deservedly popular as his effusions are. "The we find little more than a disgusting picture Wallace" cannot certainly be compared to of revenge, hatred, and blood." This critic the great poem of the learned Archdeacon of errs in underrating, as the writer first quoted Aberdeen." does in overrating, the merits of Blind Harry. The assertion that any portion of his "Wallace" is disgusting only exhibits an ignorance of the work on which the criticism is passed. The poem is in ten-syllable lines, the epic verse of a later period, and it is not deficient in poetical effect or elevated sentiment. A modern paraphrase of the poem, by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, has long been a favourite book amongst the peasantry of Scotland, and it was the reading of this volume which had so great an effect in kindling the genius and patriotic ardour of Robert Burns. The only MS. of Blind Harry's heroic poem is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and bears date 1488. The first edition of the work was published in 1570; the latest and most correct, with notes and glossary by Dr. Jamieson, in 1820. "The Bruce is evidently the work of a politician as well as a poet. The characters of the king, of his brother, of Douglas, and of the Earl of Moray are discriminated, and their separate talents always employed with judgment, so that every event is prepared and rendered probable by the means to which it is attributed; whereas the Life of Wallace' is a mere romance, in which the hero hews down whole squadrons with his single arm, and is indebted for every victory to his own muscular strength. Both poems are filled with descriptions of battles, but in those of Barbour our attention is successively directed to the cool intrepidity of King Robert, to the brilliant rashness of Edward Bruce, or to the enterprising stratagems of Douglas; while in Henry THE DEATH OF WALLACE.1 (FROM SIR WILLIAM WALLACE.) On Wednysday the fals Sotheroun furth brocht, | The sacrement off kyrk I sall him geiff; 1 Warton, in his History of English Poetry, notices Barbour and Henry the Minstrel in these words:"Although this work is professedly confined to England, yet I cannot pass over two Scotch poets of this period who have adorned the English language by a train of versification, expression, and poetical imagery far superior to their age; and who consequently deserve to be mentioned in a general review of our national poetry," Syn tak thi chos, to sterwe or lat him leiff. A clerk thai set to her quhat he wald meyn. So as a lord rongyn furth all thi lyff." Off wykkydness thow has a felloun thocht. A Psaltyr buk Wallace had on him cuir; | Fra his childeid fra it wald nocht deseuir. Bot than he was dispalyeid off his weid. Than Wallace said; "Thou spekis off mychty To lat him haiff his Psaltyr buk in sycht. He gert a preyst it oppyn befor him hauld, JAMES THE FIRST. BORN 1394- DIED 1437. JAMES THE FIRST, one of the most chivalric, | ried prisoner to the Tower of London. This and certainly the most accomplished of the act of gross injustice completed the calamities ancient Scottish kings, was born at Dunferm- of the infirm King Robert, who sank under line in 1394. His elder brother having fallen the blow, and it led to the captivity of James a victim to the ambition of his uncle the for more than eighteen years. Duke of Albany, Robert III., filled with anxiety for the safety of his only remaining son, and in order to place him beyond the reach of a faithless kindred until he should attain to manhood, resolved to send him to the court of France to complete his education, which had been begun under the learned prelate Walter Wardlaw, archbishop of St. Andrews. Accordingly, in 1405, the young prince sailed from his native country under the care of the Earl of Orkney, but the vessel being captured by an English squadron, in violation of a treaty of peace which then existed between the two nations, he was car After a confinement of two years in the Tower the young prince was removed to Nottingham Castle. In 1413 he was taken back to the Tower, but in the course of the same year was transferred to Windsor Castle. In 1414 the English king, Henry IV., took James with him in his second expedition into France, but on his return committed him anew to Windsor Castle, where he remained till his final liberation. Though kept in close confinement he was instructed in every branch of knowledge which that age afforded, and became also eminently expert in all athletic exercises. Hector Boece tells us that he was a proficient in every branch of polite literature, in gram- | it he exclaimed, "By the help of God, though mar, oratory, Latin and English poetry, I should myself lead the life of a dog, I shall music, jurisprudence, and the philosophy of make the key keep the castle, and the bush the times; and Drummond says "that there secure the cow." The sentiment was worthy was nothing wherein the commendation of wit a prince, and he set himself vigorously at consisted, or any shadow of the liberal arts did work to curb his lawless nobles, and to better appear, that he had not applied his mind to, the condition of his distracted kingdom. seeming rather born to letters than instructed." Philosophy and poetry were the sources from which the unfortunate young prince drew the consolation he so much needed. Speaking of his determination to write the King's Quhair," his greatest work, he says 66 "And in my tyme more ink and paper spent and that he did not seek the consolations of "Bewailling in my chamber thus allone, As for the tyme, though I of mirthis fude In 1436 James renewed the allegiance with France, giving his daughter Margaret in marriage to the dauphin. The year following a conspiracy was formed against him, and on the night of February 20 he was assassinated at Perth by a band of ruffians led by Sir Robert Graham of Strathearn. His death was universally bewailed by the nation, and his inhuman murderers were put to death by the horrible tortures practised in that age. Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Eugene IV., who was in Scotland as legate at the time of this catastrophe, in giving an account of it, said that he "was at a loss which most to applaud, the universal grief which overspread the nation on the death of the king, or the resentment to which it was roused, and the just vengeance with which his murderers were pursued; who, being all of them traced and dragged from their lurking retreats, were, by the most lingering tortures that human invention could suggest, put to death." "A cruel crime rewarded cruellie." Margaret, dauphiness of France, eldest daughter of the murdered king, inherited not a little of her father's gallant spirit and poetic ability. It is of her that the familiar story is related that, walking in the gallery of the palace, and finding Alain Chartier, the poet, asleep there, she reverently kissed him. "How could you kiss one so ugly?" exclaimed one of her maids of honour. "I do not," answered the princess, At length James was restored, when in his thirtieth year, to his kingdom, returning to Scotland in April, 1424, having espoused the Lady Joanna Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and grand-daughter of John, duke of Gaunt. His descriptions of the small garden, once the moat of Windsor Castle, which was seen from his place of confinement, and the first glimpse he there obtained of his future queen, are among the most beautiful and touching passages in the poem. Proceeding first to Edinburgh he was received by his people with a degree of affectionate enthusiasm which could scarcely have been expected from their former indifference to his fate; he after-"kiss the man, but the lips that have uttered wards went to Scone, accompanied by his queen, where they were both solemnly crowned. When first informed on his arrival in the kingdom of the lawlessness which prevailed in He was well lernit to fecht with the sword, to just, to turnay, to worsyle, to sing and dance, was an expert medicinar, richt crafty in playing baith of lute and harp, and sindry other instruments of music; he was expert in gramer, oratory, and poetry, and maid sae flowan' and sententious versis-he was ane natural and borne poete.-Boece's History. so many beautiful thoughts"-a kiss which Menage says will immortalize her. Of the king's principal poetical work Pinkerton, a writer extremely penurious of praise, says that it "equals anything Chaucer has written;" and Ellis remarks that "it is not inferior in poetical merit to any similar production" of the father of English poetry. It is most undoubtedly true that neither Chaucer nor any contemporary poet of either England or Scotland is characterized by that delicacy which distinguishes the productions of King James. Considering the rude age in which he wrote, and that Chaucer and Gower, with whose writings he was well acquainted, and whom indeed he acknowledges in one of his stanzas for his masters, were so distinguished, as well as Dunbar, for an opposite character, it is certainly one of the greatest phenomena in the annals of poetry. The "King's Quhair" was for centuries lost to the world, the only MS. copy in existence, at the Bodleian Library, having been discovered by Lord Woodhouselee, who in 1783 first published it to the world, with explanatory notes and a critical dissertation. The subject is the royal poet's love for his future queen, described in the allegorical style of the age, but with much fine description, sentiment, and poetical fancy. To King James is likewise ascribed two humorous poems entitled " 'Christis Kirk on the Grene" and "Peblis to the Play," descriptive of the rural manners and pastimes of that age. These poems are great favourites. To the former allusion is made by Pope, who writes "One likes no language but the Fairy Queen: Or Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green." His claim to either has been disputed, but Allan Ramsay, Sir Walter Scott, and others unhesitatingly ascribe "Christis Kirk on the Grene" to the royal poet, while authorities equally entitled to credit entertain the same feelings of certainty as respects the authorship of his other poem, "Peblis to the Play." The poems of the royal poet were first collected and published at Perth in 1786, and are also to be found in Sibbald's Chronicles of Scottish Poetry. In 1873 was published an edition of "The Poetical Remains of King James the First of Scotland, with a Memoir by the Rev. Dr. Rogers," containing, in addition to the compositions previously mentioned, a song on "Absence" and a sacred poem entitled "Divine Trust," the latter included among our selections. Historians relate that the king was a skilful musician, playing on eight different instru ments, and to him accord the honour of introducing "a new kind of music, plaintive and melancholy, different from all others," to quote the language of Tassoni, an Italian writer who flourished in the early part of the sixteenth century. James is known, from contemporary authorities, to have cultivated music with more than usual ardour, and under circumstances of long imprisonment and solitude, singularly calculated to give to his compositions that "plaintive and melancholy" style which the Italian writer tells us was regarded as the characteristic of the kind of music which the king invented, and which we know to be the characteristic of the national music of Scotland as existing during the past four and a half centuries. Dyer said of this accomplished prince- and Washington Irving, in the article entitled THE KING'S QUHAIR.1 Than wold I say, Giff God me had devisit (EXTRACT.) To lyve my lyf in thraldom thus and pyne, Quhat was the cause that he more me comprisit, Than othir folk to lyve in such ruyne? I suffere alone amang the figuris nyne, Ane wofull wrache that to no wight may spede, And yit of every lyvis help has nede. The long dayes and the nyghtis eke, I wold bewaille my fortune in this wise. By the come I to joye out of turment! Bewailling in my chamber thus allone, Now was there maid fast by the Touris wall So thick the beuis and the leves grene Beschadit all the allyes that there were, And myddis every herbere mycht be sene The scharp grene suete jenepere, Growing so fair with branches here and there, That, as it semyt to a lyf without, The bewis spred the herbere all about. And on the small grene twistis sat The lytil suete nygtingale, and song Kest I doun myn eye ageyne, 1 The "King's Quhair" is a long allegory, polished and imaginative, but with some of the tediousness usual in such productions.-Henry Hallam. The author of our first serious and purely imaginative poem, the "King's Quhair," and our earliest truly comic and homely poem, "Peblis to the Play."-Allan Cunningham. Full secretely, new cumyn hir to pleyne, And though I stood abaisit then a lyte, For ever; of free wyll, for of manace And in my hede I drew ryght hastily, Ah suete! are ye a warldly creature, Or ar ye god Cupidis owin princesse, That have depayntit with your hevinly hand, This gardyn full of flouris, as they stand? Quhat sall I think, allace! quhat reverence Sall I mester to your excellence? Giff ye a goddesse be, and that ye like That lufis you all, and wote of noucht but wo, Quhen I a lytill thrawe had maid my mone, Bewailing myn infortune and my chance, My hert, my will, my nature, and my mynd, Of hir array the form gif I sal write, Toward her goldin haire, and rich atyre, In fretwise couchit with perlis quhite, And grete balas lemyng as the fyre, Full of quaking spangis brycht as gold, |