GOLDEN TARGE.

And flatterers into men's faces;
And backbiters, in secret places
To lie that had delight;
And rownaris' of false lesings:2
Alas, that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quyte!

*

Then cried Mahoun3 for a Hieland padyan,*
Syn3 ran a fiend to fetch Macfadyan,
Far northwart in a neuk:6

By he the coroneth had done shout,
Earse men so gathered him about,
In hell great room they took.
Thae termagants," with tag and tatter,
Full loud in Earse begoud to clatter,
And rowp1 like raven and rook;
The devil so deaved" was wi their yell,
That in the deepest pit of hell

He smoorit1 them with smuke.13

FROM THE "GOLDEN TARGE."

33

[The poet having fallen asleep amid the beauty of a May morning, sees in a dream a ship approach, from which there land "a hundred ladies, as fresh as flowers that in the May upspreads." These are Nature, Venus, etc. They are followed by Cupid and other personages. During their sports the poet is discovered, and Venus orders her train to attack him.]

AND first of all, with bow in hand aye bent,

Came Beauty's dame right as she would me schent;14

1 Whisperers; see note 4, p. 18.

2 Compare Dunbar's personifications with Spencer; Faery Queen, Book I. cant. 4 : and with P. Fletcher's Purple Island, cantos 9, 10.

3 Mahomet; applied to the Devil; See Burns' song, "The Exciseman."

4 Pageant.

$ Then.

A corner. Macfadyan is a name still found in the Highlands.
By the time that he had shouted the Coronach, a Highland dirge.
Highlanders-men who spoke the Erse (Irish) or Celtic language.

? Alleged to be from ter, thrice; and magnus, great; sc deus; Latin: or from tyr intensive prefix; and magan, mighty; Ang.-Sax.-Applied to idol gods:

He said, "Childe, by Termagaunt,

But if thou prick out of mine haunt,

Anon I slay thy steed."-Chauc. Rime of Sir Topar.
The pagan vaunt

Of Mighty Mahound and great Termagaunt.-Hall's Satires, Book i. sat. 1

It was used formerly without distinction of gender. 10 To cry hoarsely and roughly.

11 Deafened.

12 Smothered.

13 Dunbar was a Lothian man. This stanza illustrates the hostile feeling that subsisted between the population of the northern and southern portions of the kingdom.

Would have destroyed;-The omission of the auxiliary has been noticed above. Schend (Ang -Sax. Scendan), to confound, disgrace, ruín; shent, blamed.Shakesp.

་

Syne followed all her damosels in feir,1
With mony divers awful instrument,

Into the press fair Having with her went,

Syne Portrator, Pleasance, and lusty Cheer;

Then Reason came with shield of gold so clear:
In plate of mail, as Mars Armipotent,

Defended me that noble chevaleir.

[These and other assailants are repelled by the Golden Targe.] When Venus had perceived this rebute,

She bade Dissemblance gae mak a pursuit,

With all her power to press the Golden Targe;
And she that was of doubleness the root,

Asked her choice of Archers in resute;"

Venus the best bade her to wale at large.

*

[Dissemblance then chooses her auxiliaries in the assault.]

Thick was the shot of grundin1 arrows keen;
But Reason, with the Golden Shield sae sheen,
Weirly defended whosoe'er assayed;
The awful shower he manly did sustene,
Till Presence cast a powder in his een,

Then as a drunken man he all forwayed;

When he was blind, the fool they with him played,
And banished him among the boughis green:
That sight, sae sair' me suddenly affrayed.
Then was I wounded till the death full near,
And yoldinR as ane woful prisoner,

To Lady Beauty, in a moment's space;

Methought she seeméd lustier of cheer
After that Reason had tint1o his een clear,
Than of before, and lovarly of face.
Why was thou blinded Reason? Why?

*

Alace!

[Several personages then disturb his captivity with temptations and sorrows; till he is delivered over to Heaviness; when suddenly "God Eolus his bugle blew;" the whole scene disappears; he sees the ladies and their ship vanish in a discharge of artillery so loud,]

The rockis all resounded with the rak,

For reird it seemed that the rainbow brak:

1 See note 12, in the preceding extract, p. 32.

2 Portraiture, i. e., of the beloved object, personified into one of the assailants of

the affections.

3 A second attempt; from ressuyer (Fr.), to attempt anew.

4 Ground-sharpened.

5 Warlikely.

6 Another personified assailant; the presence of the beloved object being one of the greatest incitements to affection. So melancholy. 8 Yielded. Cheer; (French chere); (Ital. ciera); the countenance, look, aspect :-its metaphorical applications in modern English may easily be traced from the original idea. Cheer has been personified above as one of the assailants. 10 Lost.

NO TREASURE WITHOUT GLADNESS.

35

[He starts to his feet; and finds himself again alone with the birds and flowers of May.]

And as I did awake off this swouning,
The joyful minstrels merrily did sing,

For mirth of Phoebus tender beamis sheen.
Sweet were the vapours, saft the morrowing,
Hailsome the vale depaint with flowers ying;'
The air attemper'd, sober, and amene;2
In white and red was all the earth beseen
Thro nature's noble fresh enamelling

In mirthful May of every moneth queen.

NO TREASURE WITHOUT GLADNESS.

BE merry, man, and tak not far in mynd3

The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow,
To God be humble, to thy friend be kind,

And with thy neighbours gladly lend and borrow;
His chance to-night it may be thine to morrow.
Be blythe in heart for ony aventùre;

1 Young.

For with wysane it hath been said aforrow,5
Without gladness availeth no treasure.

Mak the gude cheer of it that God thee sends;

For warld's wrack but weilfare nought avails,
Na gude is thine, save only but thou spends-
Řemenant all, thou bruikis but with bails'
Seek to solace when sadness thee assails,
In dolour lang thy life may not endure;

Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sail,
Without gladness availís no treasure.

Follow on pity; flee trouble and debate;
With famous folkís hold thy company.
Be charitable and humble in thine estate,
For warldly honour lestis9 but a cry.

For trouble in earth take no melancholy;
Be rich in patience if thou in goods be poor.
Who livís merry he lives mightily;
Without gladness availís no treasure.

2 Lat. Amanus, pleasant. 3 Take not too much to heart.

5 Before.

4 Wisdom. Anything worthless, dilapidated; here applied to worldly possessions; — but,

without.

All that remains thou enjoyest only with misfortunes.-Comp. Mark x. 29-30; bruik; brook; to enjoy, to possess: now applied to the suffering of an injury or insult; bail, bale, woe, grief; hence baleful.

8

Comp. Shakesp.

"Tis meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes."-Jul. Cæs. Act i. sc. 2.

• Endures.

HAVE mind that eild' aye follows youth;
Death follows life with gaping mouth,
Devouring fruit and flowering grain:
All earthly joy returns in pain.

Wealth, warldly gloir, and rich array,
Are all but thorns laid in thy way,

O'er cowered with flowers laid in a train:
All earthly joy returns in pain.

*

*

Freedom3 returns in wretchedness,
And truth returns in doubleness,

With feigned words to make men fain:

All earthly joy returns in pain.

Virtue returns into vice,
And honour into avarice;

With covetyce is conscience slain :
All earthly joy returns in pain.

Since earthly joy abideth never,
Work for the joy that lestís ever;
For other joy is all but vain;
All earthly joy returns in pain.

GAWAIN OR GAVIN DOUGLAS,

BISHOP OF DUNKELD.

(1474-1522.)

THIS amiable prelate was the son of Archibald, the fifth Earl of Angus, surnamed Bell-the-cat, from his share in the conspiracy against James Third's ministers at Lauder. Destined for the church, Gawain was liberally educated. The stormy factions that ensued in Scotland after the defeat of James IV. at Flodden, and his relationship to the house of Angus involved him in the political movements of the period. During these troubles the influence of the queen mother, Margaret, and her husband, Angus, Gawain's nephew, raised him to the see of Dunkeld in 1516. He seems to have devoted himself with great earnestness, while the turbulence of the times permitted, to the temporal and spiritual interests of his bishopric. Five or six years after, the power of the Regent Albany expelled the Douglases from Scotland, and the Bishop of Dunkeld died in London of the plague in 1522.

1 Eld-old age.

Freedom is here used for liberality, or free living.

2 Gloir-glory.

THE PALACE OF HONOUR.

37

The largest work of Douglas is his translation of Virgil's Eneid into Scottish heroic verse, which forms the first instance of the rendering of a classic into any of the British tongues. The several books are prefaced by prologues, some of which are remarkably beautiful. His "Palace of Honour" is an allegory constructed somewhat on the plan of Dunbar's "Golden Targe." As appropriate to the instruction of a king, he dedicates it to James IV. "King Hart" (i. e., Heart, the sovereign of the body) is another allegorical poem illustrative of the accidents, temptations, and decline of human life. Douglas, as a writer, is inferior to Dunbar in nerve and in naturalness of conception. In many passages of the "Palace of Honour" his language is more obsolete and obscure. His descriptions are often magnificent, though too much overlaid by the Latinised phraseology which overspread our literature after the revival of learning.

FROM "THE PALACE OF HONOUR."

[The Poet, in a dream, had joined a procession of allegorical personages in a pilgrimage to the Palace of Honour; he was committed by the muse Calliope to the charge of a nymph, who performs for him the part of the Sybil to Eneas, or of Virgil to Dante. From the hill of the Palace he sees among other things the following vision.]

THE SHIPWRECK OF THE CARAVEL OF GRACE.

PART III. STANZA VII.

As we bene on the high hill situate,

"Look down," quoth she, "conceive in what estate
Thy wretched world thou may consider now!"
At her command, with meikle dread, God wait,1
Out oure the hill sae hideous high, and strait
I blent2 adown, and felt my body grow:3.
This brukil earth, sae little till allow,5
Methought I saw burn in a fiery rage

Of stormy sea whilk might nae manner 'suage.

VIII.

That terrible tempest's hideous wallís huge"
Were maist grislie' for to behald or judge,
Where neither rest nor quiet might appear;
There was a perilous place folk for to lodge,
There was nae help, support, nor yet refùge.

1 Or wat, knows.

2 Contr. for blenkit, the past tense and particip. of blenk or blink, to look; used by Chaucer.

3 Shudder; commonly written grew or grue; hence gruesome, causing shuddering: dreadful.

Fragile, from break.

To praise; hence to permit; from Fr. allouer; Lat. adlaudare.

6 Waves.

7 Terrible; Ang.-Sax. grislic; verb agrisan, to be horrified. To agrise is used by Chaucer, Spencer, and Drayton; grisly is a favourite adjective with the poets."So spake the grisly terror."-Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 704.