Death, fate, nor fortune, as the elegist says, are not to be blamed; the princess's perfections should be allegiance to sorrow for her death: Let be thi mane and murne for hir no mare, may last brittle elements paid death in full has a thousand wight years Take gud comfurte and leife in hop of grace, shortcomings Amen. This poem is interesting alike for the pathos of the event it celebrates, the period of the language it illustrates, and the matter and manner. At the end of the same eleventh book is another poem, a Moralitas, apparently by the same author, 'exhibiting the state of the kingdom of Scotland under the figure of a harp'-then the Scottish national instrument of music-in some forty sevenline stanzas, opening thus: key (?) I 2 muted 3 Rycht as all stryngis are rewlyt in a harpe ruled, tuned In ane accord and turnyt all be ane uth, Quhilk is as kyng, than curiusly thai carpe; The sang is sueit quhen that the sound is suth; Bot quhen thai ar discordand, fals, and muth Thaire wil na man tak plesance in that play, Thai mycht weill thole the menstrale war away. Exquisitely they play. 2 Sooth, true. 3 Well endure, be glad. The poet gives a poor account of the administration of justice and of the state of the kingdom generally, and the poem is an exhortation to the king, presumably James II. In one verse he hints pretty broadly that they do these things better in France, oddly suggesting that the French Parliament would not be so complaisant to the powers as the Scottish one : War it in France men wald mak cession hale Cockelbies Sow is a curious medley, partly a boisterous burlesque ruder in form than Skelton's rudest, partly a sort of fable, and partly a tale of knightly prowess and true love exalted to rank It has not been noted that in 1483 and power. Sir John ye Ros, King's Advocate and one of Dunbar's 'makars,' had to defend his title, as laird of Montgreenan in Kilwinning, to the lands of Cockilbie or Cokylby in the adjoining parish of Kilmaurs. The Wowing of Jok and Jynny is very rude love-making; the Gyre-Carling, on the adventures of the Mother Witch of Scottish superstition, is much coarser if not more uncouth; King Berdok is a fragmentary caricature of chivalrous romance; The Wife of Auchtermuchty is a homely Scottish but distinctly amusing version of a widespread folk-tale of rivalry between husband and wife; Symmie and his Bruther is a satire, not without point, against pardoners or begging friars. The Hermeit of Alareit-Loretto, near Musselburgh-is a rude but pithy satire on the Grey Friars, and is quoted by Knox in his History. The work of the fifth Earl of Glencairn, a strenuous Reformer, who died in 1574, it is much later in date than most of the pieces just named. Grey Steill is a modernised version of a really old but poor romance. Clariodus is another Middle Scotch romance, based on a French original, and first published for the Maitland Club in 1830. Recent researches, including those of Dr Curtis on its rimes and phonology (Anglia, 1894-95), and of Dr Bülbring, who edits it for the E.E.T.S., tend to show that it belongs to the first half of the sixteenth century. Roswall and Lillian exists only in a modernised shape, and is probably English in origin (see Englische Studien, vol. xvi.). Philotus, first printed in 1603, is a comedy, in vernacular verse, of the inconveniences of a marriage between age and youth; it was reprinted by the Bannatyne Club in 1835. The Three Priests of Peblis, also partially modernised in spelling, is a more notable performance than most of the above; the tales told by three Churchmen in a hostelry in Peebles while the capons were roasting are in many ways interesting and readable. Maister Johne tells how a king summoned the Three Estates of the realm, and asked first the Burgesses, Quhy Burges bairns thryves not to the thrid air, heir why the wealth of merchant-princes is squandered before the third generation-a question quite easily answered, with many side-lights on Scottish mercantile and domestic ways. His Lords he asks, Quhairfoir and quhy and quhat is the cais cause and why they are so perpetually at feud with one another a question the answer to which involved more self-examination. The question addressed to the Clergy or Prelates was : That is to say, Quhairfoir and quhy And throw thair prayers, maid to God of micht, illness healing Til al thay wald be mendis and medecyne. And quhairfoir now in your tyme ye warie; As thay did than quhairfoir sa may not ye; Quhairfoir may not ye as thay did than? Declair me now this questioun, gif ye can— perhaps the sorest home - thrust of the three. Warying or excommunication is represented both by satirists and reformers as the main occupation of the Scottish clergy in the sixteenth century. There are parallels to this poem in that strange mosaic, The Complaynt of Scotlande, and in more than one of Lyndsay's works; the satire is not so bitter as in Lyndsay, and the priests evidently meant to amuse as well as edify one another and the readers. And there are Chaucerian touches in thought as well as in word. Thus the iterations of Quhairfoir & quhy and quhat is the cais? are quite like those of Good Sir, tell me all hoolly In what wise, how, why, and wherefore, in Blaunche the Duchesse. The ballad Tayis Bank, referred to the reign of James IV., combines a comparatively modern ballad rhythm with superabundant alliteration, and in spite of much over-ornate and artificial phrasing, has some happy touches. It may have been written to the old tune Twysbank, mentioned in Colkelbie, and seems meant to celebrate the praises of Margaret Drummond, a favourite mistress of James IV., who died of poison : Quhen Tayis bonk wes blumyt brycht, The poet seems to have become confused between the beauty of the landscape, the flowers, the birds, the weather, and the lady's charms; the story does not progress, and ends abruptly, without anything happening except the birds 'schowtting.' Peblis to the Play and Chrystis Kirk of the Grene are old poems of which the authorship has been much debated and is still debatable. They have much in common, and might have been the work of one author, though Chrystis Kirk, which refers to Peblis expressly, must be the later of the two, and is of more vigorous workmanship than the other. In 1521 John Major credited King James I. with a poem beginning At Beltayne, and Peblis so begins, though there is nothing else to prove them identical. The Bannatyne MS. Collection (1568) attributes Chrystis Kirk also to James I., and a later tradition - perhaps based on a misprint of Fift' for 'First'-refers it to James V. (to whom, with as little ground, The Gaberlunzie Man and The Folly Beggar have also been attributed). The tradition is at best rather vague and confused, and most authorities, including Professor Skeat, unhesitatingly refuse to admit that James I. had anything to do with either of the poems in question. It is certainly difficult to associate the peculiar and characteristic humour of these poems with the author of the Kingis Quair, and it is not easy to believe that either of them was written before 1437. The tendency of criticism is to refer both to some time in the sixteenth century, probably near the beginning of it. Professor Skeat has argued against the theory of James I.'s authorship in his introduction to the Kingis Quair; Mr Henderson has defended it in his Scottish Vernacular Literature, crediting the comic poems as well as the Quair to James I. Peblis and Chrystis Kirk are the first full-fledged examples of a genre which was to be very conspicuous in Scottish literature-descriptions in rattling stanzas of popular amusements, giving full play to any contretemps and comic incidents that might arise. There are analogies in Cockelbies Sow and in several of Lyndsay's poems; Robert Sempill's Piper of Kilbarchan and Francis Sempill's (?) Blythsome Bridal and Hallow Fair are in the same vein; Allan Ramsay continued Chrystis Kirk by adding a second series of very similar, but coarser, adventures; and the same kind of humour appears again in Fergusson's Leith Races and Hallow Fair, in several of Burns's, Holy Fair, Jolly Beggars, Halloween, and other characteristic poems, and in Tennant's Anster Fair. In the earlier poems the incidents are rude and the fun not very humorous, though the go and spirit are undeniable. Peblis makes more of the dancing and lovemaking, Chrystis Kirk of the quarrelling and fighting with fists, cudgels, and even more deadly weapons. Peblis in some of its twenty-six stanzas, and Chrystis Kirk in many of its twenty-three, add copious and effective but unsystematic alliteration. 6 Pinkerton published the poem in 1783 from a transcript made by Bishop Percy with his own hand from the MS. at Cambridge. We follow Pinkerton, only modifying his punctuation a little for sense's sake. 'Play,' like ploy' in modern Scotch, means entertainment, festivity. It is noticeable that the last line or refrain of the stanza does not as a rule connect in sense with the words preceding. The stanzas are usually printed (as by Pinkerton) with a short line of two syllables between the eighth and last lines. The Bannatyne MS., however (printed for the Hunterian Society), tacks this short line on to the eighth in the quite similar stanza of Chrystis Kirk— of which the following are the first four stanzas : Was nevir in Scotland hard nor sene At Chrystis kirk of the grene. Scho skornit Jok and skraipit at him, And mvrionit him with mokkis; flouted He wald haif luvit, scho wald nocht lat him, For all his yalow loikkis : locks hang counted-beetles He chereist hir, scho bad ga chat him, limbs -distaffs In a rage 'ane bent a bow' and 'chesit a flame' -chose an arrow; and when the toder said Dirdum dardum' to insult him, he let fly, determining to pierce him through the cheeks or inflict other serious injury: Bot be an akerbraid it come nocht neir him; At Chrystis kirk of the grene. With that a freynd of his cryd Fy! And vp ane arrow drew; He forgit it so fowriously marred drew it so furiously fragments Finally there was a general mêlée, bloody faces, cudgels in use, 'hiddous yells' from the women ; the common bell rang so rudely that the steeple 'rokkit,' and many of the merrymakers are left on the green faint and 'forfochin' or in a state of collapse. The scene of this Scottish Donnybrook may have been the village still called Christ's Kirk or Rathmuriel, near Insch, in Aberdeenshire. If the bob-wheel of the third stanza (especially) be dropped, the resemblance in rhythm to 'Sally in our Alley' is very marked. The rude is the red or ruddy part of the skin-here the cheeks; the lyre the part naturally white. The Scottish ballads are treated at pages 520–541. In this connection reference may be made to the pieces named in The Complaynt of Scotlande, and to the list of works Lyndsay (q.v.) says he read to the young king; to Lord Hailes, Ancient Scottish Poems (1770); Pinkerton. Ancient Scotish Poems (1786); Irving, History of Scotish Poetry (1828-61); Laing, Early Popular Poetry of Scotland (1822-26; republished in 1895); T. F. Hender son, Scottish Vernacular Literature (1898); to many of the publications of the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, and of the Scottish Text Society; as also to the Bannatyne MS., as published in full by the Hunterian Club of Glasgow (8 parts, 1874-87). John Major was one of two contemporary Scottish authors who wrote only in Latin, and deserve mention for their eminence and for their influence on the thought of the nation: one is conspicuously, yet not wholly, a mediævalist, the other in literary style at least a representative of the Renaissance. Major-or Mair-born near North Berwick in 1469, studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris, and at Paris became one of the most distinguished lecturers on scholastic logic and philosophy. He also wrote voluminous commentaries on Peter Lombard and numerous other works in theology and philosophy, and in 1521 printed at Paris his famous Historia Majoris Britanniæ, a history of England and Scotland. In 1518 he was teaching in the college of Glasgow, where he had Knox among his pupils; at St Andrews (1523-25) he had Patrick Hamilton and George Buchanan. In 1525 Major returned to Paris, where he remained till about 1530, admired and honoured by all who still held out against the new light of the Renaissance, and acclaimed as head of the scholastic philosophy and prince of the divines of Paris. In 1533 he became provost of St Salvator's College, St Andrews, an office which he held till his death in 1550. Mair's Latin is crabbed school Latin, and he was a stout defender of mediæval philosophy and theological orthodoxy, althougha Gallican and not an ultramontane-he recognised and protested against many ecclesiastical abuses. In some things he was more modern in spirit than Boece. He was distinctly sceptical about many of the marvels Boece swallowed wholesale; he abstained from pushing the genealogy of the Scottish kings into an indefinite antiquity; he was not unwilling to admit the superiority of England to Scotland in many matters, and was in favour of a union of the kingdoms. But most chiefly he was a strong Liberal in politics, and taught that the power of kings came from the people. In this respect Buchanan was a faithful if not very grateful pupil. Knox inherited this part of his teaching, which has never lacked supporters in Major's native land. The History has been admirably translated by Mr Constable (Scottish Hist. Soc. 1891). In the appendix Dr Law has given a bibliography of works by Major's countrymen in Paris who were also his disciples in scholasticism-David Cranstoun, George Lokert [Lockhart], William Manderston, and Robert Caubraith [Galbraith]. Hector Boece was the principal redactor of that extraordinary tissue of preposterous fable and serious fact which till the days of Father Innes (1729) was usually accepted as the history of Scotland. He was born at Dundee about 1465, and studied at Paris, where from about 1492 to 1498 he was a professor of philosophy and a friend of Erasmus. Thence he was called by Bishop Elphinstone to preside over his newly-founded university of Aberdeen, and became canon of the Cathedral. In 1522 he published his Lives, in Latin, of the Bishops of Mortlach and Aberdeen (Bannatyne Club, 1825; trans. by Moir for New Spalding Club, 1895); in 1527, also in Latin, his famous History of Scotland. He based largely on Bower's Fordun (see above, page 182), partly on Wyntoun, and partly on some more doubtful authorities-a certain Veremundus, a Spaniard, and one John Campbell, whose MSS.' he says came to him from Iona. It may be that he had seen such MSS., though he was long suspected of having invented them as well as the tales he took from them. Certainly the fabulous reached its culmination in his work, written in Latin so comparatively elegant as to justify us in calling him a humanist, in contrast with the scholastic yet more critical Major. Buchanan was also much more discreet, though he followed Boece in the main. The patriotic mania for believing and proving the incomparable antiquity and dignity of the Scottish monarchy, as compared with that of England, must have moved either Boece or some of his predecessors to the deliberate invention of utterly baseless facts, which, patriotically invented, were patriotically believed in long after their baselessness was pretty obvious. The king rewarded him with a pension, and he was promoted to a benefice a year or two before his death in 1536. (See page 256.) The Scots Wyclifite New Testament.— It has often been remarked with surprise that the Scots had made no attempt to render the Scriptures into their own vernacular, but were content to import English versions, which must have been with difficulty understood by the mass of the people. The statement can, however, no longer be made so absolutely. In 1895 Lord Amherst of Hackney became the fortunate possessor of a manuscript, which from the handwriting is ascribed to the first decade of the sixteenth century, containing a Scottish version of Purvey's revision of Wyclif's New Testament (see above, page 87), with certain lessons from the Old Testament. The author's name is unknown, but the work probably proceeded from the Lollards of Ayrshire; and the manuscript was for many generations in the possession of the Nisbet family. The vocabulary of this interesting version is not so distinctly Scottish as it would have been if it had been made directly from the Vulgate; for, though the grammar and spelling are purely Scottish, the reviser has followed Purvey closely in his vocabulary, making alterations only where the English would have been unintelligible or unfamiliar north of the Tweed. Thus Purvey writes, Suffre ye litle children to come to me, and forbede ye hem not.' The Scots version similarly, Suffir ye litil childire to cum to me, and forbid ye thame nocht;' while in Archbishop Hamilton's Catechism (1552) we have, 'Thoile young barnis to cum.' But the list of Middle English words and phrases for which the Scottish reviser was constrained to find for his readers more familiar expressions is a large one, and it is this which gives to his version for students of the language an almost unique philological value. In the Scots New Testament the last eight verses of the first chapter of Matthew's gospel are thus worded: Bot the generatioun of Crist was thus: Quhen Marie the Moder of Jesu was spousit to Joseph, before thai com togeddir, scho was fundin hauyng of the Haligast in wambe. And Joseph hir husband, for he was richtiuse, and wald not publice hir, he wald priuelie haue left hir. Bot quhile he thouchte this thingis, Lo the angel of the Lord apperit to him in slepe, and said, Josephe, the sonn of Dauid, wil thou nocht drede to tak Marie thin wif: for that that is born of hir is of the Haligast. And scho sal bere a sonn, and thou sal cal his name Jesus: for he sal mak his pepele saif fra thar synnis: Forsuth al this was done that it suld be fulfillit that was said of the Lorde be a prophet, sayand, Lo a virgine sal haue in wambe, and scho sal bere a sonn, and thai sal cal his name Emmanuel, that is to say, God with vs. And Joseph raise fra slepe and did as the angel of the Lord comandit him, and tuke Marie his spous: and he knew hir nocht til scho had born hir first begettin sonn: and callit his name Jesus. How closely this follows the English rendering from which it was adapted will be seen on comparing Purvey's version of the same passage as given in Dr Skeat's Wyclifite New Testament, reprinted from Forshall and Madden (Clarendon Press, 1879): But the generacioun of Crist was thus. Whanne Marie, the modir of Jhesu, was spousid to Joseph, bifore thei camen togidere, she was foundun hauynge of the Hooli Goost in the wombe. And Joseph, hire hosebonde, for he was rightful and wold not puplisch hir, he wolde pruieli haue left hir. But while he thoughte these thingis, lo! the aungel of the Lord apperide in sleep to hym, and seide, Joseph the sone of Dauid, nyl thou drede to take Marie, thi wijf; for that thing that is borun in hir is of the Hooli Goost. And she shal bere a sone, and thou shalt clepe his name Jhesus; for he schal make his puple saaf fro her synnes. For al this thing was don, that it schuld be fulfillid that was seid of the Lord bi a prophete, seiynge, Lo! a virgyn shal haue in wombe, and she schal bere a sone and thei schulen clepe his name Emanuel, that is to seie, God with vs. And Joseph roos fro sleepe and dide as the aungel of the Lord comaundide hym, and took Marie his wijf; and he knew her not, til she hadde borun her firste bigete sone, and clepide his name Jhesus. The Parable of the Virgins begins thus in the Scots, in direct agreement with the English: Than the kingdome of heuinis salbe like to ten virginis, the quhilk tuke thare lampis and went out aganes the spouse and the spouses. And v of thame war fules, and v prudent. Bot the v fules tuke thare lampis, and tuke nocht oile with thame: Bot the v prudent tuke oile in thare veschels with thare lampis. And while the spouse V tariet al thai nappit and slepit. Bot at midnycht a crie was made, Lo the spouse cummis: ga ye out to meet him. Than a the virginis raise vp and arayit thare lampis. And the fules said to the wise, Gefe ye to vs of your oile for our lampis ar sloknyt [Engl. ben quenchid']. The prudent ansuerde and saide, Or peraventure it suffice nocht to vs and you: ga ye rather to men that sellis and by to you. And quhile thai went for to by, the spouse com; and thai that war reddy enteret with him to the weddingis: and the yet was closet. T. G. L. [This Scots New Testament, interesting from so many points of view, was in 1899-1900 being edited for the Scottish Text Society by Dr Thomas Graves Law, to whom we owe the above account of the work, as well as the extracts from it. ་ The close dependence of the Scots version on Purvey's English wording is conspicuous in every verse, the usual difference being merely that Scots spellings or forms are put-word for word-in place of the corresponding English or southern ones-ga and gais for go and goith; fra for fro; kirk for chirche; quhat, quhen, quham for what, when, whome; thou knawis' for 'thou knowist;' 'quhy brekis thy disciplis' for 'whi breken thi disciplis;' and so on. Sometimes, of course, a distinct northern word is used-biggit his hous on a staan' for 'bildid his hous on a stoon.' Rarely the changes seem needless and arbitrary; but mirk and mirknesse are regularly substituted for derk and derkness, though derk is a common Scots word. Not seldom, as might be expected from the date and other circumstances, the Scottish version is nearer the modern English than the old English; rarely, but occasionally, more archaic. In Matthew's gospel there are only two or three passages in which the Scottish scribe either deliberately chooses a slightly different rendering, or perhaps follows a copy with readings different from those of the printed editions of Purvey; thus in All be that travailes and ben chargid, come to me, and Y schal fulfille you,' the Scots makes it, 'Al ye that travales and ar chargit, cum to me, and I sal refresch you,' where the older Wyclifite version has 'fulfille or refresch;' and in the phrase 'schal not quenche a smokynge flax,' the Scots has 'slokin a smewkand brand.' Almost the only word that need seriously puzzle a Scotsman who knows modern Scotch is in the phrase 'a flok of mony swyne lesewand '—lesewand, unusual in Scotch, being an adapted Scottish spelling of the standard old English lesewynge, 'pasturing,' which is Purvey's word. The Scots has peple for the English puple (people), paralasie for palesie, except for outtakun, adultrie for avowtrie, thaim and thair for hem and her (in the sense of them and their), abide and abidis for abiden and abidith, realme for reume, liand for liggynge, cail for ciepe, follow for sue, seuche for diche-gif a blindman leid a blindman bathe falle doun into the seuche.' The English toon and tothir are not represented in Scots by tane and tother, but by that ane and that vther. English taris is Scots (with gloss) dornells (or weidis); sour douz becomes sour dauche (or laven); busschel is buschel (or furlot); eris of corn are ekiris (Burns's ickers); strongere becomes starker; pathis, roddis; gessen, wene; greten, salus; repen, scheris; herying, louyng; mesils, lepermen. In the parable of the talents we have besaunt (Engl.) and besand respectively, 'pupplicans and hooris' and 'puplicanis and hures.' In 'synagogis or corneris of stretis' the Scotsman rejects the French word corneris (Fr. cornière) and prefers the Anglo-Saxon neukis. Chandelar is one of the very few cases where the Scots prefers a French form for the English candilstike. Describing Christ's boat 'schoggid with wawis' (so Purvey), the Scotsman puts 'catchet with waivis ;' and for 'hilid with wawes,' 'keuerit with waivis' (i.e. covered). The 'reed wawed with the wynd' becomes, less solemnly, 'waggit with wind.' 'Nouther cast ye your margaritis befor swyne' is the Scots respelling of 'nethir caste 3e 3our margaritis before swyne;' and Purvey's description of Matthew 'sittynge in a tolbothe' (i.e. in the customhouse) is faithfully reproduced in the Scots 'sittand in a tolbuthe,' The Scots simply repeats the English mutatis mutandis in 'draw on breed thar philateries and magnifies hemmis;' 'that teendis mynt' is an obvious alteration; less so 'clengeand a myge bot suelliand a camele' for 'clensinge a gnatte but swolewynge a camele.' 'Eddris and eddris birdis ' is almost literatim (= vipers and generation of vipers); and so is 'abhominatioun of discomfort' (A.V. 'desolation'). The Scots has 'tolbuthe' again where the English has moot halle' for the hall in the governor's house where Christ was crowned with thorns. 'Pilate of Pounce 'in both oddly represents Pontius Pilate; and 'Symount' or 'Symont,' the usual form in the English, is in the Scots 'Symon.'-ED.] |