THE

KING'S QUAIR.

CANTO I.

I.

HEIGH in the hevynis figure circulare
The rody sterres twynkling as the fyre:
And in Aquary * Citherea the clere,

Rynsid hir tressis like the goldin wyre,
That late tofore, in faire and fresche atyre,
Thro' Capricorn heved hir hornis bright,'
North northward approchit the myd nyght.

Citherea.] This must be an error of the transcriber of the Seldenian MS. The Royal Poet must have wrote Cinthia, which agrees with the descriptive words in the 6th line, Heved hir hornis bright;' but could not be applicable to Citherea, the planet Venus in that age. Galileo, about the year 1608, near two hundred years after James I. was the first who, by the new invention of the telescope, a little before that time, discovered that the planet Venus had phases as the moon. The description of the season in this stanza is extremely poetical,

II.

Quhen as I lay in bed allone waking,
New partit out of slepe a lyte tofore,
Fell me to mynd of many diverse thing

Of this and that, can I not say quharefore,
Bot slepe for craft in erth myt I no more;
For quhich as tho' coude I no better wyle,
Bot toke a boke to rede upon a quhile:

III.

Off quhich the name is clepit properly

* Boece, efter him that was the compiloure,

* Boece.] Anicius Severinus Boethius, a senator, and of consular dignity, flourished at Rome in the reign of Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths, after Augustulus, the last of the Roman emperors, had resigned the empire. He was accused and banished to Ticinum, now Pavia, by Theodoric, for having designs of restoring the liberty of his country, and, three years after, was beheaded. His life and manners were those of a philosopher, through a long series of misfortunes, which he bore with remarkable patience and fortitude. While he was in banishment, he wrote his book De Consolatione Philosophiae. His tomb is still preserved in the church of St. Augustine at Pavia, on which is inscribed the following epitaph:

Maeonia et Latia lingua clarissimus, et qui
Consul eram hic perii missus in exilium,
Et quod mors rapuit, Probitas me vexit ad auras,
Et nunc fama viget, maxima viget opus.

Schewing counsele of philosophye,
Compilit by that nobil senatoure

Off Rome quhilome yt was the warldis floure,
And from estate by fortune a quhile
"Foringit was, to povert in exile.

IV.

And there to here this worthy lord and clerk,
His metir suete full of moralitee;
His flourit pen so fair he set a werk,
Discryving first of his prosperitee,
And out of that his infelicitee;

Boethius's book de Consolatione Philosophiae, has been esteemed in every age. In the early dawn of literature in Britain, it was translated into the Saxon language by K. Alfred, several centuries after that by Chaucer, and in the last century by Lord Preston. The philosophy is excellent, conveyed, in a pleasant manner, as a vision, and in the form of dialogue between the goddess of Philosophy, and the author, under banishment, and on the sad reverse of his fortune. Every dialogue is introduced by a short Lyric Ode, which, for Latinity and elegance, corresponds more with the genius and taste of the Augustan age, than with the barbarous times of Theodoric, and the beginning of the sixth century.

a

Foringit.] Estranged from honours and estate, and reduced to poverty.

For quhich thot I in purpose at my boke,
To borowe a slepe at thilk time began,
Or ever I stent my best was more to loke
Upon the writing of this nobil man,
That in himself the full recover wan

e

Of his infortune, poverti, and distresse,
And in tham set his verray seckernesse.

VI.

And so the vertew of his zouth before
Was in his age the ground of his delytis :
Fortune the bak him turnyt, and therefore
He makith joye and confort yt he quitis
Of theire unsekir warldis appetitis,

As

b poetly report.] This is exactly copied from the MS. Boethius introduces every chapter of his book with a lyric ode, our author means by the above, his poetical report, or theme. Such licences of making new words, for the sake of the verse, are not unfrequent with our poet, and others of that age.

Can him to confort.] Was able to comfort himself. d Stent.] Stopt or paused.

e Wan.] Won, gained.

Seckernesse.] Security, firmness, certainty.