derful degree of skill; he has employed a great | many enthusiastic encomiums on his various variety of metres; and his versification, where opposed to that of his most eminent contemporaries, will appear highly ornamental and poetical." That Celt-abhorring critic, John Pinkerton, said, "His moral pieces have a terseness, elegance, and force only inferior to those of Horace;" and Sir Walter Scott, after powers, has finely remarked, "The genius of Dunbar and Gavin Douglas alone is sufficient to illuminate whole centuries of ignorance. . . . Dunbar is unrivalled by any poet that Scotland ever produced, and he has the honour, though not the earliest, of being regarded as the father of Scottish poetry." THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE1 Quhen Merch wes with variand windis past, In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay, Me thocht Aurora, with hir cristall ene, And halsit me, with visage paill and grene; Me thoucht fresche May befoir my bed up stude, In brycht atteir of flouris forgit new, To raise up luvaris with confort and delyt; Yit nocht incressis thy curage to indyt, Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid and blisfull bene, Sangis to mak undir the levis grene. Quhairto, quoth I, sall I up ryse at morrow, For in this May few birdis herd I sing; Thai haif moir cause to weip and plane thair sorrow; Thy air it is nocht holsum nor benyng; 1 Of this poem, in which Dunbar emblematized the junction and amity of the two portions of Britain, Dr. Irving remarks, the author "displays boldness of invention and beauty of arrangement, and in several of its detached parts the utmost strength and even delicacy of colouring;" and Dr. Langthorne finely says:"In nervous strains Dunbar's bold music flows, And Time yet spares the Thistle and the Rose."-ED. So busteous are the blastis of his horne, And said, Upryse, and do thy observance; Thow did promyt, in Mayis lusty quhyle, For to discryve the Rois of most plesance. Go sé the birdis how thay sing and dance, Illumynit oure with orient skyis brycht, Annamyllit richely with new asure lycht. Quhen this wes said, departit scho, this quene, The purpour sone, with tendir bemys reid, Quhois gilt tressis schone so wondir cleir, That all the world tuke confort, fer and neir, To luke upon his fresche and blisfull face, Doing all sable fro the hevynnis chace. And as the blisfull soune of cherarchy To luvaris so, Away thow duly nicht, To ferss Neptunus, and Eolus the bawld, Nocht to perturb the wattir nor the air, And that no schouris [snell] nor blastis cawld Effray suld flouris nor fowlis on the fold: Scho bad eik Juno, goddes of the sky, That scho the hevin suld keip amene and dry. Scho ordand eik that every bird and beist Befoir hir hienes suld annone compeir, And every flour of vertew, most and leist, Welcome to be our Princés of honour, Our perle, our plesans, and our paramour, Our peax, our play, our plane felicité; Chryst thé conserf frome all adversité. Than all the birdis song with sic a schout, That I annone awoilk quhair that I lay, And with a braid I turnyt me about To sé this court; bot all wer went away: Then up I lenyt, halflingis in affray, And thus I wret as ye haif hard to-forrow, Off lusty May upone the nynt morrow. EARTHLY JOY RETURNS IN PAIN. Off Lentren in the first mornyng, O man! haif mynd that thow mon pass; Haif mynd that eild ay followis yowth, Welth, warldly gloir, and riche array, Come nevir yit May so fresche and grene, Heir helth returnis in seikness; Fredome returnis in wrechitness, GAVIN DOUGLAS. BORN 1474 DIED 1522. GAVIN DOUGLAS, whom the Scottish anti- | quary John Pinkerton pronounced the fifth of the seven classic poets of Scotland whose works would be reprinted to the end of the English language"-the others being Barbour, James I., Blind Harry, Dunbar, Sir David Lyndsay, and Drummond-was one of the distinguished luminaries that marked the restoration of letters in his native land at the commencement of the sixteenth century. He was the third son of Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus, surnamed, from a well-known incident in Scottish history, "Bell-the-Cat," but generally the Great Earl of Angus. Gavin was born, it is believed, at Brechin late in the year 1474, or early in 1475. Of his early life little is known, but it is probable that, being designed for the church, he received as liberal an education as Scotland could then furnish. If it be true that his father gave "Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine, Save Gavin, ne'er could pen a line," then his progress was perhaps due, in a great measure, to his natural talent for acquiring knowledge. All that is known with certainty on the subject is that his education was completed at the University of Paris, and that having made a continental tour he returned to his native land, and was appointed rector of Hawick in 1496, being when installed but twenty-two years of age. In 1509 Douglas was made provost of the collegiate church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and five years later the queen-mother, then Regent of Scotland, who had married his nephew, the young Earl of Angus, appointed him abbot of Aberbrothock; and soon after conferred upon him the archbishopric of St. Andrews, in a letter to the pope extolling him for his eminent virtue and great learning, and earnestly soliciting him to confirm her nomination. His holiness did not, however, grant the queen's request, but issued a bull designating Forman, bishop of Moray, for the vacant dignity; while at the same time the chapter, who approved of neither Douglas nor Forman, made choice of John Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews. To console Douglas for his disappointment the queen in 1515 made him Bishop of Dunkeld; but the Duke of Albany, who in this year was declared regent, to prevent him from obtaining that see, accused him of contravening the laws of the realm in obtaining bulls from Rome, in consequence of which he was imprisoned for a year in the Castle of Edinburgh. On the reconciliation of the queen and the duke, Douglas obtained his liberty, and was consecrated at Glasgow by Archbishop Beaton. In 1517 he accompanied the Duke of Albany to France, but soon returned to Scotland, and repaired to his diocese, where he applied himself diligently to the duties of his episcopal office. In 1521 he was compelled by the disputes between the Earls of Arran and Angus to take refuge in England, where he was kindly received by Henry VIII., and where he formed the acquaintance of Erasmus, who speaks of his regal mien, and of Polydore Virgil, a learned Italian who was then writing a history of England. The bishop is believed to have supplied the latter with information concerning the early period of the Scottish nation. We are informed by Holingshed that during his residence in London Douglas received a pension from the English monarch, who, with all his faults, was a liberal patron of literature. Bishop Douglas died in London of the plague in September, 1522, and was interred in the chapel-royal of the Savoy. In this ancient little church, on the banks of the Thames, there was discovered in 1873, after a long disappearance, the old brass plate The in which indicated his burial-place. scription describes him as "Gavanus Dowglas, Natione Scotus, Dunkellensis Præsul, patria sui exul. Anno Christus 1522." The words patria sui exul are suggestive of the similar epitaph of Dante, between whom and Douglas there is at least the resemblance that each of them shed a lustre by his genius on a stormy and anarchic period of his country's history, and died in exile. Hume says that the bishop "left behind great admiration of all his virtues and love of his person in the hearts of all good men; for, besides the nobility of his birth, the dignity and comeliness of his personage, he was learned, temperate, and of singular moderation of mind, and, in those turbulent times, had always carried himself among the factions of the nobility equally, and with a mind to make peace, and not to stir up parties, which qualities were very rare in a clergyman of those days." Douglas, who is also highly eulogized by George Buchanan, is also remembered as the author of one of the best historical Scottish witticisms. When the Hamiltons, in April, 1520, were planning their attack on the Douglases in the High Street of Edinburgh, which, after it came off, was known among skirmishes as "Clear-the-causeway," from the sweep which was made of the assailants, Gavin, as a man of peace, remonstrated with one of their chief abettors, James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow. The archbishop laid his hand upon his heart, and said, "Upon my conscience, I cannot help what is going to happen.' But, lo! as he was speaking, the armour which he had donned beneath his episcopal rochet began to rattle. "Ha! my lord," said the witty Gavin, "I perceive that your conscience is not sound, as appears from its clatters”—a rejoinder the double force of which can be appreciated only by a Scotchman. As a man of letters Douglas stands distinguished as the first poetical translator of the classics in Britain. Besides the translation of Ovid's De Remedio Amoris, he translated the Eneid of Virgil, with the additional thirteenth book of Mapheus Vigius, into Scottish verse. This he undertook at the request of Henry, first lord Sinclair, in 1512, and completed it in the short space of eighteen months. It was first printed in London under the following In the only attempt made by Dr. James Beattie, in a poetical epistle, to use the Mearns or Aberdeen dialect after the manner of Robert Burns, he mentions the name of Douglas in his happy summary of the early Scottish poets: title: "The XIII Bukes of Eneados of the | by Rev. Mr. Scott, in 1787; the latest and most Famose Poet Virgill. Translated out of Latine complete edition appeared in 1874, in four Verses into Scottish Meter by the Reverend vols., bearing the following title:"The Father in God, Mayster Gawin Douglas, Bishop | Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of of Dunkel and Unkil to the Erle of Angus. Dunkeld. With Memoir, Notes, and Glossary, Euery Buke hauing hys perticular Prologe." | by J. Small, Librarian of the University of Douglas' Virgil possesses one excellence to Edinburgh.” which no succeeding translation has any pretension. The prologues of his own composition which he has prefixed to the different books are such as almost to place him on a level with the poet he had so ably translated. It has been said, "They yield to no descriptive poems in any language;" and Warton remarks, "The second book of Virgil's Æneid is introduced with metrical prologues which are often highly poetical, and show that Douglas' proper walk was original poetry." These original prologues, it has been supposed, suggested to Scott the idea of the introduction to the several cantos of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" and "Marmion." Douglas is also the author of two allegorical poems, the one entitled The Palace of Honour" and the other "King Hart." The first named was addressed, as an apologue for the conduct of a king, to James IV., and was written prior to 1501. "It is a poem," says Warton, "adorned with many pleasing incidents and adventures, and abounds with genius and learning.' "King Hart" is believed to have been written in the latter part of his life, and contains what Dr. Irving styles "a most ingenious adumbration of the progress of human life." It was first printed in Pinkerton's collection of Ancient Scottish Poems, published in 1786. It is perhaps worthy of mention that the well-known Pilgrim's Progress bears a strong resemblance to Douglas' "Palace of Honour," although it is hardly possible that Bunyan could have met with the poem. The works of Bishop Douglas were first published, with a memoir, notes, glossary, &c., AN "I here might gi'e a skreed o' names, The foremost place Gavin Douglas claims, And wha can match the first King James, Montgomery grave, and Ramsay gay, I maun brak aff; "Twould tak' a live-long summer day Another poetical allusion to the amiable and virtuous prelate occurs in one of George Dyer's poems: "Dunkeld, no more the heaven-directed chaunt Within thy sainted walls may sound again, Shall live in Douglas' pure Virgilian strain, Horne Tooke remarks that the language of Gavin Douglas, though written more than a century after Chaucer, must yet be esteemed more ancient; even as the present English speech in Scotland is in many respects more ancient than that spoken so far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. So Casubon says of his time. The Scottish language is purer than the English of the present day, where by "purer" he means nearer to the Anglo-Saxon. KING HART. ALLEGORICAL POEM. (EXTRACT FROM CANTO FIRST.) King Hart, into his cumlie castell strang, So proudlie wes he polist, plaine, and pure, |