asniraain uvinoYNaaA HSIIIOOS SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE A SUCCINCT HISTORY BY T. F. HENDERSON LONDON PUBLISHED BY DAVID NUTT IN THE STRAND 1898 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 8q^ JO m }S8i8iui SUIAIASI 8qi naq^usi^s o^ papua^ /sii^-era , veiumuidA pp 8q^ jo ssuq no qonra ^JSA 'sssoons opsod Suiifu^s ssoqAi jo q^Jtq sq 1 ) msq^ Suora^ 'A^sm-e^ jo 8oms psnsdd-Bq SA-eq sSuiq^ ^n'Bm ^ng oj, smoosq p^q A*pi38.qv i S5[JOA\. aiaq^ n^ P 118 , su-en-em , pp sq^ p8j^nSu8 p-eq c suop^J8U8S ^joqs AV8J -e jo asjnoo sq^ ui 'qoTq^ uoiAqqo pnoi 8q^ S-BM qong /smsod ii8q^ i^ys pu^ 8ioj8q sioq^ny 8qi jo S8in^^ 8q^ ^np[J^ra, q^iAi jpsmiq ^ua^uoo o; p-eq A^pmi-aA 8q pn-e '^n8S8ad ^ pug; ^eq^ joj paqsuv sq pjnoo SB UOT^'BHIJOJUJ ^oui^STp qons q^LM. paqsiuanj, uaaq ion p^q 8q ^eq^ uos^ai 4 SiS8Q; 8q^ paA^pp, p-eq 8qi jo saoq^ny 8q^ jo iS 8A-eq o; pspusim p-eq 8q ^^q; 'u99Jb6j,d(ig[ dqj; 01 SO-BJSJJ siq vi SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE centuries. Within the present century those old 'makaris' ceased among the educated Scots to be merely 'names/ and again became poetic person- alities; and within the last few years the studious attention directed to this old vernacular poetry has been rapidly widening even on the Continent and in the United States, where many professors of English Literature have set an example to those in Great Britain by systematically including the subject in the English Literature course. In such auspicious circumstances a succinct hand- book of the whole subject a handbook which should summarise the main features of this in many ways admirable literature, should trace its interdependence, even in prosody, from its earliest beginnings down to Burns and his immediate successors, and should serve as, at least, an introduction and guide to its more general and systematic study is surely an almost imperative desideratum. No such handbook has up to the present been attempted, nor does any History of Scottish Literature exist that can be re- garded as a substitute for it, the few Histories that have from time to time appeared, embracing only special aspects or special periods of general Scottish literature, while in none has the vernacular literature been dealt with as a separate entity. It is only within recent years that such a hand- PREFACE vii book as that attempted in the following pages has become possible, It in a sense represents and summarises the labours of many preceding editors labours whose results are here thankfully acknow- ledged from Pinkerton, Laing, Irving, and other pioneers, to those of the Early English and Scottish Texts. Those Text Societies are, it may be, devoted more to the philological and antiquarian than the strictly literary aspects of the subject, but it is owing mainly to them and other learned Clubs as the Bannatyne, the Maitland, the Roxburgh, the Hunterian that Scottish Vernacular Literature has begun to assert its title to full literary recognition. The older vernacular literature being comparatively unknown, more quotation has been deemed advisable than is usual in literary histories. In the quota- tions no attempt has been made to modernise the spelling, because (1) the special pronunciation is an essential part of the poetical effect, and (2) a proper knowledge of Scottish vernacular or any other litera- ture is not obtainable by means of short cuts. It is hoped, however, that the side glossary will not only sufficiently guide the ' general reader' to an intelligent appreciation of the quotations, but tend to quicken an interest in one of the most graphic of literary dialects a dialect which perhaps even yet has not wholly lost its efficacy to enrich modern English, viii SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE To various peculiarities in spelling, as ' quh ' for ' wh/ the political entity known as Scotland was powerfully aided by the effects of Scotland. t h e g rea t Danish immigrations of the ninth and tenth centuries, and the struggles between northern and southern England. Amid much that is uncertain as to the relations of the Scottish kings to these struggles, this much is clear, that, though they at first combined with the Danes of Northumbria and the Cymri of Cumbria in resisting the northward swoops of the west Saxons, they finally from com- pulsion or self-interest came to an understanding with the southern kings. Whether, or how far, they admitted the overlordship of these kings Saxon or Danish is of minor moment, since in the long-run THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 3 they were able to disregard it. Partly by right of conquest, partly by promises to assist the southern kings, the Scottish kings (1) were given in 945 a kind of deputed authority over Cumbria, which they ultimately succeeded in retaining in their full posses- sion as far south as the Solway; and (2) between 970 and 975 obtained hold whether in trust or not of Northumbria north of the Tweed, which was also formally conceded to King Malcolm of Scotland in 1018. But while the dominion of the Scottish kings was being thus consolidated in the south, it was threatened with dire peril through the The rebellion remarkable and strenuous career of of Macbeth, and the Saxon- Macbeth, Maarmor of Moray. Though isingofscot- regarded by some as mainly the cham- pion of the conquered Picts, Macbeth seems to have succeeded at last in enlisting the aid of the whole of northern Scotland. But whatever the exact blazon on his standard whatever the special cause, political, racial, or dynastic, which he professed to champion the movement he inaugurated virtually perished with his defeat and death in 1057. Subsequent Maarmors gave the Scottish kings occasional trouble, but among none of the leaders of northern or north-western insurrections did there arise a second Macbeth. If his adventurous purpose was in any sense fruitful of political consequences, it was in a direction entirely opposite to that intended by him towards weakening rather than strengthening the 4 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE northern influences, whether Pictish, Celtic, or Norse. On the full rehabilitation of the old rule, mainly by southern aid, the southern civilisation gradually became dominant; nor was its dominance affected by subsequent temporary partitions of the kingdom. Through the marriage of Malcolm Canmohr con- queror of Macbeth with Margaret, sister of Edgar the Atheling, the old Scoto-Pictish dynasty became virtually Saxonised ; and the triumph of the Saxon element was finally assured by the great influx of Saxons during the period of the Norman Conquest. Already much of the seaboard of Scotland north of the Forth had been overrun by the Scandinavian Vikings; and with the advent of the fugitive Northumbrians, the Teutonic speech and civilisation gradually penetrated into every district of the Scottish lowlands. The direct effects of the Norman Conquest were late in reaching Scotland, nor when they appeared Norman were they so potent as in the south. considenbie, Though there was war with the Norman i b iteratu N re,TnT km g s , there was no Norman Conquest of only slight Scotland. The migration of Norman fragments of Anglo-Saxon, nobles thither was gradual and peaceful. preserved in , Scotland. They were patronised and favoured by the Scottish kings from the time of the marriage in 1100 of Matilda, sister of Edgar of Scotland, to Henry of England. Many of them accompanied David i., Matilda's brother, when from the Norman court of England, where he had spent his youth, he arrived THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 5 in Scotland in 1107 to succeed to the throne of southern Scotland. Both in this southern Scotland and in northern Scotland, or Alban, to which he succeeded in 1124 the kingdom being reunited under his rule he introduced a feudal system of government, modelled after that of Norman England. Thus, though the Normans never effected any formal conquest of Scotland, they left indelible marks on its political and social system ; and though their speech adopted at court did not so strongly colour the final vocabulary as in the south, yet, as in England, so in Scotland, it lent its aid in effecting that radical change in the form of the language by which, from being inflectional and synthetic, it became non- inflectional and analytic. Materials illustrative of the process of transformation are, however, in all respects, much scantier in Scotland than in England, and in truth can scarce be said to exist. Of the earlier Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian, there survive only fragmentary remains on stone and monumental crosses, and a few Saxon words interwoven in charters and other Latin documents. Even of the minstrelsy or romances of the Normans at least one of the fountainheads of Scottish poetry not a verse has in Scotland been preserved ; and only after the stage of transmutation is over, and the language has developed into a form of Early English, do proper data exist for determining its character. When it first emerges from obscurity towards the close of the fourteenth century, the literary language 6 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE of the Scottish lowlands is found to be practically identical with that of England north of the Humber : The Scottish it belongs to the Northern dialect of origan"' Earl y English. 1 Compared with the Mid- land and Soutnern dialects, the Early dialect of Northern English, or Lowland Scottish, Early English, gradually shows more traces of Scandinavian and modified by Frisian, and less of Norman influences. foreign With But in Scotland this Northern dialect tongues. necessarily underwent a process of gradual change other than that merely of natural develop- ment. It was placed in a new environment which exposed it on all sides to infection from foreign tongues. For the most part, also, the process of change affected the oral speech before it manifested its presence in the literary language. The literary language tended at first to become stereotyped to remain assimilated to the language of Northumbria south of the Tweed; and latterly, it was in some degree biassed by the ascendency of Chaucer and other southern writers; but the spoken dialect was being brought into contact with an immense variety of subtle linguistic forces Cymric, Pictish, Gaelic, Norse, French which, while they in many ways modified its pronunciation and altered its idioms, also enormously enriched its expressiveness. The causes that co-operated to refashion the three 1 It is almost unnecessary to mention the invaluable aid to the study of Early English which has been rendered by such pioneers as Dr. J. A. H. Murray, Richard Morris, and Professor Skeat. THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 7 dialects of Early English Northern, Midland, and Southern into two allied, but in many . Severance of respects dissimilar, languages English Scotland from and Scottish were mainly twofold: (1) the Midland dialect for reasons that lie outside the present theme gradually results on the r * vernacular. became the sole literary language of England, the Northern and Southern dialects not being absorbed in it, but vanishing almost entirely from English literature ; and (2) Scotland where the Northern dialect obtained supremacy became, after Bannockburn, more and more severed from English influences, and, besides accomplishing its civilisation through the commingling of the diverse races within its own territory, entered into intimate relations with France. Scotsmen began to flock to France rather than to England to complete their education; in large numbers they also entered the French service, and many of them winning high renown under French banners were made naturalised citizens of France; Paris became a great Scottish resort ; the Frenchman and the Scot associated as sworn comrades against a common foe ; the royal houses of the two countries got to be strongly knit together by marriage ties, and the Scottish court formed a special centre of French customs and gaiety and culture, which began to give a certain veneer of refinement and civility to the rude and sombre Scottish manners ; every variety of commercial interchange rapidly expanded; among the educated classes there was a flourishing apprecia- 8 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE tion of French literature, and the French language was more and more taught and spoken. Thus it comes about that while the Early Scottish the Scottish of Barbour and Wyntoun differs but slightly, if at all. from Northern English, The vernacular . of early and the Scottish of later writers as, for example, Dunbar and Douglas and Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount is a composite language, which, however the vocabulary of one writer may differ in many particulars from that of another, is characterised universally by a great, and in some respects barbarous, wealth of diction a diction which, though it does not scruple to borrow from Chaucer and other English poets, 1 is derived largely from other sources than either the new Eng- lish or the Northern dialect, and is coloured much more strongly than any of the old dialects with a French element an element not wholly naturalised. Yet if the writers of this later period over-represent the French element in the oral speech of Scotland, the number both of French words and idioms which had already passed into the texture of the language is very great ; 2 nor can it be doubted that had the old 1 The old Scottish 'makaris ' regarded their language the language of lowland Scotland as English. Thus Dunbar refers to Chaucer as ' of our Inglisch all the lycht. ' Douglas distinguishes between Scottis and Inglis, and proposes to use mainly * our own language,' though he does not disdain the occasional use of ' sudrone ' speech ; but Lyndsay actually refers to Douglas as ' in our Inglis rethorick the rose.' 2 See specially on this subject Francisque-Michel's Critical Inquiry into the Scottish Language, 1882. THE SCOTTISH VEENACULAK 9 external conditions not sustained a sudden wrench, and had the Scottish vernacular literature been per- mitted a longer lease of full and vigorous Enrichment of . . - re T -i j c the vernacular activity so as to have afforded time for n otfuii y shedding of immaturities and accidental accretions, and for a more complete as- checked before reaching full shnilation of French and other elements, maturity. a literary language would have obtained of a more perfected individuality, of still greater variety, pic- turesqueness, and power, and perhaps more than rivalling literary English in fertility of idioms, and in wealth, beauty, and efficacy of diction. Is it presump- tuous to even express regret that these two streams, issuing originally from a common fountainhead, had not, after each gathering volume from its own special rivulets, been permitted more fully to commingle, so that the final literature of the two reunited peoples should have represented even in its grammar and vocabulary something more of the northern genius, temperament, racial characteristics, and nationality ? But instead of contributing to any such consummation, the northern stream presently became dammed up and sank into the earth ; and if at last it partially reap- peared, it was in sadly diminished volume, and never again as the complete medium of the nation's literary expression. Before the influences which were fertilis- ing and perfecting the language had time to become properly absorbed, circumstances arose which mean- while effectually hindered any further literary advance. In truth, Scottish vernacular literature as a distinc- 10 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE tively national possession had scarce begun to exist ere it had ceased to be ; and in its original and unrevived form may be said to have attained all the maturity it was fated to reach some half-century before the arrival of Shakespeare. The Scottish Reformation, which the vernacular literature in some sense heralded, and in many ways assisted to bring about, in the end effec- Scottish literature tually smothered that literature. In smothered by _. - . * -r f the Reforma- Scotland the Reformation assumed a complexion exceptionally stern and rigid : a complexion not merely sentimentally, but Calvin- istically and logically Puritan. It was particularly inimical to art, as in part a specious variety of idolatry, in part an insidious conspiracy to drape Satan as an angel of light. Secular poetry thus came under its peculiar ban, and indeed almost every form of secular literature literature underived from or uninterlarded with Scripture as essentially mun- dane and frivolous, and therefore sinful. Its demo- cratic spirit precluded such an illogical compromise with the world as more or less obtained in England. The sudden, full, and immediate contact of the rude intelligence of the masses with a book, every word of which was supposed to have been directly dictated by God, upset as it was bound to do the nation's mental and moral balance. Superstition, whose grip the Renaissance and other influences had begun to loosen, acquired a new authority, and laid hold of the nation with a still firmer because more logical clutch THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 11 a clutch which for the time being effectually strangled the national literature. By the impulse and with the guidance of this renovated superstition, an organ- isation was gradually perfected which endeavoured to comprehend within itself, and to utilise for its own ends, all the nation's energies, and to subject not merely what are usually termed the morals, but everything else besides, of each individual, high or low, rich or poor, cultivated and clever or illiterate and foolish, to its inspection and control. Thus, notwith- standing the impulse of a true poetic tradition, and the fostering influence of James vi., the vocation of art or literature in Scotland became gradually impos- sible. All this is undeniable fact, only more patently manifested by pretentious attempts to gloss it over. It must be accepted in its unvarnished drab reality, and either with condemnation or approval, or such a blending of the two as the special circumstances demand. And at least it would be churlish to with- hold a certain meed of admiration from such honesty of conviction, and such a sterling however in the long-run impossible effort to square practice with theory. The bulk of the nation then believed what it professed to believe. In the Biblical idolatry of Scotland there was also this compensating benefit, that the Bible general familiarity with which was so strenuously promoted, and even enforced con- tains much admirable literature, and that at last it circulated in Scotland, as in England, in the marvel- lous English prose version whose charm is still as 12 SCOTTISH VEENACULAR LITERATURE fresh as it was nearly three centuries ago. Its general perusal was bound in some degree to culti- vate and purify the nation's literary taste, and to foster a latent capacity to appreciate good secular literature, as soon as circumstances removed the embargo from it. But besides practically suppressing the vernacular literature, and niching from life the zest without Effect of the which no healthy literature can flourish, fnthT^ " tlie Scottish Reformation called into vernacular. operation activities which made inevitably for the disintegration of the vernacular language : which slowly robbed the language of its char- acteristically northern features, and gradually but surely transformed its most picturesque peculiarities into sober and estimable English. Direct conse- quences of the Reformation were the severance of the old relations with France, and the resumption of a perpetual alliance with the ' auld enemy,' England. This led first to the union of the crowns, and finally to the union of the kingdoms. After these unions the vernacular could not, under any conditions, have long retained its pristine purity; but had circum- stances before the union of the crowns been different, the process of disintegration, though inevitable, would also have been different. It would have been less rapid, and in the end less complete and fatal, had Scotland all along been in possession of a vigorous national literature. Sooner or later the lesser was bound to become merged in the greater THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 13 literature; but it was by no means necessary that the bulk of the special vocabulary and idioms of the north should in the process utterly perish. From them English literature might have acquired still greater opulence of expression, and especially an added piquancy and vigour. But alas ! the vernacular had almost ceased to be wedded to a living litera- ture before even the union of the crowns; and the vernacular language itself had already become smitten with symptoms of decay. The universal circulation of the Bible in English gradually intro- duced a new fashion of expression. While the broad Scottish pronunciation of necessity retained its cur- rency even among the educated and upper classes, many of the old Scottish words and idioms began to drop out of the oral speech, and after the creation of a kind of amorphous dialect quaintly compounded in irregular and lawless proportions of Scottish and English English went on conquering and to con- quer. Even the common speech of the peasant in the remoter regions began to suffer from the weekly deluges of Sco to-English, and the daily enforced perusal of the English Scriptures; and so the ver- nacular of each succeeding generation became less purely Scottish than that of its predecessor. It thus follows (1) that much of the vernacular Scottish vernacular that had no place , , . ,, , The old and in the only partially developed and the revived prematurely blasted literature has hopelessly perished; (2) that some of the literary 14 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE vernacular cannot now be certainly interpreted ; and (3) that the revived vernacular from Sempill to Burns is more or less Anglified Scottish: not, for example, the Scottish of Dunbar and Lyndsay and their contemporaries, but partly imitated from these older writers, partly a dialect more or less local, and partly English with a Scottish accent. Old ballads entirely pagan in sentiment, and old songs of a gaiety and frankness and ingenuous indecency which bespeak relation with an age of primitive simplicity, survived in the oral traditions of the people, the anathemas of the Kirk notwithstanding ; but in the process of transmission from one generation to an- other, their form and cast of language though not of essential utterance underwent inevitable changes. Many of them also have come down to us only in broken snatches and isolated refrains. As for the literature of the revival, it was in a sense a mere exotic largely an imitation of a literature that had been partly moribund for some centuries. The literary tradition was almost hopelessly dissevered. The gap between the present and the past became too wide to permit of proper re-connection. At the Reformation Scottish vernacular literature had 'a great fall,' and by no manner of means could be ' set up again ' as an adequate national symbol. In the case of Sempill and other older poets of the revival many of them innominate the antique flavour is strong and genuine ; in the case of Ramsay and his contemporaries it is a variable quantity, THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR 15 partly artificial, and too often streaked with mere vulgarity and commonplace squalor. Several poets of later date than Ramsay have achieved a certain success in isolated vernacular songs. Fergusson made not inconsiderable efforts to galvanise the dead corpse of vernacular literature into a semblance of real vitality ; but Fergusson's career was too short to enable him to master more than the rudiments of his art, and it was reserved for Burns, by virtue both of unique endowments and special circumstances his lowly birth, his peasant experiences, his deep and full humanity, his peculiarly impressionable genius, his mastery of the old national poetry in its spirit and essence, and his rare artistic sorcery in a sense to re-create for us the old Scottish world, to breathe into the dry bones of the past the breath of life, and to fashion a form of vernacular poetry in which old and new elements are cunningly blended to the production of artistic effects unsurpassed, if not unequalled, by any vernacular predecessor. Burns had, and has, many imitators, but by the very nature of the case he could have no successors or disciples quite worthy to prolong his tradition. Necessarily he influenced, and does still influence, the poetic art of the nineteenth century, for no great poetic artist ever lived to himself alone; but while his spirit survives, his method may be said to have in great part perished with him. II MINSTRELSY AND ROMANCE EARLY FRAGMENTS OF PATRIOTIC MINSTRELSY 'THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE ' AND ' SIR TRISTREM ' HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE, AND OTHER WRITERS OF ALLITERATIVE ROMANCES. THAT minstrelsy was in high repute in the Saxonised and latterly Normanised Picto-Celtic Scotland might have been assumed as certain, even had Early Cantus preserved by there not been the many proofs there are Wyntoun. ,, , ,, . . , ot early proficiency in music and song; for the nation was a blend of peoples among whom the vocation of the bard was ever held in high esteem. Yet of the earlier songs all that have reached us are a few paltry fragments, and even these we do not possess in quite their original dialect. Wyntoun (c. 1420) has preserved a ' Cantus ' of eight lines forming the whole or part of what may be termed a national prayer for succour evoked by the parlous state of the country through the intestine troubles and devastating raids that followed the death of Alexander in. : * Quhen Alysandyr oure kyng was dede love and That Scotland led in luiie and le law 16 EAELY FEAGMENTS OF MINSTRELSY 17 Away wes sons off ale and brede, plenty Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle : Oure gold wes changyd into lede. Cryst borne into Vyrgynyte Succoure Scotland and remede That stad [is in] perplexyteV fixed The spelling and dialect is, of course, that of Wyntoun; but if destitute of any special linguistic value, the Cantus is metrically of interest as perhaps the earliest extant example of the interwoven octave formed of lines of four accents rhyming alternately. Another fragment dating from the same troubled years is that of the 'mokkyshe ryme' made by the Scots in derision of the on the siege English after they had driven them back 1296. and burnt some of their ships during the siege of Berwick by Edward in 1296 : ' What wenys Kynge Edwarde with longe shankys To have wonne Berwyk all our onthankys ? Gaas pykes him. And when he hath it Gaas dykeis him.' 1 It is a rude production enough ; but scornful hate is worked into the chorus with a certain realistic emphasis. The next of our fragments is the triumphant dance -song of the Scottish maidens songofthe Scottish after Bannockburn (1314): a naively Maidens after exultant bantering of the forlorn plight I3 i4. n ' of their bereaved English sisters : 1 So in Fabyan's Chronicle-, but in Chron. Monast. S. Albani (ed. Riley, 1865) there is a simpler version : ' Kyng Edward, wanne thu havest Berwic pike the, wanne thu havest geten, dike the.' To dike = to fence round, to enclose so as to make escape impossible. B 18 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE * May dens of Englonde, sore may ye morne darlings For your lemmans ye have loste at Bannock isborne ! With heue a lowe. Sgineth What wen J th the K 7 n g e of Englonde So soone to haue wonne Scotlande ? With rumbylowe.' 'This songe,' says Fabyan, 1 'was after many dayes sungyn in daunces, in carolles of ye maydens and inynstrellys of Scotlande, to the reproofe and dysdane of Englyshmen, wt dyverse other which I ouer passe. 5 The phrases ' With heue a lowe ' and ' With rumby- lowe' are found both in later Scottish and English poetry. They here probably indicate the occurrence of a dance movement emphasised by special gestures or the beating of musical instruments. Our last example is a pithy but halting quatrain made by the Scots after the marriage of David IL, Quatrain after son f Robert the Bruce, to Jane or ofoTv^iT J anna > sister of Edward in., whom, says in 1328. Fabyan, 2 'they, in despite of the Eng- lish, call "Jane Make Peace.'" The quatrain, he further tells us, was but one of diverse ' truffys, roundyes, and songyes' made by the Scots to the Englishmen's ' more deryson ' : ' Long berdys, hartles Paynted hoodyes, witles Gay cotis, graceless Maketh England thryftles. 3 Altogether these fragments form but a sorry wreckage from devouring Time; but, such as they 1 Chronide, ed. Ellis, p. 420. 2 /&. p. 440. EARLY FRAGMENTS OF MINSTRELSY 19 are, they do more to bring us into contact with the heart of the nation, in those wild and ingenuous ages, than do the bulk of the serious political Minstrelsy documents of the period. In those early is of more historic in- times the carols, and rounds, and rude terest than rhymes were almost the only means of voicing the nation's sentiments, and formed a sort of presage of our present daily press. On the other hand, the more elaborate poems scarcely touched the present at all. In these long Romances we have passing glimpses of ancient manners and customs, but they make known little or nothing of the main concerns of the nation ; they are mainly translations or paraphrases of translations, and deal with times already remote from those of the narrator, and with adventures in love and war of heroes and heroines belonging to a partly mythical antiquity. The earliest name associated with Scottish poetry is that of the mysterious soothsayer Thomas of Erceldoune, usually called Thomas the Thomas of Rhymour. A certain 'Thomas Rimour f"h e d n ^J de Erceldoune' is witness to a deed of he flourish? the Abbey of Melrose 1 which is undated, but, from certain other signatures attached to it, may be pretty certainly assigned to the latter half of the thirteenth century. That the Thomas Rimour who signed that deed either died or was executed or murdered, or went into monastic retirement or was kidnapped whether by mortals or fairies sometime before 2nd November 1 Liber de Melros, p. 269. 20 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE 1294, may further be inferred from the fact that by deed of that date ' Thomas de Erceldoune, films et heres Thome Rymour de Erceldoune/ conveyed all his lands held by inheritance in Erceldoune to the Trinity house of Soltra. 1 Whether Rimour was the family name of Thomas or his professional title is matter of dispute; and the question is of some importance, since if it was the family name, the mere occurrence of it coupled with Thomas in the documents settles nothing as to the period when ' true Thomas ' flourished. Hector Boece (1527) is the first writer to call him Leirmont ; but in the absence of this name from the early documents, Boece's autho- rity must be regarded as worth little, though there is the possibility either that Leirmont was a title, or that a new family of the name of Leirmont came later into the possession of Erceldoune. Erceldoune was a castle and village in Berwickshire on the site of the present Earlston belonging to the Earl of Dunbar and March, but Thomas Rimour is supposed to have inhabited a ' tower ' of his own, the so-called ruins of which are still pointed out; and it is, of course, certain from the deed executed by Thomas Rimour's son that the family held their lands in- dependent of the Earl. The main evidence associat- ing Thomas of the documents with Thomas of the prophecies is the statement of Bower in the con- tinuation (c. 1430) of Fordun that the Rhymer, on the day before the death of Alexander in. (1286), pre- 1 MS. Chartulary in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE 21 dieted the occurrence on the morrow of a mysterious and destructive blast ; but although antiquaries have accepted the anecdote as fact, and even Sir Walter has gravely surmised that the death of Alexander accidentally saved the reputation of Thomas as a weather prophet, the mere testimony of Bower, writ- ing a hundred and fifty years afterwards, cannot be regarded as a sufficient authentication. Blind Harry must needs of course employ the intervention of Thomas in glorification of the national hero Wallace, and for this purpose introduces him as an inmate of the Abbey of Faile, near Ayr, at the tune of Wallace's captivity there in 1296, and as predicting future victories for him after he was given up for dead ; but it is surely folly to attach much import- ance to the poetical devices of Blind Harry, unless otherwise corroborated. As to Thomas's prophecy of the succession of Robert the Bruce to the Scottish throne, referred to by Barbour, 1 Barbour's statement is too vague to warrant the conclusion that the prophecy was necessarily made after the death of Alexander ; and Barbour affirms nothing as to the period when the Rhymer flourished. A like remark applies to the 'derne' saying mentioned by Wyntoun 2 as prophetic of the battle of Kilblane ; but if a cer- tain forged prophecy, written before 1320, 3 refer to the battle of Bannockburn, Thomas of Erceldoune, to 1 The Bruce, Bk. n. v. 85-87. 2 Chronicle , Bk. vui. xxxi. 114. 3 MS. Harleian, 2253, 1. 127. 22 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE whom it is assigned, must have been alive as late as 1293. Thus, though taken singly each item of evidence as to the date of Thomas is of somewhat uncertain His fame as significance, yet collectively its general a prophet. ^fl. j g towar( j s fa Q identification of Thomas the Rhymer with Thomas Rimour of the documents. Nor is it difficult to understand what exceptional opportunity the troubled years following the death of Alexander in. afforded to one reputed to possess the awesome gift of speaking in ' derne.' Since also Thomas rhymed on the eve of the great struggle with Edward L, it was inevitable that after his death his sayings should acquire a factitious importance, that his fame should deepen and expand with each supposed fulfilment of his prophecies, and his rhymes be distorted or mutilated to fit particular emergencies, and at last be gradually submerged by a countless variety of forgeries. Having died, more- over, before war with England had begun, he was not originally regarded as specially a Scottish partisan, and therefore his repute seems to have been, at first, quite as great in England as it was in Scotland. But being a Scot, it was inevitable that he should in the end be appropriated as the one great Scottish prophet with gifts outrivalling even those of the more ancient but un-Scottish Merlin who had special intimations of all the main events of Scottish history down to a period of indefinite futurity ; and it was equally inevitable that his character as 'true Thomas' THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE 23 should be assiduously preserved by apparently whole hosts of forgeries composed after the occurrence of the events foretold. Thus, notwithstanding the Ehymer's fame, or rather perhaps because of it, no rhyming prophecy exists that can be certainly auth- enticated as his. Neither Barbour, nor Wyntoun, nor Blind Harry has professed to quote verbatim any of his prophetic rhymes; and it is vain, from among the many forgeries that have passed current as sayings of his, to attempt to select a single speci- men that actually represents his opinions or fore- casts, far less enables us to form any judgment as to his literary or poetic gifts. As for the old romance of Thomas of Erceldoune in three fyttes, 1 detailing the confabulations of Thomas with the Elf Queen, it is plainly, The old in great part, the work of an English- man, who could not have written or refurbished it earlier than 1400; and even if he made use of an old romance of which some Scotsman was the author, that romance was indubitably derived from the older one Ogier le Danois. The prophecies of the third fytte Dr. Murray regards as refurbished prophecies, originally of very ancient date; and of course it is just possible that Thomas was himself a remrbisher of ancient prophecies, which were again refurbished by the author of the fytte. Nor is more 1 Published complete, so far as the several MSS. permit, by the Early English Text Society, ed. Dr. J. A. H. Murray, 1875 ; and by A. Brandl, Berlin, 1880. 24 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE light, but rather darkness visible, to be got from the consultation of the Whole Prophecie of Scotland, England, etc., 1 even after comparison with certain Scottish Prophecies, printed by J. R. Lumby, from a manuscript of the fifteenth century. 2 We come then, last, to the traditional rhymes col- lected by Scott, 3 Robert Chambers, 4 and Henderson ; 5 Traditional but how interesting soever these may be attributed to as specimens of folk inventiveness and Thomas. credulity, it would be vain to pretend that they are in the remotest degree representative either of the prophetic or poetic gifts of ' true Thomas.' Here, however, is one of them. It is not known to have been as yet fulfilled, but its ' derne ' gruesomeness is almost enough in itself to account for the mysterious awe attaching to the name of Thomas whether he really uttered it or not : ' At three-burn Grange in after day There shall be a lang and bloody fray ; fellow When a three-thumbed wight by the reins shall hald bold Three kings' horses baith stout and bauld ; And the three Burns three days will rin Wi' the blude o' the slain that fa' therein.' In addition to his prophecies, true Thomas is The Horn credited by Sir Walter Scott with the authorship of two romances The Horn Child, or the Gest of King Horn, 6 and Sir Tristrem. 1 1603, and in the Bannatyne Club, 1833. 2 Early English Text Society, 1870. 3 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. 4 Popular Rhymes of Scotland. 5 Popular Rhymes of Berwickshire. 6 Published by the Early English Text Society, ed. Lumby, 1866. 'THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE' 25 Sir Walter thought the French romance of King Horn might be a version from the English one, and that the Thomas therein mentioned might be he of Erceldoune; but this Anglo-Norman version is of older date than the English one, being written about 1170 ; and besides, the English version of King Horn is not the work of a northern poet. The claims of Thomas to some sort of authorship of Sir Tristrem deserve more serious consideration; and the question is besides of greater literary moment. Since Sir Walter's time the balance of learned opinion has turned very much against the claims of Thomas ; but Mr. G. P. M'Neill, the latest editor, ' is unable to concur in regarding Sir Tristrem as the work of an unknown author other than Thomas of Erceldoune.' The main authority on the subject is the Chronicle of Robert Mannyng, or De Brunne ; and the most probable if not the only interpreta- tion of Mannyng's words is that he believed, rightly or wrongly, that Tristrem was written by Erceldoune. In explaining why he had written his own Chronicle in the octo-syllabic couplet, and not in one of the more complicated staves then so much in fashion as ryme couee, or etrangere, or enterlace Mannyng goes on to remark : ' I see in song in sedgeyng tale Of Erceldoun and of Kendale, Non tham says as thai tham wroght And in ther saying it semes noght : 26 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE That may thou here in Sir Tristrem, Ouer gestes it has the esteem, Ouer all that is or was, If men it sayd as made Thomas. But I here it no man so say That of som copple som is away. So thare fayre sayng her beforne Is thare travayle nere forlorne.' These lines as they stand might be interpreted to mean that Mannyng attributes Tristrem either to The four Thomas of Kendale or to Thomas of theories. Erceldoune, or to a third Thomas. But there is even a fourth theory very much in favour with ingenious antiquaries. Since the author of the only copy of Tristrem known to exist 1 begins his tale thus ' I was a[t Erceldoun] With tomas spak y thare ; rhyme Ther herd y rede in roune Who tristrem gat and bare ' it has been argued that Mannyng meant to indicate a joint authorship ; or more precisely, referred to Tris- trem as a vamp by Kendale of an earlier romance by Erceldoune. But is it likely that Kendale could have the effrontery to attempt the refurbishing of a poem by such a famous contemporary? Of course Mannyng if misled by these introductory lines might have made this (very foolish) supposition; but Mannyng 1 Auchinleck MS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, by a southern fourteenth-century transcriber of some northern copy of much earlier date. Published by Sir Walter Scott, 1804 ; by Kolbing at Heilbronn, 1882 ; and by the Scottish Text Society, ed. G. P. M'Neill, 1886. 'SIR TRISTREM' 27 was himself approaching manhood before Erceldoune died, and as he also professes to be thoroughly versed in the history of the tale, we may assume that he knew the facts at first hand. Besides, he plainly refers to the romance as it was first written, not as altered by a later author, however skilled : ' as made Thomas,' he writes not ' as made Thomas the first and vamped Thomas the second.' Further, Mannyng elsewhere in his Chronicle mentions definitely the tale of Kendale as a chronicle of north of England events ; and we must therefore infer that unless Mannyng meant to attribute the authorship of Tristrem to another Thomas than either he of Kendale or he of Erceldoune, he meant to attribute it to the last. True, a tale of Tristrem of which the writer of this later Tristrem must undoubtedly have made use was written about 1170 by an Anglo-Norman Thomas, but it was written in French, and written in couplets. 1 We have thus no other Thomas to whom to ascribe Sir Tristrem except he of Erceldoune; and whether he wrote it or not, if once the claims of Thomas of Kendale be excluded, no reason is left for assigning its authorship to one on the English rather than on the Scottish side of the Border. Nor can it be said that the references in the poem to Thomas of Erceldoune are inconsistent with his own authorship of it. On the contrary, may not the introductory lines be in- terpreted to mean that the scribe wrote the poem 1 Published in Francisque-Michel's Poetical Romances of Tristan in French, in Anglo-Norman, and in Greek ; London, 1835-39. 28 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE from the dictation of Thomas ? But whether this be so or not, the version that has reached us is in sub- stance as well as in metre clearly that of the author whom Mannyng believed to be Erceldoune. If there be exaggeration in Mannyng's praise of Sir Tristrem as the best of all the ' gestes ' that ' ever Literar merit * s or was >' ^ ^ s a ^ l eas t the most elaborate of sir Tristrem.' an( j perfect of the early romances dealing with the story of Tristan and Ysonde : a story which, after passing through many prose versions in French, German, Danish, Spanish, Italian, and English, has in modern times furnished a theme for varied imagina- tive treatment, has inspired Wagner with one of his greatest achievements in music, and has mirrored the several idealisms of Arnold, Tennyson, and Swinburne. The Sir Tristrem of Erceldoune is hardly poetical. It is only a rhymed story, told in the simple, naive, and spirited style which would best impress the wonder- ing and childlike audiences of the Middle Ages: it relates in a manner well fitted to captivate their unsophisticated hearts the marvellous adventures in love and war of Tristan. The hero and the other personages of the story are not undeftly drawn, but their motives are elementally simple, direct, and unconventional; and whenever the narrator is in difficulties, the miraculous is ever at hand to supply the needed solution. Yet is the narrative far from being prolix; on the contrary, it is crowded with incident, and abounds in graphic natural touches; and when it is added that metrically the work is 'SIR TRISTREM' 29 one of high accomplishment, it is not difficult to account for the praise bestowed on it by Mannyng, nor to understand that, recited by a minstrel thoroughly versed in all the methods of giving emphasis and effect to the story, it must have made a quite exceptional impression. The romance has also a certain perennial interest for its pictures of ancient observances, but regarded as literature it is its stave that is chiefly worthy of note. Here is an example : * To prison thai gun take Erl baroun and knight. For Douke Morgan sake Mani on dyd dounright. Schaftes thai gun shake And riuen scheldes bright ; Crounes thai gun crake Mani, ich wene, aplight. outright Saunfayl, without Betvene the none and the night Last the batayle.' The stave of Sir Tristrem is an admirable example of interwoven rhyme in short lines, combined with alliteration. No earlier instance of this The stave of rhymed stave is known to exist in any of ' Sir Tristrem -' the old English dialects, although it is employed by Lawrence Minot in one of his songs on Edward in. 1 It consists of eight lines each of three accents, with alternate rhymes, and to this is added a bob wheel, 2 1 Wright's Political Poems, i. 74. 2 The wheel is the return of a peculiar rhythm at the end of each stanza. In its simplest form it consists of two short lines rhyming with each other. The bobwheel is a wheel beginning with a short abrupt line or bob (i.e. small wheel), as 'Saunfayl' in the example now given. 30 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE consisting of a bob of one accent introducing a new rhyme, and followed by two lines generally of three accents but occasionally, as in the stanza quoted above, of only two, the former of which lines rhymes with the line preceding the bob, and the latter with the bob. There are early monkish Latin examples of the interwoven octave in lines of three accents, and the bob itself probably derives from the Latin staves. The simplest form of the bobwheel consists of the bob and a single line rhyming with the bob. The bob may introduce a new rhyme, or, as in the case of the original Christis Kirk, the bob and the line following it may rhyme with the last line of the preceding octave or be unrhymed; and this bob- wheel was further simplified, in the case of Ramsay and later Scottish poets, by the substitution of a refrain consisting of an unrhymed line of two accents. The special bobwheel of Sir Tristrem was no doubt derived from the French. An approximate example occurs in an Anglo-Norman stave, quoted in Arch- bishop Langton's Sermons, and dating probably from the beginning of the thirteenth century : ' Bele Aliz matin leva, Sun cors vesti e para Enz un verger s'entra Cink flurettes y truva Un chapejet fet en a De rose flurie ; Pur Deu, trahez vus en la Vus ki ne amez mie.' More elaborate forms of the bobwheel were made by HUCHOWN 31 Huchown of the Awle Ryale. doubling, or, as in The Pistill of Swete Susan (p. 36), trebling the first section of the wheel. Next to Thomas of Erceldoune in date comes the poet named by Wyntoun, Huchown of the Awle Kyale : 1 That cunnand wes iii literature. He made the gret gest off Arthure, And the Awntyre oft' Gawaine The PystyU als off Swete Swsane ; He wes curyws in hys style, Fare of Facund, and subtile, And ay to plesans and delyte Mad in metre mete his dyte : Lytil or nocht nevyrtheles Waverand fra the suthfastness.' Of the three works here mentioned by Wyntoun, the last, The Pistill of Susan, 1 is that alone about whose identity there has been practically no dispute, and it therefore supplies an important basis for further conclusions regarding Huchown and his other works. The earliest MS. of The Pistill, that in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, dates about 1380 ; but the many evident corruptions it contains indicate that it was very being a first-hand copy of the original, which therefore must have been of considerably earlier date. Further, notwithstanding the prevalence of Midland and Southern spellings in all the five extant 1 Published in Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient Poetry of Scotland, 1822 (2nd ed. 1885) ; since which the best of several editions are those of Rosier (Strassburg, 1895) and of the Scottish Text Society in Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours, 1896-97. eloquence writing nothing truth ' The Pistill of Susan' its value as evidence regarding Huchown, who was probably Sir Hew of Eglinton. far from 32 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE MSS., the Northern origin of the poem can be clearly established by the rhyme endings. We are thus able to conclude, first, that the author flourished about the middle of the fourteenth century; second, that he was a northern poet ; and thirdly, since he is so circumstantially lauded by Wyntoun, and at the same time referred to familiarly as ' Huchown of the Awle Ryale,' that he was a Scot. But if he was a Scot, his name could scarce have been omitted from the death-roll of Dunbar's stately Lament for the Makaris, and therefore he is usually identified with the Sir Hew of the Lament : ' The gude Syr Hew of Eglintoun, Ettrik, Heryot, et Wyntoun taken He hes tane out of this cuntre : Timor mortis conturbat me. } Some have identified him with Clerk, or rather the Clerk, of Tranent, referred to in the lines : also * Clerk of Tranent eik he has tane, That made the anteris of Gawane ' ; but it is unlikely that 'Huchown' could have two such different designations. Moreover, a Sir Hew, Lord of Eglinton married to Egidia, half-sister of Robert n. died about 1375, and was therefore a contemporary of Huchown, whoever Huchown may have been. But Mr. Amours, the latest editor of The Pistill, surmises that there were two contem- Were there two sir Hews porary Sir Hews of Eglinton the one a knight, and the other a priest. The epithet ' gude ' has also been adduced in support of the HUCHOWN 33 theory that Sir Hew was a priest, although it is also commonly used by the poets, not to designate priestly, but knightly, qualities. Mr. Amours' special objec- tion against the knighthood of Sir Hew is that ' it is incredible that Wyntoun should have called a noble- man of high rank by the curt and familiar name of Huchown in a passage meant to be as eulogistic as Wyntoun could make it.' But the objection surely is as valid if Huchown were a priest ; and in any case, it loses its cogency if we reflect that Sir Hew may himself in the character of poet have adopted the title of ' Huchown of the Awle Ryale ' ; and, on the whole, it is more credible that there was only one Sir Hew of Eglinton than two contemporaries of that title the one a nobleman, and the other his parish priest. The phrase 'Awle Ryale' or in one MS., ' Auld Ryall ' is of uncertain signification ; but the interpretation ' Royal Palace ' is as feasible as any that has as yet been suggested. The identification of the two other works of Huchown mentioned by Wyntoun is rendered diffi- cult by the number of existing romances other works that would fit the titles. Internal ofHuchown - evidence, based on a comparison with The Pistill, is specially deceptive in the absence of northern copies ; but Dr. Trautmann 1 has adduced reasons based mainly on the use made of it by Wyntoun hi his Chronicle, and specially on the fact that it contains 1 Der Dichter Huchown und seine Werke, in Anglia (1877), pp. 109-188. C 34 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the very mistake of mentioning Lucius Tiberius as emperor instead of procurator, to which Wyntoun specially refers for identifying The Gest of Arthure with the non-rhyming alliterative poem Morte Arthure. 1 Further, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of Dr. Trautmann, Mr. F. J. Amours adduces strong reasons for identifying The Awntyre of Gawaine with a rhyming alliterative poem, The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne. 2 Other poems attributed to Huchown are the long unrhymed alliterative Geste Historiall of the Destruc- tion of Troy, translated from Guido delle Colonne's Historia Troiana',* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ; 4 and Golagros and Gawaine. 5 The first of these Dr. Trautmann endeavours, from internal evidence, to show could not, though the work of a Scots translator, have been the work of the author of 1 In the Thornton MS. at Lincoln, ed. Halliwell, 1847 ; and also published by the Early English Text Society, ed. E. Brock, 1865. 2 Published in Pinkerton's Scottish Poems, 1792, under the title Sir Gawain and Sir Galaron of Galloway ; by David Laing in Select Remains, 1822 (2nd ed. 1885) ; by the Bannatyne Club, ed. Sir F. Madden, 1839 ; by the Camden Society, ed. Robson, 1842 ; and by the Scottish Text Society in Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours, 1896-97. 3 Early English Text Society, ed. Donaldson and Panton, 1869-74. 4 Bannatyne Club, ed. Sir F. Madden, and Early English Text Society, with three religious poems from the same MS. , and by the same authored. Morris, 1864. Abridged ed. by Jessie L.Weston, 1898. 5 Printed with other Scottish pieces by Chepman and Myllar, Edinburgh, 1508 ; facsimile reprint by David Laing, 1827 ; included in Pinkerton's Scottish Poems, 1792 ; published also by the Bannatyne Club, ed. Madden, 1839, by Dr. Trautmann, in Anglia, 1879, and by the Scottish Text Society in Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours, 1896-97. HUCHOWN 35 The Pistill and The Morte Arthure ; as for the second, notwithstanding various objections suggested by the versification and vocabulary, it has some claims to be regarded as a rival to The Awntyrs of Arthure for identification as The Awntyre of Gawaine, and these claims are strengthened by the fact that at the be- ginning of the MS. is the name ' Hugo de ' ; and as to the last, an adaptation from the French, though there is no convincing evidence that it is, as some editors hold, of later date, it differs utterly in style from the two undoubted works of Huchown. There is some probability that it is the Anteris of Gawaine ascribed by Dunbar to Clerk of Tranent ; but nothing can be inferred as to his date from Dunbar's mention of him, Dunbar's chronology in the three previous stanzas being quite promiscuous. All these works whether Huchown's or not appear to us now more or less bizarre. Though lin- guistically of great interest, and though metrically they left traces of their in- characteristics fluence on later poetry, they are devoid Alliterative of any such qualities as could attract the * interest of the modern reader; 1 but the Awntyrs of Arthure especially has a good deal of graphic force. All the four assigned r,o Huchown two being his without doubt, and two having rival claims to be 1 It may be that a Cymric tradition lent, in Cumbria, a certain special interest to these romances ; but the Awntyre of Gawaine has been traced to a French source, and when Huchown wrote, the Arthurian legend was the common property of the romaiicists of all countries. 36 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE reckoned his are in different metres. In Morte Arthure the metre is unrhymed alliteration, but in The stave of the others alliteration is combined with combats. death : ' Thai abaid till that he was Entryt in ane narow place, hill Betuix a louchside and a bra ; on each side That wes sa strait, ik wnderta, That he mycht nocht weill turn his stede. to ; went Then with a will till him thai gede ; seized And ane him by the bridill hynt : Sm^blow But he railcnt tiU him sic a d y nt > That arme and schuldyr flaw him fra. take With that ane othir gan him ta HARBOUR'S < BRUCE* 53 Be the lege, and his hand gan schute Betuix the sterap and his fute : And quhen the King felt thar his hand, In sterapys stythly gan he stand, straight up And strak with spuris the stede in by ; And he lansyt furth delyuerly, Swa that the tother failzeit fete ; And nocht-for-thi his hand was zeit nevertheless Wndyr the sterap, magre his.' As to the sequel, it must suffice to state that though the third combatant suddenly leapt on Bruce's horse from behind, Bruce was equal to the occasion, turning instantly round, dragging him forward and killing him, and then sending the reeking sword into the ' felon foe ' at his stirrup. Wonderfully vivid are also the descriptions of the various fights and stratagems of Bruce At the ford. while pursued in the mountains by a < sleuth-hund,' especially his adventures during a moonlight night, when, watching alone, he heard ' A hundis quhistlyng apon fer, That ay com till him ner and ner,' to which was followed by the 'haill rowt' of his foes, whom he resolved to withstand at the pass of the ford, where they could meet him only one by one ; and, according to Barbour, he withstood them with such success that : ' In litill space he left lyand Sa feill, that the vpcom wes then so many Dittit with slayn hors and men ; closed up Swa that his fayis, for that stopping, Micht nocht cum to the vp-ciunmyng. 3 54 SCOTTISH VEENACULAR LITERATURE But of course the classic combat is that of Bruce on his grey palfrey, 'littil and joly/ against the English champion De Bohun on his war- Barbourasthe L poet of Ban- steed 'the first strak of the ficht' at Bannockburn. Indeed, the whole por- trayal (Books XL and xn.) of the eventful Bannock- burn is, after its own fashion, a masterpiece. It could only have been accomplished after the most careful investigation and the most patient pondering of facts ; and the knowledge which clearly forms the substratum of the description is so admirably animated with patriotic prejudice, with ingenuous admiration of every thought and act of Bruce as the one heaven-born commander, and with an unerr- ing sense of the dramatically appropriate whether the incidents of the drama be invented or embel- lished, or merely selected, as to be almost irresistible in compelling sympathetic belief. The whole pano- rama of incident from the time that King Edward with his mighty host their burnished arms glancing in the sun, so that ' all the felde ves in ane leyrne,' and their 'baneris richt freschly flawmand' took his way from Berwick, until boat ' That he with sevintene in a bat ^ay Wes fayne for to hald hame his gat,' is set before us with full circumstantiality of detail, enlivened with apt and frequent anecdote. We realise the scenes with something of the vividness of actual pageantry and battle; we are made to BARBOUR'S ' BRUCE ' ; 55 share in the uncertainties and fears, the resolves and hopes, and final triumph of the Scots ; so that in truth Bannockburn, as described by Barbour, has done more to perpetuate the sentiment of Scottish nationality than even Bannockburn as fought and won by Bruce. But properly to appreciate Bannockburn as an achievement of Barbour's hero, it is necessary to know the 'nobill king' his hardihood, Barbour's por - audacity, hopefulness, courtesy, supreme traits - wisdom in council, and unmatched prowess in arms as portrayed with such adoring skill throughout the whole poem. All Barbour's heroes are, in truth, admirably drawn drawn, it is evident, from the Hfe, that is, from well-verified tradition, and with an appreciation at once intelligent and sincere. Gene- rally we have no formal portrait ; but here, in con- clusion, is one of the Black Douglas : ' He wes in all his dedis lele ; loyal For him dedeynzeit nocht to dele he deigned With trechery, na with falset. falsehood His hart on hey honour wes set ; him; such And hym contenyt on sic maner, he demeaned That all him luffyt that war him ner. Bot he wes nocht sa fayr, that we Suld spek gretly off his beaute : In wysage wes he sumdeill gray, something And had blak bar, as ic hard say ; Bot off lyuimys he wes weill maid, With banys gret and schuldrys braid. His body wes weyll maid and lenye, As thai that saw him said to me. Quhen he wes blyth, he wes lufly, And ineyk and sweyt in cumpany : 56 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE But quha in battaill mycht him se All othir contenance had he. And in spek wlispit he sum deill ; Bot that sat him rycht wonder weill.' Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynalle Chronykil of Scotland 1 is, like The Bruce of Barbour, the pro- duct of the exulting sense of nationality Wyntoun's . t chronicle' inspired by the permanent triumph of Robert the Bruce. It is indited to set forth the glory and honour of Scotland as an inde- pendent kingdom. But while the aim of Barbour is to quicken the sentiment of patriotism by a recital of the illustrious achievements of Scotland's deliverer, Wyntoun's main purpose like that of his contemporary Latin chronicler, For dun is to justify the claims of Scotland to an independent nation- ality by an appeal to the authority of antiquity, by a recital of the history of the Scottish nation from the earliest dawn of tradition. Of the author scarce anything is known beyond what may be gathered from his own Chronicle. By baptism, he tells us, he was Andrew of Andrew of r wyntoun Wyntoun, and this seems to imply that he was a cadet of a good family of that name, of which several are mentioned in Scottish documents of the period. Further, he mentions that Sir John of the Wernyss, at whose instance he com- piled his Chronicle, had his 'service in his ward'; but he says nothing more of his obligations to the 1 Published, ed. Macpherson, 1795 ; and in The Historians of Scot- land series, ed. Laing, 1872-79, from the collation of numerous MSS. WYNTOUN'S 'CHRONICLE' 57 laird of Wemyss. Originally a canon regular of St. Andrews, Wyntoun was, by the grace and favour of his fellow-canons, elected, some time before 1395, prior of St. Serfs Inch in Lochleven, where with much the same outlook of water, wood, and hill as that which, blent with the gloomy memories of a prison, was to become stamped on the brain of Mary Stuart he continued to pass the uneventful days of a scholar and recluse until probably his death. This must have taken place not long after the con- clusion of his Chronicle, between 1420 and 1424 ; for in his prologue to the last book he refers to ' sudden and fierce maladies' with which he was sorely troubled, aod which admonished to ' see for a conclusion/ for, says he, with the conviction of pious humility 1 Wai I wate, on schorte delay Well I wot At a court I nion appeire must Fell accusationis thare till here.' Dire ; to Like The Bruce, Wyntoun's Chronicle is written in the octo-syllabic couplet, but it is in no proper sense a poem. Even as a mere metrist Wyn- J . Characteristics toun is inferior to Barbour; nor is his ofthe'Chron- narrative except by widely isolated fits and starts warmed with anything of Barbour's patriotic glow. Barely, except in reporting mytho- logical marvels, does he show symptoms of enthu- siasm ; and on the whole he keeps very much to the commonplace conventional level of contemporary chroniclers. No more than they had he any just and sufficient conception of history as it was later 58 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE understood. His aim is neither faithfully to picture nor thoroughly to expound the past, although he intermittently relieves the tedium of the narrative by a certain anecdotical garrulosity. His most marked want is that of individuality. Thus his character- sketches are often very much a mere summary of conventional virtues, and smack mainly of the funereal eulogy. Here is how he panegyrises Alexander in. : ' He honryd God and Haly Kirk, charitable And medful dedys he oyswd to wyrk. To Till all prestys he dyd reverens And sawffyd thare statys wyth diligens. He was stedfast in crystyn fay ; Eelygyows men he honoryde ay. He luivyd all men that war wertuows ; He lathyd and chastyd all vytyows.' And the perfections of Sir Andrew Moray are cata- logued thus : ' He wes a Lord of gret Bownte Of sobyr lyf and of chastyte ; Wyse and wertuows of cownsale ; And of his gudis liberale. He wes of gret Devotyown In Prayeris and in Orysown ; He wes of mekil Alniows-dede ; Stowt and hardy of manhede.' The standpoint of Wyntoun is in fact essentially that of a Churchman and recluse. The animating wyntoun's events of the past, the glorious achieve- thatofa int nients of great warriors, the stir and churchman, struggle of battle, have not for him quite the same puissant charm that they possess for WYNTOUN'S 'CHRONICLE' 59 Barbour. Though he does not disdain to mention jousting tournaments everything is fish that comes to his net chivalry was not for him, as for Barbour, a name to conjure with. In his antipathy to the English he is therefore something more virulent. While Barbour expresses mild astonishment that King Edward, who had so little mercy on captured Scots, could 'trastly' ask mercy of God, Wyntoun does not scruple to give his decisive ghostly verdict against Edward's salvation : * The sawlys that he gert to slay down thare made He sent quhare his sawle nevyrmare Wes lyk to come, that is the blys Quhare alkyn joy ay lestand is.' every And he thus roundly asserts the starkly unprincipled conduct of the English in regard to their most solemn obligations : * It is of Inglis natioune The conmione kend conditioune known Of Trewis the wertu to forget, Truces And rekles of gud Faith to be. Qiihare thai can thare Avantage se Thare may na Band be maid sa fenn Than thai can mak thare Will thare term.' Wyntoun entitles his Chronicle ' orygynall ' because, as he himself explains, it begins at the beginning, namely, with man's creation, and with a Subject and history of man as an inhabitant of the sources of the , , . , ir- 'Chronicle.' world in general, or so much of it as was known to Wyntoun. In the adoption of such a pedantic comprehensiveness, he and other chroniclers 60 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE were, it may be, partly influenced by scriptural example, but no doubt it was also Wyntoun's aim to emphasise the dignity of the Scottish nation as possessing annals which were interwoven with the world's history. After a general outline of the more wondrous events of the half-mythical ages, Scotland is seen gradually emerging from the obscurity of the past; but not till the reign of King Ewan in "724 commencing with the sixth book of the Chronicle is its history related with much detail. For all his events Wyntoun is careful, so far as possible, to give the year; and while well acquainted with the standard authorities on ecclesiastical and European history, he had clearly access to various Scottish monastic records which are now destroyed. Several portions of a Latin chronicle were also utilised ; and he further incorporated a Scottish chronicle, written, like his own, in octo-syllabic metre, and embracing the years from the birth of David n. to the death of Robert n. Besides this he took the liberty of borrowing some 300 lines of Barbour's Bruce, bring- ing events down to the time when Bruce slew the Comyn; but for the remainder of Bruce's career he modestly refers the reader to Barbour, who, he made ' I n Brws hys Bwk has gert be sene Mare wysely tretyd into wryt Than I can thynk with all my wyt.' It is clear that Wyntoun was, according to his lights, a conscientious and painstaking chronicler; WYNTOUN'S 'CHRONICLE' 61 and even the credulity which he shares with other writers of his time gives a certain piquant flavour to much that is otherwise tedious, and Wyntoun's increases rather than not the historic credulity the , . . f. Sheepstealer. value ol his rhymes, for it at least sup- plies us with interesting outlines of superstitious belief. Who, for example, would wish to lose his version of the wondrous story of the Sheepstealer, and the striking exposure of his prevarication by the dead beast itself? The thief, it would appear, had already devoured it, or the most part of it, and with portions of its members in the process of digestion was so brazenly bold as, when summoned before St. Serf, to deny the theft, whereupon ' The schape thare bletyd in hys Wame. Belly Swa wes he taynted schamfully And at Saynt Serf askyd mercy. 3 Then we have the great theological tilt between St. Serf and the Devil, recorded with the delicate appraisement of metaphysical niceties st . serf and which stamps the scholastic connoisseur. the DeviL Wyntoun had also, it is plain, a special pride in recording this august encounter, from the fact that it took place on the very ' Inch ' where he was penning his Chronicle. So mortified, he vauntingly narrates, was the arch-enemy by the superior astuteness of the Saint, that in disgust he suddenly vanished, ' And nevyr wes sen thare till this day.' 62 SCOTTISH VEENACULAR LITERATURE Akin to this we have an elaborate version of Pope Sylvester's infatuated treaty with the Devil, whose spiritual dominion he finally eluded by Pope Sylvester. , ,. . , . , . delivering up to him, one by one, his fleshly members. But the most interesting of all the traditions is the original version of the interview between Macbeth The weird an( ^ tne wen *d sisters, which, as embel- sisters. lished by Boece, forms the basis of Shakespeare's great tragedy : ' A nycht he thowcht in hys dreming That sittand he was besyd the King At a sete in hwntyng, swa In-till a leysh had grewhundys twa. He thowcht quhile he was swa sittand going] He sawe thre wemen by gangand, those And thai wemen than thowcht he Thre werd systrys mast lyk to be. The fyrst he hard say gangand by, Cromarty " Lo yhondyr the Thayne off Crwombawchty " ! The tothir woman sayd agayne, " Off Morave yhondyre I se the Thayne." The thryd than sayd, " I se the Kyng." All this he herd in his dremyng. Sone efftyre that in his yhowthad Off thyr thayndomys he Thayne was made ; Syne neyst he thowcht to be Kyng Fra Duncanys dayis had tane endyng.' Historically the most valuable part of the Chronicle is that from the death of Bruce ; and for these eighty or ninety years it is the most important and trust- worthy record we possess. Although The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and BLIND HAERY 63 Vallzeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, by Henry the Minstrel, 1 belongs to a considerably later date than Barbour's Bruce, or Wyntoun's Blind Harry , s Chronicle, its historic theme suggests the ' Wallace -' propriety of dealing with it in the present chapter. According to the historian John Major, Henry the Minstrel, who was blind, Major says, from his birth, composed the whole book of William Blind Harry, Wallace during Major's infancy, that is, ^SSfl between 1450 and 1460. In the Lord *&>-*&) High Treasurer's Accounts there are several entries of small sums paid to ' Blin Hary ' for recitations given before James iv., the last entry being in 1492 ; and it is almost certain that he died in that or the following year, for in Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris his name precedes that of Patrick John- stoun, who died not long after 12th June 1494. In his catalogue of the deceased 'Makaris,' Dunbar does not adhere to chronology with absolute strictness in every case, but he seems to profess an adherence to it in the stanza in which Blind Harry and Patrick Johnstoun are introduced, and apparently means to affirm that the ' schot of mortal haill ' reached John- stoun after it had struck Blind Harry and Sandy Traill. 1 MS. in the Advocates' Library, written in 1488 by John Ramsay ; printed about 1508 (but only fragments of a copy of this edition exist), 1570 (copy in the British Museum), 1594, and at different periods down to 1790 ; edited from the original MS. by Dr. Jamieson, 1820, and by Mr. James Moir for the Scottish Text Society, 1884-89. 64 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Both Blind Harry and his poem are something of a conundrum. Harry was professionally a minstrel, Major on and his chief theme seems to have been Wallace; for Major informs us that by and Blind ^ Q recitation of his book on Wallace Harry on him- self - coram principis (i.e. in the halls of the nobles or gentry) he deservedly obtained food and raiment. Of himself Blind Harry says: 'It is well known I am a burel' (i.e. boorish, or unlearned) ' man '; he also describes his poem as ' but a rurall ' (i.e. rude or unpolished) ' dy tt ' ; and he further thus apostro- phises it : * Go nobill buk, fulfillyt off gud sentens, Suppose thow be baran off eloquens ; true exploits Go worthie buk fullfillyt off suthfast dede, But in language off help thou has gret ned.' 1 This, it may be said, is but the conventional pose of graceful modesty ; and in a modern writer it Harry as might even be accepted as symptomatic Chaucerian. Qf ^ mo( J estv wn ich is the bloSSOHl of culture. Moreover, the merits of the poem are not quite those of the modern rustic bard; and in his own time Harry may be ranked next to Henry- son. As a mere metrical achievement the poem is a great advance on Barbour's Bruce', and although Harry is not usually classed as a Chaucerian, there can be no doubt that he shared, directly or indi- 1 In this envoy Blind Harry was doubtless inspired either by Chaucer (Troilus and Criseyde), Lydgate (Temple of Glas), or James i. ( The Kingis Quair). It most closely resembles the last : ' Go litill tretise, nakit of eloquence Causing simplese and pouertee to wit. ' BLIND HAKEY 65 rectly, in the Chaucerian influence. It is significant, not merely that for the bulk of his poem he chose the heroic couplet possibly the earliest extant ex- ample of its use in Scotland, but that in the two instances in which he varied his metre he made choice of Chaucerian staves, introducing in Book n. 170-354 a nine-line stanza, aab, aab, abb (occasionally bab), identical with that of Chaucer's Compleynte of Faire Anelida upon False Arcyte and with Dunbar's Goldyn Targe, and at the beginning of Book vi. the ballat royal or French octave of three rhymes ab, ab, be, be in its five accented form. Of course Harry may have got these metres from another than Chaucer, and indeed the ballat royal was in common use in England from the fourteenth century, 1 but Chaucer, we know, wrote to be publicly 'red,' or 'elles songe,' and it is not improbable that he was recited, if not by Harry, at least in Harry's hearing. Anyhow, Harry employs the ballat royal in such a manner as to show that he had an admirable percep- tion of its proper poetic function. Here, for example, are two stanzas forming part of a nobly pathetic strain, not unworthy of either Henryson or Dunbar: ' Now leiff thi myrth, now leiff thi haill plesance ; whole Now leiff thi bliss, now leiff thi childis age ; Now leiff thi zouth, now folow thi hard chance ; Now leiff thi lust, now leiff thi manage ; Now leiff thi luff, for thow sail loss a gage Quhilk neuir in erd sail be redemyt agayne, Which- earth Folow fortoun, and all hir fers owtrage ; Go leiff in wer, go leiff in cruell payne. 1 Wright's Political Poems, passim. E 66 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE frail Fy on fortoun, fy on thi frewall quheyll ; 1 Fy on thi traist, for her it has no lest ; Thow transfigowryt Wallace out off his weill to Quhen he traistyt for till haiff lestyt best ; here His plesance her till him was bot a gest no constancy Throw thi fers cours, that has na hap to ho ; pleasant Him thow ourthrew out off his likand rest, into Fra gret plesance, in wer, trawaill, and wo. 5 Harry's classical allusions, astronomical lore, and use of French words and phrases have The argument for Harry's also been adduced as proof that ' he was by no means an unlearned man.' Further, since he affirms that he composed his poem ' Eftir the pruiff geyffin fra the Latin buk Which Quilk master Blayr in his tym vndertuk,' it has been supposed that he had Latin sufficient to enable him to paraphrase a Latin Life of Wallace, now unknown, written by a person, now equally occult a certain John Blair, whom Harry declares to have been Wallace's chaplain. Moreover, the composition of so long, so complicated, and, after its own fashion, so meritorious a poem, has been pro- nounced beyond the powers of one born blind ; for in the days of Harry the blind were not taught the art of reading, which forms the basis of education. But notwithstanding this accumulative array of Harry most specious argument, the hypothesis that bihld^nd best fits the whole circumstances of the unlearned. case j g ft^ Harry otherwise nameless except as 'Blind' was, as Major states, blind from 1 The wheel of Fortune is frequently alluded to by Chaucer, and is elaborately depicted in The Kingis Quair. BLIND HARRY 67 his birth, and, as he himself records, a 'burel' or unlearned man. Of course, he neither could have been blind nor unlearned if he did himself read or translate Blair's Latin Life of Wallace. But so far from affirming that he had either seen or read the aforesaid book, Harry does not even affirm that it then existed ; and if he does not actually imply that it no longer existed, he refrains from stating where, or from whom, he had access to it. Further, nothing whatever is now known of this Latin Life ; for the so-called Relationes Arnoldi Blair, even if authentic and the original of the Scotichronicon account of Wallace, instead of being derived from it, supply but the slightest materials for an account of Wallace. Nor was the existence of Blair's book known to Major, who gives only partial credit to Harry's stories ; nor to Wyntoun, who wrote of Wallace : ' Off his gild dedis and manhead Gret gestis I hard say are made, But sa mony, I trow nocht not As he intill his dayis wrocht ' ; during his lifetime nor, in fact, to any writer except Harry previous to the inventious Dempster (1627), who, further, does not scruple to assign to Blair an admirably selected companion volume, De Tyrannide. The truth, there- fore, seems to be that Harry's main sources were the ' gestis ' mentioned by Wyntoun ; nor is it at all unlikely that the mythical Latin Life was the inven- tion of one of those earlier bards. But if Harry knew not Latin, whence, it may be 68 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE asked, those classical allusions of his ? To this the sufficient reply is that there are allusions and allu- sions, and that those of Harry are in Harry's edu- J cation as no degree identical in kind with those of Minstrel. Barbour, or Wyntoun, or other learned writers, but merely the common counters of the romancists. Nor as a symptom of education is more stress to be laid on his employment of French terms not now in use in Scotland, for, as we have already seen, the Scottish vernacular, even in its spoken form, has now lost many French words and idioms which at one time had been almost woven into the language ; and besides, Harry, while frequenting courts and castles, had many opportunities of picking up French phrases. The truth is, that though uneducated, as we now understand the term, Harry, as a professional minstrel, must have undergone a special literary training. We must disabuse our minds of precon- ceptions of education as solely derivable from books ; for Harry and his brother minstrels and reciters were to their generation very much what the printed book is to ours. Born blind, Harry, in all likelihood, was dedicated to the office of minstrel from boyhood, and instructed for it by accomplished minstrels. Like other minstrels, he would presumably learn by heart much of the traditional and current poetry of his day; for originally poetry was composed solely for recital, nor did the art of writing ever become so complete a substitute for recital as the art of printing. BLIND HAERY 69 / But, of course, being but a minstrel, Harry has the special defects of the minstrel's qualities. Compare the Wallace, for example, with Barbour's Ha rry only a Bruce or Henryson's Fables, and the MinstreL general inferiority of calibre proclaims Harry to have been but a ' burel ' man. An accomplished minstrel, it is true though representing minstrelsy in its decadence, minstrelsy divorced from chivalry, and saturated with various poetic influences and tradi- tions; also, it is clear, of robust personality, and animated with much rough poetic ardour, but devoid of true intellectual discipline as of consistent moral dignity; wofully, if not wilfully, heedless of patent historic facts; childishly credulous, and combining with a certain rugged pathos a braggardism that is frankly, and even fervently, brutal. The Wallace of Blind Harry is, in truth, the mere hero of a pantomime. Witness, for example, his really burlesque encounter with Percy Harry's hero, and his horsemen at the Water of Irvine, Wallace - when he was engaged in fishing, and had no other weapon at hand than the pole of a drag-net. On one of the horsemen approaching him with drawn sword, to compel him to give up his fish, ' Willzham was wa he had na wappynis thar sorr y Bot the poutstaff, the quhilk in hand he bar. netpole ; Wallas with it fast on the cheik him tuk Wyth so gud will, quhill of his feit he schuk until The suerd flaw fra him a fur breid on the land. breadth Wallas was glaid, and hynt it sone in hand ; took And with the suerd awkwart he him gawe Wndyr the hat, his crage in sondre drawe. neck 70 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE By ; the Be that the layff lychtyt about Wallas ; others He had no helpe, only bot Goddis grace. On athir side full fast on him thai dange ; if Gret perell was giff thai had lestyt lang. Apone the hede in gret ire he strak ane ; The sherand suerd glaid to the colar bane. Ane ither on the arme he hitt so hardely That ; both Quhill hand and suerd bathe on the feld can ly. other The tither twa fled to thar hors agayne ; He stekit him was last apon the playne. Thre slew he thar, two fled with all thair mycht Efter thar lord, bot he was out off sicht.' And this is but a very mild sample of the hero's ' acts of prowess eminent.' As Harry says of him ' It was his lyff, and most part of his fade, streaming To se thaim sched the byrnand southrone blude. 3 Or at least it was the ' lyff ' and ' maist part of the fude' of Harry so to depict him; for the poem is really a mirror of Harry's Scottish audience, of Scot- land after the age of chivalry had gone, and now for generations at bitter feud with England. Of course, poetic justice, and even probability, demanded that such a resistless champion should, Wallace's whatever his final fate, taste, at least m^rch C on once > tne crowning triumph of bringing London. Edward and England to their knees. Harry, therefore, presented his hearers with the mythical march on London a twin conception to that which must have haunted the brain of Prince Charlie on the eve of his famous fiasco when 'in awful fer' Wallace and his wild host travelled ' throuch the land ' of the Southron. The Commons BLIND HARRY'S 'WALLACE' 71 of England urged their mesmerised monarch to make some effort against the resistless Scots, but, asseverates the unblushing Harry, f Awfull Eduuard durst nocht Wallace abid In playn battaill for all England so wid.' The recreant English king erstwhile Malleus Scoto- rum having thus in trembling terror retired within the battlements of the Tower, Wallace, The terror of shortly before reaching St. Albans, des- Edward - patched a message to the effect that unless overtures of peace were immediately preferred he would assail him ' at Londonis zettis.' Naturally such a menace greatly perturbed the ' awfull Eduuard ' : ' With gret wness apon his feit he stud, difficulty Wepand for wo for his der tendyr blud ' ; and at last he did accept the advice of his council ' to take pees in tyme.' But a new difficulty arose : 1 Na man was thar that durst to Wallace wend, 3 The Queen for the mere sight of an Englishman ambassador . ,. , -n i -i i to Wallace. ' moyis him ay to wer. But. happily, the queen herself was already, so says Harry, a little enamoured of the conqueror ' For the gret woice off his hie nobilnes ' ; feme and having, therefore, a laudable curiosity to behold the wondrous hero, she volunteered to be the messenger. All the lords at once seconded her proposal; and to stay the wrath of this terrible 72 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Achilles the king had nothing for it but ' with awkward will ' to give his consent. One beautiful summer morning, therefore, when Wallace and two knightly attendants were sauntering near St. Albans ' atour the feyldis green/ they saw Wallace and coming riding soberly from the south none other than the Queen of England with a great train of ladies and old priests, who when they reached Wallace's pavilion, conspicuous by the effigy of the Scottish lion, ' To ground thai lycht, and syne on kneis can faw, Prayand for pece thai cry with petous cher.' Wallace received the distressful queen with gracious courtesy : ' Quhen scho him saw, scho wald haiff knelyt doune ; In arrays sone he caucht this queyn with croun, And kyssyt hyr withoutyn wordis mor ; Sa dyd he neuir to na sotheron befor. 5 But, of course, the incorruptible patriot was proof against her promises, her prayers, her bribes, (' Thre thousand pound, off fynest gold so red, Scho S ert be brocht to Wallace in that sted. " Madam," he said, " na sic tribut we craiff ; Anothir mendis we wald off England haiff" J ) ; and even her soft confessions of love : ' " Wallace,", scho said, " yhe war clepyt my luff : Mor baundounly I maid me for to pruff ; Traistand tharfor your rancour for to slak ; Methink ye suld do sum thing for my saik." ' Though much flattered, he warily and wisely declined BLIND HAREY 73 to enter into political understandings merely with ladies : he would treat only with the King : ' All the hail pass apon himselff he sal tak Off pees or wer quhat hapnyt we to mak.' All, therefore, that was left for the queen was, on her return, to advise the king and his lords ' To purches pees, with outyn wordis mar : For all Ingland may rew his raid full sayr.' And Edward had nothing for it but to agree to the terms dictated by Wallace to give up Koxburgh, Berwick, and other castles, and to renounce his claims to a Scottish overlordship. For much of the preposterousness of Harry's stories especially his amazing accounts of combats his blindness must be held responsible. He r Defects of the could not recognise the sheer impossibility poem due f tl.' l *- G partly to of many of his glosses or inventions. Some Harry's blind- have indeed argued, from what is termed his ' feeling for nature,' that he must at one time have possessed the faculty of sight. But this ' feeling ' is shown merely in his references to the influences of the seasons, and to the charms of a spring or summer morning influences and charms to which the blind are specially susceptible ; and indeed the very general character of his recorded impressions of nature is almost proof positive that he was born blind. His descriptions of Wallace's wanderings display, for example, no more detailed topographical knowledge than is contained in a mere map of names. whole busi- ness 74 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Yet gross travesty of the truth though Wallace be, it no doubt embalms a considerable modicum of fact. The Wallace It even records important facts such as th f e H wanac e n of tne visit of Wallace to France not to fact - be found in Wyntoun or Bower. The original ( gestis,' on which the poem is partly founded, must have had their foundation in actual occur- rences, however much these occurrences may have been embellished, or even transformed, by successive minstrels ; and although to ' tickle the ears of the groundlings' was ever Harry's main aim, we may nevertheless be certain that the leading features of so great a personality as Wallace would so far as the common crowd could understand it be pre- served under all the external accumulation of fable. Nor, allowance being made for national partialities and prejudices, does Wallace, as portrayed by Harry, differ essentially from the robber chief, the freebooter, the murderer, the malicious incendiary, of the English chroniclers. Clearly a hero who even when there was no war with England was only too pleased to take an Englishman at a disadvantage and assassinate him, and who, when closely pursued by sleuth-hounds, did not scruple to slay his companion, of whose fidelity he was nothing more than doubtful, and did so with probabty, as Harry more than hints, a view of pro- viding something that would prove a 'great stoppage' of the hounds, clearly such a hero was not possessed of a specially scrupulous sense of honour, and may very well have been the ' le Wallas ' who in his youth BLIND HARRY 75 was guilty at Perth of robbing a widow of her ale. It is, in fact, more probable than not that Wallace was a warrior very much after the type of Rob Roy : that his audacity, his skill in arms, and his other great qualities as a leader were perfected in the course of his experiences as a freebooter. But this augments rather than diminishes the greatness and glory of his actual achievements. The bare, un- disputed facts of his marvellous career his rise from obscurity into unrivalled eminence, even when feudalism was at its strongest, as the marshaller of the nation against the might of England, and the stand he made in the name of the people as the champion of the country's freedom, when king and nobles were succumbing to Edward's diplomacy sufficiently attest not merely his political insight, and his ability and prowess hi war, but the stupendous power of his personality. IV THE SCOTTISH FABLIAU AND THE DECAY OF ROMANCE 'ANE BALLAT OF THE NINE NOBLES* < RAUF COILZEAR,' 'COLKELBIE'S SOW ' 'KING BERDOK ' ' THE GYRE-CARLING ' ' LORD FERGUS'S GHOST.' THE great crucial struggle of Scotland with the Edwards, which issued in its triumph over the 'The Nine gigantic efforts of England to effect its Nobles. 1 conquest, naturally tended to lessen the interest of the people in the half-mythical stories of the old romances. For the fables of the romancists Barbour sought to substitute ' suthfast ' stories about Scotland's own heroes ; and l gret gestis ' of the deeds of Wallace were, as we have seen, current among the people long before Blind Harry began, in that hero's behalf, to make the round of the Scottish castles. A curious example of the preference of the Scots for their own heroes to the old traditional ones is found in Ane Ballat of the Nine Nobles. 1 The ballad, after devoting a stanza to each of the nine heroes of 1 Printed in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 (second ed. 1885), from a MS. copy at the conclusion of a MS. copy of Fordun's Chronicle in the University Library, Edinburgh. 76 'RAUF COILZEAK' 77 antiquity Hector, Alexander, Caesar, Joshua, David, Maccabeus, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey concludes thus : * Robert the Brois throu hard feichtyng, With few venkust the mychthy Kyng vanquished Off Ingland, Edward twyse in fycht, At occupyit his realme but rycht ; Who ; with- At sumtyme wes set so hard At hat nocht sax till hym toward ; sjj e on his Ze gude men that ther balletis redis these Denie quha dochtyast was in dedis.' Decide Thus although the fourteenth century saw the completion of several important tales of romance, for the bulk of the nation the old The Hu mor. romance poetry was losing its charm; ousTale - and before the influence of Chaucer had reached Scotland, the mirthful or humorous tale began to obtain that special place in Scottish vernacular poetry which it has never ceased to hold. That the Taill of Rauf Coilzear, how he harbreit King Charles, 1 is, like the famed Sir Thopas of Chaucer, intended as a direct caricature Rauf Co iizear,' of minstrels or romances, is not quite evident; for the old legends concerning Charlemagne are not here burlesqued as they were by Ariosto and other Italian poets, the marvellous being merely superseded by the humorous. But the 1 Published at St. Andrews in 1572 (copy, the only one known, in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh); republished in Laing's Select Remains of Ancient Popular and Romance Poetry, 1822 (second ed. 1885) ; for the English Text Society, ed. Herrtage, 1882; by Tonndorf, Berlin, 1894 ; and for the Scottish Text Society, in Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours, 1894-97. 78 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE very introduction of such a plain personage as a \ collier or charcoal merchant, with his panniers, is inconsistent with the dignity of the old romances. Properly, the poem is akin rather to the romantic ballad than the romance proper ; and a similar theme figures in many later English and Scottish ballads, as King Alfred and the Shepherd, Edward IV. and the Tanner, King James I. and the Tinker, Henry VIII. and the Cobbler, etc. There is also a nearly contemporary English ballad, John the Reve, 1 which long enjoyed in Scotland a rival popularity with Rauf. Both are bracketed together by Dunbar and Douglas. Contrasting the rewards which those worthies received from their respective monarchs with his own neglect by James iv., Dunbar, in Schir Remember, reminds the king that ' Gentle and semple of every clan Know Keyne of Rauf Colzear and John the Reif.' Douglas gives the two knights a place cheek by jowl in his Police of Honour : 1 1 saw Rauf Colzear with his thrawin brow Crabit John the Reif and auld Cowkellpis sow.' But the growth of the romance ballad marked the decline of the old metrical romances. Further, the A parody of author of Rauf uses a stave specially romances, and associated with the serious romances, whTs a cot tale and tlie mere utm> sation of it for the tish setting, purposes of mirth or humour inevitably suggests burlesque. Some have indeed surmised, 1 Percy folio MS., printed by the Ballad Society, ed. Furnivall, 1867-68. 'EAUF COILZEAE' 79 from tlie fact that Rauf begins after a similar fashion to The Awntyrs of Arthur (p. 37), and is in the same stave, that it also may have been written by Huch- own, but it is unlikely that Huchown would seek to parody himself. Besides slightly parodying TJie Awntyrs, Rauf is probably derived from some old Norman tale. In any case, the poet has really given it a Scottish setting. Though the scene is laid in France, the muir is a Scottish inuir ; the snowstorm is a right Scottish snowstorm ; the collier is an honest, but rude, dour, unmannered Scot ; and the humour of the vividly dramatic scenes is Scottish to the core. One day, while hunting in the forest, Charlemagne, through the oncome of a snowstorm, got The King . meets the separated from his train. comer. * The wind blew out of the Eist, stiflie and stoure, The deip l durandlie draif in mony deip dell ' ; continuous drift he lost his way, and when almost in despair, he, ' on the wild muir in blinding storm/ cheerful fel- 1 Sa come thair ane cant carll chachand the gait low ; trudg- With ane capill and twa creillis cuplit abufe.' On the king asking the ' cant carll ' to bring him to ' sum herbery,' the collier told him there was none in the neighbourhood, but made him welcome to his own dwelling ' amang the fellis hie.' As the king was clad in rough hunting raiment, the collier, taking 1 It has been supposed that ' deip ' is a misprint for some word meaning drift or snow. Drift is not, however, an old Scots word, and it is at least possible that ' draif ' may here mean drift that which is driven. horse; pan- niers 80 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE him for a common wayfarer if not a highwayman treated him with the familiarity of an equal, modified at first by wary suspicion. On arriving at the door, after stabling their horses, the collier motioned to him to enter first ; and when the king ceremoniously insisted that the collier should precede him, the collier, unversed in the punctilios of polite- ness, and not quite easy in his mind as to the stranger's purpose, took him by the cuff of the neck and shoved him forward, saying if; icady ' Gif thow at bidding suld be boun or obeysand, knew And gif thow of courtasie couth, thow hes forzet it clene.' The collier, in fact, claimed sovereignty in his own house, and unhesitating compliance with the slightest indication of his wishes : %%&. ' Sen eUis thow * To inak me Lord of niy awin, angry Sa mot I thriue I am thrawin, quarrel Begin we to threip.' But the king was insufficiently heedful of this plain warning. When, therefore, on supper being supper is ready, the collier invited him to take his served. w ^f e ^y fa e h an( j and sit down at the board, he again politely suggested that the collier should first take his seat. This second exhibition of gross ill manners was too much for the choleric collier : without ' He let gyrd to the King, withoutin ony mair, And hit him under the eir with his richt hand. 'KAUF COILZEAK' 81 Quhill he stakkerit thair with all, Until Half the breid of the hall. breadth He faind neuer of ane fall Quhill he the eird fand.' {^JJ? On the king recovering himself, the collier called on his wife to take the guest by the hand and lead him to the board. The king submitted in silence, whereupon his host thus admonished him : ' " Schir, thow art vnskillfull, and that sail I warrand, Thow byrd to haue nurtour aneuch, and thow hes nane ; enough Thow hes walkit, I wis, in mony wyld land, guess The mair vertew thow suld haue, to keip the fra bkme Thow suld be courtes of kynd, and ane cunnand courtier. Thocht that I simpill be, Though Do as I bid thee : The house is mine pardie b y m y faitu And all that is heir." ' Though never hi his life c thus-gait leird ' (taught in this way), and rather amazed at the collier's notions of courtesy, the king took the collier's Supper and rebuke in seeming good part, which at conversation, once restored the collier's good-humour. The fare was of the best rabbits, venison, and game from the king's own forests, with wine of quite an excellent vintage and as the evening advanced they ' fure into fusion.' Sitting round the blazing fire, the collier entertained his guest with stories of hunting feats in the king's own forest, where, he affirmed, he brought down the fattest of the deer ; and having at last exhausted the budget of his confidences, he began to show some curiosity as to the name and pursuits of his guest, and inquired as to his ' maist wynning,' that is, F 82 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE his usual place of residence. The king informed him that he was a groom in the Queen's Chamber, and at the palace was known as Wymond of the Wardrobe. On leaving in the morning, he further advised his host to bring a load of coals to the palace and inquire for him, when he would be certain of a ready sale at a good price. This advice the masterful collier much against the counsel of his wife, who could not believe that the stranger had forgotten all about the blow resolved to accept ; and his adven- tures at the palace are told with not a little of the same admirable verve and humour which characterise the narrative of the great supper scene in his own dwelling. A knight, Sir Roland, whom the king had directed to watch for the collier, told him he had orders to bring him before the king ; but the sturdy The collier's adventures at collier declined to be at the service of any one until, in accordance with his promise, he had brought his load of coals to Wymond of the Wardrobe. Both were obstinate, but of neces- sity the determination of the collier triumphed, who further at parting challenged Sir Roland to meet him on horseback for single combat at the same place and at the same hour on the morrow. On the collier inquiring at the palace gate for Wymond of the Wardrobe, he was by the king's orders admitted ; and pushing his way unceremoniously through the throng of courtiers into the royal hall, he at last got a sight of his guest, when he mused thus : 'RAIJF COILZEAR' 83 * " I ken him weill, thocht he be cled in vther clething though In clais of clene gold, kythand zone cleir. glittering * * * * * brightly yonder In faith he is of mair stait than euer he me tald. more Allace, that I was hidder wylit, I dreid me sair I be begylit ! " sorely The King preuilie smylit, Quhen he saw that bald. 3 bold one Then, while the collier stood lost in perplexity and wonder, the king began, greatly to his alarm, to relate his adventures of the previous night, and concluded by asking the company what they thought should be done to one who had treated him in this fashion. The ' courageous knights ' suggested that he should be hung, but the king took a different and more human view of the collier's character and conduct : my thanks were such ' " God forbot," he said, " my thank war sic thing To him that succourit my lyfe in sa euill ane nicht ! Him semis ane stalwart man and stout in stryking, That carll for his courtasie salbe maid knicht ; I hald the counsall full euill that Christin man slais, For I had myster to haue ma, need ; more And not to distroy tha those That war worthie to ga To fecht on Goddis fais." ' fight Raised to his new rank, and provided with a horse and a suit of rich armour, Sir Rauf, therefore, on the morrow sallies out to keep his ap- Thecollier pointment with Sir Roland. As he nears as kni e ht - the place of tryst he sees approaching a gigantic knight riding on a camel, whom, taking him for Sir Roland, he attacks at full speed At the first shock the spears of both are splintered and 84 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE their steeds killed ; and when they are engaged in a desperate fight on foot, Sir Roland himself appears and separates them, when the opponent of Sir Rauf is found to be Magog, a great Saracen knight, sent to proclaim war against France. A speech of Sir Roland suddenly converts the Saracen to Christianity, and the three knights over their swords swear eternal friendship. Magog marries the Duchess of Anjou, and Sir Rauf finally becomes Marshal of France, when, to mark his gratitude to the king, he causes to be erected a hostel for wayfarers on that spot on the muir where he first met him. In Sir Rauf the old metrical romance forms are V utilised to exhibit one of the great heroes of romance mainly from a humorous point of view. 'Colkelbie's J sow' its In the rude and grotesque production called Colkelbies Sow, 1 a remarkable picture of ancient rustic manners, the alliterative stave of the romances is discarded; and although the author also incorporates with his story a tale of chivalry, he gives it merely on the authority of his grandame Gurgunnald : * Scho knew the lyfe of mony faderis aid, peace ; wars Notable gestis of peax and weiris in storye, Fresche in hir mynd and recent of memorye.' The author had also made the acquaintance of Chaucer's poetry, for he refers to that chanticleer ' Of quhome Chaucer treitis in to his buke.' 1 Bannatyne MS. ; also published in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. 'COLKELBIE'S SOW 85 Like that of the poet Skelton, the rhyme of Col- kelbie is 'ragged, tattered, and gagged/ Metreofthe and, according to the poet himself, poem - designedly so : * Bot, for Godis luve and his appostill Peter, Pardoun the fulich face of this mad metir. Sen the sentence to feill is fantastike Since ; know Lat the lettir and langage be such like.' The rough and ready metre is the appropriate vehicle of the boisterous merriment which pervades most of the story, and secured it a lasting popularity rivalling that of Eauf Coilzear. The tale, which is preceded by a short Prohemium in irregular heroic couplets, consists of three parts or fyttes. The first is in similar short coup- Divisions of lets to those of Skelton's Colin Clout ; but the poem : the since Colkelbies Sow is entered as having been included in the Asloan MS., and is referred to both by Dunbar and Douglas as a well-known Scottish classic, the poem must be older than Colin Clout, and the author, of his own impulse, must have adopted the device of treating the octo-syllabic couplet in a somewhat more unceremonious fashion than his predecessors. Once upon a time there was a ' merry man ' called Colkelbie, who had ' a simple black sow,' The subject of which he sold for three pennies, and these the poem - pennies he disposed of thus : 1 The first penny of the thre For a girle gaif he ; 86 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE S$ B The secund feU in a furde ; hoard The third he hid in a hurde.' The poet then puts the query, 'Which of the pennies was best bestowed ? ' and he proceeds to give the story of the answer, beginning with the second penny, s " nd P e " ny ; that which 'fell in a furde.' It was the harlot and her guests. found by some one, who bought with it a little pig ; but a harlot who lived hard by, wishing to give a great feast to her patrons, and having ' no substance at all,' resolved that the little pig should grace the board. To the feast she invited the whole elite of contemporary blackguardism : One ' On apostita freir, A peruerst perdonair, experienced * r beggar And practand palmair, witch '> A wich and wobstare, weaver cheat ; A milygant and a inycnare 8 P n e er A fond fule, a fariar, carter A cairtar, a cariar, castrater A libbar and a lyar,' etc. When this select company had convened, they The vain at- proceeded to kill the victim; but the tempt to kill . the pig. poet informs us that, unlike dogs, swine are c lovand beastis' towards each other, and that If one ' And on of thame be ourthrawin, That his cry may be knawin, learns All the reinanent that leiris Cumis in thair best maneiris, To reskew as thay may : So did thay this day.' Then we have a picturesque roll of the names of the valiant rescuers : ' COLKELBIE'S SOW ' 87 'Wrotok and Writhneb, Hogy evir in the eb, With the halkit hoglyn, hacked Suelly Suattis Swankyn, Baymell bred in the bog, Hog hoppit our hog,' etc. All this great horde came ' With sick a din and a dirdy, bustle and -i confusion A garray and a hirdy girdy, The Mis all afferd wer, And the harlot hurt thare With bair Tuskyis tuth. And for to say the verry suth, truth In that fellon affray The littill pig gat away, And ilk bore and ilk beest every Defoulit the fulis of the feest.' But this was not the worst. The several owners of the pigs hearing the uproar, and afraid Themusterof that so 'curst a company' designed to the swine- . . owners; the steal their live-stock, raised an alarm by dance -, the the blowing of stock-horns, and with minstrels and dancers, as knights of old were wont, issued forth to the rescue : ' Gilby on his gray ineir, And Fergy on his sow fair, Hoge Hygin by the hand hint, led And Symy that was sone brint, sun-struck With his lad Lowry, And his gossep Gloury,' and many heroes more, in higgledy-piggledy con- fusion. As they advanced with banners flowing and pipers blowing, they saw approaching them a similar company, whom they at first took for enemies, but 88 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE found to be allies aroused by their alarm. In the joy of meeting each other, the two companies forgot for a time the serious matter which had called them to arms, and with one accord commenced dancing : at once ' And all the menstralis attonis Blew up and playit for the nonis ; cow-herds Schiphird, nolt hirdis, stepped out And swyn hirdis outgirdis For to dance merily.' From the exhaustive list of dances of every variety that were performed, we gather that the merriment must have lasted an unconscionable time ; but at last one of the leaders called to them, as both minstrels and dancers were getting exhausted, to remember for what purpose they were assembled. They therefore at once hurried to the house of the harlot : * Fyll on the foirsaid Sottis, And ourthrew all the ydiottis Both of the swyne and the men.' Little glory was, however, gained by either party ; for, as the poet sagely observes, the only real victor was the little pig : great * And all this grit brawling, Babling and vthir thing, Wes for a pig as ze hard sayn, Yet Zit he eskapit onslane.' The extravaganza forming the first part is the only The story portion peculiarly and characteristically pennyfataie Scottish. In the second part the poet of chivalry. sounds an entirely dignified note; and, on the authority of his grandame, proceeds in 'COLKELBIE'S SOW* 89 Chaucerian couplets to narrate a tale of chivalry, changing Colkelbie, without so much as a word of warning, for the nonce into a Frenchman. With the first penny Colkelbie bought from a blind man a girl, whom he gave in marriage to his own son Flannisie. Flannisie was a skilful archer; and the King of France having lodged one night at Colkelbie's hostelry, was on the morrow so impressed with the feats of Flannisie at a ' great shooting/ that he made him his body squire. Finally he became a knight, his fair lady Adria whom Colkelbie had bought from the blind beggar for a penny being made one of the queen's chamber ladies. Both grew more and more in favour with the king and queen the lady by her beauty and goodness, and the husband by his deeds of valour, until the king resolved to create for them an earldom, which, by a union of portions of their two names, he termed Flandria (Flanders). The story of the third penny is less romantic, but also sufficiently edifying. After keeping it hoarded for some time, Colkelbie bought with it story of the twenty-four hen eggs, of which he made J^iSSand a gift to his godson Colkalb: but the edif y in &- mother disdainfully declining this gift, this 'simple thing,' Colkelbie sent them to his hen- wife, charging her to ' do her care ' and ' make them fruct.' The ' fruct ' was twelve male and twelve female chickens, whose names and qualities the poet sets forth in thorough fancier fashion; and by and by Colkelbie was able, in a solemn assembly of relations, to 90 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE present his godson with no less a sum than 1000, saved with ' grace divine ' from the twenty-four eggs. Finally * This Colkalb grew efter to grit richess Throw this penny : he grew the michtiest man In ony realme.' A more direct burlesque of the romances is the curious fragment King Berdok, 1 which relates the The taie of adventures of the great king of Babylon, King Berdok. Berdok, who in summer dwelt 'in till ane bowkail stok ' (cabbage stock), and in winter in ' a cokkil shell.' He wooed the ' golk ' (cuckoo) ' sevin zeir of Maryland,' 2 and after going over sea and land to visit her, saw her ' milkand her myderis ky/ and put her in ' a creil upon his back ' to carry her home to his own country, but on his return found he had nothing but a ' howlat's nest.' The fact was, he was being circumvented by her father, ' the king of Fary,' who afterwards, calling to his assistance the kings of Pechtis and Portugal, of Naippilis and Navern, be- sieged King Berdok in a killogie (the air-hole of a lime-kiln), where he had taken refuge. There they attacked him with guns ammunitioned with 'raw daich' (dough) ; but the gracious god Mercury turned him into a ' braikane buss ' (fern bush). ' And quhen thay saw the buss waig to and fra, a ghost ; left Thay trow'd it wes ane gaist, and thay to ga ; 1 Bannatyne MS. ; published also in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. 2 Merry land or Fairyland. Cf. Dunbar's In Secreit Place : ' Wylcura ! my golk of Maryland.' < THE GYEE-CAELING ' 91 Thir fell kingis thus Berdok wald half slane, Sghty All this for lufe, luveris sufferis pane : Boece said, of poyettis that wes flour, Thocht lufe be sweit, aft syiss it is full sour. 3 ofttimes This light and graceful skit strikingly contrasts with the weirdly gross love-tale of The Gyre-Carling, 1 the mother-witch of Scotland, with stories , The Gyre . of whom Sir David Lyndsay used to Carlm s-' ' comfort ' the young king, James v. The tale is written in the rhymed alliterative staves of the Awntyrs of Arthur and other romances. 2 The Gyre-Carling dwelt in 'awld Betokis hour' in the Tinto Hills, where she lived on Christian men's flesh and raw hides. Near by her there lived one Blasour, who, we are told, for love of her ' lawchane ' (gaping) ' lips,' ' walit and weipit,' and since he was unable to soften her hard heart, resolved to make her his by force : multitude * He gadderit ane menzie of modwartis to warp doun the tour ; undermine The Calling with ane yrae club, quhen that Blasour sleipit, i ro n Behind the heill scho hatt him sic ane blaw, h j ]1 : su ch a Quhill Blasour bled ane quart That Of milk pottage in wart.' The Carling laughed at his discomfiture, and during her merriment, in quite unconventional fashion, pro- duced North Berwick Law. But her exultation was short-lived, for the king of Fary, with his elfs, 1 Bannatyne MS. ; published also in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1S85. 2 An alliterative romance, The Warres of the Jewes (Warton's History of English Poetry, ed. Ritson, etc., ii. 147), begins like the Gyre-Carling thus : * In Tyberus' tyme the true Emperour.' 92 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE proceeded to besiege her, and all the dogs from Dunbar to Dunblane, with all the tykes of Tervey wherever that may be gathered to the fray. The dogs began to gnaw 'doun with thair gomes mony grit stane ' ; but when the case seemed hopeless for the Carling, she changed herself into a sow, and went 'gruntlyng our the Greek sie' to Asia, where she became ' quene of Jowis ' (Jews), and married Mahoun. But her expatriation from Scotland was not unmourned : Since then ' Sensyne the cokkis of Crawmound l crew nevir a day, sorrow For dule of that devillisch deme wes with Mahoun mareit, since then And the hennis of Hadingtoun sensyne wald nocht lay, who? 6 V For this wyld wilroun wich thame widlit sa and wareit.' troubled ; Another of these mock tales of wonder is the ' gentill geist ' of Lord Fergus's Ghost. 2 Since there Lord Fergus's * s a reference in this tale and The Gyre- Ghost -' Carling to 'Betokis bower,' it has been rashly surmised that both are by the same author. But from The Gyre-Carling you gather that the story of Betok, bred of an acorn, was well known in Scot- land. There is a further suggestion that the author of both was James Wedderburn, the author of cer- tain plays against the Papists. Wedderburn, we are told by the historian Calderwood, counterfeited ' the conjuring of ane goust which was indeed practised by Friar Lang ' ; 3 but there is nothing to show any 1 Cramond is a village five miles west of Edinburgh, but the name is merely introduced for the pun's sake. 2 Bannatyne MS. ; printed by Scott in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and in the 1885 edition of Laing's Select Remains. 3 History, vol. i. p. 142. ' LORD FERGUS'S GHOST ' 93 connection between Lord Fergus and the friar. After various misdemeanours such as stealing God's ' whittle,' a ring and other ornaments, from ' piteous Abraham,' and a pair of ' awld yrn schone ' from the man of the moon, besides strangling an old chaplain the ghost was finally conjured by a little Spanish %- ' That with her wit and ingyne, cleverness Gart the gaist leif agane ; Made ; live And syne mareid the gaist the fle, then And cround him kyng of Kandelie ; And they gat thame betwene Orpheus king and Elpha quene.' Of others of these old tales mention may be made of the Tailis of the Fyue Bestis, 1 if only because the Hart's tale has reference to the fortunes of Sir William Wallace. 1 Asloan MS. Printed in Laing's Select Remains, ed. Small, 1885. V THE EARLY CHAUCERIANS, ETC. JAMES I. ROBERT HENRYSON JOHN CLERK RICHARD HOLLAND PATRICK JOHNSTOUN MERSAR SIR JOHN ROULL QUENTINE SCHAW. WHILE the old romance poetry was being superseded by ' gestis ' concerning Scotland's own heroes, by such Chaucer patriotic epics as The Bruce and Wallace, probably and by coinic tales after the type of the introduced to . J Scotland by ancient jaoliau, a new impulse was given to Scottish poetry through contact with the master influence of Chaucer. The honour of introducing Chaucer to Scotland has usually been assigned to James i. There is no evidence of his earlier introduction; and if, as Bower states, James was in the habit of giving much of his time to the cultivation of literature; and if, as Major corroborated by all subsequent Scottish historians, including Buchanan, who professes to criticise from personal knowledge affirms, he actually wrote poetry, he could just as little avoid, while in England, becoming a disciple of Chaucer as he could abstain from making Chaucer known to those who cultivated 94 JAMES I. 95 the art in Scotland. This, apart from the question whether James i. was the author of the Kingis Quair, 1 which has, for the first time, been seriously disputed by Mr. J. T. T. Brown in The Authorship of the Kingis Quair, 1896. For crediting James I. with its authorship, the original authority is the historian John Major (1518), who says that James * wrote an ingenious J ^ "The Quair' little book about the Queen while he was argument . . T . . against the yet in captivity, and before his marriage, authorship of Nothing further was known of this 'little book' until, about 1783, Bishop Tanner drew Tytler's attention to the MS. hi the Bodleian, where, also, the authorship of the poem is attributed to James i. But Mr. Brown proposes to discredit both authorities, and to adopt the only other possible theory that the poem was an ingenious forgery. His main arguments are in substance these: (1) Major wrote his history about eighty years after the death of James i., and his testimony therefore is of very little value ; (2) the transcriber of the MS. is in error as to the authorship of five out of ten other poems in the MS., and therefore the chances are at least equal that he errs in regard to the authorship of The Quair', (3) James i. does not appear in Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris, and it is therefore almost certain that he was not known to Dunbar as a poet ; (4) in the 1 Published (ed. Tytler) 1783, from the only known MS. that in the Bodleian Library, Oxford ; and frequently reprinted, the best and only satisfactory edition being that edited by Professor Skeat for the Scottish Text Society, 1884. 96 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE poem the age of James i., when he was captured by the English, is given as ten, whereas we now know he was eleven, and since Wyntoun states he was captured in 1405 instead of 1406, the poem must have been partly forged from Wyntoun; (5) the poem is written in an artificial dialect by some Scotsman who sought to counterfeit the dialect of Chaucer, and belongs to the same class of poems as part of The Romaunt of the Rose, as The Court of Love and Lancelot of the Lak, regarding the author- ship of which no proper explanation is possible ; and (6) various sentiments in The Kingis Quair are bor- rowed from The Court of Love, a poem presumably of later date than the time of James i. It may be admitted that if Mr. Brown has not established his case, it is simply because it cannot be established; for he lacks nothing in ingenuity, and his learning is employed james i. ^ o fa Q fo^ advantage possible in such a cause. But (1) Major, though writing over eighty years after the death of James i., was fifty years of age when he so wrote, and was not severed from the reign of James i. by more than one generation; he also prided himself on his critical incredulity, and he had plainly seen and read this little book whose authorship he, as a matter of course, assigns to James. (2) The transcriber of the MS. which may have been written before 1488, and must before 1513, and was long in the possession of the noble family of Sinclair was a Scot, and JAMES I. 97 therefore by no means so likely to be mistaken regarding the authorship of a famous Scottish poem as the authorship of English ones of much earlier date. (3) The testimony of Major and that of the tran- scriber ought not to be disposed of separately ; they agree, and their agreement incalculably strengthens both. (4) The absence of James i. from Dunbar's Lament is at the best merely negative evidence ; and its value as such is further greatly discounted by the universal testimony of Scottish historians that James i., whether he wrote The Quair or not, was a ' niakar.' Moreover, the omission may be explained by the fact that distinctively he was king rather than 'makar/ and by the distressing circumstances of his death. (5) It is absurd to attach the smallest importance to the possible mistake of one year in the statement of the king's age at the time of capture. What more vitally concerns the question of forgery is the fact that Wyntoun, from whom the forger is supposed to have got his facts, states that the capture took place, not in March, as the poem affirms, but in April. Further, it would appear that the inference of Sir William Hardy l that the capture took place in the end of February, or beginning of March, is founded on an error of one month in his calcula- tion. The first entry of payment for the king's expenses in the Tower, on 14th August 1406, amounts to 44, 7s. 10d., which, at the rate of 6s. 8d. a day, implies an imprisonment there of only 133 days, 1 Burnet's preface to The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vol. iii. G 98 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE and seems to show that he was sent to the Tower about the beginning of April; and as we know his father, Robert in., died on 4th April, shortly after the son's capture, all the probabilities point to about the middle of March as the date, and thus corroborate the poem ; although, of course, a poet can choose an arbitrary date. (6) (The language and grammar of the poem a combination of the Northern speech with the Midland dialect of Chaucer exactly corresponds with what might be expected if James i.) was its author ; for the probability is that, mingling largely with companion prisoners from Scotland, he retained his early knowledge of the Northern speech, and never thoroughly mastered the Midland dialect. (7) To say the least, it cannot be affirmed that dependence on The Court of Love is proved ; some of the resemblances are accidental, and others have a common source. But unless the resemblances absolutely demonstrate that The Court of Love was written before The Quair, there is no reason for doubting the authorship of James I. 1 (8) Unless James was known as a poet, no one would dream of passing off a forged poem as his; and if he did write poetry, as he is reputed to have done, he is by far the most likely author of The Quair. Further, no motive for the forgery is apparent ; and the emo- tion of the poem this each reader can decide for himself seems to be thoroughly genuine, and the record of an actual experience. 1 See on this subject, especially, Professor Skeat's introduction to TJie Court of Love, in Chaucerian and other Poems, 1897. JAMES I. 99 The poem is a classic example of the love allegory developed in Italy and France, and disseminated in England through Chaucer's translation of . The Quair , a the Roman de la Rose and his Troilus classic ex- ample of the and Criseyde. It is written in the seven- love aiiegery, 111 but represents line stanza of Troilus ab, abb, cc also a personal known since the time of Gascoigne as rime royal. But though the author, besides closely modelling his style and method after Chaucer, borrows unconsciously portions of his phrases and turns of expression, the poem is not a mere servile imitation of the English master: it has a special individuality of its own. Through all the artificial imagery and traditional love mechanism there is ever present the note of a peculiar personal experience, supplying an emotional warmth and tenderness which are absent from Chaucer, and are not fully attained either in Lydgate's Temple of Glas or in The Court of Love. The poet's own case if the poet was James i. furnished a quite ideal theme for chival- rous allegory. To him in captivity love was an exceptional joy and solace; it was also the means of deliverance from it ; and through love his cup of bliss became so absolutely full, that he was ready to praise even the place of his captivity and the day when he was taken prisoner : 4 And thankit be the faire castell wall, Quhare as I quhilome lukit furth and lent. Thankit mot be the sanctis marciall That me first causit hath this accident.' 100 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE It has, however, been too rashly assumed that the poet was actually a strict prisoner in a tower after the fashion described in the poem ; that Scene of meet- x ing merely he first saw Jane Beaufort by accident in the garden of the castle usually sup- posed to be Windsor while looking from his lattice. As matter of fact, he was not at Windsor when introduced to the lady; and we may believe that they first met under different circumstances, for the marriage was promoted by Henry of England from reasons of state. The lattice scene must be regarded as merely figurative, although embodying the essence of an actual experience ; it is modelled after that of Palamon and Emelye in Chaucer's Knight's Tale. Love at first -^ ut ^ * s on ^ v ^ n ^e environment that sight as the two scenes resemble each other. described by Chaucer and Chaucer's is a light external description of love at first sight, but than the scene in The Quair, notwithstanding the traces of an artificial mode, no more consummate description of the dawn of love exists in verse; and we must almost inevitably conclude that it represents the poet's own experience : 1 And there- with kest I doun myn eye ageyne, Quhare as I sawe, walking vnder the -toure, play Full secretly new cummyn hir to pleyne, The fairest or the freschest zonge floure That euer I sawe, me thoght, before that houre, instigation ; For quhich sodayn abate, anon astert The blude of all my body to my hert. JAMES I. 101 And though I stude abaisit tho a lyte, then a little No wonder was ; for-qiihy my wittis all Were so ouercom with plesance and delyte, Onely throu latting of myn eyen fall, That sudaynly my hert became hir thrall, For euer, of free wyll ; for of manace There was no takyn In hir suete face. And In my hede I drewe ryght hastily, And eft-sones I lent It forth ageyne, And sawe hir walk, that verray womanly, With no wight mo, bot onely womnien tueyne. person Than gan I stndye in my-self and seyne, said " A ! suete, ar ze a warldly creature, Or hevinly thing in likenesse of nature ? " Or ar ze god Cupidis owin princesse, And cummyn are to louse me out of band ? Or ar ze verray nature the goddesse, That haue depaynted with zour hevinly hand This gardyn full of flouris, as they stand ? Quhat sail I think, allace ! quhat reuerence Sail I minster to zour excellence 1 " Gif ze a goddesse be, and that ze like To do me payne, I may It noght astert ; avoid Gif ze be warldly wight, that dooth me sike, g eth Quhy lest god mak zou so, my derrest hert, pleased To do a sely prisoner thus smert, That lufis zow all, and wote of noght bot wo ? knows And therefor, merci, suete ! sen It is so." ' This fair creature is, of course, depicted as attired, not in the apparel of an English gentlewoman, but in the figurative bravery of a queen of The poet's love. For the description, all that can description be said is that it is admirably done ac- cording to the accepted mode, but the poet attains 102 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE to more than artistic artificiality in the passion- inspired lines : know ' And, abone all this, there was, wele I wote, Beautee eneuch to inak a world to dote, 3 and in the stanzas detailing the lady's gifts and graces of character as shadowed in her mien, con- cluding thus : ' Throw quhich anon I knew and vnderstude Wele, that sche was a warldly creature ; On quhom to rest myn eye, so mich gude It did my wofull hert, I zow assure, That It was to me loye without mesure.' The allegorical description of the means whereby the lover attains to success in his suit his visits to Venus. Minerva, and Fortune, though The allegorical ' ^ ' visits to Venus, ornate and artistic, and informed through- etc., and the . close of the out by emotional earnestness, fails, through its antiquated method, to secure the full sympathy of the modern reader. The poem ends with stanzas of thanks to the goddesses who, by their 'might celestial/ had brought his suit to a happy ending, to the nightingale who sang that song of love in the garden where his lady walked, to the flowers as emblems of her innocence and beauty, to the castle wall where he ' lukit furth and lent ' when the vision of her loveliness first met his gaze, to the saints of the month of March who brought about the captivity which led to such perfect bliss, and to the 'grene bewis bent,' under Yfhich his heart's remedy and comfort first appeared to him. JAMES I. 103 Besides TJie Kingis Quair, Major ascribed to James ' alium artificiosum cantilenum ejusdem ' (that other song in elaborate metre) Tas Sen; and other poems 'jucundum artificiosumque ilium can turn' James itf^sen (that mirthful poem in elaborate metre) that E y ne >' ^ * ' and ' Sen throu At Beltayne. The title of the former of vertew.' these is plainly incorrect ; c Yas,' which has no mean- ing, being a clerical error for some term unknown. Pinkerton 1 printed an anonymous song from the Maitland MS., beginning, ' Sen that eyne that worlds my weilfair,' since ; eyes as probably that referred to by Major ; but the re- semblance of its initial words to those quoted by Major is too faint to justify the ascription of it to James i. In The Gude and Godlie Ballates (see post, p. 270), a poem of three stanzas in rime royal, beginning, ' Sen throu vertew encressis dignite,' is assigned to James i. ; and the poem is printed in the Scottish Text Society's edition of The Kingis Quair. As in both the Cambridge MS. and the Bannatyne MS. it appears anonymously, the editor of The Gude and Godlie Ballates may have had no special authority for ascribing it to James i. ; but though in the Northern dialect, and though there is nothing except the initial word ' Sen ' to show it is the song referred to by Major, its sentiment and style 1 Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786, p. 214. 104 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE is not unlike that of The Kingis Quair, and it may well have been written by James i. As to the third poem, the mirthful At Beltayne, there is almost no doubt that Major, 'At Beltayne': . Professor rightly or wrongly, meant to ascribe to Skeat's views. T , , James I. the humorous poem Pebhs to the Play, 1 beginning, each person prepares to < At Beltane quhen ilk bodie bownis.' go The only reason for doubting that this was Major's intention is that he adds in reference to At Beltayne, : quern alii de Dalkeith et Gargeil mutare studierunt/ How, or in what way, or for what reason, some per- sons of Dalkeith and of Gargeil sought to change the poem, Major does not say. No such place as Gargeil is now known, but a possible interpretation of the words is that some persons of Dalkeith and Gargeil sought to make the poem apply to these places instead of to Peebles. The theory of Professor Skeat is, however, that certain poets of Dalkeith and Gargeil though it is difficult to believe that these places contained several poets of reputation sought to parody the king's poem, and that in all likelihood it is one of these parodies, and not the original poem, which has survived. To clinch his argument finally, he also boldly proposes to make a statement in Major, usually interpreted as referring to the king, refer to the poem : he would shut up the mirthful poem instead of the disconsolate king in the castle where the lady dwelt with her mother. Why any one 1 Maitland MS. ; printed in Pinkerton's Select Scotish Ballads, 1783. JAMES I. 105 whether the king or his executors should shut it up in the company of the two ladies, or how, if it were so shut up, the Dalkeith and Gargeil poetasters could have got hold of it to parody it, or why they should be seized by such a mania to parody in a mirthful manner a poem that was already mirthful, he does not explain. In any case, Major must have been permitted to look at it; and the poetasters, both of Dalkeith and Gargeil, must somehow have got copies, which, however, they would no doubt destroy after they had completed their parodies. But if the mirthful poem were not shut up, as Professor Skeat asserts, nor destroyed by the poetaster rivals of the king, the chances are that the original At Beltayne, reputed in Major's days to have been written by James i., would survive any parody by obscure village versifiers if such parodies there were. Certain Scottish poets may, of course, have clothed it in a Scottish dialect ; but this is very improbable, since if James i. knew Scots, he would inevitably use it hi depicting such specially Scottish scenes. Once, however, you admit that Peblis to the Play is the At Beltayne, or even a parody of the At Beltayne mentioned by Major, it becomes im- < AtBeltayne . possible to relegate it, as has been done, ( to the sixteenth instead of the fifteenth -r-r_ , , T Kirk': mutually century. Whether the work of James i. corroborative or another, it could not, if it came into existence only in the sixteenth century, J amesl - have been ascribed by Major, writing in 1518, to 106 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE James i., who died in 1437. More than this, Major's mention of it in such a fashion is almost proof positive that it belongs to the earlier half of the fifteenth century, or at least that it can't be later than the first quarter of the last half; for Major was born in 1469, and he could not so write of At Beltayne unless the tradition that it was by James i. dated from his youth. Further, the mere mention of At Beltayne by Major if At Beltayne has any connection with Peblis to the Play makes it impossible a fact totally ignored by Professor Skeat and others for it to have been the work of James v., for when Major wrote James v. was but six years of age. This is a most important point when considered in connection with the companion poem Christis Kirk on the Green. 1 They are in the same rollicking metre; and their style and humour are so absolutely similar, that they are universally ascribed to the same author. Now in the Bannatyne MS. Christis Kirk is attributed to James i. 2 True, a later tradition grew up that it was written by James v., and it is assigned to him by Bishop Gibson and by Watson; but if we trace back that tradition, we find that it derives solely from the 1 Bannatyne and Maitland MSS. ; printed by Bishop Gibson, 1691 ; by Watson in his Collection, 1706 ; by Tytler, along with the Kingis Quair, 1763; by Pinkerton in Select Scotish Ballads, 1783; and frequently in various collections. 2 Bannatyne's testimony has been scouted because he accidentally represents Dunbar's Dregy as sent to James v., not to James TV. ; but James iv. and James v. were, of course, successive sovereigns, whereas James i. preceded James v. by about a century. JAMES I. 107 fabling Dempster (1627); and if any value at all attaches to Major's statement about At Beltayne, Christis Kirk, if by the same author as At Beltayne, could not have been the work of James v. Further, the Bannatyne MS. and Major two excellent autho- rities both must be regarded as corroborative of each other; for while Major affirms that the mirthful At Beltayne is by James i., the Bannatyne MS. ascribes a very similar poem to the same king, while there is a general consensus of tradition that one or other of the two kings was the author of the poems. It has, indeed, been pointed out that the Justing of Barbour and Watson by Sir David Lyndsay begins in a similar strain to Christis Kirk : ' In Sanct Androis on Witsoun Monanday Was never sene sic lusting in no landes.' And it is further true that these expressions in Christis Kirk ' His lymmis were lyk twa rokkis. . . . distaffs Ean vpoun otheris lyk ramniis. . . . Bet on with barrow trammis ' shafts are found interwoven in the same poem thus : ' Quod lohne, " Howbeit tliou thinkis nay leggis lyke rokkis. . . Zit, thocht thy braunis be lyk twa barrow-tramniis, calves Defend the, man ! " Than ran thay to, lyk rammis. 3 From this circumstance Professor Skeat draws what he terms 'the obvious conclusion' that 'Christis Kirk belongs to the reign of James v.'; but surely the only absolutely 'obvious conclusion' is that Lyndsay had read Christis Kirk', and it is further 108 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE probable, if not 'obvious/ that Christis Kirk was earlier than the reign of James v., for Lyndsay was more likely to incorporate lines from an ancient than from a contemporary writer. All the reliable external evidence, therefore, points to James i. as the author of those poems ; and this External evi- being so, the internal evidence by which ^uh7p mainl 7 it has been proposed to deprive of james i. ^^ o f their authorship requires very careful scrutiny. Chiefly from deference to the auth- ority that justly attaches to Professor Skeat's opinion, I have hitherto disbelieved in the authorship of James i., and entered on this inquiry strongly biassed against his claims; but more minute consideration convinces me that there is no evidence against them. What is the internal evidence on the subject ? 1. There is what may be termed the moral objection, thus expressed by Guest, and adopted The internal by Skeat : ' One can hardly suppose the d morai those critics serious who attribute this objection. song (of Christis Kirk) to the moral and sententious James the First.' 1 This merely means that a poet cannot be a poet of strikingly contrasted moods ; or, in other terms, that the human personality is an absolutely simple and con- sistent individuality instead of a curious conjunction of contrarieties. How, on such a theory, could we even conceive of James, the refined, sentimental, poetic artist, as the most energetic ruler of his time ? 1 English Rhythms, ed. Skeat, p. 624. JAMES I. 109 But let the question be confined to poetry. If, for example, we accept Shakespeare as the creator of the moral and sententious Hamlet, must we then rob him of the sententious but inimitably immoral Falstaff? Or to go to Scotland for an illustration: let us take the case of Burns, like James L, both an English and a Scottish poet, like him influenced by two distinct poetic traditions. From Burns illus- trations may be obtained in almost bewildering profusion: enough that he who has given us the matchless presentment of blackguard revelry in The Jolly Beggars is the same who did the admirably conventional sketch of peasant piety in The Cotters Saturday Night. 2. There is the question of language. It is not, of course, denied that James i. retained some knowledge of the Northern dialect in captivity, or The language that he regained his knowledge of it i uestion - when he returned to Scotland. 1 Indeed, Professor Skeat argues that he knew this dialect, and he prints along with The Kingis Quair a poem in it. All, therefore, that we have to decide is whether the language of these poems belongs to an earlier or later date than the time of James i. But here the evidence is almost wholly of a negative kind; for lateness of transcription so tends to alter the phrase- ology, that it is impossible to draw any certain conclusion except in the case of the rhyming words. 1 Not by Professor Skeat, though it has been without evidence by Mr. J. T. T. Brown. 110 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Nor does Professor Skeat profess to point out more than one instance of 'obvious lateness.' In stanza xix. of Peblis ' stokks ' is made to rhyme with ' ox,' whereas with James i., we are told, the plural of stok is ' stokkis.' But is this not to take too solemn a view of this amusing stanza? The curious thing is that the transcriber in the same stanza makes 'Lockkis,' not 'Locks' or 'Lockks,' to rhyme with ' ox ' ; and may it not well have been the aim of the poet's mirthful muse to make 'ox' for the nonce rhyme with ' stokkis ' and ' lokkis ' ? But besides the plural ' is ' is constantly used not only in other stanzas of Peblis, and of Christis Kirk, but by David Lyndsay, to name no more. In truth, even had James i. lived in Lyndsay's day, his natural impulse would, as much as ever, have been to write ' stokkis.' 3. As to the metre : Professor Skeat contents him- self by affirming that ' it will be found by no means easy to point out any undoubted example of the use of the rollicking metre of this poem anterior to the year 1450; whereas James i. died in 1437.' This is a very guarded statement so guarded that it is insufficient for Professor Skeat's purpose. Even to admit that a specimen of this metre of as early a date as 1450 has come down to us, goes a far way to prove that the metre is of earlier date ; for the poetry of this early period that survives is but a fraction of the whole. It is also very difficult to date anonymous poetry ; but amongst the anony- JAMES I. Ill mous poetry in this metre which has not perished are the old ballads of The Battle of Otterbourne and The Hunting of the Cheviots, the originals of which probably date from the beginning of the fifteenth century, if not earlier. Here is a stanza of The Hunt- ing of the Cheviots as 'carefully printed from the Ashmole MS.' in Professor Skeat's own Specimens of Early English : ' The dryvers thorowe the woodes went For to reas the dear ; Bomen byckarte vppone the bent With ther browd aros cleare ; Then the wyld thorowe the woodes went On every syde shear ; Grea hondes thorowe the grevis glent For to kyll thear dear." As matter of fact, this rollicking metre was intended to be chanted or sung: and this may explain why so few early specimens of it exist ; for scarce any of the songs of the minstrel were com- mitted to writing ; and of the numerous songs whose names have been preserved in the writings of ancient Scottish authors almost none survive. Apart from authorship, to prove the possible antiquity of these poems is of some importance, for metrically they seem to form a curious Themetrea blend of the old ballad and the alliterative blend of the ballad and romance. The stanza may, indeed, be the metrical described as a sort of ballad variation of that of Sir Tristrem Sir Tristrem changed into rollicking metre, and the bobwheel simplified, but 112 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the alliteration which survived much longer in Scotland than in the south preserved as elaborately as ever. Here, as an example, is the admirable second stanza of Christis Kirk : dressed ' To dans thir damysellis tharne dicht, s*y of rs Thir lassis licht of laitis, doeskin Thair gluvis wes of the raifel rycht, Thair schone wes of the straitis l ; Lincoln Thair kirtillis wer of lynkome licht, Weill prest with mony plaitis. Sghed 1 ' They wer so nyss quhen men thame nicht goats Thay squeilit lyk ony gaitis, So lowd, At Chrystis Kirk of the grene that day.' The poems are further classic specimens of the utilisation of the combined ballad and romantic Their charac- me thods in depicting the humours of and everyday life : and their influence on the their place in Scottish after vernacular poetry can scarce be over- estimated, this apart from direct imita- tions of their method. Another poem in the same stanza, of probably about the same date, but whether earlier or later it is impossible to say, is the ecclesias- tical satire of Symmie and his Bruder (p. 286), the heroes of which were two palmers who used to stand begging in the ' old grey cathedral city ' by the sea. A later piece is the amusing Justing and Debait vp at the Drum, by Alexander Scott (p. 248). Christis Kirk was published by Allan Ramsay with a second part added by himself, and this second part is one of the i This is explained by some as coarse woollen cloth ; and also as the Straits of Gibraltar, on the way to Morocco. JAMES I. 113 best of Ramsay's humorous pieces. Christis Kirk and Peblis are also the models metrically and poeti- cally of Fergusson's Leith Races and Hallow Fair and of Burns's Holy Fair and Ordination. Neither as poems nor as pictures of the humours of rustic life are they equalled by Fergusson, nor without them would we probably have had much that is best in Burns. They necessarily suffer from the flight of time; for besides that the customs, modes, and manners which are the subject of their wit have passed away, the niceties of the old language can no longer be fittingly apprehended by the most learned and Scottish of the Scots; but their vividness and truth still penetrate even these obstacles to apprecia- tion. In Peblis the humours of the old village fair of four centuries ago are reproduced with a colour and life not yet faded beyond recognition. It is not so vigorous a production as Christis Kirk, but as a study of rustic manners it is equally good, and it is plainly the work of the same 'makar.' As for Christis Kirk, which depicts the wild revels and disorders rather than the humours of the fair, its fervour and abandon are irresistible. Near the be- ginning of the poem we have a most arch and amusing glimpse of the distresses and whims of a love-lorn damsel : ' Off all thir madynis myld as meid mead Wes nane so gympt as Gillie, slim As ony ross Mr rude wes reid, rose ; cheeks Hir lyre was lyk the lillie : skin H 114 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Pull Though : death jibed derided hang beetles distaffs madmen ; unafraid Beaten mouths ; unguarded gums Until ; clotted worried youngsters set to lightning terrible Stout fellows men Until ; belched noise Fow yellow yellow wes hir held, But scho of lufe wes sillie. Thocht all hir kin had sworn hir deid, Scho wald haif bot sweit Willie Allone, At Chrystis Kirk of the grene. Scho skornit Jok and skraipit at him, And mvrionit him with mokkis ; He wald haif luvit, scho wald nocht lat him, For all his yallow loikkis : He chereist hir, scho bad ga chat him, Scho compt him nocht twa clokkis ; So schamefully his schort goun set him, His lymniis wes lyk twa rokkis, Scho said At Chrystis Kirk of the grene.' But the fun soon begins to get fast, and after passing through various phases of the absurd, finally becomes furious : * Twa that wes heidmen of the heird, Ran vpoun vtheris lyk rammis, Than followit feymen rycht onaffeird, Bet on with barrow traminis ; But quhair thair gobbis wes vngeird, Thay gat vpoun the ganimis ; Quhill bludy berkit wes thair beird As they had wirreit lammis, Maist lyk At Chryst Kirk of the grene. The wyvis kest vp ane hiddouss yell, Quhen all thir yunkeris yokkit, Als ferss as ony fyr-flaucht fell, Freikis to the feild thay flokkit : Tha cairlis with clubbis cowd vder quell, Quhill blud at breistis out bokkit. So rudly rang the commoun bell, Quhill all the stepill rokkit For reird, At Chrystis Kirk of the grene.' ROBERT HENRYSON 115 This final scene is indeed one of mere blind, rude, rustic savagery ; but the verve and spirit of the piece are wholly admirable. After James i. the most notable name in Scottish poetry in the fifteenth century is that of Robert Henryson (1425 ?-1506 ?), second among the old Scots bards only to Dunbar, who belongs to both centuries. As in the case of most poets of this century, only the faintest outline of his history survives. Of his parentage there is no record, and the tradition that he was progenitor of the Hendersons of Fordell seems to rest more on fanciful imagination than on fact. There is no evidence that he studied at the University of St. Andrews; and Glasgow University, not founded until 1451, was probably not in existence in his student days. He was therefore, most likely, educated abroad. In any case, his name is found among the incorporated members of Glasgow University, 10th September 1462, as 'the venerable Master Robert Henryson, licentiate in arts, and bachelor in decrees,' which implies that he graduated somewhere in law ; and if he was not a lecturer in law in the University, he must have been deemed a person so eminent in learning that his enrolment was intended as an honour either to the University or to him. On the title-page of his Fables he is designated ' Schoolmaster in Dunfermline ' ; and he is no doubt also the Magister fiobertus Henrison, notarius publicus, whose name appears as a witness to certain deeds in March 1477-78 116 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE and July 1478. Whether he was in priest's orders is unknown ; but he seems to have been, as a certain John Henderson was in the sixteenth century, ' master of the grammar-school within the Abbey of Dunfermline.' Sir Francis Kynaston, who in his Latin translation of Troilus and Criseyde, 1635, was the first to point out that Henryson was the author of The Testament, states that 'being very old, he dyed of a diarrhea or fluxe,' regarding which he relates a 'merry, though somewhat unsavoury tale.' It is about a wise woman or witch who, when he was a-dying, entered his house and told him that if he would be cured, he must go to a whikey tree at the end of his orchard and walk round it three times repeating the rime : * Whikey tree, whikey tree, Take away this fluxe from me.' This, Henryson affirmed, he was too weak to do, and he jocularly proposed instead to repeat certain words to the oaken table in his room. To adapt it to this new divinity it was necessary to vary the wording of the request, but it must suffice to state that he proposed to make it rhyme with c Oaken burd, Oaken burd.' The proposed compromise was naturally unpleasing to the wise woman, who, we are told, 'seeing herself derided and scorned, ran out of the house in a great passion, and Mr. Henderson within half a quarter of an hour departed this life.' The anecdote is quite credible of the author of Sum EOBEET HENEYSON 117 Practysis of Hedecyne, and if true, shows that Henryson retained his cheerful spirit to the last. He probably died not long before 1506, when Dunbar wrote thus of Death in his Lament for the Makaris: * In Dunfermelyne he has done rovne just whis- With gud Maister Kobert Henrisoun.' l In Henryson the Chaucerian influence is at its strongest, and in part supersedes the old Scottish tradition. His favourite stave is either H enryson's the ballat royal (or French octave) in staves - three rhymes ab, ab, be, be in its four accented or five accented form, with a refrain, or the seven-line stanza in rime royal-, and he also introduced the nine-line and ten-line interwoven stanza from Chaucer's Faire Anelida and False Arcite. But the rollicking metre of Robene and Makyne, The Garmond of Gud Ladyis, and The Bludy Serk was no doubt derived from the ballads of the older minstrels ; while in Sum Practysis of Medecyne we have his one solitary example in the rhymed allitera- tion of the old romances. Again, the stave of The 1 The poems of Henryson Bannatyne, Maitland, Asloan, Gray, Harleian, and Makculloch MSS. were first published in a collected form, ed. David Laing, in 1865. The sixteenth-century editions of his poems are Orpheus and Eurydice, with the ballad on The Want of Wise Men, printed by Chepman and Myllar, Edinburgh, 1508 ; The Moral Fables, by Lekprevick, St. Andrews, 1570 ; and The Testament of Cresseid in Chaucer's Works, London, 1532, and separately by Henry Charteris, Edinburgh, 1593. Numerous sub- sequent editions of these were published, and pretty full selections from his works appeared in Ramsay's Evergreen, 1724, and in the collections of Lord Hailes, 1770, Sibbald, 1804, etc. 118 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Salutation of the Virgin ab ab, ba ab, ba ab was probably derived from the old Latin Hymns. Eobene and Makyne, while it is the most char- acteristically Scottish, is also the gem of Henryson's Robene and productions ; and indeed one of the most Makyne.- perfect, because one of the least artificial, pastorals in literature. Never has the ingenuous naturalness of rustic love been suggested in verse more deftly or with less intimation of caricature. The theme is a slight one. We are introduced to Robene ' on gud grene hill ' besieged by the love-lorn Makyne. He, however, nothing knows of love ; and her endeavours to instruct him in ' luvis lair ' (learn- ing) proving vain, he, quite at a loss to understand her pleadings, answers her wot ' " I wait nocht quhat is lufe ; But I haif mervell incertaine unrest Quhat makis th this wanrufe. happy The weddir is fair, and I am fane, Kith* M y schei P g is hai11 aboif > If And we wald play us in this plane They wald us bayth reproif." ' But too late he suddenly discovers that he in turn has become the victim of the passion. When, on seeing Makyne again, he follows after her and calls that all his ' luve it salbe ' hers, she tells him, half sadly, half scornfully ' " Eobene, that warld is all away, to And quyt brocht till ane end ; by my faith And nevir agane thairto, perfay, thinketh Sail it be as thow wend." ' EGBERT HENRYSOtf 119 And the poet is too remorselessly faithful to truth to gratify the sentimental reader with the usual happy ending : ' Makyne went hame blyth anewche enough Attour the holtis hair. Robene murnit, and Makyne lewche ; laughed Scho sang, he sichit sair : sighed And so left him bayth wo and wreuch, wretched In dolour and in cair, Kepand his hird under a huche crag Among the holtis hair.' It is a rustic episode, not idealised, still less carica- tured, in any way, but etched in its simplicity, its rude truthfulness, and its lugubrious faliance, as it actually happened ' on gud grene hill.' Most of the other minor poems are of a meditative, moral, and semi-religious cast; reflecting, no doubt, a very prevalent mood of the author, , TheGar especially in his old age. In The Gar- mondofGud mond of Gud Ladyes allegory is em- ployed with quaint effect to depict the excellences that are desirable in woman. It is an ingenious example of the allegorical methods then in vogue, and though antiquated in form, is both tasteful and spirited. Here are two stanzas : ' Hir gown suld be of gudliness, Weill ribband with renowne, Purfillit with plesour in ilk place, each Furrit with fyne fassoun. fashion Hir belt suld be of benignitie, About hir middill meit ; Hir mantill of humilitie To tholl bayth wind and weit.' endure ; rain 120 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE And he concludes : ' Wald scho put on this garmond gay, I durst sweir by my seill, That scho woir nevir grene nor gray became That set hir half so weill.' The Bludy Serk, on the other hand, is an adapta- tion of the ballad form for the purposes of religious 'The Biudy allegory. The story agrees very much serk/ w - t ] 1 one fa Q Q es i a Romanorum, and the poem is chiefly of interest as indicating _ that the ballad stanza, since it is here used for parody, must have existed before Henryson's time. The ballad begins in this romantic fashion : last ' This hindir yeir I hard be tald, Thair was a worthy King ; Dukis, Erlis and Barronis bald, He had at his bidding. The Lord was anceane, and aid, And sexty yeiris cowth ring ; embrace He had a Dochter, fair to fald, A lusty lady ying.' And this is how the Moralitas begins : ' This King is lyk the Trinitie Baith in hevin and heir. The Manis saule to the Lady : The Gyane to Lucefeir. The Knycht to Chryst, that deit on tre, And cost our synnis deir : The pit to hell, with panis fell ; The syn to the woweir.' Of the unallegorical and emotionally reflective there are two, The Abbay Walk and The Prais of EGBERT HENRYSON 121 Age, each in its own way beautiful and touching expressions of a particular mood, and both remarkably fine examples of musical ver- sification in the octave of three rhymes. A e e -' Here, for instance, is a nobly dignified stanza from The Abbay Walk : ' Thy Kindome and thy grit empyr, Thy ryaltie, nor riche array, Sail nocht endeur at thy desyre, Shall not Bot, as the wind, will wend away ; Thy gold, and all thy gudis gay, Quhen fortoun list, will fra the fall : Sen thou sic sampillis seis ilk day, Since; such; Obey, and thank thy God of all.' The poem specially sets forth the bliss of content- ment with one's inevitable lot. But in The Prais of Age another note is struck, a note of sadness and despondency, inevitable in the case of a simple un- worldly man living in such corrupt and calamitous times. That it was only a mood is, however, shown by representing The Prais of Age as sung by an aged minstrel : ' In tyl ane garth, under ane reid roseir, into a gar- Ane auld man, and decrepit, hard I syng ; Gay wes the noit, sweit was the voce and cleyr ; It wes grit joy to heir of sic ane thyng. such a " And to my doume," he said, in his dytyng, ^f n l fate ' " For to be young I wald nocht, for my wyss, not; because Of all this warld to rnak me lord and Kin : <** know - The rnoyr of aige the nerar hevynnis bless. " Fals is this warld, and fuU of varyance, Oureset with syt and uther synnys mo ; grievances Now trewth is tynt, gyle hes the governance, lost And wrachitness hes turnyt al fra weill to wo : 122 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE expelled Fredoume is tynt, and flemyt the Lordis fro. And cuvattyce is all the cause of this : gone I am content that yowthheid is ago ; The moyr of aige the nerar hevynnis blis." ' The evils of the times are also more specifically other reflec- dealt with in The Want of Wyse Men, tive poems. wit k t k e cur j ous refrain- since ' Sen want of wyse men makis foulis sitt on binkis.' l Another poem in a similar vein is that Aganis Haisty Creddence of Titlaris. The Reasoning Betwixt Aige and Youth and The Ressoning Betwixt Deith and Man tell also much the same tale of the vanity of life. The latter is almost wholly didactic, and of small poetic value ; but the former gives a striking series of contrasted portraits of youth and age accord- ing to their respective methods of regarding the same aspects of life. Here are two stanzas : ' Quhen fair Flora, the goddess of the flowris, enclosed Baith firth and feildis freschely^had ourfret, decked 8 ' And perly droppis of the balmy schowris, Those Thir woddis grene had with thair watter wet ; Musand allone in mornyng myld, I met tell A mirry man, that all of mirth cowth mene, Syngand the sang that richt sweitly wes sett, " yowth be glaid in to thy flowris grene ! " I lukit furth a litill me befoir, And saw a catiff on a club cumand, faded With cheikis leyne, and lyart lokis hoir ; low 8 'hoarse ^ s ene was nowe ? n ^ s voce was nace hostand ; coughing Wallowit and wan, and waik as ony wand ; Shrivelled Ane bm he beure upoun fa s k reist a bone, true without In letteris leill but les, with this legyand, v^y " yowth thy flowris faidis ferly sone ! " ' 1 Benches ; as judges or governors. KOBEKT HENRYSON 123 But the poet concludes by adopting the burdens of both as true : * youth, be glaid into thy flowris grene ; youth, thy flowris faidis ferly sone.' In Orpheus and Eurydice, an allegorical adaptation from Boethius of some 630 lines, the classical learning has almost quite smothered the poetic ' Orpheus and inspiration ; but the Testament of Cresseid Eurydice,' intended to complete Chaucer's tale of Testament Troilus and Criseyde in a manner more of Cresseid -' consistent with moral if not poetic justice is by traditional criticism regarded as Henryson's master- piece. He here claims comparison with Chaucer, and some think not entirely to his disadvantage. Yet the poem is merely an imperfect amalgam of Chaucer and Henryson, the complete effect being rather mixed, for the temperaments of the two were essentially different. Still, largely imitative though it be, and while imitative, not only quite at variance with the tone of Chaucer's story, but by the very strenuous- ness of its morality in some degree both poetically and morally repulsive, it is interesting as a poetic tour de force, and is also sprinkled with passages of richly ornate beauty. In the portraits of the seven deities who sat in judgment on Cresseid's sin the poet reaches the very acme of the old allegorical art. Here the piquantly vivid realism the peculiar realism of the Scottish muse triumphs over the artificial methods, the portraiture being both strongly 124 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE graphic and delicately felicitous. In the case of Saturn the Scottish method is specially victorious : frosted < His fece f rosnit) his lyre was lyke the leid> shivered His t e ith cliatterit, and cheverit with the chin, eyes ; hollow His ene drowpit, how, sonkin in his heid, moisture Out of his nois the meldrop fast can rin, With lippis bla, and cheikis leine and thin, The iceschoklis that fra his hair doun hang, Was wonder greit, and as ane speir als lang. tangled ; Atouir his belt his lyart lokkis lay spangled Felterit unfair, ovirfret with froistis hoir, His g armound and his gyis full gay of gray, dress His widderit weid fra him the wind out woir ; strong Ane busteous bow within his hand he boir, sheaf of cruel TT , . . .-,.,, , n -,-, . arrows Under his girdill ane flasche of felloun flams, Feathered Fedderit with ice, and heidit with hailstanis.' In quite a different vein is the portrait of Jupiter. Here is a stanza : eyes ' His voice was cleir, as cristall wer his ene, As goldin wyre sa glitterand was his hair ; His garmound and his gyis full gay of grene, edges ; slash With golden ligtig ^ on eyerie gair . burly Ane burelie brand about his iniddill bair, sharpened I n his right hand he had ane groundin speir, Of his father the wraith fra us to weir.' But the leprous scene at the close of the poein is except perhaps the silent meeting between Troilus and Cresseid scarce more than grimly forbidding : a strenuous morality has extruded not merely adequate emotional pathos, but even true poetic art ; and apart from the repulsiveness little remains but wearisome didactic prosing. ROBERT HENRYSON 125 The true individuality of Henryson is to be found, not in such laboured and ambitious efforts as Orpheus or The Testament, but in the wholly * The true simple and ingenuous Robene and individuality TUT 7 J ^ -IT of Henryson Ma/cyne, and. the naively humorous to be found in naturalism of the Moral Fables. While m the Moral Henryson but for 'Chaucer, glorious' could not have been what he was, he perhaps allowed his admiration for the 'flower' of 'Makaris' to override too much his own personality ; indeed, it must further be confessed, that while Scottish poetry gained incal- culably from the comprehensive genius of Chaucer, it suffered not a little in freedom and spontaneity from the stiffening artificiosity of various Chaucerian con- ventionalisms. But in Robene and Makyne Henryson writes as if Chaucer had never written ; and in the Moral Fables (paraphrased from /Esop) we have some of the most delightful examples of allegory in litera- ture. Both Robene and the Fables show that his strength lay not in the old allegorical love- tale, or the old allegorical morality : that just as Chaucer is truly great great almost as Shakespeare in various and penetrating knowledge of the world, so Henryson is at his best as an interpreter of rustic character or animal life or, in other terms, when his poetry is inspired by the experiences of his own quiet days. The Fables have by some been pronounced prolix, but they will be found so only by those J 'The Fables. 1 who can discover nothing of their humour (delicate but shrewdly wise), whose sympathy with the 126 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE fresh and artless aspects of nature is but tepid, and to whom the world of animal life is a virtual blank. As an animal allegorist Henryson has no superior : by no fabulistis the human in the animal better realised, while the special animal characteristics are admirably pre- served and indicated. Incidentally, also, an old phase of Scottish life, as it existed in this ancient ecclesias- tical city and its rural surroundings, looms peacefully out of the mists of the past with a charm all the more enticing because of a certain indistinctness. The slightest of the Fables is The Cock and the The cock and Josp ', but the picture of the cock is T e hi a u P piandfs truthful and spirited. Much fuller of Mousand incident and adventure, as well as of the Burgess MOUS.' allegorical significance, is the Uplandis Mous and the Burgess Mous. ' This rurall inous in to the wynter tyde, suffered Had hunger, cauld, and tholit greit distress ; The uther mous that in the burgh can byde, Wes gild-brother and maid ane free burgess : also, without Toll fre als, but custum mair or less, And fredome had to ga quhair ever scho list, chest Among the cheis in cask, and meill in kist.' The burgess mouse went on a visit to her sister in the country, whose humble home is thus prettily described : dwelling As I hard say, it was ane sober wane, S s and Of fog and fairn full febilie wes maid, frail shelter Ane sillie scheill under ane steidfast stane, not Of whilk the entres wes nocht hie nor braid ; without And in the samyn thay went but mair abaid, Withoutin fyre or candiU birnand bricht, such pickers F r commounlie sic pykeris luffis not licht.' EGBERT HENRYSON 127 The country mouse entertained her sister with ' nuttis and peis,' but the epicurean burgess lady could not ' accord' with such 'rude diet,' and pro- , , , . , , ,, , A visit to town. posed that her rustic sister should leave ' this hole,' and come to her ' place ' in town, where was to be had all the choicest gustatory dainties. They therefore hied them thither, creeping now under rank grass and corn, now under bushes ' privily ' until they 'fand the town,' when they took their 'herberie' in a well-stored spence. But while sumptuously dining on all 'the coursis that cuikis culd defyne,' they were suddenly disturbed by a visit of the butler, which caused the timorous rural mouse to swoon for very dread. However, he left without discovering the ' pykeris ' ; but hardly had they sat down again to the banquet, when Gib-Hunter, the c jolie cat,' looked hi on them. The sharp-witted burgess mouse, quick as ' fyre of flint,' darted into her hole ; but alas ! her rustic sister was unequal to the emergency, and Bawdrons, pouncing on her, caught her by the back : * Fra fate to fute he kest hir to and fra, Quhylis up, quhylis down, als cant as ony kid ; Now; playful Quhylis wald he lat hir run under the stra, Quhylis wald he wink, and play with her bukhid. hide-and- Thus to the selie mous greit pane he did, seek Quhill at the last, throw fortune and gude hap, Until Betuix ane burde and the wall scho crap.' Happily she escaped, more frightened than hurt. But the fright was enough; the choicest delicacies ceased to be enjoyable when danger seemed to lurk hi every morsel ; and as soon as Gib-Hunter took his 128 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE As ; wool comfortably; in kitchen and parlour enough went out over That one ; love clock wakeful head-dress lover conceitedly baffled departure she leapt down from her conceal- ment, and took instant leave of her sister and of the ' mangerie ' so ' myngit all with cair ' : ' Bot I hard say, scho passit to hir den, Als warme als woll, suppose it wes nocht greit, Full benely stuffit, baith but and ben, Of beinis and nuttis, pels, ry, and quheit ; Quhen ever scho list scho had aneuch to eit, In quyet and eis, withoutin ony dreid, Bot to hir sisteris feist na mair scho geid.' Of Schire Chanticleir and the Foxe, perhaps the most deliciously humorous stanzas are ' Schire Chan- ticleir and the those setting forth the sorrowful and other reflections of the three widowed hens, Bertok, Sprutok, and Tappok : ' " Allace ! " quod Pertok makand sair murning, With teiris greit attour hir cheikis fell, " Yone wes our drowrie, and our dayis darling, Our nichtingaill, and als our orlege bell ; Our walkryfe watche, us for to warne and tell Quhen that Aurora, with hir curcheis gray, Put vp hir heid betuix the nycht and day. " Quha sail our lemman be ? quha sail us leid ? Quhen we are sad, quha sail unto us sing 1 With his sweit bill he wald brek us the breid In all this warld wes thair ane kynder thing ? " ' But Sprutok deems such extreme sorrow quite un- called for, finding in her bereavement sufficing consolation in the proverb that ' as gude luve cummis as gaes ' ; while Tappok, again, is neither sad nor glad, but simply self-righteously content : ' Than Tappok lyke ane curate spak full crous, " Yon wes ane verray vengeance fra the hevin ; EGBERT HENEYSON 129 He wes sa lous, and sa lecherous ; \ He had," quod scho, " Kittokis 1 ma than sevin ; more Bot rychteous God, haldand the ballandis evin, balance Smytis richt sair, thocht he be patient, sorely For adultrie that will thame nocht repent." ' The various other fables, in which the Fox or Wolf (or both) figures, are all admirably droll, the wit being both barbed and tempered with ' f r Other fables the writer's shrewd wisdom; while con- of the FOX or ,. . , -11 "Wolf. temporary political or social depravations are indicated and satirised with great skill and subtlety. The Tod's Confession to Freir Wolf is perhaps the most caustic of any. This stanza is delightful : * " Art thow contrite, and sorie in thy spreit For thy trespas ? " " No, schir, I can nocht dude ; not do it Me think that hennis are sua honie sueit, And lambis flesche that new are lettin bluid, For to repent my mind can nocht concluid, Bot of this thing, that I haif slane sa few." " Weill," quod the Wolf, " in faith thow art ane schrew." ' rascal The Preaching of the Swallow indicates perhaps more than any of the others the poet's keen sym- pathy with the animal creation, and his , The Preach delight in the sights and sounds of ing of the Swallow ' : Nature. In The Testament of Cresseid a spring he has given us a glimpse of himself sitting down in a winter night to read Chaucer : ' I mend the fyre, and beikit me about, warmed Than tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort, And armit me weill fra the cauld thairout,' etc. 1 A common name for a loose woman. I 130 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE In the following stanza from The Swallow we see him, as, leaving the cloisters of the old Fife city, he 'passit forth' one fine spring morning to ramble amongst the fields and woods : 4 That samin seasoun, in to ane soft morning, gone Bieht blyith that bitter blastis wer ago, Unto the wod to se the flouris spring, other birds And heir the maveis sing, and birdis mo, then I passit furth, syne lukit to and fro, To se the soyll, that was richt seisonabill, Moist; fit Sappie, and to resaif all seidis abill. this way Muving thus gait greit mirth I tuke in mynd, Of lauboraris to se the besines, stone fence Sum makand dyke, and sum the pleuch can wynd, Sum sawand seidis fast, from place to place, The harrowis hoppand in the saweris trace : loved It wes greit joy to him that luifit corne, To se thame laubour, baith at evin and morne. fortabie COm " And as : baid under ane bank M1 bene > In hart greitlie rejosit of that sicht, Unto ane hedge, under ane hawthorne grene, wondrous Of small Birdis thair come ane ferlie flicht, therewith And doun belyif can on the leifis licht gjjg 7 On everilk syde about me quhair I stude, large Eicht mervelous ane mekill multitude.' Here also is a companion summer picture from A summer the Prologue to The Lyoun and the morning. ' Sweet wes the smell of flouris quhyte and reid, The noyis of birdis richt delitious, The bewis braid blomit abone my heid, grasses The ground grawand with gersis gratious ; Of all plesance that place wes plenteous With sweit odouris, and birdis harmonic, stronger The morning myld, my mirth wes mair firthy. EGBERT HENRYSON 131 The roisis reid arrayit on rone and ryce, bough and J , A , branch The prymerois, and the purpour viola ; To heir it wes ane poynt of Paradice, Sic mirth the mavis and the merle couth ma. Si?-' make" The blossummis blyith brak upon bank and bra, slope The smell of herbis, and of foullis cry, Contending quha suld haif the victorie. 3 As a poet of Nature, Henryson is a kind of pioneer : the traditional realism of the north enabling him, at least intermittently, to escape from the AS a poet of old hackneyed classical imagery, and to *%5%*. record his impressions in the language of c p "* ^J^ 111 simple sincerity. Passion he has none, Wordsworth, but he can be nobly emotional; and if seldom or never stronglj pathetic, he frequently attains to a stately seriousness which is not unimpressive. Ex- cept in Robene and Makyne the theme of love has scarce a place in his poetry, for in The Testament of Cresseid love becomes merely a text for a sermon. Among modern poets he is most akin to Cowper and Wordsworth, and more to the former than the latter ; but he is more graphic, perhaps more really poetic than Cowper, and although he has none of the com- prehensive reflectiveness or essential greatness of Wordsworth, his love of Nature is indicated with less insistent obtrusiveness, while his humour, more various, idiomatic, and constant, if less frolicsome than that of Cowper, tends to redeem even his oc- casional excesses hi sermonising, and guards him against the worst Wordsworthian lapses into almost fatuous commonplace. 132 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE As we gather from Dunbar's Lament, and from references by Gavin Douglas, David Lyndsay, and contemporary t ners > there were several contemporaries poets. o f James I., Blind Harry, and Henryson not quite without repute in their day, although in some cases their works have wholly perished, and all that survives of the whole of them is, taken together, comparatively insignificant in quantity, although not so in quality. Of James Afflek and John Clerk, distinguished for 'balat making and trigide/ nothing very certain is james Afflek known. Afflek may possibly be a certain (d. 1497 ?>. James Auchinleck who was ' servitor to the Earl of Rosse,' and died while holding the chantry of Ross, sometime in or about 1497. It has further been supposed that he was the author of a poem in the Selden MS., Tlie Quair of Jealousy, to which the name Auchin is attached; but neces- sarily all this is little more than surmise. John Clerk is presumably he whom Dunbar in The Testament of Mr. Andro Kennedy, represents as obtaining from Kennedy the bequest of ' God's braid malison and mine.' In the Bannatyne MS. there are five poems which are as- signed to Clerk, but in the only case in which they are assigned by the writer of the MS. the name is erased. The five are (1) My wofull Hairt me stoundis throw the vanis, a religious ballad in the French octave of four accents with a refrain (assigned to Clerk by another than the writer of the MS.), in which Christ JOHN CLERK 133 is represented as detailing the events of the Passion ; (2) Sons lies bene ay exilit owt of sicht, in rime royal (assigned to him by Ramsay), a lament on the growth of pride among the lords and barons; (3) that re- markably witty but somewhat broad ballad In Secreit Place, in seven-line stanzas aa, bb, cbc with a refrain (assigned to him by Ramsay), but in the Maitland and Reidpath MS. assigned to Dunbar; (4) even that fine antique, The Wowing o/Jok and Jynny (see p. 289), prototype of many songs in the same vein, including the three dedicated to the fortunes of Duncan Gray (in this case the name inserted by the writer of the MS. is deleted) ; and (5) another song in a five-line stave aa, bab of four accents, Fane wald I luve, but quJiair abowt (assigned to him by Ramsay, but possibly by Dunbar), partly humorous but wholly moral, and ending thus : ' Bot quha perfytly wald imprent, Sowld fynd his luve moist permanent : Love God, thy prince, and freind, all thre ; Treit weill thy self, and stand content, And latt all vthir luvaris be.' If Clerk was the author of any of the three last, he was possessed of no small sprightliness and wit, while all show very high metrical accomplishment. Sir Richard Holland bracketed by Dunbar along with Barbour, and a priest and a follower i Sir Richard of the Douglases, who, for rebellion, was, Holland while in England in 1482, excepted from pardon is the author of a curious political 134 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE allegory, The Howlat, 1 written for Elizabeth Dunbar, Countess of Moray It is mainly interesting as a curious and solitary example of the engraftment of allegory on the old alliterative romance stave. At the time it was composed the allusions may have been pretty well understood and appreciated, but for us the allegory has now wholly lost its point. It is a sort of variation of the tale of the Jackdaw in borrowed plumage, the borrower in this case being the Owl or Howlat. Being dissatisfied with his shape and appearance, he applies to the Peacock, the Pope of Birds, to cry upon Christ to reshape him; but this being impossible, he is referred to the Eagle, representing the temporal power, who decrees that 'ilk fowl of the firth' should send him a feather. Becoming 'flour of all foulis throw fettern so fine/ he grows so insolent that it is found necessary to deprive him of all his false finery, and his final plight is thus described : * Than this Howlat, hideous of hair and of hyde, praise Put first fro poverty to pryce, and princis awin peir ; Then Syne degradit fra grace, for his grit pryde, with clamour Bannyt bittirly his birth bailfully in beir. season the He welterit > ne wrythit, he wareit the tyd made ; fear That he wes wrocht in this warld in wofull weir ; He criplit, he cryngit, he cairfully cryd so^ed (?) ; jj e golpit and sorrowit, in sichingis seir ; oathsomest; H e sa id, "Allace, I am lost, lathest of all, monster ; Bysyn in bale beft ; 1 Bannatyne and Asloan MSS., printed by Pinkerton in a Collec- tion of Scottish Poems, 1792, vol. iii.; in the Bannatyne Club, ed. Laing, 1823 ; by Arthur Diebler, Chemnitz, 1893 ; and by the Scot- tish Text Society in Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. Amours, 1897. PATEICK JOHNSTOUN 135 I may be sample heir eft That pryd yit nevir left His feir but a fall" ' withut The poem contains a few vigorous stanzas, and, besides other interesting references to the Douglases, quotes the lines : ' Dowglass, Dowglass, Tender and trewe ! ' embroidered on the coat-armour of the pursuivant. But the allegory is so complicated by a great variety of under plots that it loses its unity, and the whole becomes a puzzle which it is impossible, even if it were worth the trouble, to decipher. Patrick Johnstoun, who was unable to escape the ' shot of mortal hail ' which slew Blind Harry, is no doubt the same Patrick Johnstone to Patrick whom there are various references in Johnstoun The Exchequer Rolls and The Treasurers Accounts as performing plays before the king, and who died not long after 12th June 1494. He is the disputed author of a poem in the French octave, The Three Deid Pows, assigned to him in the Bannatyne MS., but in the Maitland MS. to Henryson. It is, of course, impossible to decide which of the two was the author. It may well have been written by Henryson although only in the leprous scene in The Testament does he compass a mood of such ruth- less severity. The three death's-heads are supposed to address mankind in a strain of which this opening stanza may suffice as a sample : 136 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE * " sinfull man ! in to this mortall se i Which Quhilk is the vaill of mvrnyng and of cair With gaistly sicht behold oure heidis thre, hollow eyes Oure holkit ene, our peilit pollis bair As ye ar now, in to this warld we wair Als fresche, als fair, als lusty to behald : true Quhan thow lukis on this swth examplair unbold Off thy self, man, thow may be richt vnbald." ' Following the reference to Johnstoun, Dunbar in Mersar. the Lament pays this high encomium to a dead ' makar ' : ' He [Death] hes reft Merseir his endite That did in luf so liny write, So schort, so quyk of sentence hie : Timor mortis conturbat me. } Mersar is further mentioned in Lyndsay's Papyngo as one of six poets who lSgs ; ' Thocht they be deid their libels been levand,' but so far as the facts of his life are concerned he is now to us little more than a name; and it is im- possible to single him out from among several Mersars mentioned in the Treasurer's Accounts, or indeed to tell whether he really is mentioned there. He is usually referred to only as the author of one authenticated poem, The Perell of Paramours, but in addition to it other two are assigned him in the Banna tyne MS. : (1) Off Luve quhay Lyikis to haif Joy, and (2) TJiir Billis are Brevit ; and all three exactly tally with Dunbar's eulogy of him, for they are by no means bad examples of the aphoristic love-ballad. Off Luve quhay Lyikis, MEESAR 137 partly in the French octave of five accents, partly in rime royal, is occupied with advice in the art of love, and begins thus : ' Off luve quhay lyikis to half joy or confort, Ye man begin and leir this A. B. C. learn Heireftir writtin ; quha will it rycht repoirt ? First to be courtess, wyiss, gentill and fre, Lairge, honest, gentill, bayth secreit and preve And of him self na vantour, as I wene : deem Be sobir, trew, and every day luste, And quhair thow luvis se thow be senedill sene.' seldom seen Here also is a sample of its particular advice : ' Gif mony luvaris thi lady will persew, Swa at thow leif nocht in jolesy ; See Scho is the bettir swa that scho be trew : so Non wald hir luve was scho nocht womanly. not Repair nocht till hir ay oppinly, Bot in all tynie be reddy hir to pleis, Howbeit thi hairt thow think sumtyme at weiss.' opposed The Perell of Paramours, in the French octave of four accents with a refrain, takes, however, a much severer view of love, as may be judged from this opening stanza : * Allace, so sobir is the micht Of wemen for to mak debait, Incontrair menis subtell slicht, skill Quhilk ar fulfiUit with dissait. !u ftdl With tressone so intoxicait Ar mennis mowthis at all houris, Quhome in to trest no woman wait : knows Sic perrell lyis in paramouris.' The last, Thir Billis, in rime royal, is intended for the special behoof of ladies, and concludes : ' Be war for weir, latt nevir your wit go wyld, trouble f For every day ane sample may ye se ; 138 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE young man without goodness ; pin loathsome toad ill-will Scho that is farest fra tyme hir fame be fyld Thair will no berne be blyth of hir bewte, Bot ay are skornand bayth he and he. Thus I conclude, suppois my wit be grene, Bewty but bonty is nocht wirth a prene.' Of the two Koulls thus lamented by Dunbar- ' He has tane Roull of Aberdene And gentill Eoull of Corstorphine ; Twa better fallows did no man se Timor mortis conturbat me ' Sir John Roull. nothing is known, though one or other must have been the author of The Cursing of Sir Johne Rowlis Upon the Stelaris of his Fowlis, 1 a sort of mock excommunication of those who had de- frauded him of his religious dues. Written in the octo- syllabic couplet, it is a curious compound of jest and earnest, blasphemy, and, apparently, piety, and amid much of the merest Billingsgate contains some passages of real denunciatory vigour. Here is a sample : ' Deip Acheron zour saulis invaid As blak, as mich as ony taid ; Snaykis, serpentis and eddeirs Mott stuff zour bellyis and zour bledderis, In hellis hoill quhair nevir is licht, Nor nevir is day, bot evir nicht, Quhair nevir is joy evin and morrow, Bot endles pane, dule and sorrow ; Quhair nevir is petie nor concord, Nor amitie, bot discord, Malice, rancour and invy, With magry and malancholy ; 1 Bannatyne and Maitland MSS. , printed in Lord Hailes' Collection, 1770 ; Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786; and Laing's Select Remains, 1822, second ed. 1885. QUINT YNE SCHAW 139 Quhair thair is hunger, cald, and thirst Dirknes, mirknes, rouk, and mist, exhalation And Cair, but consolatioun without With eternal damnation.' The only other poet mentioned in The Lament known to be the author of any poems that survive, is Quintyne Schaw, whom Kennedy in his Fly ting with Dunbar calls his 'cousing schaw Quintine,' and who, Dunbar in his Flyting states, composed with Kennedy a poem in their own praise. He and Kennedy belonged to Ayrshire, Schaw being the son of a certain John Schaw of Hails, who in 1467 was an ambassador for the marriage of James in. with Margaret of Denmark. He died some time after 8th July 1504. Since he was in receipt of a pension of 10, and occasionally got other gifts, it is probable that like Dunbar he frequented the court, and this obtains some corro- boration by the only poem, known to be his, that has come down to us. It is entitled Adveyce to a Cour- tier, 1 and if not remarkable as poetry, is soundly sensible in its counsel. The stave consists of five lines of four accents, aa, bab. Here are two stanzas : 'Gif changes the wynd, on force ye mon if ; O f neces- Bolyn huke, haik, and scheld 2 hold on. Thairfor be war with ane scharpe blawar : Gif ye be wys avyce heiron ; And set your sale a litle lawar. 1 Maitland MS., published in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. 2 A technical description of the handling of a vessel, not now fully understood, although 'Bolyn' of course means bowline. 140 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE if; too tight For gif ye hauld your sale ouir strek blasts Thair may cum bubbis ye not suspek ; Thair may cum contrair ye not knaw ; Thair may cum stormes and cans a lek, must ; wave That ye man cap by wynd and waw. 3 Other poets mentioned by Dunbar Heryot, Mungo Lockart, Sandy Traill, Sir John the Ros, 'Gentill Poets whose Stobo ' have left nothing known to be Tow kno r wnto theirs > although some anonymous poetry survive. m fae Bannatyne or Maitland or other MSS. may have been written by one or other of them. Sir Gilbert Hay, alluded to rather curtly, is only known as the ' makar ' of translations several in prose, and a very long one in verse, The Buke of the Conqueror, Alexander the Great. 1 It is unlikely that Dunbar, though he made no mention of James I., omitted other dead poets of note ; but no doubt there were in this as in all other centuries a number of very minor bards, as one Glassinbery, a dull set of verses by whom is printed in Laing's Early Metrical Tales (1826, 2nd edition 1885). Of the large bulk of anonymous poetry (see post, p. 277) that survives much must belong to the fifteenth century, and various poets of note who wrote in the following century produced much of their best work in the fifteenth. Except Dunbar, none of these old Scots poets can claim to rank as great ; but the general level of excellence especially as regards form is very high. Nearly all already alluded to cultivated poetry with 1 MS. at Taymouth Castle extracts printed by the Bannatyne Club, 1834. HEKYOT, ETC. 141 the most strenuous endeavour after metrical ex- cellence ; and while the Chaucerian influence assisted to widen and elevate their aims, the strong realism of the native tradition tended to prevent that Chaucerian degeneration which in England was in such marked contrast with the rise of the vigorous Scottish school, whose great master was Dunbar. VI DUNBAR AND WALTER KENNEDY WALTER KENNEDY, the antagonist of Dunbar in The Fly ting, enjoyed in his day a poetic fame only second, waiter ^ second, to that of Dunbar. In Gavin Kennedy Douglas's Police of Honour he is entitled 'Greit Kennedie' and bracketed with ' Dunbar yit undeid ' ; and Sir David Lyndsay cele- brates his 'terms aureate,' which no one can 'now counterfeit.' Born about 1460 probably in the same year as Dunbar Kennedy was of noble descent, being the third son of Gilbert, first Lord Kennedy, who was heritable bailie of the Carrick district of Ayr. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, where he matriculated in 1475, and took his Bachelor's degree in 1476, and his Master's in 1478. From Dunbar's allusions in The Flyting one gathers that he was rather a needy younger son, and lived a rude country life; but he himself asserts that he had ' stores and stakkis,' and that Dunbar would be glad to gnaw stinking bones under his board behind the dogs' backs. Whatever may be the truth as to his 1 stores/ little is known of him, except that in 1481 he was one of the examiners in Glasgow University, in 1492 was bailie-depute of Carrick, and in 1504 142 DUNBAR AND WALTER KENNEDY 143 acquired the lands of Glentigh. Occasionally, to quote the invective of Dunbar, he 'brought the Carrick clay to Edinburgh corse'; but Dunbar derides him as a mere countryman, whose 'lippis' could ' blabber ' only the ' Ershry ' (the Erse language) of the Strathclyde Welsh. He was tall, and not improbably well enough looking, for Dunbar, con- scious of his own short, and it may be rotund, figure, makes special mockery of his length and leanness : ' The larbar lukis of thy lang lene craig, lazy ; neck Thy pure pynit thrott, pelit and owt of ply, starved; bare Thy skolderit skin, hewd lyk ane saffrone bag shrivelled Garris men dispyt thai flesche, thow spreit of Gy : temn 8 ' C Ffy feyndly ffront ; ffy ! tykis face, ffy ! ffy ! Ay loungand, lyk ane loikman on ane ledder ; hangman Thy ghaistly luke fleys folkis that pas the by, Lyke to ane stark theif glowrand in ane tedder.' Unless the illness under which he suffered when Dunbar wrote his Lament resulted otherwise than was apprehended, Kennedy died probably in 1507, for he is the subject of this touching stanza : ' Gud Maister Walter Kennedy In poynt of dede lyis veraly ; death Gret ruth it wer that so suld be : Timor mortis conturbat me.' This stanza would seem to indicate that Dunbar held Kennedy in high esteem, and the next that he even regarded him as his last remain- The Flyting,' ing contemporary brother ; but it does was it wholly not follow that The Flyting between the two poets though sanctioned by ancient custom was a merely playful duel in metrical skill and repartee. Even at the present day the Eastern Scot 144 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE rather contemns (no doubt unjustly) his brother of the West ; and in Dunbar's time the old antagonism between the Saxon of Lothian and the Welsh Celt of Cambria was more than latent, although not so active as between the Saxon and the uncivilised Celt of the Highlands. We may therefore infer that The Flyting indicates, if not direct enmity, a certain racial jealousy; but Dunbar was never one to cherish mere personal animosity, and perhaps enjoyed what he got almost as much as what he gave. Kennedy's part in The Flyting cannot quite com- pare with that of Dunbar in metrical ease, in masterly Kennedy's alliteration, in sumptuousness of ribaldry, w*th C thTt P of ed in variety of ridicule, or in impetuosity Dunbar. o f i nv ective ; but it is not much awanting in any of these attributes, and in Dunbar's not un- eventful career Kennedy had a richer supply of satirical material. More genealogical, historical, and specifically personal, he at least holds his own as re- gards asserted facts, and his final salute, though by no means his deadliest, and but a feeble reflex of Dunbar's metrical effects, is not without perorative power : 52? w?th- ; ' Deulbere, thy spere of were, but feir, thou yelde, out doubt Hangit, niangit, eddir-stangit, stryndie stultorum, offspring of To me, maist hie Kenydie, et flee the felde, Select Pickit, wickit, conwickit, Lamp Lollardorum. Defamyt, blamyt, schamyt, Prinias Paganorum. Out ! out ! I schout, apon that snowt that snevillis. Tale tellare, rebellare, induellar wyth the deuillis, Spynk, 1 sink with stynk ad Tertara Termagorum/ 1 Spynk = Finch, and is used of course as a term of reproach, but the exact meaning is now lost. DUNBAR 145 Owing, it may be, to his Western connection, few of Kennedy's other poems have been preserved, and we may well believe that none of these are Other poems the most characteristic, all of them being of Kennedy, somewhat didactic. 1 Perhaps the best is that Againis Mowth Thankles. It is in the French octave with refrain, and shows a certain refinement of style. It begins c Ane aigit man frwyss fourty yeiris, A Eftir the halydayis of Yule, Christmas I hard him say, amangis the freiris Of ordour gray, makand grit dule, lamentation Rycht as he wer a fowriwss Me ; Oft syiss he sicht and said, "Alkce, Sghed 6 " he Be Chryst, my cair ma nevir cule, served the That evir I scherwit mowth thankles." ' thankless mouth Like Kennedy, Dunbar was probably a scion of the nobility ; for Kennedy taunts him with descent from Cospatrick, Earl of March, generated wmi betwixt a she-bear and a 'deill,' and Dunbar callit 'Dewlbeir and nocht Dumbar'; it has also been conjectured that he was the son or nephew of William, third son of Sir Patrick, who was the fourth son of George, tenth Earl of Dunbar; but there is no evidence on the point, beyond the fact that he was a native of Lothian born about 1460. Intended for the Church from his 'nurse's knee/ Dunbar was educated at the University of St. Andrews, where he took his Bachelor's Dunbaras degree in 1477 and his Master's in 1479. a novice. From the fact that he dates one of his poems c at 1 Five are printed in Laing's ed. of Dunbar. K 146 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE bear God knows falsehood expelled Oxinfurde/ it has been supposed that he continued his studies at Oxford University; but the poem indicates rather a mere casual visit to Oxford. It is much more certain that he studied at Paris. At some unknown date he entered the order of St. Francis, and while still in his noviciate went on a preaching and mendicant tour, and after making ' good cheir ' in every ' lusty town and place ' ' Off aU Yngland from Berwicke to Kalice,' and preaching ' eik in Canterbury/ he so he rehearses in his poem How Dunbar wes desyred to be ane Freir crossed from Dover and continued his wanderings through Picardy, where he not only the ' peple techit/ but engaged, as was indeed then almost the con- ventional habit of his profession, in quite contrarient practices : ' As lang as I did beir the freiris style In me, God wait, was mony wrink and wyle, In me was falset with every will to flatter, Quhich mycht be flemit with na holy watter : I wes ay reddy all men to begyle.' On his return from his wanderings, he felt unable to refuse the world and accept the monastic habit At the court ^he o ^ er ^ ^ scared him, he affirmed, of james iv. ]fe Q fae prospect of marriage to a ghost, but he became a secular priest. In 1491 he accompanied the embassy sent to negotiate for the marriage of James iv. with a princess of France, and this failing, it would seem that he also went DUNBAE 147 with the deputations to various other countries, for in his verses on The World's Instabilitie, he ventures to remind the king that he had served him also hi Germany, Italy, and Spain, this in addition to England and Ireland. An allusion in The Flyting shows that he was also on one occasion wrecked on the coast of Norway. From at least as early as 1500 and it may be from or before 1491 he was a recognised official at court, probably a notary, for it was in this capacity that in 1501 he was in- cluded in the embassy to England for arranging the marriage of James iv. with the Princess Margaret. A favourite with Queen Margaret from the time that he celebrated the royal marriage in The Thrissil and the Rois, he was also on easy terms with the accom- plished, manly, chivalrous, dissolute, superstitious, headstrong, and entirely human James iv. ; and the society at the court of this characteristic Stewart king its jovial freedom, its eager greed, its motley crowd of ' solicitaris/ its amusements, revelries, and coarse indecorums is mirrored in the facets of his many- sided verse. At the court he never held more than a compara- tively humble post. His constant hopes of a benefice were doomed to disappointment; and Hisdisa p. though one can't accept the satires of pintments. Kennedy in TJie Fly ting with perfect seriousness, we may, without doing great injustice to Dunbar, infer that his reputation was not quite consistent with his grave ambitions : 148 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE ?uch a Ane benefice quha wald gyve sic ane beste, Bot gif it war to gyngill Judas bellis, 1 Useless Tak th6 a fidill, or a fleyt et geste 2 fellow Wndought, than art ordanyt to not ellis.' On 15th August 1500 he, however, obtained a pension of 10 for life, and this in 1507 was increased to 20, and in 1510 to 80. His poetic His pension, last years, gifts were no doubt his main passport to the favour both of the king and queen, and if his designation as ' the rhymer of Scotland ' in the grants to him by Henry vn. in 1501 is not to be taken as implying that he was formally recognised in Scotland as ' poet laureate,' he probably owed his pen- sion chiefly to his poetry. At the same time he based his claims to a benefice, not on his poetical accom- plishments, but on his personal services to the king. 3 How he fared after the death of James iv. at Flodden in 1513 there is no record : he may have retained the pension of 80 until his death ; but he never attained to any position at all commensurate with his ambition or his talents. Making a false step at the beginning of his career, he was all his after years in conflict with his circumstances ; and the nut of life conceded to him no satisfying kernel : ' I seek abowte this world onstable To find a sentence convenable ; 1 To betray Christ as Judas did. 2 Take a fiddle or a flute and recite stories (as the minstrels did). 3 Mr. Oliphant Smeaton ( William Dunbar, p. 50) suggests that Dunbar was confidential agent of the king both in politics and love. The surmise is perhaps feasible, but no sufficient evidence is adduced warrant the acceptance of the surmise as fact. DUNBAK 149 Bot I can not in all my witt Sa trew a sentence find of it As say it is dissavable.' He died probably in 1520; but not even his place of burial is known. Dunbar's poetry 1 is almost as full of self-revelation as that of Burns. With a candour that is entirely naive he paints the picture of his novitiate Dunbar . s se i f . in its unedifying completeness, and un- revelation, feignedly proclaims his preference for the charms of secular licence to the ' holy weid ' of the monk ; if less scientifically skilled in the 'Hevins glory' of gastronomy than a Brillat-Savarin, or a Ber- choux, he dilates on its blissful results with an equal enthusiasm; drink and good fellowship he sings 1 Dunbar's poems are preserved in the Asloan, Bannatyne, Maitland, and Reidpath MSS., and there are individual poems in the Mackulloch MS. in the University of Edinburgh, in three MSS. in the British Museum, and in a MS. vol. in the Town Clerk's Office, Aberdeen. Seven were printed in Dunbar's lifetime by Chepman and Myllar, Edinburgh, 1508. Selections were included in Ramsay's Evergreen, 1724, and were also published by Lord Hailes, 1770, Pinker ton, 1786, Sibbald, 1802, etc. ; but the first collected edition was that by Laing, 1824, second edition with supplement, 1865. Of an edition by James Paterson, 1863, little can be said by way of commendation. The Scottish Text Society's edition, 1884-1893, is elaborate as regards introductions, vocabulary, and notes, but the most complete as regards text is that of Professor Schipper, Vienna (in the Memorials of the Imperial Academy of Sciences), 1892-93. Dr. Schipper has also published William Dunbar sein Leben und seine Gedichte, 1884, in which he gives specimens of Dunbar translated into German ; and he has treated of Dunbar's metres in Englische Aletrik, Bonn, 1882-1888, and Grundriss der Englischen Metrik, 1S95. William Dunbar by Oliphant Smeaton ('Famous Scots' Series), 1898, gives some new particulars about Dunbar's earlier years. 150 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE with much of the devil-may-care fervour of ' rantin Robin ' : 1 Now all this tyme let vs be merry, at And set nocht by this world a cherry : Now, quhile thair is gude vryne to sell, worry He that does on dry breid virry I give him to the devill of hell ' ; his own characteristic capers at The Dance in the Quenis Chalmer he parades with unaffected laughter at himself; he vies with Burns in allusions to the carnal; regarding his ambitions and disappoint- ments he also gives you his full confidence; and in fine he hides from you none of his varying moods : neither his profound persuasion of his own deserts, nor his general contempt for human nature, his sincere respect for occasional human worth, his poignant melancholy, his patience and blythe resolutions, his strong desires, his equally strong conviction that all is vanity, his overwhelm- ing sense of the might and his dread of death, ' the strong unmerciful tyrand,' his more noble aspirations, his orthodox piety, his conventional hopes of heaven. The peculiar virtue of his verse is that it palpitates with reality. It is an intensely true and living record of himself, and certain aspects of the court and burgess life of Scotland at the close of the Middle Ages ; and no criticism of this strange and strong poet not even Lowell's comparison of his works to a mere field of thistles seems to me more hope- lessly and delightfully inappropriate than the verdict DUNBAR 151 of Professor Courthope usually careful and judicious who, preferring to Dunbar's vivid verse the elabor- ate prolixities of Gavin Douglas, asserts that ' though his works are of great importance to the antiquary, he rarely touches those notes of human interest which are a passport to the sympathy of the general reader.' Here by one generalising sweep you have the human race apportioned into the two great orders of antiquaries and general readers, and you are further almost given to understand that 'the sympathy of the general reader ' is the one criterion of ' notes of human interest.' But make of your ' general reader ' what you will, Dunbar who in life was quite other than dry-as-dust is less than most of the old poets a fit companion for the mere antiquary. As for his 'notes of human interest,' he touches them if any- thing too often and too variously rather than too seldom. They are not all, it may be, a passport to modern sympathy; but if even the 'general reader' can find no congenial 'note of human interest' in, say, The Lament for the MaJcaris, The Petitioun of the Gray Horse, or Neditatioun in Wyntir, to name but three poems out of many similar ones, then the blame is not in Dunbar but in 'the general reader,' and 'the general reader' is also a much duller person than his worst enemies suppose. In considering more specifically the characteristics of Dunbar, one is at once arrested by the ease and artistic finish of nearly all his productions. As a mere master either of metre or language, he is not 152 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE surpassed even by Chaucer, as lie is not approached by any of his predecessors except in a degree by James I. or Henryson. The immense A master of J metre and variety of his staves, and his almost language. . uniform success in each, stamp him as quite an exceptional expert in the artistic use of words. For purposes of rhythm or rhyme language is in his hands an absolutely ductile material. Trace of effort in his verse there is little or none, and very rarely any faintest glimpse of the sacrifice of thought to form or form to thought. Most likely half or more of his poems have perished, for few were printed in his lifetime, and none known to be in his handwriting sur- vive. But in the some ninety pieces that may fairly be ascribed to him, he attempted a greater variety of metrical form than any predecessor. Besides excelling in Chaucer's special metres, he profited somewhat by Lydgate, but he seems also to have studied nearly every form of the old English stave ; and while, moreover, he did not disdain to use the unrhymed alliteration as well as the rhymed stave of the old northern romances, he also utilised his familiarity with the French poetic methods to in- troduce new metrical effects, especially in the case of refrains. His one surviving poem in unrhymed alliteration is the more than Swiftian The Twa Merrit Wemen unrhymed ctTicZ the Wedo. Here is an example, in the alliteration. beaufci f ul lines describing the dawn of the summer morning which gladdens you, while the DUNBAK 153 'gay wyffis/ having just concluded the baring of their hearts to one another, are ' cooling their mouths with comfortable drinks ' : 4 The morow myld wes et meik, the mavis did sing And all remuffit the myst, et the meid smellit ; meadow Siluer schouris doune schuke, as the schene cristall, bright And berdis schoutit in schaw, with thair schill notis ; the woods The goldin glitterand gleme, so gladit ther hertis, Thai maid a glorius gle amang the grene bewis. hin The soft souch of the swyr, et soone of the stremys, the wind in The sweit sawour of the sward, and singing of foulis ; Myght confort ony creatur of the kyn of Adam ; And kindill agane his enrage thocht it wer cald sloknyt. quenched Than rais thir ryall wivis, in ther riche wedis And rakit hame to ther rest, through the rise blwmys.' underwood While in this short specimen the alliterative con- ventions of the older poets are broken though broken rather by way of richness than of poverty of alliteration not merely the perfect rhythmical flow, but the musical melody and suggestiveness of the lines indicate an admirable sense of the poetry of words. In much of his rhymed verse, also, Dunbar makes skilful use of alliteration, and by lavish recourse to it in the more denunciatory passages of Theold The Flyting immensely enriches their rhymed alli- terative stave, ludicrous effect; but the only surviving example of his it is most probably his in the rhymed alliterative stave of the old romances, with the bobwheel, is the ballad detailing in such daring terms the quenchless thirst of Kynd Kittok. Its stave differs somewhat from any of the examples of 154 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE rhymed alliterative verse previously quoted (see pp. 36-38) in the formation of the bobwheel, the bob, which introduces a new rhyme, being a full hemi- stich. Here is an example : ' And for to brew and baik : heartily Friendis I pray you hertfully, if Gif ze be thirsty or dry, Drink with my gud dame as ze ga by Once Anys for my sake.' On one solitary occasion in that rapid rush of The romance denunciation The Epitaph for Donald bobwheel as r r J a stave. OwT6 (the Highland rebel, Donald Dubh) he appropriates the old romance bobwheel to form a complete stave, as thus : * In vice most vicious he excellis meddles That with the vice of tresone mellis ; Though Thocht he remissioun, Have Haif for prodissioun, Schame and suspissioun, Ay with him dwellis.' Unless we regard the Freiris of Berwick as indu- bitably Dunbar's, only once in the wholesome contrast to The Twa Merrit Wemen and The couplet: heroic, and the Wedo, the lines in Prays of Women octo-syllabic. does he adopt Chaucer s heroic couplet ; but he writes the octo-syllabic couplet of Barbour and Chaucer with ease and spirit, as well as with orna- mental touches which lend to it additional point and vivacity. He employs it in nearly all the several ritualistic divisions of The Dregy, in his picturesque catalogue of The Solisitaris in Court, and both in DUNBAR 155 his Complaint and his Remonstrance to the King. In The Dregy he, however, introduces variations in the responses, adopting from the French what was then known as the common rondeau, in imitation of a peal of bells inviting to the services of the church : * Tak consolatioun in zour pane ; In tribulatioun tak consolatioun ; Out of vexatioun cum hame again : Tak consolatioun in zour pane.' l Of the French octave ab, ab, be, be both in its four accented and five accented form, Dunbar makes large use. Unlike Chaucer, he occasion- The French ally enriched it as in several stanzas of octave, with refrain. The Flyting by the device of internal rhymes, and, unlike Chaucer, he never made use of it in the complete French ballade form, where the identical rhymes of the whole first stanza are repeated throughout the poem, but except in the solitary instance of Tlie Flyting he introduced the refrain. 1 Response No. 2 has two final lines in couplets, and Professor Schipper (Altenglische Metrik, p. 382) therefore regards it as a form of rime couee&b, aa, bb with internal rhyme. Mr. G. P. M'Neill (Scottish Text Society's edition of Dunbar, in. clxxxix) justly observes that the final couplet ' is not an integral part of the strophe ' ; but it has further no right to a place in the response, the title lube Domine benedicere having been omitted. Two other examples of this rondeau in old Scots poetry are Polwart, zee peip, etc., in Montgomerie's Flyting (p. 257), and an anonymous piece, Thus I propone (p. 298), in the Bannatyne and Maitland MSS., printed in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, p. 211. 156 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE This device was not, however, as editors have stated, a free adaptation by Dunbar of the French ballade ; for (1) the octave without refrain, as written by the Scots ' makaris/ is as common in French poetry as the ballade ; (2) the French ballade has the refrain, and it is found in Chaucer's English ballades; and (3) the octave with refrain as written by Dunbar was not only used by French poets as by Villon in his double ballade, 1 but besides being frequently found in Early English poetry, 2 was used by Henryson and the Scots poets of the fifteenth century. Never- theless, Dunbar utilised it with special ingenuity and with great variety of effect : in elegies, as in that on Lord Bernard Stewart, where the changes are impressively rung on the 'flower of chivalrie'; in the celebrations of ' the blyth and blissful burgh of Aberdein,' and of London, ' the flower of cities all ' ; in the enforcement of special moral maxims, as that 'without gladness availis no tresour'; in personal eulogies, as that on Lord Bernard Stewart on his return to England ' With gloire and honour, lawd and reverence,' and on Queen Margaret 'Gladeth thou Quenye of Scottis regioun'; in religious pieces, the refrain being usually a Latin quotation, as in Done is a Battell ' Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro ' ; and in the enforcement of petitions, as in Sen that I am a Prisoneir, where only the last word ' prisoneir ' is common to all the refrains throughout the poem. 1 (Euvres, ed. Prompsault, Paris, 1835, pp. 150-153. 2 See Wright's Political Poems, passim. DUNBAR 157 But in the bulk of Dunbar's other poems the refrain is also a prevailing form. For the French kyrielle aa, bb he shows a special J The Kyrielle. partiality, using it in the stately Lament for the Makaris, with its melancholy burden * Timor mortis conturbat me'; in the remonstrance Of James Dog, with the humorous recapitulated warning, ' Madam, ye heff a dangerous Dog ' ; in the whimsical Amendis to the Tailzours and Sowtaris, with the ludicrous iteration, ' Tailzours and Sowtaris blest be ze ' ; and in some other dozen pieces with an equally admirable discernment of its relation to particular effects. He also adapted the refrain to the five-line stave, of four or five accents, derived from the French rondeau. This stave, either aa, bb, a, The five-line without the refrain, or aa, bab with the stave, with refrain, 1 is responsible for more than a third of Dunbar's pieces. Here is the stave as exampled in part of a rondeau of Villon : ' Sire, clarte perpetuelle, Oni vaillant, pkt n'y escuelle N'eut oncques, n'ung brin de percil. II fut rez, chef, barbe, sourcil Comme ung navet qu'on racle et pelle.' Here is a stanza of unref rained D unbar, from My Heid did Zak : 1 For an example of a stave thus arranged, but without refrain, seeAdveyce to a Courtier, by Quintyne Schaw, ante, p. 139. 158 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE sport not awake smiles suffered eclipse gladly big Who most thence in condition capers bought ; adjoining Christmas * Full oft at morrow I wprise Quhen that my curage sleipeing lyis, For mirth, for menstrallie and play, For din, nor dancing, nor deray It will nocht walkin me no wise.' 1 And here are two stanzas from Of Ane Blak-Moir as modified by Dunbar's special device of the refrain : ' Quhen scho is claid in reche apperrall Scho blinkis als brycht as ane tar barrell ; Quhen scho was born, the sone tholit clippis The nycht he fain faucht in hir querrell : My ladye with the mekle lippis. Quhai for hir saik, with speir and scheld, Preiffis maist mychtelye in the feld, Sail kiss, and withe hir go in grippis And fra thyne furth hir luff sail weld ; My ladye with the mekle lippis.' We have also two examples The Petitioun of the Gray Horse, and Now Culit is Dame Six-line stave ' with double Venus Brand of a stave of six four- accented lines aaa, bbb the last two forming a double refrain, thus : ' Quhen I was zoung and into ply, And wald cast gammaldis to the sky, I had beine bocht in realmes by, Had I consentit to be sauld. Schir, lett it nevir in toun be tald, That I sould be ane zuillis zald.' 2 1 This is the In Memoriam stave of Tennyson, plus an additional line at the beginning. 2 Zald, yald, or yaud = an old, worn-out horse, not worth being cared for. DUNBAK 159 Another instance of a double refrain is found in The Satire of Edinburgh, which is properly a de- velopment of the five-line stanza with The double refrain, an additional line being added to ('" thc the beginning, and an additional line of bobwheei. refrain being introduced in the form of a bob, the refrain thus taking the form of a bobwheei, and the stanza being composed of seven lines aaa, bbab six of four accents, and one of two, thus : 'At your hie Croce, quhair gold and silk high Cross Sould be, thair is bot crudis and milk ; cur ds And at zour Trone l bot cokill and wilk, whelk Panches, pudingis of Jok and Jaine : Think ze nocht schame, not Sen as the world sayis that ilk Since ; that V OOTV1A In hurt and sclander of zour name ! ' It should be noted, however, that the word ' name/ alone, is common to the last lines of refrain through- out the poem. In the seven-line stave of Chaucer ab, abb, cc named by Gascoigne rime royal, Dunbar wrote The Thrissil and the Rois, and other The seven-line serious pieces, but he never fitted it as anTwTth 1 * 01 * some early English poets do (e.g. Lament refrain - of the Duchess of Gloucester in Wright's Political Poems, i. 205, and Lydgate in that rollicking variety of the stave, the London Lyekpenny) with a refrain, using instead a stave thus arranged aa, bb, cbc a development of the five-line stave (see ante, p. 157). 1 The Trone was the public weighing-beam, which occupied the site of the present Tron Church. 160 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE All his verse in this stave is of a more or less humor- ous, often coarsely humorous, kind. Here is an example in two stanzas from Of a Dance in the Quenis Chalmer, the broad buffoonery of the one stanza piquantly contrasting with the devoted senti- ment of the other : Poet ' Than cam in Dunbar the Mackar, nimbler On all the floore thair was nane frackar, dance "^ And thair he dannset tne diri 7 e dantoun ; He hoppet lyke a pillie wantoun, For luff of Mwsgraeffe, 1 men tellis me ; gU^jj. He trippet, quhill he tint his pantoun : A mirrear Dance mycht na man se. Than cam in Maestriss Mwsgraeffe ; SSJ ; * Scho mycht hef lernit all the laeffe ; Quhen I saw hir sa trimly e dance, Hir guid convoy and countenance, Than, for hir saek, I wissit to be The grytast erle, or duik in France : A mirrear Dance mycht na man se.' Dunbar's solitary example of a nine-line stave aab, aab, bab is The Goldyn Targe. This stave was The nine-line used by Blind Harry and Robert Henry- stave. gon ^ an( j a ] so k v (j;Q aucer m faire Anelida and False Arcyte. There is also a solitary example of the very old octave stave in lines of four accents rhyming alternately ab, ab ; cd, cd (occasionally macaronic ab, ab, ab, ab, and ab, ab, ac, ac) in The Testament of Mr. Andro Kennedy, a Latin line alternating with the English one, thus 1 The wife of Sir John Mnsgrave, who accompanied Queen Margaret to Scotland. Dunbar's jocular reference has been taken very seriously by some critics. DUNBAK 161 forming an imperfect variety of macaronic verse. Here is a stanza : * Nunc condo testamentum meum I leiff my saull for euennair, leave Per omnipotentem Deum In to my lordis wyne cellare ; Semper ibi ad remanendum, Quhill domisday, without disseuer, g^til; ceas- Bonum vinum ad bibendum With sueit Cuthbert that luffit me never.' This blended Latin and vernacular poetry is of very early date. A long example in lines of three accents is a Song on the Times, 1388. 1 In that superb piece of word music and rhymal ingenuity, Ane Ballat of Our Lady, Dunbar makes use of an octave of alternating rhyming Octaveswith lines of four and three accents respec- bobwheei tively, but enriches it in the four accented lines by two internal rhymes, and fits it with a Latin refrain introducing a bobwheei of three lines. Here is an example : ' Haile sterne superne ! Haile in eterne. In Godis sicht to schyne ! Lucerne in derne, for to discerne darkness Be glory and grace devyne ! By Hodiern, modern, sempitern, Angelicall regyne ! Our terne infern for to dispern fierceness Helpe rialest rosyne. Aue Maria, gratia plena ! Haile, fresche flour femynyne ! Zerne ws, guberne, wirgin matern 7 earD d Of reuth baith rute and ryne. pity; stem 1 Wright's Political Poems, i. 270. L 162 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE ' Imperial! wall, place palestrall Of peirless pulcritud ; Trywmphall hall, hie tour royall Of Godis celsitud ; Hospitall riall, the lord of all Thy closet did include ; rose Bricht ball cristall, ross virginall, Fulfillit of angell fude. A ue Maria, gratia plena I Thy birth has with his blude, Fra fall mortall, originall, cross Ws ranusound on the rude.' For rime couee Dunbar shows no great partiality, but what varieties of it he has recourse to he uses with Rimecou6e- ^ s accustomed mastery. An example six-line stave. o it} ^ a modification of its simplest form, is his Sir Thomas Norray, plainly suggested by Chaucer's Sir Thopas ; but instead of the Chaucerian six-line stave built on two rhymes aab, aab he uses a six-line stave built on three rhymes aab, ccb the head lines having four accents and the tail lines three : listen ' Now lythis of ane gentill knycht, strong Schir Thomas Norray wyse and wicht And full of chivalrie : Quhais father was ane grande Keyne, His mother was ane Faire Queen begotten Gottin be sossery. 5 The stave is derived from the Latin, but the min- strels whom Chaucer burlesqued got it from the Anglo-Norman. 1 By the device of repeating the rhyme of the tail line, two six-line staves are linked together to form 1 For Anglo-Norman example, see Wright's Lyric Poetry, p. 55. DUNBAE 163 the twelve-line stave of The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis and The Turnament, aab, ccb, ddb, eeb. Numerous examples of this stave are to _ Rimecouee be found in Early English, and there is a tweive-iine curious variation on it in Latin Against the Lollards, 1381, 1 made by interchanging the rhyme of the head and tail lines, thus^: aab, aab, bba, bba. In The Turnament it admirably conveys the regular succession of incidents, and in The Dance the regular movements completing the dance of the several sins, a stanza being allotted to each sin, thus : * Than Yre come in with sturt and strife ; Then ire His hand wes ay vpoun his knyfe, He brandeist lyk a beir : bear Bostaris, braggaris, and barganeris, wranglers Eftir him passit in to pairis, All bodin in feir of weir ; Jjtadhi garb In iakkis, and stryppis and bonettis of steill, Thair leggis wer chenzeit to the heffl, 22S2S Ffrawart wes thair affeir : Frowart ; Sum vpoun vdir with brandis beft, Sum jaggit vthiris to the heft, handle With knyvis that scherp cowd scheir.' cut Dunbar supplies only one example of the common eight-line stave divided into two equal sections, Ouha will behold of Luve the Chance, .,.,., Rimecou an( ^ ^ n0 ^ a greater, a more master of curious master than Chaucer. In such ' terms aureate ' . The Thrissii excessively allegorical poems as The Goldyn Targe and The Thrissii and the Eois where the influence of the English ' makaris ' is at its strongest he exhibits wonderful expertness in the floridly ornamental style which was deemed the fitting convention for such themes. It is all elaborately artificial for even the 'intense sense of colour,' which some critics praise, is a mere mechanical intensity assumed for the nonce and 1 See Guest, English Rhythms, p. 587. DUNBAK 165 resulting in the production of a landscape which, instead of glorifying, gives the lie to Nature but the effect, if really cold, is at least nobly melodious. Here is an example from The Goldyn Targe : * Full angellike thir birdis sung thair houris those Within thair courtyns grene, in to thair bouris, Apparlit quhite and red, with blumys suete ; Anamalit was the felde wyth all colouris, The perly droppis schuke in silvir schouris, Quhill all in balme did branch and levis flete ; float To part fra Phebus, did Aurora grete, Hir cristall teris I saw hyng on the flouris, Quhilk he for lufe all drank vp with his hete.' Which In deference, it may be, to the English convention, Dunbar thought fit to celebrate the praise of London in the same highly decorative fashion. But, all the same, the poem indicates a special mastery in the art of eulogy, and if occasionally the imagery be too formal and traditional, yet to what stately music has he set his numbers ! ' Aboue all ryuers thy Eyuer hath renowne, Whose beryall stremys, pleasaunt and preclare, Under thy lusty wallys renneth down, Where many a swanne doth symme with wyngis fare ; Where many a barge doth saile, and row with are, Where many a ship doth rest with toppe-royall, ! towne of townes, patrone and not compare : London, thou art the floure of Cities all.' Yet excellent, in their own way, though these samples of Dunbar's ' terms aureate ' be, they are mainly an echo of other 'makaris,' and moreover the echo of an affectation: they represent Dunbar as the disciple, the imitator, the masquerader, not 166 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Dunbar as himself, as a new poetic force, as the assimilator of many poetic influences English, Dunbar Scottish, French to his own growth in Spates 60 individual skill and grace. Never, of 'terms aureate. ' C0 urse, is his individuality entirely hid amongst the profusion of his ' terms aureate ' : even in The Goldyn Targe, besides the rhythmical music and the polished diction, we have occasional ex- amples of the condensed vividness of phrase and epithet in which he excels all his predecessors (e.g. 'The skyis rang for schouting of the larkis,' k sail hald ! complete Als haill in every circumstance, In form and matter and substance, Without But wering, or consumptioun, Roust, canker, or corruptioun, As ony of thair workers all, Suppois that my rewarde be small ! ' DUNBAE 181 The Lament was no doubt more than suggested by Villon's ballads on the 'dames' and ' seigneurs' of olden time ; but while Dunbar's thoughts concentrate on his poetic predecessors, Yillon contrasts himself with those of whom he sings, and his mood is lightly defiant rather than melancholy. 1 Sometimes Dunbar's own hard lot made him, as we have seen, specially bitter against the unright- eously prosperous, and it begot an oc- Dunbar . s casional melancholy which revealed itself melancholy. hi such refrains as 'All erdly joy returns in pane.' 1 Dunbar's final stanza, ' Sene for the deid remeid is none,' may be held to express only the conventional view of the priest ; but let us take these two : ' Onto the ded gois all Estatis, Princis, Prelotis, and Potestatis Baith riche and pur of all degre ; po^ Timor mortis conturbat me. Sen he has all my brether tane Since ; taken He will nocht lat me lif alane ; not On forse I man bis nyxt pray be : Of necessity; Timor mortis conturbat me. 3 The first of the stanzas reads like a mere echo of the first four lines of Villon's Huitain, xlii. ; but the whole tone of the poem, as is more especially seen in the second stanza now quoted, is in absolute contrast with that of Villon as evidenced in the latter part of the Huitain : ' Puys que Papes, Roys, filz de Roys Et conceux en ventre de Roynes, Sont enseveliz mortz et froidz ; En aultruy mains passent les Reynes ; Moy, pauvre mercerot de Renes Mourray Je pas ? Ouy se Dieu plaist ; Mais que J'aye faict mes estrenes : Honneste mort ne me desplaist.' Compare also Dunbar's much inferior Momento, Homo, Quodcinisest. Forth from those 182 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Necessarily also with advancing years years spent, it may be, in penury and neglect, and, at any rate, saddened with the defeat of many hopes melancholy tended more and more to prevail, and it occasionally assumed a hortatory form, as in Vanitas Vanitatum: 1 Walk furth pilgrame, quhill thow lies dayis lycht, Dress fro desert, draw to thy dwelling-place ; Speid home, for-quhy anone cummis the nicht Quhilk dois the follow with ane ythand chaise ! Bend up thy saill, and win thy port of grace ; For and the deith ourtak the in trespas Then may thou say thir wourdis with allace ! Vanitas Vanitatum, et omnia Vanitas.' Such pieces are usually classed as moral or religious, but they represent rather the sapience of old age. Religious Widely human as a moralist, Dunbar was pieces. no ar ^ en t religionist. Thus his hymns and other strictly religious pieces, apart from impres- sive references to the shortness and uncertainty of life, are sonorous and stately, but little more. He remained nominally true to a great time-honoured faith which, though it impressed his imagination, had not much hold of his intellect, but for whose impos- ing machinery he seems to have entertained a strong traditional respect, and whose mysteries and observ- ances he celebrated in nobly musical stanzas, em- bodying sentiments and beliefs which were mainly mechanical. A place among poets of the first rank has been claimed for Dunbar by Sir Walter Scott, who asserts that ' in brilliancy of fancy, in force of description, in DUNBAK 183 the power of conveying moral precepts with terse- ness, and marking lessons of life with conciseness and energy, in quickness of satire and in His place poignancy of humour/ he may 'boldly tSc"?r aspire to rival' Chaucer. 1 This strong waiter Scott, verdict even if allowance be made for patriotic pre- judice should at least have assured to Dunbar more careful, if not respectful, consideration than some modern critics have bestowed on him. By the late J. Russell Lowell 2 the very notion that Dunbar was a poet at all was received with mere derision. In his ' serious verses ' he could The late . J. Russell find nothing that was not 'tedious and Loweii. pedantic,' and his melodious and polished stanzas he could only liken, for all the world, to ' unwieldy hay-stacks of verse.' His humour was to Lowell only the ' dullest vulgarity ' ; his satire, he conceded, ' would be Billingsgate if it could,' but, failing, becomes 'a mere offence in the nostrils.' Professing to regard Dunbar with the same horror as he would a haggis, he ' puts his handkerchief to his nose, wonders, and gets out of the way as soon as he civilly can.' The only excuse for such uncivil, if amusing, language language which would apply equally to much of the poetry, not merely of the old classical writers, but of Chaucer, and even Shakespeare, which confounds poetry with convention, takes no account of the fact that Dunbar merely wrote as it was then customary 1 Memorials of George Bannatyne (Bannatyne Club, 1829), p. 14. 2 The English Poets, in the Camelot Series, London, 1888, pp. 13-17. 184 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE to talk, and belittles or ignores all his admirable verse that might be read without offence in the precisest of drawing-rooms : the only excuse for such sportive mockery of a great writer is that, Dunbar being some- what difficult reading, Lowell allowed himself to be scared from a systematic perusal by abnormal moral delicacy. But once a process of detraction is begun it is bound more or less to run its course, and echoes of Professor Lowell's criticism may be found rever- Courthope. ^of^ing noisily or faintly in almost every recent allusion to the old Scottish 'makar.' Thus Professor Courthope 1 proposes, as we have seen, to confine Dunbar mainly to the care of the antiquary. Taking what he regards as a ' cooler estimate of his genius ' than earlier critics, including Sir Walter, and led astray by the initial mistake that Dunbar's 'talents were always employed in satisfying the momentary taste of his patrons,' he confines his reader's attention to The Goldyn Targe, The Ttirissil and the Rois, Bewty and the Prisoneir, and The Sevin Deidly Synnis ; the first three being introduced as special instances of allegory, and the last in order to point out that in the one instance in which, it would seem, ' original genius ' is claimed for him, he is ' hardly entitled to it.' No recent critic has more fully recognised the merits of Dunbar as a metrist than Mr. Gosse, 2 who 1 History of English Poetry, i. 370-74. 2 Modern English Literature, pp. 48-51. DUNBAR 185 also does justice to other qualities, but withholds the ' first rank to his gorgeous talent/ and this solely on the ground that ' he never escapes from ..,., , Mr. Gosse. the artificial in language, that he is ' defective in taste rhetorical, over-ornate.' But Mr. Gosse has failed to recognise that Dunbar has two styles the artificially ornate, and the rich and racy vernacular Scots. One of his chief claims to great- ness is, in fact, his subtle and comprehensive mastery of expression : while such pieces as The Goldyn Targe show that, as Lyndsay expresses it, he ' language had at large/ the bulk of his best poetry really consists of ' escapes from the artificial in language.' Dunbar was the disciple of Chaucer his greatest disciple, but he was something more. So far as he was a mere Chaucerian, or only the Dunbar more ingenious contriver of varieties of tra- ^"ipiTof ditional allegory, he has not much claim Chaucer His ' claim to first to ' first rank/ notwithstanding his ' gor- rank -' geous talent.' Such claim must be based mainly on the belief that he got from Chaucer, from nearly contem- porary French poets, and from the Scottish tradition a peculiar and varied artistic training, which tended only the more perfectly to develop his own poetic idiosyncrasy. He could be truly great neither as Chaucerian nor as Scoto-Frenchman, but as essentially a Scottish poet. How far he is great is another matter ; but uniting to his 'mastery of expression a rare command of metrical effects, almost as rich and brilliant a humorist as Burns, and an equally caustic 186 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE and more various satirist, strongly emotional and illumined by a vivid and daring imagination, if he cannot be ranked with the greatest of English^ poets it is less for lack in himself than in his circumstances. Certainly these were far from propitious. His very priestly profession was a great handicap ; and though he succeeded as poet partly because he was an unsuccessful, an abortive priest the result was that his life remained ' bound in shallows,' if not in ' miseries.' Then he was the poet of ' times that were out of joint'; he lived on the borderland of change; medisevalism was passing away, and the new era had not quite arrived, nor was it fully to arrive in Scotland for many generations. But as fully and truly as Chaucer, he is the poet of his own time and country, such as they were ; more various, if more fragmentary, in his methods, he is as effective in depicting whatever comes within the range of his experience ; equally sincere and penetrating, he is, if less genial and comprehensive, more succinct and intense. His genius was never perhaps so fully kindled, but that he has failed to obtain similar, if not equal, appreciation is mainly part of the same bad luck which dogged him while alive. The poetic school of which he was the great master be- came presently smitten as with sudden palsy; the veil of Biblical obscurantism descended on his countrymen; for generations he was as extinct to them as the Dodo; and now his vocabulary is to many almost as effective a veil as the ancient insen- DUNBAE 187 sibility. Isolated very soon as regards Scotland, he remained totally unknown in England, and had no connection with the creation of the new poetic era that was-to dawn in England some half-century after he went to his forgotten grave ; but this again was rather his misfortune than his fault. His brilliant genius became buried for a time in complete oblivion, but that very oblivion of him, and of the poetic school of which he was the chief, was to be the means of only the more signally attesting its vitality ; for this forgotten school of old Scots ' makaris ' was, more than two centuries and a half after the death of Dunbar, to culminate in Burns. VII GAVIN DOUGLAS AND SIR DAVID LYNDSAY IN marked contrast with the fortunes of Dunbar were those of his contemporary though some fifteen years Gavin Douglas younger Gavin Douglas. Like Dunbar (1475 ?-i522). the ca det of a noble house, he was the third son of Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus, known by the expressive sobriquet of ' Bell-the-Cat/ and also as the ' Great Earl ' the great earl of a race that had long posed as rivals of even the royal line, and became, by virtue of his abilities and his training as ecclesiastic, the political counsellor of his illustrious family in all its ambitious intrigues. He was born about 1475, and being designed for the Church, studied, like Dunbar, at the University of St. Andrews, where he matriculated in 1489, and graduated M.A. in 1494. It has also been affirmed that he continued his studies at Paris ; and it is more than likely that he somewhere completed a course of civil law. But as early as 1496 he had taken priest's orders, and was presented to Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, after which he became pastor of Linton and rector of Hauch, or Prestonhauch (now Prestonkirk), near Dunbar. 188 GAVIN DOUGLAS 189 Here in 1501 he wrote The Police of Honour, in which he makes mention of 'Dunbar zit undeid'; and if the two poets up till then had never met, they doubtless did meet shortly afterwards when Douglas was preferred to the important dignity of Provost of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh. For twelve years or more the two poets walked the same streets, worshipped before the same altar, and mingled in the same modish society, but J * Douglas and the one as a great ecclesiastical dignitary, Dunbar in ,, ,, , ,/ Edinburgh. the other as a penurious hanger-on of the court, soliciting in vain for 'ane kirk scant coverit with heather.' On 20th September 1513, Douglas his translation of Virgil having been completed in the previous July was ' without charge ' also made a free burgess of the city whether for political or literary reasons is uncertain ; but, anyhow, the older and greater poet, whose genius, like that of Burns, was perhaps in his own day as much dreaded as admired, and whose Satire of Edinburgh was scarce fitted to commend him to the powers that were, is not known to have lured from them any souvenir of literary approval Flodden, 9th September 1513, which put an end to all Dunbar's hopes of further favours from at least James iv., only opened up to Douglas ' . J Douglas as new possibilities or preferment. Greatness candidate for was virtually thrust on him. Appointed one of the new Lords of Council to give special guid- ance to the widowed queen, faithfulness to his house 190 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE demanded that he should make all possible use of this rare opportunity of advancing its interests. He it was, mainly, who effected the match between the queen and his nephew and chief, the sixth Earl of Angus; and after the marriage, 6th August 1514, his ecclesiastical promotion became a matter of prime consequence to his patrons. When asking from the Pope confirmation of his appointment, the queen com- mended him, no doubt justly, as worthy ' of the very highest ecclesiastical authority, even the Primacy/ It so happened, also, that before the matter of the abbacy was settled, the archbishopric of St. Andrews actually fell vacant, 25th October 1514, and immedi- ately both the queen and her brother, Henry vin., sent earnest entreaties to the Pope on Douglas's behalf. They were, however, ineffectual; and he even lost the abbacy of Arbroath, which was con- ferred on Archbishop Beaton of Glasgow, the chief opponent of Angus and the Douglases. In the spring of 1515 he obtained the see of Dunkeld, but the return of Albany from France in May entirely checkmated the ambitious schemes of Angus, and Douglas shared in his fall. He was thrown into prison on the ground that the Papal confirmation of his appointment had been procured by the illegal interference of Henry vin., and was not set at liberty until a year afterwards, when Angus, for reasons of his own, came to terms with Albany. On obtaining his liberty, Douglas, by various humi- liating apologies to his old ecclesiastical opponents, GAVIN DOUGLAS 191 obtained consecration and access to his see. For some time he enjoyed in his beautiful Highland re- treat the lettered ease which he probably Political preferred to either ecclesiastical state expand or political intrigue, but he could not death - escape the destiny appointed for him by his family connection. While Albany was still in Scotland he was sent in 1517 to complete a treaty at Kouen between France and Scotland against England; but no sooner had Albany, in the same year, returned to France than Douglas became engaged in new intrigues for his nephew's return to power. For a time Angus and the Douglases triumphed, but their triumph wasn't final. Douglas did his utmost to warn Wolsey and Henry vni. to take precautions against Albany's return in 1521, but in vain; and when he did arrive in November, Douglas and Angus had no resource but immediate flight to England. There, though Douglas retained the respect both of Wolsey and the king, and the special friendship of Lord Dacre, he found himself latterly deserted by the ' unworthy Earl of Angus.' Deprived of his bishopric, and disdaining to return to Scotland so long as Albany remained there, he continued to reside in London, making acquaintanceship, among other learned men, with Polydore Vergil, to whom he supplied some traditional information on the early history of Scot- land opposed to certain critical statements of Major which Vergil embodied in his History of England. He never saw Scotland again, but died of the plague 192 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE in September 1522, and was buried in the Hospital Church of the Savoy. Notwithstanding various conjectures and assertions, Douglas is not known as the author of other poetry The works of than TJie Palice of Honour, King Hart, Douglas. to w hi cn is attached some stanzas on Conscience, and The XIII. Bukes of Eneados of the Famous Poete Virgile Translated out of Latyn Verses into Scottis Metir. The Police was written while he was still at Linton, the Translation was completed some months before Flodden, and King Hart is supposed to be of intermediate date : so that his nine years of political prominence were barren of any literary fruit. 1 Douglas represents almost solely an extreme de- velopment of the allegorical method intro- As allegorist. n ...... duced by James I., practised variously by Henryson, cultivated most likely by 'Greit Kennedie' 1 An edition of The Palice of Honour appeared at London some time before 1579, when an edition appeared at Edinburgh, in which there is also references to copies of the work ' set f urth of auld amang ourseltis.' The Edinburgh edition was reproduced in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786, republished at Perth 1787, and reprinted in 1829 by the Bannatyne Club with variations from the London edition. King Hart, preserved in the Maitland MS. at Cambridge, was also published by Pinkerton in 1786. The Virgil was printed at London by William Copland in 1553, and reissued 1710, ed. Ruddiman, with corrections from the Ruthven MS. in the Edinburgh University Library ; and an edition based on the MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, was printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1839. Other MSS. are the Elphinstone in Edinburgh University Library, that in the Lambeth Library, and that belonging to the Marquis of Bath. Douglas's Works, ed. Small, were published at Edinburgh 1874, in four volumes. GAVIN DOUGLAS 193 whose ' terms aureate ' are specially lauded by Sir David Lyndsay and exampled in several highly ornate productions of Dunbar. As allegorist, Douglas may have been the pupil of Kennedy, and he was partly the pupil of Dunbar; but his two poems are more laboured and extensive examples of pure allegory than any that survive in Scottish verse. As for his language, though he is the first to regard himself as a ' Scottis ' not an ' Inglis ' makar, and though in the first prologue of his JZneid t (. , , . His language. ne professes to have taken special pains to be vernacular to ' mak it braid and plane/ and to keep 'na Sudroun but our own language,' he had yet to confess that 'Scottis' was sometimes in- sufficient for his needs : ' Nor zit so clene all Sudroun I refuse Southern Bot some word I pronounce as neychtbour doise. do T , . -f , are Greek ; Lyk as in Latyne bene Grew terms sum, some So me behovit quhilum, or than be dura, sometimes Some bastard Latyne, French, or Inglis oiss use Quhair scant war Scottis I had na wther choiss.' The racy and rough vernacular was in fact unsuited for artificial verse; and King Hart excepted not only does Douglas have more frequent recourse than Dunbar to the southern speech, but he quite outvies him in the multiplicity and variety of his coinages from French and Latin, his language being often as incongruous as much of his allegorical imagery. The distinctive note of The Police of Honour is the intermixture of Sacred History and the Christian Faith with Heathen Mythology. It represents the N 194 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Catholic theology and morality humanised, only in part and unconsciously, by Greek and Roman poetry, ' The Paiice of and clothed in an imagery incongruously distinctive" 3 compounded of Christianity and ancient note. Paganism. Even if it had been essentially poetic, its fantastic framework was bound to be fatal to its permanent popularity; but not only does it represent a merely artificial phase of sentiment, a temporary conjunction of streams of tendency bound in opposite directions : it is loaded with such a super- fluity of learned allusion as could not but be fatal to poetic inspiration. Written partly in the nine-line stave of The Goldyn Targe aab, aab, bab, partly in a variation of it aab, aab, bcc, TJie Paiice of Honour Its subject. . . is an allegorical representation 01 the difficulties and dangers attending the journey to true glory and honour, and in several ways antici- pates Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, whether Bunyan borrowed from it or not. According to the approved fashion, the poet having in a garden fallen into a swoon finds himself in a 'desert terrible' near by a horrible river, roaring in flood and swarming with yelling monsters. All around is only the waste wilderness, and he is beat upon by wild tempests of rain. Suddenly he hears the stamping and cry of a herd of beasts, and hides him in a clump of bushes, whence looking forth he sees pass successively before him the courts of Minerva, Diana, and Venus, the latter goddess attended by Mars and Cupid, and GAVIN DOUGLAS 195 having in her train all the famous lovers men and women of sacred and classic story: some in hope, some in ' greit thirl age ' (bondage), some in despair, some in perfect happiness and joy. Greatly corn- moved, he begins to sing a ballad on the ' inconstancy of love/ in which he curses the 'world's felicity, fortune, and all his pleasures,' which so enrages the goddess that he is seized and brought before her for judg- ment; but as sentence of condign punishment is about to be passed, the Court of the Nine Muses, attended by the great poets of ancient and modern times, arrives on the scene. Calliope interposes, and at her suggestion he composes and recites ' a ballad for Venus' plasour,' which mollifies Venus, c and in- stant scho and her court was hence/ Under Calliope's protection, and on a splendid courser, the poet, with his fellow-followers of the Muses, then, swift as thought, traverses all the most famous countries of the world to the Castalian Fount, where, at a great feast, Ovid recites the deeds of ancient heroes, Virgil * plays the sportes of Daphnis and Corydone/ Terence the comedy of Parmeno, etc. Then on their swift horses the company set forth on their journey to the Palace of Honour. Dismounting at the foot of the hill, the poet proceeds to climb it guided by an attendant nymph. Near the summit they are faced by a terrible abyss, from which rise the smoke of brimstone, pitch, and burning lead, and the wailing cries of unworthy pretenders who had vainly at- tempted to cross it. While he stands before it almost 196 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE paralysed, his guide seizes him by the hair of the head, and brings him to the top of the hill. Here he sees below him the storm-tossed sea of the world, on which rides the carvel (ship) of the State of Grace ; and looking above he beholds the Palace of Honour, standing in ' a plane of peerless pulchritude.' Enter- ing the outer gate of its enclosure, he stands for a time rapt in admiration of its beauty, and is then conducted to Venus' Mirror, where he views the great events of Eternity and Time, and the ' deeds and fate of every earthly wight.' Next he is brought to the ' crystal palace white,' on the walls of which are engraven the wondrous sights of the universe, after which his guide discourses with appalling prosi- ness on ' Virtue as the only way to Honour, and not riches or hie blud.' Then bethinking her that after such an ordeal of wonders the poet would be bene- fited by ' taking the air,' she proceeds to conduct him to the garden, when in crossing the narrow bridge he falls into the moat and awakes. The poem then concludes with a ballad in commendation of Honour and Virtue, introducing inner rhymes in the manner of D unbar. Here is the last stanza : to ' Haill rois, maist chois, till clois thy fois greit micht, which Haill stone quhilk schone vpon the throne of licht, Vertew, quhais trew sweit dew ouirthrew al vice, each ; made Was ay ilk day, gar say the way of licht ; Amend, offend, and send our end ay richt. Thow stand, ordant as sanct, of grant maist wise, To ; degree Till be supplie, and the hie gre of price, soon; shame; Delite th6 tite me quite of site to dicht, cleanse For I apply schortlie to thy deuise.' GAVIN DOUGLAS 197 Less ambitious and grandiose than The Police of Honour, King Hart is not so digressive and inco- herent. Its theme is more strictly moral , King Hart , and its method more direct, the cumbrous Its theme - mythological imagery being altogether dispensed with. It opens with this description of King Heart (the heart of man) : ' King Hart, into his cumlie castell strang Closit about with craft and mekill vre, toU So semlie wes he set his folk amang, That he no doubt had of misaventure : So proudly wes he polist, plane and pure, With zouthheid and his lustie levis grene ; leaves So fair, so fresche, so likelie to endure, And als so blyth as bird in symmer schene. also For wes he never zit with schouris schot, Nor zit ourrun with rouk, or ony rayne ; mist In all his lusty lecam nocht ane spot, body ; not Na never had experience into payne, Nor Bot alway into lyking, nocht to layne, to tell the Onlie to love, and verrie gentilnes truth He wes inclynit cleinlie to remane, And wonn vnder the wyng of wantownness.' dwell In this castle he is waited on by a troop of attend- ants Strength, Kage, Wantonness, Green Lust, Disport, and many more who, while they appear to minister to his wants, really have him under their control. He has also five servitors the five senses to guard him from enemies without and within, but they occasionally betray him. They show special hostility to the entrance of Honour, who, however, manages to enter by scaling the wall, and proceeds to the great tower which he adorns with ' mony florist 198 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE floure.' But near by the castle is the palace of Dame Pleasaunce, and on her passing by the castle, the king sends out Youthheid and Fresh Delight to reconnoitre, who are immediately taken captive, as are also various other succeeding scouts. Thereupon King Hart resolves to give battle to the Dame, but is defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner. Being at- tended also by Dame Beauty, he of course gets worse, but by the treachery of Dame Pity he is set at liberty, and then makes Dame Pleasaunce a prisoner in her own palace. At last, however, Old Age gets admis- sion, and his youthful attendants thereupon deserting him, Conscience and Sadness intrude, and so vex Dame Pleasaunce that she leaves her own palace. Left alone in this 'empty pleasure house,' he is advised by Wisdom and Reason to return to his own castle, but has scarce reached it before Decrepitude with attendant ailments gets entrance, and inflicts on him a mortal wound only sufficient strength being left him to make his will, by which he bequeath es to Dame Pleasaunce his palfrey Unsteadiness, to Fresh Beauty, Green Appetite, and so on. The theme is a representation of human life from the traditionally Catholic point of view, and the trite- its char- ness f tne tneme is not redeemed by acteristics. exceptional vigour or brilliancy of treat- ment. The language is, however, simpler and purer than that either of The Police of Honour or The ^Eneid, the narrative clear and comparatively concise, and the versification in the French octave flowing GAVIN DOUGLAS 199 and melodious. What is mainly wanting is poetic afflatus. Eloquent and rhetorical Douglas often is; but though also a thorough proficient in poetical technique, he remains only a highly accomplished versifier. The main performance of Douglas is his translation of The jEneid into heroic couplets, a remarkable achievement for his ' barbarous age/ and Translation of a not inconsiderable one in itself; for "The^Eneid.* though his language is an incongruous blend of the familiar and the ornate, though his, on the whole accurate, renderings are achieved with excessive effort, and though he does not scruple for the sake of being better understood to clothe occasionally the old ideas hi modern garb representing Virgil, for example, as a baron, and the Sibyl as a nun he is thoroughly interpenetrated with the Virgilian atmosphere, and succeeds in communicating this to the reader. His prologues to the several books have also been much admired, especially the seventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, describing respectively Winter, May, and June. Douglas here shows that he had almost kindled at the flame of Virgil, the Virgil of the Georgics. They indicate at least great accuracy of observation : he records what he knows, and records it with a certain vigour and picturesqueness, but the redundancy of detail is fatally inconsistent with true poetical effect. Here is a short passage one of his best which may have suggested Burns's description of the flooded Ayr, but which needs only to be com- 200 SCOTTISH VEKNACULAE LITERATURE pared with that vivid picture that its lack of poetic inspiration may be felt : ' Reveris ran reid all thair bankis downe, 1 And kndbrist rumbland rudely with sic bier, So loud ne rummist wyld lioun or beir. Fludis monstreis, sic as meirswyne or quhailis For the tempest law in the deip devallyis. Soure bittir bubbis, and the schowris snell, Seinyt on the sward ane similitude of hell, Reducyng to our rnynd, in every steid, Goustly schaddois of eild and grisly deid, Thik drumly scuggis dirknit so the hevyne. Dym skyis oft furth warpit feirfull levyne, Flaggis of fyir, and mony felloun flawe, Scharp soppis of sleit, and of the snypand snawe. The dowy dichis war all donk and wait, The law vaille flodderit all with spait. The plane stretis and every hie way Full of fluschis, doubbis, myre, and clay. Laggerit leys wallowit farnys schewe Broune muris kithit thair wysnit mossy hewe, Bank, bra, and boddum blanschit wolx and bair ; For gurll weddir growyt bestis haire ; The wynd maid wayfe the reid weyd on the dyk Bedovin in donkis deyp was every syk/ 1 Rivers ran red down all their banks, the breakers rumbling rudely with a noise louder than the bellowing of wild lion or bear. Sea monsters, such as porpoises and whales, remained on account of the tempest low in the deep. . . . Sour bitter blasts seemed on the sward a similitude of hell, creating to our imagination, in every place, ghostly shadows of eld and grisly death thick gloomy shadows darkened so the heavens. Dim skies frequently sent forth fearful lightning, flashes of fire and many a dreadful blast, sharp blasts of sleet and of the biting snow. The dreary ditches were all dark and wet, the low valley flooded with overflow. The plain streets and every highway full of overflowing water, pools, mire and clay. Mud-covered pastures showed decayed ferns, brown muirs showed their wizened mossy hues. Bank, incline, and level became white SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 201 The third last line introducing the ' bestis haire ' is itself a fatal exposure of Douglas's inartistic and hap-hazard method. The whole description is, in truth, a mere catalogue of facts accurately and minutely observed, but not grouped so as either to indicate their relative significance, or to lead to any proper poetic climax. Several of the prologues are written in stanzas: the second in rime royal, the third hi the less fre- quent variety of the nine-line stave, the Metresofthe fourth in rime royal, the fifth in the Prol g ues - nine-line stave of the third, the sixth in the French octave, the eighth in the alliterative romance stave with the bobwheel, the tenth hi the five-line stave of Dunbar aa, bb, a, and the eleventh in the French octave. Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lyon King-at- Arms, the only one of the older Scots 'makaris' whose popularity remained unbroken sir David by the Reformation, and survived to J^, 8 ^ His modern times, was the son of David eariyiife. Lyndsay, who possessed two estates The Mount in Fife, and Garmylton, near Haddington. On account of this duality, the son's birthplace, as well as place of education Haddington or Cupar Grammar-School is a matter of doubt. That he attended St. Andrews University is inferred from the name ' Da. and bare. On account of the stormy weather the hair of animals grew. The wind made the weed wave on the stone fence. Filled with deep water was every rill. 202 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE Lindesay' in the roll of incorporated students of St. Salvator's College, 1508-9 immediately above that of ' Da. Bethune ' (afterwards Cardinal) ; but the student at St. Andrews could scarce have been the Lyndesay who, as equerry of the young prince, re- ceived in 1508 a certain sum for 'his fee and his horse's keep.' In any case, the poet had in 1511-12 a pension of 40 a year as a member of the Koyal Household, though a blank in the Treasurer's Ac- counts from 1508 renders it impossible to state when the pension began. 1 Since, also, a sum of 3, 4s. was on 12th October 1511 paid for a play coat to him, for a play performed at Holyrood, he was probably at first employed chiefly as an actor or musician ; and confirmation of this seems to be supplied by his own statements. On the birth of James v., 10th April 1512, he was ' appointed the Keeper of the Kingis Grace's person ' not his tutor, but his attendant and companion ; and in his Epistle to the Kingis Grace he mentions that he was accustomed, ' lute in hand,' to sing the young prince to sleep ; and that he amused him sometimes with dancing, sometimes ' with play- and farces on the floor.' * And sumtyme, lyk ane feind transfigurate, And sumtyme lyk the greislie gaist of Gye, In divers formis oft tymes disfigurate ; And sumtyme dissagysit full plesandlye.' 1 It should also be noted that in The Dialog (11. 597-8), Lyndsay regrets that he hadn't ' the tongues,' and seems even to imply that he was ignorant of Latin. His lack of a University education would also account for the fact that he was merely the attendant not the tutor of the young prince. SIK DAVID LYNDSAY 203 These accomplishments partly explain Lyndsay's appointment in 1529 to be Lyon King-at-Arms, for this implied official charge of what Knox As Lyon terms the ' farcings, maskings, and other King> prodigalities/ then such an essential feature of royal fetes. A pretty accurate notion of the page- antry on these occasions may be gathered from Lyndsay's own sorrowful lament, in the Deplora- tioun of the Death of Queen Magdalene, over the pre- parations for her coronation, thus rendered abortive. Of the arrangements for the reception of Mary of Guise at St. Andrews in May 1538 he had also special charge. She was received, Lyndsay of Pitscottie tells us, with ' greit joy and mirriness, of fearssis and plays maid and prepared for hir ' ; and first at the New Abbey Gate there was erected a triumphal arch ' be Sir David Lyndsay of the Mont, Knight, alias Lion King of Armes, who caused ane great cloud to cum doun out of the heavines abone the yett : out of the quhilk cloud came doun ane fair ladie, most like ane angell, having the keyis of Scotland in hir hand, and delyvered them to the queines Grace in signe and tokin, that all the heartis of Scotland war oppin for ressaving of hir Grace.' As Lyon King Lyndsay compiled a Register of Scottish Arms (published in 1820). He Hislater was also often sent on embassies to years, was . he a ' Pro- foreign courts; and while at Brussels in testant -,.,--, ., /. Reformer'? 1531 was witness of a great tournament, of which he wrote for the king a description, 'in 204 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE articles/ which is now lost. In May 1546 he was intrusted by Parliament where he sat as Com- missioner for Cupar with the official duty of summoning the murderers of Cardinal Beaton to surrender the Castle of St. Andrews, which in December he did, but without result. Perhaps about the same time he was privately engaged in penning his Tragedy of the Cardinal, printed in London, 1546-7 ; and, according to Knox, he was in close communication with the Reformers, and advised that Knox should take upon him the office of preaching. But he can scarce be held responsible for what Knox did actually preach, and there is no evidence that he ever formally joined the Reformers, or .even once attended the preaching of Knox. The fact that he remained formally a Catholic, and that he ceased to satirise between the death of James v. in 1542 and the murder of Cardinal Beaton in 1546, largely accounts for his escape from prosecution, and his retention of office till his death, 18th April 1555. Lyndsay was married in 1522 to Jonet Douglas, who was probably a female attendant on the young prince, and at anyrate, even after her His wife. . . marriage, received various sums for sew- ing the ' kingis sarkis.' They had no children ; but that their married life was unhappy is a mere infer- ence from the ' terms in which he commonly talks of the sex.' SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 205 Lyndsay's l poetical relations to his time are in a measure paralleled by those of Dunbar to the immedi- ately preceding period ; but the contrasts Ly ndsay com- are greater than the similarities. Dun- S^nba^His bar's satires were prompted partly by his coarseness, chronic dissatisfaction with his lot; but only once, and just before he became Lyon King, does Lyndsay Complaynt to the King express special discon- tent at lack of reward for his services. Unlike that of Dunbar, his verse is less the utterance of acci- dental moods than of permanent convictions. Versi- fier rather than poet, and influenced by a definite practical purpose, he is both narrower and more superficial in his judgments his point of view being that of the average man, his art that specially fitted to tickle the crowd. Yet moralist though he pro- fesses to be, he quite outvies Dunbar, if not in the candour, in the coarseness of his allusions, and this, in part, because not otherwise could he amuse and gratify the gross multitude he sought to convince. 1 Lyndsay's Complaynt of the Papyngo appeared at London in 1538 ; The Tragedy of the Cardinal at London c. 1546-47 ; Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour at Copenhagen (? St. Andrews), probably in 1554 ; editions of his Poems at Paris, 1558, Copenhagen (? St. Andrews), 1559, and London, 1566 ; The Plea- sant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis was first published at Edinburgh in 1602; the interludes, more fully than in the 1602 edition, are preserved in the Bannatyne MS. It was included in subsequent editions of his Poems, many of which appeared in the seventeenth as in the sixteenth century, but fewer in the eighteenth. The modern editions are those of Chalmers, 3 vols., London, 1806; the English Text Society, 1865-71 ; and David Laing, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1879. Laing gives a pretty full bibliography of previous editions. 206 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE To select ribald buffoonery as the special medium for the promulgation of a strict conventional morality, may strike a modern reader as the very acme of the preposterous; but lacking ribaldry all the satiric verse of this period in Scotland would have been almost wholly ineffective. Still, Lyndsay and his fellow-satirists themselves partly shared in that special penchant for ribaldry, which is the efflorescence of a disordered social system ; and that being so, the free course permitted, for generations, to the poetry of Lyndsay amongst a community too Puritan to peruse the best secular poetry of England, is an impressive example of the, at least occasional, irrationalities of ecclesiastical opinion. Lyndsay's method, effective for the time being, was bound in the long-run rather to defeat than further that portion of his purpose which concerned specially the laity ; and it may be that his sustained popularity among the mass of the people has some connection with the specially fescen- nine character of much of the Scottish folk poetry. As satirist a superficial pupil of Dunbar, Lyndsay also largely utilised the allegorical machinery which His practical Dimbar and Douglas had done so much aim - to elaborate. Like Douglas and unlike Dunbar he was a poet with a purpose, and, as in Douglas, the strenuous moral aim is more manifest than the poetic inspiration. Douglas, the poet of the old Catholic morality, curiously blended with chivalry and classicism, was primarily meditative and abstract. Lyndsay, the precursor of Puritanism, depicts the SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 207 Catholic morality in its decay, and is above all things practical. For Douglas he had a special esteem as the ' lamp ' of ' this land/ and ' in our Inglis rethorick the rose,' and no doubt obtained from him valuable hints in the construction of his peculiar variations of the traditional allegory ; but though The Dialog is as comprehensively pedantic as The Police of Honour, even it is by no means so exemplary ; while nothing could be in stronger contrast with Douglas's irreproachable allegories than some of Lyndsay's plain, practical, and ribaldly moral medleys. It may be that in his earlier years Lyndsay practised various forms of poetry for the amuse- ment of the young prince ; and it seems His relation to to have been largely his special interest the Clef gy- in the young king's welfare that moved him, as late as 1528, to make his formal appearance as a serious poet. If he specially satirised the clergy, it was because he regarded them as largely responsible for the political and social mischiefs of the time. Taking an essentially common-sense view of human con- duct, he had no 'difficulty in exposing the glaring contrast between the ecclesiastical ideal and the ecclesiastical reality. He represented in part the resentment of the nobles and gentry at the grasping ambition of the Church, in part the derision of the people at the Church's open violation of its own moral code; but he was further specially incensed at the injurious influence exercised by the clergy over the king. 208 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Lyndsay's productions have sometimes a curious biblical or theological framework, and even when the biblical influence is not, as it is in The Dialog, paramount, they frequently teem with theological allusions ; but except as satirist he is dull and commonplace, and much of his effect as satirist is due to the fact that the subject lent itself so easily to satire. Merely to state the truth, and nothing but the truth, was almost satire suffi- cient. Still, to state it as he has stated it implied at least an ardent and strong, if not quite poetic, personality ; and though his wit too often sinks into mere buffoonery, the buffoonery is not without cleverness, and the wit was no doubt thoroughly enjoyed by the rude community to whom it was addressed. The earliest of Lyndsay's pieces, The Dreme (1528), is comparatively exemplary and only partially satiri- cal. Written in rime royal, it is a kind 'The Dreme.' . of allegorical medley, bringing within the compass of its survey Hell, Purgatory, the Starry Firmament, Heaven, the Earth, Paradise, and Scot- land, and all this to impress on the king his obligations as ruler of the nation. It opens with an Epistle to the King, full of personal reminiscences, such as those already quoted (p. 202), after which, in his prologue, he details how one bleak day of January he wandered to the seashore, and falling after the accustomed manner asleep in a cave, dreamed the 'marvellous vision ' he sets himself to record. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 209 The poem contains the story of his adventures with Dame Remembrance, who, to cure him of his melancholy, proceeded to conduct him Itsstory _ on a tour through the Universe, beginning visit to HelL with the Lowest Hell. Here his attention was first engrossed by the shoals of ecclesiastics, from popes and cardinals down to ' cunning clerkis ' and ' priestis secularis,' who for ' covatyce, lust and ambition ' were doomed ' eternallie [to] dwell Into this painefull poysonit pytt of HelL' But heretics innumerable were also to be seen, ' with carefull cryis girning and greityng,' as well as ' princes, lordis temporal, and caitive kings/ all well represented, and even many noble ladies, ' Lyk wod lyonis, were carefullie cryand mad In flame of fyre richt furiouslie fryand.' Nor was the 'pain that is perpetuall' reserved alone for the learned and powerful, for * mony ane thousand Common pepill lay, flichterand in the fyre, Of everilk stait there was ane bailfull band.' every After this ' dolorous dungeon,' Purgatory failed to greatly impress him, but he viewed with some interest the Place of Perdition tenderly ' reserved ' for ' unbaptised infants ' ! and also that mild dungeon of our 'forefathers/ termed the Lympe. 210 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Emerging through the bowels of the earth from ' these places perrelous,' they ascended beyond Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, and made the The Seven pianets and round of the Seven Planets (learnedly described after the lore of the ' cunnyng astrologis' of the time). Beyond their melodious harmony, they then mounted up through the ' Chris- tallyne' Heaven, until they entered Heaven itself, peopled according to the accepted theological arrange- ments. On his way down through the 'spheres of the Heavens ' he was then granted a view of the Earth, ' all at one sight,' after which he was per- Paradise. . 111-11 i TT, mitted to behold the original Paradise, which, in lines faintly anticipatory of those of Milton, is thus described : ' The countre closit is aboute, full rycht With wallis hie, of hote and birnyng fyre, And straitly kepit be ane Angell brycht, Since Sen the departyng of Adam, our grandschyre ; Who Quhilk, throw his cryme, incurrit Goddis yre, lost And of that place tynte the possessioun Baith from hymself and his succession.' From Paradise he proceeds to Scotland, whose advantages and ' great commodoties ' its lochs and Scotland rivers teeming with fish, its fruitful mountain pastures, its lusty vales for corn, its forests of deer, its metals and precious stones, its wholesome fruits, and its fair and in- genuous people prompt the query as to its strange poverty. To this the reply is want ' of justice, policy, SIK DAVID LYNDSAY 211 and peace/ due to the negligence of the ' infatuate heidis insolent/ that is, the bishops and those of the nobles who were usurping the functions of govern- ment. But while the poet and his guide were thus 'talking to and fro/ they ' Saw a bousteous berne cum ouir the bent rigorous I6UOW * But hors, on fute, als fast as he mycht go, moorland Quhose rayment wes all raggit, revin and rent ; With visage leyne, as he had fastit Lent : And fordwart fast his wayis he did advance, With ane rycht melancolious countynance.' a This was John the Commoun Weill, who, having been maltreated in every district of the country, was 'with scrip on hip, and pyik staff in his Joh ntheCom- hand/ hastening to leave it. Asked when moun WeilL he would return, he answered not until the court was guided by the wisdom of ' ane gude auld prudent king ' : * Als yit to thee I say ane uther thyng : I see rycht weill, that proverbe is full trew : " Wo to the realme that hes ouer young ane king " too ; a With that he turnit his bak and said " Adew." ' TJie Complaynt to the King in the octo-syllabic couplet written in celebration of the king's escape from the Douglases in 1529, is, while The C om P iaynt reminiscent, congratulatory, denunciatory to the Kin &-' (of the king's advisers), and admonitory (of the king himself), in substance a plea on the poet's part for some recognition of his past services. The manner of that recognition he leaves to the king himself, 212 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE but is rather inclined to suggest the loan of one or two thousand pounds, which he undertakes to pay on conditions having plainly a satirical reference to the all too ready oaths of indigent borrowers : ' Quhen the Basse and the Yle of Maye Beis sett vpon the Mont Senaye ; Quhen the Lowmond, besyde Falkland, Beis lyftit to Northumberland ; Quhen kirkrnen yairnis no dignitie, Nor wyffis no soveranitie ; without Wynter but frost, snaw, wynd, or rane ; Than sail I geve thy gold agane ; Or, I sail mak the payment Efter the Daye of Jugement, Within ane moneth at the leist, a Quhen Sanct Peter sail mak ane feist To all the fycharis of Aberladye, So Swa thow have myne acquittance reddye ; by Failyand thareof, be Sanct Phillane, Thy grace gettis never ane grote agane.' The following year Lyndsay wrote the much more pungent Testament and Compiaynt of our Soverane ' Testament Lordis Papyngo (parrot). It opens with and compiaynt a prologue in the nine-line stave aab ofthePapyn- . go.' The Pro- aab, bcc in which, after a warm eulogy of several famous ' makaris/ from Chaucer to his own day, he humorously declares that garden ' in all the garth of eloquence Is no thyng left, bot barrane stok and stone every single The poleit termes are pullit everilk one, By those Be thir fornamit Poetis of prudence ' ; and that since he could find 'none uther new sentence/ he had resolved to record the ' compiaynt SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 213 of ane woundit Papyngo.' He then utilises the im- palernent of the king's parrot on a stake by a fall from a lofty tree for the exposition, in the parrot's name, of his own views on Church and State. After lament- ing in rime royal her rashness in climbing to such a giddy height, the dying bird proceeds also in rime royal to 'breve' her counsel (1) to the king, and (2) to her ' Brether of courte ' ; and this is followed by (3) the ' commonyng betuix the Papyngo and hir holy executouris.' The first epistle is a shrewd and outspoken address on kingcraft, in which his Majesty is The first reminded that of his fivescore and five e P istle - predecessors on the Scottish throne, no less than five-and-fifty had been slain, ' And moist parte, in thair awin niysgoverance.' The second epistle illustrates by interesting ex- amples from Scottish history such as the cases of the Duke of Kothesay, Murdoch, Duke of The second Albany, Cochrane, the favourite of James e P istle - IIL, the dowager Queen Margaret herself, Archbishop Beaton, and the Earl of Angus the ' over-leaping ' of that 'ambition' which seeks either to usurp the sovereignty or to make the sovereign its bondman. But it is in the ' commonyng ' of the wise bird with her ' holye executouris ' the pyot (a canon regular), the raven (a black monk), and the gled (a , The Com . holy friar), that the satire is most biting. mon y n &-' Though their professional visit to the dying bird was 214 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE avowedly dictated by concern for its ghostly interests, their solicitude was all centred on its 'goods and chattels.' The pyot recommended itself as executor, because it was ' ane holye creature ' ; but the imme- diate arrival of the raven and the gled changed the situation. The three worthies combined in the general interests of the Church and of one another, and the gled in their name vowed that if the dying bird made a ' memorial of its gear/ they would make its funeral feast, burying its bones with ' great bliss/ and afterwards twenty masses all at once : 4 And we sail syng about your sepulture larger Sanct Mongols matynis and the mekle creid : then And syne devotely saye, I yow assure, The auld Placebo bakwart and the beid ; clothes And we sail weir, for yow, the murnyng weid : though And, thocht your spreit with Pluto war profest, Devotely sail your Diregie be addrest. 3 To this the Papyngo replied with many acute observes on ecclesiastical worldliness; and though, having no other option, she accepted The Will. r them as executors, she bequeathed her personality thus: her 'gay galbarte of grene/ her ' brycht depurit ene/ her c burneist beik/ her ' music ' and 'voce angellycall/ her 'toung rhetoricall/ and her 'bones/ respectively to the owl, the bat, the pelican, the cuckoo, the goose, and the phoenix, and her heart to the king, leaving to the executors only her 'trypes/ with her 'luffer and lowng to part equale ' among them. But instead of giving faithful effect to her wishes, hardly had she said In Manus SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 215 Tuas when all three began incontinently to devour her body, and when nothing was left but the heart, away flew the gled with it hotly pursued by the other two. To some of Lyndsay's counsel the king made reply in pretty scurrilous verse ; for in The Answer to the King is Fly ting in rime royal-- short pieces he retaliates with some rather abusive S^ufetim"^ admonition, the more piquant portions J amesV - of which are, however, too graphic for quotation. Other short pieces, written in the lifetime of James v., are Ane Publict Confessioun of the Kingis auld Hound callit Bagsche in the French octave, a satire on the intrigues and quarrels of the courtiers; The Deploratioun of the Death of Queen Magdalene, in rime royal. The Justing betuix James Watsoun and Jhone Barbour in the heroic couplet, an account, mildly modelled after Dunbar's Turnament, of a mock encounter between two ' medicinaris ' of the court ; Kitteis Confessioun in couplets, a more than witty exposure of the misuses of auricular confession ; Ane Supplicatioun againis Syde Taillis, one of the coarsest, yet one of the most diverting of his skits, and a most lively sketch of contemporary female fashions. Here are a few decorous lines : ' Bot, I lauch best to se ane Nun a Gar beir hir taill abone hir bun, Make bear For nothing ellis, as I suppois, Bot for to schaw hir lillie quhyte hois ; In all thair Rewlis, they will nocht find not Quha suld beir up thair taillis behind. 216 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Poor draggled- tail wenches Who Kittie ; last night To-morrow ewes houghs cow-house ; stay with her burghs longest vexation eyes clothes Bot I have maiste into despyte Pure claggokis cled in roiploch l quhyte, Quhilk hes skant twa markis for thair feis, Will have twa ellis beneath thair kneis : Kittok, that clekkit wes yestrene, The morne, wyll counterfute the Quene : Ane mureland Meg, that milkit the yowis, Claggit with clay abone the howis, In barn, nor byir, scho wyll nocht byde Without her kyrtyll taill be syde. In burrowis, wantoun burges wyiffis, Quha may have sydest taillis stryiffis, Weill bordourit with velvoit fyne : Bot following thame it is ane pyne, In somer quhen the streittis dryis, Thay rais the dust abone the skyis ; None may ga neir thame at thair eis, Without thay cover mouth and neis, Frome the powder to keip thair ene : Considder gif thair cloiffis be clene ! ' But the most characteristic and the cleverest of Lyndsay's productions is Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Ane Pleasant Thrie Estaitis in Commendatioun of Vertew and Vituperatioun of Vyce. An adaptation to current political and social questions of the old morality play, it is a nearer approximation to the regular drama than any con- temporary English production. The idea was not of course original, for in England John Hey wood's merry interludes against the Papists preceded some of them, at least Lyndsay's Pleasant Satyre, and John Bale, who utilised the morality play for the same pur- pose, was his contemporary. Further, a Scottish friar Satyre.' The Drama in Scotland. 1 Coarse undyed woollen cloth. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 217 named Kyllour ' set forth/ in 1535, a play ' against the Papists' 1 at Stirling. But the interludes of Heywood were mere single acts ; and while the plays of Bale differ little from the old moralities, Ky Hour's play, which has not been preserved, was a mere adapta- tion of The History of Christ's Passion. It may be, however, that apart from Lyndsay, Scotland was at this tune slightly in advance of England in drama, as she also was in poetry. That strange fragment, the Interlude of the Droichis Part of the Play preserved in the Asloan and Bannatyne MSS., dating from at least the earlier years of the sixteenth cen- tury, and supposed by some to have been the work of Dunbar, seems to indicate the existence, even in the reign of James iv., of some better examples of drama than possibly even Lyndsay's Pleasant Satyre. We are also told by the historian Calderwood 2 that James Wedderburn, about 1540, ' made divers comedies and tragedies,' wherein ' he nipped the abuses and super- stitions of the time,' among them ' The History of Dionysius the Tyrant, in form of a comedy which was acted in the playfields ' of Dundee. Eobert Birrel also mentions that, on 17th June 1568, a play by Robert Sempill was performed before the Lord Regent, 3 but we know nothing of its character. Playgoing seems, however, to have been common for some time after the Reformation, for James Melville records that John Davidson, one of the Regents of St. Andrews Univer- 1 Knox, Work, i. 62. 2 History, i. 142-3. 3 Diary in Dalyell's Fragments, p. 14. 218 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE sity, made a play at the marriage of John Colvin, which was played in Knox's presence, 'wherein, according to Knox's doctrine, the castell of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the Captain, with an or twa with him, hangit in effigie.' In Melville's time it was also customary to have declamations, banquetings, and plays at graduation time. 1 In 1575 the Kirk, while it prohibited altogether the performance of clerk plays upon the ' canonical parts of Scripture/ advised that such as 'confer upon the policy ' should make provision ' that comedies, tragedies, and other profane plays, which are not made upon authentic parts of Scripture,' might be considered before they were acted publicly. More consistent, perhaps, in its rigour than any cen- sorship that now exists, this method was, we may infer, so effective that secular equally with sacred plays were gradually suppressed; and in any case Lyndsay's Pleasant Satyre is the only example of the older Scottish drama which now survives. 2 1 Diary (Bannatyne Club edition), p. 22. 2 In 1599 a company of English comedians visited Edinburgh, and after playing before the king, obtained a precept to the bailies of Edinburgh to obtain for them a house for performances. One was got in Blackfriars Wynd. But the clergy, says Calderwood, ' fearing the profanitie that was to ensue,' convened the four sessions of the Kirk, who passed an Act that ' none resort to these profane comedies, for eschewing offence of God' (History, v. 765). Called before the king, the clergy sought refuge in an Act passed against ' slanderous and undecent comedies. ' The king, however, remaining firm, they were compelled to rescind their Act ; and a proclamation was issued by the Privy Council ' in favour of the English comedians now playing in Edinburgh,' in which the inhabitants were informed SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 219 From certain references to the Rex Humanitas of the play as unmarried, it has been inferred that The Pleasant Satyre was written and Performances produced before the marriage of James v., p^J^f and probably in 1535; and from the Sat y re -' references in certain interludes it has also been argued that this first performance took place at Cupar Fife ; but the earliest authenticated performance is that before the king at Linlithgow on the Feast of Epiphany, 6th January 1540. 1 It was also acted on the Castle Hill at Cupar at some unknown date, and at Greenside adjoining Edinburgh in 1554, before the Queen Regent. A notable feature of the Pleasant Satyre is the that they were at liberty to attend the performances without incurring ' ony pane, skaith, censuring, reproche, or sclander,' or being found fault with by the ' ministeris, magistratis, or sessionis of the said burgh' (Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vi. 39-43). After the accession of James to the English throne several English companies visited Scotland ; and in 1603 was published at Edinburgh a comedy written in the vernacular and in stanzas A ne verie excellent and delactibill Treatise entitled Philotus : qvhairin wee may persave the greit inconveniences that fallis out in the Marriage betwene Age and Youth.' (Reprinted in Pinkerton's Scotish Poems, 1792, vol. iii.) It has been suggested that this was Robert Sempill's play, but the theory is unsupported by evidence, external or internal. 1 Of the effect produced by its performance in 1540 a record has been preserved in a letter of Sir William Eure to Cromwell, 26th January 1540. ' The king,' he states, ' did call upon the Bishop of Glasgow, being chancellor, and other bishops, exhorting them to reform their fashions and manners of living, saying that unless they so did, he would send six of the proudest of them unto his uncle in England, and, as they were ordered, so he would order all the rest that would not amend.' 220 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE variety of its metres. 1 The poem begins with a stanza (spoken by Diligence, the master Its metres. . of the ceremonies) in the rhymed allitera- tive measure of the old romances with the bobwheel ; and in the same speech we have stanzas of sixteen lines ab, abb, cbc, ded, cc, fef of which there are both early Latin and French examples, and also stanzas of eight lines in rime coude aaab, cccb of which there are very early examples in English, and which is found in Towneley Mystery Plays, some- times with a bobwheel. The bulk of the dialogue of the Pleasant Satyre is either in this measure, or in the octo-syllabic couplet ; but he introduces also the heroic couplet, as well as other forms of rime couee : the six-line stave aab, aab and several occasional variations including the six-line stave used in Burns's Address to the Deil 2 aaa, bab, which is not to be found in any earlier Scottish poetry that is not anonymous. The kyrielle and the French octave are also represented. No production of any old Scottish ' makar ' gives such a detailed picture as does the Pleasant Satyre, A picture of not merely of the customs and manners, the period. fcut Q f fa Q mner J jf e an( J thought of the period. We are transported back to the years when the old religious system was tottering to its fall ; the 1 Professor Schipper (Altenglische Metrilc, vol. i. pp. 522-31) has devoted much serious attention to Lyndsay's rhythm ; but most of Lyndsay's peculiarities were mere imperfections, Lyndsay being a very careless metrist. 2 See post, p. 244. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 221 crisis of the struggle is pictured in the play, and those concerned in the crisis are personified, so far at least as to enable us to know the main types. The excessive frankness not to say coarseness of much of the dialogue, and especially the rude buffoonery of the interludes, enhances the value of the play as a representation of the old social life. We obtain a deeper insight into the character of the times than we could otherwise compass. In modern plays the realities of human nature are greatly veiled by con- ventions, but Lyndsay's play deals with society at a time when the old conventions had broken down, and human nature disported itself very much accord- ing to the moods of its lawless instincts. The play is constructed with considerable skill, even judged by modern standards: it is evidently not the work of a novice ; and we must i ts construe- infer from it that Lyndsay had at least much previous experience in the construction of farces, masks, and other pieces. Dramatically, the interludes are much the better portions ; but if in the play proper the serious characters are mere wax figures, the less reputable personages are very distinctly realised. Part I., divided into two Acts, represents the Temp- tation of Rex Humanitas by Sensualitie, who is intro- duced and recommended to the King by Wantonness, Placebo, and Solace, the eloquence of the last in praise of her charms being coloured by the liquor he has consumed. Sensualitie, 222 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR, LITERATUEE attended by her two maidens Homeliness and Danger, then enters, and to her insinuating address the King replies : * Welcum to me peirles in pulchritude ; than Welcum to me thow greiter nor the lamber, 1 Wh Quhilk hes maid me of all dolour denude. Solace, convoy this Ladie to my chamber. 5 When the stage is cleared of the disreputables, Gude Counsall appears, but is immediately followed by the three Vices, Flatterie, Falset, and Act I. of Part I. "^ . . Dissait, m the guise respectively ol Devo- tioun, Sapience, and Discretioun. On the entrance of the King the three step forward and salute him ; and after they have flattered and beguiled and cozened according to their several methods, he gives them cordial welcome as ' three men of gude.' Meanwhile Gude Counsall is standing modestly near the door, and the King, espying the stranger, sends his three newly discovered friends to bring him forward ; but instead of doing so they 'hurl' him out with the direst threats, and on returning to the King tell him that the fellow is a detestable housebreaker whom they have ordered to be sent to the thief's hole. Sensualitie and her ladies now begin to sing a song, and the King sits down among them ; but hardly has he done so ere Veritie enters, who, however, at the instance of Spiritualitie, the Abbot, and the Parson, is immediately put in the stocks. Chastitie then makes her appearance, but the Lady Prioress, Spiritu- 1 Amber used for the making of images. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 223 alitie, the Abbot, and the Parson all in turn disown her acquaintance with marked rudeness, and the curtain falls whilst even Temporalitie is advising her that she had best be gone. After Act I. followed the first Interlude. It repre- sents a coarse and uproarious scene between the Sowtar and Tailor and their two Wives, The first who surprise the two worthies soberly interlude, entertaining Chastitie in an alehouse. Chastitie they chase away with foul abuse, and then, as the stage direction expressively puts it, the two terma- gants ' speik to their gudemen and ding them ' ; and the Interlude ends with the Sowtar's Wife ' lifting up hir clais (clothes) abone hir waist/ and entering ' the water ' on her way to the town for wine to celebrate the victory. Act II. opens with the introduction of Chastitie by Diligence, the master of the ceremonies to the King, but Sensualitie plainly tells the ActII>of King that he can't have both of them. p arti. Thereupon Chastitie is put into the stocks by the three guardian Vices; but on the sudden arrival of Correctioun's Varlet they immediately recognise that the game is up. Flatterie hastily bids farewell to his two friends ; but Dissait and Falset are deter- mined not to leave empty-handed, and while the King is sleeping resolve to steal his box. This Falset does, but claiming on that account the larger share of the money, is attacked by Dissait, who finally runs away with the box through the ' water.' Immediately 224 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE thereupon Divine Correctioun enters, by whom Gude Counsall and Veritie are set free from the stocks, and Sensualitie is dismissed. She affirms that she does not care ' twa strais ' for the King, and will fare much better among bishops and cardinals : as she does, being welcomed by Spiritualitie as their ' dayis darling.' The King then receives into his service Gude Counsall, Veritie, and Chastitie, and embraces with 'a humble countenance 7 Correctioun, who also graciously pardons Wantonness, Placebo, and Solace, provided they ' do no other crime ' : * For quhy ? as I suppois, Princes may sumtyme seik solace With mirth, and lawful mirriness Thair spirits to rejoyis.' The first part being over, the audience are dismissed by Diligence to make ' collatioun/ with a variety of pleasant advice, as : ' Tarie nocht lang, it is lait in the day ; Let sum drink ayle and sum drink claret wine. Be gret Doctors of Physick, I heare say, spirit That michtie drink comforts the dull ingine.' Part I. was followed by the Interlude of the Poor Man and the Pardoner, in which pathos, drollery, and The second other qualities are blended with no little interlude. skill. Entering the empty apartment tired and footsore, the Pauper, who is on his way to St. Andrews for legal redress against his ecclesiastical oppressors, climbs up to the King's chair to rest him, but is driven away by Diligence, who, however, is so SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 225 struck by his exclamation that ' thair is richt lytill play at my hungrie hart/ that in real concern he asks him to tell the story of his ' unhappy chances.' The c blak veritie ' he recounts is the utter ruin both of his father and him by the funeral dues demanded by the Church. Then while the Pauper lies down to rest him, a Pardoner enters, and proceeds to vaunt the merits of his wares : * My patent Pardouns, ye may se, Cum fra the Cane of Tartarie, Weill seald with oster-schellis. Thocht ye have na contritioun, Ye sail have full remissioun, With help of buiks and bellis. Heir is ane relict, lang and braid, Of Fine Macoull l the richt chaft blaid, With teith, and al togidder : Of Colling's cow, heir is ane home, For eating of Makconnal's corne, Was slaine into Baquhidder. Heir is ane coird, baith great and lang, Quhilk hangit Johne the Armistrang : 2 Of gude hemp soft and sound : Gude, halie peopill, I stand for'd Quha ever beis hangit with this cord, Neids never to be dround ! The culum of Sanct Bryd's kow, The gruntill of Sanct Antonis sow, Quhilk buir his haly bell : Quha ever he be heiris this bell clinck, Gif me ane ducat for till drink, He sail never gang to hell, Thougn a ; broad true jawbone Balquhidder Which tail snout Which bore a ; to go 1 One of Ossian's heroes. 2 The freebooter hanged in 1529. ' lohnne ermistrangis dance ' is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland, and Ramsay published a traditional ballad on him. 226 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE not to into; vexa- tion gossip to blame young pig a broad Then Without he be of Baliell borne : Maisters trow ye, that this be scorne ! Cum win this Pardoun, cum. Quha luifis thair wyfis nocht, with thair hart, I have power thame for till part : Methink yow deif and dum ! Hes naine of yow curst wickit wyfis, That halds yow intill sturt and stryfis ? Cum tak my dispensatioun ; Of that cummer, I sail mak yow quyte, Howbeit your selfis be in the wyte, And mak ane fals narratioun. Cum win the Pardoun, now let se, For meill, for malt, or for monie, For cok, hen, guse, or gryse. Of relicts, heir I haif ane hunder ; Quhy cum ye nocht 1 this is ane wonder ! I trow ye be nocht wyse ! ' Then follows a lively scene between the Sowtar, the Sowtar's Wyfe, and the Pardoner, who, after grant- ing them divorce on certain unspeakable conditions, addresses them thus : ' Dame, pas ye to the east end of the toun ; And pas ye west, evin lyke ane cuckald loon ; Go hence ye baith, with BaliePs braid blissing ! Schirs, saw ye ever mair sorrowles pairting ? ' The interview between the Pardoner and the Pauper is not so satisfactory. The Pauper having received for his groat nothing except a promise of 'ane thousand years of pardouns' demands it back again : ' Quhat say ye, Maisters 1 call ye this gude resoun, That he suld promeis me ane gay pardoun, And he resave my mony, in his stead ; Syne mak me na payment till I be dead ? ' SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 227 The Pardoner refusing, Pauper attacks and routs him : ' Heir/ says the stage-direction, ' sail they fecht with silence; and Pauper sail cast doun the buird, and cast the relicts in the water.' Part II. is more complicated if not confused in plot than Part I. ; but if the modern reader will find it tedious, this is solely because he cannot realise the situations as Lyndsay's audience did. This part, dealing less with abstractions than Part L, and indeed wholly with ' burning questions/ bristles with points which must have kept the audi- ence in a constant simmer of excitement. Absolutely candid in exposing the abuses in Church and State, Lyndsay employs all the resources of his art to incite the nation to drastic remedies. The three Estates of Parliament Spiritualitie, Temporal! tie, and Merchand make their entrance on the stage walking backwards, 'led by the Vices': Spiritualitie by 'Covetice and careless Sensualitie/ Temporalitie by Publick Oppres- sioun, and Merchand by Falset and Dissait. At the instance of Correctioun the Vices are put hi the stocks, greatly to the sorrowful indignation of Spiritualitie, who bids Sensualitie and Covetyce farewell with much show of feeling, and hopes they will do their utmost to return soon : 1 Want I yow twa, I may nocht lang endure.' two ; not Temporalitie and Merchand manifest, however, no such regrets, and, on the advice of John the Commoun Weill, send instead for Gude Counsall, on whose 228 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE arrival John proceeds to detail to the Estates the evils that demand urgent attention; his complaint dealing chiefly with all sorts of idlers, specially ' great fat Freiris, Augustenes, Carmleits, and Cordeleirs ; are And all uthers, that in cowls bene cled, Who . no t Quhilk labours nocht, and bene well fed,' etc. Ternporalitie and Merchand are much impressed by the address, and promise amendment; but since Spiritualise declines to come to terms with Com- moun Weill, the various representatives of the Church are finally summoned before Correctioun to give an account of their stewardship. Spiritualitie boasts : * I gat gude payment of my Temporall lands, offerings My buttock-maill, 1 my coattis, 2 and my offrands, With all that dois perteine my benefice, if Consider now, my Lord, gif I be wyse. dare not I dar nocht marie, contrair the common law, Ane thing thair is, my Lord, that ye may knaw. a Howbeit, I dar nocht plainlie spouse ane wyfe, Yit concubeins I have had four or fyfe. And to my sons I have givin rich rewairds, landowners And all my dochters maryit upon lairds,' etc. The Abbot extols himself in a speech of which this is the kernel : 4 Thare is na monke, from Carrick to Carraill 3 wholesome That fairs better, and drinks rnair helsum aill.' The Parson, while admitting that he does not trouble to preach, affirms that he is more zealous in 1 Fine for fornication. 2 Testament dues. 3 Carrick in Ayrshire, on the west coast, to Crail in Fifeshire, on the east coast. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY 229 the discharge of other, perhaps more important, duties of his office : ' Thocht I preich not, I can play at the caiche ; hand-ball I wait thair is nocht ane amang yow all, wot Mair ferilie can play at the fut-ball ; cleverly And for the carts, the tabils, and the dyse, cards Above all persouns, I may beir the pryse.' parsons And the Lady Prioress, asked why she would not give ' harberie ' to Lady Chastitie, calmly replies that her ' complexion would not assent.' Correctioun then directs that Doctour should preach a sermon 'in Inglish tongue land folk to edifie,' much to the disgust of the Abbot and the Parson ; and it being observed that a certain Friar is about to leave to set ' the toun on stir ' against the preacher, he is stripped of his habit, and found to be none else than our old friend Flatterie. The Prioress is also stripped of her habit, when lo ! she is seen to have been wearing beneath it a kir.tle of silk. The three Prelates who are also stripped of their habits, which are put on three young licentiates go to confer with Sensualitie and Covetyce, but being now renounced by them with scorn, set out to discover a means of earning an honest living. John Commoun Weill is then clothed ' gorgeously ' and given a seat in Parlia- ment ; and finally Flatterie is pardoned on condition that he consent to act as executioner of his two old friends, Falset and Dissait, with whose execution and that of Commoun Thift a Border reiver who had un- warily come into the meeting to obtain information 230 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE about the Earl of Rothes's 'best hacknay,' and is betrayed by his old master Oppressioun and their dying speeches, Part II. is brought to an edifying close. Part II. is followed by an after-piece Interlude III. containing the 'Sermon of Follie/ a buffoon who, after a ludicrous account of his ad- Interlude III. ventures on the way to the playhouse,, proceeds to preach a sermon on a saying of Solomon Stultorum numerus infinitus est, and after a definition of various kinds of folly, goes on to indicate these supremely foolish persons whom he deems to have worthily earned one of his 'Follie Hattis or Hudes.' Of the other productions of Lyndsay little need be said. The satirical Tragedy of the Cardinal, 1547 other works suggested as to form by Boccaccio's De of Lyndsay. Casibus Virorum Illustrium, which he professes to be reading when the wounded ghost of the cardinal appears to him and recounts the cardinal's own history is one of the dullest of his short pieces. Pedder Co/eis gives an amusing sketch of seven varieties of contemporary cheats. The His- toric of Squire Meldrum narrates, after the fashion of the old romances, and with no small sprightliness, the amorous and heroic adventures of that famous Fife laird. As for The Dialog, it is a sort of porten- tous application of biblical history to contemporary events, concluding with dissertations on Death, Anti- christ, and the General Judgment. SIK DAVID LYNDSAY 231 On the whole, Lyndsay was greater as man than poet. Had opportunity and scope been granted him, he had the makings of a great Morea statesman ; and as it is, his influence on dramatist i T c n than a poet. the immediate future of Scotland was only second, if second, to that of Knox. His poetic gift was hampered rather than benefited by his absorption in ecclesiastical and social questions ; but he was at least a clever, and more than clever, play- wright, and, indeed, at a later period his dramatic ability must have won him high distinction. 1 1 Lindsay had at least one poetic disciple in William Lauder (1520 ?-1573), minister of Forgandenny, etc., whose Compendious and Breve Tractate, ed. Hall, was published by the Early English Text Society in 1864, and his Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, by the same Society in 1870 ; but though displaying much of Lindsay's zeal for political and social reform, they are wellnigh destitute of any qualities entitling them to rank as literature. VIII MINOR AND LATER POETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY BELLENDEN INGLIS KYD STEWARTE STEWART OF LORNE HENRY STEWART KING HENRY STEWART BALNAVES FETHY FLEMING SIR JOHN MOFFAT STEIL, ETC. ALEXANDER SCOTT ALEX- ANDER MONTGOMERIE SIR RICHARD MAITLAND JAMES VI., ETC. THE WEDDERBURNS AND 'THE GUDE AND GODLIE BALLATES ' ROBERT SEMPILL AND THE REFORMATION SATIRISTS. AMONG contemporary poets of Douglas and Lyndsay there are none of peculiarly distinctive merit. John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Moray, whose translations of Boece and Livy (see post, p. 304) are John Beiienden amon g the most characteristic examples (fl. 1533-1587). of old Scots prose, is, though designated by Lyndsay ' ane plant of poetis,' not ' Quhose ornat workis my wyitt can nocht defyne,' known poetically merely as an exemplary disciple of Gavin Douglas. To his prose translations he wrote 1 prohemiums/ mainly devoted to the exposition and INGLIS KYD 233 enforcement of excellent moral maxims by means of learned classical allusions; and none other of his verses survive except ' a godly and lernit work callit The Banner of Pietie,' 1 and descriptive of the Incarnation. It may be that Sir James Inglis on whom Mac- kenzie in his Writers of Scotland fathers, without evidence, that curious prose work The Sirjames Gomplaynt of Scotland deserves all the In & lis < d - X 53i) commendation given him by Lyndsay for his ' ballates, farses, and plesand playes/ but none of these have sur- vived the General Satyre, with which he is credited in the Maitland MS., being hi the Banna tyne MS. much more credibly assigned to Dunbar. The pieces re- ferred to by Lyndsay were written while he was a hanger-on at the court, where, the Treasurer's Accounts indicate, he was employed in connection with the theatrical and other entertainments; but Lyndsay laments that his promotion to the abbacy of Culross had made impotent his pen. Of Kyd, described by Lyndsay as ' in cunnyng and practick, rycht prudent/ nothing is known beyond the fact that in the Bannatyne MS. his name is attached to The Richt Fontane of hailfull Sapience, written in the French octave, and intended seemingly for the edification of the young king. Exactly coinciding with Lyndsay's allu- sion, it is excellent rather as advice than as poetry. Here is a specimen : 1 Bannatyne MS. 234 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE communing ' Thy pastyme suld oft be in commonyng With profound clerkis of science and prudens ; are fitting For cunnying termes afferis in a king, Who Quhilk said be polyt and of eloquence. In hering wysmen men gettis sapience, which Without the quhilk is no stabilitie ; Thairfoir in tyme thow get intelligence Or elles thy wisdome sail in seeking be.' Of Stewarte, whose personal history is also an absolute blank, except that he is mentioned in stewarte. Holland's Seven Sages as a court poet, ' First Lerges. 1 k u t who, Lyndsay tells us, 'desyreth ane stately style ' and ' Full ornate workis daylie does compyle,' we have more various examples than of any other minor bard of the period, some dozen of his pro- ductions having been preserved in the Bannatyne MS. He was plainly a disciple of Dunbar rather than Douglas; and a curious ballad on the New Year's ' Lerges ' (bounty) indicates that, like Dunbar, he was a not extremely successful ' solisitar.' It begins : bounty ' First lerges the king my cheife, Who Quhilk come als quiet as a theif, And in my hand sled shillingis twa, To put his lergnes to preif For lerges of this New Yeirday.' From most of his other possible patrons the Bishop of Galloway, the Abbot of Holyrood, the secretary, the treasurer he also got little but fair words, so that he was moved to exclaim : STEWAKTE 235 ' Fowll fall this frost that is so fell, Foul befall It hes the wyt, the trewth to tell, blame Baith handes and purs it bindis sway so Thay may gife ne thing, by thame sell, of their For lerges of this New Yeirday.' There was but one exception to the general stingi- ness, ' My Lord of Bothwell,' who gave him ' ane cursour gray, Worth all this sort that I with mell, meddle For lerges of this New Yeirday/ The tailor and shoemaker those favourite butts of the old 'inakaris' supplied Stewarte with a theme for several pieces, on the whole His Flyting . more ribald than witty. His Flyting Mots on tai irs. betuix the Soutar and the Tailyour is an average specimen of the orthodox Billingsgate of the period ; and he also wrote several mots on tailors, of which this one may serve as a characteristic sample of that age's wit : ' Betuix twa foxis a crawing cok, Betuix twa freiris a maid in hir smok, Betuix twa cattis a mowis, Betuix twa telyeouris a lowiss : Schaw me, gud schir, nocht as a stranger, not Quhilk of thais four is grittest in danger ? ' Which Stewarte is further one of the few amatory poets among the old Scots ' makaris/ but he possesses little of the grace and ease of the later school As amatory of which Scott is the chief. For to declare P et - the he (high) Magnificence of Ladies in the French 236 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITEEATUEE octave, with refrain is an ardent outburst, ending in this effusive fashion : earth ' War all the erd papir and perchmyne, And pennis wer all treis, herbis and flouris, stars ; sky And all the sternis in the lift dois schyne, War in this erd moist ornat oratouris, sea The se were ynk, with fresche fludis and schouris a All wer to small ane buk to edify, For to contene of ladeis the honouris, And factis that thair fame dois fortefie. 3 In the Bannatyne MS. are three other of Stewarte's amatory pieces. Lyndsay also makes mention of Stewart of Lome, who 'wyll carp rycht curiously.' This was most other likely W. Stewart, who, in the Maitland Stewarts. MS ? j s credited with This hinder Nycht neir by the Hour of Nine also in the Bannatyne MS. giving the revelation of Dame Virtue as to when Scotland, 'sin Flowdoun field,' shall again enjoy 'peace and rest and plenty.' Another Stewart (Henry) appears in the Bannatyne MS. as author of Be Gouernour baith Guid and Gratious ; and there is farther a mysterious King Henry Stewart to whom the Bannatyne MS. assigns a love-song in the French octave, somewhat in the manner of Scott. It is scarcely necessary to add that, although James v. enjoyed some repute in his day as a poet, no verses with his colophon survive, and that his title to the authorship of The Gaberlunzie Man and The Jolly Beggar is based on mere un- verified tradition. BALNAVES, ETC. 237 Certain other poets, not mentioned by Dunbar or Lyndsay, who figure in the Bannatyne MS., clearly belong to the later school of Scott and Balnaves. Montgomene. Balnaves presumably not Henry Balnaves of Halhill (d. 1579), the Scottish Reformer, and author of a Comfortable Treatise on Justification is credited with Gallandis all I cry and call, containing some rather piquant advice to gallants, written in Scott's favourite six-line stave in rime couee l : ' Huntarres adew, Gif ye persew To hunt at every beist, Ye will it rew, Thair is anew : enough Thairto haif ye no haist.' A certain Fethy 2 appears as the author of two love- songs My Trewth is Plicht, in rime Fethy. royal, and Pansing in Hairt, in the French octave of three accents with a curious double refrain : 1 Cauld, cauld, culis the lufe That kendillis our het.' too hot To Fleming we are indebted for Be mirry Bretherne, 1 See ante, p. 164. - In all likelihood Sir John Futhy, a priest who, according to the manuscript of Thomas Wode, or Wood, in Dublin University Library, composed a song beginning ' O God abufe,' with words and music, and was 'the first organist that ever brought in Scotland the curious new fingering and playing on organs.' See David Laing's Introduction to Stenhouse's Notes to Johnson's Musical Museum, p. xxxi. 238 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE a clever and amusing, indeed quite modern, exposition of the plague of evil wives, which is also of some in- terest for its stave, the first section being Fleming. . sometimes in the rime coude of Scott, but occasionally dropping the internal rhymes, so as to form a quatrain in the old ballad measure ; and the last section being a kind of bobwheel, the inner lines of which are occasionally in tumbling metre. Here is an example : Then would * Than wad scho say, " Allace this day money For him that wan this geir, Quhen I him had, I skairsly said, once ' My hart ains mak gud cheir.' Before Or I had lettin him spend a plak, known I lever haif wittin him brokin his bak, neck Or ellis his craig had gottin a crak, Our the heicht of the stair." ' Sir John Moffat, who is credited by another than Bannatyne with the classic tale, The Wyfe of Auchtirmwchty, is also credited by Moffat, and Bannatyne with a rather sprightly piece, Brother, Bewar I rede you Now, in the five-line stave aab, ab with refrain; and Steil, known otherwise as the author of a political poem, The Ryng of the Roy Robert, 1 has his name attached to two love-poems, Lanterne of Lufe and Absent, neither of much account, and both rather ' aureate ' of language. 1 Maitland MS., reprinted in Watson's Choice Collection, part in., and in Laing's Fugitive Scottish Poetry, 1823-25, and Early Metrical Tales, 1826. MINOR NAMES 239 To the same late school belongs the Clapperton who, in the Maitland MS., appears as ciapperton. the author of Wa Worth Maryage, 1 beginning : * In Bowdoun, on blak Monunday Monday Quhen all was gadderit to the Play, Bayth men and women semblit thair, I hard ane sweit ane sich, and say sigh " Wa worth maryage for evermair." } Woe befall Other still more minor names in the Banna- tyne MS. are Lichtoun Monicus, Robert Norval, and Henry Scogan. 2 John Blyth, Allan, and Allan Matson are clearly pseudonyms. 3 In Lyndsay we have seen the beginning of that theological absorption which was to infect, and for a time destroy, the nation's poetic Scottish sentiment ; but at first the infection was only partial, and it was slightly counteracted either by 1 Published in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, p. 135. ' 2 Henry Scogan, an Englishman, was tutor to the sons of Henry iv. A poem by him is published in Skeat's Chaucerian and other Poems, 1897. 8 George Bannatyne (1545-1608), the transcriber of the Bannatyne MS., was the son of James Bannatyne of Kirktown of Newtyle, Forfarshire. He became a merchant in Edinburgh, and during an outbreak of the plague there in 1568 took refuge in his native place, where he amused his enforced leisure by compiling, mostly, he states, from 'copies awld, markit and vitillat,' that treasury of old Scots poetry, the Bannatyne MS., which, with the Maitland MS., was the chief means of preserving the bulk of the work of the old Scots * makaris' from oblivion. From the Bannatyne MS. Allan Ramsay got the material for his Evergreen, 1724, and it was drawn upon by late editors both for general Collections and for editions of individual poets ; but the whole MS. was first printed verbatim et literatim through the enterprise of the Hunterian Club, 1873-1896. Bannatyne prefixed certain poetical introductions to the MS. , and also contributed to it a few other pieces of his own, but they are of no poetic merit. 240 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE direct contact with the poetic revival in England represented by Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, or by con- tact with influences similar to those which produced that revival. Of this later Scottish school, which tended to become more and more assimilated to that of England, the two chief names are Alexander Scott and Alexander Montgoinerie. Of Alexander Scott his parentage and personal history we know no more than of the obscurest of the old Scots 'makaris.' Laing con- Alexander Scott (fl. 1547- jectured that he may have been the second of two sons of Alexander Scott of the Chapel Royal, Stirling, who were legitimated on 21st September 1549; but the Scotts are so numerous a clan that the conjecture can scarce rank as even a faint probability. It is as likely that he was the Alexander Scott, burgess of Edin- burgh, who in 1581 was joint cautioner with Mungo Scott for George Scott of Synton, and Robert Scott of Hanying, then in ward in Edinburgh Castle, and who in 1584 became caution for the loyalty of James Thomsoun. 1 It is worth noting that this Alexander Scott is designated a burgess merely, not merchant or any kind of tradesman. It is almost certain that Scott was an Edinburgh resident, the whole tone of his poetry, apart from poetical references to Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, being that of a town gallant ; and we know from an allusion to him 1 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 396 ; ib. vol. iii. p. 696. ALEXANDER SCOTT 241 in a sonnet of Montgomerie to Hudson that he was alive in 1584: ' Yourself and I, old Scott and Eobert Sempffl, Quhen we are deid that all our dayis but daffis, larks Let Christian Lyndsay write our epitaphs.' This quotation also, if it does not imply that Scott had no stated employment, is rather inconsistent with the supposition from his use of two law-terms, ' blanche-ferme ' and 'quyt-cleme' that he was a lawyer, at least in constant practice. Scott's New Zeir Gift to the Queue Mary expresses the current anti-Catholic feeling of Edinburgh hi 1562 ; but notwithstanding this piece, and * ' Unchanged his two translations from the Psalms, he by the , . . , . , Reformation. represents a mode of sentiment which it need hardly be said is alien to that of the Kirk Most likely, indeed, the bulk of his verse that now survives was written before the ' Evangel ' was established in Scotland. We possess none of later date than 1568, and it is inferred that Departe, written ' of the Master of Erskine,' lover of the Queen- Dowager, slam at Pinkie in 1547, dates from shortly after the Master's death ; while that characteristic piece Of May celebrates, among other old customs, the representation of Robin Hood and Little John prohibited by Act of Parliament in 1555. But the reference of Montgomerie further shows that the Reformation effected no radical change in Scott's habits; and the fact that none of his verses are known to survive, except what Bannatyne tran- Q 242 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE scribed, betokens rather that he continued to write in the old vein, than that he either ceased to write or devoted himself specially to serious verse. The whole of Scott's productions that survive, under his signature, number only thirty-six, 1 and with the exception of the New Zeir's Gift, The A love poet. . Just^ng and Deoa^t, and the translations of the first and fiftieth Psalms, they are wholly devoted to love a subject which seems to have had as much practical interest for him as it had for Burns : smiling ; eye < The blenkyne of ane e Sok e S iim e y Ay gart the goif and glake ' ; and foolishly but while his verses plainly represent his own ex- perience, and are the effluence of a strong lyric im- pulse, their sentiment and manner has much in common with the English lyrical school represented chiefly by Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey. Doubtless Scott knew Skelton's poetry, and made acquaintance with the later school of Wyatt and Anaccom- Surrey in Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, if pushed met- t before this in MS. : but if influenced rist. Compared with surrey, ^y SO me of the English school in his pre- ference for short-lined staves, he had little to gain from it as regards rhythmical excellence. We have only to compare his finished and musical versification 1 They are all contained in the Bannatyne MS. A few were published by Ramsay, 1724 very incorrectly Lord Hailes, 1770, and Sibbald, 1802 ; but the first complete edition is the somewhat Bowdlerised one by David Laing, 1821. An edition was printed for private circulation at Glasgow, 1882 ; and one was edited for the Scottish Text Society by Dr. James Cranstoun, 1896. ALEXANDEE SCOTT 243 with the jolting doggerel of even Wyatt, to recognise how far the Scots ' makaris ' were in advance of the English, until Surrey ; and as regards correctness of accent, management of the pause, and purity and exactness of rhyme, he is hardly to be regarded as Surrey's inferior. Though addicted to short-lined staves, Scott also used many of Dunbar's, but did not in A disciple of these confine himself to iambics. He D f u " ba ;- Us * of the French was partial to the French octave, which ctave. he wrote not only in its five- and four-, but in its three-accented form, as in Oppressit Eairt : ' Oppressit hairt, indure In dolor and distress, Wappit without recure Wrapped T T i round ; cure In wo remidiless ; Sen scho is merciless, Since And caussis all thy smert, Quilk suld thy dolor dress, Who; redress ludure, oppressit hairt.' For that ecstatic celebration of love, Vp, Helsum Hairt, he uses a ten-line stave formed , ,, -IT,.. f -i , i Ten-line stave. by the addition of a couplet to the French octave : ' Vp, helsum hairt ! thy rutis rais, and lowp ; iJJ*^ 1 : Exalt and clym within my breist in staige ; Art thow not wantoun, haill, and in gud howp, hale Ffermit in grace and free of all thirlaige confirmed ; bondage Bathing m bliss and sett in hie curaige 1 Braisit in joy, no fait may the affray, Enveloped Having thy ladies hart as heretaige In blenche ferine ffor ane sallat every May : tenure So neid thow nocht now sussy, sytt, nor sorrow not ; fret ; Sen thow art sure of sollace evin and morrow.' 244 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE He has also several examples of rime royal, in- cluding that curious fantasia on the heart Rime royal. beginning : ' Half hairt in hairt, ze hairt of hairtes haill ; Trewly, sweit hairt, zour hairt my hairt sal haif,' etc. Of the three examples of the five-line stave of Five-Hne equal lines, two, Of May and The Answer stave. t ffairts, are arranged in the refrain form of the stave, and the third, To Luve Vnluvit, has the refrain : ' To luve vnluvit it is ane pane : For scho that is my soverane, Sum wantoun man so he hes set hir, That I can get no luf agane, nothin s Bot brek my hairt, and nocht the bettir.' Only once, in the witty Of WomenJcynd, does he use a six-line stave with double refrain ; Six-line stave with double but instead of the Dunbar form built on two rhymes, he borrows from the English lyrists that built on three rhymes, and known as the ' ballade ' (see post, p. 258) : ' I muse and mervellis in my mynd, Quhat way to wryt, or put in verss, The quent consaitis of wemenkynd, behaviour Or half thair havingis to reherss : whole I fynd thair haill affectioun So contrair thair complexioun.' More partial than Dunbar to rime couee, he supplies Rime couee two examples A Complaint againis Se ^d'dre'sVto OupM and On Paciens in Life of that the Deii.- six-line form of it which, the troubadours having adapted to it their love-songs, and the monks ALEXANDEE SCOTT 245 their exemplary Latin rhymes, became common, through the early English minstrels, all over England, whence it later found favour with the Scots, but only partially, until, having been revived by Sir Kobert Sempill in 'Standard Habbie,' it finally obtained a lease of immortality through Robert Burns. 1 Here is a stave of Scott more after the manner of Burns than most of the pinchbeck imitations of the latter bard : * Quhat is thy manrent hot mischeif : homage Sturt, angir, grunching, yre, and greif, Evill lyfe, and langour but releif without Off wounde wan, Displesour, pane, and he repreif high Off God and man ? ' In On Paciens the stave is adapted to a single refrain, ' Bot paciens,' or ' With paciens,' and in that candid exposition of the poet's own love-code, It cumis zow Luvaris to be Laill, he introduces with much effect a double refrain of one accent, thus : ' It cumis zow luvaris to be laill, becomes ; Off body, hairt, and mind alhaOl ; entirely And thocht ze with zour ladyis daill though Eessoun ; Bot and zour faith and lawty fail loyalty Tressoun. 3 Scott has also examples A Luvaris Complaint and Leif, Luve, and Lat me leif Allone J ' m Seven-line of a seven-line stave in rime couee, of two stave in rime rhymes, formed from this six-line stave by the addition of a head-line to the last section; 1 For a complete history of this stave, see The Centenary Burns, vol. i. pp. 336-42. 246 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE but in both cases the last line takes the form of a refrain, and in the latter the tail-lines are of three accents : ' Leif, Luve, and lat me leif allone At libertie, subject to none, Ffor it may weill be sene vpone complexion My bludless blaikn'tt ble : The tormenting in tym bygon, That skerss hes left bot skin and bon perverseness Throw fremitness of theV But the special stave of Scott in rime couee is that fashioned on the imperfect Iambic tetrameter. 1 In his Translation of the First Psalm, and in Rime couee fashioned on Ladeis Fair, he uses it in its common iambic er six-line form ; while in Quha is Perfyte, tetrameter. Luve, he adds a bobwheel : * Quha lykis to luve, Or that law pruve, Lat him beleif this lyfe to leid : His mynd sail moif, But rest or ruve to death With diuerss dolouris to the deid : lose He sail tyne appetite And meit and sleip gife quyte And want the way perfyte remedy To find remeid. 3 Of this six-line stave in rime couee he uses in Favour is Fair a modification formed by rhyming the first half of the third line with the second, and the first half of the sixth with the fifth, so as to form an eight-line stave : 1 See ante, p. 164. ALEXANDER SCOTT 247 ' Favour is fair In luvis lair, learning Zit Friendship mair more Bene to commend ; is to be Bot quhair despair Bene adversare, Nothing is thair Bot wofull end.' Of this stave there are examples in the Coventry Mysteries. Scott has also two examples ofrimecouee in eight-line staves Departe, the head- f Eight-line lines of which are of three accents and stave in the tail-lines of two, and / will be Plane, :he head-lines of which are of two accents, the tail- "ines of one three-syllabled accent, assuming the form of a double refrain : ' I will be plane, And lufe affane sincerely Ffor as I mene mean So take me ; Gif I refrane if For wo or pane, Zour lufe certane ; Forsaik me.' The other staves of Scott are (1) the old bobwheel stave of Christis Kirk in The Justing \ (2) in Langour to Leive, a four-line stave of alternate Other staves. rhymes, the rhymes of the second and fourth lines being repeated throughout its thirteen stanzas, with the burden of ' again ' ; and (3) a variety of the roundel, Lo ! qhat it is to Luve (p. 249). 248 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE The New Zeir Gift, of small merit poetically, is of some interest as representing the views of a shrewd ' The New man ^ ^e wor ^ on the political pro- zeirGift.' blems of Scotland in 1562. But though filled with grave political advice, it begins with a stanza of elaborate compliments after the approved 'aureate' fashion, and the Envoy and Lectori are utilised for a display of those crowning accomplish- ments of the old ' makar/ internal rhyme and allitera- tion. Here is the quaint close : note * Noblest natour, nurice to nurtour, not writing This dull indyte, dulce, double dasy deir, Sent by Send be thy sempill servand Sanderris Scott, Greting gret God to grant thy Grace gude zeir.' The Justing and Debait vp at the Drum betuix Wa. Adamsone and Johne Sym is modelled as The justing to ^ orm a ^ fcer Pddis and Christis Kirk, and Debait.' an( j as ^ o subject-matter after Dunbar's Turnament and Lyndsay's Justing. With the former two pieces it cannot compare in realistic vivacity, nor with Dunbar's in breadth apart from the question of grossness of humour, but the fun is not so strained as Dunbar's, nor is there any suggestion of burlesque. The incidents are described with quite a naive sim- plicity : the ludicrous cowardice of Will, who stronger ; < wichter was of corss knit Nor Sym and better knittin, 3 in its contrast with the dapper coolness of the pigmy but 'better sittin' Sym, affording opportunity for much slily effective wit. ALEXANDEK SCOTT 249 But the special praise of Scott is that he is the chief lyrist of the old Scots 'makaris' more essentially a lyrist than Dunbar or Montsrornerie, The chief old and among English contemporaries the Scots lyrist- fellow of Surrey. Yet Scott is peculiarly cipie of the disciple of Dunbar, and the influence of that master is seen not merely in the artistic finish, but in the succinctness, the aphoristic vigour of his verse. For all these qualities his supreme example is undoubtedly TJte Roundel of Love : The Roundel Love.' ' Lo ! quhat it is to lufe Lerne ze, that list to prufe, Be me, I say, that no wayis may By The grund of greif remvfe, Bot still decay, both nycht and day : Lo ! quhat it is to lufe. Lufe is ane fervent fyre, a Kendillit without desyre : Schort plesour, lang displesour, Kepentance is the hyre ; Ane pure tressour without mesour P r Lufe is ane fervent fyre. To lufe and to be wyiss, To rege with gud adwyiss, rag at Now thus, now than, so gois the game, Incertane is the dyiss : Thair is no man, I say, that can Both lufe and to be wyiss. Fie alwayis from the snair, Lerne at me to be ware : It is ane pane and dowbill trane snare Of endles wo and cair ; For to refrane that danger plane Fie alwayis frome the snair.' 250 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Elsewhere he also manifests some of the coarser aspects of the old Scottish realism, curiously mingled with the graceful amorous frivolity of His asserted & J ' lack of the school of Surrey. As to his asserted lack of earnestness, fervour, passion, surely Vp, Helsom Hairt, and its companion piece, My Hairt is High Above, the latter unsigned but engraven all over with his subscription, are fervent and pas- sionate enough, though erotic rather than sentimental; and is not this exquisitely simple stanza as imagined coming from the lips of the dying Master of Erskine as expressive a symbol of passionate regret as the loudest of protestations ? own * Adew my awin sueit thing, My joy and conforting, My mirth and sollesing earthly glory Of erdly gloir ; Ffair weill, my lady bricht And my remembrance rycht, Ffair weill and haif gud nycht : I say no moir ! ' At the same time Scott is not a poet of the domestic affections, but the poet chiefly of gallantry. The poet of The bulk f h* 8 verse that has been pre- gaiiantry. served is of the light, gay, and even frivolous, rather than serious, order. A wit more than humorist or satirist, his wit plays over all the superficial aspects of love with a certain sparkling, if not dazzling, brilliancy. His maxims and experiences are those of the gallants of his time ; but such as they are, they are detailed with much artful cleverness ALEXANDEK MONTGOMERIE 251 and vivacity, as also with an ease and elegance un- equalled by any of the old Scots 'makaris/ and by none of the earlier English lyrists except Surrey. Alexander Montgomerie, properly the last of the Scots 'makaris,' was, like Dunbar and Douglas, closely connected with one of the great Alexander Scottish families, being the younger son *}%** of Hugh Montgomerie of Hazelhead, Ayr- His earl y life - shire, descended from a younger branch of the Montgomeries, Earls of Eglinton. By intermarriage the family was also variously related to the poetic Sempills. He himself states that he was born on ' Easter day at morne,' but the year is unknown, though it was probably about 1540. Nor, though he was highly accomplished, do we possess any in- formation about his education; the story of Hume of Polwart in The Flyting as to his being sent to Argyle to learn ' leir ' being so plainly meant in mere scorn that nothing can be inferred from it. Most likely he visited Argyle in some military capacity, for Dempster states that he was vulgarly called 'the Highland trooper.' That he had some special inter- course with Highlanders, and possessed at least a sprinkling of Gaelic, is clear from his Answer to ane Helandmanis Invective ; and if he also wrote How the Helandman was made l which, however, is more like the work of an earlier poet most likely he had reasons for a special grudge against the Argyle Highlanders. 1 Bannatyne MS. 252 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE A sonnet by Barclay of Ladyland is addressed to Montgomerie as ' Captain/ but he is not to be con- At the court of founded with Captain Robert Mont- jamesvi. gomerie, who was one of the king's bodyguards. Though in some special sense he served the Regent Morton and King James vi., the exact nature of his office is unknown. But, for some years, he was a persona grata at the curious court of the young prince, an intimate of some of the more powerful nobles, a friend of many fair dames, an avowed gallant after the manner of his time, and for some time the favourite poet, and it may be the poetic instructor, of his pedantic patron, whose bound- less literary vanity he did not scruple to feed with the gross flattery which alone would have satisfied it : * So quintessence of Kings, when thou compyle, Thou stainis my verses with thy stately style.' In 1583 Montgomerie obtained a pension of 500 merks a year, chargeable on the rents of the Arch- His retirement bishop of Glasgow, but some difficulty from court. as ^ o fa Q payment led to legal proceed- ings, which apparently terminated in his favour, the grant of the pension being confirmed in 1588. Meanwhile, during a foreign tour, for which he obtained leave of absence in 1586, he is stated to have been sent into a foreign prison ; but where, or why he was imprisoned, or even how or when he was set at liberty, is unknown. 1 Be that as it may, he latterly 1 Irving, in his Life of Montgomerie in Laing's edition, states that ' an authentic document informs us that he was detained in a ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE 253 so completely lost the favour of the king that he had to retire from the court, and there is no evidence that he was ever again permitted to return. No light on the cause of his disgrace is to be obtained from his poetry, except that he regarded himself as very ill used, but it is sufficiently explained if he be the Alexander Montgomerie, brother of the laird of Hazelhead, who, a neglected entry in the Register of the Privy Council 1 informs us, 'having failed to appear to answer for being art and part with the late Hew Barclay of Ladyland in the treasonable enterprise for the taking of Ilisha for the use of the Spanish, is' 14th July 1597 'to be denounced rebel/ This Hew Barclay, who, on being surprised at Ailsa, rushed into the sea and drowned himself, was a poetic acquaintance of Montgomerie's, 2 and, moreover, the old laird of Hazelhead, the supposed brother of Montgomerie, was still alive, so that the Alexander Montgomerie accused of having been art and part in this foolish enterprise seems to have been none other than the poet. Nothing is known as to his later years. The tradition that he settled at Compstone Castle, Kirkcudbrightshire, near which, at the junction of the Dee and the Taffe, is supposed to be the scene of The Cherrie and the Slae, is quite unverified ; and foreign prison, ' but he quotes no reference. The poems of Mont- gomerie usually affirmed by editors to refer to his foreign imprison- ment could, from the context, only refer to his imprisonment in this country. 1 Vol. v. p. 402. 2 A sonnet of Ladyland to Montgomerie, Montgomerie's answer, and Ladyland's reply, are included in Montgomerie's Poems. 254 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE not only was The Cherrie and the Slae written before he lost the king's favour, but there is no reason to suppose that he ever acquired means sufficient to enable him to occupy such a residence. Though his sonnets and poems represent a varied love acquaint- anceship, he was apparently more a languishing than a successful suitor. It has been taken for granted that the ( maistres ' of most of his sonnets and poems was Lady Margaret Montgomerie, to whom, we are told, he 'plied his suit with equal poetic skill and courtier-like grace ' ; but Lady Margaret, who became the wife of the Master of Seton, afterwards Earl of Win ton, must have been over twenty years his junior, and his verses to her are more fatherly than amatory in tone. There is no evidence that he ever married. He was alive in 1605, and died some time before 1615. A disciple of Scott, Montgomerie was, however, more inventive in his metres and also more akin to The sonnet of ^6 English school in language as well as Montgomerie. method. 1 His susceptibility to the new influences is especially seen in his preference for the sonnet, of which he has left no fewer than seventy 1 Montgomerie 's Cherrie and the Slae, first printed in 1597, and an edition ' newly altered, perfyted,' etc., by Montgomerie before his death, was published by Andro Hart, 1615. This edition was known to and partly used by Ramsay for his Evergreen, but no copy is now known to exist. Various other separate editions have been published. The Flyting first appeared in 1621, and The Mindes Melodie in 1605. The collected editions of his Poems are those of Laing, 1821, and the Scottish Text Society, ed. Cranstoun, 1887. The MSS. are the Bannatyne, the Maitland, and the Drummond (University Library, Edinburgh). ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE 255 examples. To this form of verse he may have been introduced through Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, but it is further clear that he was greatly influenced by Ronsard, several of his sonnets being merely transla- tions of those of the French poet. 1 Although (1) he uses the occasional Wyatt (and common Sidney) form abba, abba, cd, cd (in one instance dd), ee and (2) the more common Wyatt form abba, abba, cdd, cee he never uses the Surrey and Shakespeare form of three alternately rhyming quatrains, but by linking the third quatrain to the second as the second is linked to the first, he introduces (3) a variation ab, ab, be, be, cd, cd, ee 2 and (4) he avoids in one or two instances the final couplet by adopting, from Ronsard, the arrangement abba, abba (in one instance abab), ccd, eed, the nearest approach to the Petrarchian before Sidney and Milton. The following example will also show that he understood something of the special poetic use of the sonnet, the change in the tenor of the thought at the ninth line being very clearly marked, while its whole direction is towards the final conclusion : ' Bright amorous ee vhare Love in ambush lyes, eye Cleir cristal tear distilde at our depairt, departure Sueet secreit sigh more peircing nor a dairt, than Inchanting voice, beuitcher of the wyse, 1 This fact was first pointed out by Dr. Hoffmann in Studien zu Alexander Montgomerie ; Altenburg, 1894. 2 Dr. Hoffmann points out that Spenser, who is the first English poet to use this form, must have got it from the Essayes of a Prentise, by James vi., 1584, Montgomerie being the inventor of the form. 256 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE which Quhyt ivory hand, vhilk thrust my fingers pryse I challenge zou, the causers of my smarte, As homiceids, and murtherers of my harte, In Kesones Court to suffer ane assyse. know Bot oh ! I fear, zea rather wot I weill, To be repledgt ze plainly will appeill To Love, whom Resone never culd command : Bot since I can not better myn estate, while Zit vhill I live, at leist I sail regrate eye Ane ee, a teir, a sigh, a voce, a hand.' But the metrical form with which Montgomerie's name is chiefly associated is the quatorzain of The The Bankis of Helicon, in which he also wrote ?The Blnki / tliat ver y PP ular P iece ^ Cherry and of Helicon.' ^ e Slae, as well as the emotional farewell, Adieu, Daisy of Delight. That The Bankis of Helicon, preserved in the Maitland MS., is the earliest of the productions in that measure, is proved by the fact that Sir Richard Maitland's Ballat of the Creatioun of the World, in the Bannatyne MS., is said to be ' maid to the tone of The Bankis of Helicon.' It is also in the Bannatyne MS. that mention is first made of this tune, and Montgomerie's authorship of the words is as clearly proved as, from mere internal evidence, it can be. Montgomerie's metrical invention consisted in add- ing to a ten-line stave, very common in England from the beginning of the fourteenth century, a peculiar wheel borrowed from a stave of the old Latin hymns. It may be that the song was written to fit some old sacred tune, or the tune may have been written by some court musician. Its popularity gave the stave ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE 257 a considerable vogue, other examples besides Mont- gomerie's and Maitland's being A ne Ballat of ye Captain of ye Castle, Burel's Passage of a Pilgrim, and The Dumb TF^ none of them, however, of the slightest poetic merit. Revived by Ramsay, the stave became a favourite one of Burns, whose most effective use of it is in the recitatives of The Jolly Beggars. With the exception of the French octave named by James vi. the ballat royal, and recommended by him for 'heich and grave subjects/ espe- Hisuseofthe cially drawn out of ' learnit autors ' and old staves - the rime royal, Montgomerie shows little partiality for the favourite staves of the old ' makaris.' In The Fly ting he, however, introduces the old rhymed alliterative stave of the romances, which he also makes use of in Ane Answer to ane Helandmanis Invective: and in the introductory verses of The Flyting he applies the common rondeau (in triple measure) to Polwart with some effectiveness : ' Polwart zee peip Like a mouse amongst thornes, Na cunning zee keepe. Polwart zee peip, Ze look like a sheipe And zee had twa homes. if Polwart ze peip Like a mouse amongst thornes.' Further, in Ane Example for His Lady, he uses the sixteen-line stave in rime couee, aaab, aaab, aaab, aaab ; in Address to the Sun, the common six-line stave in 11 258 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE rime couee, aab, ccb ; in Remember Rightly, the six- line stave, aab, aab, with an additional couplet ; and in Regrate of his Unhappy Luve, a variation of the six- line stave of The Address to the Deil (see ante, p. 244), the first head-lines being of five accents, and the second, third, and fourth of four only, while the two tail lines are of only one, the last, ' Bot I ' forming a refrain : tedious ; learning ' Irkit I am with langsum luvis lair signing 6 ; Oursett with inwart siching sair ; For in the presone of dispair iiy, every fellow Seeing ilk wicht gettis sum weilfair Bot I.' In Sen Fortun we have an example of the bobwheel attached to a six-line stave rhyming alternately ab, ab, ab, the bob of one accent being Other staves with bob- followed by a line rhyming with the sixth line, the final line which rhymes with the bob, constituting a refrain. In To his Maistres he uses a five-line stave with internal rhyme, followed by the old bobwheel of the alliterative romances. Montgomerie had also recourse to old English measures, of which no examples are to be found in the Scottish ' makaris/ and he clearly got English stave. J & . some of his staves from the new lyric school of England, as the six-line stave ab, ab, cc, named by Gascoigne the ' ballade,' and used by Wyatt, as well as afterwards by Spenser and Shake- speare. This stave Montgomerie also, like Scott (see ante, p. 244), used with a refrain. ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE 259 Of the various forms of ' cuttit and broken verse ' which Montgomerie affected, it is impossible here to give a minute analysis. In his more . Cu ttitand elaborate staves he combined interlacing broken verse. 1 rhyme with couplets, with rime couee, and with various forms of the bobwheel. Some were written to music, as that long complex stave into which, in The Mindes Melodie, he translated ' certayne Psalmes of the Kinglie Prophete Dauid, applyed to a new pleasant tune, verie comfortable to everie one that is rightlie acquainted therewith.' But the ingenuity and skill of Montgomerie as a metrist sometimes proved more a snare to him than an advantage. The mere length and com- Metrist rather plexity of several of his more elaborate that poet - staves tended to dissipate metrical as well as poetic unity, and some of them cannot be regarded as any- thing more than ingenious metrical exercises. Montgomerie's poetic fame rests traditionally on The Cherrie and the Slae, which, containing some spirited description, especially in the . TheCher rie introductory stanzas, as well as much and the slae -' shrewd proverbial philosophy, fails of effectiveness not only from the unsuitability of the stave for consecutive narrative, but from the obscurity of the poet's intention. Perhaps its merits in description and philosophy are nowhere better represented than in the two following stanzas : 1 The dew as diamondis did hing, hang Vpon the tender twistis and zing, boughs ; Ouir-twinkling all the treis ; 260 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE And ay quhair flowris flonrischit faire Thair suddainly I saw repaire In swarmes the sounding beis. Sum sweitly hes the hony socht, Until Quhil they war cloggit soir ; Sum willingly the waxe hes wrocht, To heip it vp in stoir ; So heiping, with keiping, Into thair hyuis they hyde it, Precyselie and wyselie For winter they prouyde it. To pen the pleasures of that park, How euery blossome, branche, and bark Agaynst the sun did schyne, I leif to poetis to compyle In stately verse and lofty style : ability It passes my ingyne. Bot as I muisit myne allane I saw ane river rin a Out ouir ane craggie rok of stane, Tlien Syne lichtit in ane lin With tumbling and rumbling Amang the rochis round, Dewailing and falling Into that pit profound.' But on the whole the Bankis of Helicon is the better poem, for even its aureate language and its The Night is classical allusions add to the quaint NeirGone.' effect of the stave, and to the old-world courtesy of the ceremonial love-song. At the same time, much of it is mere prose, as indeed is the bulk of Montgomerie's verse. Yet in The Night is Neir Gone we have one of the classics of the sixteenth century. What it may owe to the old song to which the tune was first set it is impossible to tell, but the ALEXANDER MONTGOMEEIE 261 whole picture of the approach of day is a true poetic conception presented with much vivid fidelity. Here are the three first stanzas : * Hay ! nou the day dauis ; The jolie Cok crauis ; Nou shroudis the shauis Throu Natur anone. The thissell-cok cryis On louers vha lyis. Nou skaillis the skyis : The night is neir gone. The feildis ouerflouis With gouans that grouis, Quhair lilies lyk louis, Als rid as the rone. The turtill that treu is, With nots that reneuis, Her pairtie perseuis : The night is neir gone. Nou Hairtis with Hyndis, Conforme to thair kyndis, Hie tussis thair tyndis, On grund vhair they grone. Nou Hurchonis, with Hairis, Aye passis in pairis ; Quhilk deuly declaris The night is neir gone.' Occasional stanzas of some poetic merit may also be found embedded amongst much that is chiefly trivial or commonplace. But trivial or commonplace very much of his poetry is, and it also suffers from his too frequent peevish- ness. The Flyting l is occasionally clever, but its fun 1 Montgomery's opponent in The Flyting was Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, one of the gentlemen of the Bedchamber. dawns woods clears daisies flames rowanberry antlers hedgehogs ; hares Which His defects. 262 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE is for the most part mere grossness, the grossness in which James vi. delighted to revel. Montgomerie possessed little of the aphoristic wit, or the light and easy gaiety, of Scott, and, notwithstanding his ingenious cleverness, he very rarely attains to Scott's delicate grace. As for his devotional pieces, they are merely rhyming expressions of Reformation theology, written, most of them for special tunes, and some of them to tunes associated with secular songs. After Scott and Montgomerie, the only ' makar ' of this later period who deserves particular mention is the old Scots judge, Sir Richard Mait- Sir Richard J . land, Lord Lethmgton, who, born as early Baron and & as 1496, survived to 1586 politically, religiously, and poetically very much a relic of the first half of the century. Descended from an old Anglo-Norman family who had possessed the old keep of Thirlestane from the time that Sir Richard de Mateland held it (if he did hold it) ' heil and feir ' against the army of Edward i., the 'auld laird of Lethington ' was essentially feudal in all his opinions, political, social, and religious. Patriot rather that partisan, he regarded political and religious questions mainly from the standpoint of an administrator of the law. Throughout the political and religious commotions of his time, and notwithstanding the political entanglements of his brilliant son, William the Secretary, he kept so aloof from party disputes that he continued in his office of judge whichever party was in power; and having, in the words of SIR RICHARD MAITLAND 263 James VL, served the king's 'grandsire, goodsire, goodame, mother, and himself/ was permitted, when he resigned his judgeship in July 1584, to enjoy, by special favour, its emoluments during the remainder of his life. When overtaken by blindness sometime before the arrival of Queen Mary from France in 1561, Maitland resolved to devote his leisure to study in * Historical order, as he stated, to ( occupy himself as interest of his t poetry. in time past, and because he thought it ' dangerous to " mell " hi matters of great import- ance ' dividing his attention between genealogy and poetry. 1 Though not strictly poetical, his pieces are, several of them, terse, pointed, and witty, and all, while displaying that shrewd practical wisdom and lofty patriotism by which he guided his own conduct, are of more or less historic interest from their refer- ences to the customs and events of the time. His imprecatory poem On the New Zeir, written in the lifetime of the Queen-Regent, gives a sort of bird's-eye view of his ideal of a well-governed and 1 Maitland wrote A Chronicle and Historie of the House and Sur- name of Seaton, which was printed by the Maitland Club in 1829 from a MS. in the Advocates' Library ; and the same work, under a slightly different title and from a different MS., was published in Edinburgh, 1830. But his chief service to literature was the col- lection of old MSS., including his own poetry. This collection, only second in importance to the Bannatyne MS. , is now in the Pepysian Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge. It has never been fully printed the largest selection from it being that in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. Maitland's own Poems are, most of them, in the Collections of Pinkerton, 1786, and Sibbald, 1807. They were published separately by the Maitland Club, 1830. 264 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE prosperous community. On the Quenis Maryage, 1558, shows strong French leanings, as does also Of the Wynning of Calice, 1558 : ' Thairfoir ye all that ar of Scottis blude, Be blyth, rejois for the recovering Of that strang toun : and of the fortoun gude Of your maist tendir freynd that nobil king.' In Of the Assemblie of the Congregatioun, 1559, and On the New Zeir, 1560, he indicates, however, that his chief concern is for the reconciliation of the parties whose disputes had plunged the nation in the horrors of civil war : ' I cannot sing for the vexatioun Of Frenchmen, and the Congregatioun, That hes maid troubil in the natioun, building And monye bair bigging.' In his Satire on the Age he discourses with much point on the pride and selfishness of the old ecclesi- ' satire on the ast i cs > on tne decay of 'mirrieness' through A s e/ the poverty of the people, on the oppres- sion of tenants by spendthrift landlords, and on the feeble influence of law and justice. The amusing Satire on the Toun Ladyes touches on a lighter theme, and supplies us with a picturesque and minute sketch of the vagaries of female fashion in the Edinburgh of the ' Evangel ' : coats must 1 * Thair wylecots man weill be hewit, stripes of Broudirit richt braid, with pasmentis sewit : inquire into I trow, quha wald the matter speir, husbands That thair guidmen had caus to rew it such raiment That evir thair wyfis weir sic geir. SIR RICHARD MAITLAND 265 striped above ; tassels make newfashion- edness hanging necklaces ; throat beads high young swell embroidered slippers Thair wovin hois of silk ar schawin, Ban-it abone with tasteis drawin ; With garteris of ane new maneir, To gar thair courtlines be knawin ; And all for newfangilnes of geir. Sumtyme they will beir up thair gown To schaw thair wylecot hingeand down, And sumtyme bayth thai will upbeir To schaw thair hois of blak or broun, And all for newfangilnes of geir. Thair collars, carcats, and hals beidis ! With velvet hats heicht on thair heidis, Coirdit with gold lyik ane younkeir, Broudit about with goldin threidis ; And all for newfangilnes of geir. Thair schone of velvet and thair muillis ! In kirk thai ar not content of stuillis, The sermon quhen thai sit to heir, But caryis cuschingis, lyik vaine fuillis, And all for newfangilnes of geir/ He is equally effective when he takes up his par- able against The Folye of ane Auld Manis Mary and ane Young Woman, or illustrates that there is now Na Kyndes [recognition of kinship] Without Siller [money], or tells us of his Solace in Age, * Quhan young men cumis fra the grene (Play and at the fute-ball had beue), With brokin spald ; collar-bone I thank my God I want my ene, eyes And am sa aid,' or declaims in the bob wheel stanza of Dunbar's Donald Owre, Aganis the Theivis of Liddisdaill : Other Satires. 266 SCOTTISH VEKNACULAR LITERATURE * h a e r s c t hes such work known cowhouses mosses Too ; a everything mouth ' They leif not spendill, spone, nor speit, Bed, boster, blanket, sark, nor scheit : " Johne of the Parke," Kypis kist and ark ; For all sic wark He is richt meit. He is weill kend, " John of the Syide," A gretar theif did never ryide : He never tyris For to brek byris ; Our rnuir and myris Our gude ane gyide. Thair is ane, callit " Clement's Hob," Fr a ilk puir wyfe reiffis the wob, And all the laif Quhatever thay haif : The deuil resave Thairfoir his gob ! ' Two sons of Maitland, John of Thirlestane, ancestor of the Dukes of Lauderdale, and Thomas, wrote poetry, but the verses of neither are of much account. Towards the close of the century vernacular poetry of a secular kind was cultivated only by James vi. and those under his immediate influence. 1 Besides his Essay es of a Prentise, 1584, containing pieces written before he had passed his eighteenth year, James published in 1591 Poetical Exercises at Vacant Hours, also, he states, the work of his ' verie young and tender years/ For so young a man his verses display considerable technical 1 Holland's Court of Venus, imprinted at Edinburgh by John Ros, 1577, and republished by the Scottish Text Society, 1884, is of no interest except philologically. An edition of the same author's Seven Sages is also promised by the Scottish Text Society. JAMES VI, ETC. 267 accomplishment, but are deformed, the most of them, by the same absurd mixture of familiarity and pomp- osity which characterised his own address. Yet he does occasionally attain to a certain semblance of dignity and grace, as in this sonnet prefixed to The Lepanto : ' The aziir'd vaulte, the crystall circles bright, The gleaming fyrie torches powdred there, The changing round, the shyning beamie light, The sad and bearded lyres, the monsters faire, The prodiges appearing in the aire, The rearding thunders and the blustering winds, The foules, in hew, in shape, in nature raire The prettie notes that wing'd musiciens finds ; In earth the sau'rie floures, the metall'd minds, The wholesome hearbes, the hautie pleasant trees, The syluer streames, the beasts of sundrie kinds, The bounded roares, and fishes of the seas : All these for teaching man the Lord did frame, To do his will whose glorie shines in thame.' But the close is mean and tame; nor has the poem anything of the character of a sonnet. It will also be observed that it is practically in The Court English. Two Englishmen also, Robert Poets - and Thomas Hudson, violers to the king, wrote English poetry spelt after a somewhat Scottish fashion. As for William Fowler, who translated The Triumphs of Petrarch, 1 and Stewart of Baldiness, who presented to the king Ane Abbregement of Roland Fvrious translatit ovt of Aroist? such specimens of their verse as have been printed do not tend to beget any curiosity as to the bulk of it still only in MS. ; and 1 MS. in the Edinburgh University Library. 2 MS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. 268 SCOTTISH VERNACULAK LITERATURE like assails if; meddle jeer at which though Latin poetry. the only other name that need be mentioned is John Burel most probably the John Burel who was master of the king's mint, who in 1590 wrote The Descrip- tioun of the Quenis Maiestis maist honorable Entry into the Toon of Edinburgh, only of antiquarian interest, and The Passage of the Pilgrim, a dull alle- gorical piece in the stave of The Cherrie and the Slae. 1 During the sixteenth century Latin poetry was cul- tivated by a number of Scotsmen, and the influence of George Buchanan in this regard was felt down to a much later period. With this artificial phase of literature we have here no concern ; but the idea may be hazarded that its cultivation was aided by the current notion of the frivolity of the merely vernacular Muse. Except for devotion or religious or politico-religious controversy, vernacular verse was unauthorised by the Kirk. Alexander Arbuthnot, 2 the Presbyterian Principal of Aberdeen University, who did in secret venture to cultivate the vernacular Muse merely for pleasure or solace, did so in fear and trembling : ' In poetrie I preis to pas the tyme When cairfull thochts with sorrow sailyes me ; Bot gif I mell with meter or with ryrne, With rascal rymours I sail raknit be ; They sal me bourdin als with mony lie, In charging me with that quhilk never I ment : Quhat marvel is thocht I murne and lament. 3 1 Both poems are printed in Watson's Collection, Part n., 1710, and the * Description ' is included in Sibbald's Collection, 1807. 2 Three poems of Arbuthnot are included in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. THE WEDDERBUKNS 269 In addition to the verses of Dunbar, Henryson, and other ' makaris' already mentioned, the Bannatyne MS. contains several innominate specimens of The Wedder Catholic religious poetry, which, if lack- bums, ing in emotional fervour and simplicity, are at least melodious, eloquent, and imposing. Scott and Montgomerie also, Catholics by early training, wrote in accordance with the spirit of Protestant theology several religious pieces, mainly of interest as metrical exercises ; but the chief representatives of the early religious Muse of the Reformation were the brothers Wedderburn and their coadjutors, whose translation of Lutheran hymns and the Psalms of David, but especially parodies of old secular songs, were perhaps more effective in spreading the Reformation furore than even the preaching of Knox. At what time these religious pieces were collected into a volume is uncertain. The earliest dated copy is one of 1578, but there is an undated earlier one, and in all likeli- hood copies were printed and circulated in secret before the ' Evangel ' was established. The full title of the book is ' Ane Compendious Buik of Godlie Psalms and Spirituall Sangs, collectit furthe of sundrie partis of the Scripture, with vtheris Ballates changeit out of prophane Sangis in Godlie sangis, for avoyding of sin and harlotrie.' x The book, which was frequently reprinted, was long known as The Dundee 1 A reprint of the 1578 edition was published at Edinburgh by David Laing in 1868 ; and an edition based on the earlier text by the Scottish Text Society, ed. Professor Mitchell, 1897. 270 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Psalms. Its authorship is assigned by Calderwood to Robert Wedderburn the youngest of three poetic brothers, sons of James Wedderburn, merchant in Dundee who, Calderwood states, ' turned the tunes and tenor of many profane ballads into Godlie songs and hymnes which wer called the Psalmes of Dundie.' 1 Of John, the second brother, Calderwood also says: He translated many of Luther's dytements into Scottish meeter and the Psalmes of David. He turned manie bawdie songs and rymes in Godlie rymes/ 2 The eldest brother James was, as we have already seen (p. 217), the author of some plays against the Papists. All three brothers were educated at St. Andrews University. James became a merchant, and John and Robert were priests. James finally took refuge in Dieppe. John, who had taken refuge in Germany, returned to Scotland after the death of James v. in 1542, but had finally to flee to England, where he died in 1556. Robert was vicar of Dundee as late as 13th January 1552-3, when letters of legitimation passed under the Great Seal in favour of his two bastard sons. In the Bannatyne MS. are four poems one a long historical Ballat of the Prayis of Women by one of the Wedderburns, but which of them there is nothing to show. The Gude and Godlie Ballates were probably, many of them, used at the earlier services of the Reformers; and it can't well have been with other than selections from them that Queen Mary was 1 History, viii. 147. 2 Ibid., i. 143. 'THE GUDE AND GODLIE BALLATES' 271 serenaded on her first night at Holyrood Palace ' tant mal chantez,' says Brantome, ' et si mal accordez que rien plus.' They possess the actuality . The Gude and earnestness which belong to this SiiiSes^and period of stern religious conflict, but the old songs, the main literary interest of the book now lies in its parodies of the old songs, some of them of English origin. If these parodies are merely ridicu- lous caricatures both of the supposed religious truths they profess to set forth, and of the original sentiments they seek to appropriate for a sacred purpose, they contain at least faint echoes of the old popular lyrics, many of which have wholly perished perished because of these Gude and Godlie Ballates. Richt soirly musing in my mynde, in the rime couee of Burns's Address to the Deil, is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland as a song sung by the shepherds. Allace that same sweet Face, also mentioned in The Complaynt, is found in The JBuik ; but the ' sweit face/ ' onlie to be our remedie/ is that which ' deit vpon ane tree.' ' To die therefore ' is the refrain of a song beginning, ' Of mercy zit he passis all.' For lufe of One I mak my mone begins a spiritual lament. Quho is at my Windo ? a song of which the air is in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and echoes of which are found in many lyrics down to the time of Burns, is represented by its chorus : * Quho is at my windo ? quho, quho ? Go from my windo, go, go ! Quho callis thair, sa lyke a strangair ? Go from my windo, go ! ' 272 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE but the occupant of the apartment is no less a person than God Almighty. ' In till ane mirthfull Maij morning/ the poet 'is thinkand' not on his mistress but on ' Christ so free,' Who * Quhilk meiklie for mankynde suffered ; Tholit to be pynde On croce cruellie. La, La.' He soliloquises ' My Lufe murnis for me, for me ; My Lufe that murnis for me ; not I am vnkynde, lies nocht in mynde, My Lufe that murnis for me' ; but ' Who is ' his ' Lufe bot God abufe ? ' With the shepherds in The Complaynt he sings, ' All my hart, ay this is my sang/ but it is Christ who has his ' hart ay/ If again with the shepherds he weep alone ' in great distress/ it is because he is exiled from, not his mistress, but God's word. In Grievous is my sorrow, he appropriates The Dying Maiden's Com- plaint an old English song for a wholly spiritual purpose. He supplies the beginning of a very old amatory invitation : 4 Johne, cum kis me now, Johne, cum kis me now, Johne, cum kis me by and by And mak no moir adow ' ; but adds 1 The Lord thy God I am That John dois the call ; John represented man, By Be grace celestiall.' 'THE GUDE AND GODLIE BALLATES' 273 The refrain ' Downe sail cum, downe ay, downe ay/ he attaches to a lugubrious ditty on human frailty. In With Huntis Vp a song known to Kobert Henryson long before the English song written in honour of Henry vm. ' The Pope is the fox/ ' Koine is the rox/ the hunter is ' Jesu our King/ and ' the hundis are Peter and Paull.' The Wind blawis cauld is represented by the chorus : * The wind blawis cauld, furious and bauld, This lang and mony day ; But Christis mercy we man all die Or keip the cauld wind away.' That very old song, Ha now the Day dawis, which the minstrels sang before Dunbar was born, is not forgotten, but its spirit as well as form is no doubt immeasurably better preserved in Montgomerie's masterpiece (p. 261). The ' gude-inan ' of a traditional song appears in the old chorus : ' Till our gude-man, till our gude-man To Keep faith and lufe till our gude-man' ; but ' our gude-man ' of the ballad ' in hevin dois ring ' (reign). The chorus, ' Hay trix, tryme go trix Vnder the grene wod-tree,' is attached to a ditty beginning ' The Paip, that pagane full of pryde, Pope He hes vs blindit lang,' and celebrating the destruction of the monasteries in 1559, after a fashion which retains much of the free s 274 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE allusion of the original song. Finally, we have more than the outline of a popular song in the ballad beginning ' All my Lufe, leif me not, Leif me not, leif me not, All my Lufe, leif me not Thus myne alone : With ane burding on my bak, I may not beir it I am sa waik : Lufe, this burden from me tak Or ellis I am gone.' The Gude and Godlie Ballates are the chief poetic monument of the Scottish Reformation. In Scotland Alexander the Reformation essentially logical and Hume. Calvinistic in its teaching inspired no original religious poetry corresponding to the Lutheran hymns. Alexander Hume, second son of Patrick, fifth Lord Hume, and minister of Logie, Stirlingshire, published in 1599 ' Hymnes or Sacred Songs, 1 wherein the right vse of Poesie may be spied/ but it can scarce be affirmed that he attains to ' poesie ' of any sort, although The Day Estivall, if absurdly prosaic, is occasionally picturesque. Lady Colville of Culross a daughter of Sir James Melville of Halhill to whom Hume dedicated his Lady coiviiie Symnes, wrote, shortly before the end of cuiross. O f t h e century, Ane Godly Dream, 2 which may perhaps be best defined as a sort of emotional representation of the extreme Calvinism of the Kirk. 1 Reprinted by the Bannatyne Club, 1832. 2 First published in 1603, and frequently in the seventeenth century. Included in Laing's Metrical Tales, 1826. THE REFORMATION SATIRISTS 275 But the Protestant verse-writers devoted them- selves chiefly to political or ecclesiastical The Reforma . diatribes, such as those reprobated by Sir tion satirists. Richard Maitland in On the Malice of Poets : ' Sum of the poyets, and makars, that are now, Of grit despyte, and malice, ar sa fow full That all lesingis, that can be inventit, lies Thay put in writ, and garris thame be prentit. 5 makes They were issued chiefly as broadsides from the press of Lekprevick, and nearly all the surviving examples have been published by the Scottish Text Society. 1 The chief laureate of this broadside school was Robert Sempill, 2 who is mentioned in a sonnet by Montgomerie as still alive in 1584. Nothing is known of his parentage or personal history, the attempts to identify him with members of the noble family of Sempill in the legitimate line being quite unsuccessful. Before he turned political or religious satirist he was known as the author of three ballads, entirely secular, and witty after the coarse fashion of that age : on Margret Fleming, on Grissel Sande- landis, and on Jonet Reid, Ane Violet and Ane Quhyt, being slicht Wemen of Lyf and Conversatioun and Taverneris. Sempill was a skilful metrist, and his command of virulent abuse was remarkable even for his time, his masterpiece in that line being The Legend and Discourse of the Life of the Tulchene Bischope of Sanctandrois. The other poets whose 1 Satiric Poems of the Time of the Reformation, 1889-93. 2 The Sempill Collates have been published separately, ed. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1872. 276 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE productions are included in the Scottish Text Society's volume are Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, the supposed author of Ane Ballat of ye Captane of the Castell, in the stanza of The Cherrie and the Sloe] Sir John Maitland, Lord Thirlestane, whose political verses can scarce be termed partisan ; John Davidson, minister in Dunfermline, whose uncompromising and bitter opposition to the King's ecclesiastical policy got him into serious trouble ; and Nicol Burne, who at one time was Professor of Philosophy at St. Andrews, but becoming ' be ane special grace of God ane member of the halie Catholic Church,' published at Paris in 1581 The Dispvtation concerning the Controversit Headdis of Religion, to a few copies of which was appended Ane Admonition to the Anti- Christian Ministers of the Reformed Kirk of Scot- land, only remarkable for its weak extravagance. A satirical piece not included in the Scottish Text Society's volume, the Earl of Glencairn's Ane Epistle direct fra the Holye Armit of Allarit to his Brethe- ren the Gray Freiris, 1 has some ironical vigour ; but the main interest in this controversial poetry is historical the style, the wit, the thought and argu- ment being, almost without exception, hopelessly mediocre. 1 Knox's WorJcSj ed. Laing, vol. i. p. 72. IX ANONYMOUS POETRY OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES 1 THE FREIRIS OF BERWICK ' ' THE THRIE PRIESTIS OF PEBLIS ' ' SYMMIE AND HIS BRUDER ' ' THE WYFE OF AUCHTIRMWCHTY ' ' THE WOWING OF JOK AND JYNNY' 'IN SOMER' 'QUHY SOWLD NOCHT ALLANE HONORIT BE ? ' ' THE MURNING MAIDEN ' ' TAYIS BANK' 'IN MAY IN A MORNING' 'o LUSTY MAY' ' WELCUM TO MAY ' ' MY HART IS QUHYT ' ' ANE WELCUM TO EILD' 'THUS I PROPONE IN MY CARPING.' THE present chapter deals with such anonymous poetry of authenticated early date as has not been already noticed in Chapter IV. Two of 'The Freiris of the best- known poems of a semi-ecclesi- Stwittenby*** astical sort are TJie Freiris of Berwick l Dunbar ? and The Thrie Priestis of Peblis. From a certain similarity in subject and treatment some are disposed 1 Bannatyne and Maitland MSS. At the end of an edition of The Thrie Priestix, 1603, it was advertised as printed by Robert Charteris, but no copy of this edition is known to exist. A copy of an edition by Robson, Aberdeen, has, however, been preserved. The piece was included from the Maitland MS. in Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786; and a collated text is in Sibbald's Collection, 1802, and in Laing's and the Scottish Text Society's editions of the Works of Dunbar. 277 278 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE to ascribe them to the same author, and The Freiris of Berwick has usually been ascribed to Dunbar. The similarity is, however, very partial ; and whether or not Dunbar be the author of The Freiris of Ber- wick, he could scarce have been the author of the more didactic Priestis of Peblis. Moreover, excellent though in some respects The Freiris of Berwick is, it does not seem to be stamped with the impress of Dunbar's peculiar genius. It is too purely and lightly comic, too genial, and even too merely superficial, to be his. The irony possesses little of his subtlety, corrosiveness, or depth. The style, easy, simple, and apt though it be, lacks his peculiar strength and incisiveness. Yet from start to finish the tale is admirably told; the scenes are full of vivacity and movement ; the characters of the small comedy the frail and passive friar Allan, the vigorous, alert, and sportive friar Robert, the luxurious Abbot (friar John), the 'dink' and 'dangerous' gudewife, the open and jolly landlord are set before us to the life; the situations are cleverly developed, without exaggeration, yet with much humorous discernment ; and the denouement mere piece of horseplay though it is is narrated with a gusto that is quite contagious. The story a landlady's intrigue with an abbot, and its amusing discovery, to the private confusion of both parties, while the husband is none Its theme. . .. the wiser is no doubt partly borrowed, as most of the old tales were. A similar theme forms the subject of a French fabliau of the twelfth or 'THE FREIRIS OF BERWICK' 279 thirteenth century, 1 and even the pretended conjura- tion of the supper has its counterpart in the French story of the Soldat Magicien 2 of uncertain date. There is in truth nothing remarkable about the plot ; the literary value of the poem derives from the art of the narrator, and to recognise its excellence we have but to turn to Ramsay's vulgarisation of the tale in The Monk and the Millers Wife. The poem opens with a description of the noble town of Berwick-on- Tweed, with its walls T 111 - The silly friars and ditches, its embattled castle with and the land. ' stately tower and turrets high,' its hos- pital, and its convents, the whole 1 Moist fair, most gudly, most plesand to be sene ; The tovne, the wall, the castell and the land.' Towards this fair town two friars, who had spent the day among the country people, are returning in the evening : ' Freir Allane, and Freir Robert the vder, Thir silly Freiris with wyffis weill cowld gluder ; Rycht wondir weill plesit thai all wyffis, And tawld thame tailis of haly sanctis lyffis. 5 They were hastening to get home before the convent gates were shut ; but . Friar Allan could walk but slowly, and though Friar Robert ' bure both clothes and hude And all thair geir, for he was strong and wicht, SSL 6 . Be that it drew neir towart the nicht, As thai wer cumand towart the tovne full neir.' 1 Le Grand, Fabliaux ou Contes du XII* et du XIII Q Siecle, 1781, vol. ii. part i. 2 Quoted by Le Grand. 280 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Being tired and thirsty, they entered ' ane wonder good hostellar ' without the town, where, having sat down to their ale, they, as friars were wont, called for more ; but just as they began to be ' blythe ' ' thai hard the prayer bell Off thair awin abbay, and than thai wer agast Becauss thai knew the zettis wer closit fast.' On their asking ' herbery ' at the inn, the gudewife gave answer c with grit hicht ' : ' Quhat wald Symon say, Ha, Benedicite ! if Bot in his absence I abusit his place ? such Our deir Lady Mary keip fra sic cace, And keip me owt of perrell and of schame.' But at last she consented to give them lodging, provided they were content with a loft at the end of the hall, ' made for corne and hay.' Her extreme scrupulosity was due to her expecta- tion of an important visitor, none other than Friar Enter the J nn ; Abbot of the Black Friars ; and no Abbot. sooner had she got the two ' silly freiris ' safe in the loft than she hastened to prepare for his reception. Thrusting fat fowls 'to the speit,' and rabbits to the fire, she gives orders to her maid ' To flawme and turne and rost thame tenderly ' ; and going to her chamber ' Scho cleithis hir in a kirtill of fyne reid, kerchief Ane fair quhyt curch scho puttis vpoun hir heid ; Her kirtill wes of silk and silwer fyne Hir vthir garmentis as the reid gold did schyne.' And just as she had covered the board with ' clath of 'THE FREIRIS OF BERWICK* 281 costly greyne,' the abbot, wlio brings with him wine, white bread, and a pair of partridges, knocks, and is admitted with warm welcome. Meanwhile, the inquisitive Friar Robert, discerning symptoms of wakefulness and bustle in the hostelry, becomes suspicious, and cuts a small hole in the board with his knife, whereby he both hears and sees all that is going on between the gudewife and her guest : ' Quhen scho wes prowd, richt woundir fresche and gay, Scho callit him baith hert, lemmane and luve ; Lord God, gif than his curage wes aboif, if then ; up So prelat lyk sat he in to the chyre ! Scho rownis than ane pistill in his eir ; story Thus sportand thame and makand melody : And quhen scho saw the supper wes reddy, Scho gois belyfe and cuveris the burde annon, presently And syne the pair of bossis hes scho tone, v, hen r And sett thame doun ypoun the burde hir by. taken And evin with that thai hard the gudman cry, And knokand at the zett he cryit fast : Quhen thai him hard then wer thai both agast.' But the gudewife is equal to the occasion. The abbot is hid in the meal-chest, the dainties disappear into the cupboard, the fire is put out, the The landlord house is swept clean, and mistress and comes home, maid go to bed, allowing the gudeman to knock and shout in vain. At last, however, she pretends to awake from sleep, and having with difficulty been persuaded that it is her husband who calls, she lets him in. Also, she sets before him for supper none of the hidden dainties, but cold meat, cow-heel and 282 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE sheep's-head. To this he sits down well content, swearing, by { be All hallow, if; a I fair richt weill, and I had ane gud fallow.' Now, Friar Robert, who had witnessed the whole comedy from the loft, had no mind to let slip an The magic opportunity for a jovial night, and there- supper. f ore intimated his presence by a cough. Apprised that the friars were in the loft, the landlord sent them an invitation to join him, which they readily accepted. He politely expressed regret that he had no better fare to set before them ; but Friar Robert made known that when in Paris he had been instructed in certain magical arts, which, if he would keep his counsel, he was willing to practise for the good of the company : if * I tak on hand, and ze will counsale keip, make That I sail gar zow se, or ever I sleip, Of the best meit that is in this cuntre ; if Off Gascone wyne, gif ony in it be ; Or, be thair ony within ane hundreth myle, little It salbe heir within a bony quhyle.' The landlord was more than willing to take him at his word ; and Friar Robert, after diverse mysterious antics, directed the gudewife to go to the cupboard, where, without doubt, she found all that she had put there : started * Scho stert abak, as scho wer in a fray herself -^nd. san yt hi r > an( i sniyland cowd scho say, before ; " H a > Banedicitie, quhat may this bene ? s trail 'e thin Quha ever afoir hes sic a fairly sene ? Sa grit a mervell as now hes apnit heir Quhat sail I say 1 He is ane haly Freir." ' 'THE FREIRIS OF BERWICK' 283 All spent a merry night except the misfared gudewife : ' And than annone thai drank evin round abowt Of Gascone wyne ; the Freiris playit cop owt. CU P Thai sportit thame, and makis mirry cheir With sangis lowd, baith Symone and the Freir ; And on thir wyiss the lang nicht thai ourdraif l ; this No thing thai want that thai desyrd to haif.' The gudewife's feelings may further be imagined when the jocular Friar Robert proceeded to conjure his familiar, who had supplied the dainties, Exit the to rise from the meal-chest in the form Abbot - of a Black Friar. He was mercifully told to pull his cowl over his face and begone to his abode, but he did not escape quite scot free. Simon, the gude- man who knew nothing of all this by-play, was directed to put himself behind the door with a stick, and as the abbot passed him Friar Robert called out, ' Strike, strike hardily.' This Simon did to such pur- pose that he himself fell and cut his head on the mortar-stone, while the abbot in his panic fell over the stair into the mire-hole below, whence, however, he got over the wall ; and the tale concludes : * Thus Symonis heid vpoun the stane wes brokin, And our the Freir in myre hes loppin, And tap our taill he fyld wes woundir ill ; And Alesone on na wayiss gat hir will ; This is the story that hapnit of that Freir, No moir thair is, bot Chryst \vs help most deir.' 1 Compare Burns's Tarn o' Shanter : * The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter. : top to toe ; dirtied 284 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE The thrie Tailes of the thrie Priestis of Peblis l is a more serious performance than TheFreiris. There is no The hrie reason whatever for assigning the work, as Priestis of seems to be done by Pinkerton, to Dean Steil, and the supposition of Sibbald that it was written by John Holland, equally unauthorised by evidence, is disposed of by the fact that it was in- cluded in the Asloan MS. Although it to some extent anticipates the political zeal of Sir David Lyndsay, it is, like The Freiris, the production of a period undis- turbed by the faintest foreshadowing of Protestantism. The sketch of the three priests breathes nothing of Puritanic censoriousness. Their joviality, their ap- preciation of ' good cheir/ their aloofness from ' com- pany/ their love of each other's society and talk, ' Umquhyle sadlie ; umquhyle jangle and jak,' are described with a truly Chaucerian breadth of appreciation. But these priests who thus sat ' full easily and soft, With monie lowd lauchter upon loft,' were serious and thoughtful withal, and the tales they recite to each other over their wine deal ma tters of Church and Friar John's tale. The answer of the burgess. The The first tale, that of the travelled diligent trader . . and his spend- 1 nar John, relates how a certain king put three questions to the wisest men of his three estates the burgesses, the nobles, and 1 Published by Robert Charteris, 1603 ; and reprinted in Pinkerton's Scotish Poems from Scarce Editions, 1792, and Laing's Early Metrical Tales, 1826. 'THE FREIRIS OF BERWICK ' 285 the clergy and how it was answered by each. That put to the burgesses was 1 Quhy Burges bairns thryves not to the third air ? ' heir and the answer gives occasion for describing the progress of a successful Scottish merchant of the fifteenth century from the time that he began * With hap, and halfpenny, and a lamb's skin ; chance And purelie ran fra toun to tottn on feit poorly And than richt oft wetshod, werie, and weit,' until he had a ship of his own ' He sailit our the sey sa oft and oft Quhil at the last ane semelie ship he coft, And waxe sa ful of warldis welth and win ; His hands he wish in ane silver basin. Foroutin gold or silver into hurde, hoard 69 ' Wirth thrie thousand pund was his copburde. Kiche wes his gounis with uther gannentis gay : For Sonday silk, for ilk day grene and gray. every His wyfe was cumlie cled in scarlet reid, Scho had no doubt of derth of ail nor breid.' fear But the son who ' entered in the wealth ' his father had won, had nothing of his father's severe apprentice- ship, and was expert only in spending. The story of his ruin is simply that of the modern 'pigeon.' Pampered from infancy by his mother, who ' tholit ' not ' the reik (smoke) on him to blaw ' ; taught, quite after the modern manner, to despise the trade to which he owed his wealth, and refusing to hear, ' for very shame and sin, That ever his father sold ane sheipis skin,' 286 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE he spent his time wholly at the court in the company of the young lords, Until ' Quhil drink and dyce have pourit him to the pin.' The answer of the wise lords as to the decay of hardiness among their order reveals the fact that, then as now, many of the nobility from The answers of the wise lords considerations of lucre intermarried with the children of those who, apart from their wealth, were mere churls ; and that of the wise clergy as to the cessation of miracles is that bishops were frequently chosen who had no real vocation for the office. Following Friar John, Friar Archibald relates in most humorous fashion how a king, who loved too well the counsel of his young nobles, and Tales of Friar . j - i -i Archibald and despised that of wise and experienced Friar William. . , . 11 statesmen, was very wisely instructed by a learned clerk, who for this purpose assumed the guise of a fool; and the allegorical tale of Friar William is meant to show that neither wealth, nor wife and children, nor 'other frendis all,' but only alms- deeds and charity, can avail us at the Judgment. Another semi-ecclesiastical story probably of at least as early date as The Freiris or The Thrie P^iestis, and written in the stanza of Christis Kirk is that of Symmie and his Bruder, 1 two St. Andrews worthies, who assumed the character of begging friars : 1 Bannatyne MS. Published in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. 'SYMMIE AND HIS BRUDER' 287 ' Peipand peurly with piteous granis Like fenzeit Symmie and his bruder,' says the author of Peder Goffeis. Piteous they might be in their professional capacity, but in private they lived merrily enough : ' I schrew thame that ay leiss Beshrew _. , , lives But lauchter, Without Quod Sym to his bruder.' Finding also that his income could afford it, the nameless brother laudably resolved to marry : 4 Quhen thai wer welthful in thair wynning, Thai puft thame vp in pryd, Bot quhair that Symy levit in synning, His bruder wald haif ane bryd. a Hir wedoheid fra the begynning Wes neir ane moneth tyd ; month old Gif scho was spedy ay in spynning, If Tak witness of thame besyd Ilk ane, Eyery Baith Sym and his bruder.' And the remainder of the piece which ends with an abruptness suggesting that a great portion is awanting is occupied with the narrative of some rude proceedings on the marriage-day, which are rather beyond modern comprehension. Two tales more in ballad form The Wyfe of Awhtirmwchty, 1 and The Wowing ofJok and Jynny are of special value for their realistic presentments 1 Bannatyne MS., and the Skene MS. in the Advocates' Library. Published, with many alterations, by Allan Ramsay in The Ever- green, 1724, and correctly with various readings in Laing's Select Bemains, 1822 and 1885. 288 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE of rustic life in the olden time. In the Bannatyne MS. The Wyfe is attributed to Sir John Moffat, but not by Bannatyne; and without further corroboration The wyfe of ^ must be regarded as anonymous. Auchtirmwchty.' Ritson pointed out that a similar story is found in the Silva Sermonum jucundissimorum (Basil, 1568), and the passage is printed by Laing in the Appendix to his Select Remains. But while the theme is one which might occur to any one, the stories differ greatly in detail; and even were The Wyfe suggested by the Latin story, it is to all intents and purposes an original composition. It relates the mishaps which befell a lazy and effeminate farmer, who, envying the supposed comfortable ease of his wife at home, while he in cold and wet trudged all day behind the plough, proposed an exchange of occupations. Here is a glimpse of the gudeman as housewife : churn ; stir t Tlian to t h e ^ yrn t h a t he did stoure, until And jwmlit at it quhill he swatt ; Quhen he had jwmlit a full lang houre The sorrow crap of butter he gatt. Albeit na butter he cowld gett, vexed Zit he wes cummerit with the kyrne, heated ; to curdle And sorrow spark of it wald zyrne. Souse 18 Tnan ken tnair come ane g^y sow > could I trow he cund her littill thank, big mouth And in scho schot hir mekle mow, And ay scho winkit and scho drank. caught He cleikit vp ane crukit club a heavy blow And thocht to hitt the sow ane rowt, The twa gaislingis the gled had left That straik dang baith thair harnis owt.' 'THE WOWING OF JOK AND JYNNY' 289 The piece is only farce, but of its kind the farce is first-rate inevitably true to nature, graphically con- cise, and unfailingly witty, even if the wit be obvious and uproarious, rather than delicate or subtle. The story is emasculated in Allan Cunningham's John Grumlie. The Wowing of Jok and Jynny l is a somewhat unique relic of ancient rustic marriage diplomacy. The original of many Anglo-Scottish songs _ _ J 'The Wowing on Jock and Jenny in the black-letter ofjokand broadsides, it also supplied the opening ynny ' stanza of the old improper song on Duncan Gray which Burns modified. The ballad, in the French octave, begins in this quaintly simple style : ' Robeyns Jok 2 come to wow our Jynny, On our feist evin quhen we wer fow ; drunk Scho brankit fast and maid hir bony, hurried And said, " Jok, come ze for to wow ? " Scho birneist her, baith breist and brow, burnished And maid hir cleir as ony clok ; heetle Than spak her deme, and said, " I trow mother Ze come to wow our Jynny, Jok." Jok said, " Forsuth I zern full fane fondly To luk niy heid, 3 and sit doun by zow." Then spak hir modir and said agane, " My bairne hes tocher gud anuwch to ge zow." enough ; give " Te he," quod Jynny, " keik, keik, I se zow ; look Muder, zone man makis zow a mok." " I schrow the, lyar, full leis me zow, thTe " I come to wow your Jynny," quod Jok. 3 1 Bannatyne MS. Published in Ramsay's Evergreen, 1724, and most subsequent Collections, but generally with more or less incorrectness. 2 Jok, the son of Robert. In old village communities the surname was frequently dropped. 3 Probably to enter the house by bending his head, though some interpret it as looking his head to see that it is clear of vermin. T 290 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE The ' tocher-giide ' (dowry) was, in Jok's view, the most momentous part of the question ; and after the mother's honest, if alluring, recital of her daughter's belongings, by c Jok tuk Jynny be the hand And cryd ane feist, and slew ane cok, And maid a brydell vp alland : " Now half I gottin your Jynny," quod Jok. 5 But though conscious that he had had a good bargain, Jok was also honestly convinced that his bride had been as lucky as himself: * I lat zow wit schois not miskareit, It is weill kend I haif anuwch ' ; and he proceeds to give a recital of his personalty, of which this sample may suffice : ' I haif ane belter, and eik ane hek. Ane cord, ane creill, and als ane cradill, Fyve fidder of raggis to stuff ane jak, Ane auld pannell of ane laid sadill, Ane pepper polk maid of a padill, Ane spounge, ane spindill wantand ane nok, Twa lusty lippis to lik ane laiddilL' Some humorous tales have already been referred to under Chapter in. ; others, such as The Dumb TH/rr* 1 and The Nyne Ordour of Knar is? are merely vulgar or commonplace; while large portions of several are too frank for quotation. Here, however, from In Somer quhen 1 Maitland MS. Published in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. = Bannatyne MS. Published in Jamieson's Popular Ballads, 1S06, and Laing's Select Remains. 'QUHY SOWLD NOCHT ALLAXE' 291 Flouris will smeU, 1 is an interesting sketch of the dress of a rustic maid : * Scho had ane hatt vpoun hir held Off claver cleir bayth quhyt and reid beautiful With catclukis strynklit in that steid trefoil; place And synkill grene ; bemloek Wit ze, weiU to weir that weid know Wald weill hir seme. IHMM Ane pair of beedis abowt hir thrott, Ane Agnus Day with nobill nott Agnus Dei Jyngland weill with mony joitt, shake War singand doun ; It was full ill to fynd ane moit Vponn hir gonn, 3 The ballad Qwhy sowld nockt AUane honorit be? 1 in a five-line stanza, aaa, bb, with refrain a modifica- tion of the kyrielle (see ante, p. 157) de- Drinking serves mention, not merely as the earliest ballads - authenticated, but much the best, of the ballads on Allan-a-Maut, olios John Barleycorn. It is initialled 'Quod Allane Matsonis Suddartis,' and under the same signature is a curious invective against dishonest or incompetent ale-wives, Qwha hes Gwd Malt and makes ill Drink. 1 The author of both may well have been Dunbar. In the following stanzas of Allane we seem to hear the voice of the author of Sanct Saluator (p. 177) : 1 My Maister Allane I may sair cuss : He levis no mony in my purss, At his command I mon deburss Moir nor the twa pairt of my fe : Quhy sowld nocht Allane honorit be ? 1 Bannatyne us. 292 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE And last of Allane to conclude ; He is bening, courtuss, and gude, And servis ws of our daly fude, And that with liberalitie : Quhy sowld nocht Allane honorit be ? ' Similar jovial sentiments are expressed in a clever ballad, / mak it kend he that will spend, signed 'John Blyth,' which somewhat resembles Back and Side go Bare in Gammer Gurtin's Needle ; but 1 women ' rather than ' wine ' was the chief theme of the old Scots balladists or lyrists. Among the oldest of the love-ballads that have been preserved is The Murning Maiden, 1 mentioned , The Murn ing *& The Complaynt of Scotland. Written Maiden.' j n a n i ne _ii ne stave ab, ab, cc, bbc, the last five lines forming a bobwheel, and plainly, like Henryson's Robene and Makyn, the work of an accomplished 'makar,' it has much of the naive simplicity of the old minstrel ballad. A slight allegorical suggestiveness may be suspected in the lady's possession of bows and arrows, but the aureate terms and the imagery of the conventional love allegory are wholly absent. The sentiment also, so far from being affected or overstrained, is really primitive and pagan, though in no proper sense indelicate: nonconventional not unbecoming. It merely records how a forlorn damsel, forsaken by her lover, and living in a forest in hunting dress with bow 1 Maitland MS. Published in Pmkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786, and in various subsequent Collections. 'QUHEN TAYIS BANK' 293 and arrows, was persuaded by the owner of the forest to accept his addresses : ' Than knelit I befoir that cleir ; And meikle could hir mercie craif much That semelie than, with sobir cheir, then ; mien Me of hir gudlines forgaif : It wes no neid, I wys L-UCSS To bid us uther kys ; Thair mycht no hairts mair joy resaif Nor uther culd of uther haif : Thus brocht wer we to blys.' The ballad Quhen Tayis Bank 1 which may have some connection with the old tune, Twysbank, mentioned hi Colkelbie's Sow is more artificial than Tlie Murning Maiden alike in language, imagery, and sentiment. It is in the rollicking metre of the old ballads, and the device of alliteration is also employed to excess. There is further a profusion of aureate terms and all the conventional adjuncts of allegorical love poetry : the precious stones, the flowers and foliage of the brightest colours, and the lark, the merle, the nightingale and mavis all in full song. Also the fair damsel is beheld under a tree, and although the poet might have accosted her had she stayed, he was in no wise grieved, because 1 Sone within a wane scho went dwelling Most hevinly to behold.' Sufficient for him to know that so fair a creature lived on Tayside : 1 Bannatyne MS. Published in The British Bibliographer, vo iv., and in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. 294 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE reuer throw the ryce cowth And roseris raissis on raw ; gnfwth ; * The reuer throw the ryce cowth rowt beautiful The schene birdis full schill cowth schowt wood Into that semly schaw : Joy wes within and joy without, fairest bank Vnder that vlonkest waw, Quhair Tay ran down with stremis stout straight Full strecht vndir Stobschaw.' There is every reason to suppose that the poem celebrates Margaret Drummond, daughter of John, The heroine of fi rg t Lord Drummond, and the favourite the poem. mistress of James iv., who, with her two sisters, died suddenly of poison in 1501. The lady of the poem is described as the ' myld, meik, inansuete Mergrit/ and though ' Mergrit ' means pearl, the poet may have intended a play on the lady's name ; besides which, Stobschaw cannot well refer to aught else than the woods of Stobhall, the seat of the Drummonds. In the Bannatyne MS. are a number of other anonymous love-ballads, showing considerable ex- in May in a pertness after the old artificial manner. In May in a Morning deserves mention, if only for its peculiar bobwheel, and the use of the device of iteration as exampled in The Awntyrs of Arthur (p. 36) : on * In May in a morning, I movit me one, SiSfgSJSs Throw a rene gardin j with s ravis be g ne > lead As leid without lyking, but langour allone, misery For misheiss and mourning, makand my mone, more Bot mo. heart With hairt als heavy as a stone, Of covir confoirt had I none, Sills As w y that wist f na wone Bot wandreth in wo. ; 'QUHEN FLOEA HAD OUEFEET' 295 The last line of the stanza is repeated in the first line of the next, thus : * For wo and wandreth I walk, I weip and I wring.' keep awake A few anonymous lyrics of great excellence also survive. Quhen Flora had ourfret the Firth} in the French ballade form, except that * ' Quhen Flora the Envoy is awantmg, and the con- had ourfret sonance throughout the three stanzas of the first rhymes if too deliberate and artificial, is, at least, a highly polished production : ' Strang ar the panis I daylie prufe, Bot yit with pacience I sustene, I am so fetterit with the lufe Onlie of my lady schene, bright Quhilk for hir bewty mycht be quene, who Natour sa craftely alwey Hes done depaint that sweit serene : Quhome I luf I dar nocht assay.' prove Yet in no wise can it compare with the old song, Lusty May, with Flora Queue, 2 every , QLuet Ma line of which is vocal with the joy of the merry month : ' Lusty May, with Flora quene, The balmy dropis frome Phebus schene, bright Preluciand bemes befoir the day, Be that Diana growis grene By which Throwch glaidness of this lusty May.' 1 Bannatyne MS. Published in Ramsay's Evergreen, and in Mr. W. E. Henley's English Lyrics. 2 Bannatyne MS. Printed by Chepman and Myllar, 1508, and modernised in Forbes's Aberdeen Cantus. Wrongly included by David Laing in Alexander Scott's Poems, 296 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Another excellent, though also artificial, lyric is Welcum to May, 1 beginning : ' Be glaid all ze that luvaris bene, For now hes May depaynt with grene The hillis, valis and the medis ; And flouris lustely vpspreidis.' One or two other amorous pieces, as Quhen I think on my Lady Deir 2 Mistress Myn, 2 Baith Gud and other amorous ^ a ^ r anc ^ Womanlie 2 Mistress myld, pieces. Ji&if mind on Me, 2 display some indivi- duality in sentiment or method; and a Song of Absence? which Pinkerton attributes to James L, but which is plainly of much later date, is an elaborate 1 Bannatyne MS. Published in Laing's Select Remains, 1822 and 1885. 2 Bannatyne MS. s Maitland MS. and Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. The dove, from the time of the Romans, at least, has been re- garded by poets as the representative of constancy. Nevertheless, a similarity in the use of the simile in a stanza of this poem and in Letter iv. of the Casket Letters is worth noting. Thus writes Mary Stuart or another : ' Car J'enseray en pein et faites bon guet si 1'oseau sortira de sa cage" ou sens son per comme la tourtre demeurera suelle a se lamenter de 1'absence pour court quelle sort-le que Je ne puis faire ma lettre de bon coeur si ce nestoit que je ay peur que soyes endormy.' And here is the stanza : ' Evln as men may the turtil trew persaif, mate Once having lost hir feir, On the dry brainche, ay faithful to the graif, Bewayling perseveir ; So my desyre, Kindlit in fyre, Dois soir lament My luif absent. God, gif amour be ane pane to beir ! ' This stanza also resembles the last one in Montgomerie's Adieu to His Maistrex. acquired an unenviable reputation for his stern treat- ment of Mary Stuart in Lochleven ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie; Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, Knight, grandson of Admiral Wood; John Major, whose History of Greater Britain was published in 1521, but who survived till 1550, and, being resident at 316 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE St. Andrews, must have frequently been in Lyndsay's company; Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, his relative and near neighbour ; Andrew Wood of Largo, son of Admiral Wood, and 'principall and familiar servant ' to King James v. ; Andrew Fernie of that ilk, ' ane noble man of recent memory ' ; and Sir William Bruce of Earlshall, Knight, who was one of his Fife neighbours, and who, he says, ' hath written very justly all the deeds since Floudon Field.' This list is valuable as showing that for many of his quaint and picturesque details he must have had For many of authentic information ; and the inference had^uS^ntfc usua lty drawn from his inaccuracy as to information, dates and his loose treatment of some important events, that he is untrustworthy in his more interesting portions, seems to require qualifica- tion. We cannot doubt, for example, that the presentation by David Lord Lindsay to James in. of the ' gray courser ' on which he made his escape from Sauchie would be vouched for by Lord Lindsay's descendants, and the details of the king's death the shying of the horse at the woman's water- can, and the heavy fall of the king when the horse leapt the burn, etc. bear on the face of them the stamp of truth. Nor can we go far wrong in assuming that for the particulars of the capture of Stephen Bull's ship by Admiral Wood in the Firth of Forth he was indebted either to the admiral's son or grandson. Similarly, for his capital version of the Linlithgow ghost story he had the voucher of Sir GEORGE BUCHANAN 317 David Lyndsay, and for his account of the death of James v. at Falkland his melancholy reception of the tidings of the birth of his daughter, ' It came with ane lass, and it will go with ane lass,' with the story of the manner of the subscription of the will at the instance of Cardinal Beaton he must have been indebted to Andrew Wood, ' the familiar servant ' to the king, and one of the few gentlemen present at his deathbed. Again, he had clearly special facilities for obtaining information in regard to all the events which happened at St. Andrews ; and the nameless outrage of ' ane callit Guthrie ' on the dead cardinal must have been a notorious fact. These instances may even suggest that the anecdotical and picturesque portions of Lyndsay's Chronicle may be on the whole the most correct; and if they be, his blunders in mere dates may well be forgiven him. In gauging his general trustworthiness it must also be borne in mind that, Protestant though he was, his partisanship was not so bitter as that of either Buchanan or Knox. The bulk of Buchanan's works, including his History in Latin, do not come within the scope of our consideration; and of his History George it may suffice to state that its Latin ^^ style secured for it a reputation beyond His career, its historical deserts. Since also his writings in the vernacular were limited to two political tracts, his career calls here for but the briefest notice. Born in February 1506, the son of a small laird in the parish 318 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE of Killearn, Stirlingshire, he was educated at the Universities of Paris and St. Andrews, and became the most brilliant Latinist of his time. After hold- ing (1529-61) various scholastic appointments in France, Portugal, and Italy, he returned to Scotland, when he became linguistic tutor to Mary Stuart, and was also employed as translator to the Queen and Council; and in 1566 he obtained the principalship of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews. The following year he accompanied Moray to the York conference regarding Mary Stuart, where he was employed in putting into writing the charges against her which were afterwards embodied in the Latin Detectio published in 1572. In 1570 he was named tutor to the young prince James vi., an appointment he held until his death in Edinburgh, 24th September 1582. The only tractates in Scots known to be Buchanan's are ' Ane Admonitioun direct to the True Lordis main- tenaris of Justice, and obedience to the His works in " the vemacu- Kingis Grace. Imprentit at Striviling be Robert Lekprevik, 1571'; and the Chamce- leon, completed probably early in 1571, but not pub- lished in Buchanan's lifetime, owing to interference with Lekprevik's printing-office while it was passing through the press. Besides this, two of his letters x in the vernacular, and his Opinion anent the Befor- matioun of the Universitie of St. Andrews, 1 also 1 These with the two tractates are included in The Vernacular Writings of George, Buchanan, edited for the Scottish Text Society by P. Hume Brown, 1892. GEORGE BUCHANAN 319 survive ; but internal evidence shows that the Scots version of the Detectio, 1572, sometimes attributed to him, was done by another. The Admonitioun is in substance both a general and specific denunciation of the Hamiltons. Being by descent a feudal dependant of Lennox, The < Admoni _ Buchanan shared in the hereditary tioun/ enmity between that house and the rival claimants to the next heirship of the Scottish throne. By Mary Stuart's marriage to Darnley, the heirship to the throne had been assured to the Stewarts of Lennox ; and it was the queen's alliance with Bothwell against Darnley that aroused against her Buchanan's quenchless antipathy. With the murder of Darnley the Hamiltons were closely associated; they also instigated the plot for the murder of the Regent Moray the assassin, a Hamilton, being pro- bably the mere tool of the forfeited John, Marquis of Hamilton; and Buchanan was convinced that they would not rest until they had removed the young king, now the only obstacle to the realisation of their highest ambition: 'not content wt ane king's blude, they gaip for his sonnis murthour.' Buchanan has been dubbed ' the pen of Moray,' but there is no evidence that he turned against the queen from motives of self-interest. If he adopted wrong or extreme opinions, they seem to have been the opinions of an honest feudal partisan. The too merely denunciatory tone of the Admonitioun detracts, however, from its literary merit, though 320 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE much of it is cogent, and much of what is not cogent is undoubtedly forcible and clever. Here, for example, is an amusing hit both at the Hamiltons and his old pupil : ' Thay wer in hoip yat scho sould mary Johrme Hamiltoun ye Dukis sone quhome wt niery lukis and gentill contenance (as scho could weill do) scho enterit in ye gayme of ye glaiks, 1 and causit ye rest of ye^Hamiltonis to fon for faynnes.' 2 The Chamceleon, a satire on the Secretary, William Maitland of Lethington, may be regarded as expres- 'Thechamse- s ^ ve ec l ua lty of Buchanan's own private leon/ antipathies and of the dead Regent Moray's inner sentiments towards his old political associate. No one knew better than Buchanan how the policy of Moray had been baffled by the intrigues of Maitland during the York and Westminster con- ferences, or the depth of Moray's chagrin at the insubordination of his former lieutenant. It is a more elaborate and effective production than the Admonitioun ; but it is effective mainly because Maitland's conduct was quite beyond the compre- hension of a mere partisan like Buchanan, as it was beyond the comprehension of an age in which mere partisanship was so rampant. Buchanan's satire, merciless though it be, is in no sense feigned. A sincere indignation and hatred, blended with a sort of contemptuous amazement, animates his pen as he proceeds to ' set furth schortlie ye descriptioun of 1 Coquetry. 2 Play the fool for eagerness. JOHN KNOX 321 sic ane l monsture not lang ago engendrit in Scotland in ye cuntre of Lowthiane not far from Hadingtoun, to yat effect yat ye forme knawin, the moist pestifems nature of ye said monsture may be rnoir easelie evitit.' 2 As to Buchanan's vernacular style, it is something too artificial and rhetorical, both the structure of the sentences and the general manner being affected by his constant addiction to Latin, but withal it is clear and precise, and fre- quently full of force and fire. Here is an example in the effective conclusion of The Chamceleon : ' Now I pray zow espy out quhat proffeit ye quene, our kingis moder, sail gadder of him yat hes bene (as scho knawis) sa oftentymes traitour to hir moder, to hir selfe, to hir sone, to hir brother, and to hir cuntre. Scho will be exemplis 3 considder yat how mony colouris yat euir yis Chamseleon change, yat it can neuir aganis ye nature of it, turne perfytelie quhyte.' As partisan Knox has much in common with Buchanan, both in the virulence of his partisanship and its special direction, but it was of j ohn Knox different origin and of much wider scope, gketch^f ws Not feudal, nor even political, but life - wholly religious and rooted in his deepest convic- tions, it coloured his whole life and became biter- woven with the future history of his country. Born in 1505, in Haddington or its near neighbourhood, of peasant parents who were feudal dependants of the Earl of Bothwell, he was educated at Haddington 1 such a. 2 evaded. 3 by examples. X 322 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Grammar School and the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews, but owing, it may be, to poverty did not, as was then very customary, continue his studies abroad. About his earlier life, after he left the Uni- versity, we have little information. Though at some unknown date he took priest's orders, he never held a cure, and supported himself partly as notary, partly as tutor. While acting as tutor to the sons of Douglas of Longniddry, and Cockburn of Ormistone, he came in contact with the Protestant evangelist George Wishart, whom he accompanied in his preaching tour in Lothian, characteristically acting as his guard with the two-handed sword which it was customary to carry beside him. His public life from the time that in 1547 he made c his first publict sermon ' to the assassinators of Cardinal Beaton and their friends in the parish church of St. Andrews, until, worn out with the labours which established the Reformed Kirk in Scotland, he, with the words 'Now it is come,' quietly breathed his last in his own house in the Netherbow, Edinburgh, 24th November 1572, was, whether at home or in exile, one continuous conflict against a religious system which in his view was not so much erroneous and corrupt, as antichristian and devilish. His History of the Reformation l is the record of 1 The only complete edition of the Works of Knox is that of the Wodrow Society, edited by David Laing, six vols. 1846-64. The History occupies vols. i. and ii. A shortened edition of the History, edited by C. J. Guthrie, appeared in 1898. JOHN KNOX 323 that conflict, a record so sincere, thorough, and complete, that it is one of the most interesting human documents in literature. Knox His character . was not an accomplished scholar like istics - Buchanan, nor a ' fell ' theologian like Calvin, nor, if a more eloquent and a cleverer, a more satisfactory religious controversialist than the Tyries, the Winzets, the Kennedys of that age, none of whose tractates are now of any interest except to the philologist or the religious antiquary. He had much of the intellec- tual narrowness and rough simplicity of the peasant ; he shared in some, though not hi all, of the super- stitions of the mediaeval ecclesiastic, and if he had escaped from the mere formal professionalism of the clerics of his time, he substituted for this an intense conviction of his own personal infallibility as a divinely illuminated prophet of the Most High. Like all the Reformers, he was steeped in the supernaturalism of the Scriptures, particularly of the Old Testament, and, endowed with strong emotional susceptibility, great moral sincerity, an overmastering will, and a lofty ideality (in no degree impaired by his practical common-sense), he bent his energies towards the establishment in Scotland of a sort of Christianised Jewish theocracy. The Church, as reorganised by him, was, as of old, only more so, to be palpably and directly the supreme power in the state and in society. His ideal, no doubt, differed somewhat from the reality which was so soon to become an in- tolerable tyranny ; but even his ideal was but a one- 324 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE sided solution of the great problem of human life and conduct, for, man of genius though he was, he was by intellectual training the mere product of medievalism. He was successful mainly as icono- clast ; his courage, enthusiasm, eloquence, wit, satire, and dynamic energy were irresistible, not so much in reforming abuses and removing corruptions as in annihilating root and branch the imposing ceremonial and the potent organisation of the Scottish Catholic Church. From many directions, and from a variety of causes, a tempest of wrath had been gathering against its ambition, greed, tyranny, and corruption, but it was Knox who rode ' on the whirlwind direct- ing the storm,' and it was because of his conduct of it that the storm proved so destructive. In The History of the Reformation Knox details the events of this stirring period mainly in their His 'History re l at i n to his own personality, and to of the Re- the work to which he had devoted his formation.' His partisan, life. His laudation or condemnation of his contemporaries is determined very much by their attitude towards his own aims. He hardly even pretends to impartiality, but says as much evil and as little good of his opponents as he possibly can, while he overlooks many patent faults, and even wickednesses, in those who, from whatever motive, have the saving grace to co-operate with him in his great crusade. This, of course, means that he was a bitter partisan; but, in excuse, it must be remem- bered that in that age the lines of antagonism were JOHN KNOX 325 much more sharply drawn than in this age of com- promise. Knox was absolutely convinced that his cause was wholly the cause of God, and that his opponents were merely the allies of the Devil. His instinct for character was also so remarkably keen, and his intentions so sincere, that, if due allowance be made for his standpoint, it is comparatively easy for one, otherwise acquainted with the persons and events of the period, to read between the lines of his approval or disapproval. But, agree or dis- agree with him as we may, he rarely fails to interest. The narrative part of the book is alive from beginning to end. The stir and movement and excitement of the times, as mirrored in his own strong personality, are transferred to his pages ; and his literary art, if less elaborately rhetorical than that of Buchanan, is more direct, graphic, and irresistible. The work includes an account of the early Scottish Reformers their labours, persecutions, and martyr- doms, from the death of Paul Craw in scope of the 1431, and a narrative of the events of his own time down to September 1564, the remainder of the History, down to excellence. 1567, being in all likelihood partly derived from his papers. The narrative, abounding hi ' merrie bourds ' and graphic anecdotes, is coloured by a strain of bitter and contemptuous vituperation against the opponents of the Reformation. Much of the vitu- peration is mere gross, though picturesque and 326 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE effective, abuse; 1 but it is redolent of a hatred that, at least, proved contagious. His effectiveness both as reformer and historian is, in truth, largely due to his personalities. In discussing the abstrac- tions and subtleties of theology he is a mere school- man : he displays his genius only when he deals with events and facts and concrete human nature. Like the much less ardent Lyndsay of Pitscottie, he has a keen eye for graphic details, and he is often vividly dramatic. The incidents, conversations, anecdotes, and personal allusions of which his History is brim- ful, lend to it a never-failing animation, and in some of his stories and narratives the wit, the humour, or the satire is elaborated with much careful art, among his masterpieces being in addition, of course, to the immortal interviews with Queen Mary the Cardinal's assassination, the struggle for precedency between the followers of the two rival archbishops at the door of Glasgow Cathedral, and the destruction of the image of St. Gile by the Edinburgh mob. When the mob seized and threw down the image of St. Gile, 'the Preastis and Freiris,' he tells us, 'fled faster than thei did at Pynckey Clewcht'; 2 the ridiculous figure cut by the retreating fathers 1 The monastery of the Grey Friars is, for example, described as the * den of those murtharis the Grey Friaris ' ; and the same Grey Friars, we are told, ' routed as thai had been ravens, yea rather they yelled and rored, as devills in hell, ' ' Heresy, heresy," ' etc. 2 The battle of Pinkie, 10th September 1547, at which a regiment of priests and monks fought or rather fled for Scotland and the Church, under a sacred white banner. JOHN KNOX 327 is also exactly realised to us 'the Gray Freiris gapped, the Blak Frearis blew, the Preastis panted and fled'; and the finish ing touch to the Thedestruc- picture of this comical street scene is [^" g f of | t given by the introduction of ' a meary Gile - Englissman,' who 'by chance lay upoun a stare/ and ' seing the discomfiture to be without blood, thought he wold add some mearynes to the mater, and so cryed he ower a stayr, and said, " Fy upoun yow, hoorsones, why have ye brockin ordour ! Doun the streat ye passed in array and with great myrth. Why flie ye, vilanes, now, without ordour? Turne and stryk everie one a strok for the honour of his god. Fy, cowardes, fy, ye shall never be judged worthy of your wages agane." ' As a raconteur Knox must have been unsurpassed among his contem- poraries; and various allusions also show that his literary art owed something to his acquaintanceship with the works of the old ' makaris.' Of the numerous tractates of Knox in the various forms of Admonitions, Answers, Apologies, Blasts, Declarations, Epistles, Exhortations, Ex- Tractates, etc., positions, Letters, Narratives, Sermons, of Knox. 'The . First Blast.' Summaries, and vindications the most noted, and the only one that need here be referred to, is The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Mon- strvovs Regiment [Sovereignty] of Women, published anonymously in 1558, and (being . intended for England) written virtually in English, or, perhaps, rather Englished by Knox's colleague at Geneva, 328 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Goodman, who also himself blew a similar blast in How Supreme Powers ovght to be obey'd by their Subjects, Geneva, 1558. In 1557 Knox had asked Calvin his opinion about the ' Regiment ' of women, who gravely replied : ' That as it was a deviation from the original and proper order of nature, it was to be ranked, no less than slavery, among the punishments consequent upon the fall of man ' ; but admitted that occasion- ally good female sovereigns 'were raised up by Divine authority.' Now, Knox was, of course, con- vinced that neither Mary of England, nor Mary of Guise, the Queen-Regent of Scotland, belonged to the latter class of sovereigns, and recognising that there was no hope for the Reformation so long as they remained in power, he resolved, as was his custom, to 'strike at the root.' It is customary to regard the pamphlet as violent and imprudent, but it became only imprudent when Elizabeth ascended the throne and resolved to support Protestantism. Had she not supported Protestantism, Knox would have been at liberty to proceed with further blasts against female sovereignty, whose effectiveness against the Queen-Dowager of Scotland and Mary Stuart might have greatly added to, instead of detracting from, his reputation as a practical politician. The pamphlet is a characteristic example of the scholastic methods of the period ; and the solemn citations of classical and scriptural authorities in support of Knox's strong and graphic verdicts render it from the peculiarly un- scholastic nature of the theme very piquant reading. BISHOP JOHN LESLIE 329 Bishop John Leslie, the chief Catholic historian of Scotland, was the illegitimate son of Gavin Leslie, rector of Kingussie, Inverness-shire. After Bishop Leslie completing his education at King's Col- (1527-1596)- -MI His career. lege, Aberdeen, he studied civil law on the Continent; and he was regarded as the most able and learned of the Scottish Catholic ecclesi- astics of his time. His residence in the Catholic regions of the North, as pastor of Oyne, Aberdeen- shire, also led to his becoming the chief political adviser of the Catholic nobles. In 1562 he was made Professor of Canon Law in Aberdeen, and, after the Darnley marriage, he was appointed in 1566 to the bishopric of Ross. Continuing devoted to the Queen of Scots throughout all her difficulties and disasters, he became her legal adviser and re- presentative at the York and Westminster confer- ences, and from October 1569 until November 1573 was detained a prisoner in England for his connec- tion with the Norfolk intrigues. On obtaining his liberty he went to the Continent, where he devoted himself, as before, to the cause of the imprisoned queen, being her chief political confidant and agent, and the inspirer of most of the plots on her behalf. About 1580 he was appointed suffragan and vicar-general of the diocese of Rouen, and in 1591 he obtained the bishopric of Constance in Normandy, but was unable, on account of the distracted state of the country, to take up his resi- dence hi his diocese. He died in the Augustinian TJNIV: 330 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE monastery of Guirtenburg, near Brussels, 30th May 1596. Leslie wrote his latest History of Scotland in Latin, 1 and the most interesting portion of this History the description of the counties and As historian. . islands, containing much varied informa- tion on the social condition of Scotland not to be found elsewhere is not included in the vernacular History, written in 1568-70 2 for the perusal of Mary Stuart while in prison. This History includes the period from the death of James i. to 1561. A very careful and judicious historian, Leslie is minute in his chronology, and must have been well supplied with original material ; but his record is little more than a mere chronicle, and is wholly lacking in the vivid picturesqueness of Lyndsay's or Knox's narra- tives, its manner being very much that of a formal state document. Such registers as The Diurnal of Occurrents? the Diary of Robert Birrel, 3 and even The Historic of ^ ames $ ex t? can scarce be ranked as other historical works in the literature ; and the one other prominent Vernacular. . historical work that need here be men- tioned is The History of the Kirk of Scotland (1514- 1625) 4 by the Scottish clergyman, David Calderwood 1 An old Scots translation of the Latin History, by Father James Dalrymple, has been published by the Scottish Text Society, ed. Cody, 1884-1889. 2 Printed by the Bannatyne Club, 1830. 3 Printed by the Bannatyne Club. 4 Published by the Wodrow Society, 8 vols., 1842-49. JAMES MELVILLE 331 (1575-1650), which, though mainly a mere compilation from Knox's History, the Diary of James Melville, The Historie of James Sext, and other works, and rather a collection of rough materials for history than a properly condensed and continuous narrative, is of interest as an example of the later Anglo-Scots on the eve of the complete extrusion of the vernacular from the prose literature of Scottish authors. John Spottiswoode (1566-1639), Archbishop of St. Andrews, the contemporary of Calderwood, wrote in English his History of the Church and State in Scotland, under- taken at the instance of James vi. to represent the Episcopal standpoint ; and although a mild form of the vernacular lingered long in private diaries and letters, the educated classes, including the clergy, from the time of the Union of the Crowns aspired in formal compositions to express themselves in English. Among the many Diaries, Journals, Memoirs, and Memorials which have been printed by Scottish clubs and other learned societies, only two are / 'Diary 'of or such literary merit as to demand a james Meiviiie passing reference The Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville, minister of Kilrenny; and The Memoirs of His Own Life, by Sir James Melville of Halhill. The Diary of the Kilrenny minister, nephew of the better-known ecclesiastic Andrew Melville, is a valuable example of the earlier Anglo-Scots not Scots intentionally Anglified, as was Knox's History, but a curious inarti- ficial mixture of Scots and English. Its main literary 332 SCOTTISH VEENACULAE LITERATURE merit is its graphic garrulosity. The author is a sort of old Presbyterian Pepys, or rather, perhaps, Boswell, the facts of his own life and the events of his own time being his Johnson; and his phrases and com- parisons have frequently much naive vividness and force. His portrait of Knox in the pulpit about the time when Knox, as Knox himself expressed it, had 1 one foot in the grave,' is almost startingly graphic : Bot or he had done with his sermont, he was sae active and vigorous that he was lyk to ding that pulpit in blads and fly out of it.' Companion pictures are those of the young King James vi. in 1574, when only eight years of age, ' walking up and down in the auld Lady Marr's hand,' and c discoursing of know- ledge and ignorance ' ; and that of George Buchanan, after sending his History to press, ' sitting in his chair and teatching his young man that servit him in his chalmer to spell a-b, ab, e-b, eb,' etc. ; but indeed it is difficult to open a page of the narrative portion of the Diary without chancing on some anecdote, or reminiscence, or description that illuminates the past as with a flash of sunlight. The Memoirs of Sir James Melville, the great Scottish diplomat of Mary Stuart, are by no means so minute and confidential as the Diary 'Memoirs' of Sir james Meiviiie of his inimitable namesake, the reserve (I535-I6I7). .'** 1 ' V and propriety of the courtier having be- come engrained in his nature, and affecting, we may well believe, even his private thoughts ; but he had seen ' cities of men, And manners, climates, councils, governments,' JAMES VI. 333 and few had been more behind the scenes of his event- ful times. His interviews with Queen Elizabeth are as diverting as they are instructive; and his com- ments on the characters and motives of his contem- poraries, and on the incidents and events of this complicated period of Scottish history, are, though qualified by much diplomatic caution, shrewd and honest, and frequently racy and picturesque. Apart from History and Memoirs, etc., Scottish vernacular prose literature, during the short half- century or so that filled up its allotted Theological span, is mainly confined to controversial literature, theology, but nothing of any literary value is to be gained by embarking on this troubled and tempest- uous ocean. Scottish vernacular prose, as well as poetry, virtually terminates with James vi. That versatile and all- wise monarch also intermeddled with j ames vi. theology, publishing in Scots Ane Frvit- toee-i&zs). ful Meditatiovn (founded on some verses of the 20th chapter of the Revelation), at Edinburgh, 1588 ; and another Meditatiovn (founded on certain verses of the 15th chapter of 1st Chronicles), at Edinburgh in 1589. But his main works in prose before he ascended the English throne are his Ane Schort Treatise conteining some Revlis and Cautelis to be obseruit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie, 1 1584, and Demonologie, 1587. The former is very much the work of a mere schoolboy, and though of some interest from its subject, is remarkably trite in its 1 Included in the Arber Reprints. 334 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE treatment of it. Here, for example, is his Majesty's recipe for originality : 'Ze man 1 also bewarre with composing onything in the same manner as hes been ower oft vsit of before. As in special!, gif 2 ze speik of loue, be warre ze descryue your Loues makdome 3 or her fairness. And siclyke/ that ze descryue not the morning, and rysing of the Sunne in the Preface of zour verse ; for thir thingis are sa oft, and dyuerslie writtin vpoun be Poetis already, that gif ze do the lyke, it will appeare, ze bot imitate, and that it cummis not of zour awin Inventioun, quhilk is ane of the chief properteis of ane Poete. Thairfore gif zour subject be to prayse zour Loue, ze sail rather praise hir vther qualiteis nor her fairnes, or her shaip ; or ellis ze sail speik some lytill thing of it and syne 5 say, that zour wittis are sa smal, and zour vtterance sa barren, that ze can not discryue any part of hir worthelie : remitting alwayis to the Eeider, to judge of hir in respect sho matches, or rather excellis Venus, or any woman, quhorne to it sail please zow to compaire hir. Bot gif zour subject be sic, as ze man 6 speik something of the morning or sunne rysing, tak heid, that quhat name ze giue to the sunne, the mone, or vther starris, the ane tyme, gif ze happin to wryte thairof another tyme, to change thair names. As gife ze calle the sunne Titan, at a tyme, to call him Phoebus or Apollo the vther tyme, and siclyke the mone, and vther Planettis.' A good idea of the change effected on the monarch's language, after his accession to the English throne, may be got by comparing the above passage with a short extract from The Counterblast to Tobacco, 1604 :- ' That the manifold abuses of this vile custome of Tobacco taking may the better be espied it is fit that first you enter into considera- tion both of the first original thereof, and likewise of the reasons of the first entry thereof into this countrey.' 1 must. 2 if. 3 shape. 4 such like. 6 then. 6 must. XI TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS THE subject of Scottish traditional ballads and songs is so comprehensive and complicated, and in some respects so shadowy, that it is possible complexity of here to touch on only its more general features; and since also the various details of the subject have, up to the Mr - J m m and Professor present, been dealt with in a compara- child, tively fragmentary and tentative fashion, one is inclined to indulge rather in queries than in positive assertions. It is hardly necessary to premise that this traditional poetry is not an isolated literature, that it has intimate relations with other forms of literature, some of which have now perished, and that the older popular poetry of Scotland has also a very close connection with that of England. The labours, for example, of the late Mr. Chappell, and of Dr. Furnivall, and Mr. Ebsworth, mainly directed to the critical examination of the old English ballads and songs, have incidentally shed a good deal of light, or have supplied the means of shedding light, on the ballads and songs of Scotland; and in the vast accumulation of MS. poetry and of old song-book, 336 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE broadside, and chapbook literature, most of which is now of comparatively easy access, there is the possi- bility of greater illumination than has yet been made manifest. It would also be merely superfluous to insist on the invaluable character of the work per- formed by the late Professor Child, whose English and Scottish Popular Ballads 1 is a sort of library of the different versions good, indifferent, bad, and worse than bad of English and Scottish traditional poetry of, or allied to, the baUad form, with very full references to similarities, whether accidental or not, in the older literature of the Continental nations. But this critical attitude towards the traditional ballads and songs is of comparatively recent origin, and thus falsehood, fallacy, and delusion have had an exceptionally long start. Professor Child's great work supplies in an accessible form much raw material for a critical history of popular poetry, but a good deal of the material it supplies is inevitably, and from no fault of the editor, in a sense worse than useless. The chaff is out of all proportion to the wheat ; and, alas ! chaff and wheat have in many instances become almost inseparably welded together. The attitude of the earlier collectors and editors of traditional poetry was frequently merely credulous, and when it was not absolutely so, it hardly occurred to them that not merely an exact statement of sources, but a careful inquiry into their trustworthi- 1 Five volumes, Boston, 1882-1898. TEADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 337 ness, was their first and not their last obligation. Allan Ramsay's faults of omission and commission excusable because he knew no better, credulity and but none the less, many of them, ir- remediable are too notorious to require editors. Ramsay and more than this mere allusion. But what Bishop Percy. seem now sadly careless things have been done also in the green tree as well as ' Edward -' / in the dry. The modern inquirer can, for example, regard with only amazement the passive content with which Bishop Percy accepted from Lord Hailes most of the Scottish ballads included in his Ancient Reliques, 1 as well as ' the many curious and elegant remarks with which they are illustrated,' when, seemingly, not one of these remarks conveyed the smallest tittle of real information regarding Lord Hailes' sources. Among the ballads which thus first saw the light were, to name only two of the most notable, Sir Patrick Spens and Edward. Editors from the time of Scott have been accustomed to regard Sir Patrick Spens (see post, p. 350) as the oldest specimen of the historical ballad now existing ; but the Bishop tells you nothing more of his autho- rity for it than that it is given from two MS. copies ' transmitted from Scotland.' Sir Walter Scott was also content to remark that he got his version from ' two MSS. collated with several verses recited by the 1 This remark does not, of course, touch the unquestioned authen- ticity of the Percy folio MS. of the seventeenth century, which has been published by the Ballad Society. Y 338 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE editor's friend, Robert Hamilton, Esq.' recited long years after the ballad had been published by Percy. As for Edward, which Professor Child affirms is 'not only unimpeachable, but has ever been regarded as one of the noblest and most sterling specimens of the popular ballad,' we are left utterly in the dark as to how Lord Hailes came to be possessed of it, and virtually it is unknown apart from Lord Hailes. True, Motherwell, who recognised that the 'unim- peachable ' ballad had, at least to some extent, been doctored, came forward with another version got ' from the recitation of an old woman/ and on this old woman's solitary authority calmly asserted that it might be looked upon as the ' genuine traditionary version,' as if there could be a one and only ' genuine traditionary version ' ! But this supposed ' genuine traditionary version ' may, for anything we know to the contrary, simply derive from the version in the Reliques, which, though sharnly archaic in spelling, may not have been vouched for as a Scottish tradi- tional ballad, and may even have been derived directly from foreign sources. One of the most trustworthy of the old collectors was David Herd, and this because (1) he was himself almost incapable not merely of writing David Herd. but of altering or amending verse ; (2) he loved collecting for its own, not for vanity's, sake; and (3) a large number of his versions were got before they could have been suggested by published copies. His Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 339 appeared anonymously in 1769, and an enlarged edition, with his name attached, in two volumes, 1776. His MS. collections, now in the British Museum, contain also a good number of songs and fragments yet unpublished. But while Herd stated that many of his ballads had ' been recovered from tradition, or old MSS., and never before printed/ he, like Bishop Percy, neglected to give a circum- stantial account of how he obtained them. Other collections published towards the close of the eighteenth century are Pinkerton's Select Scotish Ballads, 1783, which deserves a passing Pinkerton, reterence, mainly from the attempt of Johnson, the editor to palm off as old certain productions of his own 1 ; Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, 1787-1803, which was in great part edited by Burns, and contains, with a few versions obtained by Burns, a miscellaneous assortment of songs, many of which preserve ancient fragments more or less metamorphosed; and Ritson's Ancient Songs, 1790 ; and Scottish Songs, 1794, edited with a scrupulous conscientiousness and learning, which, had they been more generally in evidence amongst his predecessors and successors, would have done much to prevent the accumulation of dubiety with which the subject is now enveloped. It would be hard to exaggerate the services 1 Pinkerton is sometimes credited with being the first to publish the ballad of Sir John the Ross, but it first appeared in Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776. 340 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE rendered to Scottish ballad literature by Sir Walter Scott, whose Border Minstrelsy, which appeared first sir waiter m 1802, and was afterwards enlarged, Scott. aroused a more general interest in the subject than any previous publication; but Sir Walter's attitude towards the older minstrelsy was a good deal that of enthusiastic and unsuspecting admiration: and since also in many instances (see post, pp. 362, 366) his own published copies were cooked from different recited versions, they occa- sionally owe more than a little of their vividness and magic to the great magician himself. Next in importance to Sir Walter's Minstrelsy must be placed Popular Ballads and Songs from Robert Tradition, 'with Translations of similar jamieson. Pieces from the ancient Danish Language and a few originals by the editor, Robert Jamieson, A.M. and F.A.S.' (1806), which seemed to mark an epoch in the study of the subject, because, to use the words of Sir Walter, 'Mr. Jamieson's extensive ac- quaintance with Scandinavian literature enabled him to detect not only a general similarity betwixt these and the Danish ballads preserved in the "Kiempe Viser," an early collection of heroic ballads in that language, but to demonstrate that, in many cases, the stories and songs were distinctly the same, a circum- stance which no antiquary had hitherto so much as suspected.' Jamieson's discovery was further em- phasised by the publication in 1814 of Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, under the joint- editorship TEADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 341 of Jamieson, Henry Weber, and Sir Walter Scott; but while the discovery was no doubt important, its importance was not of the peculiar and supreme character which many vaguely suppose. In view also of the peculiar importance that has been attached to it, it is to be regretted that every Scottish version of a ballad supplied by Jamieson himself, which manifested this connection, should not have been authenticated beyond the possibility of suspicion. Yet, so far from taking this precaution, it was Jamie- son's habit to construct versions of his own from those got from recitation; and while, for example, his version of Clerk Saunders is the only one which connects it with a Scandinavian ballad, he withheld the originals on which his version is founded. c We may suppose,' says Professor Child, 'that all the three versions combined contain the passage which formed the link; but it would be much more satis- factory if Jamieson had given us all three as he received them'; and to this verdict one can only add an unavailing Amen. Among other partly original ballad collections it may suffice to mention Finlay's Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads, chiefly Ancient, other ballad 1808; Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale collections - and Galloway Song, 1810 (mainly the manufacture of Allan Cunningham) ; C. K. Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1824 (containing various interesting scraps); Allan Cunningham's Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, 4 vols., 1825 (hopelessly unreliable) ; Robert 342 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1826 ; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern, 1827 (prefaced by an interesting, and, in some respects, valuable introduction) ; Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, 1827 ; Peter Buchan's Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, 1828 (much of it a mere farrago of unauthentic doggerel 1 ); Robert Chambers's Scottish Ballads and Songs, 1829 (con- taining several songs some old, some partly fabri- cated published for the first time from sources which Chambers, for publisher's reasons, failed even to indicate in such a fashion as to guarantee sufficiently either their genuine antiquity or the purity of his text) ; and Maidment's Scottish Ballads and Songs, 1859, and Scottish Pasquils, 1868. In all these later collections the ballads and songs obtained from tradition necessarily suffer more from corruption than those in the earlier collections, and some of the new versions are mere corruptions of versions previously published. 2 1 Many of the numbers were supplied by James Rankine, a blind beggar, whom Buchan in his MS. states he kept, ' at great expense,' travelling in Scotland collecting ballads for him. Professor Child remarks that many of Buchan's ballads bear this minstrel's ' mint mark,' and places 'no confidence' in any of his readings. But as little confidence can be placed in Buchan, who, it is evident, was quite inclined to become the dupe of any ballad impostor. In the ' extreme simplicity ' of Buchan's ballads, Scott found * the most distinct assurance that he has delivered the latter to the public in the shape in which he found them.' But Scott was ignorant that the ' extreme simplicity ' was conferred on them by this ' wight of Homer's craft.' 2 A very full bibliography of ballad literature will be found in Child's Ballads, vol. v., 1898. That work is the only standard TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 343 One result of Jamieson's discovery of certain similarities between British and Danish ballads was to deepen the impression (1) that many Influenceof ballads v\~ere of immemorial antiquity, and (2) that this form of literature was theory'ofMr. in some peculiar sense the special literature of the people. This twofold impression more or less influenced if only in a vague fashion the methods of subsequent collectors and editors, and it appeared to gain confirmation and solidity from the isolated results results in many other ways very valuable and interesting of the study of folklore. Such supremacy, such decisiveness, was claimed by Mr. Andrew Lang for these results in determining the character and origin of ballad literature, that, in the article 'Ballad' contributed to the ninth edition of The Encyclopcedia Britannica, he categorically denied, from the very nature of the case, that ballad and more particularly Scottish ballad literature could be the product of a special literary class, and more particularly of a class of professional minstrels. ' These minstrels/ he wrote, ' are a stumbling-block in the way of the growth of ballads. The domestic annals of Scotland show that her kings used to keep court bards, and also that strollers, jongleurs as they were called, went about Collection of British ballads. Ay ton's Ballads of Scotland, 2 vols., 1858 (and frequently republished), gives a sort of eclectic text of the best standard ballads ; and in Mr. Eyre-Todd's Scottish Ballad Poetry, 1893 (in the Abbotsford Series), will be found a selection of original versions of some sixty Scottish ballads. 344 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE singing at the doors of farm-houses and the streets of towns. Here were two sets of minstrels, who had apparently left no poetry ; and on the other side, there were a number of ballads that claimed no author. It was the easiest and most satisfactory inference that the courtly minstrels made the verses, which the wandering crowders imitated or corrupted/ This account of the old minstrels must have been meant as jocular rather than precise ; for, being antecedently convinced that, like Topsy, ballads merely 'growed,' it was needless for Mr. Lang to devote particular attention to a perfectly super- fluous fraternity. Without entering greatly into details, he deemed it sufficient to affirm that the minstrel theory or any theory of individual author- ship 'failed to account for the universal sameness of tone, of incident, of legend, of primitive poetical formulae, which the Scottish ballad possesses in common with the ballads of Greece, of France, of Provence, of Portugal, of Denmark, and of Italy.' ' Ballads,' he finally declared, ' spring from the very heart of the people, and flit from age to age, from life to life, of shepherds, peasants, nurses, of all the class that continues nearest to the natural state of man ' ; and they ' make music with the flash of the fisherman's oar, with the hum of the spinning-wheel, and keep time with the step of the ploughman as he drives his team,' etc. It is not with Mr. Lang, be it observed, a mere question of transmission, but of authorship, and on this point he does his utmost to TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 345 be clear and decided. No hint is given of any possible modification of his theory in particular cases, nor does he indicate that he so much as dreams of any possible exception to the general rule. Moreover, all classes of ballads, historical as well as romantic, are included in his dictum ; and as for the Border ballads, he finds their parallel in those of Greece : the ballads of * Klephtic exploits in Greece match/ he affirms, c the exploits of Dick of the Law and Kinmont Willie' all alike ' springing,' not from the heart of any particular individual, but from ' the heart of the people.' Within the last twenty years Mr. Lang's views may have undergone some modification, but hardly any essential change, for in a paper on , TheQuarterl ' The Mystery of the Queen's Marie,' pub- Review' lished as recently as 1895, 1 he mentions that he would 'fain break a lance with Mr. Courthope on his general doctrine of the popular ballad and its indebtedness to literary poetry and romance.' 2 A writer in The Quarterly Review for July 1898 also finds support in the authority of Mr. Lang as well as Professor Gumniere, 3 for inclining 1 BlackwoocV s Magazine, vol. clviii. pp. 381-90. - Must not the lance be broken first with Sir Walter? In The Jlin-itrelsy (Introduction to Lord Thomas and Fair Annie) he wrote : ' The tale is much the same with the Breton romance called Lay le Frain (sic), or The Song of the Ash. Indeed, the Editor is convinced that the further our researches are extended, the more we shall see ground to believe that the romantic ballads of later times are, for the most part, abridgments of the ancient metrical romances, narrated in a smoother stanza and a more modern language.' 3 Old English Ballads, Boston, 1894. 346 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE strongly to the conclusion that ' the ballad belonged to the people, and was the exclusive property of the minstrel as little in the making as in the singing/ He ascribes them to 'an age when poetry was a common possession,' and he explains that probably ' solitary composition would have been as difficult for primitive man to understand as communal authorship is hard for us'; or, in other terms, the ballad the ballad as it has actually descended to us is the communal literature of primitive man, or, as Mr. Lang expresses it, of 'the classes nearest to the natural state of man/ Besides this extreme theory of Mr. Lang, Professor Gummere, and (tentatively) of the Quarterly Re- viewer, we have, of course, only the choice The Minstrel ' theory. of some form of the minstrel theory or and Professor some modification of it. And, as regards the minstrel theory, pure and simple, we have the choice of two forms : (1) that of Motherwell, and (vaguely) of most editors from the time of Jamieson, that many at least of the ballads which now survive derive from a period anterior to the romance of chivalry; and (2) that of Professor Courthope, 1 and (incidentally) of Sir Walter Scott, that they are solely the production of minstrels who were the degenerate successors of the ancient bards, and who, when they did not select a traditionary feat of arms, or an historic legend, for their theme, adapted it from some older form of literature 1 History of English Poetry, vol. i. pp. 445-468. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 347 'the romance, lay, or fabliau.' While, for example, Motherwell, and (vaguely) most editors would assume that Fair Annie and the Danish Sldosn Anna were originally the work of the same old bard, Professor Courthope would hold that they were fabricated at some later period by two separate degenerate minstrels, who made use of the same or a similar original some romance or story. If the theory of a communal authorship is in itself, as the Quarterly Keviewer admits, hard to under- stand, it must be specially difficult of . , r The theory of comprehension in the case of such ex- communal n . f T, authorship as cellent specimens of literature as are expounded by many of the ballads ; but the explana- Jfan^ an" w tion of Mr. Lang and the Quarterly Re- the Quarterly . * Reviewer. viewer is that it was done during the excitement of saltation. Ballads, in the Quarterly Reviewer's opinion, were probably the production of a ' chorus at a village festival,' each, or a number, of the singers and dancers adding his or her contribu- tion ; and after ' the ballads ' had been ' evolved rather than composed ' by the combined genius of the village communities, the minstrel calmly appropriated them as his own, and chanted them to the great delight and edification of the same community who were their real authors. Mr. Lang, on the other hand, ignores the minstrel altogether as a 'mere stumbling-block in the way of the student of the growth of ballads ' ; but apart from this his position is identical with that of the Quarterly Reviewer, for he holds that they are 348 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE all 'popular and primitive in the same sense as marchen/ and that they 'all spring from the same primitive custom of dance, accompanied by impro- vised song, which still exists in Greece and Russia, and even the valley of the Pyrenees.' Again, it is necessary to emphasise the fact that Mr. Lang does not allude as Ten Brink and others do to the evolution of poetry in remote or prehistoric times, but to the authorship of actually existing ballads, Scots or English Chevy Chace, Sir Patrick Spens, Child Waters, Kinmont Willie, or, in short, any other standard ballad you like to name. The only historical evidence adduced for this sweeping conclusion is (1) that in a few instances there are four in all, viz. Robene hude, Thorn of lyn, Leuis grene (The Murning Maiden), and Ihonne ermistrangis dance the names of the dances in The Complaynt of Scotland are identical with the names of certain surviving ballads, and (2) that the song after the victory of Bannockburn was 'sungyn in dances, in carolles of ye maidens and mynstrellys of Scotland.' But (1) in the same Corn- play nt of Scotland the names of many more ballads occur as merely tales and songs ; (2) there is no evidence that these dances even if they were ballad dances, dances accompanied by song were improvised by the dancers ; (3) even the dance song of Bannock- burn may have been, and probably was, the work of professional dancers and minstrels (for whom Mr. Lang can find no use), and the work of the chief minstrel, but in any case it is very rude and TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 349 simple ; and (4) it is beyond belief that any of those four ballads whose names occur in The Complaynt as dances could have been essentially created either by such artistes as those who celebrated Bannockburn, or even by the most primitive of village communities. Further, whatever connection the ballad may, in primitive times, have had with the dance, something called * balat-making ' was, as we learn from Dunbar's Lament to name merely this solitary evidence accomplished before Dunbar's day by individual 'makaris.' Thus the theory of absolute communal authorship whatever it may have to commend it as an explanation of the origin of poetry is, as regards the ballad poetry we actually possess, founded rather on general a priori considerations than on minute inquiry into facts ; and the more one seeks to have recourse to it for an explanation of individual ex- amples of the literature for which it professes to account, the more unmistakably does it approve itself a mere ' broken reed.' We come, then, to the minstrel theory of Mother- well and others, derived from the notion that some of the ballads transmitted to us are of Are there any immemorial antiquity, and that we still j^f^ rf al have historical ballads closely related to antiquity? very remote historical events. The theory of the very great age of certain historical ballads has been accepted unquestioningly by certain editors owing to the notion that other non-historical ballads are of immemorial antiquity; while the supposition that 350 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE we possess certain ballads relating to very remote historical events tends, of course, to foster the belief in the immemorial antiquity of the other classes of ballads. The few simple and rude rhymes relating to the death of Alexander in. (1285), the siege of Berwick (1296), the battle of Bannockburn (1314), baiiads. sir and the character of the English (1328), are ^ ne earliest extant specimens of antiquity** Scottish popular historic poetry, the views of sir authenticity of which may be said to be Walter Scott. J J . . fairly well established ; but an antiquity as remote as the earliest of these has been claimed for what Coleridge has termed the ' grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.' In publishing it for the first time, Bishop Percy remarked that he had not been able to ascertain when the ' fatal expedition happened which proved so destructive ' ; but Sir Walter Scott, while observing that 'the introduction of the king into the ballad seems a deviation from history/ affirmed that the cause of Sir Patrick Spens's voyage, which ' is pointed out distinctly/ shows that ' the song has claims to high antiquity, as referring to a very remote period in Scottish history/ and broached the theory that it referred to an unrecorded and dis- astrous expedition of Sir Patrick Spens to bring Margaret, the Maid of Norway, to Scotland after the death of her grandfather Alexander in. It so happened, however, that as Fordun records the ambassadors who in 1281 conveyed Margaret, TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 351 the daughter of Alexander, to be married to Eric of Norway were wrecked on their return, and although none of the names of the ambassadors Theory of resembled in the remotest degree that ^fi h n e ell> of Sir Patrick Spens, MotherweU, after corporation, fortifying himself by calculating that the 12th of August, 1 on which, according to Wyntoun, the ambassadors set sail for Norway, fell in 1281 on, as stated in the ballad, a Monday, proposed, in contradiction to this same ballad (which was so accurate in regard to the day of the week, but so inaccurate as to the ' time of the year '), to make the ballad refer to this later event the sending away, not the bringing home, of a king's daughter. Hardly had he promulgated his theory when, of course, Peter Buchan, with the aid of his * wight of Homer's craft,' discovered the following doggerel stanza which editor after editor has been accustomed gravely to appeal to in corroboration of the Mother well conclusion : ' But I man sail the seas the morn, must And likewise sae man you, so To Norroway wi' our King's daughter, A chosen Queen she 's now.' And since the Buchan corroboration, the Mother- well theory has practically held the field. Eobert Chambers ventured to include Sir Patrick Spens in the list of ballads which he attributed to the fabrica- tion of Lady Wardlaw, but outwardly did not per- i It was really in summer, not in winter, be it observed, that, according to Wyntoun, the ship set sail for Norway. 352 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE severe in maintaining his theory against the adverse criticism to which it was subjected; and the final stage in the corroboration of the Motherwell-Buchan theory was the discovery by Maidment in Papa, Orkney, of a tumulus reputed by the natives in- structed it may be by Buchan, or some Buchan enthusiast to be the grave of Sir Patrick Spens. True, the ballad states that Sir Patrick and his followers lie ' fifty fathom deep ' in the ocean, but, as has been pointed out, Papa is about ' half way ' be- tween Norway and Aberdour not, be it observed, the merely Fife Aberdour on the Firth of Forth, but the vastly more probable Aberdour on the Aberdeenshire coast ! Down, therefore, to the publication of Professor Child's second volume (1886), the Mother well theory was that generally accepted ; and it is Mr. Lang and Professor so still, 1 though it was not accepted by Professor Child. Mr. Lang, who in the Blackwood paper refers to the ballad as perhaps the 'most antique ballad of all/ states that the 'historical event which may have suggested it is "plausibly" fixed, says Mr. Child, in 1281'; but though Professor Child did politely refer to the ' plausibility ' of the Motherwell theory, and, with his usual anxiety to tell all that was to be known, even informed his readers that Mr. MacMath of Edinburgh 1 Thus Professor Walker, in Three Centuries of Scottish Literature, 1893, vol. i. p. 167, writes : ' It seems as fully established as it could well be on any but ancient documentary evidence, that Sir Patrick Spens carries us back to the year 1281.' TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 353 had found the name Spens in 'five charters of David ii. between 1329 and 1370,' his own exact position was that ' this ballad may be historical or it may not,' and he even speculated that Sir Patrick might be ' only a shipmaster of purely local fame who was lost off Aberdeen a couple of hundred years ago.' This, it may be said, is a very im- probable hypothesis, but so much the more does it indicate the puzzlement of Professor Child as to the origin of the ballad, and how slight was his faith in the theory of its unique antiquity. Nor is such lack of faith surprising. For, apart from insuperable difficulties of metre and even language, there is the important obstacle not only that no name resembling that of Sir Patrick Spens is known to have been associated with the early em- bassies to Norway, but that neither the disastrous occurrence to which the ballad professes to refer, nor the remarkable ballad itself, is mentioned by any of the old writers, and that the earliest known publication of the ballad was that hi Percy's JReliques, 1765. But for the fact, however, of a preconceived notion^ of the ballad's great antiquity, a solution of the pro- blem would probably have been looked sir Patrick for in connection with the voyage of |f r e *t r i" James vi. in 1589 to bring home his Vans - bride from Denmark. The bride, expected in Scot- land in September, had not arrived on the day fixed for the marriage, and all sorts of rumour of disaster z 354 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE were in circulation, until a message arrived that having twice been driven back by contrary winds, she had taken refuge on the coasts of Norway, and that the Scots and Danes were in disagreement as to whether she should be brought over at once, or the voyage be deferred till the spring. Then it was that the king resolved, as narrated in the ballad, to send out a ship to fetch her ' at this time of the year/ c be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet ' ; and among the ' new commissioners directed to the Queen J was, not indeed Sir Patrick Spens, but Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch, a name which might easily, in the popular mind, get changed into the more Scottish name Spens. Further, the same Sir Patrick Vans was also the original ambassador chosen to negotiate the marriage in 1587 ; and when the king, after appointing the ' new commission ' in October 1589, finally resolved secretly to embark himself, Sir Patrick Vans was chosen to accompany him, and remained in Denmark until the marriage, when he returned in December to Scotland to report the king's safe arrival and the conclusion of the cere- mony. The resolve of the king to fetch the queen 1 at this time of the year ' greatly perturbed the nation, the more especially that the weather continued very tempestuous. A great storm delayed the ships from sailing, and when they at last ventured on their voyage, and got beyond the Forth and out of sight of land, they were driven back twenty or thirty miles by a renewal of the blast, and rode for a time opposite TEADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 355 St. Monans. 1 May not the ballad, therefore, have been suggested by a rumour of disaster to this ad- venturous expedition ? And is it not as likely, at least, that Sir Patrick Vans was its hero, as a quite unknown Sir Patrick Spens of the thirteenth century, or an equally unknown skipper of some two hundred years ago ? That is, supposing the ballad is not a mere forgery, which is less likely than the supposition that, as we now have it, it is an improvement by some one Lady Wardlaw or another of a minstrel ballad of the late sixteenth century. Next to Sir Patrick Spens, the historical ballad which claims the greatest antiquity is a long recita- tion, Auld Maitland, first published by 'AuidMait- Scott in 1802, who got it from Hogg as land>> recited by his mother, and the date of which Scott placed ' about the reign of David n. or his successor.' But though Sir Richard and his ' auld 1 ' His Majestie with the rest sould maid saille vpone Sonday at efternoune, the xix day of October instant, at quhilk tyme theare come on sick a deadlie storme, that the schipis lyand all in Leith read were schakin loose, and driven all vp to St. Margarets houpe, and sua the jorney stayed for that nicht. Vpone the xxij day of October, about tuelff houris at evin, his Majestie maid saile to Norroway with fyve schippis in company : his Majestie wes driven back xx or xxx myles with great storme, and read foranent St. Monanis ' (Moysie's Memoirs, p. 80). Two women burned for sorcery at Edinburgh in 1590-91 asserted that Bothwell had bribed them to make storms during the king's voyage. See also, in con- nection with the Bass, a reference in R. L. Stevenson's Catriona. It is worth noting that the earliest version of the ballad represents the disaster as occurring on the outward voyage. 356 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE grey beard' are referred to in Gavin Douglas's Police of Honour, and we also learn from a poem in the Maitland MS. that his exploits had been the subject of song and story, it is impossible to resist the conclusion of Ayton and Maidment that the ballad is a modern composition ; and it has not been included in Professor Child's volumes. 1 If, then, we reject Sir Patrick Spens and Auld Maitland as thirteenth or fourteenth century pro- The ' Lord of ductions, the most ancient Scottish inci- Liddesdaie.- ^ ent ^ nown to have been commemorated in a ballad, of which any fragment remains, is the murder of the Lord of Liddesdale by the Earl of Douglas in the forest of Ettrick, in 1353, as narrated by Hume of Godscroft (1560-1630), who gives the beginning of the old song : ' The Countesse of Douglass, out of her bower she came And loudly there that she did call, " It is for the Lord of Liddesdale That I let all these tears doune fall." ' But the ballad itself has not been preserved. The murder of the Lord of Liddesdale took place thirty-five years before the battle of Otterburn, celebrated in the ballad of which the earliest Scottish 1 On the line, ' And fired the Merse and Teviotdale,' the late Professor Veitch commented : ' That word /red, not burned, speaks of the glow of the flame as present to the very eye of the minstrel' (Poetry of the Scottish Border, 1893, vol. ii. p. 130). But this use of ' fire ' is not peculiar to the minstrel, nor uniquely Scottish, nor in any sense exceptional, but quite common and modern, and it may even have been an emendation of Scott. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 357 version is that preserved by Herd (1776). It con- tains the line, 'The Percy and Montgomerie met,' quoted in The Complaynt of Scotland chevy chace/ as the name of a song, but it is impossible " ott^r- 133 to tell whether or not the stanza has bourne.' been interpolated at a later date, especially as it is but a repetition with the substitution of Montgomerie for Douglas of a stanza common to both the Scots and English versions of the ballad. The oldest extant version is the English one (c. 1550) in the Cottonian MSS., but this, of course, is no proof that the Scottish version was borrowed from the English one ; and something may even be said for Professor Veitch's theory, that both versions, as well as the ballad of Chevy Cliace, which so much moved the heart of Sir Philip Sidney when he heard it sung by 'some blind crowder,' and which is also mentioned in The Complaynt, may derive from some ' original ballad of Otterbourne which we have lost.' After Otterburn, the next earliest event com- memorated in a ballad, which has been claimed as ancient, is that of Harlaw, 1411. The The 'Battle of battel of harylaw is the title of one of Harlaw -' the songs in The Complaynt ; and a copy of a ballad of that name, dated 1688, was at one time in the library of Robert Milne. No doubt it was from some such broadside that Allan Ramsay got the Evergreen version of the ballad; and though we can scarce believe that he refrained from altering it, it may be substantially the song referred to in The Complaynt. 358 SCOTTISH VERNACULAK LITERATURE Since, however, it is written in the French octave, it was most likely composed long after the battle, for there is no evidence that the Chaucerian influence reached Scotland until the reign of James i. None of the surviving examples of the historical ballad thus date earlier than about the beginning of x Thomas of tne fifteenth century, and in view of the Erceldoune. f act fa^ near ly a H even Q f t ^ e ru dest examples of minstrelsy referring to earlier events have perished, is it possible to accept the theory that, in the case of the other ballads, we actually possess examples of the older minstrelsy anterior to the romance of chivalry ? As matter of fact, the oldest authenticated specimen of the romantic ballad we possess is that forming part of the romance detailing the confabulations of Thomas of Erceldoune with the Elf Queen, but, as has been already stated (ante, p. 23), that romance itself is founded on the older one of Ogier le Danois. Thus a conclusion of Pro- fessor Walker, 1 that ' the earliest assignable date for the ballads of superstition does lead us into a remoter past than the historical ballads,' wholly loses the significance he attaches to it. 2 1 Three Centuries of Scottish Literature, vol. i. p. 171. 2 A traditional copy of this ballad was obtained by Jamieson from Mrs. Brown of Falkland. Its close resemblance to the old MS. copy has been cited as a proof of the remarkable fidelity with which old ballads may be preserved by tradition from even the time of the Rhymer. But is it not, as Dr. J. A. H. Murray opined, rather an indication that the traditional copy has a com- paratively recent connection with the MS. ? Similarly, can we now believe, with Sir Walter Scott, that any special virtue attaches to a copy ' obtained from a lady residing not far from Erceldoune ' ? TBADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 359 Antecedent probability, therefore, favours some form of the theory of Professor Courthope: that the traditional ballad is the work of ProfesS or later minstrels than the ancient bard, and that those ballads which do not favoured by antecedent form a later variety of the chanson de - probability. geste are adapted from older forms of should it be literature the romance, the lay, or the modified? fabliau. Moreover, the theory as even a cursory examination of Professor Child's volume might at least suggest, and a detailed study cannot but con- firm is very strongly countenanced by apparent facts; and any modification of it can be justified, it would seem, only (1) by the discovery of a few apparent exceptions in the case of individual ballads ; or (2) by proof that later minstrels were not, as Pro- fessor Courthope predicates, ' degenerate ' ; l or (3) by the consideration that some of the Scots traditional ballads were originally the work of poets other than minstrels. Professor Courthope's general theory that the ballads were the work of later minstrels does not, of course, depend on the justness of his verdict that the later minstrels were universally an inferior class of poets to the ancient bards ; 2 but is not the question 1 This question is closely associated with that of how far individual ballads are either corrupted or cooked. 2 Mr. Lang had no difficulty (Blackicood, vol. clviii. pp. 381-90) in exposing the mistaken character of Professor Courthope's theory of degeneracy as applied to the ballad of Mary Hamilton, but that exposure left the question as to whether ballads are the work of minstrels exactly where it was. 360 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE as to their inferiority a more comprehensive and com- plex one especially as regards the Scottish ballads complexity than he seems to realise ? He compares ofthe Otterbourne and The Hunting of the question. 9 > Deteriorating Cheviot with the Anglo-Saxon Death of influence of . tradition. Byrhtnoth, much to their disadvantage as and^tter- 3 " regards especially circumstantiality and bourne.' truthfulness; but the fact that The Hunt- ing of the Cheviot was in great part fiction had been noticed by Hume of Godscroft, who makes mention of a Scots song made of Otterboume, which 'telleth the time, about Lammas; and also the occasion to take frays out of England, also the dividing armies betwixt the Earls of Fife and Douglas, and their several journeys almost as in authentic history.' 1 But even this ballad, as known to Hume, probably differed greatly from the original one. We must make allowance for the deterioration effected by possibly some centuries of mangling by reciters ; for tradition, contact with the natural man, contagion from the 'heart of the people '- which heart, however sincere and strong in its emotions, is now, and probably ever was, wholly un- trained in the art of poetic expression does not tend as some, not including Professor Courthope, assume, towards the elaboration of the consummate qualities of the ballad, but rather, as hundreds of instances could be adduced to prove, towards their 1 House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 195. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 361 obscuration, defilement, and final effacement. 1 Many of the traditional ballads are strangely unequal, and at a later period they tended to become a kind of patchwork in which stanzas of startling poetic beauty are occasionally to be found side by side with mere tawdry vulgarity or hopeless bathos; but we may surely believe that the qualities of Chevy Chace, which stirred the heart of Sir Philip Sidney as with c the sound of a trumpet,' were echoes from the heart of a true minstrel, who, like the author of the Death of Byrhtnoth, must have felt the reality of the conflict of which he sang. Much of the original beauty and accuracy of the alliteration and rhythm of Chevy Chace has plainly been lost, and it may therefore be inferred that both in it and in the English and 1 Assonance, for example, is frequently assumed to be a distinc- tive and original characteristic of the ballad. Mr. Lang lays much stress on ' the use of assonance in place of rhyme,' as an indication of the ballad's absolute folkness ; and the Quarterly Reviewer, though he states that ' rhyme is the basis of the whole musical scheme of the ballad,' affirms that ' alliteration and assonance have their place in it. ' But though assonance that is, mere vowel rhyme had its place in the poetry of the Romance and other dialects, where it was governed by strict laws, it is not a general characteristic of old poetry. It has no proper place in English verse, and its furtive and haphazard presence in the ballad is evidence only of a dulled and defective ear, or an imperfect command of the resources of common rhyme. Again, while ballads deteriorate by tradition, they also deteriorate still more vilely by being passed through the crucible of the hack balladist, whence they are issued as broadsides, or in chap-books ; but by all in town or country, nearest to ' the natural state of man,' these mere abortions of the old ballad were and are received with acclamation. So much for the 'natural man ' as the vein in which is to be found the pure deposit of the primaeval ballad ! 362 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Scottish versions of Otterbourne alteration and inter- polation have wrought sad havoc on the unity and force of the original recital. 1 1 Could we accept Scott's version of Otterbourne in The Minstrelsy as bearing throughout anything like a close resemblance to the original ballad, it would be impossible to regard it as the work of a minstrel in any sense degenerate ; but the original material at Abbotsford shows that the ballad owes much of its special excellence to Scott himself. Indeed, the most vivid and touching stanzas in the whole ballad those describing the death of Douglas stanzas ' which,' in the opinion of Professor Veitch, ' for power and simple pathos are unsurpassed in ballad literature,' are little more than Scott's improvement of what was very much the mere concoction of Hogg. Here are the four, it is to be feared, guilty stanzas : ' " My nephew good," the Douglas said, matters " What recks the death of ane ? Last night I dream'd a dreary dream, know And I ken the day 's thy ain. My wound is deep ; I fain would sleep ; Take thou the vanguard of the three, fern And hide me by the braken bush, That grows on yonder lilye lea. O bury me by the braken bush, Beneath the blooming brier, Let never living mortal ken That ere a kindly Scot lies here." He lifted up that noble lord, Wi' the saut tear in his e'e, He hid him in the braken bush, That his merrie men might not see.' Now here is all that we have in Herd for the above stanzas : ' The boy 's taen out his little penknife, That hanget low down by his gare, gave And he gae Earl Douglas a deadly wound, Alack ! a deep wound and a sare. Earl Douglas said to Sir Hugh Montgomery, " Tak' thou the vanguard o' the three, And bury me at yon braken bush That stands upon yon lilly lee," ' TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 363 Again, Professor Courthope observes, justly enough as regards England, that towards the close of the The stanzas in the Sharpe MS. , though they agree with the Herd MS. in attributing the death of Douglas to the boy, more nearly resemble the stanzas in The Minstrelsy, but it is merely as moon- light resembles sunlight : * "Sir Hugh Montgomery, my sister's son, I give you the vanguard over all ; Let it ne'er be said unto Old England, That so little made a true Scot fall. lay me dowen by yon brecken bush That grows upon yon lilly lea ; Let it ne'er be said unto Old England That so little made a true Scot die." ' Now here is what Hogg sent to Scott : ' "My wound is deep, I fain would sleep, Nae mair I '11 fighting see. Gae lay me in the bracken bush Go That grows on yonder lee. But tell na ane of my brave men not one That I lye bleeding wan, But let the name of Douglas still Be shouted in the van. And bury me here on this lee, Beneath the blooming brier, And never let a mortal ken know A kindly Scot lyes here." He liftet up that noble lord, Wi' the saut tear in his e'e, And hid him in the bracken bush On yonder lily lee.' But where did Hogg get this version, which is, besides, much in- ferior to the Scott? The whole of the ballad, he told Scott, he got from ' a crazy old man, and a woman deranged in her mind ' ; but he candidly admitted that for this, the ' most interesting ' portion of it, they had both failed him, and he had been obliged to ' take much of it in plain prose. ' This ' plain prose ' Hogg put into verse, and Scott improving on it, created the ' unsurpassed ' stanzas ! 364 SCOTTISH VERNACULAK LITERATURE fourteenth century the attention of the better classes was 'occupied either with prose romances, or with Does professor allegorical and other purely literary courthope's forms of poetry, while the lower classes, statement of the causes who chiefly cared for minstrelsy, had apply to"' long been accustomed to the forms of Scotland? settled government'; but this by no means holds true of Border England or of Scotland generally, as regards either (1) its absorption in other forms of literature, or (2) its accustomedness to settled forms of government. As for Scotland's absorption in prose romances or in allegory, there was, so far as is known, no such Scotland not absorption. The Chaucerian influence absorbed in probably did not reach Scotland until prose romances * or allegory. the return of James i. ; and before this The traditional , -i i r Scottish there was, as the whole after-develop- ment of Scots poetry bears witness, a vigorous poetic school of native growth. 1 Henryson's Robene and Makyne owes nothing to Chaucer, and Henryson's use of the common ballad measure in other pieces is clear evidence of the cultivation of the ballad, not merely by inferior minstrels, but by a class of poets worthy to be designated ' makaris.' Similarly, Christis Kirk or Peblis did not inaugurate a vernacular poetry called into sudden existence by 1 No doubt there was a decay in minstrelsy before the time of Blind Harry. He himself refers to a time reigned ' Quhen gud makaris rang weill in to Scotland,' but that was subsequent to Wallace. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 365 the poetic sceptre of a merely Chaucerian James i., but bear upon even their structure and metre the impress of connection with a poetry having an un- broken national tradition. In The Murning Maiden (see ante, p. 292) we have also an example of the primitive pagan simplicity of sentiment characteristic of the old ballads, expressed with a poetic art which is far, indeed, from being 'degenerate'; and it is further scarcely necessary to mention that the use, even by the later Scottish ' makaris,' of the rhymed alliterative measures, and the general predominance of the bobwheel in Scottish verse, are a clear proof of the survival of the old traditional influences down to the very last. It is not improbable, therefore, that a good deal of the best traditional poetry in the special ballad form, which now survives, was originally the some of the work of 'makaris' other than the wan- ^^ dering minstrels who may have appro- by other rr 'makaris' than priated it to their own use. Moreover, wandering many numbers included in Professor Child's and other collections, as The Gaberlunzie Man, Hame cam our Glide form - Man, Lizie Baillie, etc., are not in the ballad form, and have little or no connection with minstrels or old romance. Nor can we believe that such remark- able sets of verses as The Twa Corbies, or Waly, Waly, 1 derive either from degenerate minstrels or 1 There can scarce be any doubt that Waly, Waly is related to Willow, Willow, Willow, the song which is introduced into 366 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the ' natural man/ though the former and its English analogue, The Two Ravens, may be founded on an incident in some forgotten romance. Then, as to accustomedness to settled forms of government, was not Scotland in a state of chronic The Border anarchy until even after the manhood ttcy* geiuS? of Jaines VL ? And > more specially, did transcripts? there not exist in southern Scotland, until the first half of the sixteenth century, a con- dition of society which fostered a variety of the chanson de geste quite as circumstantial and faith- ful to fact as the Anglo-Saxon Death of Byrhtnoth ? The very spirit of the reiver breathes in the rudest version of these old ballads, and how much more might be said in their praise could we be certain that such ballads in The Minstrelsy as Kinmont Willie or Jamie Telfer were nearly genuine transcripts of the versions obtained by Scott ! ' Rude and raploch ' in measure though they be, their swiftness and fire, and passion and imaginative truth create for us again the whole moral atmosphere of those feats of wild adventure ; but, alas ! as in Otterbourne (see ante, p. 362), the magic touch, it is to be feared, is mainly that of Scott, or Scott and Hogg. Shakespeare's Othello, Act iv. Sc. 3, which is also included in Percy's Reliques, and of which there are black-letter copies in the Pepys and Roxburghe collections. Stenhouse (Notes' to Johnson's Museum, p. 147) gives a parody of Waly from a humorous Yule medley in ' Mr. Blackwood's MSS. , which were transcribed by Thomas Wode in 1566 ' ; but David Laing states that the medley was inserted in the volume by a later possessor, ' evidently not earlier than 1620.' TKADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 367 Here, for example, is the wonderful 'Jamie r . . Scott's ver- picture of the fight in Jarme Teifer : sion. * " Set on them, lads ! " quo Willie than ; tken " Fye, lads, set on them cruellie ! For ere they win to the Kitterford Mony a toom saddle there sail be." empty Then til't they gaed, wi' heart and hand, The blows fell thick as bickering hail ; And mony a horse ran masterless, And mony a comely cheek was pale. But Willie was stricken ower the head, And thro' the knapscap the sword has gane ; And Harden grat for very rage, Whan Willie on the grund lay slain. But he 's ta'en aff his gude steel cap And thrice he 's waved it in the air. The Dinlay snaw was ne'er mair white Nor the lyart locks of Harden's hair. faded " Revenge ! revenge ! " auld Wat gan cry ; " Fye, lads, lay on them cruellie ! We '11 ne'er see Teviotside again, Or Willie's death revenged sail be." ' Scott, who is the only authority for this version, mentions that there is another ballad under the same title, 'in which nearly the same Thesharpe incidents are narrated with little differ- version - ence, except that the honour of rescuing the cattle is attributed to the Liddesdale Elliots, headed by a chief, there called Martin Elliot of the Preakin Tower, whose son, Simon, is said to have fallen in 368 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the action.' But here is how the fight reads in the latter version : l Fall ' " Fa' on them, lads ! " can Simmy say, " Fy, fa' on them cruelly ! For or they win to the Ritterford empt y Mony toom saddle there shall be." But Simmy was stricken o'er the head, And thro' the napskape it is gane. And Moscrop made a dolefull rage When Simmy on the ground lay slain. " Fy, lay on them ! " co Martin EUiot, " Fy, lay on them cruelly ! For ere they win to the Kerthop ford Mony toom saddle there shall be." ' And yet Scott never gives the slightest hint that this version is in any way inferior to that in The Minstrelsy ! But those examples from The Minstrelsy, since they indicate that many old Border ballads have been HOW far are partly transformed, necessarily give addi- cookldP^Edtm tional P mt t0 the d ubfcS tliat Were CaSt o- Gordon.' by Chambers on the genuine antiquity of many ballads which he attributed to Lady Wardlaw. That Lady Wardlaw, as Chambers sur- mised, was the sole fabricator of those ballads, is hardly possible; but she or another may have im- proved the old versions, just as Scott improved the Border ballads. And if she did even this, she must 1 Recovered from the Sharpe papers by Mr. MacMath, Edin- burgh, and printed for the first time in Child's Ballads, 1898, vol. v. pp. 249-251. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 369 have possessed poetic gifts of rare delicacy. The version of Edom o' Gordon, for instance, published in 1755 from a copy furnished by Lord Hailes, is no whit inferior (to say the least) to either Kinmont Willie or Jamie Telfer. The scene of the maiden's death, whoever man or woman conceived or realised it, is a primitive and pagan masterpiece. She is beheld as these savage clansmen beheld her : the pitiless simplicity and truthfulness and reserve of the balladist are, after their own fashion, match- less : * They row'd her in a pair of sheets And tow'd her owre the wa 3 , But on the point of Edom's spear She gat a deadly fa'. 0, bonnie, bonnie was her mouth, And cherry were her cheeks ! And clear, clear was her yellow hair, Whereon the red bluid dreeps ! Then wi' his spear he turned her ower, 0, gin her face was wan ! He said, "You are the first that e'er I wished alive again." He turned her ower and ower again, 0, gin her skin was white ! He said, " I might hae spared thy life To hae been some man's delight. Busk and boun, my merrymen all ! For ill dooms I do guess : I canna look on that bonnie face As it lies on the grass." ' 2A wrapped wall Ready and away ! bad luck 370 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE This, certainly, was not altogether the work of a ' degenerate minstrel.' And as we now have them, The old an d however acquired, many of those revelations of ballads possess a fascination which is not the past. fo foe f oun d in more elaborate verse. Though solemnly serious and devoid of wit and humour, they are utterly true, so far as they go, to human nature, and quite stripped of false sentiment and affectation. In many ways which there is no space here further to illustrate they bring us into immediate contact with the antique, pagan, savage, superstitious, elemental characteristics of our race. They have to some extent embalmed for us the essence of old forgotten romances, and the essence of what the old romances embalmed the sentiments, passions, beliefs, forms of thought, and imaginative wonder and dread of our pagan ancestors. Now little more than a merely imperfect echo of perished liter- atures, of extinct superstitions, of generations whose codes of honour and conduct were perhaps both better and worse than our own, or of feats and adventures which were, many of them, of merely tribal or local interest; mangled also in form, and distorted as to fact though they often are the voice of the past speaks in them more authentically than it often does in the most elaborate of histories. The late Mr. Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time, has successfully enough demonstrated the close connection between English and Scottish popular music from the fifteenth century, but the TEADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 371 inference that the connection was mainly of a one- sided character is not such an absolute certainty as he very much takes for granted; for . , . . , Reciprocal it rests mainly on negative evidence, on connection of the scarcity, namely, of early music pre- ^tiand af served in old Scottish MSS. and attached re e ards music and song. to Scottish words; and this negative evidence is vitiated by the fact that such MSS. must at one time have existed. There is abundant proof of the cultivation of music, both secular and sacred ? in Scotland down until towards the close of the sixteenth century. Moreover, a large number of the tunes mentioned in Colkelbies Sow, in The Complaynt of Scotland, and in various poems of the old Scottish 'makaris,' as well as of the songs parodied in The Gude and Godlie Ballates, are not, as matter of fact, known to be of English origin ; and there is in reality no proof that in early times the influence of the two countries, as regards music and song, was not entirely reciprocal. The Huntis Up, for example, is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland; and on this fact Dr. Furnivall 1 comments : ' This is a lively English tune The Huntis well fitted for dancers, printed in Mr. UP.' is it scots Chappell's Popular Music, i. 60,' and he ' further states that the first mention of the tune is in 1537. Chappell also, on the authority of Puttenham (1587) who mentioned that one Gray made such a 1 Notes to the Complaynt of Scotland (Early English Text Society's ed.), p. Ixxxvii, and in Captain Cox (Ballad Society), p. clxiii. 372 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE ballad in the time of Henry vm. supposes that Gray is the original author of the song parodied by John Thome, and in The Gude and Godlie Ballates ; but the mere statement of Puttenham is in itself very flimsy evidence, especially when the much earlier existence of the song in Scotland is clearly proved by a line in Robert Henryson's fable of The Wolf, the Foxe, and the Cadzear : * The Cadzear sang Hunts up, up on hie.' These Fables were probably all written before 1480, by which date, therefore, The Huntis Up was already in Scotland what would now be called a folk-song ! Since, moreover, it was known as a dance tune among the country people of Scotland before 1549, and is parodied in The Gude and Godlie Ballates, which were, many of them, of as early a date as this, is it not as likely to have been of Scottish as of English origin, and all the more that, as we learn from Habbie Simson, Hunts Up was a favourite tune of the Scottish pipers? The truth is, that of the popular songs and music of the earlier centuries our knowledge is so fragmentary that definite and decided conclusions as to origin are very apt to be delusive. Dealing with a later period, Chappell also (very justly) regretted the confusion between English and Scottish popular tunes and songs, caused by the methods of Ramsay in The Tea Table Miscellany, 1724, etc., of Thomson in Orpheus Caledonius, 1725, and Oswald in Scots Airs, 1740, and other musical Its TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 373 publications a confusion which was further aggra- vated by the comments and assertions of many subsequent editors, including especially Stenhouse, 1 whose many sins of omission and commission were only partly rectified by David Laing ; 2 but did English broad- f h h e a o ppell ' s side and chapbook literature owe practi- cally nothing, as Chappell asserted, to old Scottish tunes and songs ? Chappell scouted the very notion that any Anglo-Scottish ballad or song could derive in any way from a Scots original. He referred to them as ' that numerous class of songs and ballads which before the Union of the Crowns had been called "Northern" a polite substitute for "rustic" and which under Scottish kings were gradually denomi- nated "Scotch."' 'The change/ be further added, 'may be said to have commenced after Charles n. had been crowned King of Scots.' 3 Of course it was only by such a theory that he could eliminate Scottish songs and tunes from Anglo-Scottish broad- sides. Still, though dictated by antecedent conviction rather than derived from an exhaustive preliminary study of the facts, the explanation may be partly true ; but (1) a tune may be termed ' Northern ' from mere carelessness; (2) tunes are generally termed 'Northern' when the subject of the ballad is not merely 'rustic/ but 'Northern'; (3) 'Northern 'is the 1 Notes to Johnson's Musical Museum, 1853. 2 Supplementary Notes. 3 Roxburghe Ballads, iii. 433. 374 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE proper designation of tunes common to the North of England and the Lowlands of Scotland ; l (4) there is no evidence of any change in the method of naming the tunes of individual ballads ; and (5) broadsides printed at a much earlier date than the Restoration were written to 'pleasant Scotch tunes/ as The Northern Lasse, of which a copy in the Euing Collection was printed before 1629. This very ballad set to a pleasant Scotch tune called The Broom of Cowden Knowes, was, with strange maladroitness, selected by Chappell 2 The Broom m ' / rr of Cowden to illustrate his theory that so-called Knowes.' ~ , ,_...... 'Scotch tunes are merely English rustic tunes. ' The evidence that the tune is " Scotch " rests/ he said, on this ballad, ' for in other ballads to the same air it is not so described; and Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes " O the broom, the bony, bony broom" as a country tune ' [as no doubt it was, whether Scotch or English]. And Chappell further adds : c The Broom of Cowden Knowes is in the metre of, and evidently suggested by, the older ballad of New Broom on Hill? A copy of the original Broom on Hill may even yet be discovered, or at least an earlier copy of the tune, 1 Chappell, in Popular Music (p. 613), objected to the possibility of Brome on Hill being Scots for the reason that it is 'not on the incomplete scale which is commonly called Scotch ' ; but only a small percentage of Scots tunes are on this scale, and indeed tunes common to the North of England and Scotland have no peculiarities to distinguish them from Southern tunes. 2 Popular Music, p. 613. 3 Black-letter in the Pepys Collection. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 375 and thus set the question at rest.' But (1) though Broom, broom on hill, is mentioned by Laneham 1 (1575) as an ancient song hi the possession of Captain Cox, it is also mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549) as a well-known Scottish dance ; and it is therefore by no means evident that the dis- covery of an ancient copy of the tune which may have been long common to both countries would set the question at rest; (2) even were the tune originally English, it plainly was well known long before 1549 in Scotland, and most likely had been set to Scots words, which, though not known to Ramsay 2 who allowed a vamp of The Northern Lasse to appear in The Tea Table Miscellany, may have been brought to England shortly after the Union of the Crowns ; (3) the title ' Northern Lasse/ cannot mean merely 'Rustic Lasse/ any more than the phrase ' north countrie ' can mean ' rustic countrie ' ; (4) not only is the ballad set ' to a pleasant Scotch tune called The Broome of Cowden Knowes,' but it intro- duces ' Cowden Knowes/ of the ' North Countrie/ into the chorus : ' With 0, the broome, the bony broome, The broome of Cowden Knowes, Fain would I be in the North Countrie, To milk my dady's ewes ' ; 1 See Captain Cox, ed. Furnivall (Ballad Society), pp. cxxviii-ix. 2 There is a traditional ballad The Broom o' the Cowden Knowes, but its origin is involved in dubiety, the earliest printed fragments Bonny May, in Herd's Collection, 1769 making no reference to Cowden Knowes. 376 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE and (5) the ballad actually begins, ' Through Liddersdale as lately I went.' Yet Chappell who apparently had never heard of the Homes 'who dwelt on "Leader side/" nor of c Leader haughs and Yarrow/ nor of Golden Knowes, the old keep of the Homes on the broom-covered braes (or ' knowes/ that is, knolls) of the Leader- had little difficulty in concluding that both Lidders- dale and Cowden Knowes about the meaning of which he showed no curiosity were somehow the invention solely of the balladist, and that the ballad tune, chorus, first line and everything was wholly English ! Similarly, it is a mere assumption that the black- letter Jockey s Escape from Bony Dundee, 1 is wholly 1 The tune Adew Dundee is in the Skene MS., which does not of course prove it to be Scottish, though the Scottish title is all in favour of this conclusion. As to the lateness of the Skene MS., Chappell failed to prove that the fifth and sixth parts of the Skene MS. are later than D'Urfey. That the tune Adew Dundee did not appear in The Dancing Master until 1688 proves nothing, and that The Three Sheep- Skins, 'an English Country Dance,' did not appear in the same work until 1697 proves as little, for it might take some time to be known if of Northern origin. But Chappell brought forward, in addition, an objection which he regarded as absolutely fatal : that the Skene MS. contained Peggy is over the Sea with the Soldier, which 'derives its name,' he said, 'from a common Aldermary Churchyard ballad, to which no earlier date than 1710 can reasonably be assigned.' Certainly this would have been fatal only it was not true, and this Chappell himself proved, though he failed to note its bearing on the antiquity of the Skene MS. by discovering the unique and much earlier black-letter Con- stant, Faire, and Fine Betty, ' to the tune of Peggy ivent over Sea with a Soldiour ' (Roxburghe Ballads, i. 207), and a little later he edited the ballad of ' The Soldiour and Peggy to a new Northern TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 377 the creation of D'Urfey, who never elsewhere did anything like the chorus ' Come fill up my cup/ etc., which Scott borrowed. Nor though the other Angio- only known Scottish version of 'Twas within a mile o' Edinburgh Toon 1 is modern, can we believe that D'Urfey had tavern ditties - no original Scots model for 'Twas within a Furlong of Edinburgh Town, any more than we can believe that the tune of The Liggan Waters, to which the black-letter ballad of The Bonny Scottish (not 'Scotch'!) Lad and the Yielding Lass is set, has somehow, as Chappell 2 deemed it necessary for his theory's sake to suggest, reference to the Irish not to the Scottish Logan Water ; or that D'Urfey's Scotch Wedding is the original of The Blyihesome Bridal', or that tune,' which ballad, he said, ' may be dated as within the first half of the seventeenth century ' (Roxburghe Ballads, ii. 475). Further, he mentioned in his introduction to this last ballad that ' the only known copy of the tune is in the form of an arrangement for the lute ; it is included among the Skene manuscripts.' So that the only copy of this English tune is that preserved in a Scots MS. ! 1 Chappell, to prove that the ' Scotch tunes,' that ' were popular in England, were mostly spurious,' and the words 'invariably so,' quotes from A Second Tale of a Tub : ' Each party call for par- ticular tunes . . . the blue bonnets' [i.e. Scotch], 'had very good voices, but, being at the further end of the room, were not distinctly heard. Yet they split their throats in hollowing out Bonny Dundee, Valiant Jockey, Sawny ivas a dawdy Lad, and 'Twos within a furlong of Edinburgh town ' ; but can we believe that the Scots would ' hollow out ' the Anglo-Scots rubbish of the broad- sidists in ridicule of themselves ? And does the quotation not rather prove that the Scots tunes and songs became known in London by the custom of the Scots to ' hollow ' them out in taverns and else- where ? 2 Roxburghe Ballads, iii. 475. 378 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the various versions of the Jock and Jenny broad- sides have no connection with the old Scots song in the Bannatyne MS. 1 The truth, on the contrary, is that the broadsidists, being by no means inventive in their themes, were glad to borrow whenever they had opportunity; while it is also very plain that they were much amused, not merely by certain specimens of the Scot they met in taverns, but by the peculiar ditties which those 'bluecaps' were accustomed to ' hollow out/ Of the transformation of a Scottish song into an Anglo-Scottish one, Mr. Ebsworth has unwittingly Mr.Ebsworth's su PP lied a ^7 striking example an inadvertent example which sheds a flood of light on Anglicised the subject. In The Roxburghe Ballads 2 he printed from Monmouth's Manu- script Note Book 3 what he termed ' A Scotch Song, 1679,' remarking that it was ' probably a distinct Scotch song, learned orally in 1679 and written down then or afterwards ; not yet found elsewhere, or in print.' 4 But in the course of editing the Roxburghe 1 See ante, p. 289. 2 Vol. iv. p. 544. 3 Now No. 1527 of the Egerton MS. in the British Museum. 4 Part of it was, however, in print, the last stanza forming the first of a version of Wallifoufa' the Gat, in Herd's Songs, ii. 139 : 1 There was a bonnie wi' laddie Was keeping a bonny whine sheep ; There was a bonnie wee lassie Was wading the water sae deep. Was wading the water sae deep, And a little above her knee ; The laddie cries unto the lassie, Come down Tweedside to me.' TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 379 ballads, Mr. Ebsworth discovered the Anglo-Scots transmogrification of the ditty in A New Song of Moggie's Jealousie or Jockie's Vindication, 1 and in the introduction to it he remarked : ' We have shown that the Duke of Monmouth had been im- pressed with this song either in 1679, when he was in Scotland, or at least early in 1685, when he was in Holland, thus he jotted down several of the stanzas from memory. Compare the true text now given with the memoranda of vol. iv. p. 544.' Now(l) the black- letter song Moggie was only registered 1st June 1684, so that Monmouth could certainly not have jotted it down in 1679, nor, probably, even in Holland in 1685; (2) the song jotted down by Monmouth three stanzas only in all contains two stanzas not to be found in Moggie, and Mr. Ebsworth's second thoughts, 2 when first confronted with the Anglo - Scottish Moggie, that the Monmouth piece is ' three verses of two Scottish songs intermixed/ cannot be regarded as ' happy,' not only because all three stanzas are in the same measure, but because the first stanza which, with the second stanza, he now regards as belonging to a different song from the third, and having nothing whatever to do with Moggie begins ' Wilt thou be wilful still ? ' which is actually the alternative designation of the tune appended to Moggie ! (3) the third stanza, which he finally re- gards as an ' imperfect copy ' from Moggie, could not 1 Eoxburghe Ballads, vi. 170. ~ 2 Ibid., v. 393. 380 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATUKE have been copied from that Anglo-Scottish version, for the very sufficient reason that Moggie contains no reference to the Tweed as in the Monmouth stanza ; a fact which further shows that the Herd version could not have been got from Moggie, but that, on the contrary, the Herd and Monmouth stanzas derive from a common Scottish original ; (4) notwith- standing imperfections in spelling, and mistakes in regard to words, the Monmouth song is clearly not an Anglo-Scottish, but a purely Scottish version; and (5) it is impossible to believe that the ballad hack could have written Moggie, such as it is, without the aid of some Scots original. It would therefore seem that their startling dis- coveries of the methods of Ramsay and his successors, Great caution an d f tne unfounded nature of many of Stenhouse's statements, tended to produce conclusions i n the minds of Chappell, Mr. Ebsworth, against the Scottish origin and Dr. Furmvall, a reaction towards the other extreme. They have thus com- mitted themselves to opinions which are confuted by their own subsequent researches ; and Mr. Ebsworth's inadvertent illustration of the fallacious character of their general inferences renders great caution necessary in accepting conclusions against the Scottish origin of songs and tunes, even when such evidence as we possess may seem to render their spuriousness almost certain. It is, for example, more than likely, on the evidence, that My Jo Janet in The Orpheus Caledonius and The Tea Table Mis- TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 381 cellany was vamped from the black-letter broadside Jenny, Jenny, 1 but even if it was, the black-letter was in all likelihood itself vamped from a Scots original, for not only has the chorus a very Scottish jingle, but the tune to which it is set hi TJie Orpheus is found in the Straloch MS. (1627-29). Moreover, the Scots word ' Keek ' ' Keek in the well ' is actually printed 'Kit,' which raises the suspicion that the broadside hack himself, the author of the ballad, did not understand the meaning of the word. 2 The significance of these illustrations which might easily be multiplied from the black-letter broadsides is that they indicate (1) the existence in ~ , , . , , Anglo-Scottish- Scotland, in the seventeenth century or baiiads in the earlier, of a great variety of now forgotten native lyrics, most of them coloured with the ingenuous indelicacy which, more or of many / _. Scottish lyrics less, tinges all our early literature, and now forgotten- some of them very much akin to the ditties collected by Burns, and partly preserved in the volume known as The broadside literature. Merry Muses; and (2) that while Ramsay, Thomson, Oswald, and others borrowed much from English sources, it is (a) by no means certain that they always borrow when they seem to borrow, and 1 Printed in The Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, vol. vii. p. 350. 2 Similarly, in Moggie we have 'a win sheep,' for 'a wheen [i.e. a number of] sheep,' showing that the balladist did not understand the meaning of the words he borrowed borrowed, undoubtedly, from a Scottish ditty. 382 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE (6) it is perfectly certain that they often merely borrowed what had previously been pilfered. That they did borrow a great deal is, however, beyond doubt ; and, indeed, from the time of Ramsay down to and including Burns, the stream of Scottish popular song whether as regards words or music ceased to be of purely Scottish origin, and in many ways ways that are as yet but imperfectly and con- fusedly disclosed is intermingled with the stream of broadside and chapbook literature which reached its highest water-mark in the eighteenth century. This is especially true of the Jacobite songs even of those of Burns, Hogg, and others, whose interest in Jacobitism was distant and mainly Jacobite songs chiefly sentimental. As for the contemporary Jacobite songs, they owe the most of what excellence they possess and poetically it is very little to other lyrics. Of that marvellous patch- work, Hogg's Jacobite Relics, Chappell remarked that half of the songs in the first volume were derived from ' English printed collections,' 1 and that ' if the modern were taken away, and only the old suffered to remain, the proportion would be much greater.' Many Jacobite songs, also, which Hogg got from MSS. and greatly improved, as well as many Jacobite songs still in MS., were originally, of course, of English origin. But whether the product of Englishman or Scot, the bulk of contemporary Jacobite minstrelsy is merely parody parody sometimes of older political or 1 Popular Music, p. 611. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 383 cavalier songs which themselves were parodies, parody even of older Jacobite songs, and parody of very old im- proper lyrics, Scottish or English ; l and in their turn these Jacobite parodies, only a few of them in the Scots vernacular, have had no inconsiderable influence on the non-Jacobite vernacular songs of Scotland. Of the older lyrics of Scotland only a few survive in their entirety. Several have been referred to under ANONYMOUS POETRY (see ante, Theolder pp. 289-98), and in connection with The 1 > rrics - Gude and Godlie Ballates (see ante, pp. 270-74). Others are included in The Tea Table Miscellany and Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, very much, per- haps, as they existed before the days of Ramsay and Thomson. Regarding the date of the older lyrics in those publications it would be rash to hazard an opinion, though the humorous Cock Laird which Ramsay slightly altered, the still more amusing Maggies Tocher, the picturesque Muirland Willie, My Jocky Blyth, The Fumbler's Rant, What Jocky said to Jenny, John Ochiltree, Andro and his Cutty Gun, The Auld Goodman, The Auld Wife beyond the Fire, Auld Rob Morris, and that inimitable lay of the sodden tippler, Toddlin But and Toddlin Ben to name the more notable only, were probably written long before the days of i Such, for example, was undoubtedly O'er the Water to Charlie, an old blackguard London song being probably its ultimate source. Jacobite versions of it, and other interesting examples of unimproved Jacobite songs, will be found in Loyal Songs, 1750, and The True Loyalist (rare), 1779. 384 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Ramsay. Again, the delightful Ewe Buchts, Marion, since it assumes some amount of prosperity at the ports of Leith and the ' Broomielaw/ was probably written after the Union ; while that most animated of lyrics, Maggie Lander, can scarce be earlier than the first half of the eighteenth century. As for The Gfaberlunzie Man and The Jolly Beggar, the former from its rhythm cannot be so old as the days of James v., while the latter, first printed in Herd's Songs (1769), seems to have been unknown as a Scottish song to Ramsay, and has some connection with an English broadside in the Pepys Collection : * ' There was a jovial beggar man, A-begging he was bound, And he did seek his living In country and in town, 3 etc. Several of the older Scottish lyrics were also amended, and in various ways utilised, by Ramsay (see under RAMSAY, post, p. 405), but many, very many, of the older lyrics have either wholly perished, or survive only as catchwords, or first lines, or isolated stanzas, or choruses, or refrains. 2 Yet notwithstanding this seeming break in the tra- dition of the older songs, they, rather than either the national lyrics of England or the broadside literature of the English taverns, have been the formative in- 1 This fact was first pointed out by Mr. Ebs worth in Bagford Ballads, i. 216. 2 See especially 'Fragments of Comic and Humorous Songs, 'in Herd's Songs, vol. ii. pp. 200-239 ; and also for unpublished ones, the Herd MS. in the British Museum. TRADITIONAL BALLADS AND SONGS 385 fluence of not all, but decidedly all that is best, in later Scottish song. Compared with the many waters of English lyrism, Scottish vernacular T he excellency song is the mere tinkling of a mountain popS^song rivulet; but as popular song it is in ~ its causes - a manner unrivalled unrivalled partly, it is true, because of Burns, but by no means on this account alone, for Burns himself stole 'fire From the fountains of the past To glorify the present.' The old 'makaris' of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and bards and minstrels whose very names have perished : these were its original creators and fashioners, and it was dowered with much of its rare excellency by inheritance from a poetry which was not popular in the merely vulgar sense, but the work of artists of special training and accomplishment. For many generations the influence of the old poetic school seemed to be dormant, but its very suppression, and the denial by the Kirk of the liberty of new poetic utterance, tended to preserve the old poetic tradition as it was when the voices of those old 'makaris' became silent. Thus Scottish ver- nacular song is more closely linked to the past than the popular ' minstrelsie ' of England ; and while it represents more fully the national sentiments, associa- tions, and memories, it includes many numbers which, homely, simple, and popular though they be, bear the hall-mark of an ancient and noble descent. 2B XII BEFORE RAMSAY ' POLEMO - MIDDINI A ' THE SEMPILLS ' TWEEDSIDE '- LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE LADY WARDLAW WILLIAM HAMILTON OF GILBERTFIELD WATSON'S 'CHOICE COLLECTION.' DURING the seventeenth century the fortunes of Scottish vernacular literature had reached their lowest ebb. It was primarily an age of Vernacular J literature religious conflict, the old contest between of the seven- teenth century. Kirk and King lor supremacy cul- *flue e nces e of ininating, after the Cromwellian episode and the Stuart restoration, in the Covenanting persecution, which was again followed, after the Revolution, by what, though ostensibly a victory for the Kirk, was in reality a compromise a compromise which inflicted a mortal wound on the Kirk's pretensions, and inaugurated an era marked by its gradually decaying authority in the sphere of general politics, and its diminishing interference with the intellectual and moral independence of the in- dividual. Up to and even beyond the Revolution, the Kirk whether struggling desperately to make BEFORE RAMSAY 387 the Scottish Solomon its mere tool, or triumphant at last over Charles i., or subdued and then patronised by Cromwell, or harried and afflicted by Charles n. and James n., or nominally restored to power at the Revolution remained the supreme social and in- tellectual guide of almost the whole community, and its influence was inimical to every form of secular literature. As regards the vernacular literature, its repressive tendencies were also accidentally aided by the accession of James vi. to the English throne in 1603. In the later years of the sixteenth century vernacular poetry owed its production mainly to the fostering care of the king; but even before his departure for England James had himself almost escaped from his Scottish chrysalis. The old Scottish vernacular poetry was not eclipsed by the Elizabethan poetry of England simply because (1) in Scotland the succession of vernacular poets and interest in vernacular poetry had all but ceased, and (2) English poetry was not generally read in Scotland. The chief Scottish poets of the early seventeenth century were Sir Robert Ay ton, Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, Sir David Murray of The chief scot- Garthly, Sir Robert Kerr, Earl of Ancrum, and William Drummond of Hawthornden. seventeenth century wrote They all wrote in English: and since, in English. ' 'Polemo- with the exception of Drummond, they Middinia. 1 had all gone south with James i., their aim, like that of their royal master, was to be as English as possible. Of them only Ayton and Drummond rise above a 388 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE very verbose mediocrity ; but Ayton certainly does, if he wrote / do confess ihou 'rt smooth and fair, and Drummond (1585-1649) was one of the most ac- complished, if not one of the most inspired, poets of his time. He is, however, outside our present consideration, except as the possible author l of the macaronic poem, Polemo-Middinia [Midden-Fight] inter Vitarvam [Scot of Scotstarvet and his followers] et Nibernam 2 [Cunningham of Newbarns]. It de- scribes how the Scotstarvet people, who claimed a right-of-way past the mansion-house of Newbarns, endeavoured to assert it by setting out with a procession of dung-carts, headed by a piper and banners, and how they were dispersed and routed by the valiancy of the Newbarns women. The rustic battle is described in a dog-Latin the dog being cross-bred, that is, half Scots and half English which partly obscures the occasionally very plain language of the piece. The defiance of Niberna (the 1 It might only he is not known to have had connection with Fife have been written by Sir William Scott of Thirlestane (1670?-1725), who specially practised macaronic verse. Some of those pieces are still in MS., but one is included in his Selecta Poemata, published with some Latin poems by Dr. Archibald Pitcairne in 1727. It is entitled Ad EM EM Equitem, M.D., Villadelphinus Frater, and begins * Qualis in terris fabulatur Orpheus Natus Irlandis, ubi nulla wivat Spidera telam, neque foeda spouttat Toedda venenum.' Scott has also been credited with the authorship both of Maggie Lander and The Blythesome Bridal. 2 Printed at Edinburgh, 1684, and reprinted along with Christis Kirk, ed. Gibson, 1691. Usually included in Drummond's Works. BEFOEE RAMSAY 389 mistress of Newbarns) is, however, though pithy, quite quotable : ' Ite ait, uglaei felloes ; si quis modo post hac Muckifer has nostras tentet crossare fenestras, Juro ego quod ejus longum extrahabo thropellum, Et totum rivabo faciem luggasque gulaeo hoc, Ex capite cuttabo, ferox, totumque videbo Heartbloodum fluere in terrain.' From the mere fact that the Scottish vernacular is now the language of the common people, a vague impression prevails that the vernacular Vernacular poetry has some special connection with p e fy not Till specially con- the mere peasantry ; but though latterly nected with this was partly the case, the old poetry, mJoLtStu^ on which the later vernacular poetry is l almost entirely modelled, was rather the creation of the aristocracy and the clergy. Barbour was arch- deacon of Aberdeen ; Henryson, a learned educationist, was probably in holy orders ; Dunbar was a secular priest, and Douglas a bishop, and both they and Kennedy were of noble descent ; Sir David Lyndsay was a Fife laird ; Montgomerie was a cadet of the Eglinton family; and Scott, whose descent is un- known, was a town gallant and courtier. Most or all of these poets were specially patronised by royalty, and they wrote for the delectation of the better classes. So must have done the innominate authors of many of the older songs. Most of those preserved in The Tea Table Miscellany, such as Maggie's Tocher, The Cock Laird, Jocky said to Jenny, Toddlin But and Toddlin Ben, and The Blythesome 390 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Bridal, depict the humours of rustic life from the standpoint of the upper and educated classes, not of the peasant. The simplicity and realism of the old vernacular poetry belonged to the olden time; it is in no sense a vulgarised literature, but merely a literature which, by its antique sincerity and lack of convention, can be appreciated even by the peasants of later generations. But the old race of poet - ecclesiastics having become extinct at the Reformation, it was mainly The poetry of among the aristocracy and gentry that forVRamsay, 6 " the traditions of the old vernacular owes its poetry could linger; and although, as existence to J the gentry. we have seen, with the accession of James vi. to the English throne there was a tendency among the Scottish courtier poets to cultivate ex- clusively English poetry, many of the gentry retained an acquaintanceship with the poetry of the older 'makaris.' They were not so much as the other classes under the domination of Puritanism; and thus the poetry of the vernacular revival, up to the time of Ramsay, owes its existence mainly to them. Whether, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the vernacular muse was wholly silent or Robert not, there is no authentic record of its voice until we hear it in The Life and Death f HM ie Simson, the P.iper of Kilbarchan. The poet who thus broke the long silence was Robert Sempill, son of Sir James Seinpill of Beltrees, author of The Packman's Pater- BEFOKE RAMSAY 391 noster (not in the vernacular, and therefore outside our consideration), and grandson of 'John Sempill [son of the great Lord Sempill] the dancer' of Knox's History, who married Marie Livingstone, one of the Queen's Maries, and, according to Knox, 'surnamed the Lusty.' Born about 1595, he was educated at the University of Glasgow, where he matriculated in 1613. As Hobble might suggest, he sided with Charles i. against the Kirk, serving as a cavalier officer, and he was afterwards active in promoting the Revolution. Habbie is supposed to date about 1640, and its author died between 1660 and 1669. That Sempill was well read in the old vernacular poetry of which he must have possessed specimens in MS. is very evident from the stanza he selected for Habbie, a stanza of which so few examples in the older vernacular later verse - are now preserved (see ante, p. 244), that, not perhaps Ramsay (who knew the Bannatyne MS.), though he named the poem ' Standard Habbie,' but most other editors, until quite recently, have been in the habit of crediting Sempill with its invention. The poem, as poetry, is in no way remarkable, but it affords us a curious glimpse of old village amuse- ments and customs; and the description of Habbie and his doings is in a way quite admirable, genial appreciation being finely tempered with pawky humour. Here in three stanzas are three separate glimpses of the piper in his pride : 392 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE ' At fairs he play'd before the spear-men, clad ; All gaily graithed in their gear man : accoutre- . , ments Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords so clear then Like ony bead : war- Now wha will play before such weir-men, since Sen Habbie 's dead. At clark-plays when he wont to come, His pipe played trimly to the drum ; made Like bikes of bees he gart it hum, And tun'd his reed : Now all our pipers may sing dumb, Sen Habbie 's dead. And at Horse Kaces many a day, Before the black, the brown, the gray, He gart his pipe, when he did play, Baith skirl and skreed : Now all such pastime 's quite away, Sen Habbie's dead.' The Epitaph on Sanny Briggs, who was Babble's nephew, and butler to the Sempills, is usually attri- buted to the same author, and was, no doubt, either his or his son's. Habbie became the model for humorous elegy in the vernacular : being widely circulated in broadsides towards the close of the century, it was imitated by many poetasters, as well as by Hamilton of Bangour, Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns ; and since, in addition, it reintroduced the most characteristic stanza of later vernacular poetry, the stanza which was the vehicle for much of the best verse of the three latter poets, it has some claims to rank as one of the ' epoch-making ' produc- tions of poetic literature. BEFORE RAMSAY 393 The poetic tradition of the Sempills was continued by Sir Robert's son Francis, whose longest poem is The Banishment of Povertie, narrating . Francis his hard shifts as debtor until relieved by sempiii the Duke of Albany shortly after he had taken refuge in the debtors' retreat at Holyrood. Written in the French octave, it is correct in rhythm and rhyme, but its wit is not very sprightly; and one can scarce credit that the same author wrote either The Blyihesome Bridal (which may, however, have been written by the father), or the very much cleverer Maggie Lander. His claims to the author- ship of SJie rose and let me in, published by D'Urfey, will not bear examination ; and if he has any connec- tion with the oldest known version of Auld Lang Syne, it was probably merely as the refurbisher of an older song, for the original broadside bears the title 'An excellent proper ballad, entitled Old Long Syne. Newly corrected and amended, with a large and new addition of several excellent love lines.' ! Before Ramsay we have various other indications either of a revived interest in vernacular poetry, or that it had all along been cultivated and ' Tweedside.' appreciated by many in private, but the principal names associated with it previous to him are Lady Grizel Baillie, Lady Wardlaw, and William i This broadside, published anonymously, contains what was, no doubt, the burden of the old song ; and this burden, together with the first line of the broadside, is the main germ of Burns's song. 394 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR, LITERATUEE Hamilton of Gilbertfield. The song Tweedside, Burns mentions, is 'said to have been written by Lord Yester/ and Robert Chambers 1 affirms that this must have ' been John, eventually second Mar- quis of Tweeddale' (1615-1713), because Scott of Satchells, in his History of the House of Scott, com- pliments the Marquis on c his poetical abilities ' ; but Herd, who first published the song, and is the only authority for the text, knew apparently nothing of its author, and merely termed it The Original Tweedside. But whoever wrote it seems almost to smirk while expressing doleful despair, and, where he is not inapt, he is wofully commonplace. This certainly cannot be said of Werena my Heart Licht I wad Dee 2 by Lady Grizel Baillie. Lady Grizel, born in 1665, was the eldest Ladie Grizel Baiilie (1665- daughter of Patrick Hume, afterwards Earl of Marchmont; and when her father had, in 1684, to go into hiding under the family vault in Polwarth Church on account of his suspected connection with the Rye-House Plot, she secretly supplied him with food. From 1686 until the Revolution the family were in exile in Holland. After her return she married, in 1692, George Baillie of Jerviswood, son of Robert Baillie, who, being suspected like her father of conspiring against the Government, was, in 1684, caught and executed. Lady Grizel died in 1746. Lady Murray 1 Scottish Songs, iii. 311. 2 First published in The Tea Table Miscellany, BEFOEE RAMSAY 395 of Stanhope, Lady Grizel's daughter, in her Memoirs l stated that she possessed a MS. volume of her mother's containing various of her songs and poetic fragments; but the volume has not been recovered, and she is known only as the authoress of Werena my Heart Licht, and a fragment, The Ewe-Buchtin 's Bonnie? The mournful romance and inimitable simplicity of the former song indicate the inspira- tion and art of true genius ; and The Ewe-Buchtin 's Bonnie is very much in the same manner, and pos- sesses the same delicate charm : ' The Ewe-buchtin 's bonnie, baith e'enin 3 and morn, When our blithe shepherds play on the bag-reed and horn ; While we 're milking, they 're lilting, baith pleasant and clear, But my heart 's like to break when I think on my dear.' Lady Elizabeth Halkett, daughter of Sir Charles Halkett of Pitferran, and married, in 1696, to Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie, is now regarded as the author of the ballad Hardyknute. wardiaw First published by James Watson, in 1719, (l677 ' I727) " as a genuine old ballad, it was included in Percy's Reliques, 1767. The story circulated by her brother- in-law, Sir John Hope Bruce of Kinross, was that it had been got from an old manuscript in a vault in Dunfermline ; but its antiquity being questioned after its appearance in the Reliques, Lord Hailes 1 Published in 1822. 2 First published on a broadsheet by C. K. Sharpe. The original consists of only two stanzas, the others being additions by another author. 396 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE informed Percy that Lady Wardlaw had confessed to being the authoress of it. The ballad is certainly a very clever imitation of the older minstrelsy. It is plain that Lady Wardlaw had a wide acquaint- ance with the old ballads, and it is thus not im- probable that she improved a good many of them. That Hardyknute is not by any means equal to many of those with which she may have tampered may be explained by the fact that it was wholly invention, and also by the probability that she en- deavoured, in this case, to imitate the old simplicity, while in other cases her main endeavour may have been to improve the poetical defects of the versions she got from recitation. Here, for example, is a quatrain from Hardyknute : ' On Norway's coast the widowed dame May wash the rocks with tears- May lang look o'er the shipless seas Before her mate appears.' It cannot compare with the following stanza from Sir Patrick Spens : ' lang, lang may the ladies stand Wi' their gold kerns in their hair, Waiting for their ain deir lords, For they '11 se thame na mair ' ; but then we cannot tell what original suggestion Lady Wardlaw if she improved Sir Patrick Spens may have had for the stanza. But the main link in the succession between the Sempills and Ramsay is William Hamilton of Gil- BEFORE RAMSAY 397 bertfield, whose Last Dying Words of Bonnie Heck (a famous Fife greyhound) first appeared in Watson's Choice Collection, VI Q6. This piece (whose chief merit is its sportsmanly sympathy with the greyhound), a variation on (1665 ?-i 75 i). Sempill's Hdbbie, became, in turn, the special model of Burns's Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie y as before Burns it had been of Ramsay's Last Speech of a Dying Miser and Luckie Spence's Last Advice. Hamilton, a retired lieutenant in the army, after- wards made the acquaintance of Ramsay, with whom he corresponded in that series of rather clever rhyming epistles (included in Ramsay's Works) in the same stanza which Burns, in his ' emulating ' fashion, also adopted for his poetic epistles, even parodying, occasionally, Hamilton's phrases and sentiments. 1 In his first epistle Hamilton signed himself' Wanton 1 Compare the first stanza of Hamilton's Epistle II. : ' When I received thy kind epistle It made me dance, and sing, and whistle ; O sic a fike and sic a fistle I had about it ! That e'er was knight of the Scots thistle Sae fain I doubted ' compare the above with the last stanza of Burns's First Epistle to Lapraik : * And to conclude my lang epistle, As my auld pen 's worn to the grissle, Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle, Who am most fervent, While I can either sing or whistle, Your humble servant.' And many similar comparisons might be made. 398 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Willy/ and under the signature ' W. W.' he contributed to The Tea Table Miscellany the song Willy was a wanton Wanton Wag, suggested and more by the winy.' English Willy was so blythe a Lad (in Playford's Choice Ayres, 1650), but full of humorous abandon, as for instance : gold ' And was not Willy well worth gowd ? He wan the love of great and sma' ; For after he the bride had kiss'd whole- He kiss'd the lasses hale-sale a', roiled Sae merrily round the ring they row'd, by When be the hand he led them a', And smack on smack on them bestow'd By virtue of a standing law.' But the greatest, if not the best, achievement of Hamilton was his abridgment and paraphrase of Abridgment Blind Harry's Wallace, which, however of Wallace.' lacking in poetic qualities, commended itself by its subject to the patriotic Scot, and achieved an instant and lasting popularity. It was in it that Burns read the ' story of Wallace ' which poured the 'tide of Scottish prejudice' into his veins; and it is largely responsible for Burns's Scots Wha Hae, and for many much less admirable manifestations of patriotic fervour. Hamilton's paraphrase of Wallace appeared in 1722, but a good many years before this Watson's J f choice symptoms of awakening interest m Scottish vernacular verse had begun to manifest themselves the most remarkable and decided being the publication of Watson's Choice Collection of Scottish Poems, 1706-1711. The mere BEFORE RAMSAY 399 issue of such a work in Scotland was a certain sign that narrow Biblicalism was no longer the power in the land it had been, and that the icy winter, which so long had frozen the springs of natural human feeling, was gradually breaking up. Watson's Collection is rather miscellaneous: old and new pieces, and of the new some in the ver- nacular, others ' quite English/ jostle one another in admired disorder. Some of those in the modern vernacular had already appeared in broadsides, and the broadside was really the chief means of reawakening the love of vernacular poetry and song among the people. The modern vernacular pieces include The Blythesome Bridal, The Banish- ment of Povertie, The Speech of a Fife Laird, Habbie Simson, a clever piece, The Mare of Collingtoun, in rime couee aaab, cccb, Bonnie Heck, and an epitaph in the Habbie form on William Lithgow. Among the English specimens are Druminond's Forth Feast- ing, Linton's Address to the Prince of Orange, by Alexander Pennecuick, Coelia's Country House and Closet, by Sir George Mackenzie, Poems on the King and Queen of Fairy, by Archibald Pitcairne, and In Praise of Women, by Montrose. Lastly, the old vernacular pieces include Christis Kirk, The Cherry and the Slae, Burel's Passage of a Pilgrim, and Montgoinerie's Flyting. A rather various, and not particularly happy or representative selection, but sufficiently noteworthy as the first important symp- toms of the dawn of a great vernacular revival. XIII RAMSAY TO BURNS RAMSAY ALEXANDER BANNATYNE ALEXANDER ROSS THE SONG-WRITERS FERGUSSON. THE main agent in the vernacular revival was Allan Ramsay. Descended from the Ramsays of Cockpen, a younger branch of the Ramsays of Allan Ramsay J (1686-1758), Dalhousie, he was the son of Robert Ramsay, superintendent of Lord Hope- toun's lead-mines at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, by Alice Bower, a native of Derbyshire. He was born in the village of Leadhills, 15th October 1686, and received all his education at the parish school. Having had the misfortune, while still in infancy, to lose his father, he was, after the death in 1700 of his mother, who had married a small neighbouring pro- prietor, sent to Edinburgh to be apprenticed to a wigmaker. In 1707 he opened a wigmaker's shop of his own in the Grassmarket, which he conducted successfully until 1719, when his special tastes and his literary success induced him to adopt the business of bookseller opposite Niddry's Wind. 400 EAMSAY TO BURNS 401 Though keenly intent on his business, Ramsay found time for both conviviality and study. From an early period he developed a strong p oeta nd love of poetry, and besides perusing the Publisher, older English classics, including Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, the Fletchers, Drummond, Milton, Cowley, and Dryden, he was well read in the verse of the day from Pope down to his friend Tom D'Urfey, with the latter of whom he had much in common. In the clubs and taverns he also got to know many of the old racy vernacular ditties ; but few of the older vernacular classics, with the exception of the works of Sir David Lyndsay, being in circulation, he had already himself acquired some fame as a verse- writer before he accidentally got access to them in the Bannatyne MS. A Jacobite in poli tics, and of genial and epicurean habit, he represents the commence- ment of the literary reaction among the middle and lower classes against the repressive tendencies of the Kirk. He was especially the poet of the jovial burgher, and of the taverns and clubs which were the centre of this reaction ; and much of his verse reeks of their peculiar atmosphere. Among his earlier pieces was his Elegy on Maggy Johnstone, the ale- wife of Bruntsfield Links, who died hi 1711, modelled on ' Standard HdbbieJ Its success when issued as a penny broadside induced him to venture similar essays in verse, including elegies on Lucky Wood, John Cowper, and Pat Birnie, Lucky Simsoris Last Advice, and various others, some of them 2c 402 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE now lost, in a still grosser comic vein. For some years he was the recognised laureate of the streets, his satires on street incidents, as The Flytin' of Lucky Duff and Lucky Brown, or mock elegies, or sketches of well-known city characters, or rhymes on passing events, being, it is said, the favourite reading of the common gossips over their teacups. His admission to the Easy Club also stimulated him to the production of English verse, which, mediocre and wholly artificial though it was, secured him much approbation from the members, some of whom such as Hepburn of Keith, Dr. Pitcairne, Dr. Patrick Aber- crombie, and Dr. Thomas Ruddiman were amongst the most intellectually emancipated of the Edinburgh citizens. His reputation was still further enhanced by the publication in 1716 of Christis Kirk, with an additional canto of his own composition ; and in 1718 appeared a second edition of the poem with an addi- tional canto. The same year he brought out an edition of Scots Songs ; and in 1721 he published by subscrip- tion a volume of his own poems. Then followed in 1724 the first volume of ' The Tea Table Miscel- lany, a collection of choice songs Scots and English/ a good many of them partly or wholly his own; and in the same year, The Evergreen, a selection of old Scots poetry obtained chiefly from the Bannatyne MS. A second volume of The Tea Table Miscellany appeared in 1725, a third in 1727, and a fourth in 1732. In 1725 he also published the most popular of all his pieces, The Gentle Shepherd, part of it in the RAMSAY TO BURNS 403 form of an eclogue, under the title Patie and Roger, having appeared in 1721, with a sequel in 1723, entitled Jynny and Maggie. Prosperous in business and famed as a poet, he in 1726 removed to the Luckenbooths, where he adopted as his sign the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthorn- den. From his new shop he issued in 1728 a new edition of his poems, and in 1730 Thirty Fables in verse. In 1731 he was honoured by the publication of an edition of his poems in London, Dublin follow- ing suit in 1733. In 1736 he brought out a volume of Scots Proverbs', but from this tune he wholly ceased to intermeddle with literature, except as bookseller, the only remaining incident in his life that calls for notice being a spirited though vain contest with the bigotry of the period, in an attempt to establish a theatre in Edinburgh, which at the instance of the clergy was closed by order of the Magistrates. He died, 7th January 1758, in the picturesque mansion which he had erected for him- self on the Castle Hill, Edinburgh, and was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard. 1 If not the victim of the contradictory poetic models, English and Scots, which he sought com- binedly to imitate, Ramsay, except in H ispo P u- the case of The Gentle Shepherd, was larit y- nothing advantaged, either as Scots or English versi- 1 The best edition of Ramsay's Works is that ed. Chalmers, with essay by Lord Woodhouselee (frequently reprinted), but a critical edition is still a desideratum. 404 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE fier, by any compensating result of the twofold influence. His familiarity with the vernacular song and some of the verse of the old Scots ' makaris/ in no wise tended to modify the pompous commonplace of his more ambitious essays in English verse, while his acquaintance with the English classics exercised little truly educative influence on his vernacular method. But this twofold acquaintanceship assisted him to construct a species of Scoto-English song which was rampantly popular both in Scotland and England. While his vernacular pieces won him uni- versal fame among the lower classes of his native land, and his English verse was read with something re- sembling admiration by the more enlightened classes of both countries, his songs as is abundantly testified by the song-books and sheet music of the period were warbled, to rapturous applause, by the favourite vocalists at the London ' gardens/ and other places of popular resort. Familiar with the old popular songs of both countries, he utilised them for his own purposes with much superficial cleverness. His manner was exactly that which the masses could thoroughly appreciate, and the Scottish flavour, com- paratively mild as it was, conferred on them a piquancy which in England greatly aided their popularity. Some of them as Nany, 0, Bony Jean, I'll never character of leave Thee, Clout the Caldron, and Through his songs. tfo Wood, Laddie were reminiscent of old English broadsides. A great many more, usually EAMSAY TO BURNS 405 published as his own, are founded on older Scottish songs, some of them poetically much superior, and all of them at least equal to Ramsay's versions. They include Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, Auld Lang Syne, The Bob of Dunblane, The Collier's Bonnie Lassie, For the Sake of Somebody, The Highland Laddie, My Daddy Forbad, Hither Dear I Gin to Fear, Jenny Nettles, Steer her Up and Hand her Gaun, and This is no my Ain House, in addition to many old songs which he merely amended. Indeed, Ramsay can claim comparatively few songs as wholly his own. Among his best are The Lass of Patie's Mill which some assert is not wholly his and Lochaber No More, and both are marred by solecisms. Yet he has written one admirable lyric, perfectly faultless in its simplicity, My Peggy is a Young Thing. His worst defect is his penchant for the grovelling, and when not grovelling, he is too apt to be stalely commonplace. The Soger Laddie, for example, which used to create a furore at Mary 'bone Gardens, and other popular London resorts of the eighteenth The sodger century, but expresses the unadorned Laddie/ sentiments of Mary Jane, in language even more prosaic and banal than many a Mary Jane would employ : * My soger laddie is over the sea And he will bring gold and money to me ; And when he comes hame, he '11 make me a lady ; My blessing gang with my soger laddie. go 406 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE My doughty laddie is handsome and brave, And can as a soger and lover behave ; True to his country, to love he is steady, There 's few to compare with my soger laddie. Shield him, ye angels, frae death in alarms, longing Return him with laurels to my langing arms ; Then Syne frae all my care he '11 pleasantly free me, When back to my wishes my soger ye gie me. soon may his honours bloom fair on his brow, As quickly they must, if he get his due : For in noble actions his courage is ready, Which makes me delight in my soger laddie.' Nor even in the best of his convivial songs does he embody the true rapture of good fellowship. Up in the Air begins fairly well, and stanza ii. Convivial % J songs. 'Up in contains a rather picturesque allusion the Air.' . , __ to a snowy night; but the piece is wholly lacking in poetic glamour, while the last stanza is but stiffly wooden : Shut * Steek the doors, keep out the frost ; give U8 Come, Willy, gie 's about ye'r toast, Fill it lads, and lilt it out, have And let us hae a blithsome bout, with it Up wi 't there, there, Do not Dinna cheat, but drink fair ; Huza, huza, and huza, lads, yet, Up wi't there.' But as the comic satirist of low life Ramsay evidenced the possession of a strong vein of clever AS comic clownish humour. The Elegy on John satirist. Cowper and Lucky Spence's Last Advice, are caustic and graphic enough after their own rancid fashion ; and the elegies on Maggy Johnstone RAMSAY TO BUENS 407 and Lucky Wood supply us with a curious photo- graphic picture of the tavern life of Old Edinburgh. The portrait of Lucky Wood, the pattern ale-wife of the Canongate, is indeed quite admirable : ' She ne'er gae in a lawin fause, Nor stoups a' froath aboon the hause, Nor kept dow'd tip within her waws But reaming swats ; She ne'er ran sour jute, because It gees the batts. She had the gate sae well to please, With gratis beef, dry fish, or cheese, Which kept our purses ay at ease, And health in tift ; And lent her fresh nine gallon trees A hearty lift. She gae us oft hail legs o' lamb, And did nae hain her mutton-ham ; Then aye at Yule whene'er we cam, A braw goose-pye ; And was na that good belly -baum ? Nane dare deny. The writer-lads fow well may mind her ; Fruthy was she, her luck design'd her Their common mither ; sure nane kinder Ever brake bread ! She has na left her mak behind her, But now she 's dead/ But the most elaborate effort of Ramsay's in ex- pounding the humours of common life is his two additional cantos to Christis Kirk, which, while lacking the vivid conciseness of the earlier piece, and indeed little better than a mere vulgar parody of its method, depict realistically gave; reckoning neck stale tipple ; walls new ale gives ; colic method order whole spare full Pleasant peer ' Christis Kirk.' 408 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE By; daylight full; pack higgledy- piggledy clothes Each ram- big-mouthed broth fetched if; husband Threatening; drunk Those head then ; boast fine grandchild mum wrml frightened the young women went; was witch drunk ; brandy many more enough the more sordid aspects of Scottish mirth. The first canto of Ramsay describes a wedding-feast, ending with the bedding ceremony; and in the second the rejoicings are renewed on the morrow until all the men reach the becoming condition of brutal in- toxication. It is all true to nature and all most grotesquely comic, but not all quite quotable. Here, however, are some quaint stanzas depicting the arrival of the gossips on the morning after the marriage : ' Be that time it was fair foor days, As fou 's the house could pang, To see the young fouk ere they raise, Gossips came in ding-dang. And wi a sos aboon the claiths Ilk ane their gifts down flang : Twa toop-horn-spoons down Maggy lays, Baith muckle-mow'd and lang For kale or whey. Her aunt a pair of tangs fush in, Eight bauld she spake and spruce : " Gin your goodman shall make a din, And gabble like a goose, Shorin whan fou to skelp ye're skin, Thir tangs may be of use ; Lay them enlang his pow or shin, Wha wins syn may make roose Between you twa." Auld Bessie, in her red coat braw, Came wi her ain oe Nanny, An odd -like wife, they said, that saw A moupin' runckled granny ; She fley'd the kirnmers ane and a', Word gae'd she was na kanny ; Nor wad they let Lucky awa, 'Till she was fou wi' branny, Like mony mae/ RAMSAY TO BURNS 409 Ramsay's Tales and Fables call for little comment. A good many are in English or in Scoto-English, and the majority in the octo-syllabic couplet. Tales and Some, he states, were ' taken from Mes- Fables -' sieurs la Fontaine and la Motte/ and those which are his ' own invention with respect to the plot as well as the numbers ' he leaves the reader ' to find out/ or if any one thought ' it worth his while to ask ' him, he professed his willingness to tell him. Ramsay is now beyond interrogation; but one may venture to affirm that The Monk and the Millers Wife, which was long credited to him, was neither his own inven- tion nor 'taken from Messieurs la Fontaine and la Motte/ but is merely a modernised and vulgarised reading of The Freiris of Berwick] and that his most elaborate tale, The Three Sonnets, a long-winded, complicated, and occasionally gross satire on the Union, is most probably all his own. Ramsay's satires entitle him to rank as at least a cleverly comic vernacular Zola, but for the author of The Gentle Shepherd something more . The Gentle than this may be claimed. If not quite shepherd.' poetry, it is at least admirable 'kailyaird.' A most pleasing because a quite unaffectedly homely and simple sketch of rustic courtship somewhat ideal- ised it almost by mere accident reveals a literary talent which had been partly smothered by his im- perfect training and untoward circumstances. Here his twofold course of poetic study stood him in much better stead than usual. The English pastorals, 410 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE which he so far made his model, exercised a certain restraining influence on his rather too realistic Scottish method, while by electing to write in the vernacular he avoided the worst pitfalls of artificiality. It has given him a certain acknowledged position in litera- ture, and not undeservedly; but though also as a vernacular satirist his strenuity and wit often too much tinged with squalidity are undeniable, and though he contrived one excellent and one or two passably good lyrics, it is rather as editor than author that he occupies his peculiar place in the vernacular revival. The results of his editorial enterprise were twofold : (1) The Tea Table Miscellany dedicated gallantly (and pawkily) 4 To ilka lovely British lass, Frae Ladies Charlotte, Anne, and Jean, Down to ilk bony singing Bess, Wha dances barefoot on the green ' in conjunction with Thomson's Orpheus aroused curious patchwork of old and new, of Scots, English, Scoto-English, and Anglo-Scots, though it be in a new fashion the old interest in popular song among the bulk of the Scottish people; and (2) by The Evergreen which he described as 'a Collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious before 1600,' and which included, besides a few ballads such as Hardyknute, Johnie Armstrang, and The Battle of Harlaw, and The Vision (which may be wholly or partly his own), and one or two of The Crude and Godlie Ballates, a large number of the best produc- tions (often very freely altered) of the old ' makaris ' EAMSAY TO BURNS 411 preserved in the Bannatyne MS. he was the first to rescue from oblivion the old vernacular poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which, thus resur- gent after a trance of some century and a half, was found to have lost comparatively little of its ancient vitality, and by its vivifying effects partly rekindled in the eighteenth century the old vernacular poetic flame. A sort of double of Ramsay was Alexander Penne- cuick (d. 1730), an obscure Edinburgh citizen of whom scarce anything is known except J Alexander that, having died in extreme destitution, Pennecuick he was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, 30th November 1730, but who is sometimes con- founded with Dr. Alexander Pennecuick (1652-1722), author of a Description of Tweeddale, which, with various poems in English, appeared at Leith in 1815. Some of his poems had previously appeared in a Collection of Curious Scots Poems, Edinburgh, 1762. They include Truth's Travels, a long, semi- vernacular piece written in the French octave. The more ver- nacular Pennecuick published Streams from Helicon, 1720, and Flowers from Parnassus, 1726; but many of his effusions were also issued as penny broadsides, and in 1756 there appeared at Edinburgh 'A Collection of Scots Poems on Several Occasions, by the late Alexander Pennecuick and others/ the others in- cluding Ramsay. He was very partial to Ramsay's themes. Like Ramsay he commemorated the dowager Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, in an ode; while Ramsay wrote a masque on the marriage of 412 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the fifth duke to Lady Anne Cochrane in 1723, Pennecuick celebrated the same event in a pastoral ; he also constituted himself a sort of laureate of the Royal Archers, and he disputed the laurels of Ramsay as the bard of the streets, as he certainly rivalled him in the indelicacy of his squalid humour: his Elegy on Robert Forbes, Kirk Treasurer's man, and also his Presbyterian Pope in which he presents us with a dialogue between the Kirk Treasurer's man and one of his female informants being quite as unvarnished in their allusions as the Elegy on John Cowper. He is also credited with The Elegy on William Lithgow, published in Watson's Choice Collection, 1706, but his longest piece, if not his chef dozuvre interesting as an accurate presentment of the sentiments, ideas, and vernacular of the lower-class women of that peroid is The Mery Wives of Musleburgh, at their meeting together to welcome Meg Dickson after her Loup from the Ladder, 1724, of which there is an anonymous broadside in the British Museum, and which is in- cluded in Pennecuick's Collection, 1756. Meg was a fishwife who by an accident escaped death by hanging; and in the poem she details her experiences to the assembled gossips. It begins : ' That day, when Meg fair taste got Wi' Hangie's beeds about her throat, gossips Three clavering carlings o'er the pot, All ; drunk A' spewing fou, Wept Whinge'd when they thought on Maggie's trot Boon the West-bow.' * From the prison to the place of execution. RAMSAY TO BURNS 413 Among contemporaries and friends of Ramsay were in addition to William Hamilton of Gilbert- field Sir John Clerk of Penicuik Ramsay's con- (1684-1755), the accomplished lawyer temporaries , , , . and friends. and antiquary, who erected at his country seat an obelisk to Ramsay's memory, and is the reputed author of merry may the Maid be that Marries the Miller, published in The Charmer, 1751, and founded on an old improper song, 1 partly preserved in the first stanza; Robert Crawford (d. 1730), son of the laird of Drumsoy, Renfrew- shire, whose pleasant, if slightly artificial, lyrics Tweedside, Leader Hauglis and Yarrow, The Bush Aboon Traquair, etc., mostly contributed to The Tea Table Miscellany, are almost wholly English in manner, and only faintly Scots in language ; William Hamilton of Bangour (1704-1754), an accomplished versifier in English, and the author of the archaic and finely symphonious ballad, The Braes of Yarrow ; and David Mallet or MaUoch (1700?-1765), who, though he indicated his desire for Anglification to the extent of changing his surname, and, in the words of Samuel Johnson, ' cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation so as to be no longer dis- tinguishable as a Scot,' perhaps deserves mention here for his somewhat frigidly tragic ballad of William and Margaret. Mallet has also rival claims 1 Maids and millers were a favourite theme of the old ver- nacular bards, and they also figure prominently in the black-letter broadsides. 414 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE very little bent; distaff; caught fire wept; scolded become frantic with James Thomson to the authorship of Rule Britannia, which appeared in 1740 in their joint masque of Alfred. The most prominent of Ramsay's early disciples was Alexander Ross, who, the son of an Aberdeen- shire farmer, after graduating M.A. at ROSS (1699- Marischal College, Aberdeen, became a teacher, and finally settled as parish schoolmaster at Lochlea, Forfarshire. In 1768 Ross, who was then in his seventieth year, published a pas- toral entitled Helonore the Fortunate Shepherdess. Written in the quaint and pithy Aberdeenshire dialect, it achieved some popularity in the north of Scotland, but notwithstanding some happy descrip- tions of natural scenery, and the help of a raid of Highland caterans, it is on the whole a rather dull, and even dreary, performance. This, however, cannot be said of his songs, their witty expositions of the humours of domestic life being, indeed, almost over- whelmingly vivacious. Among the best known are The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow, Wooed and Married and A', and The Bridal 't. Here is the first stanza of The Rock : ' There was an auld wife had a wee pickle tow, And she wad gae try the spinning o } t ; She louted her down, and her rock took a low, And that was a bad beginning o 't. She sat and she grat, and she flet and she flang, And she flew and she blew, and she wriggled and wrang, And she choked and boaked and cried like to mang, Alas for the dreary spinning o 't.' RAMSAY TO BURNS 415 With the exception of Fergusson, most of the vernacular bards before Burns are each mainly associated with only one or two songs. John skinner The Tullochgorum of John Skinner, ('7- l8o 7>- Episcopal minister of Longside, Aberdeenshire, written to the old tune of that name, and in a form of rime couee twelve lines divided into three equal sections, three head lines and one tail line each, with a curious iterative refrain in the middle section, was pronounced by Burns, in his enthusiastic way, to c be the best Scots song Scotland ever saw,' and is at least a most jovial, genial, and inspiriting production. Somewhat similar in style but less individual in character is Tune your Fiddles, while The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn possesses much of the quaintly pathetic humour of Burns's own Poor Mailie. But Skinner's Christmas Ba'ing, in the stanza of Christis Kirk, must be classed with the less successful imita- tions of that original. Alexander Geddes, an accomplished and learned Catholic priest, and the author of a great variety of works in prose and verse including two Alexander clever macaronic pieces, is credited with Geddes (1737- the capital Jacobite song, Send Lewie Gordon Name, and also with The Wee Wifukie, which, however, has also been claimed for Alexander Watson, Lord Byron's Aberdeen tailor (who is said also to be the author of the much inferior Kail Brose o Scotland), and may have been written by neither. Written by Geddes or Watson or another, it is a 416 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE masterpiece of its kind : the bewildered case of the ' wifukie ' (who, having got ' a wee bit drapukie,' had, while taking a nap on the roadside ' coming frae the fair/ been by a packman not merely robbed of her money and purse, but shorn of her golden locks), being set forth with a droll verisimilitude that could scarce be outdone : not ' " This is nae me," quo' she, " this is nae me, killing Somebody has been felling me, and this is nae me." ' To three ladies Mrs. Cockburn, a relative of Sir Walter Scott's, and one of the sprightliest and most Mrs. cockbum charming of Edinburgh hostesses ; Jane Elliot > third dau ghter of Sir Gilbert Elliot > Bar0net > f Mmt > himself a p06t, (1750-1825). a nd the author of the pastoral song Amynta ; and Lady Anne Barnard, of the Balcarres Lindsays we are indebted for three lyrics, each after its own fashion mournfully beautiful, and all sug- gested by older originals. If Mrs. Cockburn's and Miss Elliot's versions of the Flowers of the Forest were written independently of each other, they must have been founded on the same original, for both have the refrain ' The flowers of the forest are a' wede away.' Mrs. Cockburn's version appeared in The Lark, 1765; and Stenhouse avers that Miss Elliot's ballad was published anonymously about 1755, but he states not where. It was known to Herd, who included it in what he termed 'a version made up from various copies of the old ballad collated'; but Scott got for The Minstrelsy an authorised copy EAMSAY TO BUENS 417 from Dr. Somerville, who told him that the first and last lines of the first stanza were * I Ve heard them lilting at the ewes milking,' and 1 The flowers of the forest are a' wede away.' It is to be regretted that Scott either displayed no further curiosity about the old ballad, or was unable to obtain further information about it. As for Lady Anne Barnard's song, Auld Robin Gray, she told Scott that it was suggested by an older Scottish melody, The Bridegroom Greets when the Sun gae's doon, sung at Balcarres by an old lady ' who lived before your day ' who ' did not object to its having improper words/ though Lady Anne * did. Other bards whose vernacular fame rests mainly on a single song are William Julius Mickle (1734-1788), a miscellaneous verse- writer of some note, other song . who translated Camoen's Luciad, was the wnters> author of the rather stately Cumnor Hall, and may possibly have written (as Jean Adams, the piously metaphysical Greenock poetess, certainly did not) There 's nae Luck aboot the Hoose, which as matter of fact was claimed by neither, and which Burns (who, less flatteringly than usual, declared it to be ' one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or any other language') states 'came first on the streets as a ballad,' about 1771 or 1772 ; 2 Dougal Graham (1724- 1 See Lockhart's Life of Scott, and also Lady Anne Barnard's revised version of the ballad, with continuation, edited by Sir Walter Scott for the Bannatyne Club, 1824. 2 The song may be a relic of Jacobitism. 2D 418 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE 1779), the Glasgow bellman, whose Metrical History of the Rebellion and numerous penny vernacular chap-books, which he both wrote and printed, are now forgotten except by collectors, but whose Turnim- spike (Turnpike) is a most realistically witty sketch of the language and thoughts of the unsophisticated Gael, when he first beheld the roads of General Wade, and was actually asked to pay toll in the neighbourhood of his native heath : 'But I'll awa' to the Hielan' hills, Where te'il a ane dare turn her, And no come near to your Turnimspike Unless it pe to purn her ' ; John Ewen (1741-1821), an Aberdeen merchant, to whom Burns attributed weel may the Boatie Row, which is no doubt founded on an older song; George Halket (d. 1756), on whom Peter Buchan fathered Logie o' Buchan, and Whirry Whigs awa', the former of which he could not have written if the evidence of his own published Poems is to be credited, and the latter of which is a traditionary Jacobite ballad whose current version is an amalgam by Hogg; the Rev. Murdoch M'Lennan (1701-1783), minister of Crathie, Aberdeenshire, who celebrated the battle of Sheriffmuir in the rather clever Race of Sheriffmuir, with the refrain : ' And we ran and they ran, And they ran and we ran, And we ran and they ran awa', man ' ; Rev. John Barclay (1734-1798), Berean minister of RAMSAY TO BURNS 419 Edinburgh, who wrote the picturesque Dialogue betwixt William Lickladle and Thomas Cleancogue, modelled after the older ballad of Killycrankie (1689), and altered by Burns for Johnson's Musical Museum; and Adain Skirving (1719-1803), a gentle- man farmer of Haddington, to whom is attributed the ballad of Tranent Muir (Prestonpans), made on the same models, and also the much wittier Johnie Cope. Thus for some half -century after Ramsay the vernacular revival was evidenced mainly in the pro- duction of occasional songs, many of Robert them suggested by, and others mere ( ^ 5 r g " 7 s 7 s 4 n His adaptations of, older ditties. Apart from student days- songs, the main link between Ramsay and Burns is Robert Fergusson. The second son of William Fer- gusson, who came from Aberdeen to be accountant in the British Linen Company's Bank, Edinburgh, and of Margaret Forbes, also of Aberdeenshire descent, he was born, 5th September 1750, in the Cap-and-Feather Close, a lane the site of which is now partly occupied by the present North Bridge Street. By the aid of a Fergusson bursary he was able to prosecute his studies at the University of St. Andrews, where he matriculated in February 1765 with the view according to the parental ambition of studying for the Kirk At the University he mani- fested a certain scientific bent, but distinguished himself chiefly by his frolics and his poetry. Among the few pieces of his University days which survive 420 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE is his rather irreverent elegy modelled inevitably after ' Standard Habbie ' on Professor David Gregory, who died 13th August 1765 : long ago ' He could, by Euclid, prove lang syne moving A ganging point composed a line ; By numbers, too, he could divine, Whan he did read, That three times three just made up nine, But now he 3 s dead I ' Reminiscent of these years is also his Elegy on John Hogg, late Porter to the University of St. Andrews : ' All, Johnie ! Often did I grumble comfortable; Frae cozie bed, fu' ear 3 to tumble, When art and part I 'd been in some ill loth Troth I was sweer : penetrated ; His word then brodit like a wumel Frae ear to ear.' The truth was that his mercurial and frolicsome temper and extreme sociability were a surer passport to popularity with his fellows than to professorial approval, although Professor Wilkie of the absurd Epigoniad seems to have recognised his mental attractiveness, and to have treated him very much as a personal friend. The death of Fergusson's father in 1767 deprived him nothing to his regret of the wherewithal to in ' Auid persevere in his studies for the Kirk, and Reekie.' a f ter an unsuccessful attempt by the aid of his maternal uncle to secure a better start in life, he was fain to content himself with the situation of copying clerk in the office of the commissary clerk of Edinburgh. For one of his temperament and RAMSAY TO BUENS 421 talents the occupation was one of mere drudgery. From the beginning it exercised a depressing in- fluence, from which he vainly sought relief in the convivial clubs which were then a social feature of 'Auld Reekie.' 1 Some fleeting glimpses of satisfac- tion he no doubt gained through his increasing local fame as versifier, but his poetic repute also widened the circle of his convivial companions, and intro- duced him more fully to the alluring attractions of pleasure. His contributions to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine began, in February 1771, with pastorals and various other stilted pieces in English; and in the following year he commenced, with The Daft Days, the series of contributions to vernacular verse which, to use the words of R. L. Stevenson, were to be * the models of great things to come ' 2 to ' come,' however, by Burns, not by Fergusson. A small volume of verse which appeared in 1773 added to his fame, and supplied him with some much-needed ready money ; but it did little to remove the cloud of depression that had begun to settle on him. With his high-strung nervous system and lack of physical stamina, he could not, living as he did, long escape the inevitable tragedy. By the close of the year his health had become palpably wrecked, and he began to exhibit symptoms of mental instability the 1 'Auld Reekie' (i.e. Old Smoky) was Fei-gusson's pet name for 'Edina, Scotia's darling seat.' 2 Letter in Dr. A. B. Grosart's Robert Fergusson (Famous Scots Series). 422 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR, LITERATURE malady, by virtue of what R. L. Stevenson has termed his 'damnatory creed/ assuming the form of religious mania. The shock of a fall down a stair, when returning from a convivial party, completed the catastrophe, and he died in the city madhouse, 16th October 1774. In comparing the poetic achievement of Fergusson 1 with that of Ramsay or Burns, it is but fair to His work consider that he died, as Stevenson puts tTv a e n and enta " ifc > in his ' acute Panful youth 'before experimental. ^ Q h a( j < outlived his green sickness,' and when he had merely begun to 'imp his wing' for greater flights. At the age when Fergusson had ceased to write verse, Ramsay was known only as a rising wigmaker, and Burns had done nothing of merit except Poor Mailie, and one or two songs. Fergusson's English verses do not here concern us, but they may be left out of account even in a general estimation of his position as poet, for the reason that, though equal in bulk to his vernacular pieces, they display little or no indication of eman- cipation from the stilted methods of the time. That emancipation might have come to him through his vernacular verse, but he did not live to realise it; and even in the vernacular his work was scarce more than tentative and experimental. As to form, Fergusson's favourite staves were those 1 The earlier editions of Fergusson's Poems were superseded by that edited by A. B. G., 1851, and frequently republished. A shilling edition of his Poems appeared in 1898. KAMSAY TO BUKNS 423 of Hobble Simson ( ( Standard Hobble ') and Christis Kirk, although he made frequent and clever use both of the octo-syllabic and heroic couplets. In The Farmers Ingle, also, he adopted the nine-line stave formed by adding a line to the old alternately rhyming octave the arrange- ment being ab, ab, cd, cdd ; while Hollow Fair (not The Hallow Fair), modelled on The Blythesome Bridal, is in the old ballad stave. In the ' Standard Hobble' stave we have, of course, various Elegies, as well as Epistles, modelled after those of Ramsay and Hamilton of Gilbertfield ; but Fergusson showed also a much more comprehensive partiality for the stave than Ramsay a partiality which was to infect Burns, and demonstrated something of its capabi- lities for picturesque narrative and description, for which it had certain aptitudes that were awanting in the less flexible and more mannered stave of Christis Kirk. Though the verse of Fergusson is apt to manifest imperfect fusion of thought and emotion, as well as a lack of 'body' and fulness, its quality _ _ Characteristics. is much finer than that of Ramsay, and it is plainly the product of a much more highly disciplined intelligence. He rarely or never lapses into the utterly vulgar or squalid, nor does he dis- play any of Ramsay's partiality for tune-hallowed commonplace. His humour is seldom broad or boisterous, but like that of Stevenson who recog- nised a mental kinship with him quiet, dry, and 424 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE insinuative, and part and parcel of himself. More- over, like Stevenson, he had a cunning sense of style, 1 and here his influence is very manifest on Burns, who time and again echoes not merely his sentiments but his phraseology. A characteristic example of his insinuative humour, and his terse and picturesque vernacular, is the following extract from the ' Bill of Fare/ which, had he been master of the ceremonies, he would have prepared for the regalement of Dr. Samuel Johnson when banqueted by the St. Andrews professors : ' Imprimis, then, a haggis fat, boiled Weel tottled in a seything pat, jjjjfc ! Wi' spice and ingans weel ca'd thro' taste ; man's Had help'd to gust the stirrah's mow, And plac'd itsel in truncher clean sSg eyes BefOT * the &&* g lo n een ' Secundo, then, a gude sheep's head Whase hide was singit, never flead, And four black trotters cled wi' girsle, move down _, , ,111 , i , , -, W ith Bedown his throat had learn'd to hirsle. difficult y What think ye, neist, o' gude fat brose To clag his ribs ? a dainty dose ! in abundance And white and bloody puddins routh thfrst Ut f r To S ar tne Doctor skirl o' drouth ; Whan he cou'd never houp to merit A cordial glass o' reaming claret, gripe ; pant But thraw his nose, and brize and pegh cup O'er the contents o' sma' ale quegh : Then let his wisdom girn and snarl oatcake O'er a weel-tostit girdle farl, An' learn, that, maugre o' his wanie, 111 bairns are aye best heard at hame.' 1 Fergusson had a subtler knowledge of vernacular Scots than Burns or rather his Scots was the Scots not of the rustic but of the educated classes, who made daily use of it in Edinburgh at even a later date. KAMSAY TO BURNS 425 But Fergnsson was more than a clever wit or humourist. None but a true poet Moret han could have written the first stanzas * clever . 4 humounst. of Daft Days * Now mirk December's dowie face drooping Glowrs owre the rigs wi' sour grimace, over the While, thro' his minimum of space, The bleer-ey'd sun, Wi' blinkin' light and stealing pace, glimmering His race doth run,' etc. ; or the eerie Old Greyfriars Kirkyard scene in The Ghaists, or The Lea Rig, or the opening stanzas of The Farmers Ingle, or the opening stanzas of Leith Races. And granted that his work is fuller of promise than performance, the promise for one of his years is remarkably full, and the actual achieve- The bard of inent is so considerable as at least to aris ' he knew mainly as they were to be ' makaris, 1 etc. studied in The Evergreen, and possibly in Lord Hailes' Ancient Scottish Poems, 1770. No doubt he was also well read in 'Davie Lyndsay,' and. he knew Blind Harry's Wallace, as represented in the version of Hamilton of Gilbertfield. Before he wrote Tarn o' Shanter, he must, at least, have glanced at Gavin Douglas ; and he further got to be acquainted with Barbour's Bruce, as he no doubt did with Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786, and with various later collections edited by Pinkerton and others. Of still more importance was the fact that he had conceived a very special affection for the old songs, and that, besides minutely conning over those in the collections verse by verse, and ' carefully noting the tender and sublime from affectation and fustian/ he latterly came to possess through opportunities afforded him dur- ing his wanderings as exciseman, as well as by means of correspondence a very varied knowledge of the old traditional songs, and indeed a quite unique as- sortment of the old vernacular lyrics which, except surreptitiously, have never appeared in print. At school he had read Gray's Elegy, and various scraps from other English poets, especially those of the eighteenth century, and by and by he began to study more systematically, and to admire and 2E 434 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE intermittently to copy and imitate, Gray and Thomson, and that ' celebrated poet ' Shenstone, His English wnose ' divine Elegies do honour to our models. language, o.ur nation, and our species/ At a very early period he had also chanced on the Works of Pope, from whom his style may have gained something in point and polish ; but towards Milton his attitude was if anything equivocal, and while he was also accustomed to peruse the plays of Shakespeare, he was, like all the strange English generation of his time indeed, the English generations from the time of Shakespeare's dethronement by the Puritan re- action, for even after the Restoration Shakespeare lay partly perdu as a literary influence until the nineteenth century almost insensate to the spell of Shakespeare's enchantment, and, it may be, did not rate him quite so highly as 'the celebrated poet' above mentioned. His English models were thus mainly the later eighteenth - century poets ; and partly from the unaffected modesty which was one of his most engaging traits, partly from the conscious- ness of his own hap-hazard and unsystematic mental training, he was disposed to adopt towards them too much the attitude of mere admiration. Neither with Thomson, nor Gray, nor the ' celebrated ' Shenstone, had he almost anything in common, and so far as he attempted to tutor himself to the assumption of their particular modes of 'sensibility' to indulge in the contemplative raptures of Thomson, or the cloistered enthusiasm of Gray, or the refined BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 435 sentimentalism of Shenstone he was merely forg- ing chains to curb and fetter his own strong vitality. No doubt they were his masters in the technique of English verse, but only for the reason that in the higher and more elaborate forms of English verse he never advanced beyond the stage of pupilage. Carlyle has asserted that had Burns been ' a regular, well-trained, intellectual workman,' he might 'have changed the whole course of British His oetic literature ' ; but this of course Burns was possibilities, very far from being. Time, opportunity, and environ- ment were alike wanting for it ; his poetry was the product of moments of leisure snatched from hours of grinding toil amid the companionship of simple rustics. Moreover, at a very early period he had got mentally habituated to the old Scots vernacular staves, especially those which had been revived by Ramsay and Fergusson ; and this early bias was not helpful, but the opposite, to success in English verse. These metrical forms had become effete in England effete because of changes in the idiosyncracy of the language, and advancement in the art of poetical expression since the days of the old vernacular 'makaris.' For Scottish vernacular they were still the most suitable, if not the only possible, forms ; but the constant practice of them tended, if anything, to dull the ear for the appreciation of the fuller and richer and more subtle and varied melody of modern English verse, or at least introduced a disturbing 436 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE influence which embarrassed endeavours after accom- plishment in its special achievements. Moreover it may be deemed rank blasphemy and worse, indeed has already been so deemed, to put the question, but was Burns specially gifted to excel in the higher and purer forms of poetic expres- sion ? Carlyle who, however, was not partial to poetry for its own sake plainly doubted if he was, at least he expresses the opinion that the bulk of Burns's verse was merely . rhymed eloquence rather than poetry, and under the shadow of this great Scottish rock one feels a certain security against the charge of presumption for daring to have at least an open mind on the question. But at any rate, circumstanced as he was toiling as an Ayrshire peasant-farmer, or perambulating as a Dumfries exciseman it would have been the miracle of miracles, which it isn't, had he become the equal of Shakespeare, or Milton, or Shelley, or Tennyson, as a master of English verse. We are thus left a good deal in the dark as to the actual possibilities of Burns as a poet the only out- Bums and standing fact being that they were never Byron. f u \\y manifested. Clearly he had much in common with Byron, both being endowed with the same exuberant vitality, the vitality which made Byron the great European personality of his time, while Burns, if less passionate and petulant in his sincerity, had the same uncompromising regard for reality which underlay all Byron's masquerading, and while naturally the finer artist of the two, had a much BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 437 greater capacity for taking pains. But then the stage of Byron was primarily Europe, and the stage of Burns was primarily only Mauchline and Dumfries ; and the great things that were possible for Burns on the wider stage are, after all, a matter of conjecture. Some of these great things were perhaps possible for him even so late as Edinburgh possible had he not been fatally entangled with the past, art . aj re both by circumstances and habit; but nouncementof i ir i J LT i- a poetic career. knowing himself his needs, obligations, and capacities better than we can know them, he decided to renounce the rose-coloured future that may for a brief period have pictured itself on the horizon of his hopes, and to return to his old, narrow, rustic environment as peasant-farmer. Had he even succeeded as farmer, some of the poetic ambitions which he still continued to cherish might have been realised; but misfortunes and monotonous toil and care, and latterly the exacting duties of exciseman, more and more lowered ' the pitch of his resolution.' He made various desultory efforts to perfect his poetic training by wider reading in French as well as English, and momentarily entertained strong hopes of inaugurating a new form of Scottish drama ; but even so much as an attempt to realise them was meanwhile an impossibility, and the very burden of his poetic impossibility drove him more and more to seek his chief consolation in conviviality. Thus, apart from songs his addiction to which in his later years meant that if he had not been ' made weak by time 438 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE and fate/ he had meanwhile ceased either to ' seek ' or 'find' a fullerpoetic utterance his career as poet, which had really extended over little more than a short two years, virtually terminated with the publication of the first Edinburgh Edition in 1 787, the only great poem of the last nine years of his life being Tarn o' Shanter, which he was led to undertake very much by accident. The vernacular staves of Burns were mainly those which had already been revived by his predecessors The staves of f the eighteenth century Sempill, ' B sT a n ndard Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Ramsay, and Habbie.' Fergusson. The ' Standard Habbie ' stave of Seinpill (see ante, p. 391) suggested the Elegies on Poor Mailie, Tarn Samson, and Captain Matthew Henderson, but besides adopting it, after Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Ramsay, and Fergusson, for his episto- lary verse, he made it the vehicle for such a variety of sentiments and emotions that it virtually became part and parcel of his poetic individuality. Its only rival is the Christis Kirk stave, which in The Dream and The Ordination he wrote in the stave of exact Ramsay form, building the octave it C s h mo t d i mfa i . rk '' derived from the original ballad stave tion. on t wo rhymes, as in the original Christis Kirk and in Ramsay's cantos, and, like Ramsay, contracting the old bob wheel of two lines into a refrain of one line ending with 'day/ In The Holy Fair and Halloween and The Mauchline Wedding, 1 he, however, adopted the modification of 1 Published for the first time in The Centenary Burns, ii. 42-44. BUKNS AND AFTERWAKDS 439 the ballad octave used by Fergusson in Leith Races and The Hallow Fair, building it usually on four and occasionally on three rhymes. In Halloween he also, of course, substituted 'night' for 'day' in the refrain. Further, occasionally, and especially in Halloween, he introduced internal rhymes, thus virtually transforming either the first quatrain of the stave into the six-line stave in rime couee, fashioned on the imperfect iambic tetrameter (see ante, p. 164), or the whole into one of twelve lines : ' Upon that night, When fairies light On Cassilis Downans dance ; Or o'er the lays, In splendid blaze, On sprightly coursers prance, 3 etc. This ballad stave, in its four-rhyme form, he also employed without the refrain in the Address to the Unco Guid and Epistle to a Tounq Ballad Stave. Friend, but modified it throughout by the use of double rhymes in the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines : * ye, wha are sae guid yoursel, Sae pious and sae holy, Ye 've nought to do but mark and tell Your neebours' fauts and folly. Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, well-going Supplied wi' store o' water ; The heapet happer 's ebbing still, hopper An' still the clap plays clatter.' clapper Further, in Guildford Good he adopted the modified form of the ballad stave which, on account of the use of internal rhymes throughout, virtually assumes 440 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the rime couee form derived from the old ballad Killychrankie, the last word of the double rhyme, ' man,' forming practically a kind of refrain. The next most characteristic stave of Burns is that of The Cherry and the Slae. This piece as well as The Vision usually attributed to Ramsay Stave of J J 'The cherry himself, who, at any rate, made use of and the Slae.' . . . _ 7 _^ . . the stave in other pieces, as The Petition to the Whinbush Club and The Address to the Town Council Burns had read in The Evergreen, and he also got to know The Bankis of Helicon, which was published in Pinker ton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. In The Epistle to Davie. and one or two other pieces, the stave is employed in a somewhat mechanical fashion, without any realisation even of the picturesque effects attained by Montgomerie ; but this cannot be said of the recitatives in The Jolly Beggars, where its capabilities are first fully made manifest : next ' First, niest the fire, in auld red rags, Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, And knapsack a' in order ; His doxy lay within his arm, whisky Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm, leered She blinket on her sodger. flushed with . drink An' aye he gies the tozie drab Ending The titherskelpin kiss, mouth While she held up her greedy gab alms Just like an aumous dish : each Ilk smack still, did crack still, hawker's Like onie cadger's whup ; Then swaggering and staggering, He roar'd this ditty up.' BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 441 Other poetic forms of the old ' makaris ' used by Burns, under sanction of Ramsay and Fergusson, were the octo-syllabic and heroic couplets, T h e octo- and, like them, he used those forms ^ b c ic and chiefly for tales or narratives ; but those cou P lets - simplest of rhyme-forms had, of course, also sur- vived in English verse. But a stave which neither Ramsay nor Fergusson had ventured to attempt, and which Burns got from The Evergreen, was the French octave. The French Obtaining it directly from the old octave - 'makaris,' he wrote it with much more punctilious correctness, as regards both -rhythm and rhyme, than was his custom, and while using it with dis- cretion for such 'heich and grave subjects' as The Lament and The Address to Edinburgh, he applied it to a subject that was neither 'heich' nor 'grave' in one of the recitativos of Hie Jolly Beggars, where its ancient gravity is at least admirably burlesqued : 1 Poor Merry- Andrew in the neuk corner Sat guzzling wi' a tinkler-hizzie ; tinker- They mind't na wha the chorus teuk, cared not Between themselves they were sae busy. At length, wi' drink an' courting dizzy, He stoiter'd up an' made a face ; struggled Then turn'd an' laid a smack on Grizzie, Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace.' then The only other stave in rime couee, in addition to ' Standard Habbie,' used by Burns is in sir Thopas . Epistle to Lord Daer and Fintry My staves - Stay the six-line stave divided into two equal 442 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE sections, of which the simplest form is that of Chaucer's Sir Thopas (see ante, p. 162), which is built on two rhymes. There are no examples in The Ever- green, though it is common in later English verse, and Burns, who employs the form built on three rhymes, probably got it from Ramsay's Address of Thanks. Examples of various other staves of the old 'makaris' Burns, of course, saw in The Evergreen, Limited range ^ut ^ e ma( ^ e no attempt to utilise them, anc j ^ ma y k e wisely, so far at least as accomplish- * J ' mentinthe his popularity with the masses was old vernacular . staves, and in concerned, for the eighteenth -century English verse, ^^ ^ already become thoroughly enamoured of the two main verse -forms which Burns elected to make his own. Nor must we forget that The Evergreen did not bring home to him the poetic individualities of Henryson, or Dunbar, or Scott, or even Montgomerie, as it is now possible to recognise them. 1 But whatever variety of reasons may account for it, the fact remains that, compared with the old ' makaris,' the range of his accomplish- ment in the old vernacular metres was extremely limited ; nor within his limited range is he the equal of any of those four ' makaris ' in faultlessness of art, much of his work, especially as regards rhyme, being lawless and irregular. It is in the very simple stave of * Standard Habbie ' (a stave which almost writes 1 Burns never seems to have recognised the strong individuality of Dunbar, which is the more remarkable that he had so much in common with him ; but then to him, as to Ramsay, Dunbar was a mere name. BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 443 itself), that he is most effective ; and when he attempts the more complex, or more nobly and variedly musical, forms of English verse, he is merely a blind Samson ' grinding in fetters,' with his ' heaven-gifted strength.' As a vernacular lyrist he is often altogether magical and irresistible, but the strain of his enchantment is simple in the extreme, none of the more exquisite rhymal and rhythmical effects of English lyrisin being so much as attempted. We thus reach the inevitable conclusion that Burns triumphs neither by virtue nor by aid of supreme technical accomplishment, but His successes in spite of an almost merely elementary achieved by .' . simple means. knowledge ot the metrical art. It is the The joiiy marvellous success achieved by simple eggars means that renders him, within his own sphere, the rare and peerless poetic artist that he is. Take for example The Jolly Beggars. Metrically it is a mere disordered and incongruous medley of scraps from the old vernacular ' makaris ' and the innominate rhymers of tradition, and the broadsides and the penny chap- books. It is resonant of the echoes and refrains and sentiments of a miscellaneous crowd of preceding bards, celebrated and obscure. It is wholly lacking not merely in artistic originality, but almost in in- dividuality of metrical achievement, and never was a literary victory so renowned gained by methods so wholly; unauthorised by the higher conventions, and hi fact so unpretentious almost to contemptibility. But the victory is none the less complete and none 444 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE the less intrinsically great. Out of what seems poetic chaos he creates a nobly harmonious poetic unity, and in the realisation of his purpose he is so brilliantly, even radiantly, successful that this blackguard carousal in the squalid Ayrshire dosshouse becomes instinct with a human interest so genuine and alluring that only the very dullest or morosest can resist its spell. But what, then, is the outstanding quality of this singularly anomalous classic ? Is it not Exuberant J vitality in the its exuberant vitality? the verve, the form of . humorous elan, the abounding and 'unremitting sympathy. ' pervades, Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole ' ? The vitality is as all-pervading as it is ardent, being rooted in his own deep and full humanity, and expressing itself in the only form in which it could, in the circumstances, be adequately effective the form of humorous sympathy. Had he been merely witty he would have ceased to be in any sense sympathetic : the humanism of the scene would have vanished, or become merely secondary, and we should have been treated to a merely cleverer repetition of the Zolaesque squalidity of Ramsay's Christis Kirk. Nor, except in the form chiefly of humour, could he have denoted his sympathy without revolting the finer susceptibilities without, that is, degrading him- self entirely to the level of his company, and thus practically ceasing to be poetical. BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 445 It is the abundance and depth of his humorous sympathy which is Burns's most idiomatic charac- teristic, as it is certainly the secret of H isrespon- his unique hold over the affections of siveness - the great mass of his countrymen, who are necessarily as blind to his inevitable limitations as they are to the higher beauties and refinements of his art. Few poets, even, have % ever been so immediately and fully responsive to external impressions. Thus Gilbert says that in his youth ' he was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver,' and that in this condition ' the agitation of his mind and body exceeded anything I know in real life.' This same exceptional re- sponsiveness may be discovered even in his cor- respondence, so that merely from his letters it would be rash to assert anything very decisive as to his individual opinions on many important matters of life and conduct. He was ' Hail, fellow ! well met ! ' with almost every son or daughter of Adam or Eve who manifested any smallest tincture of genial humanity, from 'that part of mankind commonly known by the ordinary phrase of " blackguards," ' up to professors of Moral Philosophy like Professor Dugald Stewart, or staid and worthy matrons like Mrs. Dun] op. In any company where he found himself, whether that of the revellers in some village tavern, or that of the wits and beauties of elegant Edinburgh salons, he was 'the soul of all the rest/ and this by virtue of the subtle responsiveness by which he adapted himself to its atmosphere, and 446 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE reflected in a glorified form its special inood. To use his own phrase, he was like the '^Eolian harp passive/ and gave forth music as the chords of his nature were moved by the varying influences of the moment. With this abundance and depth of humorous sympathy, Burns could scarce have been aught else His eloquence, than eloquent, and perhaps, as Carlyle giamour^and opined, he is rather eloquent than strictly his art. poetical; but after all, poetry is only a higher form of eloquence, and it is difficult to define where the one merges in the other. If Burns was in no degree a poet in the almost disembodied sense that Shelley sometimes was, he was at least a sufficiently poetic realist ; and if he never attained to a thorough mastery of the more elaborate technique of poetry, he did succeed in enveloping himself and all that concerned him in a glamour which has been poetical enough to bewitch the mass of his fellow- countrymen, and to fascinate a very large proportion of the educated outside world. His art is at least wholly admirable of its kind and within its own range. If lacking in rhythmical variety and subtlety and in the more refined forms of poetic beauty, 1 no poetry was ever more genuinely and inevitably true to nature, or more exactly and delicately expressive of the poet's intention. ' All my poetry/ he told Mrs. Dunlop, 'is the result of easy composition but of 1 See especially on this subject a note in Mr. Henley's Essay in the Centenary Burns, vol. iv. p. 275. BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 447 laborious correction/ which is simply to say that it combined genuine inspiration, as all true poetry must, with painstaking art; and by virtue of the results of his laborious correction that is, as he also expresses it, of his ' finishing polish ' Burns ranks with the greater poetic artists. Burns has been measured and equalled in all sorts of ways with the great English poets ; by one critic or another he has been endowed with Cannot what the particular critic deemed the most admirable qualities of Chaueer, or English poets. Shakespeare, or Milton, or Thomson, or fashioned by Wordsworth, or Shelley, while some scarce scruple to affirm that he con- dltion> centrates hi himself the most shining excellences of the whole galaxy. If in such predicamental cir- cumstances one might venture a comparison at all, it would be in the direction of suggesting that he is a sort of rustic Shakespeare; though there are of course whole regions of thought and emotion and poetic accomplishment in Shakespeare that Burns leaves untouched untouched because they were out- side his purview, and so wholly outside of it that he scarce even dreamed of their existence. But in the case of Burns comparison with Shakespeare or any other English poet is almost wholly, futile, for the reason that among modern British poets he is, at his best, entirely sui generis. What connection he had with the modern English school was com- paratively superficial. He obtained from it neither 448 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITEEATURE the inspiration nor discipline correspondent to his finer issues. His true poetic ancestors were the old Scots 'makaris,' and in a measure that is, so far as they were the interpreters of the old ' makaris '- Ramsay and Fergusson, and the ' glorious old Bards ' of the 'Ancient Fragments/ glorious old bards, whose 'very names are buried amongst the wreck of things that were.' More especially was Burns beholden to the ' Ancient Fragments/ As we have seen, before the coming of Burns, and through the offices of Ramsay His indebted- ness to the and others, a modern lyric school had 'Ancient Frag- . <"> ,1 * * i ments'andthe arisen in Scotland of somewhat mis- oid tradition. ce u_ aneous nationality, but so far as it got its inspiration from the old vernacular tradition representing an art which had its beginnings in the far past, and bore unmistakable impress of the varied skill of a considerable succession of poetic artists. Several successors of Ramsay were more faithful to the old vernacular tradition than Ramsay, and manifested in isolated songs a much truer in- spiration. Burns, on the whole, was also faithful to the old tradition, and unmistakably faithful to it in vernacular song. He did write a variety of Scoto-English song, but it was not the amorphous variety of Ramsay; and he also wrote mainly at the instance of Thomson of the Scottish Airs, and out of the abundance of his own good nature a number of songs in English after the inflatedly sentimental fashion of his time. Even in these BUENS AND AFTEEWAEDS 449 stray gleams of genius may be discerned, and they nearly all display something of his ' finishing polish,' but he probably set little store by the most of them. And whether or not, it is only so far as he has been faithful to the old vernacular tradition as he has caught its tone, and adopted, while glorifying, its methods that he has earned for himself a place amongst the greatest of British lyrists. Indeed, it may even be affirmed that he triumphs more especially when the strain of his song is very much the echo of an 'ancient fragment,' an echo which he merely enriches and prolongs; and that if we subtract from his lyrical achievement the songs not so derived, we rob him of a good deal more than half his claim to be regarded as the supreme lyrist of his country. 1 Burns, then, owes his peculiar place apart among great poets very much to an exceptional con- juncture of circumstances reaching back to the period when the old school of Scots his p^asSt- ' makaris ' became not merely extinct, but whelmed in temporary oblivion. He thus, poet .> an f ex ' J ceptionallythe in a sort of vicarious sense, represents the national P oet ,. , ,. j i 11 j - of Scotland. nation s poetic past, and he was enabled to do so very much by virtue of his peasanthood. Had he been the fully equipped intellectual workman of which Carlyle dreamed, and which some suppose him 1 For Burns's relation to the 'Ancient Fragments,' see The Centenary Burns, vol. iii., and Mr. Henley's Essay, vol. iv. pp. 321-334. 2F 450 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE to have been, his poetic achievement would doubtless have been even greater than it is, but it could not have been so peculiarly Scottish. A great vernacular poet on the old lines as a fully, equipped intellectual work- man, and representing the blossom of the nation's con- temporary culture was no longer possible in Scotland. He could represent little more than its past, and could sway it mainly by reviving its old forgotten memories ; and so to represent and sway it, it was necessary that he should, in a measure, be detached from artificial modern influences, so that nothing should intervene between him and the ancient tradition. Thus his peasant upbringing and surroundings were almost an essential part of Burns's training ; and yet he is much more than a mere peasant poet, and this because he had, by virtue of the enforced silence of the Scottish muse for several generations, fallen heir to the old poetic tradition a far higher poetic tradition than could derive from even an ideal peasantry, and a much nobler poetic heritage than any other peasantry ever possessed. Though he came in the guise of a peasant, and as the glorifier of common things, he came therefore as the Scottish national poet in a sense unexampled and unique. By virtue of his instant and universal responsiveness he was able almost -to identify his personality with the person- ality of the nation, and especially to create a form of lyric which, while exactly expressive of his own rare individualism, is diversified and enriched, and, so to say, nationalised, by the combined experience, BURNS AND AFTERWAKDS 451 emotion, and lyric art of many generations of poetic predecessors. 1 The fame and personality of Burns naturally tend to dwarf those of contemporaries and successors ; and while they helped to prolong the old ver- in Burng thg nacular tradition, with him that tradition revived vema- necessarily reached the climax of its influ- attains its ence. By the very nature of the case a repetition of his achievements as vernacular poet was impossible, and we need not here follow this decaying tradition beyond the more prominent of his immediate successors. Among his contemporaries was John Mayne, who, though born in the same year as Burns, won quicker fame as a verse writer. As early as 1775 John May ne he had published a portion of his lively tos* 1 **- and picturesque, if not quite poetic, Siller Gun, and to his Halloween, which first appeared in Ruddimaris Magazine in 1780, Burns was indebted for something more than the mere name of his poem on the same subject; while Mayne's Logan Braes founded on an older ditty is an admirably simple expression of true love sentiment, and indeed superior to Burns's semi- political and wholly artificial Logan Water. A collaborateur with Burns on Johnson's Museum 1 Much of the sentiment and emotion expressed in Burns's lyrics lies outside his own personal experience. Nor could any single poetic individuality have invented such varied forms of lyrical expression. Their charm derives largely from their relation to generations long anterior to ours ; and it is Burns's chief praise to have embalmed this ancient charm in a modern lyric. 452 SCOTTISH VERNACULAK LITERATURE was Jaines Tytier, a gentleman of good education james Tytier an( ^ varied accomplishments, and who, (1747-1805). besides editing and in great part writing the second edition of the Encyclopaedia, Britannica, engaged in numerous literary ventures, but so un- successfully that Burns describes him as dangling ' about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles, as unlike George-by-the-Grace-of-God, as Solomon the Son of David.' Tytier, like Burns, had clearly access to the Herd MS., and mainly devoted himself to the adapta- tion of old songs. Burns specially praises his Bonnie Brucket Lassie for its original ending. Though older in years than Burns, Hector MacNeill achieved his earliest success as a vernacular poet with Scotland's Skaith, 1795, and The Woes o' Hector MacNeiii War, 1796, intended to illustrate the insidious evils of the drinking customs of the time, which they do with some pathetic power ; but he is now mainly remembered for his lyrics, which are at least perfectly sincere and natural, while their somewhat commonplace emotion is frequently ex- pressed with much humorous vivacity. Among the best are Mary of Castlecary, My Boy Tammie, 1 1 Lo'ed ne'er a Laddie but Ane, and Come under my Plaidie. 1 My Boy Tammie preserves echoes of an older song, as the following fragment from the Herd MS. witnesses : * I am to court a wife, And I '11 love her a' my life ; But she is a young thing, And new come frae her mamie,' etc, BUENS AND AFTERWARDS 453 Several ladies, contemporaries of Burns, have been more or less successful in vernacular lyrics. Susanna Blamire (1747-1794), the ' Muse of Cum- Lady contem- berland,' achieved in The Nabob a not un- poraries of Burns* successful variation on Auld Lang Syne, and in And ye shall Walk in Silk Attire, and What Ails this Heart of Mine? found graceful expression for somewhat hackneyed sentimentalism. A vein of true poetry is, however, revealed in Elizabeth Hamilton's (1758-1816) My Ain Fireside, which must ever re- main the classic utterance on the subject; while Mrs. Grant of Carron (1745-1814) in Roy's Wife ex- presses with humorous felicity the light- hearted regrets of a jilted swain, and Mrs. Grant of Laggan (1755-1838), in Where, tell me Where, is, after the Jacobite manner, though not on a Jacobite theme, sentimentally martial. The reputation of Joanna Baillie is assured apart from her Scottish lyrics, some of which are very much in the English manner; but Saw Ye Johnie Comin'? is so radically verna- cular that Burns who affirmed that 'for genuine humour in the verses and lively originality in the air' it was 'unparalleled' took it 'to be very old.' Among other successes of Miss Baillie is a version of Woo'd and Married and A' ; and she was also not unsuccessful in humorous narrative, as hi Tarn o the Lin and It was on a Morning. But the laureate among Scottish poetesses is Caro- lina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne, on whom some have 454 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE almost ventured to affirm the lyric mantle of Burns has descended, though she is, of course, wholly lack- m g m Burns's depth and passion. With Baroness j^ an( ^ -fa QT h ouse Jacobitism was almost Nairne (1766-1845). a religion, and her Jacobite lyrics are on the whole her best. Nowhere is the pure romantic devotion of Jacobitism more finely and ardently expressed than in Will ye no Come back again ? or in He's Ower the Hills that I Lo'e Weel\ and in The Hundred Pipers its martial sentiment is conveyed with an admirable blending of humour, pathos, and defiance. Her love lyrics, as Huntingtower and The Lass o' Gowrie, are in sentiment a little hackneyed and superficial ; but pathos, homely yet tender and strong, is manifested in The Rowan Tree, The Auld Hoose, The Land o' the Leal, and even in Caller Herrin' ; and the old-world episode of The Laird o' Cockpen is narrated with delightfully graceful naivete and humour. The only rival of the Baroness Nairne among the lyric successors of Burns is James Hogg, the Ettrick james Hogg Shepherd, whose Jacobite Relics generally (1770-1835). owe mos fc O f their finest poetic qualities to Hogg himself, and whose own original Jacobite lyrics, as Rise, rise, Gam' ye by Athol, and Maclean's Welcome, have at least a fine rhythmical ease and swing, and display a truly martial verve. But Hogg has little or no connection with the wider Scottish vernacular tradition. The bulk of his verse, and even of his lyrics, is in English, and some only BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 455 partially in English might as well have been wholly so. He did cherish the ambition to become Burns's successor; and perhaps he possessed a more purely poetic temperament, but he was essentially a Border reiver. His tradition was that of the old Border minstrels ; and his poetry represents especially the old Border spirit of adventure and romance, blended with a superstitious mysticism closely allied to that of the Highland Celt. His worst and damning fault is his drffuseness, and, notwithstanding many fine poetic touches, his long-drawn sweetness tends to pall upon the reader. Still, the mystic charm of Kilmeny is undeniable, and not less the weird diablerie of The Witch of Fife ; while in The Moun- tain Bard the wild, adventurous, lawless, superstitious reiver lives again. Hogg's facility in versification was apt to prove a snare to him, but he is always graceful and musical ; and nowhere has the charm of the peaceful aspects of Nature the charm peculiar to the haughs and valleys of southern Scotland been more delightfully and delicately set forth than in such lyrics as The Skylark and The Kye comes Hame. Hogg as a poet was very much a rustic Sir Walter Scott, 1 who was, besides, the founder of a vernacular school of his own, that of the vernacular Sir Walter novel a subject too vast for our present scott (1771-1832). consideration, but who very seldom in his poetry drops into the vernacular, and makes very chary i For Scott's relation to the Traditional Ballad, see ante, pp. 362-3, 366-8. 456 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE use of it even in his lyrics, the only almost pure ex- amples being the spirited Jock o' Hazeldean founded on an old ballad, the witty character sketch of Donald Caird, and his new version of Carle, now the King 's Come ; but March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale derived from the old General Leslie's March contains at least one vernacular exclamation ; and the vernacu- lar slightly tinges his re-reading of D'Urfey's Bonnie Dundee. Moreover, if neither the wild Macgregor's Gathering, nor the stirring Pibroch of Donald Dhu, nor the wailing Mackrimmon's Lament can be strictly termed Scots, neither are they quite English. A contemporary of Hogg and Scott was Sir Alexander Boswell, the eldest son of Johnson's ' Bozzie.' An Ayrshire squire, he was an Sir Alexander J T. ardent admirer of Robert Burns, and the originator of the movement for the erection of a monument to him at the Tarn o' Shanter bridge over the Doon. He wrote occasional verse, both in English and the vernacular, for recital at county banquets and other functions. His humor- ous lyrics, Jenny's Bawbee and Jenny Dang the Weaver, are, however, much above the 'occasional' level ; and his Hast Neuk o' Fife is a drolly realistic sketch of a matrimonial duel, which, on the wife's part, begins in this promising fashion : old fellow ' Auld gude man, ye 're a drucken carle, drucken carle ; yawning A J the lang day ye 're winkin', drinkin', gapin', gauntin' ; variets 0' sottish loons, ye 're the pink and pearl, pink and pearl, ugly, stupid Ill-far'd, doited ne'er-do-weel. 3 But the battle in the end remains drawn. BURNS AND AFTERWARDS 457 Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), chief of the many Paisley poets, is little more than sweetly sentimental ; but his Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane, The Braes of Balquhither, The Bonnie Tannahiii TTT 7 > n ' T 1 (I774-I8IO). Wood o Craigie-Lea, and many more, all in the same gently amorous, or gently musing vein, have found a permanent place in Scottish song-books. Among somewhat later bards, Allan Cunningham has the most assured position. He had a knowledge of old traditional song similar to that of Burns, and though Cromek's Remains of Cunningham Nithsdale and Galloway Song, 1810, was largely his concoction, it embodies some ' remains ' of older lyrics. Bonie Lady Ann is a clever amalgam of the homely, the ornamental, and the romantic ; and Name, Rame, Hame is prettily, if merely artificially, Jacobite; and if John Grumlie echoes only very faintly the admirable humour of The Wyfe of Auchtirmwchty, My Nanie, is quite equal to Burns's song of that title, and Tlie Wee, Wee German Lairdie is at least boisterously fanny ; but his best song, A Wet Sheet, is wholly English. With Allan Cunningham our record of Scottish Vernacular Literature must close. Various later song- writers have achieved isolated suc- The deepening cesses, as William Laidlaw (1780-1845) in twilight and Lucy's Mittin'] William Thorn (1789- ' 1848) in The Mitherless Bmm\ William Watt (1793-1859) in The Tinklers Wadding and the 458 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE comic masterpiece Kate Dalrymple ; Kobert Gilfillan (1798-1850) in 0, Why Left I my Hame ? and William Nicholson (d. 1849) in the eerie ballad of Aiken Drum. The antecedence of Burns may also be dis- cerned in the work of all the more characteristically Scottish writers from Sir Walter Scott to K L. Stevenson and Mr. J. M. Barrie; but as regards vernacular poetry, his death was really the setting of the sun; the twilight deepened very quickly; and such twinkling lights as from time to time appear only serve to disclose the darkness of the all-encompassing night. INDEX ADAMS, Jean, 417. Adew Dundee, 376. Afflek, James, 132. Alban, 5. Alliteration (unrhymed), 36, 152. Alliterative romance stave, 34-8, 78, 91, 117, 134, 153, 201, 220, 257. Anglo-Saxon, 5. Anglo-Scottish ballads, 373-8. Anteris of Gawaine, 35. Arbuthnot, Alexander, 268. Assonance, 361. Auchtirmwchty, The Wife of, 238, 287-9. Auld Maitland, 355. Awntyre of Gawaine, The, 34-37. Awntyrs of Arthur, The, 34-37, 79. BAILLIE, Joanna, 453. Baillie, Lady Grizel, 394. Ballad stave, 111, 117, 293, 439. Ballade stave, 244, 258. Ballads, 335-370. Ballat Royal. See FRENCH OCTAVE. Bannatyne, George, 239. Bannockburn, Song after, 17. Barbour, John, 41-56. Barclay, Kev. John, 418. Barnard, Lady Anne, 416-7. Bellenden, John, 232, 304-5. Berwick, Siege of, Rhyme, on, 17. Birrel, Eobert, 330. Blamire, Susanna, 453. Bobwheel, 29. Bob wheel refrain, 159, 161, 294. Bobwheel stave, 154, 265. Border ballads, 366-7. Boswell, Sir Alexander, 456. Broom of Cowden Knoives, The, 374-6. Bruce, The, 41-56. Brut, The, 42. Buchan, Peter, 342, 351. Buchanan, George, 268, 303, 317-22. Burel, John, 257, 268. Burne, Nicol, 276. Burns, Robert, 15, 109, 113, 251, 385, 427-51. Byrhtnoth, The Death of, 360. Byron, 436. CALDERWOOD, David, 331. Cantus, Early, 16. Carlyle, Thomas, on Burns, 435-6. Catholic religious poetry, 269. Chambers, Robert, 342, 351. Chappell, W., on Scottish song, 335, 371, 372, 373. Chartier, Alain, 307, 311. Chaucer, 65, 77, 84, 94, 99, 100, 117, 125, 155, 156, 160, 162, 171, 185, 186, 299. Chevy Chace, 357-61. Child, Professor, on ballads, 336, 352. *> Christis Kirk, 105-12. ' Christis Kirk 1 stave, 111, 247, 423, 438. Chronicle of Scotland, Wyntoun's, 56. Clerk, John, 132-3. Cockburn, Mrs., 416. Colkelbie's Sow, 84-90. Complaynt of Scotland, The, 305-13. Court of Love, The, 96, 98. 459 460 SCOTTISH VERNACULAE LITERATURE Courthope, Professor, on Dunbar, 151, 184 ; on ballads, 346, 359-64. Cromek, K. H., 341. Cumbria, 1, 2. Cunningham, Allan, 341, 457. ' Cuttit and broken verse,' 259. Cymri, 1, 2. DANISH IMMIGRATIONS, 2. David ii., Quatrain, after marriage of, 18. Davidson, John, 217, 276. Diurnal of Occurrents, 330. Douglas, Gavin, 78, 189-201. Drama, 217-9. Drummond, Margaret, 294. Drummond, William, 387-9. Dumb Wyff, The, 290. Dunbar, William, 145-88, 189-90. EARLY CANTUS, 16. Early English, 6. Ebsworth, Mr., onballads,335,378-80. Edom o' Gordon, 368-9. Edward, 337-8. Elliot, Jane, 416. Erceldoune, Thomas of, 19-31, 358. Evergreen, The, 410-11. Ewen, John, 418. FERGUSSON, Kobert, 15, 113, 419-26. Fethy, 237. Finlay's Scottish Ballads, 341 Five-line stave, 133, 139, 157, 201, 234, 238, 239, 244, 258. Fleming, 237. Four-line stave, 247. Fowler, William, 267. Freiris of Berwick, 175, 277-83. French ballade, 156, 295. French octave, 65, 117, 121, 132, 135, 137, 145, 155, 197, 201, 215, 220, 233, 236, 237, 243, 257, 289, 441. Furnivall, Dr., on ballads, 335, 371. Futhy, Sir John, 237. Fyue Bestis, Tailis of the, 93. Gaberlunzie Man, The, 236. Gawain, Sir, and the Green Knight, 34-8. Geddes, Alexander, 415. Geste, Historically 34. Gilfillan, Kobert, 458. Glassinbery, 140. Glencairn, Earl of, 276. Golagrosand Gawaine, 34. Gosse, Mr. Edmund, on Dunbar, 185. Graham, Dougal, 417-8. Grant, Mrs. , of Carron, 453. Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, 453. Gray-Steel, Sir, 38. Gude and Godlie Ballates, The, 103, 270-3, 274. Gummere, Professor, on ballads, 345-6. Gyre-Carling, The, 91-2. Hdbbie Simson, 391. Hailes, Lord, 337, 338. Halkett, George, 418. Hamilton, Elizabeth, 453. Hamilton, William, of Bangour, 413. Hamilton, William, of Gilbertfield, 397-8. Harry, Blind, 62-75. Hay, Sir Gilbert, 140. Henley, Mr. W. E., on Burns, 427, 446. Henry the Minstrel, 62-75. Henryson, Eobert, 64, 115-31, 135. Herd, David, 338. Heroic couplet, 65, 85, 89, 154, 215, 423, 441. Heryot, 140. Hew, Sir, of Eglinton, 32. Heywood, John, 216. Hoffmann, Dr., on Montgomerie, 255. Hogg, James, 382, 454-5. Holland, Sir Eichard, 133. Horn Child, The, 24. Huchown, 31-9, 79. Hudson, Eobert, 267. Hudson, Thomas, 267. Hume, Alexander, 274. Huntis Up, The, 371-2. INDEX 461 INGLIS, Sir James, 233, 305. In May in a Morning, 294. In Somer, 291. Interlude of the Droichis Part, 217. Iteration, 36, 294. JAMES T., 94-115. James iv., 294. James vi., 266-7,333-4. James Sext, History of, 330. Jamieson, Kobert, 340. Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, 339. Johnstonn, Patrick, 63, 135-6. Jok and Jynny, The Wowing of, 289- 290. KENNEDY, Walter, 142-6. King Berdok, 90. King Horn, 24. Kingis Quair, 95-103. Kinloch, 342. Kirkcaldy, Sir William, 276. Knox, John, 304, 321-8, 332. Kyd, 233. Kyllour, 217. KyrieUe, 157, 220, 291. LAIDLAW, William, 457. Lancelot of tJie Lak, 39, 96. Lang, Mr. Andrew, on ballads, 343- 349. Laugland, 177. Latin prose, 301-3. Lander, William, 231. Legends of the Saints, The, 42. Leslie, Bishop John, 303, 329-30. Lichtoun Monicus, 239. Liddesdale, The Lord of, 356. Lockart, Mungo, 140. Lord Fergus's Ghost, 92. Lowell, J. Kussell, on Dunbar, 183. Lydgate, 99, 159. Lyndsay, Sir David, 91, 107, 203-31, 302, 307. Lyndsay, Robert, 313-6. MACARONIC VERSE, 386. Macaronic Verse (imperfect), 160. Macbeth, 3. M'Lellan, Rev. Murdoch, 418. MacNeill, Hector, 452. Maidment, 342. Maitland, Sir John, 276. Maitland, Sir Richard, 256, 257, 262-6. Maitland, William, 320. Mayne, John, 451. Melville, James, 331. Melville, Sir James, 332. Merry Muses, The, 380. Mersar, 136-7. Mickle, William Julius, 417. Moffat, Sir John, 238, 289. Moggie's Jealousie, 378-80. Montgomerie, Alexander, 251-62. Morte Arthure, 34. Motherwell, Alexander, 342, 346, 350. Murning Maiden, The, 292, 361. My Hairt is quhyt, 297. My Jo Janet, 380-1. XAIRXE, Baroness, 454. Nicholson, William, 458. Nine-line stave, 65, 117, 160, 194, 201, 212, 292, 423. Nine Nobles, Ane Ballad of the, 76. Norman influence, 4-5. Northumbria, 1-3. Norval, Robert, 239. Nyne Ordour of Knavis, The, 290. OCTAVE with bobwheel refrain, 161. Octo-syllabic couplet, 47, 57, 85, 138, 154, 211, 215, 220, 423, 441. Old octave, 160. Oliphant, Carolina, 454. O Lusty May, 295. Orygynalle Chronykil of Scotland, 50. Otterbourne, 357, 360-3. Peblis, The Thrie Priests of, 284-6. Peblis to the Play, 104-12. Pennecuick, Alexander, 411-12. Pennecuick, Dr. Alexander, 411. Percy, Bishop, 337. Philotus, 219. 462 SCOTTISH VERNACULAR LITERATURE Pinkerton, John, 339. Pistill of Susan, The, 31-3. Polemo-Middinia, 386. Quarterly Review, The, on ballads, 345-9. Quatorzain of Montgomerie, 256, 440. Quhen Flora, 295. Quhy sowld nocht Allane, 291. EAMSAY, Allan, 15, 112, 257, 279, 337, 400-11. Rauf Ooilzear, 77-84. Reformation, The, 10-14. Reformation satirists, 275. Rhymer, Thomas, 19-31. Mime couee, 162-4, 220, 237-8, 244-6, 257, 271, 415, 439, 441. Mime royal, 99, 103, 117, 137, 159, 201, 208, 213, 215, 237, 244. Ritsou, 339. Rolland, John, 284. Rollicking metre, 106, 117, 293. Eomaunt of the Rose, 39, 96, 99. Rondeau (common), 155, 257, 298. Ronsard, 255. Ros, Sir John the, 140. Ross, Alexander, 414-5. Rosioall and Lillian, 39. Roull, Sir John, 138. Roundel, The, 249. Russell Lowell, J., on Dunbar, 183. SATIRISTS, The Reformation, 275. Saxons, The, 1. Schaw, Quintyne, 139. Scogan, Henry, 239. Scots tunes, 374. Scott, Alexander, 112, 240-50. Scott, Sir Walter, 51, 182, 337, 340, 350, 455-6. Scott, Sir William, 388. Scottish prophecies, 24. Scottish Vernacular, 1-15. Sempill, Francis, 393. Sempill, Robert, 217, 275. Sempill, Sir Robert, 390. Seven-line stave, 133, 159, 245. Sharpe, C. K., 341. Siege of Troy, The, 42, 162. Sir Thopas, 77, 162, 442. Sir Tristrem, 25. Six-line stave, 158, 220, 244, 258. Skelton, 85. Skene MS., 376. Skinner, John, 415. Skirving, Adam, 419. Song of Absence, 296. Songs, Traditional, 374-85. Spens, Sir Patrick, 337-8, 350-5. Spottiswoode, John, 331. Steil, 238, 284. Stevenson, R. L., on Fergusson, 421. Stewart of Baldiness, 267. Stewart, King Henry, 236. Stewart, W., 236. Stewarte, 234-6. Stewartis Oryginall, The, 42. Symmie and his Bruder, 112, 286-7. Tannahill, Robert, 457. Tayis Bank, 293. Tea Table Miscellany, The, 410. Telfer, Jamie, 367-8. Ten-line stave, 117, 243. Theological literature, 333. Thorn, William, 457. Thomas of Erceldoune, 19-31. Thus I propone, 298. TotteVs Miscellany, 240, 242, 255. Traill, Sandy, 140. Tristrem, Sir, 26-31. Tweedside, 393. Tytler, James, 452. VANS, Sir Patrick, 353. Villon, 157, 181. Wallace, Blind Harry's, 62-75. Waly, Waly, 0, 365 Wardlaw, Lady, 368, 395-6. Watson's Choice Collection, 399. Watt, William, 457. Welcum to JEild, 297. Welcum to May, 296. Whole Prophecie of Scotland, 24. Wowing of Jok and Jynny, The, 133. Wyntoun, Andrew of, 56-63. WORKS ON MEDIEVAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED BY DAVID NUTT IN THE STRAND. MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR, edited by Dr. H. OSKAR SOMMER. The ' Morte D'Arthur ' is not only a monument, unsurpassed in many ways, of English prose, it must always remain the best means of access to the Arthurian romance, Britain's greatest contribution to the world of imaginative fiction. 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