• High in the heaven's figure circular I the ruddy stars twinkling as the fire: And in Aquary bethenew the clear. Ruiced her tresses like the golden wire Wat late to fore in fairy and fresh attire Through Capricorns kraved her hornstright, "North northward approacti mid might

THE

KING'S QUAIR.

CANTO I.

I.

HEIGH in the hevynis figure circulare
The rody sterres twynkling as the fyre:
And in Aquary* Citherea the clere,

Rynsid hir tressis like the goldin wyre,
That late tofore, in faire and fresche atyre,
Thro' Capricorn heved hir hornis bright,'
North northward approchit the myd nyght.

Citherea.] This must be an error of the transcriber of the Seldenian MS. The Royal Poet must have wrote Cinthia, which agrees with the descriptive words in the 6th line,' Heved hir hornis bright;' but could not be applicable to Citherea, the planet Venus in that age. Galileo, about the year 1608, near two hundred years after James I. was the first who, by the new invention of the telescope, a little before that time, discovered that the planet Venus had phases as the moon. The description of the season in this stanza is extremely poetical.

II.

Quhen as I lay in bed allone waking,
New partit out of slepe a lyte tofore,
Fell me to mynd of many diverse thing

Of this and that, can I not say quharefore,
Bot slepe for craft in erth my I no more;
For quhich as tho' coude I no better wyle,
Bot toke a boke to rede upon a quhile:

III.

Off quhich the name is clepit properly
*Boece, efter him that was the compiloure,

*Boece.] Anicius Severinus Boethius, a senator, and of consular dignity, flourished at Rome in the reign of Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths, after Augustulus, the last of the Roman emperors, had resigned the empire. He was accused and banished to Ticinum, now Pavia, by Theodoric, for having designs of restoring the liberty of his country, and, three years after, was beheaded. His life and manners were those of a philosopher, through a long series of misfortunes, which he bore with remarkable patience and fortitude. While he was in banishment, he wrote his book De Consolatione Philosophiae. His tomb is still preserved in the church of St. Augustine at Pavia, on which is inscribed the following epitaph :

Maeonia et Latia lingua clarissimus, et qui
Consul eram hic perii missus in exilium,
Et quod mors rapuit, Probitas me vexit ad auras,
Et nunc fama viget, maxima viget opus.