And eke the heavenly portis chrystalline

About the year 1529, the king knighted Lyndsay, Upwarps braid, the warld till illumine ;

and appointed him Chief Herald, or Lyon King The twinkling streamers of the orient

of Arms. Some years previously, the poet had Shed purpour spraings, with gold and azure ment.

married a lady, Janet Douglas, who held the office Under the bowis bene in lovely vales,

of sempstress to the king, with an annual fee or Within fermance and parkis close of pales,

pension of ten pounds. He seems to have posThe busteous buckis rakis furth on raw,

sessed talents for public business, as he was Herdis of hertis through the thick wood-shaw. The young fawns followand the dun daes,

employed on commercial missions to Flanders Kids, skippand through, runnis after raes.

and Denmark, and on various royal messages In lyssurs and on leyis, little lambs

and embassies, besides representing the burgh of Full tait and trig socht bletand to their dams.

Cupar in parliament in 1544-46. In his latter On salt streams walk Dorida and Thetis,

days, he retired to his seat, the Mount, where By rinnand strandis, Nymphis and Naiadis,

he died some time previous to the 18th of April Sic as we clepe wenches and damysels,

1555, when his brother succeeded to the entailed In gersy groves? wanderand by spring wells;

estate. The antiquated dialect, prolix narrative, Of bloomed branches and flowers white and red,

and frequent indelicacy of Lyndsay's writings, have Plettand their lusty chaplets for their head.

thrown them into the shade ; but they abound in Some sang ring-sanges, dances, leids, and rounds, With voices shrill, while all the dale resounds.

racy pictures of the times, in humorous and Whereso they walk into their caroling,

burlesque description, and in keen and cutting

satire." There are also passages evincing poetical For amorous lays does all the rockis ring, Ane sang : 'The ship sails oure the salt faem,

fancy and elevation of feeling. He lashed the Will bring the merchants and my leman hame.'3

vices of the clergy even with greater boldness Some other sings : ‘I will be blythe and licht, than Skelton, and from his public position and My heart is lent upon so goodly wicht.'3

the openness of his satire and invective, he must And thoughtful lovers rounis 4 to and fro,

materially have advanced the Reformed doctrines. To leis: their pain, and plein their jolly woe. He appears to have been sincerely and strongly After their guise, now singand, now in sorrow, attached to this cause, and was one of the influWith heartis pensive the lang summer's morrow. ential Reformers who urged Knox to become a Some ballads list indite of his lady;

preacher. That he escaped the vengeance of the Some livis in hope; and some all utterly

church in the early part of his career, must be Despairit is, and sae quite out of grace,

attributed to the partiality entertained for him by His purgatory he finds in every place. • Dame Nature's menstrals, on that other part,

the king, and to the broad humour and indelicacy Their blissful bay intoning every art,

mixed up with his satire, which could not fail to And all small fowlis singis on the spray,

be relished by that voluptuous monarch. James Welcome the lord of licht, and lampe of day,

also shewed some magnanimity in overlooking Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green,

the satirical shafts of Lyndsay directed against Welcome quickener of flouriest flouirs sheen,

his own 'pleasant vices' and defects. With the Welcome support of every root and vein,

bulk of his countrymen, Sir David was singularly Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain,

popular. His sarcastic lines and shrewd sayings Welcome the birdis bield upon the brier,

passed into proverbs, and are not yet wholly Welcome master and ruler of the year,

banished from the firesides of the peasantry. Welcome weelfare of husbands at the plows,

The works of Sir David Lyndsay were edited Welcome repairer of woods, trees, and bows, Welcome depainter of the bloomit meads,

by Mr George Chalmers, and published in three Welcome the life of every thing that spreads,

volumes (London, 1806). A new edition, revised Welcome storer of all kind bestial,

by Mr David Laing, and somewhat curtailed, Welcome be thy bricht beamis, gladdnan all !

appeared in two volumes (Edinburgh, 1871). The poet's first production, The Dreme, was written

about the year 1528. This was followed by The SIR DAVID LYNDSAY.

Complaynt to the King, evidently written in 1529; The celebrated Lyon King of Arms, SIR DAVID and The Testament and Complaynt of our SoveLYNDSAY of the Mount, was born, about the year rane Lordis Papyngo, Kyng James the Fyft, 1530. 1490, at the paternal seat in the parish of (The papyngo or popinjay is the old English name Monimail, Fifeshire. He was educated at the of the parrot.) These three works consist chiefly university of St Andrews, was early employed at of observations on the state and government of the court of James IV.; and in 1511-12 had a the kingdom during two of its dismal minorities. salary of forty pounds. He was in attendance on the other principal works of Lyndsay are: An the king at the church of St Michael, Linlithgow, Answer to the King's Flyting, 1536; The Deplorwhen a supposed apparition warned the monarch ation of the Death of Queen Magdalene, 1537; against passing to England on his fatal project Ane Supplication directît to the Kingis Grace, in of invasion-an incident graphically delineated in contemptioun of Syde Taillis, 1538 ; Kitties ConScott's Marmion. Lyndsay became the usher fessioun (a satire on auricular confession), 1541 ; and companion of the young prince, afterwards | The Tragedie of the Cardinall (Beaton), 1546 ; James V.

The Historie and Testament of Squyer William As ane chapman bears his pack,

Meldrum, about 1550; Ane Dialog betuir ExperiI bore thy Grace upon my back;

ence and ane Courteour, of the miserabyll estait of And sometimes stridlings on my neck, the World, 1553; and Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Dancing with mony bend and beck.

Thrie Estaitis. This last work is a rude dramatic The first syllables that thou did mute

composition, a satire upon the whole of the three Was Pa, Da, Lyn.

political orders—monarch, barons, and clergy-full 1 Grassy groves.

2 Lays.
3 Songs then popular.

of humour and grossness, and curiously illustrative 4 Whisper. 5 Relieve.

of the taste of the times. Notwithstanding its

pungency, and, what is apt to be now more surpris- Because the matter been so vile,
ing, notwithstanding the introduction of indecen- It may nocht have ane ornate style ;
cies not fit to be described, the satire of the Three Wherefore I pray your Excellence
Estates was acted in presence of the court at

To hear me with great patience :
Cupar, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh, the stage being

Of stinking weeds maculate in the open air. The performance at Linlithgow

No man nay mak ane rose-chaplet. took place at the feast of Epiphany, January 6,

Sovereign, I mean of thir syde tails,

Whilk through the dust and dubs trails 1539-40, in the presence of the king, queen, the

Three quarters lang behind their heels, ladies of the court, the bishops, and a great con

Express again' all commonweals. course of people of all ranks. "It is probable that Though bishops, in their pontificals, some of the coarser passages were written, as Have men for to bear up their tails, Chalmers supposes, for the amusement of the For dignity of their office; lower classes during the intervals, when the chief Richt so ane queen or ane empress ; auditory had retired for refreshments. The His- Howbeit they use sic gravity, torie of Squyer Meldrum is perhaps the most Conformand to their majesty, pleasing of all Lyndsay's works. It is founded on Though their robe-royals be upborne, the adventures of a well-known person in Fife

I think it is ane very scorn, shire, William Meldrum, the laird of Cleish and

That every lady of the land

Should have her tail so syde trailand; Binns, who served in France during the war in

Howbeit they been of high estate, 1513, and on his return to Scotland was noted for

The queen they should nocht counterfeit. his spirit and gallantry. It is considered the last poem that in any degree partakes of the char- Wherever they go it may be seen acter of the old metrical romance. The Dialogue How kirk and causay they soop clean. betwixt Experience and a Courtier is otherwise The images into the kirk described as The Monarchie, and is an elaborate

May think of their syde taillis irk ;2 compendium of events in sacred and profane

For when the weather been maist fair,

The dust flies highest in the air, history, in the course of which the poet inveighs

And all their faces does begarie. against the corruptions of the church of Rome.

Gif they could speak, they wald them warie,3 .. of the dexterity with which Lyndsay could

But I have maist into despite point a satirical remark on an error of state-policy, Poor claggocks clad in raploch white, we may judge from the following very brief passage Whilk has scant twa merks for their fees, of his early work, the Complaynt, which refers to Will have twa ells beneath their knees. the revolution in the Scottish government during Kittock that cleckit was yestreen, the year 1524, when the king was twelve years of The morn, will counterfeit the queen : age, and the Douglases gained the ascendency. And Moorland Meg, that milked the yowes, We give the lines in the original orthography, from Claggit with clay aboon the hows, the text of Chalmers :

In barn nor byre she will not bide,

Without her kirtle tail be syde. Imprudentlie, lyk wytles fuilis,

In burghs, wanton burgess wives
Thay tuke that young prince frome the scuilis,

Wha may have sydest tails strives,
Quhare he, under obedience,

Weel bordered with velvet fine,
Was lernand vertew and science,

But followand them it is ane pyne :
And haistelie platt in his hand

In summer, when the streets dries,
The governance of all Scotland ;

They raise the dust aboon the skies ;
As quho wald, in ane stormye blast,

Nane may gae near them at their ease,
Quhen marinaris bene all agast

Without they cover mouth and neese. . .
Throw danger of the seis raige,

I think maist pane after ane rain,
Wad tak ane chylde of tender aige,

To see them tuckit up again ;
Quhilk never had bene on the sey,

Then when they step furth through the street,
And to his biddyng all obey,

Their fauldings flaps about their feet;
Gevyng hym haill the governall

They waste mair claith, within few years,
Of schip, marchand and marinall,

Norwald cleid fifty score of freirs. : .
For dreid of rockis and foreland,

Of tails I will no more indite,
To put the ruther in his hand :

For dread some duddron? me despite :
Without Goddis grace, is no refuge :

Notwithstanding, I will conclude,
Geve thare be dainger, ye may juge.

That of syde tails can come nae gude,
I gyf thame to the devyll of hell,

Sider nor may their ankles hide,
Quhilk first devysit that counselí,

The remanent proceeds of pride,
I wyll nocht say that it was treassoun,

And pride proceeds of the devil,
Bot' I dar sweir, it was no reassoun.

Thus alway they proceed of evil.
I pray God, lat me never se ryng,3
In to this realme, so young ane kyng.

Ane other fault, sir, may be seen

They hide their face all but the een ; Satire on the Syde Tails, or Long Dresses, of the Ladies. When gentlemen bid them gude-day, Directed to the King's Grace, 1538.

Without reverence they slide away.

Without their faults be soon amended,
Sir, though your Grace has put great order

My Ayting, 8 sir, shall never be ended ;
Baith in the Hieland and the Border,

But wald your Grace my counsel tak,
Yet mak I supplication

Ane proclamation ye should mak,
Till have some reformation

Baith through the land and burrowstouns,
Of ane small fault, whilk is nocht treason,

To shaw their face and cut their gowns.
Though it be contrary to reason,

1 Sweep:
2 Be annoyed.

3 Curse or cry out 1 Whole, entire. 2 Merchandise or freight, and mariners. 4 Draggle-tails. 5 Hatched.

6 Houghs.

8 Scolding, brawling. 9 Burgh towns. 4

9

3 Reign.

7 Slut.

49

Women will say, this is nae bourds,

Here is ane relic, lang and braid,
To write sic vile and filthy words;

Of Fin-mac-Coul the right chaft blade,
But wald they clenge their filthy tails,

With teeth and all togidder;
Whilk over the mires and middens trails,

Of Colin's cow here is ane horn,
Then should my writing clengit be,

For eating of Makconnal's corn,
None other mends they get of me.

Was slain into Balquhidder.
Quoth Lyndsay, in contempt of the syde tails,

Here is ane cord, baith great and lang,
That duddrons and duntibours through the dubs

Whilk hangit John the Armistrang:
trails.

Of gude hemp soft and sound ;

Gude haly people, I stand for'd We subjoin a few passages from the Satire of Whaever beis hangit with this cord, the Three Estates, partly modernising the spelling.

Needs never to be drowned !

The culum 2 of Sanct Bride's cow,
Abuses of the Clergy.

The gruntle 3 of Sanct Antone's sow,
Pauper. Gude man, will ye give me of your charity,

Whilk bore his haly bell : And I shall declare you the black verity.

Whaever he be hears this bell clink My father was ane auld man and ane hoar,

Give me ane ducat for till drink, And was of age fourscore of years and more.

He shall never gang to hellAnd Mald, my mother, was fourscore and fifteen,

Without he be of Belial born : And with my labour I did them baith sustein.

Masters, trow ye that this be scorn? We had ane mare that carried salt and coal,

Come, win this pardon, come ! And every ilk 4 year, she brocht us hame ane foal.

Wha loves their wives nocht with their heart, We had three kye, that was baith fat and fair,

I have power them for till part;
Nane tidier into the toun of Air.

Methink you deaf and dumb.
My father was so weak of blude and bane,
That he died, wherefore my mother made great mane :

Has nane of you curst wicked wives
Then she died, within ane day or two;

That halds you intill sturt and strifes ? And there began my poverty and woe.

Come take my dispensation ; Our gude gray mare was battened on the field,

Of that cummer I shall make you quit, And our land's laird took her for his hyreild.5

Howbeit yourselves be in the wyte, The vicar took the best cow by the head,

And make ane false narration. Incontinent, when my father was dead.

Come win the pardon! Now let see, And when the vicar heard tell how that my mother

For meal, for malt, or for moneyWas dead, frae hand, he took to him ane other :

For cock, hen, goose, or grise,
Then Meg, my wife, did mourn baith even and morrow,

Of relics here I have ane hunder,
Till at the last she died for very sorrow :
And when the vicar heard tell my wife was dead,

Why come ye nocht? This is ane wonder;

I trow ye be nocht wise.
The third cow he cleekit 6 by the head.
Their umest? claithes, that was of raploch gray,8

The Law's Delay.
The vicar gart his clerk bear them away.
When all was gane, I might mak na debate,

Marry, I lent my gossip my mare, to fetch hame coals, But with my bairns passed for till beg my meat.

And he her drounit into the quarry holes ; Now, have I tauld you the black verity,

And I ran to the Consistory, for to pleinzie, 5. How I am brocht into this misery.

And there I happenit amang ane greedie meinzie. Diligence. How did the parson? was he not thy

They gave me first ane thing they call citendum ; friend?

Within aucht days I gat but libellandum; Pauper. The devil stick him ! he cursed me for my Within ane month I gat ad opponendum ; teind,

In half ane year I gat inter-loquendum, And halds me yet under that same process

And syne I gat-how call ye it?-ad replicandum; That gart me want the sacrament at Pasche. 10

But I could never ane word yet understand him : In gude faith, sir, though he would cut my throat, And then they gart me cast out many placks? I have na gear, except ane English groat,

And gart me pay for four-and-twenty acts. Whilk I purpose to give ane man of law.

But or they came half gate to concludendum, Diligence. Thou art the daftest 11 fuil that ever I saw ;

The fiend ane plack was left for to defend him. Trow'st thou, man, by the law, to get remead

Thus they postponed me twa year with their train, Of men of kirk? Na, nocht till thou be dead.

Syne, hodie ad octo, bad me come again : Pauper. Sir, by what law, tell me, wherefore or why

And then thir rooks they roupit 8 wonder fast That ane vicar should take frae me three kye?

For sentence, silver, they cryit at the last. Diligence. They have na law except consuetude,

Of pronunciandum they made me wonder fain,
Whilk law, to them, is sufficient and gude.

But I gat never my gude gray mare again.
Pauper. Ane consuetude against the common weal,
Should be na law, I think, by sweet Sanct Geil.12

There were several other Scottish poets of this

period, one of whom, WALTER KENNEDY, has Speech of the Pardoner.

obtained some notoriety from having carried on a My patent pardons ye may see,

Ayting or altercation with Dunbar in rhyme. The Come frae the Khan of Tartarie,

productions on both sides are coarse and scurWeel sealed with oyster-shells;

rilous, though there was probably as much mirth Though ye have no contrition,

as malice at the bottom of the affair. Most of Ye shall have full remission,

these pieces, with several anonymous poems of no With help of buiks and bells.

small merit, were preserved in the Maitland and

9

Bannatyne manuscripts of the sixteenth century. These worthy freckys 1 for to fight
The first was begun in 1555 by Sir Richard Mait- Thereto they were full fain,
land, and consists of a collection of miscellaneous

Till the blood out of their basnets sprent ? poetry, in two volumes, ending with the year 1585.

As ever did hail or rain. These precious volumes were preserved in the

"Yield thee, Percy !' said the Douglas, Pepysian Library, in Magdalene College, Cam

And i' faith I shall thee bring bridge. The Bannatyne manuscript contains a Where thou shalt have an earl's wages similar collection made by George Bannatyne, a Of Jamie our Scottish king. merchant of Edinburgh, in the year 1568, when the prevalence of the plague compelled men in

“Thou shalt have thy ransom free, business to forsake their usual employments and

I hight thee hear this thing ;

For the manfullest man yet art thou retire to the country. In a valedictory address at the end of this compilation (containing upwards of

That ever I conquered in field-fighting.' 800 pages), Bannatyne says:

'Nay,' said the Lord Percy, Heir endis this Buik writtin in tyme of pest,

I told it thee beforn, Quhen we fra labour was compeld to rest.

That I would never yielded be

To ng man of a woman born.' A judicious selection from Bannatyne's manuscript was published by Lord Hailes in 1770, accom

With that there cam an arrow hastily panied with valuable notes and a glossary.

Forth of a mighty wane,
It hath stricken the Earl Douglas

In at the breast-bane.
BALLAD POETRY.

Thorough liver and lungs baith The early ballads of England and Scotland have The sharp arrow is gane, justly been admired for their rude picturesque That never after in all his life-days energy and simple pathos. Some of them-as He spake mo words but ane; those relating to King Arthur, St George of That was: 'Fight ye, my merry men, whiles ye may, England, Sir Gawaine, &c.--are of great antiquity, For my life-days be gane.' and refer to a period before the formal institu

The Percy leaned on his brand, tion of chivalry. Others of later date, whether em

And saw the Douglas dee ; bodying historical events, traditional romance, or

He took the dead man be the hand, domestic tragedies, illustrate the times in which

And said : Wo is me for thee! they were composed, though often altered and vulgarised in their progress downwards by recitation. 'To have saved thy life, I would have parted with Sir Philip Sidney said the old ballad of Chevy My lands for years three, Chase stirred him up like the sound of a trumpet ;

For a better man of heart nor of hand and the classic Addison devoted two papers in

Was not in all the north countrie.' the Spectator to a critique on a more modern

Of all that saw, a Scottish knight, version of the same artless but heroic metrical

Was called Sir Hugh the Montgomery, story. The ballads on the famous outlaw, Robin

He saw the Douglas to the death was dight,
Hood, fill a volume. Another, The Nut-brown

He spended a spear, a trusty tree.
Maid, was imitated by Prior, who failed to excel
the simple original. Sir Lancelot du Lake, the He rode upon a courser, through
Heir of Linne, King Cophetua and the Beggar

A hundred archery,

He never stinted nor never blane 4 Maid, Tak your Auld Cloak about ye, and num

Till he came to the good Lord Percy. erous others, have enjoyed great popularity. Sir Walter Scott drew his first and strongest poetical

He set upon the Lord Percy inspiration from the Minstrelsy of the Scottish A dint that was full sore, Border, which he carefully collected and edited. With a sure spear of a mighty tree Most of these must be assigned to the sixteenth Clean thorough the body he Percy bore, and seventeenth centuries, but many are older,

At the other side that a man might see including what Coleridge termed the grand old

A large cloth-yard and mair: ballad' of Sir Patrick Spens. James V. of Scot

Two better captains were not in Christiantie land is the reputed author of two excellent ballads,

Than that day slain were there. describing his own roving adventures. In Shakspeare and Beaumont and Fletcher are many As a specimen of the modernised ballad, supposed fragments of ballads popular in their day, most of to be of the time of Elizabeth or James, we quote which have been collected and published in Percy's a few stanzas, describing the death of Douglas : Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. To this the line we have printed in italics is a touch of valuable repository and to Scott's Minstrelsy we genius not in the old ballad: must refer the reader.

With that there came an arrow keen
The Deaths of Douglas and Percy.

Out of an English bow,
The ballad of Cherry Chase is supposed to have been written in

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, the time of Henry VI. or between 1422 and 1461. The oldest MS.

A deep and deadly blow : is in the Bodleian Library, with the name attached of 'Richard Sheale, a ballad-singer or reciter of the reigns of Mary and Eliza- Who never spoke more words than thesebeth. In the following extract, we have simplified the spelling,

* Fight on, my merry men all; which in the original is careless and uncouth.

For why, my life is at an end, At last the Douglas and the Percy met,

Lord' Percy sees my fall.' Like to captains of might and of main ;

1 Men (Ang.-Sax. freca, a man). They swapt together till they both swat,

3 Ane, one man With swords that were of fine Milan.