In another place (Book V. v. 538 et seq.) he says: Maistre John Blair was oft in that message, Amang maisters in science and renown. He was the man that principal undertook, Blind Harry's notions of the literary character are well exemplified by his phrase of a "worthy. clerk, baith wise and right savage." He himself, let his scholarship have been what it may, is in spirit as thorough a Scot as if he had never heard the sound of any other than his native tongue. His gruff patriotism speaks out in his opening lines: Our antecessors, that we suld of read, And hold in mind their noble worthy deed, 8 We lat owerslide, through very sleuthfulness, Till honour enemies is our hail * intent; How great kindness there has been kythe them till. How they have wrought into their mighty pride To hald Scotland at under evermair: But God above has made their might to pair." Of the fighting and slaying, which makes up by far the greater part of the poem, it is difficult to find a sample that is short enough for our purpose. The following is a small portion of what is called the battle of Shortwoodshaw : 1 Dr. Jamieson's only interpretation is "allowed, left.” 2 Writing. 5 Shown. 3 Allow to slip out of memory. • Diminish, impair. 4 Whole. 1 On Wallace set a bicker bauld and keen; 5 8 2 Of Wallace men they woundit sore that tide; Better they were, an they gat even party, 13 He gart them change, and stand nought in to stead; Under the chin, through a collar of steel It will be seen from this specimen that the Blind Minstrel is a vigorous versifier. His descriptions, however, though both clear and forcible, and even not unfrequently animated by a dramatic abruptness and boldness of expression, want the bounding airy 1 Dr. Jamieson's only interpretation is owe. It would almost seem as if we had here the modern Scottish witha' for withall. 2 In sure warlike accoutrements. + War. 7 Sure. 6 The barbed head of an arrow. 8 Took much hazard, ran much risk. 3 Those. 6 Terrible. 9 Caused. 10 Stand not in their place. Perhaps it should be "o stead," that is, one place. spirit and flashing light of those of Barbour. As a specimen of his graver style we may give his Envoy or concluding lines: Go, noble book, fulfillit of gud sentence, 8 4 Wha will nought lou, lak nought my eloquence; 5 For here is said as gudly as I can ; Made hell and erd," and set the heaven above, FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. - COLLEGES FOUNDED. IN no age, as we have found, even the darkest and most barren of valuable produce, that has elapsed since learning was first planted among us, had there failed to be something done in the establishment of nurseries for its shelter and propagation. The fifteenth century, though it has left us little enduring literature of any kind, is distinguished for the number of the colleges that were founded in the course of it, both in this country and in the rest of Europe. This, indeed, was the natural and proper direction for the first impulse to take that was given by the revival of letters: the actual generation upon which the new light broke was not that in which it was to be expected it should do much more than awaken the taste for true learning, or at most the ambition of 1 Poets. 4 Scoff not at. 2 Found. 5 Boorish, clownish. 3 Love? 6 Understands no lofty (aspiring) terms. But it seems impossible that asperans can rhyme to grace. Earth. 8 Lasting. excellence; the power of accomplishment could only come in the next era. The men of the latter part of the fifteenth century, therefore, were most fitly and most usefully employed in making provision for the preservation and transmission to other times of the long-lost wisdom and eloquence that had been found again in their day, in building cisterns and conduits for the precious waters that, after having been hidden for a thousand years, had burst their founts, and were once more flowing over the earth. The fashion of founding colleges, and other seminaries of learning, continued to prevail in this country both down to the Reformation in religion, and for some time after that mighty revolution. In the University of Oxford, Brazennose College was founded in 1511 by William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard Sutton, of Presbury, in Cheshire; Corpus Christi in 1517, by Henry VII.'s minister, Richard Fox, successively Bishop of Exeter, of Bath and Wells, of Durham, and of Winchester; Cardinal College by Wolsey in 1525, which, however, before the buildings had been half finished, was suppressed by the king on the cardinal's fall in 1529; the college of Henry VIII. by that king in 1532, a continuation, but on a much smaller scale, of Wolsey's design, which was also dissolved in 1545, when that of Christ Church was erected in its stead by Henry, to be both a college and at the same time a cathedral establishment for the new bishopric of Oxford; Trinity, on the old foundation of Durham College, by Sir Thomas Pope, in 1554; St. John's, on the site of Bernard College, by Sir Thomas White, alderman and merchant-tailor of London, in 1557; and Jesus, by Dr. Hugh Price, Queen Elizabeth contributing part of the expense, in 1571. In Cambridge there were founded Jesus College, in 1496, by John Alcock, Bishop of Ely; Christ's College, in 1505, by Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII.; St. John's, by the same noble lady, in 1508; Magdalen, or Maudlin, begun in 1519 by Edward Stafford, the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham, and, after his execution for high treason in 1521, completed by the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Lord Audley; Trinity, in 1536, by Henry VIII., who at the same time endowed four new professorships in the University, one of theology, one of law, one of Hebrew, and one of Greek; Caius College, properly an extension of the ancient foundation of Gonville Hall, by Dr. John Caius, or Key, in 1557; Emanuel, in 1584, by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and of the Exchequer; and Sidney-Sussex College, in 1594, by the widow of Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, originally the Lady Frances Sidney. In Scotland a new university was erected in Aberdeen, under the name of King's College, by a bull of Pope Alexander VI., granted at the request of King James IV., in 1494, the principal endower, however, being William Elphinstone, bishop of the see; a second college, that of St. Leonard's (now forming, with St. Salvator's, what is called the United College), was founded in the University of St. Andrews, in 1512, by Alexander Stuart, archbishop of the see, and John Hepburn, prior of the metropolitan church; another college, that of St. Mary, now exclusively appropriated to the theological faculty, was founded in the same university in 1537, by Archbishop James Beaton; a fourth university, that of Edinburgh, was erected by King James VI. in 1582; and a fifth, that of Marischal College, Aberdeen, by George Earl Marischal, in 1593. In Ireland, the university of Trinity College, Dublin, was founded by Queen Elizabeth, in 1591. Along with these seminaries might be mentioned a great number of grammar schools; of which the chief were that of St. Paul's, London, founded by Dean Colet, in 1509; that of Ipswich, by Cardinal Wolsey, at the same time with his college at Oxford, the fate of which it also shared; Christ Church, London, by Edward VI., in 1553; Westminster School, by Queen Elizabeth, in 1560; and Merchant Tailors' School by the London civic Company of that name, in 1568. In Scotland, the High School of Edinburgh was founded by the magistrates of the city in 1577. CLASSICAL LEARNING. MANY of these colleges and schools were expressly established for the cultivation of the newly revived classical learning, the resurrection of which in the middle of the fifteenth century revolu tionized the ancient studies everywhere as soon as its influence came to be felt. It scarcely reached England, however, as we have already intimated, till towards the close of that century. Indeed, Greek is said to have been first publicly taught in this country in St. Paul's school, by the famous grammarian William Lilly, |