The thistle-cock's crying The fields are o'erflowing A thousand as one; The season excelling, Our hearts every one; Of war and fair women Say night is nigh gone. I see the flags flowing, WHILE WITH HER WHITE HANDS. While with her white and nimble hands Of lilies white, and violets, Thou sun, now shining bright above, Hast felt, as poets feign: If thou her fairness wilt not burn A brightness far surpassing thine, VAIN LOVERS. None love, but, fools, unloved again, That love bears none but fools at feid; So of necessitie men succeed: None love, but fools, unloved again. I wot a wise man will beware, Though some we see in every age, Like glaikit fools, gang giddy gates, Where reason finds no place for rage, They love them best who them but hates: Syne of their follies wyte the fates, As destiny did them disdain, Which are but idle vain conceits, None love, but fools, unloved again. Some by a proverb fain would prove, Who scarcely ever saw the schools, That love with reason is no love, Nor constance where occasion cools: There they confess like frantic fools, That wilfully they will be vain; But reason, what are men but mules? None love, but fools, unloved again. Go ding a dog and he will bite, But fawn on him who gives him food, And can, as cause requires, acquit, As ill with ill, and good with good. Then love none but where thou art lov'd, And where thou finds them feign'd, refrain: Take this my counsel, I conclude None love, but fools, unloved again. TS MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. BORN 1542- DIED 1587. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, the daughter of James V. and Mary of Lorraine, was born at Linlithgow Palace, December 8th, 1542. While she was still a child she was demanded in marriage by Henry VIII. of. England for his son Edward VI. When the Earl of Huntly was solicited for his assistance in this measure, he said like a man, that he did not mislike the match so much, as the way of wooing. The wishes of this boisterous potentate were not gratified, and a war arose in consequence, during which the young princess was sent to France at the age of six years. She was kindly received by Henry II., who resolved to educate her in all the accomplishments suitable to her elevated rank. She profited by her attention and her talents from the education which a munificent king bestowed upon her, as the intended wife of the dauphin, heir-apparent of his crown. By the death of the French king, and her marriage with Francis II., whom she also lost soon after, she became an unprotected widow at the age of eighteen. France had now no charms for her; while she received invitations from all parties to return to her native country and her divided people. She arrived at Leith, the seaport of Edinburgh, on the 19th of August, 1561. Before her departure from France Mary wrote verses with great facility in the language of that country, which may be said to have been her mother-tongue. She never attained to a good knowledge of English, not even of that form of it spoken in her native land. Her poems on the death of the dauphin, and on her leaving France, have "very considerable merit in the ideas, the imaginations, and the very genius of elegiac poetry," says her vindicator Whitaker, who has translated them into English. She was not only a poetess, but the cause of poetry in others. Many a vaudeville was written on her departure for Scotland, and one of her subjects, Alexander Scot, known as the Scottish Anacreon because he sung so much of love, sent "Ane New Year Gift" in the form of a poetical address, in twenty-eight stanzas. It begins "Welcome, illustrate lady, and our queen!" and in one verse the poet makes pointed allusion to certain prophecies which assigned a brilliant future to the young queen:"If saws be sooth to shaw thy celsitude, What bairn should brook all Britain by the sea, The prophecy expressly does conclude The French wife of the Bruce's blood should be: Thou art by line from him the ninth degree, And was King Francis' perty maik and peer; So by descent the same should spring of thee, By grace of God against this good new year.” After many vicissitudes of fortune, and struggles with her turbulent and semi-savage nobles, Mary was at last forced to flee from her own kingdom to that of a rival and enemy, for refuge from the hands of those who were capable of almost any deed of violence. But as well might the beautiful and unfortunate queen claim protection from her kinswoman as the hunted deer seek refuge in a tiger's den. For nineteen years she was confined a prisoner in various castles, and at length ended her sad and chequered career on the block. She was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle, February 8, 1587, in the forty-fifth year of her age. "The admirable and saintly fortitude with which she suffered," it has been well remarked, "formed a striking contrast to the despair and agony which not long afterwards darkened the death-bed of the English queen." Her remains now rest in Westminster Abbey, where a magnificent monument is erected to her memory. Mary's sad story may be epitomized in the lines "Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death." While the conduct and character of Queen Mary have been the subject of endless controversy with historians, her great beauty, her learning, and her many accomplishments are universally acknowledged. She wrote with elegance and force in the Latin, French, and Italian languages. Among her compositions are "Poems on Various Occasions;" "Royal | troduction by Julian Sharman. The volume Advice to her Son;" a copy of verses in contained eight poems.1 It is doubtful whether French, sent with a diamond ring to Queen at any time the queen applied herself to the Elizabeth; and her "Last Prayer," written study or composition of English poetry. A originally in Latin. A meritorious poem of distich in that language, scrawled on a window five stanzas has been attributed to her second at Fotheringay, is the only fragment: husband, Lord Darnley, the father of James VI. In 1873 an edition of Queen Mary's poems in French was published, with an in "From the top of all my trust, ON THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN. While in a tone of deepest woe Did Destiny's hard hand before, Who, in the morning of my day, And midst my flowers of youth most gay, What once of joy could lend a strain, That now my soul will condescend to prize. Full at my heart and in my eye A portrait and an image lie To case my sorely troubled mind, Whether I shelter in the grove, If to repose my limbs apply, No other object meets my sight, But here, my song, do thou refrain My honest heart full lively love, SONNET. Que suis-je, helas! et de quoi sert la vie! The Poems of Mary Queen of Scots, edited by Julian Sharman. One vol. Svo (Pickering, London, 1873). 100 copies only printed.-ED. ALEXANDER HUME, a sacred poet, was the second son of Patrick, fifth baron of Polwarth, and is supposed to have been born in the year 1560. He studied at the University of St. Andrews, where he was graduated in 1574. After spending four years in France studying the law, he returned to his native country, and was admitted to practise as an advocate. His professional progress is thus related by himself in an "Epistle to Maister Gilbert Montcrief, Mediciner to the King's Majestie, wherein is set down the Inexperience of the Author's Youth:" “Quhen that I had employ'd my youth and paine Four years in France, and was return'd againe, I lang'd to learn and curious was to knaw 1 The following translation was made by D. G. Rosetti: Ronsart, if thy good heart, of gentle kind, The consuetudes, the custome, and the law, I daily learnit, but could not pleisit be; I saw sic things as pitie was to see, Ane house owerlaid with process sa misguidit, Not meeting with success at the bar, Hume Which, in thy younger years, thou didst receive from a sought preferment at the court of James VI., king but failing in this also, he entered into holy orders, and was appointed minister of Logie, in Fifeshire. He now devoted himself to writing religious songs and poems, with a view of correcting the popular taste, and displacing the "godlie and spiritual sangis and ballatis" of that age, which were nothing more than pious travesties of the profane ballads and songs then most in vogue. In 1599 Hume published a volume entitled "Hymnes or Sacred Songs, where the right use of Poetry may be Espied," dedicated to "the faithful and vertuous Lady Elizabeth Melvil," generally styled Lady Culros, who wrote "Ane Godlye Dream, compylit in Scotish Meter," printed at Edinburgh in 1603, and at Aberdeen in 1644, which was a great favourite with the Presbyterians. The Hymns were recently reprinted by the Bannatyne Club. The best of these sacred poems, entitled by the author "The Day Estivall," is altogether an extraordinary production for the age in which it was composed. It presents the picture of a summer day from the dawn to the twilight; painted with a fidelity to nature, a liveliness of colouring, and a tasteful selection of incidents which mark the hand of a master. Besides the "Hymns or Sacred Songs," Mr. Hume wrote a poem on the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It is called "The Triumph of the Lord after the Maner of Men," and describes a triumphal procession similar to those of the ancient Romans, in which the spoils of the conquered enemy are exhibited in succession. The following passage may suffice for a specimen: "Richt as the point of day beginnes to spring, The poem has been highly praised by Dr. Leyden. The year 1609 is given as the date of Hume's death. THE DAY ESTIVALL. O perfite light! quhilk schaid away And set a ruler ouer the day, Ane uther ouer the night. Thy glorie quhen the day forth flies, The shaddow of the earth, anon, Removes and drawis by; Appeares a clearer sky. Quhilk sunne perceaves the lytill larkis, And tunes thair fangs like nature's clarkis, But everie bauld nocturnal beast They dread the day, fra they it see, Oure hemisphere is poleist clein, And lightened more and more, Quhill everie thing be clearlie sein Quhilk semit dim before. Except the glistering astres bright, Quhilk all the night were cleare, Offusked with a greater light, Na langer dois appeare. The golden globe incontinent, For joy the birds, with boulden throats, Takes up their kindlie musike nots Up braids the cairfull husbandman, In buith work besilie. The pastor quits the sloithfull sleepe, |