sess great merit.

Sir Walter Scott has introduced both father and son in Marmion. He makes old Bell-the-Cat appear in his true character:

'A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed!

Did ever knight so foul a deed!

At first in heart it liked me ill,

When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line;
So swore I, and I swear it still-

Let my boy-bishop fret his fill.”

Canto VI

And in another passage we have the poet-bishop himself:

"Amid that dim and smoky light,

Checkering the silver moonshine bright—

A bishop by the altar stood,

A noble lord of Douglas' blood.

With mitre sheen, and rocquet white.
Yet show'd his meek and thoughtful eye,
But little pride of prelacy;

More pleased that in a barbarous age
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page,

Than that beneath his rule he held
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld."

Canto VI.

Bishop Gawain was compelled by the troubles in Scotland to flee from his native country, and to take refuge at the court of Henry VIII., where he lived for years an honored exile, dying in 1522, at London, of the plague. He was born in 1474. Each canto of his translation of Virgil was preceded by an original prologue; the address to Spring-whence the extract on flowers is taken-is one of the most pleasing of these, and forms his introduction to the 12th Canto of the Æneid. Far from regretting the Scotticisms of his style, the bishop only mourned that his verses were still so English in their aspect a defect which will not be likely to strike the modern reader. But in spite of the obsolete words and rugged style, the touch of a poetical spirit, and something of the freshness of the natural blossoms still lingers about Bishop Gawain's Spring chaplet.

FLOWERS.

Through their beauty, and variety of coloure, and exquisite forme, they do bringe to a liberal and gentle minde the remembrance of honestie, comelinesse, and all kinds of virtues; for it would be an unseemly thing (as a certain wise man saith) for him that doth look upon and handle faire and beautiful things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautiful places, to have his minde not faire also.

JOHN GERARDE, 1545-1607.

SPRING-FLOWERS.

And blissful blossoms in the bloomed sward,
Submit their heads in the young sun's safeguard;
Ivy-leaves rank o'erspread the barkmekyn wall;
The bloomed hawthorn clad his pykis all
Forth of fresh burgeons; the wine-grapis ying,
Endlong the twistis did on trestles hing.
The locked buttons on the gummed trees,
O'erspreadant leaves of nature's tapestries;
Soft, grassy verdure, after balmy showers,
On curland stalkis smiland to their flowers,
Beholdant them so maine devirs hue:

Some pers, some pale, some burnet, and some blue;
Some gray, some gules, some purpure, some sanguene,
Blanchet, or brown, fauch-colour many one-

Some heavenly-coloured in celestial gré,

Some watery-hued, as the haw-waly sea;

And some depeint in freckles red and white;

Some bright as gold, with aureate levis lite.
The daisie did unbraid her crownal small,

And every flower unlapped in the dale.

The flower-de-luce forth spread out his heavenly hue,
Flower-damas, and columbo black and blue,

Sere downis smale on dandelion sprung,

The young green-bloomed strawberry leaves among ;
Gimp gilliflowers their own leaves unshet
Fresh primrose, and the purpure violet.
The rose-knobbis tetand forth their heads.
Gen chip and kyth their vernal lippis red,
Crisp scarlet leaves sheddant baith at aines,
Cast fragrant smell amid from golden grains.

Heavenly lilies with lockerand toppis white
Opened, and shew their crestis redemite,
The balmy vapour from their silver croppis
Distilland wholesome sugared honey-droppis,
So that ilke burgeon, scion, herb, or flower
Wose all embalmed of the sweet liquore
And bathed did in dulce humoures flete

Whereof the beeis wrought their honey sweet.

GAWAIN DOUGLAS, Bishop of Dunkeld.

Burmekyn, barbican; pers, light blue; burnet, brownish; gules, scarlet; fauchcolour, fawn; celestial gre, sky-blue; haw-waly, dark-waved; lite, little; flowerdamas, damask rose; rose-knobbis tetand, rose-buds peeping; kyth, show; locherand, curling; redemite, crowned; croppis, heads.

ARRANGEMENTS OF A BOUQUET.

Here damask roses, white and red,

Out of my lap first take I,

Which still shall run along the thread
My chiefest flower this make I.

Among these roses in a row,

Next place I pinks in plenty,

These double pansies then for show,
And will not this be dainty?

The pretty pansy then I'll tie

Like stones some chain enchasing;

And next to them, their near ally,
The purple violet placing.

The curious choice clove July flower,
Whose kind hight the carnation,
For sweetness of most sovereign power,
Shall help my wreath to fashion;

Whose sundry colors of one kind,
First from one root derived,
Them in their several suits I'll bind:
My garland so contrived.

A course of cowslips then I'll stick,
And here and there (so sparely)
The pleasant primrose down I'll prick,
Like pearls that will show rarely;