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with every mark of respect and kindness, and bestowed upon him an education far superior to what he could, in that age, have received in his own country.

The captivity of the young prince so deeply affected his father's mind, that he soon sunk under the weight of the affliction, and James was, accordingly, in 1405, declared king by an assembly of the Scottish states, though the Duke of Albany still retained the regency.

In 1424, when James was set in liberty, and assumed the reins of the government of his country, he found his kingdom in such disorder that the most rigorous measures were required to curb the existing abuses. These measures bore very severely upon the usurpations of the crown lands by the nobility, in consequence of which a conspiracy was formed against the king, at the head of which was his uncle, the Earl of Athole. James received timely intelligence of the designs of the conspirators, but his natural intrepidity led him to treat the threatened danger with contempt; 'and while in the Dominican Convent, near Perth, attended by his queen and a very few of his courtiers, he was murdered in the most cruel manner, in the fortyfourth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.'1

While James was a prisoner in Windsor Castle, and pining for his liberty, he accidentally saw, in an adjacent garden, a young princess, Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. This incident exerted a most remarkable influence over the captive, and induced him to seek the hand of the princess, which he eventually obtained. To the Lady Jane, James was most ardently attached, and her praises elicited his finest poetic strains.

The only unquestioned production of this youthful monarch, is a long poem entitled The King's Quhair, or Book. This poem, which embraces the relation of various particulars in his own life, and a full development of his passion for the Lady Jane, abounds in simplicity and pathos, and contains poetry superior to any other, with the exception of that of Chaucer, produced in England previous to the reign of Elizabeth. To sustain this remark, we need only present the following stanzas :

THE FIRST SIGHT OF LADY JANE BEAUFORT AS SEEN FROM WINDSOR CASTLE.

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1 Twigs.

Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,
That lyf was none walking there forbye,
That might within scarce any wight espy.

So thick the boughis and the leavis green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And mids of every arbour might be seen
The sharpe greene sweete juniper,
Growing so fair with branches here and there,
That as it seemed to a lyf without,

The boughis spread the arbour all about.
And on the smalle greene twistis1 sat,
The little sweete nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrat
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung
Right of their song.

*

Cast I down mine eyes again,

Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
Full secretly, new comen here to plain,
The fairest or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour,

For which sudden abate, anon astart,2
The blood of all my body to my heart.

And though I stood abasit tho a lite 3

No wonder was; for why? my wittis all

Were so overcome with pleasance and delight,
Only through letting of my eyen fall,

That suddenly my heart became her thrall,
Forever of free will,-for of menace

There was no token in her sweete face.

And in my head I drew right hastily,
And eftesoons I leant it out again,
And saw her walk that very womanly,
With no wight mo', but only women twain.
Then gan I study in myself, and sayn,4
'Ah, sweet! are ye a worldly creature,
Or heavenly thing in likeness of nature?

Or are ye god Cupidis own princess,
And comin are to loose me out of band?

Or are ye very Nature the goddess,

That have depainted with your heavenly hand,
This garden full of flowers as they stand?
What shall I think, alas! what reverence
Shall I mister5 unto your excellence?

If ye a goddess be, and that ye like

To do me pain, I may it not astart: 6

If ye be warldly wight, that doth me sike,7

4 Say.
7 Makes me sigh.

3 Confounded for a little while.

2 Went and came.

6 Fly.

5 Minister.

1 Pleased.

Why list God make you so, my dearest heart,
To do a seely 2 prisoner this smart,

That loves you all, and wot of nought but woe?
And therefore mercy, sweet! sin' it is so.'

Of her array the form if I shall write,
Towards her golden hair and rich attire,
In fretwise couchit3 with pearlis white
And great balas leaming5 as the fire,
With mony ane emeraut and fair sapphire;
And on her head a chaplet fresh of hue,
Of plumis parted red, and white, and blue.

6

*

Full of quaking spangis bright as gold,
Forged of shape like to the amorets,
So new, so fresh, so pleasant to behold,
The plumis eke like to the flower jonets,
And other of shape, like to the flower jonets;
And above all this, there was, well I wot,
Beauty enough to make a world to doat.

About her neck, white as the fire amail,7
A goodly chain of small orfevory,8
Whereby there hung a ruby, without fail,
Like to ane heart shapen verily,
That as a spark, of low,9 so wantonly
Seemed burning upon her white throat, '
Now if there was good party,10 God it wot.

And for to walk that fresh May's morrow,
Ane hook she had upon her tissue white,
That goodlier had not been seen to-forow,11
As I suppose; and girt she was alite,12

Thus halflings loose for haste, to such delight
It was to see her youth in goodlihede,
That for rudeness to speak thereof I dread.

In her was youth, beauty, with humble aport,
Bounty, richess, and womanly feature,
God better wot than my pen can report:
Wisdom, largess, estate, and cunning 13 sure,
In every point so guided her measure,
In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,
That nature might no more her child avance!

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4 A kind of precious stone.

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6 A kind of lily. It is conjectured that the royal poet may here allude covertly to the name of his mistress, which, in the diminutive, was Janet or Jonet.-Thompson's

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She turned has, and furth her wayis went;
But tho began mine aches and torment,
To see her part and follow I na might;
Methought the day was turned into night.

The king's Quhair was written while James was confined in Windsor Castle, and it is supposed that he wrote several poems descriptive of humorous rustic scenes after he ascended the Scottish throne; none of these, however, can be identified.

James was followed in comparatively rapid succession by such writers as Henryson, Dunbar, Douglass and Lyndsay, of whom Warton remarks that 'they displayed a degree of sentiment and spirit, a command of phraseology, and a fertility of imagination not to be found in any contemporary English poets.'

ROBERT HENRYSON, the first of these writers, followed king James after an interval of about a half a century. Of this poet there are no personal memorials farther than that he was a schoolmaster of Dunfermlane, and that he died about 1508. His principal poem is The Testament of Cresseid, being a sequel to Chaucer's romantic poem Troilus and Cresseide. Henryson also wrote a series of fables, thirteen in number, and some miscellaneous poems chiefly of a moral character. One of his fables is the common story of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, which he treats with much humor and characteristic description, and concludes with the following beautifully expressed moral:

Blissed be simple life, withouten dreid;
Blissed be sober feast in quieté;

Wha has eneuch of no more has he neid,

Though it be little into quantity.

Grit abundance, and blind prosperity,

Oft timis make ane evil conclusion;

The sweetest life, theirfor, in this country,

Is of sickerness, with small possession.

To these lines we may add the following pointed though fanciful descrip

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Her sark1 should be her body next,

Of chastity so white:

With shame and dread together mixt,
The same should be perfyte.2

Her kirtle should be of clean constance,

Lacit with lesum3 love;

The mailies of continuance,

For never to remove.

Her gown should be of goodliness,
Well ribbon'd with renown;
Purfill'ds with pleasure in ilk place,
Furrit with fine fashioùn.

Her belt should be of benignity,
About her middle meet;

Her mantle of humility

To thole both wind and weit.8

Her hat should be of fair having,
And her tippet of truth;
Her patelet of good pansing,9
Her hals-ribbon of ruth.10

Her sleeves should be of esperance,
To keep her fra despair:
Her glovis of good governance,

To hide her fingers fair.

Her shoen should be of sickerness,
In sign that she not slide;
Her hose of honesty, I guess,
I should for her provide.

Would she put on this garment gay,

I durst swear by my seill,11

That she wore never green nor gray

That set12 her half so weel.

WILLIAM DUNBAR, the poet who follows Henryson, was born at Salton, 1465. Of his early life little is farther known than that, though poor, he was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he is represented to have taken the degree of master of arts in 1479, when not yet fifteen years of age. Having, soon after he closed his studies, entered the Franciscan Order of Friars, he travelled for a number of years in Scotland, England, and France, as a novitiate of that Order, preaching, and living by the alms of the pious -a mode of life which he himself afterward acknowledged involved him in the constant exercise of falsehood, deceit, and flattery. In 1490, Dunbar, when in the twenty-fifth year of his age, returned to

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