save our lives, that stay wind and weather.

Men our faith and works fall down, Would all our hopes decay,

In ar acts will bear us up to heaven,

W

The clean contrary way.

SONG.-The Royalist.

[Written in 1646.]

Come, pass about the bowl to me;

A health to our distressed king!
Though we're in hold, let cups go free,

Birds in a cage do freely sing.
The ground does tipple healths apace,

When storms do fall, and shall not we?
A sorrow dares not show its face,

When we are ships and sack 's the sea. Pox on this grief, hang wealth, let's sing, Shall kill ourselves for fear of death? We'll live by the air which songs doth bring, Our sighing does but waste our breath: Then let us not be discontent,

Nor drink a glass the less of wine; In vain they'll think their plagues are spent, When once they see we don't repine.

We do not suffer here alone,

Though we are beggar'd, so's the king;
"Tis sin t' have wealth, when he has none;
Tush! poverty's a royal thing!
When we are larded well with drink,

Our heads shall turn as round as theirs,
Our feet shall rise, our bodies sink

Clean down the wind, like cavaliers. Fill this unnatural quart with sack, Nature all vacuums doth decline, Ourselves will be a zodiac,

And every month shall be a sign. Methinks the travels of the glass Are circular like Plato's year, Where everything is as it was;

Let's tipple round; and so 'tis here.

LADY ELIZABETH CAREW.

LADY ELIZABETH CAREW is believed to be the author of the tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, 1613. Though wanting in dramatic interest and spirit, there is a vein of fine sentiment and feeling in this forgotten drama. The following chorus, in Act the Fourth, possesses a generous and noble simplicity :

[Revenge of Injuries.]

The fairest action of our human life

Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie.
And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.
If we a worthy enemy do find,

To yield to worth it must be nobly done;
But if of baser metal be his mind,

In base revenge there is no honour won.
Who would a worthy courage overthrow,
And who would wrestle with a worthless foe ?

We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield;
Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor:
Great hearts are task'd beyond their power, but seld
The weakest lion will the loudest roar.
Truth's school for certain doth this same allow,
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.

A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn.
To scorn to owe a duty overlong;
To scorn to be for benefits forborne ;

To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong.
To scorn to bear an injury in mind;
To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.

But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind; Do we his body from our fury save,

And let our hate prevail against our mind? What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be, Than make his foe more worthy far than he ?

Had Mariam scorn'd to leave a due unpaid, She would to Herod then have paid her love, And not have been by sullen passion sway'd. To fix her thoughts all injury above Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proud, Long famous life to her had been allow'd.

SCOTTISH POETS.

ALEXANDER SCOT.

While Sidney, Spenser, Marlow, and other poets, were illustrating the reign of Elizabeth, the muses were not wholly neglected in Scotland. There was, however, so little intercourse between the two nations, that the works of the English bards seem to have been comparatively unknown in the north, and to have had no Scottish imitators. The country was then in a rude and barbarous state, tyrannised over by the nobles, and torn by feuds and dissensions. In England, the Reformation had proceeded from the throne, and was accomplished with little violence or disorder. In Scotland, it uprooted the whole form of society, and was marked by fierce contentions and lawless turbulence. The absorbing influence of this ecclesiastical struggle was unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. It shed a gloomy spirit over the nation, and almost proscribed the study of romantic literature. The drama, which in England was the nurse of so many fine thoughts, so much stirring passion, and beautiful imagery, was shunned as a leprosy, fatal to religion and morality. The very songs in Scotland partook of this religious character; and so widely was the polemical spirit diffused, that ALEXANDER SCOT, in his New Year Gift to the Queen, in 1562, says—

That limmer lads and little lasses, lo,

Will argue baith with bishop, priest, and friar. Scot wrote several short satires, and some miscellaneous poems, the prevailing amatory character of which has caused him to be called the Scottish Anacreon, though there are many points wanting to complete his resemblance to the Teian bard. As specimens of his talents, the two following pieces are presented :

Lethington Castle.

daughter acted as amanuensis to the aged poet. familiar style reminds us of that of Lyndsay.

His

Satire on the Town Ladies.

Some wifis of the borowstoun
Sae wonder vain are, and wantoun,
In warld they wait not what to weir:
On claithis they ware2 mony a croun;
And all for newfangleness of geir.3

And of fine silk their furrit clokis,
With hingan sleeves, like geil pokis;
Nae preaching will gar them forbeir
To weir all thing that sin provokis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their wilicoats maun weel be hewit,
Broudred richt braid, with pasments sewit.

I trow wha wald the matter speir,
That their gudemen had cause to rue it,
That evir their wifis wore sic geir.

Their woven hose of silk are shawin,
Barrit aboon with taisels drawin;
With gartens of ane new maneir,
To gar their courtliness be knawin;
And all for newfangleness of geir.
Sometime they will beir up their gown,
To shaw their wilicoat hingan down;
And sometime baith they will upbeir,
To shaw their hose of black or brown;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their collars, carcats, and hause beidis !4
With velvet hat heigh on their heidis,
Cordit with gold like ane younkeir.
Braidit about with golden threidis ;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their shoon of velvet, and their muilis!
In kirk they are not content of stuilis,
The sermon when they sit to heir,
But carries cusheons like vain fulis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

And some will spend mair, I hear say,
In spice and drugis in ane day,
Nor wald their mothers in ane yeir.
Whilk will gar mony pack decay,
When they sae vainly waste their geir.

Leave, burgess men, or all be lost,
On your wifis to mak sic cost,
Whilk may gar all your bairnis bleir.1
She that may not want wine and roast,
Is able for to waste some geir.
Between them, and nobles of blude,
Nae difference but ane velvet hude!
Their camrock curchies are as deir,
Their other claithis are as gude,
And they as costly in other geir.
Of burgess wifis though I speak plain,
Some landwart ladies are as vain,
As by their claithing may appeir,
Wearing gayer nor them may gain,
On ower vain claithis wasting geir.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY was known as a poet in 1568; but his principal work, The Cherry and the Slae, was not published before 1597. The Cherry and the Slae is an allegorical poem, representing virtue and vice. The allegory is poorly managed; but some of Montgomery's descriptions are lively and vigorous; and the style of verse adopted in this poem was afterwards copied by Burns. Divested of some of the antique spelling, parts of the poem seem as modern, and as smoothly versified, as the Scottish poetry of a century and a-half later.

The cushat crouds, the corbie cries,
The cuckoo couks, the prattling pyes
To geck there they begin;

The jargon of the jangling jays,
The craiking craws and keckling kays,

They deave't me with their din.
The painted pawn with Argus eyes

Can on his May-cock call;
The turtle wails on wither'd trees,
And Echo answers all,

Repeating, with greeting,
How fair Narcissus fell,
By lying and spying

His shadow in the well.

I saw the hurcheon and the hare
In hidlings hirpling here and there,*
To make their morning mange.
The con, the cuning, and the cat,
Whose dainty downs with dew were wat,
With stiff mustachios strange.
The hart, the hind, the dae, the rae,
The foumart and false fox;

The bearded buck clamb up the brae
With birsy bairs and brocks;

Some feeding, some dreading
The hunter's subtle snares,
With skipping and tripping,
They play'd them all in pairs.
The air was sober, saft, and sweet,
Nae misty vapours, wind, nor weet,
But quiet, calm, and clear,
To foster Flora's fragrant flowers,
Whereon Apollo's paramours

Had trinkled mony a tear;
The which like silver shakers shined,
Embroidering Beauty's bed,

Wherewith their heavy heads declined
In May's colours clad.

Some knoping, some dropping

Of balmy liquor sweet,

Excelling and smelling

Through Phoebus' wholesome heat.

Cry till their eyes become red.

has

Burns, in describing the opening scene of his Holy Fair,

'The hares were hirpling down the furs.'

and, previous to turning clergyman, had studied the law, and frequented the court; but in his latter years he was a stern and even gloomy Puritan. The most finished of his productions is a description of a summer's day, which he calls the Day Estival. The various objects of external nature, characteristic of a Scottish landscape, are painted with truth and clearness, and a calm devotional feeling is spread over the poem. It opens as follows:

O perfect light, which shed away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o'er the day,
Another o'er the night.

Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
More vively does appear,
Nor at mid-day unto our eyes

The shining sun is clear.

The shadow of the earth anon
Removes and drawis by,
Syne in the east, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky.

Whilk soon perceive the little larks,

The lapwing and the snipe;

And tune their song like Nature's clerks,
O'er meadow, muir, and stripe.

The summer day of the poet is one of unclouded splendour.

The time so tranquil is and clear,

That nowhere shall ye find,

Save on a high and barren hill,

An air of passing wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,

Than they were painted on a wall,
No more they move or steir.

The rivers fresh, the caller streams
O'er rocks can swiftly rin,
The water clear like crystal beams,
And makes a pleasant din.

The condition of the Scottish labourer would seem to have been then more comfortable than at present, and the climate of the country warmer, for Hume describes those working in the fields as stopping at mid-day, noon meat and sleep to take,' and refreshing themselves with caller wine' in a cave, and 'sallads steep'd in oil.' As the poet lived four years in France previous to his settling in Scotland, in mature life, we suspect he must have been drawing on his continental recollections for some of the features in this picture. At length the gloaming comes, the day is spent,' and the poet concludes in a strain of pious gratitude and delight:

What pleasure, then, to walk and see
End-lang a river clear,

The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear.

The salmon out of cruives and creels,
Uphailed into scouts,
The bells and circles on the weills
Through leaping of the trouts.

O sure it were a seemly thing,

While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing,
With trumpet and with shalm.
Through all the land great is the gild
Of rustic folks that cry;
Of bleating sheep fra they be kill'd,
Of calves and rowting kye.

All labourers draw hame at even,
And can to others say,

Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
Whilk sent this summer day.

KING JAMES VI.

In 1584, the Scottish sovereign, KING JAMES VI., ventured into the magic circle of poesy himself, and

weak at arguments, and the rules and cautelis' of the royal author are puerile and ridiculous. His majesty's verses, considering that he was only in his eighteenth year, are more creditable to him, and we shall quote one from the volume alluded to.

Ane Schort Poeme of Tyme.

[Original Spelling.]

As I was pansing in a morning aire,

And could not sleip nor nawyis take me rest,
Furth for to walk, the morning was so faire,
Athort the fields, it seemed to me the best.
The East was cleare, whereby belyve I gest
That fyrie Titan cumming was in sight,
Obscuring chaste Diana by his light.
Who by his rising in the azure skyes,

Did dewlie helse all thame on earth do dwell.
The balmie dew through birning drouth he dryis,
Which made the soile to savour sweit and smell,
By dew that on the night before downe fell,
Which then was soukit up by the Delphienus heit
Up in the aire: it was so light and weit.
Whose hie ascending in his purpour chere
Provokit all from Morpheus to flee:

As beasts to feid, and birds to sing with beir,
Men to their labour, bissie as the bee:
Yet idle men devysing did I see,
How for to drive the tyme that did them irk,
By sindrie pastymes, quhile that it grew mirk.
Then woundred I to see them seik a wyle,
So willingly the precious tyme to tine:
And how they did themselfis so farr begyle,
To fushe of tyme, which of itself is fyne.
Fra tyme be past to call it backwart syne
Is bot in vaine: therefore men sould be warr,
To sleuth the tyme that flees fra them so farr.
For what hath man bot tyme into this lyfe,
Which gives him dayis his God aright to know!
Wherefore then sould we be at sic a stryfe,
So spedelie our selfis for to withdraw
Evin from the tyme, which is on nowayes slaw
To flie from us, suppose we fled it noght?
More wyse we were, if we the tyme had soght.
But sen that tyme is sic a precious thing,

I wald we sould bestow it into that
Which were most pleasour to our heavenly King.
Flee ydilteth, which is the greatest lat;
Bot, sen that death to all is destinat,
Let us employ that tyme that God hath send us,
In doing weill, that good men may commend us.

EARL OF ANCRUM-EARL OF STIRLING.

Two Scottish noblemen of the court of James were devoted to letters, namely, the EARL OF ANCRUM (1578-1654) and the EARL OF STIRLING (1580-1640). The first was a younger son of Sir Andrew Ker of Ferniehurst, and he enjoyed the favour of both James and Charles I. The following sonnet by the earl was addressed to Drummond the poet in 1624. It shows how much the union of the crowns under James had led to the cultivation of the English style and language:

Sonnet in Praise of a Solitary Life. Sweet solitary life! lovely, dumb joy, That need'st no warnings how to grow more wise By other men's mishaps, nor the annoy Which from sore wrongs done to one's self doth rise.

The morning's second mansion, truth's first friend,
Never acquainted with the world's vain broils,
When the whole day to our own use we spend,
And our dear time no fierce ambition spoils.
Most happy state, that never tak'st revenge
For injuries received, nor dost fear

The court's great earthquake, the griev'd truth of change,

Nor none of falsehood's savoury lies dost hear; Nor knows hope's sweet disease that charms our sense, Nor its sad cure-dear-bought experience !

The Earl of Stirling (William Alexander of Menstrie, created a peer by Charles I.) was a more prolific poet. In 1637, he published a complete edition of his works, in one volume folio, with the title of Recreations with the Muses, consisting of tragedies, a heroic poem, a poem addressed to Prince Henry (the favourite son of King James), another heroic poem entitled Jonathan, and a sacred poem, in twelve parts, on the Day of Judgment. One of the Earl of Stirling's tragedies is on the subject of Julius Cæsar. It was first published in 1606, and contains several passages resembling parts of Shakspeare's tragedy of the same name, but it has not been ascertained which was first published. The genius of Shakspeare did not disdain to gather hints and expressions from obscure authors-the lesser lights of the age-and a famous passage in the Tempest is supposed (though somewhat hypercritically) to be also derived from the Earl of Stirling. In the play of Darius, there occurs the following reflection

Let Greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt,
Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruised, soon broken:
And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,
All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.

The lines of Shakspeare will instantly be recalled

And like this insubstantial pageant, faded,
Leave not a wreck behind.

None of the productions of the Earl of Stirling touch the heart or entrance the imagination. He has not the humble but genuine inspiration of Alexander Hume. Yet we must allow him to have been a calm and elegant poet, with considerable fancy, and an ear for metrical harmony. The following is one of his best sonnets:

The lady whom the poet celebrated under the name of Aurora, did not accept his hand, but he was married to a daughter of Sir William Erskine. The earl concocted an enlightened scheme for colonising Nova Scotia, which was patronised by the king, yet was abandoned from the difficulties attending its accomplishment. Stirling held the office of secretary of state for Scotland for fifteen years, from 1626 to 1641-a period of great difficulty and delicacy, when Charles attempted to establish episcopacy in the

and English poetry, and imbued with true literary taste and feeling, Drummond soared above a mere local or provincial fame, and was associated in friendship and genius with his great English contemporaries. His father, Sir John Drummond, was gentleman usher to king James; and the poet seems to have inherited his reverence for royalty. No author