to follow the author of Ecce Homo through his striking, but, we venture to think, in some respects defective argument, because we thought we could avail ourselves better of his fine criticisms and noble thoughts in another way. But we cannot conclude without expressing our hearty delight at the appearance of an essay evidently so thoroughly independent of all special ecclesiastical influence, and so thoroughly imbued with the true historic spirit, which is yet entirely free from the irrational assumptions by which the method falsely called "historic" has recently been marked. We shall look for the completion of the work, begun by this thoughtful and delicate criticism, with the deepest interest. Indeed, sincerely as we admire this preliminary essay, we imagine that the theological inferences which the author has yet to give us must be as full of new historical criticism, and fuller of moral power for the majority of readers, than the introductory investigation itself. ART. VI.-The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, now first Collected, with Notes, and a Memoir of his Life. By DAVID LAING. Edinburgh, 1865. WE are again indebted to Mr. Laing for an elegant and accurate edition of one of our early Scottish poets, whose compositions have never hitherto been collected, and have not consequently been known so widely or appreciated so well as they deserve to be. The volume of Henryson's poems lately published is a fitting companion to those on which the same editor formerly bestowed so much care and diligence, in the hope, which has not been frustrated, that they might form the best monument that could be erected to the genius of Dunbar. The works of these two poets, illustrated with all the antiquarian learning, patriotic zeal, and sound judgment for which Mr. Laing is distinguished, must be allowed to present a vivid as well as faithful picture of Scottish manners and character during an eventful period, and to afford proofs of intellectual and poetical power of which any nation might well be proud. We are glad to see it announced that Mr. Laing has in preparation an edition of the Poems of Sir David Lindsay, with Notes and a biographical Memoir. If we could hope, after that, for an edition of Gawin Douglas, our satisfaction would be complete. But we must not be unreasonable. However much, like others of our countrymen, we may be disposed to prefer Scotland to truth, we cannot venture to compare N-6 VOL. XLIV. any of our Scottish poets to Chaucer. Dunbar is the greatest name that we can boast t; yet even he, whatever he might have done and no one that knows him can dispute his mastery over all the chords of the human heart-has achieved nothing that can be put in competition with the "Canterbury Tales." But laying Chaucer aside, as one of those exceptional men who surpass the ordinary limits of human genius, we think it can scarcely be denied that, in the short space of two centuries, during which her national literature could be expected to flourish, that is, between her victory at Bannockburn and her defeat at Flodden, Scotland produced a series of poets who display greater vigour and versatility, both of thought and language, than any which England has to show for the whole period between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation. The accession of James I. to the Scottish throne must have given, by his example as well as by his influence, a strong impulse to learning and literature; and the tastes, and even the failings, of his immediate successors, or at least of James III., would tend to encourage some of those pursuits which are alien to the passions and habits of a rude and violent race. But the culminating point in the history of Scottish poetry is the reign of James IV., the first of the Stuarts who lived on amicable terms with his nobles, and who was thus enabled, though for too short a period, to maintain a splendid Court and to rule over a united people, with a magnificence and authority highly favourable to the cultivation of the refined arts. In certain stages of society, the best or only patronage of literature has been found at the Courts of kings. The poet must always have a patron of some kind: the singer must have an audience, to inspire, to applaud, and to reward him. The requisite encouragement may come from the many or from the few. The patron may be an Augustus, or a Mæcenas, or it may be Demus himself. It may be even a religious sect or a political faction. Sometimes the highest genius must look for its admirers in an unknown future, or in those whom it slowly trains to understand its productions by its own efforts; while in other cases the powers of the poet may be in such happy accordance with the universal sympathies of mankind, that his works find an instant admittance to the hearts and homes of both high and low. It is pleasant as well as profitable to have a rich and admiring public who will buy so many thousand copies of a volume in a week. It is better, perhaps, for the author's genius or fame that he should have a smaller and more select, though still a remunerative body of supporters. But such mines of wealth are unknown in ruder times, and the poet who then desires to excel and to find a living in his art, must seek his sphere of exertion either in the halls of nobles, or in the fuller union which a Court presents of wealth and splendour with leisure and refinement. The brilliant reign of Edward III. had been the means of developing in England the powers of Chaucer and Gower; and the position and influence of James IV. in Scotland was in many respects similar. The Scottish Augustan age, thus interposed between the times of Chaucer and Spenser, served in a great degree to keep alive the lustre of Anglican literature during the deep gloom which was cast upon it in England by the evils of a disputed succession, and the horrors of civil war. In the interesting Supplement which Mr. Laing has just added to his edition of Dunbar, we have extracts from Mr. Bergenroth's Calendar of Spanish Letters, recently published, which afford a fuller and even more favourable view of the character of James IV. than any which we have hitherto had. The information is supplied by a report or despatch addressed to the King and Queen of Castille, in the year 1498, by Don Pedro de Ayala, who had been ambassador to Scotland, and knew the country well, and who was then living in London on account of bad health. We wish we had room for some extracts from this interesting document. It seems to bear indisputable testimony to the King's remarkable attainments as a linguist, to his habits of reading and reflection, his religious feelings, his truthfulness, his humanity, his activity, and his temperance. It speaks, not with certainty, but perhaps too sanguinely, of his having given up his lovemaking, "as well from fear of God, as from fear of scandal in this world." But it too truly depicts his military qualities: "He is courageous, even more so than a king should be." "He is not a good captain, because he begins to fight before he has given his orders." "He loves war so much that I fear, judging by the provocation he receives, the peace (with England) will not last long." -It is not our intention here to descant on the poetical character of Dunbar, which may be regarded as peculiarly the product of the Court of James IV. His merits are known to all his countrymen who have any knowledge of their native literature. But those who may wish to see the theme done ample justice to, may refer back, in connexion with the subject we are now discussing, to an admirable criticism on the greatest of early Scottish poets, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, on occa sion of the publication of Mr. Laing's edition of Dunbar, and which no one can fail to ascribe to the only writer who was capable of producing it. * Henryson, though contemporary with Dunbar during a considerable part of their lives, may be held to have preceded him in his career as a poet by about a quarter of a century. The dates of his birth and death are alike unknown; but we may assign the first of these events to the reign of James I., and the second to that of James IV. The only authentic particulars of his personal history are these-1st, That in September, 1462, he was admitted a member of the newly founded University of Glasgow, being then described as Master Robert Henryson, Licentiate in Arts and Batchelor in Decrees; a fact now for the first time brought to light by Mr. Laing, and serving to fix an important date and landmark in Henryson's life; 2d, That he was a notary-public, being so designed in three deeds dated at Dunfermline in 1478, and recorded in the Chartulary of that town; 3d, That he died shortly before 1506, as Dunbar in his "Lament for the Death of the Makaris," composed in that year, speaks of him as recently dead in Dunfermline, with which place he thus appears to have been permanently connected. All the other allegations or suggestions that have been made regarding him are apocryphal. Even the supposition that he was a schoolmaster rests on no other evidence than his being so described in the edition of his Fables, printed in 1570. Any further information connected with his character or history must be derived from his own writings, aud can only be of a very general kind. But we may thence gather that he was a man of learning and taste, that he had a love for nature, and a sense of humour, and that, in all probability, he was, what we should wish him to be, of a patriotic spirit a kindly heart, and a gentle disposition. It is pleasant to think of him, with these qualities, passing a useful and quiet life in the romantic neighbourhood of what had been the occasional residence and the frequent burying-place of Scotland's kings; studying and meditating under the shadow of that magnificent monastery, of which the *It seems worthy of being here mentioned that Bishop Elphinstone, so distinguished afterwards in the ecclesiastical history of his country, seems to have taken his Master's degree at Glasgow in the same year (1462), and it is to be hoped that these two excellent men were acquainted with each other. Elphinstone, who survived Henryson, died in 1514, and thus lived to lament the issue of that war with England which he had endeavoured by his counsels to prevent.-Innes's Sketches, p. 262. noble remains are still standing, to tell of its ancient wealth and grandeur, and which, we trust, contributed in its better days to the diffusion of piety and learning throughout the fertile district in which it was set down. We see not a few proofs in Henryson's poems that he drew inspiration both from the religio loci that hallowed the spot, and from the beauty of the natural scenery that there surrounded him. The middle and later periods of Henryson's life may in some degree have been clouded by the public calamities which discoloured the reign of James III., and which terminated the life of that monarch, while contending with a rebellion in which his own son stood in arms against him; and the poems now before us seem in several parts to have received a melancholy tinge from the social disorders which such events must have tended to produce. But we hope that he lived to see, in the evening of his days, a brighter sky opening under the new reign, and to look forward with confidence to the progress of national improvement, of which the foundations were laid in his time, though the finishing of the work was for an interval delayed. It is worth while to remember some of the great changes which took place in Henryson's lifetime, both abroad and at home. The invention of printing was matured in Germany about the time when he was admitted a member of the University of Glasgow; and considering the peace that prevailed with England, and the intercourse that was maintained with France and the Low Countries, it is scarcely conceivable that he should not, before he died, have enjoyed the_new_pleasure of reading some printed books. In the early part of his life under the reign of James II., that great charter of the tenant-farmers was made the law of the land, to which there is little doubt that the agricultural prosperity of Scotland has since been eminently indebted. The Act of Parliament 1449, c. 18, ordained, "for the safetie and favour of the puir people that labouris the ground," (we borrow the words and spelling of the little Scots Acts), "that they and all utheris that hes taken, or sall take landes, in time to come fra Lordes, and hes termes and zeires thereof, that, suppose the Lordes sell or annaly that land or landes, the takers sall remaine with their tackes, unto the ischew of their termes, quhais handes that ever thay landes cum to, for siklike maill as they tooke them for." In a later period of the century, the fifth Parliament of James IV. (1494, c. 54) ordered, 'throw all the realme, that all Baronnes and Free-halders that ar of substance put their eldest sonnes and aires to the schules, fra they be sex or nine zeires of age, and till remaine at the gramand have perfite Latine; and thereafter to remar schules, quhill they be competentlie founded maine three zeirs at the schules of Art and jure, swa that they may have knawledge and understanding of the lawes: Throw the quhilks justice may remaine universally throw all the realme: Swa that they that ar Schireffes and Judges Ordinares under the Kingis Hienesse may have knowledge to doe justice, that the puir people sulde have na neede to seek our Soveraine Lordis principal Auditour for ilk small injurie: And qubat Baronne or Freehalder of substance that haldis not his sonne at the schules as said is, havand na lauchful essoinzie, bot failzies herein, fra knawledge may be gotten thereof, he shall pay to the King the sumine of twentie pound." This Act must be considered as laying the foundation of a national education in one most essential point; for if the education of the poor be important, it is of at least equal importance that there be an adequate education of the rich, and this not only for their own good, but for the good of their poorer neighbours, whose character and welfare cannot fail to be influenced by those above them, and to suffer from their ignorance and vice. If Henryson was a schoolmaster, and if, as we suppose, he survived to see the inauguration of a system under which the nobility and landed men were likely to be best reclaimed from a state of rude and lawless violence, the change must have been regarded by him with peculiar satisfaction, and with the best hopes for the future fate of his native land. It should perhaps be kept in view, as illustrating Henryson's position, that the part of the country in which he lived, the shire of Fife, was exempt from some evils to which other districts were exposed. Inaccessible to a foreign foe, except under circumstances of the utmost national prostration, and protected by interposed tracts of land from those constant inroads which disturbed and impoverished the more immediate neighbours of the Northern and Western Highlands on the one side, and the English border on the other, the county, or, as it came to be called, the Kingdom of Fife, flourished abundantly both in agriculture and in commerce. It would appear that some Celtic mountaineers still lingered, in the fifteenth century, among the Ochils; but this remnant of an ancient race were not near enough, and are not likely to have been strong enough, to do much harm either to the lands or boroughs of Fife, where there was no want of a manly and warlike population, or of the strong hand of authority, both civil and ecclesiastical. We may therefore infer that Henryson's life was passed amidst | disease in Scotland was Robert the Bruce, a comparative degree of peace and local who was buried at Dunfermline, and the prosperity, from which he might look out memory of whose fate must have been fresh with calmer feelings on the disorders that in that place in Henryson's time. The poet prevailed elsewhere. He possessed, it is might thus be led to think it not undignified clear, sufficient means to save him from the that the foreign wanton should be struck degradation of complaining to any patron of down with that visitation which had not inadequate support, and soliciting a more spared the best and greatest of Scotland's competent provision; and he enjoyed at the sovereigns. same time sufficient leisure from professional or official duties to be able to find pleasure for himself and his friends in the composition of those poems which now for the first time have had justice done them, by being presented to his countrymen in a suitable and accessible shape. Some of Henryson's works are so well known that they need no introduction or recommendation here. His "Robene and Makyne," a pretty and pleasing commentary on the old adage, "He that will not when he may," etc., is included by Campbell in his Specimens of the British Poets, and is described by him as the first known pastoral, and one of the best, in a dialect rich with the favours of the pastoral muse." His "Testament of Cresseid," written as a continuation of Chaucer's "Troilus and Cresseid," has been often printed along with the works of the English poet, and has been mistaken, even by modern critics of taste, for the production of Chaucer himself. Godwin, who has fully examined both of these poems, does justice to Henryson's merits, and in some respects gives him even the preference over his master. But his disapprobation and disgust are excited by the catastrophe of Henryson's addition, in which Cresseid, having been smitten with leprosy, is represented as seeking aid, like a common. beggar, and receiving an "almous" from her old lover, along with the other "lipper folk." Though there may be some truth in this criticism, yet it seems to border on an excess of fastidiousness. Cresseid, as painted by Chaucer, is an odious character, and we do not grudge that she should be deprived of that beauty of which she had made so evil a use. But the kind of poetical justice which Henryson was here tempted to inflict on her might naturally be suggested by the times and circumstances in which he wrote. Leprosy, we know, prevailed extensively in Henryson's day, and Leper or Spittall Houses were erected on the outskirts of several of the principal towns in Scotland and England. "There is reason to believe," as Mr. Laing observes, "that a spittall-house existed in Dunfermline, which may have afforded Henryson an opportunity of personally witnessing the victims of this frightful malady." The most noted of those who suffered from the The manner of Troilus' meeting with Cresseid, and his shadowy reminiscence of her features, though without a recognition of her identity, as well as the state of his feelings when he afterwards learns who she is, are described by Henryson with delicacy and tenderness : gives its name to the poem :- "Quhen this was said, with paper scho sat doun, This royall ring, set with this ruby reid, The "Orpheus and Eurydice" is another elaborate poem by Henryson, which is less known, and perhaps less deserving of attention, though it contains some things that are curious, both as regards the views of science then prevailing, and the aspect in which the incidents related presented themselves to the poet's mind. The subject of the poem is mainly taken from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and its details are probably to be found in some of Boethius's commentators, of whom Mr. Laing shows that one mentioned by Henryson, namely, " Doctour Nicholas," was not, as Dr. Irving supposed, Nicholas Crescius of Florence, but an Englishman, Nicholas Trivetus, a monk of the Dominican order. Trivetus's Gloss upon Boethius's treatise is included in the Catalogue of Books existing in Glasgow Cathedral in the year 1432, which is preserved in the ancient register of that bishopric, and of which an account will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Innes's Scotland in the Middle Ages. Orpheus is described by Henryson as the son of Phoebus and the Muse Calliope, to whom Erudices, the Queen of Thrace, makes a proposal of marriage : "Between Orpheus and fair Erudices, Fra thay war weddit, on fra day to day, The lowe of luf couth kendill and encress, With myrth, blythness, gret plesance, and gret play Off warldly joye: allace, quhat sall we say? Like till a flour that pleasandly will spring, Quhilk fadis sone, and endis with murnyng! "I say this by Erudices the Queen, Quhilk walkit furth in till a May mornyng, And with a maiden in a meadow green, To tak the dew, and see the flouris spring; A busteouss herd, callit Arystyus, Kep and his beastis, lay under a buss. "And quhen he saw this lady solitair, Barefute, with schankis quhytar than the snaw, Prikkit with lust, he thocht withouten mair, And as scho ran all barefut on ane buss, The bite proves mortal, and Orpheus then sets forth on an expedition " to seek his wife," and commences his inquiries in the upper regions. He searches for her in vain through all the planets, but with this indirect benefit, that he picks up by the way a more complete knowledge of music than he had previously possessed. The scientific views he thus obtains are very technically described, in conformity with the system which then prevailed among musicians, though the poet is at pains to declare that he himself knows nothing of the matter, and could never sing a note. Orpheus then proceeds on his errand, by many streets and ready ways through the realms of space, till at the last he arrives at the infernal regions, where the story is carried on through its usual incidents, which we need not here insert. Some of the shorter poems of Henryson are well known by having been inserted in popular extracts from Scottish poetry. The "Abbey Walk" and the "Bloody Serk" are excellent compositions of their kind; the one a good specimen of those moral meditations of which the older poets are fond, and the other an early example of the more polished form of ballad poetry. But perhaps the most important and interesting of all Henryson's writings are his "Moral Fables of Esop," now for the first time made available to modern readers in a complete form. A few of them were included in the Selections of Lord Hailes and others, and a reprint of Andro Hart's edition of 1621 was issued in 1832 to the members of the Bannatyne Club, with a Preface by the late Dr. Irving. This last book, of course, though available to the favoured few, and highly useful as a pioneer to other efforts, left the work, as far as the million was concerned, in that position which, as Coleridge said of some of his productions, is as good as manuscript. It is not creditable to our national taste that such should have been the case, and it must now strike us with some shame that in this way the French and German antiquaries, who have studied this branch of literature with so much diligence and success, have |