A strong common sense, and direct open bluntness of expression mark his works, as also rude strength and simplicity of language. A courtly air overhangs them, but the air of a rough Court. His verses occasionally run on in a ready, business-like manner. His imagery and references in his personal poems, such as "Complaynts," "Supplicatioun," "Dialog," are all homely and forcible. Herein he resembles his English compeers. Plain Saxon words give his poems the national grip, exact and firm. Occasionally rough and vigorous, yet common sense, either in its own form or in the guise of humorous similes, keeps prominent in his pages. He was neither so great a poet nor so enthusiastic a scholar as to write for the mere pleasure of writing, but a purpose, a meaning, crops up continually; nor was he ashamed to own that his purpose was sometimes a mercenary one. He used the poetic license frequently in rating his King and master with sound advice.

His "Pleasant (!) Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis in commendatioun of Vertew and Vituperatioun of Vyce," exhibits his dramatic powers. This satire of a rude age surpasses any of those of our early Scotch poets, while it also gains for him a leading position as a humourist and satirist. His impersonations of the abstract Virtues and Vices are decidedly fresh and vigorous, while the absence of real dramatic action and skill is plainly discernible. The materials, raw and excellent, with which he works would have been used to far greater advantage in the hands of one of the early English dramatists. The satire is entirely destitute of the elements of action and unity, but proceeds in a manner at once pleasant because of its newness, and unsatisfactory because of its confusion and disorder. It was frequently acted, and we be

His

Its

lieve to some purpose. Had Lyndsay written nothing else, it alone. would have procured for him a name as a keen satirist and humourist. The old Doric harmonizes well with his old grim humour, which in his extreme wealth of wit often descends to vulgarity. laugh and his barbs of satire are turned against existing authority. Around the priests especially he flings his wild satiric laughter. poignancy was exceedingly bitter— grim in its sardonic language. The outward good humour with which he assailed the manifold abuses of the Catholic religion must have made the satire more unpleasant to the heads of the Church; and a most powerful edge and strength was added when it was represented to the people. In terms of great wrath he lashed to scorn the grievances of tithes, the abuses of the age. His pictures seem to have been drawn from personal knowledge; and for a correct representation of the time he spares not one's fine feelings, nor does he paint at the expense of truth. His plain lines depict the lives of the people. Thus the pauper's complaint:

"My father was an auld man, and an hoir (gray),

And was of age fourscore of years and

more;

And Mald, my mother, was fourscore and fifteen,

And with my labour I did them both sustain.

We had a mare that carried salt and coal,

And every other year, she brought us home a foal.

We had three kye, that were baith fat and fair,

None tidier into the toun of Avr. My father was so weak of blood and bone

That he died, wherefor my mother made great maine.

"Then she died, within one day or two And there began my poverty and woe.

Our gool grey mire was eating on the field,

And our landlord took her for his hyreild,*

The vicar took the best cow by the head,

Incontinent, when my father was dead. And when the vicar heard tell how that

my mother

Was dead, from hand, he took to him another;

Then Meg, my wife, did mourne both even and morrow,

Till at the last she died for very sorrow;

And when the vicar heard tell my wife was dead,

The third cow he cleikit by the head. Their uppermost clothes, that were of rapploch grey,

The vicar gart his clerk bear them

away.

When all was gone, I might make no complaint,

But with my bairns past for to beg my

meat.

DILIGENCE.

How did the parson? was he not thy good friend?

PAUPER.

The devil stick him! he curst me for my teind."

Well he interpreted the grievances of the common people in his barbed lines of satire. A most excellent medium he caught, not pressing his advantage so strong against the nobles or priests as to enrage them, nor putting the claims of the people too high that their claims might be prejudiced, but rather allowing their grievances to be deduced by the reader from his pictures. Often he relieves the cold and harsh realities by touches of humour. Thus for instance :

"Marie! I lent my neighbour my mare to fetch home coals, And he her drowned into the quarry holes;

And I ran to the Consistorie for to plenzie (complain),

And there I happened among a greedy meinze (company);

They gave me first one thing they call Citendum,

Within eight days I got but Lybellandum,

Within one month I got ad Opponendum,

In half ane year I got Interloquendum; And then I got, how call ye it? ad Replicandum.

But, I got never one word yet understand him;

And then, they made me cast out many plackis,t

And made me pay for four and twenty actis;

But, or they came half-way to Concludendum,

The fiend any plack was left for to defend him.

Thus they postponed me two years, with their traine (quibbles), Then, Hodie ad octo, told me come again.

And then their ruiks they croaked wonder fast,

For sentence silver, they cryed at the last.

Of Pronunciandum, they made me wonder faine;

But I got never my gude gray meir againe."

Still more disastrous was the experience of "Temporalitie."

"I wist ane man, in pursuing ane cow, Or he had done, he spendit half ane bow fold of cattle).

Beneath his many elegant fictions, artful metaphors, mythological retrospections, and picturesque recitals we often meet with images and lines full of the deepest earnestness. The more manly and sober feelings of the poet broke forth in many of his light and frolicsome verses. His earnestness was generally observable in his addresses to the King, and in the

many references to the King of Terrors. Few men laughed so beartily or jested so wittily as he did, but few men's earnestness is so genuine and so touching as his. A jester's serious remarks are always deeply pathetic. Around his genius keeps earnestness its court with a numerous retinue of sad fancies, which quickly drown. the laughter evoked by his loud and riotous jests. He recognized an object grander than that of being the means of innocent recreation to the Prince; he presented to him many phases of life and thought that tended to improve and strengthen the character of the Prince, and thereby influence the character and lives of the Court and people. The beautiful line

"For princes' days endure but as ane dream."

floats down to us over waves and waves of poor verses and as poor thoughts. Right nobly he points out the higher life, and reminds him,

"And finally remember thou maun die, And suddenly pass off this mortal sea;"

tritely but beautifully expressing the last event of all in the old Doric,

"But all maun thole of bitter death

the showers."

Of the literature of that time, his deserves most honourable mention for the earnest manner in which he frequently addressed his king. His solemn and sensible remarks slipped from him naturally, without the slightest affectation; and although they proved of little avail, we cannot withhold our admiration for those words of manly counsel which he occasionally wrote, and those earnest, solemn figures and similes which his fancy sometimes scattered among the Court. It is a

touching and exceedingly interesting picture in our literature, that of the King's jester castigating with biting words of satire the evil advisers of the Court, their "pleasant vices," and presenting solemn thoughts to his Scottish King, underneath which we observe dutiful remonstrance in vain checking the rushing, impetuous youthful blood. "Never had king," says Professor Morley, "a poet friend who preached to him more indefatigably."

Lyndsay was a splendid storyteller, and fond of all manner of old romances. A great admirer of whatever he could find in the form of the romance of chivalry, he has given us in his poem "Squire Meldrum" one of the most spirited tales in Scottish literature. Well sustained from its opening lines to its close, the poet fairly carries the modern reader along with him. The clang of arms, the gorgeous beauty and battle cries of tournaments, the escapades with bow and spear, are all alternately described in poetic manner, as also are lovers' meetings and lovers themselves. The descriptions for their wordpainting, and the passion for its force, are such as are written by a poet who delineated what he had actually seen and felt with his own heart. A nimble, racy fancy is observable beneath his somewhat plain, sententious style. It is fashionable for some of our poets to versify the scenes of those bygone days, and even more fashionable for our novelists to adopt those times and customs for the theme of their crude imaginings, but in no way can we better test their success or exhibit their failure than by contrasting them with any old writer such as Lyndsay. We feel his short, beautiful lines, his racy yet matter-of-fact delineations of old customs, his graphic, pointed descriptions of the battles on land or

sea, with armies or individuals, are all as real, true, vivid as an old shield, a worn targe, or a chipped pike are real remnants of that time. No modern poet's highly artistic production having those times and manners described, however poetically, can make up for the absence of utter reality and downright truthfulness. Although Lyndsay's poems do not reach the very height of poetic imagination and beauty, we claim for him-what every reader will allow-a considerable power of versification, a considerable gift of imagination, and even depth of fine feeling. His imagination is of the greatest, and is exceedingly finished. Like the old Scottish poets, his use of similes was very small, and the colourings he gave his pictures depended almost if not entirely upon the manner in which he presented them. No brilliant, gaudy colours did he use, nor any artifices; he trusted entirely to homely lights, and eschewed every one not pertinent to the close consecutiveness of his tale. Take this picture as an illustration::

"In till his heart there grew sic ire
That all his body burnt in fire;
And swore it should be full dear sold
If he might find him in that hold.
He and his men did them address
Right hastily in their harness;
Some with bow and some with spear,
And he like Mars, the God of weir,
Come to the Lady and took his lief;
And she gave him her right hand glove,
The which he on his helmet bore,
And said, Madam, I you assure,
That worthy Lancelot du Laik
Did never more for his ladies sake,
Nor I shall do, or ellis dee,
Without that ye revenged be.
Then in her arms she him braist
And he his leave did take in haste."

The tale breathes the high valour of romance, and is told in most spirited, inspiring verse. We are

uncertain which the most to commend, the rushing, vigorous, mar

tial story, or the artistic beauty of its verse and narrative. The best known of all his works yet, it undoubtedly is his masterpiece, and will favourably compare with the writings of some of our old English masters. If the success of a poem is to be judged from the completeness which it presents of the poet's aim, assuredly "Squire Meldrum" will stand the test, for herein is its greatest excellence. It is a complete portrait, which catches the reader's mind, of whom he wrote

"None durst come near him hand for hand,

Within the boundis of his brand,"

and that he was as able

"As ony knicht of the Round Tabill."

His "Dream," which was his first essay, flows on lightly, redolent with the fragrancies of nature. His youth-hood was nearly overblown, and nearly every page bears evidence, from the profuse glorification of visionary worlds and spheres, that it was a youthful poem. His descriptive and satiric powers are here discernible, though immature and lacking robust strength; his imagination being strong and wild; his fancy as full of freaks as a girl agitated by the delights of her first love. The opening verses addressed to the King, touching in their matter-offact simplicity and strong manliness, are perhaps the happiest, and even the most poetic.

A biographer experiences a great disadvantage in the want of a man's letters. Private letters connect most closely together the man and the reader; they take the place of his conversation. And no letters of Lyndsay's being preserved, the man for a great part has slipped from out our knowledge. He stands more as a slim figure in a dim outline than a substantial, easily comprehended personage. And here

he is not unlike his old family house, the castellated manor-house of Garleton, mere ruins of its olden entirety, the court now used as patches of garden ground for farm. servants, the crumbling walls now useful in protecting the cottages from the sharp east wind; mossgrown window sills and ruinous walls only remaining as evidence

of its bygone baronial pretensions. But although with the coming years these ruins must sooner or later be levelled with the earth and their existence be speedily forgotten, the life and poems of Sir David Lyndsay will be appreciated whenever they are read, and his name ever held in affectionate remembrance.

Much has been written both in Germany and England on this metaphysical tragedy, critics being as yet unable to exhaust a subject which, for beauties of thought, expression, and feeling, seems like some rich mine, ever ready to provide more valuable material for the imagination. The crowds that flock to see the play of Hamlet when the part is undertaken by some actor worthy to attempt it, prove that, notwithstanding much that has been done to vitiate the modern taste by providing it with an exaggerated excess of mental excitement, the love for to kalon must ever remain ingrained in the heart of man. But it is not our intention to do more here than to ask our readers to revise with us some parts of this play, and to endeavour to show what the result of a careful study may bring forth, finding in the words of the poet himself many solutions of otherwise difficult problems. To do this we will begin by an allusion to what may appear to many to be but trivial.

In the fourth scene of the third act, when Hamlet has described with fiery energy "the counterfeit presentment of two brothers," the public has been ever led to expect the Ghost to appear armed cap-apie; it we, however, turn to the edition of 1603 we find given, as a stage direction," the Ghost enters in the apparel worn by him when at home;" that is, the usual costume we should expect a monarch to wear in his palace, as distinct from the armour he might be supposed to don when about to marshal his troops. Though this may appear unimportant, yet, when we consider the circumstances, as a dramatic conception it is perfect. He ap pears once more to his son, pale, and with all the evidences of death, showing the traces of the suffering, mental, moral, and physical, which he is not permitted to disclose; but yet he appears in the garb in which many a time he has been seena garb familiar to the room-and his appearance is the more terri ble because it comes home with