame Nature stand, that was assign'd

Among her worldly imps[2] to wonne,[3]

As she until that day had done.

First Jove began: 'What, daughter dear,

Hath made thee scorn thy father's will?

Why do I see thee, Nature, here,

That ought'st of duty to fulfil

Thy undertaken charge at home?

What makes thee thus abroad to roam?

'Disdainful dame, how didst thou dare,

So reckless to depart the ground

That is allotted to thy share?'

And therewithal his godhead frown'd.

'I will,' quoth Nature, 'out of hand,

Declare the cause I fled the land.

'I undertook of late a piece

Of clay a featured face to frame,

To match the courtly dames of Greece,

That for their beauty bear the name;

But, O good father, now I see

This work of mine it will not be.

'Vicegerent, since you me assign'd

Below in earth, and gave me laws

On mortal wights, and will'd that kind

Should make and mar, as she saw cause:

Of right, I think, I may appeal,

And crave your help in this to deal.'

When Jove saw how the case did stand,

And that the work was well begun,

He pray'd to have the helping hand

Of other gods till he had done:

With willing minds they all agreed,

And set upon the clay with speed.

First Jove each limb did well dispose,

And makes a creature of the clay;

Next, Lady Venus she bestows

Her gallant gifts as best she may;

From face to foot, from top to toe,

She let no whit untouch'd to go.

When Venus had done what she could

In making of her carcase brave,

Then Pallas thought she might be bold

Among the rest a share to have;

A passing wit she did convey

Into this passing piece of clay.

Of Bacchus she no member had,

Save fingers fine and feat[4] to see;

Her head with hair Apollo clad,

That gods had thought it gold to be:

So glist'ring was the tress in sight

Of this new form'd and featured wight.

Diana held her peace a space,

Until those other gods had done;

'At last,' quoth she, 'in Dian's chase

With bow in hand this nymph shall run;

And chief of all my noble train

I will this virgin entertain.'

Then joyful Juno came and said,

'Since you to her so friendly are,

I do appoint this noble maid

To match with Mars his peer for war;

She shall the Countess Warwick be,

And yield Diana's bow to me.'

When to so good effect it came,

And every member had his grace,

There wanted nothing but a name:

By hap was Mercury then in place,

That said, 'I pray you all agree,

Pandora grant her name to be.

'For since your godheads forged have

With one assent this noble dame,

And each to her a virtue gave,

This term agreeth to the same.'

The gods that heard Mercurius tell

This tale, did like it passing well.

Report was summon'd then in haste,

And will'd to bring his trump in hand,

To blow therewith a sounding blast,

That might be heard through Brutus' land.

Pandora straight the trumpet blew,

That each this Countess Warwick knew.

O seely[5] Nature, born to pain,

O woful, wretched kind (I say),

That to forsake the soil were fain

To make this Countess out of clay:

But, O most friendly gods, that wold,

Vouchsafe to set your hands to mould.

[1] 'Kind:' nature.

[2] 'Imps:' children.

[3] 'Wonne:' dwell.

[4] 'Feat:' neat.

[5] 'Seely:' simple.

* * * * *

In reference to the Miscellaneous Pieces which close this period, we

need only say that the best of them is 'The Soul's Errand,' and that its

authorship is uncertain. It has, with very little evidence in any of the

cases, been ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh, to Francis Davison, (author

of a compilation entitled 'A Poetical Rhapsody,' published in 1593, and

where 'The Soul's Errand' first appeared,) and to Joshua Sylvester, who

prints it in his volume of verses, with vile interpolations of his own.

Its outspoken energy and pithy language render it worthy of any of our

poets.

HARPALUS' COMPLAINT OF PHILLIDA'S LOVE BESTOWED ON CORIN,

WHO LOVED HER NOT, AND DENIED HIM THAT LOVED HER.

1 Phillida was a fair maid,

As fresh as any flower;

Whom Harpalus the herdman pray'd

To be his paramour.

2 Harpalus, and eke Corin,

Were herdmen both yfere:[1]

And Phillida would twist and spin,

And thereto sing full clear.

3 But Phillida was all too coy

For Harpalus to win;

For Corin was her only joy,

Who forced[2] her not a pin.

4 How often would she flowers twine,

How often garlands make

Of cowslips and of columbine,

And all for Conn's sake!

5 But Corin he had hawks to lure,

And forced more the field:

Of lovers' law he took no cure;

For once he was beguiled.

6 Harpalus prevailed nought,

His labour all was lost;

For he was furthest from her thought,

And yet he loved her most.

7 Therefore was he both pale and lean,

And dry as clod of clay:

His flesh it was consumed clean;

His colour gone away.

8 His beard it not long be shave;

His hair hung all unkempt:

A man most fit even for the grave,

Whom spiteful love had shent.[3]

9 His eyes were red, and all forwacht;[4]

It seem'd unhap had him long hatcht,

His face besprent with tears:

In midst of his despairs.

10 His clothes were black, and also bare;

As one forlorn was he;

Upon his head always he ware

A wreath of willow tree.

11 His beasts he kept upon the hill,

And he sat in the dale;

And thus with sighs and sorrows shrill

He 'gan to tell his tale.

12 'O Harpalus!' thus would he say;

Unhappiest under sun!

The cause of thine unhappy day

By love was first begun.

13 'For thou went'st first by suit to seek

A tiger to make tame,

That sets not by thy love a leek,

But makes thy grief a game.

14 'As easy it were for to convert

The frost into the flame;

As for to turn a froward hert,

Whom thou so fain wouldst frame.

15 'Cerin he liveth carëless:

He leaps among the leaves:

He eats the fruits of thy redress:

Thou reap'st, he takes the sheaves.

16 'My beasts, a while your food refrain,

And hark your herdman's sound;

Whom spiteful love, alas! hath slain,

Through girt with many a wound,

17 'O happy be ye, beastes wild,

That here your pasture takes:

I see that ye be not beguiled

Of these your faithful makes,[5]

18 'The hart he feedeth by the hind:

The buck hard by the doe:

The turtle-dove is not unkind

To him that loves her so.

19 'The ewe she hath by her the ram:

The young cow hath the bull:

The calf with many a lusty lamb

Do feed their hunger full.

20 'But, well-a-way! that nature wrought

Thee, Phillida, so fair:

For I may say that I have bought

Thy beauty all too dear.

21 'What reason is that cruelty

With, beauty should have part?

Or else that such great tyranny

Should dwell in woman's heart?

22 'I see therefore to shape my death

She cruelly is prest,[6]

To the end that I may want my breath:

My days be at the best.

23 'O Cupid, grant this my request,

And do not stop thine ears:

That she may feel within her breast

The pains of my despairs:

24 'Of Corin that is careless,

That she may crave her fee:

As I have done in great distress,

That loved her faithfully.

25 'But since that I shall die her slave,

Her slave, and eke her thrall,

Write you, my friends, upon my grave

This chance that is befall:

26 '"Here lieth unhappy Harpalus,

By cruel love now slain:

Whom Phillida unjustly thus

Hath murder'd with disdain."'

[1] 'Yfere' together.

[2] 'Forced' cared for.

[3] 'Shent:' spoiled.

[4] 'Forwacht:' from much watching.

[5] 'Makes:' mates.

[6] 'Prest:' ready.

A PRAISE OF HIS LADY.

1 Give place, you ladies, and begone,

Boast not yourselves at all,

For here at hand approacheth one

Whose face will stain you all.

2 The virtue of her lively looks

Excels the precious stone;

I wish to have none other books

To read or look upon.

3 In each of her two crystal eyes

Smileth a naked boy;

It would you all in heart suffice

To see that lamp of joy.

4 I think Nature hath lost the mould

Where she her shape did take;

Or else I doubt if Nature could

So fair a creature make.

5 She may be well compared

Unto the phoenix kind,

Whose like was never seen nor heard,

That any man can find.

6 In life she is Diana chaste,

In truth Penelope;

In word, and eke in deed, steadfast;

What will you more we say?

7 If all the world were sought so far,

Who could find such a wight?

Her beauty twinkleth like a star

Within the frosty night.

8 Her rosial colour comes and goes

"With such a comely grace,

More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,

Within her lively face."

9 At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,

Nor at no wanton play,

Nor gazing in an open street,

Nor gadding, as astray.

10 The modest mirth that she doth use,

Is mix'd with shamefastness;

All vice she doth wholly refuse,

And hateth idleness.

11 O Lord, it is a world to see

How virtue can repair,

And deck in her such honesty,

Whom Nature made so fair.

12 Truly she doth as far exceed

Our women now-a-days,

As doth the gilliflower a wreed,

And more a thousand ways.

13 How might I do to get a graff

Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff

Which seem good corn to be.

14 This gift alone I shall her give,

When death doth what he can:

Her honest fame shall ever live

Within the mouth of man.

THAT ALL THINGS SOMETIME FIND EASE OF THEIR PAIN,

SAVE ONLY THE LOVER.

1 I see there is no sort

Of things that live in grief,

Which at sometime may not resort

Where as they have relief.

2 The stricken deer by kind

Of death that stands in awe,

For his recure an herb can find

The arrow to withdraw.

3 The chased deer hath soil

To cool him in his heat;

The ass, after his weary toil.

In stable is up set.

4 The coney hath its cave,

The little bird his nest,

From heat and cold themselves to save

At all times as they list.

5 The owl, with feeble sight,

Lies lurking in the leaves,

The sparrow in the frosty night

May shroud her in the eaves.

6 But woe to me, alas!

In sun nor yet in shade,

I cannot find a resting-place,

My burden to unlade.

7 But day by day still bears

The burden on my back,

With weeping eyes and wat'ry tears,

To hold my hope aback.

8 All things I see have place

Wherein they bow or bend,

Save this, alas! my woful case,

Which nowhere findeth end.

FROM 'THE PHOENIX' NEST.'

O Night, O jealous Night, repugnant to my pleasure,

O Night so long desired, yet cross to my content,

There's none but only thou can guide me to my treasure,

Yet none but only thou that hindereth my intent.

Sweet Night, withhold thy beams, withhold them till to-morrow,

Whose joy, in lack so long, a hell of torment breeds,

Sweet Night, sweet gentle Night, do not prolong my sorrow,

Desire is guide to me, and love no loadstar needs.

Let sailors gaze on stars and moon so freshly shining,

Let them that miss the way be guided by the light,

I know my lady's bower, there needs no more divining,

Affection sees in dark, and love hath eyes by night.

Dame Cynthia, couch a while; hold in thy horns for shining,

And glad not low'ring Night with thy too glorious rays;

But be she dim and dark, tempestuous and repining,

That in her spite my sport may work thy endless praise.

And when my will is done, then, Cynthia, shine, good lady,

All other nights and days in honour of that night,

That happy, heavenly night, that night so dark and shady,

Wherein my love had eyes that lighted my delight.

FROM THE SAME.

1 The gentle season of the year

Hath made my blooming branch appear,

And beautified the land with flowers;

The air doth savour with delight,

The heavens do smile to see the sight,

And yet mine eyes augment their showers.

2 The meads are mantled all with green,

The trembling leaves have clothed the treen,

The birds with feathers new do sing;

But I, poor soul, whom wrong doth rack,

Attire myself in mourning black,

Whose leaf doth fall amidst his spring.

3 And as you see the scarlet rose

In his sweet prime his buds disclose,

Whose hue is with the sun revived;

So, in the April of mine age,

My lively colours do assuage,

Because my sunshine is deprived.

4 My heart, that wonted was of yore,

Light as the winds, abroad to soar

Amongst the buds, when beauty springs,

Now only hovers over you,

As doth the bird that's taken new,

And mourns when all her neighbours sings.

5 When every man is bent to sport,

Then, pensive, I alone resort

Into some solitary walk,

As doth the doleful turtle-dove,

Who, having lost her faithful love,

Sits mourning on some wither'd stalk.

6 There to myself I do recount

How far my woes my joys surmount,

How love requiteth me with hate,

How all my pleasures end in pain,

How hate doth say my hope is vain,

How fortune frowns upon my state.

7 And in this mood, charged with despair,

With vapour'd sighs I dim the air,

And to the gods make this request,

That by the ending of my life,

I may have truce with this strange strife,

And bring my soul to better rest.

THE SOUL'S ERRAND.

1 Go, Soul, the body's guest,

Upon a thankless errand,

Fear not to touch the best,

The truth shall be thy warrant;

Go, since I needs must die,

And give the world the lie.

2 Go tell the Court it glows,

And shines like rotten wood;

Go, tell the Church it shows

What's good and doth no good;

If Church and Court reply,

Then give them both the lie.

3 Tell potentates they live,

Acting by others' actions,

Not loved, unless they give,

Not strong, but by their factions;

If potentates reply,

Give potentates the lie.

4 Tell men of high condition,

That rule affairs of state,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate;

And if they once reply,

Then give them all the lie.

5 Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending;

And if they make reply,

Then give them all the lie.

6 Tell Zeal it lacks devotion,

Tell Love it is but lust,

Tell Time it is but motion,

Tell Flesh it is but dust;

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

7 Tell Age it daily wasteth,

Tell Honour how it alters,

Tell Beauty how she blasteth,

Tell Favour how she falters;

And as they shall reply,

Give every one the lie.

8 Tell Wit how much it wrangles

In treble points of niceness,

Tell Wisdom she entangles

Herself in overwiseness;

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

9 Tell Physic of her boldness,

Tell Skill it is pretension,

Tell Charity of coldness,

Tell Law it is contention;

And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

10 Tell Fortune of her blindness,

Tell Nature of decay,

Tell Friendship of unkindness,

Tell Justice of delay;

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

11 Tell Arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming,

Tell Schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming;

If Arts and Schools reply,

Give Arts and Schools the lie.

12 Tell Faith it's fled the city,

Tell how the country erreth,

Tell Manhood shakes off pity,

Tell Virtue least preferreth;

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

13 And when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;

Yet stab at thee who will,

No stab the Soul can kill.

* * * * *

SECOND PERIOD.

FROM SPENSER TO DRYDEN.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

This remarkable man, from his intimate connexion with Fletcher, is better

known as a dramatist than as a poet. He was the son of Judge Beaumont, and

descended from an ancient family, which was settled at Grace Dieu in

Leicestershire. He was born in 1585-86, and educated at Cambridge. Thence

he passed to study in the Inner Temple, but seems to have preferred poetry

and the drama to law. He was married to the daughter of Sir Henry Isley of

Kent, who bore him two daughters. He died in his 30th year, and was buried

March 9, 1615-16, in St Benedict's Chapel, Westminster Abbey. More of his

connexion with Fletcher afterwards.

After his death, his brother published a collection of his miscellaneous

pieces. We extract a few, of no little merit. His verses to Ben Jonson,

written before their author came to London, and first appended to a play

entitled 'Nice Valour,' are picturesque and interesting, as illustrating

the period.

TO BEN JONSON.

The sun (which doth the greatest comfort bring

To absent friends, because the selfsame thing

They know, they see, however absent) is

Here, our best haymaker (forgive me this,

It is our country's style) in this warm shine

I lie, and dream of your full Mermaid wine.

Oh, we have water mix'd with claret lees,

Brink apt to bring in drier heresies

Than beer, good only for the sonnet's strain,

With fustian metaphors to stuff the brain,

So mix'd, that, given to the thirstiest one,

'Twill not prove alms, unless he have the stone.

I think, with one draught man's invention fades:

Two cups had quite spoil'd Homer's Iliades.

'Tis liquor that will find out Sutcliff's wit,

Lie where he will, and make him write worse yet;

Fill'd with such moisture in most grievous qualms,

Did Robert Wisdom write his singing psalms;

And so must I do this: And yet I think

It is a potion sent us down to drink,

By special Providence, keeps us from fights,

Makes us not laugh when we make legs to knights.

'Tis this that keeps our minds fit for our states,

A medicine to obey our magistrates:

For we do live more free than you; no hate,

No envy at one another's happy state,

Moves us; we are all equal: every whit

Of land that God gives men here is their wit,

If we consider fully, for our best

And gravest men will with his main house-jest

Scarce please you; we want subtilty to do

The city tricks, lie, hate, and flatter too:

Here are none that can bear a painted show,

Strike when you wink, and then lament the blow;

Who, like mills, set the right way for to grind,

Can make their gains alike with every wind;

Only some fellows with the subtlest pate,

Amongst us, may perchance equivocate

At selling of a horse, and that's the most.

Methinks the little wit I had is lost

Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest

Held up at tennis, which men do the best,

With the best gamesters: what things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid; heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life: then when there had been thrown

Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past; wit that might warrant be

For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone,

We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Eight witty; though but downright fools were wise.

When I remember this,

* * * I needs must cry

I see my days of ballading grow nigh;

I can already riddle, and can sing

Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring

Myself to speak the hardest words I find

Over as oft as any with one wind,

That takes no medicines, but thought of thee

Makes me remember all these things to be

The wit of our young men, fellows that show

No part of good, yet utter all they know,

Who, like trees of the garden, have growing souls.

Only strong Destiny, which all controls,

I hope hath left a better fate in store

For me, thy friend, than to live ever poor.

Banish'd unto this home: Fate once again

Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plain

The way of knowledge for me; and then I,

Who have no good but in thy company,

Protest it will my greatest comfort be,

To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee,

Ben; when these scenes are perfect, we'll taste wine;

I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine.

ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER.

Mortality, behold and fear,

What a charge of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones

Sleep within these heap of stones:

Here they lie, had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands;

Where, from their pulpits seal'd with dust,

They preach--in greatness is no trust.

Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest, royal'st seed,

That the earth did e'er suck in

Since the first man died for sin:

Here the bones of birth have cried,

Though gods they were, as men they died:

Here are wands, ignoble things,

Dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of kings.

Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

AN EPITAPH.

Here she lies, whose spotless fame

Invites a stone to learn her name:

The rigid Spartan that denied

An epitaph to all that died,

Unless for war, in charity

Would here vouchsafe an elegy.

She died a wife, but yet her mind,

Beyond virginity refined,

From lawless fire remain'd as free

As now from heat her ashes be:

Keep well this pawn, thou marble chest;

Till it be call'd for, let it rest;

For while this jewel here is set,

The grave is like a cabinet.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

The verses attributed to this illustrious man are few, and the

authenticity of some of them is doubtful. No one, however, who has

studied his career, or read his 'History of the World,' can deny him

the title of a great poet.

We cannot be expected, in a work of the present kind, to enlarge on a

career so well known as that of Sir Walter Kaleigh. He was born in 1552,

at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and descended from an old family there. He

went early to Oxford, but finding its pursuits too tame for his active

and enterprising spirit, he left it, and became a soldier at seventeen.

For six years he fought on the Protestant side in France, besides serving

a campaign in the Netherlands. In 1579, he went a voyage, which proved

disastrous, to Newfoundland, in company with his half-brother, Sir

Humphrey Gilbert. There can be no doubt that this early apprenticeship

to war and navigation was of material service to the future explorer and

historian. In 1580, he fought in Ireland against the Earl of Desmond,

who had raised a rebellion there, and on one occasion is said to have

defended a ford of Shannon against a whole band of wild Irish rebels,

till the stream ran purple with their blood and his own. With the Lord-

Deputy, Lord Grey de Wilton, he got into a dispute, and to settle it came

over to England. Here high favour awaited him. His handsome appearance,

his graceful address, his ready wit and chivalric courtesy, dashed with

a fine poetic enthusiasm, (see them admirably pictured in 'Kenilworth,')

combined to exalt him in the estimation of Queen Elizabeth. On one

occasion he flung his rich plush cloak over a miry part of the way, that

she might pass on unsoiled. By this delicate piece of enacted flattery he

'spoiled a cloak and made a fortune.' The Queen sent him, along with some

other courtiers, to attend the Duke of Anjou, who had in vain solicited

her hand, back to the Netherlands. In 1584, he fitted two ships, and sent

them out for the discovery and settlement of those parts of North America

not already appropriated by Christian states, and the next year there

followed a fleet of seven ships under the command of Sir Richard

Grenville, Raleigh's kinsman. The attempt to colonise America at that

time failed, but two important things were transplanted through means of

the expedition from Virginia to Britain, namely, tobacco and the potato,

--the former of which has ever since been offered up in smoky sacrifice to

Raleigh's memory throughout the whole world, and the latter of which has

become the most valuable of all our vegetable esculents. Raleigh first

planted the potato in Ireland, a country of which it has long been the

principal food. A ludicrous story is told about this. It is said that he

had invited a number of his neighbours to an entertainment, in which the

new root was to form a prominent part, but when the feast began Raleigh

found, to his horror, that the servants had boiled the plums, a most

unsavoury mess, and immediately, we suppose, 'tabulae solvuntur risu.'

In 1584 the Queen had knighted him, and shortly after she granted him

certain lucrative monopolies, and an estate in Ireland, in addition to

one he had possessed for some years. In 1588, he was of material service

as one of Her Majesty's Council of War, formed to resist the Spanish

Armada, and as one of the volunteers who joined the English fleet with

ships of their own. Next year he accompanied a number of his countrymen

in an expedition, which had it in view to restore Don Antonio to the

throne of Portugal, of which the Spaniards had deprived him. On his

return he lost caste considerably, both with the Queen and country, by

taking bribes, and otherwise abusing the influence he had acquired at

Court. Yet, about this time, his active mind was projecting what he

called an 'Office of Address,'--a plan for facilitating the designs of

literary and scientific men, promoting intercourse between them, gaining,

in short, all those objects which are now secured by our literary

associations and philosophical societies. Raleigh was eminently a man

before his age, but, alas! his age was too far behind him.

While visiting Ireland, after his expedition to Portugal, he contracted

an intimacy with Spenser. (See our 'Life of Spenser,' vol. ii.) In 1592,

he commanded a large naval expedition, destined to attack Panama and

intercept the Spanish Plate-fleet, but was recalled by the Queen, not,

however, till he had seized on an important prize, and, in common

parlance, had 'feathered his nest.' On his return he excited Her

Majesty's wrath, by an intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the

maids of honour, and, although Raleigh afterwards married her, the Queen

imprisoned both the offending parties for some months in the Tower.

Spenser is believed to allude to this in the 4th Book of his great poem.

(See vol. in. of our edition, p. 88.) Even after he was released from

the Tower, Raleigh had to leave the Court in disgrace; instead, however,

of wasting time in vain regrets, he undertook, at his own expense, an

expedition against Guiana, where he captured the city of San Joseph, and

which he occupied in the Queen's name. After his return he published an

account of his expedition, more distinguished by glowing eloquence than

by rigid regard to truth. In 1596, having in some measure regained the

Queen's favour, he was appointed to a command in the expedition against

Cadiz, under the Earl of Essex. In this, as well as in the expedition

against the Spanish Plate-fleet the next year, he won laurels, but was

unfortunate enough to excite the jealousy of his Commander-in-Chief.

When the favourite got into trouble, Raleigh eagerly joined in the hunt,

wrote a letter to Cecil urging him to the destruction of Essex, and

witnessed his execution from a window in the Armoury. This is

undoubtedly a deep blot on the escutcheon of our hero.

Cecil had been glad of Raleigh's aid in ruining Essex, but he bore him

no good-will otherwise, and is said to have poisoned James, who now

succeeded to the English throne, against him. Assuredly the new King was

no friend of Raleigh's. Stimulated by Cecil, after first depriving him

of his office of Captain of the Guards, he brought him to trial for high

treason. He was accused of conspiring to establish Popery, to dethrone

the King, and to put the crown on the head of Arabella Stewart. Sir

Edward Coke, the Attorney-General, led the accusation, and disgraced

himself by heaping on Raleigh's head every foul epithet, calling him

'viper,' 'damnable atheist,' 'monster,' 'traitor,' 'spider of hell,'

&c., and by his violence, although to his own surprise, as he never

expected to gain his cause in full, he browbeat the jury to bring in a

verdict of high treason.

Raleigh's defence was a masterpiece of temper, dignity, strength of

reasoning, and eloquence, and his enemies were ashamed of the decision

to which they had driven the jury. He was therefore reprieved, and

committed to the Tower, where his wife was allowed to bear him company,

and where his youngest son was born. His estates were, in general,

preserved to him, but Carr, the infamous minion of the King, under some

pretext of a flaw in the conveyance of it by Raleigh to his son, seized

upon his manor of Sherborne. In the Tower he continued for twelve years.

These years his industry and genius rendered the happiest probably of

his life. Immured in the

'towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,

By many a foul and midnight murder fed,'

his winged soul soared away, like the dove of the Deluge, over the wild

ocean of the past. The Tower confined his body, but this great globe the

world seemed too little for the sweep of his spirit. To fill up the vast

void which a long imprisonment created around him, and to shew that his

powers retained all their elasticity, he projected a work on the largest

scale, and with the noblest purpose--'The History of the World.' In this

undertaking he found literary men ready to lend him their aid. A hundred

hands were generously stretched out to gather materials, and to bring

them to the captive in the Tower. Cart-loads of books were sent. One

Burrell, formerly his chaplain, assisted him in much of the critical and

chronological drudgery. Rugged Ben Jonson sent in a piece of rugged

writing on the Punic War, which Raleigh polished and set as a carved

stone in his magnificent temple. Some have, on this account, sought to

detract from the merit of the author. As if ever an architect could rear

a building without hodmen! But in Raleigh's case the hodmen were Titans.

'The best wits in England assisted him in his undertaking;' and what a

compliment was this to the strength and stature of the master-builder!

This great work was never finished. The part completed comprehended only

the period from the Creation to the Downfall of the Macedonian Empire

--one hundred and seventy years before Christ. He tarries too long amidst

the misty and mythical ages which precede the dawn of history; his

speculations on the site of the original Paradise, on the Flood, &c.,

are more ingenious than instructive; but his descriptions of the Greek

battles--his account of the rise of Rome--the extensive erudition, on

all subjects displayed in the book--the many acute, profound, and

eloquently-expressed observations which are sprinkled throughout--and

the style, massive, dignified, rich, and less involved in structure than

that of almost any of his contemporaries--shall always rank it amongst

the great literary treasures of the language. It was published in 1614.

Besides it, Raleigh was the author of various works, all full of

sagacious thought and brilliant imagery, such as 'The Advice to a Son on

the Choice of a Wife,' 'The Sceptic,' 'Maxims of State,' &c. At last he

was released by the advance of a large sum of money to Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham, James's favourite; and, to retrieve his fortunes, projected

another expedition to America. James granted him a patent, under the

Great Seal, for making a settlement in Guiana, but ungenerously did not

grant him a pardon for the sentence which had been passed on him for

treason. He set sail, 1617, in a ship built by himself, called the

_Destiny_, with eleven other vessels. Having reached the Orinoco, he

despatched a portion of his forces to attack the new Spanish settlement

of St Thomas. This was captured, with the loss of Raleigh's eldest son.

The expected plunder, however, proved of little value; and Sir Walter

having in vain attempted to induce his captains to attack other

settlements of the Spaniards, was compelled to return home--his golden

dreams dissolved, and his prophetic soul forewarning him of the doom

that awaited him on his native shores. In July 1618, he landed at

Plymouth; 'whence,' says Howell, in his 'Familiar Letters,' 'he thought

to make an escape, and some say he tampered with his body by physic to

make him look sickly, that he might be the more pitied, and permitted to

lie in his own house.' James was at this time seeking the hand of the

Infanta for his son Charles, and was naturally disposed to side with the

Spanish cause. He was, besides, stirred up by the Spanish ambassador,

Count Gondomar, who sent to desire an audience with His Majesty, and

said, that he had only one word to say to him. 'The King wondered what

could be delivered in one word, whereupon, when he came before him, he

said only, "Pirates! pirates! pirates!" and so departed.'

Raleigh consequently was arrested and sent back to his old lodgings in

the Tower. He was not tried, as might have been expected, for the new

offence of waging war against a power then at amity with England, but

James, with consummate meanness and cruelty, determined to revive his

former sentence. He was brought before the King's Bench, where his old

enemy, Sir Edward Coke, now sat as Chief Justice, and officially

condemned him to death. His language, however, was considerably modified

to the prisoner. He said, 'I know you have been valiant and wise, and I

doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for now you shall have

occasion to use them. Your faith hath heretofore been questioned, but I

am resolved you are a good Christian; for your book, which is an

admirable work, doth testify as much. I would give you counsel, but I

know you can apply unto yourself far better than I can give you. Yet

will I (with the good neighbour in the Gospel, who, finding one in the

way wounded and distressed, poured oil into his wounds and refreshed

him) give unto you the oil of comfort, though, in respect that I am a

minister of the law, mixed with vinegar.' Such was Coke's comfort to the

brave and gifted man who stood untrembling before his bar.

On the 26th of October 1618, the day after his condemnation, Raleigh was

beheaded. He met his fate with dignity and composure. Having addressed

the multitude in vindication of his conduct, he took up the axe, and

said to the sheriff, 'This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all

diseases.' He told the executioner that he would give the signal by

lifting up his hand, and 'then,' he said, 'fear not, but strike home.'

He next laid himself down, but was asked by the executioner to alter the

position of the head. 'So the heart be right,' he replied, 'it is no

matter which way the head lies.' The headsman became uncertain and

tremulous when the signal was given, whereupon Ealeigh exclaimed, 'Why

dost thou not strike? Strike, man!' and by two blows that gallant,

witty, and richly-stored head was severed from the body. He was in his

sixty-fifth year. He had the night before composed the following verse:--

Even such is Time, that takes on trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust;

Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wander'd all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.'

Thus perished Sir Walter Raleigh. There has been ever one opinion as to

the breadth and brilliance of his genius. His powers were almost

universal in their range. He commented on Scripture with the ingenuity

of a Talmudist, and wrote love verses (see the lines in Campbell's

'Specimens,' entitled 'Dulcina') with the animus and graceful levity of

a Thomas Moore. He was deep at once in 'all the learning of the

Egyptians,' and in that of the Greeks and Romans. In his large mind lay

dreams of golden lands, which even Australia has not yet fully verified,

alongside of maxims of the most practical wisdom. He was learned in all

that had been; well-informed as to all that was; and speculative and

hopeful as to all that might be and was yet to be. Disgust at the

scholastic methods, blended with the adventurous character of his mind,

and perhaps also with some looseness of moral principle, led him at one

time to the brink of universal scepticism; but disappointment, sorrow,

and the solitude of the Tower, made him a sadder and wiser man, and he

returned to the verities of the Christian religion. The stains on his

character seem to have arisen chiefly from his position. He was, like

some greater and some smaller men of eminence, undoubtedly, to a certain

extent, a brilliant adventurer--a class to whom justice is seldom done,

and against whom every calumny is believed. He was a _novus homo_, in an

age of more than common aristocratic pretence; sprang, indeed, from an

ancient family, but possessing nothing himself, save his cloak, his

sword, his tact, and his genius. We all know how, in later times, such

spirits, kindred in many points to Raleigh, in some superior, and in

others inferior--as Burke, Sheridan, and Canning--were used, less for

their errors of temper or of life, than because they had gained immense

influence, not by birth or favour, but by the force of extraordinary

talent and no less remarkable address. Raleigh, however, was undoubtedly

imprudent in a high degree. He had once or twice outraged common

morality; his enemies were constantly accusing him of gasconading and of

'pride.' His success at first was too early and too easy, and hence a

reverse might have been anticipated as certain and as remarkable as his

rise had been. His fall ultimately is understood to have been

precipitated by the base complicity of James with the Spaniards, who

were informed by the King of Raleigh's motions in America, and prepared

to counteract them, as well as by the loud-sounding invectives and legal

lies of the unscrupulous instruments of his tyrannical power. With all

his faults and follies, (of 'crimes,' it has been justly said, Raleigh

can hardly be accused,) he stood high in that crowd of giants who

illustrated the reign of the Amazonian Queen. What an age it was! Bacon,

with still brighter powers, and far darker and meaner faults than

Raleigh, was sitting on the woolsack in body, while his spirit was

presiding over the half-born philosophies of the future, and beholding

the cold rod of Induction blossom in an after-day into the Aaronic

flowers and fruits of a magnificent science; Cecil was nodding out

wisdom or transcendental craft in the Cabinet; Sir Philip Sidney was

carrying the spirit of 'Arcadia' into the field of battle; Spenser was

dreaming his one beautiful lifelong Dream; and Shakspeare was holding up

his calm mirror to the heart of man and the universe of nature; while,

on the prow of the British vessel, carrying on those lofty spirits and

enterprises, there appeared a daring mariner, the Poet and 'Shepherd of

the Ocean,' with bright eye, sanguine countenance, step treading the

deck like a throne, and look contemplating the sunset, as if it were the

dawning, and the Evening, as if it were the Morning Star. It was the

hopeful and the brilliant Raleigh, who, while he 'opened up to Europe

the New World, was the historian of the Old.' Alas that this illustrious

'Marinere' was doomed to a life so troubled and a death so dreadful, and

that the glory of one of England's prodigies is for ever bound up with

the disgrace of one of England's and Scotland's princes!

THE COUNTRY'S RECREATIONS.

1 Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears,

Anxious sighs, untimely tears,

Fly, fly to courts,

Fly to fond worldling's sports;

Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glozing still,

And Grief is forced to laugh against her will;

Where mirth's but mummery,

And sorrows only real be.

2 Fly from our country pastimes, fly,

Sad troop of human misery!

Come, serene looks,

Clear as the crystal brooks,

Or the pure azured heaven, that smiles to see

The rich attendance of our poverty.

Peace and a secure mind,

Which all men seek, we only find.

3 Abused mortals, did you know

Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow,

You'd scorn proud towers,

And seek them in these bowers;

Where winds perhaps our woods may sometimes shake,

But blustering care could never tempest make,

Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,

Saving of fountains that glide by us.

* * * * *

4 Blest silent groves! oh, may ye be

For ever mirth's best nursery!

May pure contents,

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,

Which we may every year

Find when we come a-fishing here.

THE SILENT LOVER.

1 Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams,

The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;

So when affection yields discourse, it seems

The bottom is but shallow whence they come;

They that are rich in words must needs discover

They are but poor in that which makes a lover.

2 Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart,

The merit of true passion,

With thinking that he feels no smart

That sues for no compassion.

3 Since if my plaints were not t' approve

The conquest of thy beauty,

It comes not from defect of love,

But fear t' exceed my duty.

4 For not knowing that I sue to serve

A saint of such perfection

As all desire, but none deserve

A place in her affection,

5 I rather choose to want relief

Than venture the revealing;

Where glory recommends the grief,

Despair disdains the healing.

6 Silence in love betrays more woe

Than words, though ne'er so witty;

A beggar that is dumb, you know,

May challenge double pity.

7 Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,

My love for secret passion;

He smarteth most who hides his smart,

And sues for no compassion.

A VISION UPON 'THE FAIRY QUEEN.'

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,

Within that temple where the vestal flame

Was wont to burn: and passing by that way

To see that buried dust of living fame,

Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept,

All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen,

At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept;

And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen,

For they this Queen attended; in whose stead

Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse.

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce,

Where Homer's sprite did tremble all for grief,

And cursed the access of that celestial thief.

LOVE ADMITS NO RIVAL.

1 Shall I, like a hermit, dwell,

On a rock, or in a cell,

Calling home the smallest part

That is missing of my heart,

To bestow it where I may

Meet a rival every day?

If she undervalue me,

What care I how fair she be?

2 Were her tresses angel gold,

If a stranger may be bold,

Unrebuked, unafraid,

To convert them to a braid,

And with little more ado

Work them into bracelets, too;

If the mine be grown so free,

What care I how rich it be?

3 Were her hand as rich a prize

As her hairs, or precious eyes,

If she lay them out to take

Kisses, for good manners' sake,

And let every lover skip

From her hand unto her lip;

If she seem not chaste to me,

What care I how chaste she be?

4 No; she must be perfect snow,

In effect as well as show;

Warming but as snow-balls do,

Not like fire, by burning too;

But when she by change hath got

To her heart a second lot,

Then if others share with me,

Farewell her, whate'er she be!

JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

Joshua Sylvester is the next in the list of our imperfectly-known, but

real poets. Very little is known of his history. He was a merchant-

adventurer, and died at Middleburg, aged fifty-five, in 1618. He is said

to have applied, in 1597, for the office of secretary to a trading

company in Stade, and to have been, on this occasion, patronised by

the Earl of Essex. He was at one time attached to the English Court as

a pensioner of Prince Henry. He is said to have been driven abroad by

the severity of his satires. He seems to have had a sweet flow of

conversational eloquence, and hence was called 'The Silver-tongued.' He

was an eminent linguist, and wrote his dedications in various languages.

He published a large volume of poems, very unequal in their value, and

inserted in it 'The Soul's Errand,' with interpolations, as we have seen,

which prove it not to be his own. His great work is the translation of

the 'Divine Weeks and Works' of the French poet, Du Bartas, which is a

marvellous medley of flatness and force--of childish weakness and soaring

genius--with more _seed poetry_ in it than any poem we remember, except

'Festus,' the chaos of a hundred poetic worlds. There can be little doubt

that Milton was familiar with this work in boyhood, and many remarkable

coincidences have been pointed out between it and 'Paradise Lost.'

Sylvester was a Puritan, and his publisher, Humphrey Lownes, who lived

in the same street with Milton's father, belonged to the same sect; and,

as Campbell remarks, 'it is easily to be conceived that Milton often

repaired to the shop of Lownes, and there met with the pious didactic

poem.' The work, therefore, some specimens of which we subjoin, is

interesting, both in itself, and as having been the _prima stamina_ of

the great masterpiece of English poetry.

TO RELIGION.

1 Religion, O thou life of life,

How worldlings, that profane thee rife,

Can wrest thee to their appetites!

How princes, who thy power deny,

Pretend thee for their tyranny,

And people for their false delights!

2 Under thy sacred name, all over,

The vicious all their vices cover;

The insolent their insolence,

The proud their pride, the false their fraud,

The thief his theft, her filth the bawd,

The impudent, their impudence.

3 Ambition under thee aspires,

And Avarice under thee desires;

Sloth under thee her ease assumes,

Lux under thee all overflows,

Wrath under thee outrageous grows,

All evil under thee presumes.

4 Religion, erst so venerable,

What art thou now but made a fable,

A holy mask on folly's brow,

Where under lies Dissimulation,

Lined with all abomination.

Sacred Religion, where art thou?

5 Not in the church with Simony,

Not on the bench with Bribery,

Nor in the court with Machiavel,

Nor in the city with deceits,

Nor in the country with debates;

For what hath Heaven to do with Hell?

ON MAN'S RESEMBLANCE TO GOD.

(FROM DU BARTAS.)

O complete creature! who the starry spheres

Canst make to move, who 'bove the heavenly bears

Extend'st thy power, who guidest with thy hand

The day's bright chariot, and the nightly brand:

This curious lust to imitate the best

And fairest works of the Almightiest,

By rare effects bears record of thy lineage

And high descent; and that his sacred image

Was in thy soul engraven, when first his Spirit,

The spring of life, did in thy limbs inspire it.

For, as his beauties are past all compare,

So is thy soul all beautiful and fair:

As he's immortal, and is never idle,

Thy soul's immortal, and can brook no bridle

Of sloth, to curb her busy intellect:

He ponders all; thou peizest[1] each effect:

And thy mature and settled sapience

Hath some alliance with his providence:

He works by reason, thou by rule: he's glory

Of the heavenly stages, thou of th' earthly story:

He's great High Priest, thou his great vicar here:

He's sovereign Prince, and thou his viceroy dear.

For soon as ever he had framed thee,

Into thy hands he put this monarchy:

Made all the creatures know thee for their lord,

And come before thee of their own accord:

And gave thee power as master, to impose

Fit sense-full names unto the host that rows

In watery regions; and the wand'ring herds

Of forest people; and the painted birds:

Oh, too, too happy! had that fall of thine

Not cancell'd so the character divine.

But, since our souls' now sin-obscured light

Shines through the lanthorn of our flesh so bright;

What sacred splendour will this star send forth,

When it shall shine without this vail of earth?

The Soul here lodged is like a man that dwells

In an ill air, annoy'd with noisome smells;

In an old house, open to wind and weather;

Never in health not half an hour together:

Or, almost, like a spider who, confined

In her web's centre, shakes with every wind;

Moves in an instant, if the buzzing fly

Stir but a string of her lawn canopy.

[1] 'Peizest:' weighest.

THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN.

Thou radiant coachman, running endless course,

Fountain of heat, of light the lively source,

Life of the world, lamp of this universe,

Heaven's richest gem: oh, teach me where my verse

May but begin thy praise: Alas! I fare

Much like to one that in the clouds doth stare

To count the quails, that with their shadow cover

The Italian sea, when soaring hither over,

Fain of a milder and more fruitful clime,

They come with us to pass the summer time:

No sooner he begins one shoal to sum,

But, more and more, still greater shoals do come,

Swarm upon swarm, that with their countless number

Break off his purpose, and his sense encumber.

Day's glorious eye! even as a mighty king

About his country stately progressing,

Is compass'd round with dukes, earls, lords, and knights,

(Orderly marshall'd in their noble rites,)

Esquires and gentlemen, in courtly kind,

And then his guard before him and behind.

And there is nought in all his royal muster,

But to his greatness addeth grace and lustre:

So, while about the world thou ridest aye,

Which only lives through virtue of thy ray,

Six heavenly princes, mounted evermore,

Wait on thy coach, three behind, three before;

Besides the host of th' upper twinklers bright,

To whom, for pay, thou givest only light.

And, even as man (the little world of cares)

Within the middle of the body bears

His heart, the spring of life, which with proportion

Supplieth spirits to all, and every portion:

Even so, O Sun, thy golden chariot marches

Amid the six lamps of the six low arches

Which seele the world, that equally it might

Richly impart them beauty, force, and light.

Praising thy heat, which subtilly doth pierce

The solid thickness of our universe:

Which in the earth's kidneys mercury doth burn,

And pallid sulphur to bright metal turn;

I do digress, to praise that light of thine,

Which if it should but one day cease to shine,

Th' unpurged air to water would resolve,

And water would the mountain tops involve.

Scarce I begin to measure thy bright face

Whose greatness doth so oft earth's greatness pass,

And which still running the celestial ring,

Is seen and felt of every living thing;

But that fantastic'ly I change my theme

To sing the swiftness of thy tireless team,

To sing how, rising from the Indian wave,

Thou seem'st (O Titan) like a bridegroom brave,

Who, from his chamber early issuing out

In rich array, with rarest gems about,

With pleasant countenance and lovely face,

With golden tresses and attractive grace,

Cheers at his coming all the youthful throng

That for his presence earnestly did long,

Blessing the day, and with delightful glee,

Singing aloud his epithalamie.

RICHARD BARNFIELD.

Of him we only know that he published several poetical volumes between

1594 and 1598. We give one beautiful piece, 'To a Nightingale,' which

used to be attributed to Shakspeare.

ADDRESS TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

As it fell upon a day,

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made;

Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,

Trees did grow, and plants did spring;

Everything did banish moan,

Save the nightingale alone.

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,

Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn;

And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,

That to hear it was great pity.

'Fie, fie, fie,' now would she cry;

'Teru, teru,' by and by;

That, to hear her so complain,

Scarce I could from tears refrain;

For her griefs, so lively shown,

Made me think upon mine own.

Ah! (thought I) thou mourn'st in vain;

None takes pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee,

Ruthless bears they will not cheer thee:

King Pandion he is dead;

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead;

All thy fellow-birds do sing,

Careless of thy sorrowing!

Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,

Thou and I were both beguiled.

Every one that flatters thee

Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy, like the wind;

Faithful friends are hard to find.

Every man will be thy friend

Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend:

But, if store of crowns be scant,

No man will supply thy want.

If that one be prodigal,

Bountiful they will him call;

And with such-like flattering,

'Pity but he were a king.'

If he be addict to vice,

Quickly him they will entice;

But if Fortune once do frown,

Then farewell his great renown:

They that fawn'd on him before

Use his company no more.

He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need;

If thou sorrow, he will weep,

If thou wake, he cannot sleep:

Thus, of every grief in heart

He with thee doth bear a part.

These are certain signs to know

Faithful friend from flattering foe.

ALEXANDER HUME.

This Scottish poet was the second son of Patrick, fifth Baron of

Polwarth. He was born about the middle of the sixteenth century, and

died in 1609. He resided for some years, in the early part of his life,

in France. Returning home, he studied law, and then tried his fortune at

Court. Here he was eclipsed by a rival, named Montgomery; and after

assailing his rival, who rejoined, in verse, he became a clergyman in

disgust, and was settled in the parish of Logie. Here he darkened into

a sour and savage Calvinist, and uttered an exhortation to the youth of

Scotland to forego the admiration of classical heroes, and to read no

love-poetry save the 'Song of Solomon.' In another poetic walk, however,

that of natural description, Hume excelled, and we print with pleasure

some parts of his 'Summer's Day,' which our readers may compare with Mr

Aird's fine poem under the same title, and be convinced that the sky of

Scotland was as blue, and the grass as green, and Scottish eyes as quick

to perceive their beauty, in the sixteenth century as now.

THANKS FOR A SUMMER'S DAY.

1 O perfect light which shade[1] away

The darkness from the light,

And set a ruler o'er the day,

Another o'er the night.

2 Thy glory, when the day forth flies,

More vively does appear,

Nor[2] at mid-day unto our eyes

The shining sun is clear.

3 The shadow of the earth anon

Removes and drawis by,

Syne[3] in the east, when it is gone,

Appears a clearer sky.

4 Which soon perceive the little larks,

The lapwing, and the snipe,

And tune their song like Nature's clerks,

O'er meadow, muir, and stripe.

5 But every bold nocturnal beast

No longer may abide,

They hie away both maist and least,[4]

Themselves in house to hide.

* * * * *

6 The golden globe incontinent

Sets up his shining head,

And o'er the earth and firmament

Displays his beams abroad.[5]

7 For joy the birds with boulden[6] throats,

Against his visage sheen,[7]

Take up their kindly music notes

In woods and gardens green.

8 Upbraids[8] the careful husbandman,

His corn and vines to see,

And every timeous[9] artisan

In booths works busily.

9 The pastor quits the slothful sleep,

And passes forth with speed,

His little camow-nosed[10] sheep,

And rowting kye[11] to feed.

10 The passenger, from perils sure,

Goes gladly forth the way,

Brief, every living creäture

Takes comfort of the day.

* * * * *

11 The misty reek,[12] the clouds of rain

From tops of mountain skails,[13]

Clear are the highest hills and plain,

The vapours take the vales.

12 Begaired[14] is the sapphire pend[15]

With spraings[16] of scarlet hue;

And preciously from end to end,

Damasked white and blue.

13 The ample heaven, of fabric sure,

In clearness does surpass

The crystal and the silver, pure

As clearest polish'd glass.

14 The time so tranquil is and clear,

That nowhere shall ye find,

Save on a high and barren hill,

The air of passing wind.

15 All trees and simples, great and small,

That balmy leaf do bear,

Than they were painted on a wall,

No more they move or steir.[17]

16 The rivers fresh, the caller[18] streams,

O'er rocks can swiftly rin,[19]

The water clear like crystal beams,

And makes a pleasant din.

* * * * *

17 Calm is the deep and purple sea,

Yea, smoother than the sand;

The waves, that woltering[20] wont to be,

Are stable like the land.

18 So silent is the cessile air,

That every cry and call,

The hills and dales, and forest fair,

Again repeats them all.

19 The clogged busy humming bees,

That never think to drown,[21]

On flowers and flourishes of trees,

Collect their liquor brown.

20 The sun most like a speedy post

With ardent course ascends;

The beauty of our heavenly host

Up to our zenith tends.

* * * * *

21 The breathless flocks draw to the shade

And freshure[22] of their fauld;[23]

The startling nolt, as they were mad,

Run to the rivers cauld.

22 The herds beneath some leafy trees,

Amidst the flowers they lie;

The stable ships upon the seas

Tend up their sails to dry.

23 The hart, the hind, the fallow-deer,

Are tapish'd[24] at their rest;

The fowls and birds that made thee beare,[25]

Prepare their pretty nest.

24 The rayons dure[26] descending down,

All kindle in a gleid;[27]

In city, nor in burrough town,

May none set forth their head.

25 Back from the blue pavemented whun,[28]

And from ilk plaster wall,

The hot reflexing of the sun

Inflames the air and all.

26 The labourers that timely rose,

All weary, faint, and weak,

For heat down to their houses goes,

Noon-meat and sleep to take.

27 The caller[29] wine in cave is sought,

Men's brothing[30] breasts to cool;

The water cold and clear is brought,

And sallads steeped in ule.[31]

28 With gilded eyes and open wings,

The cock his courage shows;

With claps of joy his breast he dings,[32]

And twenty times he crows.

29 The dove with whistling wings so blue,

The winds can fast collect,

Her purple pens turn many a hue

Against the sun direct.

30 Now noon is gone--gone is mid-day,

The heat does slake at last,

The sun descends down west away,

For three o'clock is past.

* * * * *

31 The rayons of the sun we see

Diminish in their strength,

The shade of every tower and tree

Extended is in length.

32 Great is the calm, for everywhere

The wind is setting down,

The reek[33] throws up right in the air,

From every tower and town.

33 The mavis and the philomeen,[34]

The starling whistles loud,

The cushats[35] on the branches green,

Full quietly they crood.[36]

34 The gloamin[37] comes, the clay is spent,

The sun goes out of sight,

And painted is the occident

With purple sanguine bright.

* * * * *

35 The scarlet nor the golden thread,

Who would their beauty try,

Are nothing like the colour red

And beauty of the sky.

* * * * *

36 What pleasure then to walk and see,

Endlong[38] a river clear,

The perfect form of every tree

Within the deep appear.

37 The salmon out of cruives[39] and creels[40]

Uphauled into scouts;[41]

The bells and circles on the weills,[42]

Through leaping of the trouts.

38 O sure it were a seemly thing,

While all is still and calm,

The praise of God to play and sing

With trumpet and with shalm.

39 Through all the land great is the gild[43]

Of rustic folks that cry;

Of bleating sheep, from they be fill'd,

Of calves and rowting kye.

40 All labourers draw home at even,

And can to others say,

Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,

Who sent this summer day.

[1] 'Shade:' for shaded.

[2] 'Nor:' than.

[3] 'Syne:' then.

[4] 'Maist and least:' largest and smallest.

[5] 'Abread:' abroad.

[6] 'Boulden:' emboldened.

[7] 'Sheen:' shining.

[8] 'Upbraids:' uprises.

[9] 'Timeous:' early.

[10]'Camow-nosed:' flat-nosed.

[11]'Rowting kye:' lowing kine.

[12]'Reek:' fog.

[13]'Skails:' dissipates.

[14]'Begaired:' dressed out.

[15]'Pend:' arch.

[16]'Spraings:' streaks.

[17] 'Steir:' stir.

[18] 'Caller:' cool.

[19] 'Rin:' run.

[20] 'Woltering:' tumbling.

[21] 'Drown:' drone, be idle.

[22] 'Freshure:' freshness.

[23] 'Fauld:' fold.

[24] 'Tapish'd:' stretched as on a carpet.

[25] 'Beare:' sound, music.

[26] 'Rayons dure:' hard or keen rays.

[27] 'Gleid:' fire.

[28] 'Whun:' whinstone.

[29] 'Caller:' cool.

[30] 'Brothing:' burning.

[31] 'Ule:' oil.

[32] 'Dings:' beats.

[33] 'Reek:' smoke.

[34] 'The mavis and the philomeen:' thrush and nightingale.

[35] 'Cushats:' wood-pigeons.

[36] 'Crood:' coo.

[37] 'Gloamin:' evening.

[38] 'Endlong:' along.

[39] 'Cruives:' cages for catching fish.

[40] 'Creels:' baskets.

[41] 'Scouts:' small boats or yawls.

[42] 'Weills:' eddies.

[43] 'Gild:' throng.

* * * * *

OTHER SCOTTISH POETS.

About the same time with Hume flourished two or three poets in Scotland

of considerable merit, such as Alexander Scott, author of satires and

amatory poems, and called sometimes the 'Scottish Anacreon;' Sir Richard

Maitland of Lethington, father of the famous Secretary Lethington, who,

in his advanced years, composed and dictated to his daughter a few moral

and conversational pieces, and who collected, besides, into a MS. which

bears his name, the productions of some of his contemporaries; and

Alexander Montgomery, author of an allegorical poem, entitled 'The

Cherry and the Slae.'

The allegory is not well managed, but some of the natural descriptions

are sweet and striking. Take the two following stanzas as a specimen:--

'The cushat croods, the corbie cries,

The cuckoo conks, the prattling pies

To geck there they begin;

The jargon of the jangling jays,

The cracking craws and keckling kays,

They deav'd me with their din;

The painted pawn, with Argus eyes,

Can on his May-cock call,

The turtle wails, on wither'd trees,

And Echo answers all.

Repeating, with greeting,

How fair Narcissus fell,

By lying, and spying

His shadow in the well.

'The air was sober, saft, and sweet,

Nae misty vapours, wind, nor weet,

But quiet, calm, and clear;

To foster Flora's fragrant flowers,

Whereon Apollo's paramours

Had trinkled mony a tear;

The which, like silver shakers, shined,

Embroidering Beauty's bed,

Wherewith their heavy heads declined,

In Mayë's colours clad;

Some knopping, some dropping

Of balmy liquor sweet,

Excelling and smelling

Through Phoebus' wholesome heat.'

The 'Cherry and the Slae' was familiar to Burns, who often, our readers

will observe, copied its form of verse.

SAMUEL DANIEL.

This ingenious person was born in 1562, near Taunton, in Somersetshire.

His father was a music-master. He was patronised by the noble family

of Pembroke, who probably also maintained him at college. He went to

Magdalene Hall, Oxford, in 1579; and after studying there, chiefly

history and poetry, for seven years, he left without a degree. When

twenty-three years of age, he translated Paulus Jovius' 'Discourse of

Rare Inventions.' He became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, the elegant

and accomplished daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. She, at his death,

raised a monument to his memory, and recorded on it, with pride, that

she had been his pupil. After Spenser died, Daniel became a 'voluntary

laureat' to the Court, producing masques and pageants, but was soon

supplanted by 'rare Ben Jonson.' In 1603 he was appointed Master of the

Queen's Revels and Inspector of the Plays to be enacted by juvenile

performers. He was also promoted to be Gentleman Extraordinary and Groom

of the Chambers to the Queen. He was a varied and voluminous writer,

composing plays, miscellaneous poems, and prose compositions, including

a 'Defence of Rhyme' and a 'History of England,'--an honest, but somewhat

dry and dull production. While composing his works he resided in Old

Street, St Luke's, which was then thought a suburban residence; but he

was often in town, and mingled on intimate terms with Selden and

Shakspeare. When approaching sixty, he took a farm at Beckington, in

Somersetshire--his native shire--and died there in 1619.

Daniel's Plays and History are now, as wholes, forgotten, although the

former contained some vigorous passages, such as Richard II.'s soliloquy

on the morning of his murder in Pomfret Castle. His smaller pieces and

his Sonnets shew no ordinary poetic powers.

RICHARD II., THE MORNING BEFORE HIS MURDER IN POMFRET CASTLE.

Whether the soul receives intelligence,

By her near genius, of the body's end,

And so imparts a sadness to the sense,

Foregoing ruin, whereto it doth tend;

Or whether nature else hath conference

With profound sleep, and so doth warning send,

By prophetising dreams, what hurt is near,

And gives the heavv careful heart to fear:--

However, so it is, the now sad king,

Toss'd here and there his quiet to confound,

Feels a strange weight of sorrows gathering

Upon his trembling heart, and sees no ground;

Feels sudden terror bring cold shivering;

Lists not to eat, still muses, sleeps unsound;

His senses droop, his steady eyes unquick,

And much he ails, and yet he is not sick.

The morning of that day which was his last,

After a weary rest, rising to pain,

Out at a little grate his eyes he cast

Upon those bordering hills and open plain,

Where others' liberty makes him complain

The more his own, and grieves his soul the more,

Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor.

'O happy man,' saith he, 'that lo I see,

Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields,

If he but knew his good. How blessed he

That feels not what affliction greatness yields!

Other than what he is he would not be,

Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields.

Thine, thine is that true life: that is to live,

To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve.

'Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire,

And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none:

And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire,

Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan.

Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire

Of my restraint, why here I live alone,

And pitiest this my miserable fall;

For pity must have part--envy not all.

'Thrice happy you that look as from the shore,

And have no venture in the wreck you see;

No interest, no occasion to deplore

Other men's travails, while yourselves sit free.

How much doth your sweet rest make us the more

To see our misery and what we be:

Whose blinded greatness, ever in turmoil,

Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil.'

EARLY LOVE.

Ah, I remember well (and how can I

But evermore remember well?) when first

Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was

The flame we felt; when as we sat and sigh'd

And look'd upon each other, and conceived

Not what we ail'd, yet something we did ail,

And yet were well, and yet we were not well,

And what was our disease we could not tell.

Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: and thus

In that first garden of our simpleness

We spent our childhood. But when years began

To reap the fruit of knowledge; ah, how then

Would she with sterner looks, with graver brow,

Check my presumption and my forwardness!

Yet still would give me flowers, still would show

What she would have me, yet not have me know.

SELECTIONS FROM SONNETS.

I must not grieve, my love, whose eyes would read

Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;

Flowers have time before they come to seed,

And she is young, and now must sport the while.

And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,

And learn to gather flowers before they wither;

And where the sweetest blossom first appears,

Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither,

Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,

And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise:

Pity and smiles do best become the fair;

Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.

Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,

Happy the heart that sigh'd for such a one.

Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair;

Her brow shades frown, although her eyes are sunny;

Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair;

And her disdains are gall, her favours honey.

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her:

Sacred on earth; design'd a saint above;

Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,

Live reconciled friends within her brow;

And had she Pity to conjoin with those,

Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?

For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

Relieve my anguish, and restore the light,

With dark forgetting of my care, return.

And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-advised youth;

Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,

Without the torments of the night's untruth.

Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,

To model forth the passions of to-morrow;

Never let the rising sun prove you liars,

To add more grief, to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,

And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

SIR JOHN DAVIES.

This knight, says Campbell, 'wrote, at twenty-five years of age, a poem

on the "Immortality of the Soul," and at fifty-two, when he was a judge

and a statesman, another on the "_Art of Dancing_." Well might the

teacher of that noble accomplishment, in Molière's comedy, exclaim, "_La

philosophie est quelque chose--mais la danse!_" This, however, is more

pointed than correct, since the first of these poems was written in

1592, when the author was only twenty-two years of age, and the latter

appeared in 1599, when he was only twenty-nine.

Tisbury, in Wiltshire, was the birthplace of this poet, and 1570 the

date of his birth. His father was a practising lawyer. John was expelled

from the Temple for beating one Richard Martyn, afterwards Recorder, but

was restored, and subsequently elected for Parliament. In 1592, as

aforesaid, appeared his poem, 'Nosce Teipsum; or, The Immortality of the

Soul.' Its fame soon travelled to Scotland; and when Davies, along with

Lord Hunsdon, visited that country, James received him most graciously

as the author of 'Nosce Teipsum.' His history became, for some time, a

list of promotions. He was appointed, in 1603, first Solicitor and then

Attorney-General in Ireland, was next made Sergeant, was then knighted,

then appointed King's Sergeant, next elected representative of the

county of Fermanagh, and, in fine, after a violent contest between the

Roman Catholic and Protestant parties, was chosen Speaker of the House

of Commons in the Protestant interest. While in Ireland he married

Eleanor, a daughter of Lord Audley, who turned out a raving prophetess,

and was sent, in 1649, to the Tower, and then to Bethlehem Hospital, by

the Revolutionary Government. In 1616, Sir John returned to England,

continued to practise as a barrister, sat in Parliament for Newcastle-

under-Lyne, and received a promise of being made Chief-Justice of

England; but was suddenly cut off by apoplexy in 1626.

His poem on dancing, which was written in fifteen days, and left a

fragment, is a piece of beautiful, though somewhat extravagant fancy.

His 'Nosce Teipsum,' if it casts little new light, and rears no

demonstrative argument on the grand and difficult problem of

immortality, is full of ingenuity, and has many apt and memorable

similes. Feeling he happily likens to the

'subtle spider, which doth sit

In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;

If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,

She feels it instantly on every side.'

In answering an objection, 'Why, if souls continue to exist, do they not

return and bring us news of that strange world?' he replies--

'But as Noah's pigeon, which return'd no more,

Did show she footing found, for all the flood,

So when good souls, departed through death's door,

Come not again, it shows their dwelling good.'

The poem is interesting from the musical use he makes of the quatrain,

a form of verse in which Dryden afterwards wrote his 'Annus Mirabilis,'

and as one of the earliest philosophical poems in the language. It is

proverbially difficult to reason in verse, but Davies reasons, if not

always with conclusive result, always with energy and skill.

INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM ON THE SOUL OF MAN.

1 The lights of heaven, which are the world's fair eyes,

Look down into the world, the world to see;

And as they turn or wander in the skies,

Survey all things that on this centre be.

2 And yet the lights which in my tower do shine,

Mine eyes, which view all objects nigh and far,

Look not into this little world of mine,

Nor see my face, wherein they fixed are.

3 Since Nature fails us in no needful thing,

Why want I means my inward self to see?

Which sight the knowledge of myself might bring,

Which to true wisdom is the first degree.

4 That Power, which gave me eyes the world to view,

To view myself, infused an inward light,

Whereby my soul, as by a mirror true,

Of her own form may take a perfect sight.

5 But as the sharpest eye discerneth nought,

Except the sunbeams in the air do shine;

So the best soul, with her reflecting thought,

Sees not herself without some light divine.

6 O light, which mak'st the light which makes the day!

Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within,

Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray,

Which now to view itself doth first begin.

7 For her true form how can my spark discern,

Which, dim by nature, art did never clear,

When the great wits, of whom all skill we learn,

Are ignorant both what she is, and where?

8 One thinks the soul is air; another fire;

Another blood, diffused about the heart;

Another saith, the elements conspire,

And to her essence each doth give a part.

9 Musicians think our souls are harmonies;

Physicians hold that they complexions be;

Epicures make them swarms of atomies,

Which do by chance into our bodies flee.

10 Some think one general soul fills every brain,

As the bright sun sheds light in every star;

And others think the name of soul is vain,

And that we only well-mix'd bodies are.

11 In judgment of her substance thus they vary;

And thus they vary in judgment of her seat;

For some her chair up to the brain do carry,

Some thrust it down into the stomach's heat.

12 Some place it in the root of life, the heart;

Some in the liver, fountain of the veins;

Some say, she's all in all, and all in every part;

Some say, she's not contain'd, but all contains.

13 Thus these great clerks their little wisdom show,

While with their doctrines they at hazard play;

Tossing their light opinions to and fro,

To mock the lewd, as learn'd in this as they.

14 For no crazed brain could ever yet propound,

Touching the soul, so vain and fond a thought;

But some among these masters have been found,

Which in their schools the selfsame thing have taught.

15 God only wise, to punish pride of wit,

Among men's wits hath this confusion wrought,

As the proud tower whose points the clouds did hit,

By tongues' confusion was to ruin brought.

16 But thou which didst man's soul of nothing make,

And when to nothing it was fallen again,

'To make it new, the form of man didst take;

And, God with God, becam'st a man with men.'

17 Thou that hast fashion'd twice this soul of ours,

So that she is by double title thine,

Thou only know'st her nature and her powers,

Her subtle form thou only canst define.

18 To judge herself, she must herself transcend,

As greater circles comprehend the less;

But she wants power her own powers to extend,

As fetter'd men cannot their strength express.

19 But thou bright morning Star, thou rising Sun,

Which in these later times hast brought to light

Those mysteries that, since the world begun,

Lay hid in darkness and eternal night:

20 Thou, like the sun, dost with an equal ray

Into the palace and the cottage shine,

And show'st the soul, both to the clerk and lay,

By the clear lamp of oracle divine.

21 This lamp, through all the regions of my brain,

Where my soul sits, doth spread such beams of grace,

As now, methinks, I do distinguish plain

Each subtle line of her immortal face.

22 The soul a substance and a spirit is,

Which God himself doth in the body make,

Which makes the man; for every man from this

The nature of a man and name doth take.

23 And though this spirit be to the body knit,

As an apt means her powers to exercise,

Which are life, motion, sense, and will, and wit,

Yet she survives, although the body dies.

THE SELF-SUBSISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

1 She is a substance, and a real thing,

Which hath itself an actual working might,

Which neither from the senses' power doth spring,

Nor from the body's humours temper'd right.

2 She is a vine, which doth no propping need,

To make her spread herself, or spring upright;

She is a star, whose beams do not proceed

From any sun, but from a native light.

3 For when she sorts things present with things past,

And thereby things to come doth oft foresee;

When she doth doubt at first, and choose at last,

These acts her own,[1] without her body be.

4 When of the dew, which the eye and ear do take,

From flowers abroad, and bring into the brain,

She doth within both wax and honey make:

This work is hers, this is her proper pain.

5 When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw;

Gathering from divers fights one art of war;

From many cases like, one rule of law;

These her collections, not the senses' are.

6 When in the effects she doth the causes know;

And seeing the stream, thinks where the spring doth rise;

And seeing the branch, conceives the root below:

These things she views without the body's eyes.

7 When she, without a Pegasus, doth fly

Swifter than lightning's fire from east to west;

About the centre, and above the sky,

She travels then, although the body rest.

8 When all her works she formeth first within,

Proportions them, and sees their perfect end;

Ere she in act doth any part begin,

What instruments doth then the body lend?

9 When without hands she doth thus castles build,

Sees without eyes, and without feet doth run;

When she digests the world, yet is not fill'd:

By her own powers these miracles are done.

10 When she defines, argues, divides, compounds,

Considers virtue, vice, and general things;

And marrying divers principles and grounds,

Out of their match a true conclusion brings.

11 These actions in her closet, all alone,

Retired within herself, she doth fulfil;

Use of her body's organs she hath none,

When she doth use the powers of wit and will.

12 Yet in the body's prison so she lies,