for a wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two verse: Whereto and why burieth a man his goods by his great avarice, and knoweth well that needs must he die, for death is the end of every man as in this present life? And for what cause or encheson joineth he him, or knitteth he him so fast unto his goods, that all his wits mowen not disseveren him or departen him fro his goods, and knoweth well, or ought to know, that when he is dead he shall nothing bear with him out of this world? and therefore saith St Augustine, that the avaricious man is likened unto hell, that the more it swalloweth the more desire it hath to swallow and devour. And as well as ye wold eschew to be called an avaricious man or an chinch, as well should ye keep you and govern you in such wise, that men call you not fool-large; therefore, saith Tullius: The goods of thine house ne should not ben hid ne kept so close, but that they might ben opened by pity and debonnairety, that is to sayen, to give 'em part that han great need; ne they goods shoulden not ben so open to be every man's goods. Afterward, in getting of your riches, and in using of 'em, ye shuln alway have three things in your heart, that is to say, our Lord God, conscience, and good name. First ye shuln have God in your heart, and for no riches ye shuln do nothing which may in any manner displease God that is your creator and maker; for, after the word of Solomon, it is better to have a little good, with love of God, than to have muckle good and lese the love of his Lord God; and the prophet saith, that better it is to ben a good man and have little good and treasure, than to be holden a shrew and have great riches. And yet I say furthermore, that ye shulden always do your business to get your riches, so that ye get 'em with a good conscience. And the apostle saith, that there n'is thing in this world, of which we shulden have so great joy, as when our conscience beareth us good witness; and the wise man saith: The substance of a man is full good when sin is not in a man's conscience. Afterward, in getting of your riches and in using of 'em, ye must have great business and great diligence that your good name be alway kept and conserved; for Solomon saith, that better it is and more it availeth a man to have a good name than for to have great riches; and therefore he saith in another place: Do great diligence (saith he) in keeping of thy friends and of thy good name, for it shall longer abide with thee than any treasure, be it never so precious; and certainly he should not be called a gentleman that, after God and good conscience all things left, ne doth his diligence and business to keepen his good name; and Cassiodore saith, that it is a sign of a gentle heart, when a man loveth and desireth to have a good name. JOHN GOWER. JOHN GOWER is supposed to have been born about the year 1325. He was consequently a few years older than Chaucer, whom he survived eight years. Gower was a member of a knightly family, an esquire of Kent, and possessed of estates in several counties. In 1368 the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Gower of Multon, in Suffolk, conveyed to the poet the manor of Kentwell. In 1399 Gower had, as he himself states, become old and blind. He made his will in August 1408, and must have died shortly afterwards, as his widow administered to his effects in October of that year. From his will it appears that the poet possessed the manors of Southwell in Nottinghamshire, and Multon in Suffolk. He also left his widow a sum of £100, and made various bequests to churches and hospitals. He was interred in the church of St Mary Overies now St Saviour's-in Southwark, where he had founded a chantry. His monument, containing a full-length figure of the poet, is still preserved, and was repaired in 1832 by the Duke of Sutherland, head of the ancient family of Gower, settled in Yorkshire so early as the twelfth century.* The principal works of Gower were the Speculum Meditantis, the Vox Clamantis, and the Confessio Amantis, 1393. The first of these was in French, but is now lost; the second is in Latin, and the third in English. This English poem was printed by Caxton in 1483, and was again printed in 1532 and 1554. It was chiefly taken from a metrical version in the Pantheon, or Universal Chronicle of Godfrey of Viterbo, as admitted by Gower. In this work is the story of Appolinus, the Prince of Tyre, from which Shakspeare took part of the story of his Pericles, if we assume that Shakspeare was the original or sole author of that drama. The Confessio Amantis is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor-a grave discussion of the morals and metaphysics of love. Dr Pauli, the able editor of the poem (1857), describes it as 'a mixture of classical notions, principally borrowed from Ovid, and of the purely medieval idea, that, as a good Catholic, the unfortunate lover must state his distress to a father confessor.' In the poem, Venus is enjoined to 'greet well' Chaucer, As my disciple and my poete; and the greater poet inscribed his Troilus and Cressida to his friend as 'moral Gower,' a designation which has ever since been applied to him. The general style of the Confessio Amantis is grave and sententious, and its enormous length (above thirty thousand lines) renders it tedious ; but it is occasionally relieved by stories and episodes drawn from medieval history and romance, and from the collection of novels known as the Gesta Romanorum. He says: Full oft time it falleth so Story of the Caskets.-From 'Confessio Amantis, Book V. Aboute a king, as moste nede Some of long time him had hadden served, It was supposed that there was some relationship between the poet and this noble family, and stress was laid upon the possession been presented to an ancestor of the Yorkshire Gowers by the poet. of a MS. of the Confessio Amantis, which was believed to have The genealogists, however, find no branch to which this alleged alliance can be traced, and the MS. turns out to be the very copy of the work which the author presented to Henry IV, while Duke of Lancaster--a rare and precious volume. That comen but awhile agon Of one semblance, and of one make, That other cofre of straw and mull So that erliche 8 upon a day There shall no man his hap despise : Of that ye unavanced be, Or elles if it belong on yow, To stoppé with your evil word, That if ye happé therupon Now chese, and take which you is lever, So shall be shewed in this place That no defalté shal be myn. They knelen all, and with one vois The king they thonken of this chois : And after that they up arise, A knyght shall speké for hem alle : Tho3 toke this knyght a yerd on honde, And goth there as the cofres stonde, And with assent of everychone He leith his yerde upon one, And seith the king how thilke same They chese in reguerdon by name, And preith him that they might it have. The king, which wolde his honor save, Whan he had heard the common vois, Hath granted hem her owne chois, And toke hem therupon the keie; But for he woldé it were seie 8 What good they have as they suppose, He bad anon the cofre unclose, Which was fulfild with straw and stones: This king than, in the samé stede, SCOTTISH POETS. The language of the Lowland districts of Scotland was based, like that of England, on the Teutonic, and it had, like the contemporary English, a Norman admixture. The names of places, however, and the permanent features of the country-the mountains, lakes, and riversare mostly Celtic. Some were modified; Strathclyde became Clydesdale, and Strathnith and Strathannan became Nithsdale and Annandale. In some instances, the Celtic kil, a cell or chapel, was supplanted by the Saxon kirk, as Kirkpatrick for Kilpatrick; but kil is still the most common prefix-as Kilmarnock, signifying the chapel of Marnoch, a famous Scottish saint. The oldest Scotch writing extant is a charter by Duncan II. in 1095. A few years before this, a new era began with Malcolm Canmore. What is called the Scoto-Saxon period of Scottish history commences. New races appear; Northumbrian nobles and their vassals, Norman knights and Flemish artisans, enter Scotland; not rapidly at first, but by a continued steady migration. The Saxon policy of Malcolm Canmore was carried out by his sons; and after half a century or more of continued colonisation, we find the Norman nobles-the Bruces, Baliols, Stewarts, Cummings, Douglases, Murrays, and Dunbars-seated in Scotland, and the Saxon language, laws, and ecclesiastical government naturalised, as it were, in the North. As 7 As their reward. 11 That is, that which. the English or Teutonic portion of the language Quhen Alysander oure kyng was dede After the battle of Bannockburn (June 24, 1314), the Scots, 'inflamed with pride and derision of the English,' as Fabian the chronicler states, made this rhyme, which was 'after many days sung in the dances and carols of the maidens and minstrels of Scotland :' Maydens of Englande, sore may ye morne For your lemans ye have loste at Bannockysborne, What, weneth the kynge of Englande With rumbylow! JOHN BARBOUR. Contemporary with Chaucer and Gower was the northern minstrel, JOHN BARBOUR. The date of his birth is unknown, but he is found exercising the duties of archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357. That he was a man of talent and learning may be assumed from his having been chosen by the the cathedral church of St Machar, at Aberdeen, until the Reformation-the expense of the service being defrayed from the perpetual annuity granted to the father of Scottish poetry by the first of the Stuart kings, in 1378, pro compilacione Libri de Gestis illustrissimi principis quondam Domini Regis Roberti de Brus.' Barbour's poem of The Bruce is valuable as a monument of our early language, and as a storehouse of historical incidents. But though he set himself to write a 'soothfast story,' the poet begins by departing widely from history. He confounds Bruce the grandfather with Bruce the grandson, and makes him reject the crown said to have been offered to him by Edward I.! Of course, he also conceals the fact, that the grandson had sworn fealty to Edward, and done homage to Baliol. He desired to present in Bruce a true hero and patriot trampling down oppression and vindicating the sacred rights of his country, and all that could militate against this design was excluded. Almost all the personal traits and adventures of Bruce-whatever gives individuality, life, and colour to his history The -will be found in the pages of Barbour. old poet's narrative of the wanderings, trials, sufferings, and fortitude of the monarch; the homely touches of tenderness and domestic feeling interspersed, as well as the knightly courtesy and royal intrepid bearing, which he paints in lively colours, have tended greatly to endear and perpetuate the name of the Scottish sovereign. The characters and exploits of Bruce's brave associates, Randolph and Douglas, are also finely drawn and the poem contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and pathetic is fully as intelligible as that of Chaucer. It does The language bishop of Aberdeen to act as his commissioner at Edinburgh when the ransom of David II. was works of his southern contemporary. not appear that the Scottish poet had seen the One would debated; and also from the circumstance that he have wished that the bards had met, each the twice visited England with scholars, for the pur-representative of his country's literature, and each pose of studying at Oxford (1357 and 1364); that in 1365 he obtained a passport to 'travel through Barbour's poem, we may add, is in the octo-sylenjoying the favour and bounty of his sovereign. England with six companions on horseback towards St Denis and other sacred places;' and It has been well edited by Dr Jamieson (1820), labic verse, and consists of about 14,000 lines. that in 1368 he again received permission to travel and by Professor Cosmo Innes (1856). through England with two servants. At home, Barbour enjoyed royal favour. In 1373, he was clerk of audit of the household of King Robert II. and one of the auditors of exchequer. 1375, his epic poem, The Bruce, was in progress. In 1377, a sum of ten pounds was paid to Barbour by the king's command, as the first reward, it would seem, for the composition of the poem. This gift was followed, at the interval of a few months, by a grant to Barbour from the king of a perpetual annuity of twenty shillings. Barbour wrote another poem, now lost, called The Brut, relating the descent and history of the Stuarts from the fabulous King Brut, or Brutus. His reward for this second work seems to have been a pension for life of ten pounds a year. The pension was payable in two moieties-one at Whitsunday, the other at Martinmas. The last payment which Barbour received was at Martinmas 1394--so that he must have died between that date and Whitsunday 1395. The precise day of his death was probably the 13th of March, on which day Barbour's anniversary continued to be celebrated in 1 Love and law. 2 Plenty. 3 Standing. King Alexander died March 16, 1286. In sentiment. Humour it has none. Apostrophe to Freedom. A! fredome is a nobill thing! Barbour makes no mention of Wallace. So ardent a worshipper of freedom might have been expected to strike a note in honour of one who sacrificed life itself in pure devotion to that cause. But to recall Wallace would have jarred with his unqualified eulogy of Bruce, and was not necessary towards the unity of his design. His poem begins with the story of the Bruce, and ends with the burial of his heart at Melrose. In the subsequent extracts from Barbour and Wyntoun, the cumbrous spelling is reduced, without interference with the rhythm or obsolete words. Bruce's Address to his Army at Bannockburn. On Sunday then, in the morning, If that their faes on horse would hald Death of Sir Henry de Bohun. And toward him he went in hy.8 Saw him come, forouth all his fears, In hy till him the horse he steers. He thought that he should weel lichtly Sin' he him horsit saw sae ill. Sprent they samen intill a lyng;1 Blamed him, as they durst, greatumly, To meet sae stith a knicht, and stour,2 4 The king answer has made them nane, The Battle. The Scottismen commonally Sir Ingram said: 'Ye say sooth now- That yon men will all win or die; Thus were they bound on either side; To the battle that Sir Edward 8 Governt and led, held straight their way. And mony gude man borne doun and slain;... The gude earl thither took the way, That men micht hear had they been by, 1 Sprang forward in a line. 3 Loss. 5 Sir Ingram d'Umphraville. 7 The van of the English army. 9 The Earl of Murreff' or Murray. ... 2 Steady a knight, and battle. 4 Moaned, lamented.. 6 Fear of death. 8 Edward Bruce. Were tint, amang sae great menyie,1 The grass waxed with the blude all red.... Some held on loft; some tint the seat. With wappins that were burnist bricht.... Almighty God! how douchtily Sir Edward the Bruce and his men 'On them! On them! On them! They fail!' And slew all that they micht o'erta'. Shot amang them sae deliverly, That what for them, that with them faucht, And what for arrowis, that felly And slew fast off their horse alsua.... The appearance of a mock host, composed of the servants of the Scottish camp, completes the panic of the English army; the king flees, and Sir Giles d'Argentine, rather than live shamefully and flee,' bids the king farewell, and rushing again into the fight, is slain. The narrative adds: They were, to say sooth, sae aghast, 1 Lost among so great a company. 3 Company. 4 Also. ANDREW WYNTOUN. About the year 1420, ANDREW WYNTOUN, or, as he describes himself, Androwe of Wyntoune, a canon of St Andrews, and prior of St Serf's Monastery in Lochleven, completed, in eight-syllabled metre, an Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, including much universal history, and extending down to his own time: it may be considered as a Scottish member of the class of rhymed chronicles, and belongs in style to the authors in this section, though produced in part at a later period than Barbour's history. The prior undertook his chronicle at the suggestion of Sir John Wemyss. He divides it into nine books, 'in honowre of the ordrys nyne.' It contains a considerable number of fabulous legends, such as we may suppose to have been told beside the evening-fire of a monastery of those days, and which convey a curious idea of the credulity of the age. The chronicle has little poetical merit, and is greatly inferior to Barbour's Bruce, but is interesting for the view it affords of the language, attainments, and manners of the author's time and country. A fine edition of the work, edited by David Macpherson, was published in 1795. The time of Wyntoun's death has not been stated, but he is supposed to have died shortly after completing his chronicle. Macbeth and the Weird Sisters. A nycht he thowcht in hys dremyng, Intil his leisch had grewhundys twa : 'Lo, yhondyr the Thane of Crumbawchty !'1 'Of Morave yhondyre I se the thane !' 3 And Dame Grwok, his emys wyf, And held hyr bathe hys wyf and queyne, Till hys eme qwene, lyvand Quhen he was kyng with crowne rygnend All thus quhen his eme was dede, He was in justice rycht lawchful, And till hys legis all awful. Quhen Leo the tend was Pape of Rome," As pylgryne to the court he come ; 1 Cromarty. 4 Gruoch. 2 Youthhood. 3 Uncle (Ang.-Sax. eam). 5 Degrees (Fr. gre). 6A chronological error of nearly five hundred years, for Macbeth visited Rome during the pontificate of Leo the Ninth.—Irving, |