him. This is the old story with the old moral, which, though pastoral poetry has long been dead, will never become obsolete. We subjoin part of the fable of the Town and Country Mouse, called by the poet The Uplandis Mous and the Burges Mous': Extract from the Town and Country Mouse. ; With treaty fair at last she gars her rise And bade God speed. The burgess up then gat, Frae foot to foot he cast her to and frae, While at the last, Betwixt the dresser and the wall she crap. Syne u in haste behind the panneling, Sae hie sho la 1, that Gibby might not get her, Till he was gane, her cheer was all the better: Syne down sho lap, when there was nane to let (1) her; · Thy mangery is minget (2)" with care; 'Were I into the place that I cam frae, For weel nor wae I should ne'er come again.' I cannot tell how afterward sho fure. But I have heard syne she passit to her den, As warm as woo, suppose it was not grit, Full beinly stuffit was baith but and ben, With peas, and nuts, and beans, and rye, and wheat; In quiet and ease. withouten [ony] dread, But till her sister's feast nae mair she gaed. MORAL. Blessed be simple life, withouten dread; Wha has enough of no more has he need, 1 To hinder her; hence the phrase, without let or hinderance.' 3 Companionship, or friendship. 2 Mingled. Grit abundance and blind prosperity, A Summer Morning. In the midst of June, that jolly sweet season, Sweet was the smell of flowers white and red, That morning mild, my mirth was more for they. The roses red arrayed in rorne and ryss, (3) To hear it was a point of Paradise, Such mirth the mavis and the merle couth ma, (4) WILLIAM DUNBAR. WILLIAM DUNBAR, 'a poet,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'unrivalled by any that Scotland has ever produced,' flourished at the court of James IV. at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. Having received his education at the university of St. Andrews, where, in 1479, he took the degree of Master of Arts, Dunbar became a friar of the Franciscan order (Gray Friars), in which capacity he travelled for some years, not only in Scotland, but also in England and France, preaching, as was the custom of the order, and living by the alms of the pious-a mode of life which he himself acknowledges to have involved a constant exercise of falsehood, deceit, and flattery. In time, he had the grace, or was enabled by circumstances, to renounce this sordid profession. It is supposed, from various allusions in his writings, that, from about the year 1491 to 1500, he was occasionally employed by the king (James IV.) in some subordinate, but not unimportant, capacity in connection with various foreign embassies, and that he thus visited Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, besides England and Ireland. He could not, in such a life, fail to acquire much of that knowledge of mankind which forms so important a part of the education of the poet. In 1500 he received from the king a pension of ten pounds, afterwards increased to twenty, and finally to eighty. He is supposed to have been employed 1 Radiance. E. L. v. 1-4 2 Without. 3 Bush and twig. 4 Could make by James in some of the negotiations preparatory to his marriage with the Princess Margaret (daughter of Henry VII.), which took place in 1503. For some years ensuing, he seems to have lived at court, regaling his royal master with his poetical compositions, and probably also with his conversation, the charms of which, judging from his writings, must have been very great. He represents himself as a court poet, and occasionally dancing in the queen's chamber, having a penchant for one of the court ladies: Then cam in Dunbar, the maker, On all the floor there was nane frecker, The greatest earl or duke in France- It is sad to relate of one who possessed so buoyant and mirthful a spirit, that his life was not, so far as we can judge, a happy one. He appears to have repined greatly at the servile court-life which he was condemned to lead, and to have longed anxiously for some independent source of income. Among his poems are many containing nothing but expressions of solicitude on this subject. He survived the year 1517, and is supposed to have died about 1520, at the age of sixty; but whether he ultimately succeeded in obtaining preferment, is not known. His writings, with scarcely any exception, remained in the obscurity of manuscript till the beginning of the last century; but his fame had been gradually rising, and it was at length, in 1834, considered sufficient to justify a complete edition of his works, by Mr. David Laing. The poems of Dunbar may be said to be of three classes-the allegorical, the moral, and the comic; besides which there is a vast number of productions composed on occasions affecting himself, and which may therefore be called personal effusions. His allegorical poem, The Thistle and the Rose' (a triumphal nuptial-song for the union of James and the Princess Margaret), was furnished, as he himse'f states, on the 9th of May, 1503. Langhorne, the English poet, finely says: In nervous strains Dunbar's bold music flows, 1 His slipper. But another of Dunbar's allegorical poems, The Golden Terge,' was. more popular in his own day, and is cited by Sir David Lyndsay as proving that its author had language at large.' It is more richly descriptive and rhetorical, but has not more true poetry. The satirical and humorous poems of Dunbar are extremely gross. Perhaps the most remarkable of all his poems is 'The Dance.' It describes a procession of the seven deadly sins in the infernal regions, and for strength and vividness of painting, would stand a comparison with any poem in the language. The most solemn and impressive of the more exclusively moral poems of Dunbar, is one in which he represents a thrush and nightingale taking opposite sides in a debate on earthly and spiritual affections, the thrush ending every speech or stanza with a recommendation of 'a lusty life in Love's service,' and the nightingale with the more melodious declaration: 'All love is lost but upon God alone.' There is, however, something more touching in the less laboured verses in which he moralises on the brevity of existence, the shortness and uncertainty of all ordinary enjoyments, and the wickedness and woes of mankind. This wavering warld's wretchedness, The sliding joy, the gladness short, The sugared mouths, with minds therefra, Or, in another poem: Evermair unto this warld's joy, He is, at the same time, by no means disposed habitually to take gloomy or desponding views of life. He has one poem, of which each Stanza ends with 'For to be blyth methink it best.' In another, he advises, since life is so uncertain, that the good things of this world should be rationally enjoyed while it is yet possible. Thine awn gude spend,' says he, while thou has space.' There is yet another, in which these Horatian maxims are still more pointedly enforced; and from this we shall select a few stanzas. Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind For oft with wise men it has been said aforow Make thee gude cheer of it that God thee sends, Follow on pity, flee trouble and debate, Without Gladness availes no Treasure. The philosophy of these lines is excellent. Dunbar was as great in the comic as in the solemn strain, but not so pure. His 'Twa Married Women and the Widow' is a conversational piece, in which three gay ladies discuss, in no very delicate terms, the merits of their husbands, and the means by which wives may best advance their own interests. There is one piece of peculiar humour, descriptive of an imaginary tournament between a tailor and a shoemaker, in the same region where he places the dance of the seven deadly sins. It is in a style of the broadest farce, and full of very offensive language, yet as droll as anything in Scarron or Rabelais. One of the marvels brought by the king's ships was a black lady, and a great tournament was got up in honor of the sable beauty. Dunbar humorously says: When she is clad in rich apparel, She blinks as bright as ane tar-barrel; Another novelty at court was a French quack-doctor, Master John Damian, who appears to have got considerable sums of money from the king for experiments made in the vain hope of extracting gold out of other metals. Damian must have been a simpleton as well as knave, for he made a public attempt to fly with wings which he had constructed. The wings being fastened upon him, he flew off the castle wall of Sterling, but shortly fell to the ground and broke his thighbone. He accounted for his failure by the circumstance of there hav 1 World's trash without health. 2 Injuries |