Welcome welfare of lab'rers at the ploughs, Welcome be thy bright beams, gladding all. The dove sings, "I come hither to woo", the words which popular fancy hears in the cooing noise made by doves. Like Chaucer the poet could not lie abed with all this beauty out of doors. He gets up, takes his pen, and begins to work at the translation of the twelfth book. The poet's sense of colour is remarkable, so is his wealth of language. As we read, we are made to feel the brightness and beauty of the spring-time. This poem is certainly Douglas's finest production, and may rank with any other thing of its kind in any poet. The description of a calm June evening in the prologue to the thirteenth book is also very fine. Douglas's language, like that of all this group of poets, presents difficulties. He often takes a Latin word and turns it into a sort of Scotch, thereby adding to the difficulty for English readers. But he greatly admired Chaucer, and imitated him both in the use of words and of grammatical forms. Lyndsay. at court. Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount was born in 1490. Like most of the Scottish poets of whom we have been writing, he was educated at the University of St. Andrews, and afterwards found employment When a son was born to James IV., Lyndsay became chief page to the little prince. He tells us in his poem the Complaint to the King that the first syllables the child spoke were "Pa, Da, Lyn", and in the Epistle to the King's Grace (i.e. James), prefaced to The Dream, he writes: When thou wast young I bore thee in mine arms 1 walk. And in thy bed oft wrapped thee full warm, With lute in hand, then, sweetly to thee sang, and then played games with him, even put on disguises, and told him tales of Hector, and Arthur, and Samson. Lyndsay saw with sorrow the troubles that fell upon Scotland after Flodden, and it was doubtless his knowledge of the corruption in court and church that made him favour the reforming party, and caused Scott to write of him, The flash of that satiric rage Which bursting on the early stage, And broke the keys of Rome.1 When in 1528 the young James V. took the reins of government into his own hands, he knighted Lyndsay, and appointed him lion king-at-arms or chief herald. He was sent abroad on several important political missions, and to his office belonged the arranging of the processions and pageants on public occasions. His morality, the Satire of the Three Estates, the first dramatic production of Scotland, was acted at court. Lyndsay's career belongs mostly to Scottish history and need not be related in detail here. He died in 1555. Lyndsay's chief poems are The Dream (1528); the Testament and Complaint of our sovereign His poems. lord's Papingo (1530); and the Monarchy, or a dialogue betwixt Experience and a Courtier (1553). In The Dream, the poet, unable to sleep one January night, walks on the sea-shore at low tide and bewails the absence of spring and summer; finally tired out, he lies down to sleep in a cave, and dreams that a lady called Remembrance guides him on a journey through hell and purgatory and heaven: afterwards he goes to Scotland, and the poem becomes an account of the lamentable state of the country put into the mouth of a personage called "John the Commonweal". In the Complaint of the Papingo (parrot), Lyndsay put 1 Marmion, iv. 130-3. into the mouth of the king's parrot a satire on the church and the clergy. The most interesting part is perhaps the prologue, which praises Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, Whose sweet sentence through Albion be sung, and then the famous poets of his own land. The rest of the poem is more or less connected with the saying, Who climbs too high, perforce his feet must fall. The Monarchy is in the form of a dialogue between a Courtier (probably Lyndsay himself) and Experience, and is a sort of universal history, beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve and ending with the Day of Judgment. There is also before the beginning of the history a curious. "exclamation to the reader", touching the writing "of vulgar and maternal language”, in which he advocates the translation of the Bible, and of books teaching religion and laws, into the vulgar tongue. Lyndsay's power of satire was very great; his poetry was very popular in his day, and with the reforming party during the religious struggle. His talents and cleverness were so fully recognized, that among the peasantry the saying "You'll no find that in Davie Lyndsay" settled most arguments. After Lyndsay the spirit of poetry died out in Scotland, to be revived most brilliantly in Burns in the eighteenth century. But one sixteenth-century poet deserves a brief mention. Alexander Scott, commonly styled 'the Anacreon of old Scottish poetry', wrote between 1545 and 1568 some graceful and harmonious love poems. We have no record of his life, and his verse contains little evidence from which to construct a biography. acteristics of With the exception of Dunbar, none of the men of whom we have been writing are to be ranked among The char- very great poets; but their work is of high the Scottish quality, and forms a singular contrast to the verse produced in the England of the same period. Their poems breathe patriotism, a feeling for nature not to be found in the same degree in English poets. poetry until the time of Thomson (1728), genuine humour, and a love of fun that is in a high degree the property of the Celtic race. Those qualities represent the national characteristics of the Scottish people; their love of liberty, their extraordinary affection for even the external appearance of their land, fill a large space in the works of all Scottish poets, both old and new. Their writings, more intensely national, perhaps, than those of English-born singers, treat more exclusively of events and customs connected with their own land. III. The Revival of Learning. In Italy, study of the writings of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio left a great desire in men's minds for classical learning, and a wish to identify them- State of culselves more closely with their Roman ances- ture in Italy. tors. Scholars arose who set themselves to discover all they could about the old Greek and Roman authors. The Italians were, on the whole, better educated, and possessed a finer taste and greater discernment of what was beautiful than other European nations. Books were cheaper in Italy and more accessible; the copying of manuscripts formed in most cities a regular occupation. From about 323, Constantinople had been the centre of Greek culture and learning. Its capture by the Turks in 1453 drove the Greek scholars to Italy, The fall of whence they gradually spread all over Europe. ConstantiThat event is generally regarded as the starting-point of the so-called Renaissance (new birth) or revival of classical learning. nople. The Italians, moreover, were not content with studying only the old classical manuscripts, but took a great interest in the study of antiquities, of which their country contained numerous examples. Remains of old buildings, gems, and coins were easily accessible, and a knowledge of such things led to a more complete knowledge of the classics. A fresh taste in poetry was developed, as well as the new ways of thought that led finally to freedom. ( M 205) G of conscience, and made the religious reformation of the sixteenth century both necessary and possible. The old monkish ideals of asceticism and sacrifice died out, men began to look at the world around them, to perceive its beauty, to feel the joy of living in it, to take delight in The beauty, and the wonder, and the power, The shapes of things, their colours, light, and shades to feel thankful For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, The painters began to draw from real life, and to represent the Virgin and Christ as living man and woman. Botticelli's virgins are all types of Florentine women of the fifteenth century. Classical learning was called Littera Humaniores, the more humane learning, the learning that makes a man more humane. The term is still in use at Oxford and at the Scottish Universities to designate that group of studies which includes the classical literatures and languages. Imagination was also stirred by the discovery of America in 1492. In 1497 the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Discovery of Good Hope. A spirit of adventure was roused America. in men: they desired to travel, to see the world, to discover a new one if possible. These new desires had, as we shall see, a vast influence on the literature of the succeeding centuries. Scientific discovery also played its part. Copernicus, the Polish astronomer (1473-1543), set forth his new theory of the solar system in 1507. It was perhaps scarcely more than conjecture that was to be confirmed later, but it shows that men were beginning to observe and examine such things Progress of scientific knowledge. 1 Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi. |