broidered with various hues. Both wood and forest were darkened with boughs; which, reflected from the ground, gave a shadowy lustre to the red rocks. Towers, turrets, battlements, and high pinnacles, of churches, castles, and every fair city, seemed to be painted; and, together with every bastion and story, expressed their own shape on the plains. The glebe, fearless of the northern blasts, spread her broad bosom.-The corn-crops, and the new-sprung barley, recloathed the earth with a gladsome garment.-The variegated vesture of the valley covered the cloven furrow; and the barley-lands were diversified with flowery weeds. The meadow was besprinkled with rivulets: and the fresh moisture of the dewy night restored the herbage which the cattle had cropped in the day. The blossoms in the blowing garden trusted their heads to the protection of the young sun, Rank ivy-leaves overspread the wall of the rampart. The blooming hawthorn cloathed all his thorns in flowers. The budding clusters of the tender grapes hung end-long, by their tendrils, from the trellises. The gems of the trees unlocking, expanded themselves into the foliage of Nature's tapestry. There was a soft verdure after balmy showers. The flowers smiled in various colours on the bending stalks. Same red, &c. Others, watchet, like the blue and wavy sea; speckled with red and white; or, bright as gold. The daisy unbraided her little coronet. The grass stood embattelled, with banewort, &c. The seeded down flew from the dandelion. Young weeds appeared among the leaves of the strawberries. Gay gilliflowers, &c. The rose buds, putting forth, offered their red vernal lips to be kissed; and diffused fragrance from the crisp scarlet that surrounded their golden seeds Lilies, with white curling tops, shewed their crests open. The odorous vapour moistened the silver webs that hung from the leaves. The plain was powdered with round dewy pearls. From every bud, scyon, herb, and flower, bathed in liquid fragrance, the bee sucked sweet honey.-The swans clamoured amid the rustling reeds; and searched all the lakes and gray rivers where to build their nests. The red bird of the sun

lifted his coral crest, crowing clear among the plants and rutis gent, picking his food from every path, and attended by his wives Toppa and Partlet. The painted peacock with gaudy plumes, unfolded his tail like a bright wheel, inshrouded in his shining feathers, resembling the marks of the hundred eyes of Argus. Among the boughs of the twisted olive, the small birds framed their artful nests, or along the thick hedges or rejoiced with their merry mates on the tall oaks. In the secret nook, or in the clear windows of glass, the spider full busily wove her sly net, to ensnare the little gnat or fly. Under the boughs that screen the valley, or within the pale-inclosed park, the nimble deer trooped in ranks, the harts wandered through the thick woody shaws, and the young fawns followed the dappled does. Kids skipped through the briers after the roes; and in the pastures and leas, the lambs, full tight and trig, bleated to their dams. Doris and Thetis walked on the salt ocean; and Nymphs and Naiads, wandering by spring-wells in the grassy groves, plaited lusty chaplets for their hair, of blooming branches, or of flowers red and white. They sung, and danced, &c. Meantime, dame Nature's minstrels raise their amorous notes, the ring-dove coos and pitches on the tall copse, the starling whistles her varied descant, the sparrow chirps in the clefted wall; the goldfinch and linnet filled the skies, the cuckow cried, the quail twittered; while rivers, shaws, and every dale resounded; and the tender branches trembled on the trees, at the song of the birds, and the buzzing of the bees," &c.

This landscape may be finely contrasted with a description of WINTER, from the Prologue to the seventh book", a part of which I will give in literal prose.

"The fern withered on the miry fallows: the brown moors assumed a barren mossy hue: banks, sides of hills, and bottoms, grew white and bare: the cattle looked hoary from the dank weather: the wind made the red weed waver on the dike: From crags and the foreheads of the yellow rocks hung great icicles, in length like a spear: the soil was dusky and gray,

p. 200. fol. edit.

bereft of flowers, herbs, and grass: in every holt and forest, the woods were stripped of their array. Boreas blew his bugle horn so loud, that the solitary deer withdrew to the dales; the small birds flocked to the thick briers, shunning the tempestuous blast, and changing their loud notes to chirping: the cataracts roared, and every linden-tree whistled and brayed to the sounding of the wind. The poor labourers went wet and weary, draggled in the fen. The sheep and shepherds lurked under the hanging banks, or wild broom.-Warm from the chimney-side, and refreshed with generous cheer, I stole to my bed, and laid down to sleep; when I saw the moon shed through the windows her twinkling glances, and watery light: I heard the horned bird, the night-owl, shrieking horribly with crooked bill from her cavern: I heard the wild-geese, with screaming cries, fly over the city through the silent night. I was soon lulled asleep; till the cock clapping his wings crowed thrice, and the day peeped. I waked and saw the moon disappear, and heard the jack-daws cackle on the roof of the house. The cranes, prognosticating tempests, in a firm phalanx, pierced the air with voices sounding like a trumpet. The kite, perched on an old tree, fast by my chamber, cried lamentably, a sign of the dawning day, I rose, and half-opening my window, perceived the morning, livid, wan, and hoary; the air overwhelmed with vapour and cloud; the ground stiff, gray, and rough; the branches rattling; the sides of the hills looking black and hard with the driving blasts; the dew-drops congealed on the stubble and rind of trees; the sharp hailstones, deadly-cold, hopping on the thatch and the neighbouring causeway," &c.

Bale, whose titles of English books are often obscured by being put into Latin, recites among Gawin Douglass's poetical works, his Narrationes aureæ, and Comoediae aliquot sacræ Of his NARRATIONES AUREÆ, our author seems to speak in the EPILOGUE to VIRGIL, addressed to his patron lord Sinclair *, * Ut supr. p. 483,

i xiv. 58.

I have also a strange command [comment] compyld,

To expone strange hystoryes and termes wild.

Perhaps these tales were the fictions of antient mythology. Whether the COMODIÆ were sacred interludes, or MYSTERIES, for the stage, or only sacred narratives, I cannot determine. Another of his original poems is the PALICE OF HONOUR, a moral vision, written in the year 1501, planned on the design of the TABLET of Cebes, and imitated in the elegant Latin dialogue De Tranquillitate Animi of his countryman Florence Wilson, or Florentius Volusenus'. It was first printed at London, in 1553". The object of this allegory, is to shew the instability and insufficiency of worldly pomp; and to prove, that a constant and undeviating habit of virtue is the only way to true Honour and Happiness, who reside in a magnificent palace, situated on the summit of a high and inaccessible mountain. The allegory is illustrated by a variety of examples of. illustrious personages; not only of those, who by a regular perseverance in honourable deeds gained admittance into this splendid habitation, but of those, who were excluded from it, by debasing the dignity of their eminent stations with a vicious and unmanly behaviour. It is addressed, as an apologue for the conduct of a king, to James the Fourth; is adorned with many pleasing incidents and adventures, and abounds with genius and learning.

I Lugd. apud Seb. Gryph, 1543, 4to. In quarto. Again, Edinb. 1579. 4to. When pale Aurora with face lamentable." [Mr. Pinkerton has since published another allegorical poem by Douglas, called King Hart. Vide Ancient Scottish Poems. 1786.-EDIT.]. Douglas also wrote a small Latin His

tory of Scotland, See also a DIALOGUE concerning a theological subject to be debated between duos famatos viros, G. Douglas provost of saint Giles, and master Ďavid Cranstoun bachelour of divinity, prefixed to John Major's CoмMENTARII in prim. Sentent. Paris. 1519. fol,

SECTION XXXII.

WITH Dunbar and Douglass I join Sir David Lyndesay, although perhaps in strictness he should not be placed so early as the close of the fifteenth century. He appears to have been employed in several offices about the person of James the Fifth, from the infancy of that monarch, by whom he was much beloved; and at length, on account of his singular skill in heraldry, a science then in high estimation and among the most polite accomplishments, he was knighted and appointed Lion king of arms of the kingdom of Scotland. Notwithstanding these situations, he was an excellent scholar1.

Lyndesay's principal performances are The DREME, and The MONARCHIE. In the address to James the Fifth, prefixed to the DREME, he thus, with much tenderness and elegance, speaks of the attention he paid to his majesty when a child.

Quhen thou wes young, I bure the in myne arme

Full tenderlye, till thow begouth to gango;

And in thy bed, oft happit the full warme

With lute in hand, syneP softlye to the sang.

He adds, that he often entertained the young prince with various dances and gesticulations, and by dressing himself in feigned characters, as in an interludea1. A new proof that theatrical diversions were now common in Scotland.