once, by a short quotation, that Lindsay's measure cramps the easy flow of his humour:

"In St. Andrews, on Whitsun-Monday,
Two campions thair manhood did assay
Past to the barres, enarmed, head and hands,
Was never seen sic justing in na1 lands.
In presence of the kingis grace and queen,
Where mony2 lustre ladie micht be seen.

*

The ane of them was gentle James Watsoun,
And John Barbour the other campioun;3
Unto the king they were familiars,
And of his chalmer both cubiculars.

Fra time they entered were into the field Full womanlie they wielded spear and shield; And wightly waiffit4 in the wind their heels, Hobbling like cadgers,5 ryding on their creels." The poet of "The Tournament of Tottenham" has wisely selected a merrier species of rhythm:

66 'He that beareth him best in the tournament Shall be granted the gree6 by the common assent, For to win my daughter with doughty dent,

And copple my brood hen that was brought out of Kent, And my dun cow;

For no spence will I spare,

For no cattle will I care,

He shall have my grey mare and my spotted sow."

Neither of these parodies, however, possess any high merit.

It was, perhaps, a little previous to this that Lindsay composed his answer to the King's Flyting. It appears that James had attacked his Lord Lion in some verses, whose "ornate metre Sir David

highly commends, although their object was to make him" abominable in the sight of the ladies, and to banish him, on account of his age and infirmities, from the Court of Venus. In these abusive poetical contests, entitled "Flytings," it is no disparagement to Lindsay when we say he does not equal the multifarious and recondite scurrility of Dunbar or Kennedy; whilst, if we are to judge of the "dittay" of the king by the coarseness and vulgarity of the reply, it is not much to be regretted that the royal Flyting has perished. In his concluding stanza, the monarch is highly complimented on his poetical talents; he is styled "of flowing rhetorick the flower;" nor-making all due allowance for the strain in which a poet may be supposed to indulge himself when addressing a prince-was the praise of the Lion King overstrained. We have seen the vicious and neglected education under which the youth of James V. had been blighted; yet there emerged out of this ungenial nurture a character of that strength and vigour which soon enabled him to make up for the time which he had lost. Amongst other qualities, he possessed that genius for the fine arts, and more especially for poetry and architecture, which had distinguished the first and third James; and it is easy to see that a congeniality of taste had recommended the Lion Herald to his royal master. We learn from Drummond that the king naturally given to poesie, as many of his verses yet exstant testify;" and few readers of Scottish poetry are unacquainted with the admirable ballad of the " Gaberlunzieman," which we owe to this

monarch.

66

was

"The pauky auld carle cam o'er the lea,
Wi' mony gude eens and days to me,
Saying, gude wife, for your courtesy,
Will ye lodge a silly auld man.

"The night was cauld,1 the carle was wat,2
And down ayont3 the ingle1 he sat;
My daughter's shoulders he gan to clap,
And cadgily ranted and sang.

"O wow, quoth he, were I as free
As first when I saw this countrie,
How blythe and merry wad I be,
And I would ne'er think lang.

"He grew canty and she grew fain;7
But little did her auld minny8 ken

What these slee9 twa thegither were saying,
Whan wooing they were sae thrang."

910

The result of the adventure is well known, in the elopement of the old woman's daughter with the Gaberlunzie. Nothing can be more felicitously described than the consequences of the discovery. The picture of the auld wife's despair, when she finds that the beggar had decamped, the anticipation that some of their gear must have walked away with him, and the complacent awakening of her charitable feelings on finding all safe, are finely

true to nature.

66

Upon the morn the auld wife raise,
And at her leisure put on her claes,1
Syne to the servant's bed she gaes,

11

To speer12 for the silly puir man,
"She gaed to the bed where the beggar lay:
The strae13 was cauld, he was away.
She clapp'd her hands, cryed dulefa day!
For some of our gear14 will be gane.

"Some ran to coffers, and some to kists;1
But nought was stown2 that could be mist.
Sche danc'd her lane,3 cryed praise be blest!
I've lodg'd a leil1 puir man.

"Since naething's awa,5 as we can learn,
The kirns to churn and milk to earn ;7

Gae but the house, lass, and wauken the bairn,
And bid her come quickly ben." 9

It is not too much to say that this picture, and the rest of the ballad, are, in point of humour, superior to any thing of Dunbar's or of Lindsay's. From his zeal for the administration of strict justice to the lowest classes of his subjects, and his anxiety personally to inspect the conduct of his officers and judges, it was James's frequent practice to disguise himself and mingle much with the common people. "The dangers of the wilderness," says Pinkerton, in one of his Gibbonian flights, "the gloom of night, the tempests of winter, could not prevent his patient exertions to protect the helpless, to punish the guilty, to enforce the observance of the laws. From horseback he often pronounced decrees worthy of the sagest seat of justice; and, if overtaken by night, in the progresses which he made through his kingdom, or separated by design or by accident from his company, he would share the meal of the lowest peasant with as hearty a relish as the feast of his highest noble." It was on one of these occasions that the following pleasing anecdote is related of him:-" Being benighted when hunting, he entered a cottage, situated in the midst of a moor, at the foot of the Ochil hills,

near Alloa, where, known only as a stranger who had lost his way, he was kindly received. To regale their unexpected guest, the gudeman desired the gudewife to fetch the hen that roosted nearest the cock, which is always the plumpest, for the stranger's supper. The king, highly pleased with his night's lodging and hospitable entertainment, told mine host, at parting, that he should be glad to return his civility, and requested that the first time he came to Stirling he would call at the Castle, and inquire for the gudeman of Ballangeich; when his astonishment at finding the royal rank of his guest afforded no small amusement to the merry monarch and his courtiers; whilst, to carry on the pleasantry, he was thenceforth designated by James with the title of King of the Moors, "which name," says Mr. Campbell, the intelligent minister, from whose account of the parish of Alloa this passage is taken, "has descended from father to son ever since, the family having remained undisturbed proprietors of the identical spot where the unknown monarch was so hospitably treated."

From this short digression on the character and genius of his royal master and patron we return to the Lion King, whom we find "aggravating his roar" against the extravagance of "female ornament," by his supplication to the King's Grace against the length of the trains worn by the ladies, and then known by the name of " syde-tails." Female attire has been the marked object of the poet's ridicule in every age. The English antiquaries trace the origin of high head-dresses and long trains to the luxurious reign of Richard II.