ROBENE AND MAKYNE. ROLENE sat on gud grene hill, Robene, thou rew on me; Robene answerit, Be the rude, Bot keipis my scheip undir yone wud, At luvis lair gife thow will leir, Se that no denger do the deir, Robene answerit her agane, I wait nocht quhat is luve, And we wald play us in this plane, Robene, tak tent unto my taill, And thow sall haif my hairt all haill, Makyne, to morne this ilk a tyde, Quhat lyis on hairt I will nocht hyd; Robene, thou reivis me roiss and rest, That lufe will be my bone. Ga lufe, Makyne, quhair evir thou list, Robene, I stand in sic a style For hamewart I will fair. Robene on his wayis went, And trowd him nevir to se. Robene brayd attour the bent; Makyne went hame withouttin faill, Be that sum parte of Makyne's ail Abyd, abyd, thou fair Makyne, For all my luve it sall be thyne, All haill! thy harte for till haif myne, My scheip to morn, quhill houris nyne, Will neid of no keping. Robene, thou hes hard soung and say, In gestis and storeis auld, The man that will not quhen he may, I pray to Jesu every day, Mot eik thair cairis cauld, That first preissis with the to play, Makyne, the nicht is soft and dry, That is to lufe contrair; Thairin, Makyne, bath ye and I, Robene, that warld is all away, For of my pane thou maide it play, As thou hes done, sa sall I say, Makyne, the howp of all my heill, Makyne went hame blyth anewche, Robene murnit, and Makyne lewche; Scho sang, he sichit sair; And so left him, bayth wo and wreuch, In dolour and in cair, Kepand his hird under a huche, The author of this pastoral Ballad, is supposed to have been Robert Henryson, of whose life time has left us almost no memorials. The time and the place of his birth are alike unknown. He is styled by Urry, chief schoolmaster of Dunfermline; and Lord Hailes conjectures that he offici ated as preceptor in the Benedictine convent there. From the former of these writers we also learn that he flourished during the reign of Henry the eighth. That he reached an advanced age, appears from some passages of his "Testament of fair Creseide;" and that he died before Dunbar, is evident from the following couplet of that celebrated poet's "Lament for the death of the Makkaris." In Dunfermling death hes tane Broun, His Fables have been printed, and likewise preserved with others of his Poems, in the Bannatyne MS. His tale of " Orpheous King, and how he yeid to hewyn and to hel to seik his quene," was printed at Edinburgh by Chapman and Millar, in the year 1508; and his Testament of fair Creseide, by Henry Charters, in the year 1593; a second Edition of this work was, in the same place and in the same form, 4to. published in 1611. Many of his Poems are to be found in the various Collections of Scottish Poetry, and they have been_illustrated by the critica! acumen of almost every Editor of obsolete Poetry. Sometimes, however, these learned persons, are sadly bewildered by their "much learning," and put strange glosses upon passages, which, had they consulted their own ploughmen, or, in default of such retainers, their own kitchen wenches, instead of lexicons and vocabularies, they might easily have avoided. A very re markable instance of this, we have in an illustration of the first stanza, of the preceding Poem. My dule in den bot gif thow dill, That is simply if thou do not sooth, or mitigate, or assuage my secret grief, I shall certainly die. The learned commentators, however, con. founding the word dill, which means simply to sooth or assuage, with dail, which means a quantity, have put upon the passage the very forced and unnatural meaning of sharing the concealed grief, which renders the Poet's meaning and his expression, equally aukward and foolish. Her dule she wanted the silly shepherd not to share, but to do away by sharing her passion, which was the cause of her dule. 1 have somewhere seen Ramsay ridiculed by one of these learned Editors, as a paltry fellow, who knew no language but that of the vulgar, the very language in which these works, which they seem to set so great, a value upon, are written, and without the knowledge of which they cannot be understood. The truth is, that Ramsay's deficiency as an Editor, and especially as a critic upon these remnants of the olden time, lay in his knowledge of vulgar language, and vulgar manners, being rather circumscribed than otherwise. Had he been taught to reap corn rigs, in place of being sent to reap beards, or, as heard reaping seems to be an idea scouted by his ardent admirers, had he remained in the country to theek cornstacks, instead of the "witty pashes" of Edinburgh, I have no doubt that his Editorial labours had been much more valuable to mankind. I do not by this mean to be understood as speaking disrespectfully of these labours, my opinion is, that they are more valuable than those of some who have been among the harshest of his detractors. THE VISION. BEDOUN the bents of Banquo brae |