4

his own country, and having soon after renounced his sordid profession, entered into the service of the king. He was employed from that time until 1500, in some subordinate, though not unimportant capacity, in connection with various foreign embassies, and thus visited Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, besides England and Ireland. He could not, in such a mode of life, fail to acquire much of that knowledge of mankind which forms so important a part of the education of a poet.

For these various services, 'Dunbar, in 1500, received from the king an annual pension of ten pounds, soon afterward increased to twenty, and eventually to eighty." He is supposed to have been employed by James about this time, in some of the negotiations preparatory to the marriage of that prince with the princess Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh of England, which took place 1503. It was on this occasion that Dunbar wrote the Thistle and the Rose, one of his allegorical poems.

For a number of years after this important marriage, Dunbar continued to reside at court, regaling his royal master with various poetic compositions, and probably also with his conversation, the charms of which, if we may judge from his writings, must have been very great. His situation, however, was far from being happy; for he seems constantly to have repined at the servile course of life which he was condemned to lead, and to have anxiously longed for some more independent means of subsistence. But he sadly realized that while the great listen with delight to the flattering compliments of the learned, they seldom adequately reward their merit. He died 1530, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

The poetic genius of Dunbar, in the judgment of Sir Walter Scott, and also of Mr. Ellis, was superior to that of any other poet that Scotland ever produced; and it is a matter of great surprise, therefore, that, with few exceptions, his poems should have remained in the obscurity of manuscript for nearly two centuries after they were written. These poems may be divided into three classes, the Allegorical, the Moral, and the Comic; besides which there is a vast number of productions composed on occasions affecting himself alone, and which may, therefore, be called Personal poems.' His principal Allegorical poems are the Thistle and the Rose, a Nuptial Song to celebrate the union of King James with the princess Margaret, The Dance, and The Golden Terge. Perhaps the most remarkable of all his poems is 'The Dance.' It describes a procession of the seven deadly sins in the infernal regions, and for strength and vividness of painting, would bear a comparison with any other poem in the language. From this great poem we offer the following brief extract:

Let see, quoth he, who now begins -
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins

Begoud to leap at anes.

And first in all the Dance was Pride,
With hair wiled back, and bonnet on side,

1 Pinkerton.

Like to mak vaistie wanes;1
And round about him as a wheel,
Hang all in rumples2 to the heel

His kethat3 for the nanes.4

Mony proud trumpour with him trippit;
Through scaldand fire aye as they skippit,
They grinned with hideous granes.
Then Ire came in with sturt and strife;
His hand was aye upon his knife,

He brandished like a bear,
Boasters, braggarts, and bargainers,
After him, passit in to pairs,

All boden in 'feir of weir,'5

In jacks, and scrips, and bonnets of steel;
Their legs were chained down to the heel;
Froward was their effeir:

Some upon other with brands beft,

Some jaggit others, to the heft,

With knives that sharp could shear.

Next in the Dance followed Envy,
Filled full of feid and felony,

Hid malice and despite :

For privy hatred that traitor trembled;
Him followed mony freik" dissembled,
With feigned wordis white:

And flatterers into men's faces;

And backbiters in secret places,

To lee that had delight;

And rouners of fals lesings,
Alas! that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quit.

Next him in Dance came Covetice,
Root of all evil and grund of vice,
That never could be content:
Caitiffs, wretches, and ockerars,8
Hood-pykes, hoarders, and gatherers,
All with that warlock went:

Out of their throats they shot on other
Het molten gold, methought, a fother,10
As fire-flaught maist fervent;

Ay as they toomit them of shot,

Fiends filled them new up to the throat

With gold of all kind prent."

Of Dunbar's moral poems the most solemn and impressive is the one in which he represents a Thrush and a Nightingale taking opposite sides in a debate upon earthly and spiritual affections, the Thrush ending

1 Something touching puffed-up manners appears to be hinted at in this obscure line. 2 Large folds.

4 For the occasion. Gave blows.

• Misers.

3 Robe.

5 Arrayed in the accoutrements of war.

7 Contentious persons.

10 Great quantity.

8 Usurers.

11 Every coinage.

every stanza with a recommendation of 'A lusty life in Love's service,' and the Nightingale with the more melodious declaration that All love is lost but upon God alone.' From this poem we present, with much pleasure, the following stanzas.

THE MERLE AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

In May, as that Aurora did upspring,
With crystal een chasing the cluddes sable,
I heard a Merle with merry notis sing

A sang of love, with voice right comfortable,
Again' the orient beamis, amiable,
Upon a blissful branch of laurel green;
This was her sentence sweet and delectable,
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

Under this branch ran down a river bright,

Of balmy liquor, crystalline of hue,
Again' the heavenly azure skyis light,
Where did upon the tother side pursue
A Nightingale, with sugared notis new,
Whose angel feathers as the peacock shone;
This was her song, and of a sentence true,
All love is lost but upon God alone.
With notis glad, and glorious harmony,
This joyful Merle, so salust she the day,
While rung the woodis of her melody,
Saying, Awake ye lovers of this May;
Lo, fresh Flora has flourished every spray,
As nature has her taught, the noble queen,

The field been clothit in a new array;

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

Ne'er sweeter noise was heard with living man,
Na made this merry gentle Nightingale;
Her sound went with the river as it ran,
Out through the fresh and flourished lusty vale;
O Merle quoth she, O fool! stint of thy tale,
For in thy song good sentence is there none,
For both is tint, the time and the travail
Of every love but upon God alone.

Cease, quoth the Merle, thy preaching, Nightingale :
Shall folk their youth spend into holiness?

Of young sanctis, grows auld feindis, but fable;

Fye, hypocrite, in yeiris tenderness,

Again' the law of kind thou goes express,

That crookit age makes one with youth serene,
Whom nature of conditions made diverse:

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Fool, remember thee,
That both in youth and eild, and every hour,

The love of God most dear to man suld be;
That him, of nought, wrought like his own figour,

1 Age.

1 Shown.

And died himself fro' dead him to succour;

O, whether was kythit there true love or none?
He is most true and stedfast paramour,

And love is lost but upon him alone.

The Merle said, Why put God so great beauty
In ladies, with sic womanly having,

But gif he would that they suld lovit be?
To love eke nature gave them inclining,
And He of nature that worker was and king,
Would nothing frustir put, nor let be seen,
Into his creature of his own making;
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Not to that behoof
Put God sic beauty in a lady's face,

That she suld have the thank therefor or luve,
But He, the worker, that put in her sic grace;
Of beauty, bounty, riches, time, or space,
And every gudeness that been to come or gone
The thank redounds to him in every place :
All love is lost, but upon God alone.

O Nightingale! it were a story nice,
That love suld not depend on charity;
And, gif that virtue contrar be to vice,
Then love maun be a virtue, as thinks me;

For, aye, to love envy maun contrar' be:

God bade eke love thy neighbour fro the spleen,2
And who than ladies sweeter neighbours be?

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Bird, why does thou rave?
Man may take in his lady sic delight,

Him to forget that her sic virtue gave,

And for his heaven receive her colour white:

Her golden tressit hairis redomite,3

Like to Opollo's beamis tho' they shone,
Suld not him blind fro' love that is perfite;
All love is lost but upon God alone.

The Merle said, Love is cause of honour aye,
Love makis cowards manhood to purchase,

Love makis knichtis hardy at essay,

Love makis wretches full of largeness,

Love makis sweir folks full of business,

Love makis sluggards fresh and well be seen,
Love changes vice in virtuous nobleness;
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, True is the contrary;
Sic frustis love it blindis men so far,

Into their minds it makis them to vary;

In false vain glory they so drunken are,

3 Bound, encircled.

2 Equivalent to the modern phrase, from the heart. 4 Slothful.

Their wit is went, of woe they are not waur,

While that all worship away be fro' them gone,

Fame, goods, and strength; wherefore well say I daur,

All love is lost but upon God alone.

Then said the Merle, mine error I confess.

This frustis love is all but vanity:

Blind ignorance me gave sic hardiness,

To argue so again the verity;

Wherefore I counsel every man that he

With love not in the feindis net be tone,1

But love the love that did for his love die:

All love is lost but upon God alone.

Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,
The Merle sang, Man, love God that has thee wrought.
The Nightingale sang, Man, love the Lord most dear,

That thee and all this world made of nought.

The Merle said, love him that thy love has sought

Fro' heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone.

The Nightingale sang, And with his dead thee bought:
All love is lost, but upon him alone.

Then flew thir birdis o'er the boughis sheen,

Singing of love amang the leavis small;

Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein,2

Both sleeping, waking, in rest, and in travail :

Me to recomfort most it does avail,

Again for love, when love I can find none,

To think how sung this Merle and Nightingale ;

All love is lost but upon God alone.

To most readers there is something more touching in those less labored verses in which the poet moralizes on the brevity of existence, the shortness and uncertainty of all ordinary enjoyments, and the wickedness and woes of mankind, than in his more elaborate productions. From these poems we select the following specimen :—

This wavering warld's wretchedness
The failing and fruitless business,
The misspent time, the service vain
For to consider is ane pain.

The sliding joy, the gladness short,
The feigned love, the false comfort,
The sweir abade, the slightful train,
For to consider is ane pain.

The suggared mouths, with minds therefra,
The figured speech, with faces tway;

The pleasing tongues with hearts in plain,
For to consider is ane pain.

Dunbar was, however, by no means disposed habitually to take gloomy

1 Ta'en, taken.

• Delay.

2 Whose close disputation yet moved my thoughts.

4 Snare.