Dear the felicity,
Gentle, and fair, and sweet,
Love and simplicity,
When tender shepherds meet:
Better than store of gold,
Silver and gems untold,
Manners refined and cold,
Which to our lords belong!
We, when our toil is past,
Softest delight can taste,
While summer’s beauties last,
Dance, feast, and jocund song;
And in our hearts a joy
No envy can destroy.
_Translated by_ LOUISA COSTELLO. MARTIAL D’AUVERGNE, 1440–1508.
VIII.
=The Garland.=
Among the pieces in the following group will be found some old verses of
Gawain Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld. This ancient Scottish poet and Church
dignitary was a son of the famous Archibald, earl of Argus, surnamed
Bell-the-Cat, from his share in one of the peculiar conspiracies of that
strange period—a conspiracy which resulted in hanging a number of the
royal favorites of James III., chiefly architects and musicians,
ennobled by that prince. James was in this respect too liberal in his
tastes to please the fierce old barons surrounding his throne, though
doubtless his favor was often weakly lavished upon those in whose
society he took pleasure. But one would hardly have expected to find the
leader of such a conspiracy the father of a distinguished poet; such,
however, was the fact. Bishop Gawain was a great clerk in his day. He
wrote a metrical version of the Æneid in the Scottish dialect, and many
lesser poetical works, admitted to possess
great merit. Sir Walter Scott has introduced both father and son in
Marmion. He makes old Bell-the-Cat appear in his true character:
“A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed!
Did ever knight so foul a deed!
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line;
So swore I, and I swear it still—
Let my boy-bishop fret his fill.”
_Canto VI._
And in another passage we have the poet-bishop himself:
“Amid that dim and smoky light,
Checkering the silver moonshine bright—
A bishop by the altar stood,
A noble lord of Douglas’ blood.
With mitre sheen, and rocquet white.
Yet show’d his meek and thoughtful eye,
But little pride of prelacy;
More pleased that in a barbarous age
He gave rude Scotland Virgil’s page,
Than that beneath his rule he held
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld.”
_Canto VI._
Bishop Gawain was compelled by the troubles in Scotland to flee from his
native country, and to take refuge at the court of Henry VIII., where he
lived for years an honored exile, dying in 1522, at London, of the
plague. He was born in 1474. Each canto of his translation of Virgil was
preceded by an original prologue; the address to Spring—whence the
extract on flowers is taken—is one of the most pleasing of these, and
forms his introduction to the 12th Canto of the Æneid. Far from
regretting the Scotticisms of his style, the bishop only mourned that
his verses were still so English in their aspect: a defect which will
not be likely to strike the modern reader. But in spite of the obsolete
words and rugged style, the touch of a poetical spirit, and something of
the freshness of the natural blossoms still lingers about Bishop
Gawain’s Spring chaplet.