impossible not to connect this practice of laureation with the world-famous tribute rendered by the Romans to the genius of Petrarch. After the institution of the degree, it is easy to understand that the king would select his poet among the poetæ laureati, and that the modest title of versificator would be dropped. Scottish Poets: Henryson, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Lyndsay, Blind Harry. The present work does not pretend to trace the history of Scottish poetry; but, in the dearth of genius in England during this period, the rise of several admirable poets in the sister country demands our attention The earliest of these, Robert Henryson, appears to have died about the end of the fifteenth century. His longest poem, "The Testament of Faire Creseyde," a sort of supplement to Chaucer's "Troilus and Creseyde," was printed by Urry, in his edition of that poet. The pastoral, called "Robin and Makyne," is given in Percy's "Reliques." The pith of the story is exactly that which we find in Burns's "Duncan Gray," only that in Henryson's poem the parts are reversed; it is the lady who first makes love in vain, and then, growing indifferent, is vainly wooed by the shepherd who has repented of his coldness. “The Abbey Walk" is a beautiful poem of reflection, the moral of which is, the duty and wisdom of submitting humbly to the will of God in all things. William Dunbar, the greatest of the old' Scottish poets, was a native of East Lothian, and born about the middle of the fifteenth century. He studied at the University of St. Andrew's, perhaps also at Oxford. In early life he entered the novitiate of the Franciscan order, but does not appear to have taken the vows. James IV. attached him by many favors to his person and court, where we have certain evidence of his having lived from 1500 to 1513, the date of Flodden. After that fatal day, on which his royal patron perished, his name vanishes from the Scottish records; and it is merely a loose conjecture which assigns his death to about the year 1520. Dunbar's most perfect poem is "The Thistle and the Rose,' ," written in 1503 to commemorate the nuptials of James IV., and Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. The metre is the Chaucerian heptastich, invented, as we have seen, by Chaucer, and employed by all his successors down to Spenser inclusive. The versification is most musical, — superior to that of any poet before Spenser except Chaucer, and better than much of his. The influence, both direct and indirect, of the father of our poetry, is visible, not in this poem alone, but throughout the works of the school of writers now under consideration. The poet, according to the approved mediæval usage, falls asleep and has a dream, in which May the "faire frische May" in which Chaucer so delighted - appears to him, and commands him to attend her into a garden, and do homage to the flowers, the birds, and the sun. Nature is then introduced, and commands that the progress of the spring shall no longer be checked by ungenial weather. Neptune and Eolus give the necessary orders. Then Nature, by her messengers, summons all organized beings before her, the beasts by the roe, the birds by the swallow, the flowers by the yarrow. The lion is crowned king of the beasts, the eagle of the birds, and the thistle of the flowers. The Rose, the type of beauty, is wedded to the Thistle, the type of strength, who is commanded well to cherish and guard his Rose. Such is an outline of the plot of this beautiful and graceful poem. 1 See Critical Section, chap. i., Allegories. "1 "The design of The Golden Terge ""-another allegoric poem "is to show the gradual and imperceptible influence of love when too far indulged over reason. This poem is in a curious nine-line stanza, having only two rhymes. But Dunbar excelled also in comic and satirical composition. "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins" is a production of this kind, the humor, dash, and broad Scotch of which remind one strongly of Burns. The metre is that of Chaucer's "Sir Topas." Some Highlanders are introduced at the end, and receive very disrespectful mention: "Thae turmagantis2 with tag and tatter Full loud in Ersche [Erse] begout to clatter, The devil sa devit was with thair yell He smorit them with smoke." Gawain Douglas, sprung from a noble family, studied at the University of Paris, and rose to be bishop of Dunkeld. After Flodden field, the regent Albany drove him from Scotland. Coming into England, he was hospitably received by Henry, who allowed him a liberal pension. He died in London of the plague, in 1521. He is chiefly known for a translation of the Eneid into heroic verse, which is the earliest English version on record, having been published in 1513. The prologues prefixed to the several books have great poetic beauty; and the language presents little more difficulty than that of Chaucer. The concluding lines of one of these prologues are subjoined as a specimen: they are part of an address to the sun: 1 Warton. 2 Ptarmigan; to a covey of which he compares the Highlanders. 4 Deafened. "Welcum the birdis beild 1 upon the brere, 3 Welcum be thy bricht bemes gladand al." Sir David Lyndsay was a satirist of great power and boldness. He is the Jean de Meun of the sixteenth century; but, as a layman and a knight, he levels his satire with even greater directness and impartiality than that extraordinary ecclesiastic. In his allegorical satire entitled "The Dreme," the poet is conducted by Remembrance, first to the infernal regions, which he finds peopled with churchmen of every grade, then to Purgatory, then through the "three elements" to the seven planets in their successive spheres, then beyond them to the empyrean and the celestial abodes. The poetical topography is, without doubt, borrowed from Dante. He is then transported back to earth, and visits Paradise ; whence by a "very rapid transition," as Warton calls it, he is taken to Scotland, where he meets "Johne the comounweill," who treats him to a long general satire on the corrupt state of that kingdom. After this, the poet is in the usual manner brought back to the cave by the seaside, where he falls asleep, and wakes up from his dream. The metre is the Chaucerian heptastich. There is prefixed to the poem an exhortation in ten stanzas, addressed to King James V., in which advice and warning are conveyed with unceremonious plainness. Among Lyndsay's remaining poems, the most important is "The Monarchie," an account of the 1 Shelter. 2 Boughs. 8 Restorer. 4 Author of the continuation of the Roman de la Rose, the caustic cynicism of which is almost incredible. See p. 31. most famous monarchies that have flourished in the world, commencing with the creation of man, and ending with the day of judgment. This poem, which is for the most part in the common romance metre, or eightsyllable couplet, runs over with satire and invective. Lyndsay's powerful attacks on the Scottish clergy, the state of which at that time unfortunately afforded but too much ground for them, are said to have hastened the religious war in Scotland. At the very beginning of this period, or about 1460, Blind Harry, or Harry the Minstrel, produced his poem on the adventures of Wallace. Considered as the composition of a blind man, "The Wallace" is a remarkable production; considered as a work of art, a more execrable poem perhaps was never composed. Yet national resentment and partiality have made the Scotch, from the fifteenth century down to the present time, delight in this tissue of lies and nonsense. A modernized version of it was a horn-book among the peasantry in the last. century. Scottish critics, one and all, speak of its poetical beauties; and even one or two English writers, "carried away by their dissimulation,” have professed to find much in it to admire. It is written in the heroic rhyming couplet, and professes to be founded on a Latin chronicle by John Blair, a contemporary of Wallace; but as no such chronicle exists, nor is anywhere alluded to as existing, it is probable that the whole story is a pure invention of the minstrel's. That a poem which makes of Wallace a Scottish "Jack the giant-killer,” killing and maiming innumerable Englishmen upon every possible occasion, should satisfy the intellectual appetite of a Lowland peasant, whom household tradition has nurtured up in feelings of anti-English prejudice that once had too real a justification, is easily intelligible; but that is no reason why men of sense |