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and the honours of knighthood. 1531, along with Sir John Campbell of Lundy, he was sent on an embassy to Flanders, for the purpose of renewing a treaty of commerce, concluded by James I. in 1430. The Queen of Hungary, sister of the Emperor Charles V., who was then Governess of the Netherlands, along with her brother the Emperor, received | the Scottish ambassadors at Brussels with great distinction. Lindsay had here an opportunity of witnessing the splendours of the court, and the pageantry of a grand tournament; and in a letter, still preserved, which he wrote from Antwerp, he records the impression made upon him by the unusual splendours of which he was a spectator, the cordiality with which they were received, and the success of their mission. A detailed account of his observation, written for the King's perusal, has not been preserved.

Buchanan relates that the Scottish ambassadors were authorized to report in reference to a matrimonial alliance | with a member of the Emperor's family; and Charles, desirous of severing Scotland's ancient connection with France, in 1534, wrote James a letter, giving him the choice of three princesses of his own blood, all Marys. Pitscottie states that this matter formed the occasion of a special mission in 1535; but whether James was dissatisfied with the appearance of the ladies, whose portraits were sent him, or preferred the French alliance, does not appear.

treaty of marriage between James and Marie de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendome. But before the terms were concluded, the King in person, but disguised as one of his retinue, appeared upon the scene, and was discovered by the Princess, who had his portrait sent her secretly from Scotland. Yet after the most cordial reception, the impulsive monarch, at the end of eight days, took an abrupt leave of the Princess, on the plea of consulting the King of France.

Francis I. advised him to carry out his engagement with the Princess de Bourbon, but James set his affections on Magdalene, the King's eldest daughter, whose hand, after some hesitation on the part of her father, he at last obtained. They were married in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, on the Ist of January 1536-7, and the account of the marriage given by Pitscottie is said to have been supplied him by Lindsay, who witnessed the splendid ceremonial. James returned to Scotland in May, accompanied by his bride, who, however, only survived her arrival forty days. The King's grief was excessive, and Lindsay composed an elegy, entitled "The Deploration of the Death of Queen Magdalene."

James, in a short time, again turns his thoughts to a second French alliance, and selects Mary, daughter of the Duke de Guise, as his partner. Lindsay did not accompany the embassy that was sent to bring home the Queen, but superintended the preLindsay's next foreign mission was to parations made for her reception at St France, in 1536, when he accompanied | Andrews, where the King decided upon the ambassadors sent to negotiate a receiving her. As part of the entertain

ments of the court on this occasion, he wrote the "Jousting betwixt Watson and Barbour, the King's 'medicinars.

It is not at all improbable that his concern with the pageantry and amusements of this occasion may have turned his thoughts to the composition of his most remarkable production, The Satire of The Three Estates. Dr Laing rejects the common belief that it was enacted at Cupar, in 1535, and assigns its first representation to January❘ 1539-40, at Linlithgow. Lindsay's next work was of an official character, A Register of the Arms of the Scottish Nobility and Gentry, completed under his directions, as Lyon Herald, in 1542. This volume is preserved in the Advocate's Library, and its execution, Dr Laing remarks, is "creditable to the state of the heraldic art in Scotland."

On 14th December of this year, James V. died at Falkland, in his 31st year, a week after the birth, at Linlithgow, of his infant daughter and heiress, Mary. When the announcement of this event was made to him on his death-bed, he is said to have replied, "Fairweil; it cam with ane lass, and it will pass with ane lass." In connection with James's death, Lindsay, in 1544, was commissioned to restore the statutes and badges of the different orders of knighthood that were bestowed upon him, among which was that of the Golden Fleece, by the Emperor Charles V., that of St Michael, by Francis I., and that of the Garter, by Henry VIII.

In acknowledging the receipt of the insignia of the Garter, Henry, in a letter to the governor, the Earl of Arran, takes occasion to commend the Lyon

Herald for having "used himself right discreatelye, and moche to our contentation."

Lindsay's next poem, "The Tragedy of the Cardinal," is one on account of which he has incurred the displeasure of his most assiduous editor, Chalmers. From our present standpoint, it may be admitted to be a composition whose defects, in point of taste, are not compensated by poetical merits; yet it cannot be said to be outrageous as an exponent of the spirit of the times. It may indeed have been considered a moderate exposition of the estimate of Beaton's character, held by those whom the cruel deaths of Hamilton and Wishart filled with just resentment at the authors of such villanies. It is also quite in harmony with Lindsay's numerous other forcible denunciations of the lives and practices of the priesthood of a Church, of which it is very doubtful that he ever desired the overthrow, but only the reformation. It does appear, from Knox's History of the Reformation, that Lindsay was present at a private conference of the great Reformer and his friends, on one occasion, at St Andrews, but this was a year after the Cardinal's assassination, and had no connection with the perpetrators of that deed of retribution. He sat as commissioner for the burgh of Cupar, in the Parliament in which Norman Lesley and his associates were declared guilty of treason; and it devolved on him, as Lyon Herald, to make public proclamation of the sentence.

His last mission abroad was in 1548, when he was sent to Denmark, to solicit ships for the defence of the

Scottish coast against England, and to negotiate a free trade, especially in grain, between the merchants of both countries. He only succeeded in accomplishing the latter part of his mission.

About this time he published "The History and Testament of Squire Meldrum," which Chalmers considers the most pleasing of his poems, though | blemished by occasional coarseness, trifling jests, and fulsome ribbaldry. In 1553, he finished The Monarchie, which has been characterized as his "greatest" work. That it his longest work admits of no dispute, and it may also be reckoned as his last poem; yet while it contains many forcible passages, and displays an extensive acquaintance with history, the greater part of it does not rise in style, or conception, above the ordinary metrical chronicle.

His play of "The Three Estates" was acted on the Playfield, Edinburgh, in April 1554, before the Queen mother, the Court, and the Commons; and Henry Charteris, the Edinburgh publisher of Lindsay's works, who was present, says that the author superintended the representation.

One of Lindsay's last public acts was the convening of a chapter of Heralds, in the Abbey of Holyrood-house, in January 1554-5, "for the trial and punishment of William Crawar, a messenger, for abuse of his office."

The exact date of his death is unknown, but Dr Laing gives an extract from the Privy Council Register, which shows that his brother, Alexander Lindsay, his next of kin, and heir of entail-for he had no heirs of his body, and his wife, who was in conjunct fee

with himself, must have predeceased him—was acknowledged as his successor on the 18th April 1555, which must have been very shortly after his death.

Lindsay has been regarded as a reformer as well as a poet. Dr Laing observes, what no one who reads his poems can fail to see, that "all his writings had for their object an unmistakable attempt to expose and reform abuses, whether in Church or State. That they had a powerful effect in promoting such reforms is sufficiently obvious. In no other sense can he be called a reformer."

It is quite clear, both from Lindsay and Dunbar's attacks upon the lives of the Romish clergy, that very great licence was tolerated in this direction; and it appears to be true of all ecclesiastical institutions, that though the vices of the priesthood are most fatal to their stability, the slightest deviations from the faith excite their resentment more than the most violent attacks upon the morals and conduct of the clergy. The Church of Rome at length did try to put an end to writings of this class; for by an act of Queen Mary, printers are for bidden, under pain of confiscation and banishment, to issue books without a licence, with special reference to the stoppage of such publications. Neither Lindsay nor Dunbar appears to have diverged from the faith of their Church.

It has been already indicated that we consider Lindsay's poetry of an inferior order to Dunbar's, and in loftiness of imagination to that of Douglas; yet in arrangement and clearness of conception, in proportion and perspective, he is Douglas's superior; and in dramatic

arrangement of incident, and that harmony of action which produces unity of purpose, and co-relation of the several parts to the whole, he is superior to both; yet he does not possess Dunbar's power of, in a few touches, producing an effect which irresistibly draws out, as it were, the latent forces of the imagination, to see and feel far beyond the mere foreground picture actually depicted. His imagination lacks what may be termed the generative or vivifying force, and communicates no impetus to carry us beyond the matter-of-❘ fact conception, whose bald definiteness suggests nothing in the background. Indeed, it would almost appear as if he felt some stiffness in this direction, for after his first poem, "The Dream," he confined himself to his more congenial sphere. He has one great merit which does not characterize all his contemporaries: he seldom fails to make his meaning clear to the most ordinary capacity, and hence one secret of his popularity. Dr Irving remarks that his works "are often entertaining by their strokes of humour, or instructive by their views of life and manners; and although his delineations are sometimes extremely coarse, they are not on that account to be considered as less faithful. He was evidently a man of sense and observation, with serious impressions of virtue and piety; nor was he destitute of those higher powers of mind which enable a writer to communicate his ideas with due effect. He frequently displays no mean vivacity of fancy, and the extensive and continued popularity to which he attained, must have rested on some solid foundation. Many of his poems

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have a satirical tendency; and the freedom with which he exposes vice, even when it belongs to royalty, has stamped his works with the character of intrepid sincerity." Mr Ellis, in a similar strain, observes :—“ Perhaps, indeed, 'The Dream' is his only composition which can be cited as uniformly poetical; but his various learning, his good sense, his perfect knowledge of courts and of the world, the facility of his versification, and, above all, his peculiar talent of adapting himself to readers of all denominations, will continue to secure to him a considerable share of that popularity for which he was originally indebted to the opinions he professed, no less than to his poetical merit."

Lindsay's works were all written after the introduction of printing into Scotland, and had been all or mostly printed separately during his lifetime; yet the first collected edition was by the French printer Jascuy, in 1558. This was followed, in 1559, by an edition by John Scot of St Andrews, who, for fear of the consequences threatened by the act of Mary, omitted the printer's name, date, and place of printing. The next edition was that by Henry Charteris, Edinburgh, 1568, prefaced by an account of the author, which formed the nucleous of the subsequent lives. Frequent reprints followed; and so popular were Lindsay's works, that Chalmers, while carefully guarding against instituting a comparison be tween his poetical merits and those of Chaucer, observes, that while only twelve editions of the latter poet appeared in a hundred and twenty-seven

My service done unto thy celsitude,
Whilk needis not at length for to be shown;
And though my youth-hood now,
oure blown,

be near

years from the edition of 1475, fourteen editions of Lindsay were printed in fifty-six years, including two in France, and three in England. Chalmers's edition in three vols., 1806, is the most elaborate that has yet appeared; but it Hope has me hecht' ane goodly recom

is proper to add that Dr David Laing has a three-volume library edition in preparation, the text of which, with the omission of some of the grosser parts of The Three Estates, was published as a two-volume edition, with a Life and Glossary, in 1871.

THE DREAM.

[This, the earliest of Lindsay's poems, was composed in 1528, when James V., by his own address, escaped out of the control of the Douglases. The address to the King, with which it begins, is a pleasing account of the social recreations of the youthful monarch and his faithful page. This subject he resumes in "The Complaint."

The Prologue is, with that to the "Monarchy," considered his most poetical production, although after a style very common among his predecessors. The poem being too long to give in full, we have restricted our selections to these two portions, along with that part of the "Dream proper which gives the poet's idea of the infernal regions, as a contrast sketch to that of the state of the glorified bodies given from the "Monarchy."]

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THE EPISTLE TO THE KING'S GRACE.

I.

Right potent prince of high imperial blood,
Unto thy grace I trust it be weel known,

Exercit in service of thine excellence,

pense.

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