some light on the dark veil of allegory under which its primary argument is usually supposed to be concealed.
The Poem itself comes to us in the form of a moral fable, illustrative of the danger of pride; but an idea has been started by an ingenious writer, that, under this ostensible character, there lay concealed an invective against the person and government of James the Second of Scotland. "The length and nature of this Poem," says Mr Pinkerton, "founded on a trite fable, and the long panegyrick on the House of Douglas, convinced me that 'more was meant than meets the ear;' and the lines (in Stanza LXXVI.)
'We cum pure, we gang pure, bath King and Comon;
Bot thow rewll the richtouss, thy crowne sall ourere,'
certify the idea that the Howlat is no other than the King James II.—a prince little deserving such a satire."[1]
Such a hypothesis may be thought too plausible to be entirely rejected; yet, if such a design did really exist, it was probably nothing more than a subordinate object of the author. But even this admission may perhaps ap-
- ↑ Pinkerton's Scotish Poems, &c. Vol. I. p. xxix. The reader will observe, that the reading of thy crowne in these lines is not warranted by either of the old manuscript copies.
