in the battle of Flodden, because the English never had this token of the iron-belt to show to any Scottishman. The person and character of James are delineated according to our best historians. His romantic disposition, which led him highly to relish gaiety, approaching to license, was, at the same time, tinged with enthusiastic devotion. These propensities sometimes formed a strange contrast. He was wont, during his fits of devotion, to assume the dress, and conform to the rules, of the order of Franciscans; and when he had thus done penance for some time in Stirling, to plunge again into the tide of pleasure. Probably, too, with no unusual inconsistency, he sometimes laughed at the superstitious observances to which he at other times subjected himself. There is a very singular poem by Dunbar, seemingly addressed to James IV, on one of these occasions of monastic seclusion. It is a most daring and profane parody on the services of the Church of Rome, entitled:—
Byding ower lang in Striviling.
We that are here, in heaven's glory,
To you that are in Purgatory,
Commend us on our hearty wise;
I mean we folks in Paradise,
In Edinburgh, with all merriness,
To you in Stirling with distress,
Where neither pleasure nor delight is,
For pity this epistle wrytis," &c.
See the whole in Sibbald's Collection, vol. i. p. 234.'—Scott.
Since Scott's time Dunbar's poems have been edited, with perfect scholarship and skill, by David Laing (2 vols. post 8vo. 1824), and by John Small (in 1885) for the Scottish Text Society. See Dict. of Nat. Biog.
ll. 254-9. This perfect description may be compared, for accuracy of observation and dexterous presentment, with the steed in 'Venus and Adonis,' the paragon of horses in English verse. Both writers give ample evidence of direct personal knowledge.
Stanza X. l. 261. 'It has been already noticed (see note to stanza xiii. of Canto I.] that King James's acquaintance with Lady Heron of Ford did not commence until he marched into England. Our historians impute to the King's infatuated passion the delays which led to the fatal defeat of Flodden. The author of "The Genealogy of the Heron Family" endeavours, with laudable anxiety, to clear the Lady Ford from this scandal: that she came and went,
