men, nature and religion, the fashions and abuses of his epoch, with the grave, observant amiability of a true poet; he was directly in sympathy with many things; he loved to read and to laugh; it was his business to moralise and teach. It was natural that he should choose the fable as a means of expressing himself. It was fortunate as well; for his fables are perhaps the best in the language, and are worthy of consideration and regard even after La Fontaine himself. To a modern eye his dialect is distressingly quaint and crabbed. In his hands, however, it is a right instrument, narrow in compass, it may be, but with its every note sonorous and responsive. To know the use he made of it in dialogue, he must be studied in Robyne and Makyne, the earliest English pastoral; or at such moments as that of the conversation between the widows of the Cock who has just been snatched away by the Fox; or in the incomparable Taile of the Wolf that got the Nek-Herring throw the Wrinkis of the Fox that Begylit the Cadgear, which, outside La Fontaine, I conceive to be one of the high-water marks of the modern apologue. In such poems as The Three Deid Powis, where he has anticipated a something of Hamlet at Yorick's grave, as The Abbey Walk, the Garmond of Fair Ladies, the Reasoning between Age and Youth, it is employed as a vehicle for the expression of austere thought, of quaint conceitedness, of solemn and earnest devotion, of satirical comment, with equal ease and equal success. As a specimen of classic description-as the classic appeared to the mediæval mind—I should like to quote at length his dream of Æsop. As a specimen of what may be called the choice and refined realism that informs his work, we may give a few stanzas from the prelude to his Testament of Cresseid. It was winter, he says, when he began his song, but, he adds, in despite of the cold, "Within mine orature I stude, when Titan with his bemis bricht Withdrawin doun, and sylit2 undercure, And fair Venus, the beauty of the nicht, Hir goldin face, in oppositioun Throwout the glass hir bemis brast so fair The northin wind had purifyit the air, And sched the misty cloudis fra the sky'. Fra Pole Artick came quhistling loud and schill, I mend the fire, and beikit2 me about, Than tuik a drink my spreitis to comfort, To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort, Of fair Cresseid and lusty Troilus.' In this charming description Henryson, by the use of simple and natural means and by the operation of a principle of selection that is nothing if not artistic, has produced an impression that would not disgrace a poet skilled in the knacks and fashions of the most pictorial school. Indeed I confess to having read in its connection a poem that might in many ways be imitated from it (La Bonne Soirée), and to feeling and seeing more with Henryson than with Théophile Gautier. W. E. HENLEY. The wind had swept from the wide atmosphere, THE GARMOND OF FAIR LADIES Wald my gud Lady lufe me best, Off hie honour suld be hir hud, Na demyng1 suld hir deir2. Hir sark suld be hir body nixt, With schame and dreid togidder mixt, Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance, 4 The mailyheis of continuance For nevir to remufe. Hir gown suld be of gudliness Hir belt suld be of benignitie, Hir mantill of humilitie, To tholl bayth wind and weit. Hir hat suld be of fair having Hir slevis suld be of esperance, Hir schone1 suld be of sickernes 2, Wald scho put on this Garmond gay, THE TAILL OF THE LYOUN AND THE MOUS. Ane Lyoun at his pray wery foirrun, To recreat his limmis and to rest, Beikand his breist and bellie at the sone, Under ane tree lay in the fair forrest, Swa' come ane trip of Myis out of thair nest, He lay so still, the Myis wes nocht effeird 13 Sum spairit nocht to claw him on the face; Till at the last the nobill Lyoun woke, And with his pow 14 the maister Mous he tuke. Scho gaif ane cry, and all the laif1 agast Thair dansing left, and hid thame sone allquhair ; ; And said, Allace! oftymes, that scho come thair 3 Of lyfe and deith to thoill the jugement.' Thow wes, to mak out ouer me thy tripping. Heir quhat I say, and tak in pacience; 5 And syne thy mychtie hie magnificence: And mak sic mirth as Nature to us leird, That, be my saull, we wend 10 ye had bene deid, 'Sall nocht availl ane myte, I underta11: And syne my skyn bene stoppit 12 full of stra, 10 thought. |