telligible to the English reader than Chaucer or Gower were in the middle of the thirteenth century. Two of the Scotch poets of that period, Barbour and King James I., wrote in English, and, therefore, in a language far in advance of Gawin Douglas, Dunbar, and Sir David Lyndsay in the sixteenth century. One great reason of this probably was the constant strife and enmity betwixt the nations, which made the Scotch cling in confirmed nationality to their own language and customs, for the works and merits of the English poets were known and acknowledged. James I. called Chaucer and Gower "his maisters dear." Henryson, a succeeding poet, even wrote a continuation of Chaucer's "Troilus and Cresseide," under the names of the "Testament," and the "Complaint of Cresseide;" and Gawin, or Gavin, Douglas, the famous Bishop of Dunkeld, of whom we have to speak, pronouncing his vernacular tongue barbarous, declared that rather than remain silent through the scarcity of Scottish terms, he would use bastard Latin, French, or English. A still greater and later poet, Dunbar, expresses repeatedly his admiration of "Chawcer of Makars flowir," of "the Monck of Berry," "Lydgate," and "Gowyr." Yet if we use the very language which he did to utter his admiration in, we find no advance towards the polish of these poets:
"O reverend Chawcer, rose of rethouris all,
As in our toung the flowir imperiall,
That ever raise in Brittane, quhn reids richt,
Those biers of makars the triumphs ryall,
The fresche enainallit termes celestiall;
This matter thou couth haif iliumint bricht,
Was thou not of our Inglis all the licht;
Surmounting every tonng terrestiall,
As far as May is fair morning does midnight.
"O morale Gower and Lidgate laureat,
Zour suggurat toungs and lipps aureate
Bene till our eirs cause of grit delyte."
It is curious that Dunbar calls this English and not Scotch. Ho also enumerates a. long list of Scottish poets who were deceased, as Sir Hew of Eglintoun, Etrick, Heriot, Wintoun, Maister John Clerk, James Afflek, Holland, Barbour, Sir Mungo Dockhart of the Lie, Clerk of Tranent, who wrote the adventures of Sir Gawayn, Sir Gilbert Gray, Blind Harry, and Sandy Traill, Patrick Johnstone, Mersar, Rowll of Aberdeen, and Rowll of Corstophine, Brown of Dunfermline, Robert Henryson, Sir John the Ross, Stobo, Quinten Schaw, and Walter Kennedy. Of these little is now known, except of Henryson, and that chiefly for his ballad of "Robert and Makyn," given by Bishop Percy in his "Reliques of English Poetry."
Gawin Douglas was the third son of the celebrated fifth Earl of Angus, called Bell-the-Cat; he lived a troubled life in those stormy times, and died a refugee in London, of the plague, in 1522. He was warmly patronised by Queen Margaret, sister of Henry VIII., and richly deserved it, for his learning, his genuine virtues, and his genius. He was most celebrated in his own time for his translation of Virgil's "Æneid," the first metrical version of any ancient classic in either English or Scotch. He also translated Ovid's "De Remedio Amoris." But his original poems, "The Palace of Honour," "King Hart," and his "Comœdiæ Sacræ," or dramatic poems from the Scriptures, are now justly esteemed the real trophies of his genius. "The Palace of Honour" and "King Hart" are allegoric poems, abounding with beautiful descriptions and noble sentiments.
The principal poems of William Dunbar are "The Golden Terge," or target; "The Thistle and the Rose," a poem in honour of the marriage of Margaret of England with James IV. of Scotland; "The Fained Friar;" the "Lament of the Death of the Makars," that is, poets, and a number of other poems, chiefly lyrical, which display a most versatile genius, comic, satirical, grave, descriptive, and religious, and place him in the very first rank of Scotland's poets, notwithstanding the obsolete character of his language; and not the least of his distinctions is the absence of that grossness which disfigured the writings of the poets of those times. A few lines may denote the music of his versification:
"Be merry, man, and tak nocht far in mynd
The waivering of this wrechit world of sorrow,
To God be humill, and to thy freynd be kind,
And with thy nychtbouris glaidly len and borrow;
His chance to-nycht, it may be thyne to-morrow."
The last poet of this period that we must notice is Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lyon King-at-Arms, whom Sir Walter Scott, in "Marmion," has made so familiar to modern readers, predating, however, Sir David's office of Lyon King seventeen years. Sir David was born about 1490, and is supposed to have died about 1567; so that he lived in the reigns of Henry VII. of England and of Elizabeth, through the whole period of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. His life was cast in times most eventful, and Sir David, as Lyon-Herald of Scotland, occupied a prominent position in the shaping of those events. At the time of the battle of Flodden, 1513, both Pitscottie and Buchanan assure us that he was with James IV. when the ghost appeared to him in the church at Linlithgow, warning him against the battle. Lyndsay was then only three-and-twenty. He was appointed page to the young king, and continued about him and in his service during the king's life. In his "Complaynt," addressing the king, he says:—
"How as ane chapman beres his pack,
I bore thy grace upon my back,
And sometymes stridlingis on my neck,
Dansand with mony bend and beck;
The first syllabis that thou did mute,
Pa-da-lyn upon the lute;
For play, thou leit me never rest,
But gyngertoun, thou luffit ay best.
And ay quhen thou come from the scule,
Then I luffit to play the fule."
Lyndsay went to France on embassages of royal marriage; and after the king's early death, under the regency, he was again sent to the Low Countries on a mission, to the Emperor Charles V. In 1518 he went as Lion-King to Denmark, to King Christian, to seek aid against the English, and afterwards lived to see the great struggle betwixt the old Church and the Reformation, the murder of Cardinal Beaton, the return of Knox, and must have died about the time of the murder of Darnley.
Sir David, though bred a courtier, was a thorough Reformer; and his poems abound with the most unrestrained exposures of the corruptions of Courts and of the Church. On the flagitious lives of monks, nuns, and clergy, he pours forth the most trenchant satire and denunciation; and in this respect he may be styled the
