6 Awnteris, adventures.

7 Endite, composing in verse.

8 Quick (First English "cwic," living), lively.

9 Sentence hie, high thought, weighty and terse in expression. In Puttenham's "Arte of English Poesie (1589) "sentence" is thus defined: "In weighty causes and for great purposes, wise persuaders use grave and weighty speeches, specially in matter of advice or counsel, for which purpose there is a manner of speech to allege texts or authorities of witty sentence, such as smack moral doctrine and teach wisdom and good behaviour: by the Greek original we call him the Director, by the Latin he is called Sententia: we may call him the Sage Sayer, thus . . . . and what our sovereign lady (Queen Elizabeth) writ in defiance of fortune

'Never think you Fortúne can bear the sway
Where Virtue's force can cause her to obey.'"

10 Fallows, fellows.

THE CHANGES OF LIFE.

I seek about this warld unstable,

To find ane sentence conveneable;
But I can not, in all my wit,
Sa true ane sentence find of it,
As say it is deceivable.

11 Wichtis (First English "wiht"), wights, beings.

12 In point of deid, at point of death. Walter Kennedy was a fellowpoet with whom Dunbar had " Flytings," or poetical scolding matches, a rough representation of the "tensons" of the South. The scoldings broke no bones, as the tournaments sometimes did, and were as free as the mock contests of animal strength from any personal ill will 13 On forse I maun, of need I must. So in Bacon's "Advancement of Learning:" "If they had considered... the rest of those extern characters of things, as philosophers and in nature, their inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they are." 14 Sen, since.

15 Dispone, dispose, set ourselves in order.

10 Winning, toil to procure.

u Cure (Latin "cura"), care.

"Engendered in the eyes

With gazing fed; and fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy's knell ;

I'll begin it,-Ding, dong, bell,
Ding, dong, bell.

So may the outward shows be least themselves, The world is still deceived with ornament." ("Merchant of Venice," Act iii.) 13" A small bill makes a straight reckoning" ("ragman," or "ragment," a long piece of writing, a document, an account to be settled). In the "Vision of Piers Plowman" the Pope's bull is a "ragman with which the Pardoner "raught rings and brooches." From "ragman-roll" comes "rigmarole."

14 Compare Chaucer's " And truth thee shall deliver it is no drede," page 50.

1 Graith (First English "geræ'dian "), make ready.

2 Gyes (French "guise"), disguise, mask.

3 Gamountis, legs or feet-often applied to pigs' feet. The dancers were to kick up their feet to the skies in gambades. ("Gammont" and "gammon," French " jambon," from "jambe," the leg.)

Varlets, young men, pages. The word varlet is equivalent to valet, which originally meant a youth. Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood ("Dictionary of English Etymology") observes that in the "Romaunt of the Rose" Bel Accueil is called "ung varlet bel et advenant," which Chaucer translates "a lusty bachilere."

5 Six lines follow this second stanza in the MS., which are a fragment, and which Dr. Laing believes to be not only fragmentary, but also misplaced. He places them here between the first and second stanzas. They seem, however, to satirise pride among clergy, the haughtiness of holy harlots, no matter of laughter even for Mahoun. These are the lines:

"Helie harlottis on hawtane wyiss,
Come in with mony sindrie gyiss,

Bot yit luche nevir Mahoun,

Quhill preistis come in with bair schevin nekkis;
Than all the Feyndis lewche, and maid gekkis,
Blak-belly and Bawsy-Broun."

'Bawsy-Broun," the Scottish " Brownie," not unlike the English

"Robin Goodfellow."

Began to leap at once.

7 Wyld, twisted. Cymric "chwyl," a twist.

8 Vaistic wanis, wasteful (extravagant) fashions. "Wane" (First

English "wune "), a mode or fashion.

ENVY.

From Harleian MS. 4379, p. 29.

Next in the Dance followit Envý,
Filled full of feud and feloný,

Hid malice and despite :
For privy hatred that traitor tremlit: 27
Him followit mony freik 28 dissemlit,
With fenyeit wordis quite: 29

16 In to, in.

17 Bodin, furnished (Icelandic "boa," to prepare, provide). "Well or ill boden" was an old Scottish law term for well or ill provided. 18 In feir of weir, or "in feare of were" (war), was another technical term (from First English "faran," to go; "fær," a journey) for a war march.

19 Jacks, coats, either of mail or quilted with stout leather.

20 Scryppis, bags or pouches used as knapsacks.

21 Chainit to the heel, in chain armour to the heel.

And flattereris in to men's faces;
And backbiteris in secret places,
To lie that had delight;
And rownaris' of false lesings,2
Alace! that courtis of noble kings
Of them can ne'er be quite.3

54

Mony slut, daw, 16 and sleepy duddroun,17
Him servit aye with sonnyie; 18
He drew them furth intill 19 a chain,
And Belial with a bridle rein

E'er lashed them on the lunyie : 20
In Dance they were so slaw of feet,
They gave them in the fire a heat,

And made them quicker of cunyie.21

78

GREED. Harleian MS. 4379, p. 36.

Next him in Dance came Covetýce,
Root of all evil, and ground of vice,
That never could be content:
Cativis, wretchis, and ockeraris, 4
Hudpikis, hoarders, and gadderaris,
All with that warlock went:
Out of their throats they shot on other
Het,7 molten gold, me thocht, a futher,s
As fire-flaucht9 maist fervént;

Aye as they toomit 10 them of shot,

Then Lechery, that laithly corpse,22
Came berand 23 like a baggit horse,24
And Idleness did him lead;
There was with him ane ugly sort,25
And mony stinkand foul tramort,26

That had in sin been dead:
When they were enterit in the Dance,
They were full strange of countenance,
Like torches burnand red.

[Three lines omitted.]
Then the foul monster, Gluttony,
Of wame 27 insatiable and greedý,
To Dance he did him dress: 28
Him followit mony foul drunkart,
With can and collop, cup and quart,
In surfeit and excess;

Full mony a waistless wally-drag,29
With wamis unwieldable, did furth wag,

In creesh 30 that did incress: Drink! aye they cried, with mony a gaip, The fiends gave them hait lead to laip,

Their leveray 31 was na less.

Nae minstrels playit to them but doubt,32

For gleemen there were halden out,

87

102

Be day, and eik by nicht;

Except a minstrel that slew a man,

So to his heritage he wan,

10 Toomit, emptied. Icelandic "tóm," emptiness.

11 Allkin prent, all kinds of print; die, or coinage.

12 Sweirness, laziness. First English "swæ'r," lazy.

13 Grunyie, a contemptuous word for the mouth. French "groin," snout.

14 Bumbard, perhaps droning ("bumbart," Italian "bombare," the drone bee, bumble bee). In Piers Plowman it is said of Rose the Regrater's best ale that "whoso bummed thereof bought it thereafter," where bumming seems to mean tasting with smack of the lips. 15 Belly huddroun, old Scottish term for a gluttonous sloven. "Huddroun" means one flabby and slovenly. Jamieson derives the corresponding word "hudderin" from the Teutonic "huyderen," to have the udder distended.

31 Their leveray, that which was given to them (livrée," delivered: a servant's livery is so called because given to him by his employer). 32 But doubt, without doubt. Poets have no place in hell. Six lines are deficient in all the MSS. at the beginning of this stanza.

33 A Hielan' Padyane, a Highland pageant or entertainment. The Highlanders were in those days little loved by the lowland Scots, on whom they made descents for plunder, and who were used as auxiliaries in the rough court feuds of the Lowlanders. 34 Neuch, nook, corner.

33 Be he, by the time that he. 36 Ersche men. Erse men, Gaels, as the Highlanders were.

Two allegorical poems, besides his translation made in 1512-13-the first in our literature of Virgil's "Eneid," form the substance of the literary work of Dunbar's contemporary, Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, who was born about the year 1474. His father was Archibald, Earl of Angus, known as "Bell-the-Cat." In 1494 he graduated as M.A. in the University of St. Andrews. Among his earlier church preferments was the office of Provost of St. Giles in Edinburgh. This he received about the year 1501, in which the longer of his two allegorical poems, the "Palace of Honour," was completed; and "King Hart," by which he is here to be represented, belongs to the years between 1501 and 1512. Gavin Douglas lost afterwards his two elder brothers at Flodden Field, where fell also the Archbishop of St. Andrews. Queen Margaret nominated Douglas to the primacy, but, unable to make good the appointment against other claimants, he retired, and was made Bishop of Dunkeld in 1515. But his after life was much troubled, and in 1521 he was driven to take refuge in England, where Henry VIII. received him well, but he died of the plague in the next year, 1522.