Great greadines, and prodigalitie;
Lusts sensual, and partialitie,"
with a continued list of similar qualifications, whose applicability is likely to be perceived only by a disappointed courtier, or a statesman out of place. During the days of his following the bar and the court, it is supposed that Hume joined in one of those elegant poetical amusements called "Flytings," and that he is the person who, under the designation of "Polwart," answered in fitting style to the abuse of Montgomery. That Alexander Hume was the person who so officiated, is, however, matter of great doubt: Dempster, a contemporary, mentions that the person who answered Montgomery was Patrick Hume, a name which answers to that of the elder brother; and though Leyden and Sibbald justly pay little attention to such authority, knowing that Dempster is, in general, as likely to be wrong as to be right, every Scotsman knows that the patrimonial designation "Polwart," is more appropriately the title of the elder than of the younger brother; while Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a more fortunate courtier, and less seriously disposed than his brother, has left behind him no mean specimen of his genius, in a poem addressed to James VI., entitled "The Promise." Whichever of the brothers has assumed Polwart's share in the controversy, it is among the most curious specimens of the employments of the elegant minds of the age.
If the sacred poet, Alexander Hume, was really the person who so spent his youthful genius, as life advanced he turned his attention to more serious matters; that his youth was spent more unprofitably than his riper years approved, is displayed in some of his writings, in terms more bitter than those which are generally used by person* to whom expressions of repentance seem a becoming language. He entered into holy orders, and at some period was appointed minister of Logic, a pastoral charge of which he performed with vigour the humble duties, until his death in 1609.
Before entering on the works which he produced in his clerical retirement, it may be right to observe that much obscurity involves his literary career, from the circumstance that three other individuals of the same name, existing at the same period, passed lives extremely similar, both in their education, and in their subsequent progress. Three out of the four attended St Mary's college at St Andrews in company; presuming that the subject of our memoir took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1574, one of his companions must have passed in 1571, the other in 1572. It is supposed that one of these was minister of Dunbar in 1582; the other is known to have been appointed master of the High school of Edinburgh in 1596, and to have been author of a few theological tracts, and of a Latin grammar, appointed by act of parliament, and by the privy council, to be used in all grammar schools in the kingdom: this individual has been discovered by Dr M'Crie, to have afterwards successively officiated as rector of the grammar schools of Salt-Preston and of Dunbar. The fourth Alexander Hume, was a student at St Leonard's college, St Andrews, where he entered in 1578: he too was a poet, but the only existing specimen of his composition is the following simple tribute to the labours of Bellenden, inscribed on a blank leaf of the manuscript of the translation of Livy,
"Fyve buikes ar here by Ballantyne translated,
Restis yet ane hundred threttie fyve behind;
Quilkis if the samyn war als weill compleated,
Wuld be ane volume of ane monstrous kind.[1]
- ↑ The ingenious poet probably overlooks the fact of so many of Livy's books being lost, with the deliberate purpose of increasing the ertect of his verses.
