THE THREE ESTATES.

Farewell, Falkland, the forteress of Fife,
Thy polite park, under the Lomond Law;1
Some time in thee I led ane lustie life,
The fallow deer to see them raik2 on raw.
Court men to come to thee they stand great awe,
Saying, thy burgh bene of all burrows baill,3
Because in thee they never gat gude aill.*

FROM "THE SATIRE OF THE THREE ESTATES."

GRIEVANCES OF A SCOTTISH PEASANT OF THE SIXTEENTH

CENTURY.

Pauper.

My father was an auld man and ane hoar,"
And was of age four score (of) years or more.
And Mald, my mother, was four score and fifteen,
And with my labour I did them baith sustene.
We had ane meir" that carryit salt and coal,
And ever ilk year she brought us hame ane foal
We had three ky that was baith fat and fair,
Nane tidier into the toun of Ayr.

My father was sae waik of bluid and bane

That he deit, wherefore my mother made great mane;
Then she deit within ane day or two,

And there began my poverty and wo.

Our gude grey meir was baitand9 on the field,

And our land's laird took her for his heryield.10
The vicar took the best cow by the heid

Incontinent, when my father was deid.

And when the vicar heard tell how that my mother

Was deid, fra hand, he took till him the other.

Then Meg, my wife, did murn baith even and morrow,

Till at the last she deit for verie sorrow;

And when the vicar heard tell my wife was deid,

The thrid cow he cleiket" by the head.

Their upmest clais, that was of raploch12 grey,
The vicar gart his clark bear them away.

1 The village and palace of Falkland lie at the foot of the Eastern Lomond in Fife. Law, a hill; Ang.-Sax, hleaw.

battle.

age.

Range or walk in a row; see note 5, p. 38; on raw, in order: also in line of 3 Worst of all borough towns.-See note 7, p. 35. Cupar, as well as Falkland, comes under Lyndsay's lash for this defect in brew

& Hoary.

Mare.

Often in Scotch intill; used for in.-See note 11, p. 32. Ky; kine.

8 Died.

Feeding, pasturing; end or and, the old form of the termination ing; Ang.-Sax. batan; hence perhaps fat, and battan, to fatten by feeding.

10 The feudal tribute paid to the landlord on the death of a tenant. "It was the best horse, ox, cow, or other beast in the tenant's possession. It is the same as the heriot of English law. Spelman."-Chalmers. 11 Hooked, seized.

13 Coarse woollen cloth; probably from Ang.-Sax. roplic, ropy or stringy; or it may be a corruption of ray-cloth, which in old English meant cloth made in the natural colour of the wool.-Chalmers.

When all was gane, I micht mak nae debeat,1
But with my bairns passed for till beg my meat.
Now have I tauld you the black veritie,
How I am brocht into this misery.

Diligence.

How did the parson? was he not thy gude freend?

Pauper.

-he curst me for my tiend,2

And halds me yet under that same process,
That gart3 me want the sacrament at Pasche.
In gude faith, Sir, thocht he wad cut my throat,
I have nae gear except ane English groat,
Whilk I purpose to give ane man of law.

Diligence.

Thou art the daftest fule" that e'er I saw.
Trows thou, man, by the law to get remeidR
Of men of kirk? Na, nocht till thou be deid.?

Pauper.

Sir, by what law, tell me, wherefore or why?
That ane vicàr should tak frae me three ky?

Diligence.

They have nae law excepting consuetude,
Whilk law to them is sufficient and gude.

Pauper.

Ane consuetude aganes the common weil,
Should be nae law, I think, by sweet Sanct Geill.8
Whaur will ye find that law, tell gif ye can,
To tak three ky fra ane puir husband man?
Ane for my father, and for my wife ane other,
An the thrid cow he took for Mald, my mother.

Diligence.

It is their law; all that they have in use,
Thocht it be cow, sow, ganer, gryce, or guse.9

Pauper.

Sir I wad speir1o at you ane question;

Behald some prelates of this region

1 Complaint, contest.

2 Excommunicated me for my tythe.

4 Easter; pronounced in Scotch pace. Remedy, satisfaction.

8 St. Giles is the patron saint of Edinburgh. 10 Ask.

Forced.

Maddest fool.

7 Dead.

Gander, pig, or goose.

SQUIRE MELDRUMS COMBAT.

Diligence.

Hald thy tongue man, it seems that thou were mangit.1
Speak thou of priests, but2 doubt, thou will be hangit.

45

THE EXACTIONS AND DELAY OF A LAW SUIT SATIRIZED.

Pauper.

I lent my gossop3 my meir to fetch hame coals,
And he her droun'd into the querrel' holes.
And I ran to the consistory for to pleyné,"
And there I happened amang ane greedy menyé.7
They gave me first ane thing they call citandum;
Within aucht days I gat but libellandum;
Within ane month I gat ad opponendum;
In ane half year I gat inter loquendum;

An syne I gat-how call ye it?-ad replicandum;
But, I could never ane word yet understand him.
An then, they garts me cast out mony placks,
And gart me pay for four and twenty acts;
But or they came half gate to concludendum,
The fient" a plack was left for to defend him.
Thus they postpon'd me twa year, with their train,12
Syne hodie ad octo, bade me come again.
An then thir rooks they roupit wonder fast,"
For sentence silver they cryit at the last.

13

Of pronunciandum1 they made me wonder fain;

But I gat ne'er my gude grey meir again.

SQUIRE MELDRUM'S COMBAT WITH THE ENGLISH KNIGHT

TALBERT,

WHEN thir15 twa noble men of weir16
Were weil accownter'd in their gear.,

1 Mad; literally mixed, confounded. Ang.-Sax. maengan, to mix.

2 Without.

Gossip; syb (Gothic) is peace, alliance; gossipis Godsib; of kin in God; a sponsor: applied to the familiar connections of neighbourhood.

5 The ecclesiastical court.

6 Complain.

1 Quarry. 7 Group; assemblage; also household, retinue. Chaucer uses meiny in this sense; "They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse." ShakespeareK. Lear. The word seems connected with many, and derived apparently from Ang.Sax. maengan, to mix.

8 Caused.

9 Plack, one-third of a penny.

10 Way.

11 Devil.

12 Snare, stratagem. 13 These rooks they chattered wondrously fast. The rook is a cunning plundering bird. To rook, to cheat, however, is said to be connected with rogue. To rook is also to lie covered; to protect.-"The raven rooked her on the chimney top."Shakesp., 3 Hen. VI.

14 An idea of the law terms in the passage may be got from a Latin dictionary, if no better authority may be had. Their explanation would swell the notes too

much.

15 These.

16 War.

And in their handis strang bourdones,1
Then trumpets blew and clarions,
And heralds cryit hie on hicht,

"Now, let them go !2-God schaw the richt!"
Then speedily they spurr'd their horse,
And ran to other with sic force

That baith their spears in sindrie flaw;3
Then said they all that stood on raw,
Ane better course than they twa ran
Was not seen sen the world began.
Then baith the parties were rejoicit.
The champions ane while repoisit,
Till they had gotten speiris new:
Then with triumph the trumpet blew;
And they, with all the force they can,
Wonder rudely at ather" ran,

And straik at other with sae great ire,
That fra their harness' flew the fire.
Their speiris were sae teuchR and lang,
That ather other to earth doun dang.
Baith horse and man with spier and shield,
Then flatling's lay into the field.

*

66

66
FROM THE MONARCHIE."

AND SPECYALLYE THE

END OF CERTANE TYRANE PRINCIS.
BEGYNNARIS OF THE FOUR MONARCHIES."
THE princes of thir four great monarchies,
In their maist highest pomp imperials,
Traisting to be maist sure set in their sees,"
The fraudful warld gave them to mortal falls;
For their reward, but dirk memorials;
Thocht ovir the warld they had pre-eminence,
Of it they gat nane other recompense.

*

*

*

*

Behald how God, ay syne the warld began,
Has made of tyrane kingís instruments,
To scourge people, and to kill mony ane man,
Whilk1 to his law were inobedients:12

When they had done perfurneis13 his intents,
In danting wrangous people shamefully,
He sufferit them be scourgit cruelly.

1 Strong spears.-Chalmers.

2 "Laissez aller !"

Ather; either; at each other.

9 Emperors.

10 Trusting; see note 5, p. 38.

• Tough. 11 Seats.

12 Relatives and adjectives do not now take the sign of the plural; imperials above may be reckoned an adjective, like inobedients.

13 Finished to perform; completed the execution of; (French parfournir).

Gane is the golden warld of Assyrians,
Of whom King Ninus was first and principal;
Gane is the silver warld of Persians;

The copper warld of Greekís now is thrall.
The warld of iron, whilk was last of all,
Comparit to the Romans in their glore,
Are gane right sae-I hear of them no more.1

Now is the world of iron mixt with clay,2
As Daniel at length has done in dite.3
The great empires are melted clean away,
Now is the warld of dolour and despite.
I see nought else but trouble infinite:
Wherefore, my son, I make it to the kend,
This warld, I wait, is drawand to an end.

Tokens of dearth, hunger and pestilence,
With cruel weiris baith by sea and land;
Realm against realm, with mortal violence,
Whilk signifies the last day is at hand."
Wherefore, my son, be in thy faith constànd,
Raising thy heart to God, and cry for grace,
And mend thy life while thou has time and space.

47

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.
(1517?-1547-)

THE merit of Lydgate has been vindicated; Occleve was esteemed down to the age of Elizabeth and James, but the interval between Chaucer and Henry VIII. is in general a dreary poetical void. In "Anderson's British Poets," the Earl of Surrey immediately follows Chaucer as the first name in an interval of about a century and a half that deserves a place among the "classical poetry" of England. The son of the Duke of Norfolk, the victor of Flodden in 1513, he was from his youth associated with the court of Henry VIII. in the capacity of companion to the Duke of Richmond, a natural son of that prince. In 1526, he was made cupbearer to the king, and in 1532, he accompanied the king in his famous visit to Boulogne. A clever but unprincipled writer of the Elizabethan

1 For the allusions in this stanza, see Daniel ii. For the pagan fable of the four ages, see Ovid, Met. i. 89-150.

The "iron mixed with clay" (Daniel ii. 33) is commonly interpreted as descriptive of the mediaval kingdoms that sprung from the ruins of the Roman empire.

The government of the infinitive by the generic verb do is assigned as the origin of the infinitive sign to.

4 Men in all ages of Christianity have been fond of viewing the remarkable phenomena of the period in which they lived as indications of the approaching judgment.

Matth. xxiv. 6, 7; Luke xxi. 10, 11. Lyndsay had seen the great wars of Charles V. and Francis I.; the distractions of the reformation; and the quarrels with England.