14. GAWAINE DOUGLAS was born in 1474, and died in 1522. He was a younger son of the fifth Earl of Angus, who is known in the history of Scotland as Archibald Bell-the-Cat. He studied at the University of Paris, rose to be Abbot of Aberbrothock in Forfarshire, and was afterwards created Bishop of Dunkeld. He was nominated Archbishop of St. Andrews; but the pope refused to sanction the appointment. He died of the plague in London in 1522. His greatest work is a translation of the Æneid. To each book he has prefixed a prologue; and these prologues are the best parts of his work. The following verse from one of them is a fair specimen Welcome, the lord of light and lamp of day! Scott's description of him in Marmion, Canto VI., should be known by all young students: Yet showed his meek and thoughtful eye But little pride of prelacy; More pleased that, in a barbarous age, Than that beneath his rule he held SIR DAVID LYNDESAY was born at the family seat The Mount, in Fifeshire, about 1490. He studied at the University of St. Andrews. 1 Herbis: the plural in is was preferred in Scotland. 2 Sheen, a noun. = 4 Kind fruit kind of fruit. This idiom exists still in German, and is often found in Chaucer. "No maner wight" 5 Husbands, men engaged in husbandry. no kind of person. 6 Plews, bews = ploughs, boughs. The final g in an Old English word may appear as gh, as y, or as w. 7 Bloomit bloomed, i.e., full of blooms or blossoms. It for ed is a common ending in Scottish writings; as is for es. Soon after this he was appointed tutor to young James V., to whom throughout his life he gave wholesome advice. In 1530 he received the honour of knighthood, and the post of Lion King-at-Arms. Sir Walter Scott gives a vivid description of him in Marmion, Canto IV.: Lyndesay was more of a reformer than a poet. Many a trenchant polemic did he hurl against the vices and abuses of the time. Neither Church nor Court was spared in his poems. He thus did in Scotland for his age the work which Langland did in England. Both were preachers in verse of "plain living and high thinking." Lyndesay's chief works are : "The Dream," an allegory after the manner of Chaucer; "A Satire of the Three Estates," a morality-play, acted before the king at Cupar-Fife; a narrative poem, describing "The History of the Noble and Valiant Squire, William Meldrum ; "The Monarchy," a dialogue on "the miserable estate of the world," a very long and somewhat dull production; and "The Complaint," in which he reminds his young pupil of early days, and complains that, while flattering courtiers are richly rewarded, but few royal gifts fall to his lot. He died in 1557. Our extract is taken from the last work : How as ane chapman1 beris his pack, I bure thy grace upon my back, : pedlar. Cf. Ger. kaufmann, Eng. cheap, Cheapside. See note on And sumtymes stridlingis1 on my nek, EXERCISES TO CHAPTER V. 1. Scan the verse on p. 79 from KING JAMES. 2. Write out the words and phrases in the two verses from JAMES I., (a) in which the grammar differs from ours, (b) those in which the form, and (c) those in which the sense, differs. 3. Turn the passage into modern verse. 4. Mark the rhymes in the sonnet on p. 81, thus a b a b, etc. 5. Write a short summary of the life of SIR THOMAS MORE, and write his life from your own summary. 6. Turn the passage from MORE's Richard III. into modern English. 7. Make out a list of the words which are different in sense from ours, thus:: Witte=ability. Metely=fit. 8. Turn the passage from ASCHAM into modern English. 9. Classify, as far as you can, the differences in spelling of the words in ASCHAM from our mode of spelling. 10. Tabulate the differences in words and phrases in Tyndale's version, on p. 89, from ours, thus : 2 Mute = attempt to say. 3 Pa-Da-Lyn the child's way of saying 'Play, David Lyndesay.' 4 Perqueir = with the greatest care, accurately. 5 Quhilk which. A.S. hwilc, a contraction of hwilic, why-like. = 6 Behaffit = behoved. 1. CHAPTER VI. EDMUND SPENSER, 1552-1599. OR one hundred and fifty years after Chaucer's death, poetry was almost non-existent in England. From the year 1400, down to the birth of Spenser, in 1552, there is no poetical genius of the first, or even of the second, rank in the history of this country. Perhaps the two best writers of poetry that fall within this interregnum, are Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. Surrey1 especially did much to polish the English language and to improve the forms of English verse; and his poems are, some of them, worth reading. He was the first Englishman to introduce and to use blank verse, into which he translated the second and fourth books of the Eneid; and he was also the first to introduce the sonnet in its purely Italian form. Puttenham, in his "Art of Poesie" (1589), holds up these two poets (Surrey and Wyatt) as the "chief lanterns of light" to all subsequent English poets. He adds: "Their conceits 2 were lofty, their style stately, their conveyance cleanly,3 their termes proper, their metre sweet and well-proportioned; in all imitating very naturally and studiously their master, Francis Petrarch. They greatly polished our rude and homely manners of vulgar 5 poesie from that it had been before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English metre and style." Dr. Nott, the editor of Surrey's works, maintains that he is the inventor of the present system of versification; and that it was he who introduced the principle of measuring verse, not by the number of accents, but by the number of syllables. This may be; it is not a 5 Popular poetry, i.e., poetry written in the vulgar tongue; that is, in English. Writers and readers of classical authors, always spoke thus of their mother. tongue, and of the works that appeared in it. |