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or desponding views of life. He has one poem each stanza of which ends with

For to be blythe methinks it best;

and in another poem he advises, since life is so uncertain, that the good things of this world be rationally enjoyed while it is yet possible. In a third, these maxims are still more forcibly expressed; and from this we extract the following stanzas, the philosophy of which is excellent.

Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind

The wavering of this wretched world of, sorrow;
To God be humble, to thy friend be kind,

And with thy neighbours gladly lend and borrow;
His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow;
Be blyth in hearte for my aventure,

For oft with wise men it has been said aforow,
Without Gladness availes no Treasure.

Make thee gude cheer of it that God thee sends,
For warld's wrak but welfarel nought avails;
Nae gude is thine save only that thou spends,
Remanant all thou bruikes but with bails;2
Seek to solace when sadness thee assails;
In dolour lang thy life may not endure.
Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sails;
Without gladness availes no Treasure.

Follow on pity, flee trouble and debate,
With famous folkis hald thy company;
Be charitable and hum'le in thine estate,
For warldly honour lastes but a cry.
For trouble in earth tak no melancholy;
Be rich in patience, if thou in gudes be poor;
Who lives merrily he lives mightily;

Without gladness availes no Treasure.

Dunbar was as great in the Comic as in the solemn strain, but unfortunately not so pure. Among his Comic poems there is one piece of peculiar humor, descriptive of an imaginary tournament between a Tailor and a Shoemaker in the same low regions where he places 'The Dance' of 'The Seven Deadly Sins.' It is written in the style of the broadest farce, and though the language is very often offensive, yet it is as droll as any thing in Smollett.

We have dwelt longer upon the life, genius, and writings of Dunbar than we had intended; but the greatest of Scotland's poets required something more than a mere passing notice.

GAVIN DOUGLAS, a contemporary of Dunbar was the youngest son of the sixth earl of Angus, and was born at Brechin 1471. He was educated at the university of St. Andrews, after which he travelled in Germany and

1 World's trash without health.

2 Injuries.

Italy, where he cultivated the muses so successfully as to merit the acquaintance and commendation of the learned wherever he went. On his return to Scotland 1496, having previously taken orders, he was made provost of St. Giles's church, Edinburgh, and in 1515, was elevated to the office of bishop of Dunkeld, to which the rich Abbey of Aberbrothin was soon after added. The purity of his life and character, however, exposed him to the virulent persecutions of the times, and having retired to London he there soon after died, in April 1522, and in the fifty second-year of his age.

Douglas shines both as an allegorical and a descriptive poet. He wants the vigorous sense, and also the graphic force of Dunbar; for while the latter is always close and nervous, Douglas is often soft aud verbose. The genius of Dunbar is so powerful that manner sinks beneath it; that of Douglas is so much matter of culture, that manner is frequently its most striking peculiarity.

The principal original composition of Douglas is a long poem entitled The Palace of Honor. It was intended as an apology for the conduct of a king, and was therefore addressed to James the Fourth. The poet represents himself as seeing, in a vision, a large company travelling toward the Palace of Honor. He joins them and narrates the particulars of the pilgrimages. The celebrated 'Pilgrim's Progress' bears, in its design, so striking a resemblance to this poem, that we can hardly conceive it possible that Bunyan could have been ignorant of it. King Hart, the only other long poem of Douglas, presents a metaphorical view of human life.

But by far the most able production of this author is a translation of Virgil's Æneid into Scottish verse. This work was executed in 1513, and is remarkable for being the first version of a Latin classic into any British tongue. It is generally allowed to be a masterly performance, though in too obsolete a language ever to regain its popularity. The original poems styled Prologues, which the translator prefixes to each book, are esteemed among his happiest pieces. From the Prologue to the twelfth book we select the following passage:

MORNING IN MAY.

As fresh Aurore, to mighty Tithon spouse
Ished of her saffron bed and ivor house,

In cram'sy clad and grained violate,

With sanguine cape, and selvage purpurate,

Unshet2 the windows of her large hall,

Spread all with roses, and full of balm royal,

And eke the heavenly portis chrystalline

Unwarps braid, the warld till illumine;

The twinkling streamers of the orient

Shed purpour spraings with gold and azure ment ;3
Eous, the steed, with ruby harness red,

Above the seas liftis furth his head,

1 Issued from.

3 Purple streaks mingled with gold and azure.

2 Opened.

Of colour sore, and some deal brown as berry,
For to alichten and glad our emispery;
The flame out-bursten at the neisthirls,2
So fast Phaeton with the whip him whirls.
While shortly, with the bleezand torch of day,
Abulyit in his lemand3 fresh array,

Furth of his palace royal ishit Phœbus,
With golden crown and visage glorious,
Crisp hairs, bricht as chrysolite or topaz;
For whase hue micht nane behald his face.
The auriate vanes of his throne soverane
With glitter and glance o'erspread the oceane ;4
The large fludes, lemand all of licht,
But with ane blink of his supernal sicht.
For to behald, it was ane glore to see
The stabled windis, and calmed sea,
The soft season, the fermanent serene,
The loune illuminate air and ferth amene.
And lusty Flora did her bloomis spread
Under the feet of Phoebus' sulyart5 steed;
The swarded soil embrode with selcouth hues,
Wood and forests obnumbrate with bews.7

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Dame Nature's menstrals, on that other part,
Their blissful lay intoning every art,
And all small fowlis singis on the spray,
Welcome the lord of licht, and lampe of day,
Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green,
Welcome quickener of flourist flouirs sheen,
Welcome support of every rute and vein,
Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain,
Welcome the birdis beilds upon the brier,
Welcome master and ruler of the year,
Welcome weelfare of husbands at the plews,
Welcome repairer of woods, trees, and bews,
Welcome depainter of the bloomit meads,
Welcome the life of every thing that spreads,
Welcome storer of all kind bestial,

Welcome be thy bricht beamis, gladdand all.

SIR DAVID LYNDSAY, another Scottish poet of the period of which we are now treating, and the last that we shall at present notice, was born at the Mount, Fifeshire, 1496, and was educated at the university of St. Andrews. He early entered upon a court life, and during the childhood of James the Fifth, he officiated as his carver, his cupbearer, his purse-master, and even as his nurse, bearing him as an infant upon his back, and dancing antics for his amusement as a boy. When James assumed the reins of government, he amply rewarded the companion of his childish sports, by elevating him to the important office of Lord Lyon King at arms; but after the fatal battle of Flodden-field, Lyndsay went to France, and

1 Yellowish brown.

5 Sultry.

2 Nostrils.
6 Uncommon.

3 Glittering.
7 Boughs.

4 Ocean. 8 Shelter.

greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Pavia. He afterward returned again to Scotland, resumed his position at court, and was employed by his sovereign on various important foreign embassies. He died 1557, in the sixty-first year of his age.

Lyndsay chiefly shone as a satirical and humorous writer, and his great fault is a total absence of all refinement. The principal objects of his vituperations were the clergy, whose habits, at this period, were such as to afford ample scope to the pen of the satirist. He, however, with equal freedom exposed the abuses of the court, though at the time he was a state officer of high standing, and much influence. His principal poems are, The Dreme, The Complaynt, The Complaynt of the King's Peacock, The Satire of the Three Estates, Kitteis' Confession, The History of Squire Meldrum, and The Monarchie.

"The History of Squire Meldrum' is, perhaps, the most pleasing of all this author's works, and is considered the last British poem that in any degree partakes of the character of the metrical romance. This poem, together with the various other Satires and Burlesques of this author, is said to have contributed greatly to the Reformation in Scotland. 'The Monarchie' was the last of his poems. It was written just before his death, and from it we select the following curious passage:

THE BUILDING OF THE TOWER OF BABEL, AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

Their great fortress then did they found,

And cast till they gat sure ground.

All fell to work both man and child

Some howkit clay, some burnt the tyld.
Nimron, that curious champion,

Deviser was of that dungeon.

Nathing they spared their labours,
Like busy bees upon the flowers,

Or emmets travelling into June;

Some under wrocht, and some aboon,
With strang ingenious masonry,
Upward their work did fortify;
The land about was fair and plain,
And it rase like ane heich montane.
Those fulish people did intend,

That till the heaven it should ascend:
Sae great ane strength was never seen
Into the warld with men's een.
The wallis of that waik they made,

Twa and fifty fathoms braid:

Ane fathom then as some men says,
Micht been twa fathom in our days;
Ane man was then of mair stature
Nor twa be now, of this be sure.

The translator of Orosius

Intil his chronocle writes thus;

That when the sun is at the hicht,

At noon, when it doth shine maist bricht,
The shadow of that hideous strength

Sax mile and mair it is of length:
Thus may ye judge into your thocht,
Gif Babylon be heich or nocht.

Then the great God omnipotent,
To whom all things been present,
He seeand the ambition,
And the prideful presumption,
How thir proud people did pretend,
Up through the heavens till ascend,
Sic languages on them he laid,
That nane wist what ane other said;
Where was but ane language afore,
God send them languages three-score;
Afore that time all spak Hebrew,
Then some began for to speak Grew,
Some Dutch, some language Saracen,
And some began to speak Latin.
The maister men gan to ga wild,

Cryand for trees, they brocht them tyld.

Some said, Bring mortar here at ance,

Then brocht they to them stocks and stanes;
And Nimrod, their great champion,

Ran ragand like ane wild lion,

Menacing them with words rude,

But never ane word they understood.
-for final conclusion,

Constrained were they for till depart

Ilk company in ane sundry airt.

Lyndsay also wrote a history of Scotland in three volumes, which, however, has never been published, but still remains in manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.

To the poets of the period of Scottish literature which we have had under consideration in the present lecture, we shall add the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens a poem of such antiquity that its origin, even, is doubtful. The incident upon which it is founded is as follows:-In 1280, a company of distinguished noblemen attended Margaret, daughter of Alexander the Third of Scotland, when she embarked for Norway to become the bride of Eric, king of that country. On the return of these noblemen from Norway their vessel was overtaken by a violent storm, and most of them perished.

SIR PATRICK SPENS.

The king sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine;
'O where will I get a skeely skipper1
To sail this new ship of mine?'

1 Skillful mariner.

F

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