I..

In the last week of December, 1501, a large banquet was given by the Lord Mayor of London. The reception was held in honour of distinguished visitors-special ambassadors from the King of Scotland-who had come to conclude negotiations in connection with his marriage with Margaret, the young daughter of Henry VII. Among the retinue of the ambassadors was a poet, small of stature and of vivacious temperament, who, on this occasion, was inspired to write a poem in praise of the city of London, and shortly afterwards received from King Henry a not inconsiderable gift of money in return. "Dunbar, the Rhymer of Scotland," is the name given in the old chronicles to this poet, whose genius so immeasurably excelled all the contemporary poets in England.

William Dunbar was at this time six and forty years of age, but had already a somewhat full life behind him. A scion of the noble house of Dunbar, and a relative of the Earl of March, he had from his earliest youth been distined for the Church, and, it was hoped, would one day rise to occupy the highest of its gifts, which, however, it was never his good fortune to obtain. We are told that even as a babe he was sung to sleep on his nurse's knee to the refrain of "Dandeley, bishop, dandeley." And this idea was firmly adhered to even after the strong sensuousness and passionate nature of the young man had distinctly manifested itself. Perhaps, owing to his sanguine temperament, he himself held longest to this hope of being able to reach the goal that had once been held up before him, and did so, in fact, even when other paths had become closed to him.

He had received an academical education at St. Andrews, and took his degree of Master of Arts there in 1479. Then he entered the Order of the Franciscans, "preached and flattered," led a gay life, wandering over a great part of

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Scotland and England, and travelled even as far as Picardy. He contrived, however, to free himself again from these religious fetters, hence had probably never solemnly pledged himself by a vow. What his doings had otherwise been, down to the accession of James IV. (1489), remains unknown.

The reign of this chivalrous, gifted, and, in spite of all his weaknesses, an amiable monarch, was the period when the still youthful poetry of Scotland burst into full bloom. The close connection between art-poetry and popularpoetry, the free and eminently national tendency which Scottish literature had struck out for itself, in the first stages of its development, all afforded the most admirable preliminary conditions. While the favour of circumstances, the gradual rise of learning, together with Dunbar's own refined and liberal education, and the political situation of the moment, including the disposition and inclinations of the King-which impressed themselves on his courtcompleted the happy constellation. James's bravery, his affable nature, and his intellectual energy, which enabled him with ease to master a number of the European languages besides Latin, his interest in poetry, nay, even his merry and gallant adventures, which were by no means of an objectionable character,-all this combined to create an atmosphere very advantageous for poetry. Accordingly, we have a number of names of poets handed down to us from that period, without our being able, in most cases, to do more than obtain a very uncertain idea of them, and in the more favourable cases our knowledge of them is based only upon a couple of small productions which have accidentally been preserved.

At King James's court Dunbar, too, found a sphere of activity, and he received recognition both as a poet and as a man of business.

Dunbar is not one of those fond of displaying their "learning," yet his accomplishments were by no means insignificant. He was, doubtless, intimately acquainted with Latin and French, and, in spite of his contempt. for the Gaels, he probably-like his King-understood their language. He was well read in Scottish poetry and also in Chaucer and other English poets. Ovid, Vergil, and

DUNBAR'S EARLY POEMS.

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But,

especially Horace, had been studied industriously. above all, he had gradually acquired a great knowledge of the world and of mankind.

The poems of his earlier years were probably mainly of the erotic species: tender love-songs with a play upon words, allegorical poems, and also merry tales and narratives. Among the latter is the lyrico-epic apologue The Tod (Fox) and the Lamb, which, in all probability, belongs to the last decade of the fifteenth century. The poem treats of a loveadventure of the merry-hearted monarch, which seems to have had a comical end. James, of course, is the fox, the lady the lamb, and the wolf, from whom the fox tries to conceal himself, probably the jealous husband. The adventure took place in Dunfermline, where Robert Henryson wrote his "Fables." Dunbar may have obtained from Henryson a general idea as to how to dress up his material. But what a contrast we have in Dunbar's clever, piquant description and reckless spirit-nay, the whole tone of his work, with its worldliness and even ribaldry—when it is compared with the staid and somewhat pedantic manner of the honest "schoolmaster!"

Great is the influence of Chaucer-whether direct or indirect-made evident in these poems. And yet Dunbar's own peculiar style is already apparent that trait of pointed epigram which recalls the French genius, that free attitude, equally far removed from anything conventional and courtlike as from the ordinary and commonplace; and his verse and strophe-notwithstanding their strictly artistic construction and exquisite flow-show a simpler method, more akin to that of the folk-poetry.

To the tenth decade belong also some of his satirical poems, such as The Flyting of Dunbar and Walter Kennedy, a poem bristling with violent invectives and coarse-grained salt; Kennedy was a poet of some renown at that period, but is little known to us now. To this period belongs also Dunbar's spirited and pungent Tidings fra the Session,* in which a peasant returning from Edinburgh tells his neighbours, at their request, of his experiences at the law

*The form of this poem corresponds exactly with that of The Tod and the Lamb: strophes of seven octosyllabic lines, the last acting as a refrain, with the rhyme-order of aa bb c b c.

courts. Even that merry and waggish poem, Dunbar's Dirige to the King at Stirling, which applies the images of purgatory and heaven to Stirling and Edinburgh, and parodies the Church prayers for the dead in a somewhat profane manner, may be assigned to this period.

Much as King James enjoyed amusing himself, he did not, amid his pleasures, forget the more serious duties of life. After 1489 he determined to make a suitable marriage, and looked about among the different courts for a princess. Spain, France, the Emperor, and even the Pope were applied to, and finally, after 1500, negotiations were entered into with England, where his proposal met with ready acceptance. Dunbar had not held himself aloof from these proceedings; at all events, he had joined some of the embassies entrusted with the matter-perhaps as their secretary. In 1491, accordingly, he went to France, and would have travelled on to Italy had he not been prevented by the snow on the Alps, and was thus compelled to remain the winter in Paris. In 1501, as we have seen, he was in London.

When Margaret Tudor, who was scarcely more than a child, came to Scotland in 1503 to be married and crowned, Dunbar received her with his poem, The Thistle and the Rose, which, according to its last line, he wrote or had at all events thought out, on the 9th of May. In order worthily to celebrate the union between the English and Scottish royal families, a poet in those days could scarcely have dispensed with allegorical machinery, and the emblems of their crests lay here at his disposal. As a prototype for the plan of his work, Dunbar may have had in his mind Chaucer's "Parlement of Fowls," which had been composed for a similar occasion; but besides this there are reminiscences from other poems of Chaucer's, especially his "Knight's Tale." In place of old Africanus we have here Mistress May, who comes to the poet early one morning and calls upon him to write something in her honour. When she leaves him, he follows her, and comes to a beautiful garden where he sees the sun rise, and listens to the song of the birds. Nature tells Neptune and Æolus not to disturb the water or the air, and commands Juno to keep the heavens clear and dry. By means of three