The public faith shall save our souls, But when our faith and works fall down, Our acts will bear us up to heaven, SONG.-The Royalist. [Written in 1646.] Come, pass about the bowl to me; A health to our distressed king! When storms do fall, and shall not we? 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; Our heads shall turn as round as theirs, 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. Are circular like Plato's year, 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; To yield to worth it must be nobly done; In base revenge there is no honour won. We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield; A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn. To scorn to bear an injury in mind; 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: : Rondel of Love. Lo what it is to luve, Learn ye that list to pruve, By me, I say, that no ways may, The grund of greif remuve. But still decay, both nicht and day; Lo what it is to luve ! Luve is ane fervent fire, Kendillit without desire, Short plesour, lang displesour; Repentance is the hire; Ane pure tressour, without messour; Luve is ane fervent fire. Lethington Castle. daughter acted as amanuensis to the aged poet. His familiar style reminds us of that of Lyndsay. Satire on the Town Ladies. Some wifis of the borowstoun And of fine silk their furrit clokis, Their wilicoats maun weel be hewit, I trow wha wald the matter speir, Their woven hose of silk are shawin, Their collars, carcats, and hause beidis !4 Their shoon of velvet, and their muilis ! And some will spend mair, I hear say, Leave, burgess men, or all be lost, Of burgess wifis though I speak plain, 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 jargon of the jangling jays, They deave't me with their din. Can on his May-cock call; The turtle wails on wither'd trees, Repeating, with greeting, I saw the hurcheon and the hare The bearded buck clamb up the brae Some feeding, some dreading Had trinkled mony a tear; Wherewith their heavy heads declined Some knoping, some dropping Of balmy liquor sweet, Excelling and smelling Through Phoebus' wholesome heat. 1 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 Thy glory, when the day forth flies, The shadow of the earth anon Whilk soon perceive the little larks, The lapwing and the snipe; And tune their song like Nature's clerks, 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, Than they were painted on a wall, The rivers fresh, the caller streams The condition of the Scottish labourer would seem to have been then more comfortable than at present, and the elimate 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 The perfect form of every tree The salmon out of cruives and creels, The bells and circles on the weills O sure it were a seemly thing, While all is still and calm, All labourers draw hame at even, Thanks to the gracious God of heaven, 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, Did dewlie helse all thame on earth do dwell. As beasts to feid, and birds to sing with beir, 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. 14 |