"Thanks to the Gracious God of Heaven

Quhilk sent this summer day."

The poem altogether is of an extremely pleasing cast. The author paints to the eye; and with an ease which shews him to have been a fond and diligent observer of nature. At the same time, it is impossible not to perceive marks of deficiency arising from the restraint which he had imposed on himself, with respect to the class of subjects, worthy of being, in his opinion, included within the "right use of poesy." As if it were only in external nature that the Almighty hand is to be discovered, the affections of the heart have no place in his description; and while almost every other living being is depicted, woman alone is not once mentioned from the beginning to the end of the poem. How differently has Milton sung of the morning!

"When the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe;
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale."

Who can be insensible to the charm which the last couplet throws over the whole of this passage? But the point will not admit of argument. A "Summer's Day" without "a tale under the hawthorn," is just as contrary to nature, as a Winter's day without a fire, and a story by the fire-side.

Still, as already observed, Hume deserves praise for setting even the limited example which he did of a

greater attention to nature than had before been general with our poets. His example, it is true, produced no followers; but that is to be ascribed partly to the neglect into which the Scottish tongue and Scottish poetry fell, on the removal of James the Sixth to England, and partly to the civil and religious dissentions which agitated the country, and "withered the laurels on the brows of her bards."

In every age which generous spirits bore,
The muse was cherish'd, and had strength to soar;
Disturb'd by civil tumult, she withdrew,
From cities far, and lay conceal'd from view :
So the bright passion flower, in sunshine days
Its varied colour to the light displays;

But when the black'ning sun pours down a storm,
Close folds its leaves, and hides its radiant form;
Nor can the careful florist then behold

Its purple lustre, and its beams of gold.

Welsted.

Beside the "Hymns or Sacred Songs," Mr. Hume wrote a poem, which has never been published, on the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It is entitled, "The Triumph of the Lord after the maner of men," and delineates a triumphal procession, similar to those of the ancient Romans, in which the spoils of the conquered enemy are exhibited in succession. The opening passage may suffice for a specimen.

Richt as the prynce of day beginnes to spring,
And larkes aloft melodiouslie to sing,
Bring furthe all kynde of instrumentis of weir
To gang befoir, and mak ane noyce cleir ;

Gar trumpetis sounde the awful battelis blast,
On dreadful drummes gar stryke alarum fast;
Mak showting shalmes, and peircing phipheris shill
Cleene cleave the cloods, and pierce the hiest hill,
Caus michtelie the weirlie nottis breike,
Or Hieland pipes, Scottes and Hybernicke,
Let heir the shraicks of deadlie clarions,
And syne let off ane volie of cannons.

Leyden, who had an opportunity of seeing the poem, says, that it shews considerable invention, (in combination and arrangement only it is presumed,) and that the versification is vigorous and flowing.

J. H.

JOHN BELLENDEN.

THE ascertained facts in the life of John Bellenden, the poetic and elegant translator of Boëce, are few, and encumbered with conjectures. He was the son of Thomas Bellenden, of Auchinoul, who was director to the chancery during the minority of James the Fifth. The time and place of his birth are unknown. He is supposed to have received his education in France; but for no better reason than that his works are "frequently intermixed with words of Gallic derivation." The inference from his works ought rather to be the reverse, for it appears certain from them, that in very early life he was employed about the person of the young monarch.

And fyrst occurrit to my remembring,

How that I wes in service with the kyng,
Pat to his grace, in yeires tenderest,
Clerk of his Comptis.
Vertue and Vyce.

Bellenden rose into great favor with the prince, and was rewarded by the appointments of Archdeacon of Murray and Canon of Ross; but we learn from the same poetic authority just quoted, that he afterwards lost the employments which he held in the royal household, through the envy of some persons of greater interest.

-hie envy me from his service cast,
Be thaym that had the court in governing,
As bird bot plumes is herryt of her nest.

James, however, retained his personal regard for Bellenden, and so strong an impression of his literary talents, as to select him from all the learned men about his court, to execute a task which his majesty had much at heart, and which did honor to the intelligence and patriotism of so young a prince. The history of Scotland had been excellently written by Hector Boëthius, or Boëce, but it was in the Latin language, and thus a sealed book to the great mass of the Scottish people. James, who was a friend to the spread of information, though circumstances had entangled him in an opposition to the reformed religion, employed Bellenden to translate it into the Scottish tongue,

the tale of our progenitours,

Their greit manheid, wisdom, and hie honours
Quhair we may clear, as in a mirrour, see
The furious end somtymes of tyranie;
Somtymes the gloir of prudent governours,
Ilk state apprysit in thair facultie.
Vertue and Vyce.

The translation was completed and published in 1536, in folio. Bellenden introduced into it two poems by himself, of considerable length; the one entitled "The Proheme of the Cosmographie," (published in the Evergreen under the title of Vertue and Vyce,) and the other, "The Proheme of the History;" at the end, there is an "Epistil direckit be