My eloquence, and tongue rhetorical; Then take and dry my bones, both great and small, Next close them in a case of ivory fair, And them present unto the phoenix rare, "To burn with her when she her life renews: Her date it is to live five hundred year- Bear her my tender love. Now, farewell, brethren three!" Having finished her last injunctions, Polly disposes herself to die; and, falling into her mortal passion, after a severe struggle, in which the blood pitifully gushes from her wounds, she at last breathes out her life Extinguish'd were her natural wittis five." Her executors then proceed to divide her body in a very summary manner. "My heart was sad," says Lindsay, "to see this doleful partition of my favorite; her angel feathers scattered by these greedy cormorants in the air." Nothing at last is left except the heart, which the magpye, with a sudden fit of loyalty, vindicates as belonging to the king. The portion, however, is too tempting to the raven. Now, may I be hanged," says he, "if this piece shall be given either to king or duke;" a tussle ensues; the greedy hawk, seizing the heart in her talons, soars away, whilst the rest pursue her with a terrible din, and disappear in the air. So ends the tragedy of the papingo; the poet dismissing his little quhair, or book, with the usual acknowledgment of its rude 66 1 synopeir green. ness and imperfection, a very unnecessary apology ; for, as the extracts we have given abundantly demonstrate, it is, in point of elegance, learning, variety of description, and easy playful humour, worthy to hold its place with any poem of the period, either English or Scottish. Soon after writing this work, Lindsay, in 1531, was despatched by the government on a political mission to Brussels. Its object was the renewal of the commercial treaty concluded by James the First between Scotland and the Netherlands; his fellow ambassadors were David Panter, Secretary to the king, and Sir James Campbell, of Lundie. Margaret, the Governess of the Netherlands, was lately dead, upon which the Queen of Hungary had been raised to that splendid prefecture, and the Scottish ambassadors were received by this princess and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, then at Brussels, with great state and solemnity. They were soon after dismissed, having succeeded in every point of their negotiation. In a letter from Antwerp to his friend the Scottish Secretary of State, Lindsay thus expresses himself:-" It war too langsome to write to your L. the triumphs that I have seen, since my cumin to the court imperial; that is to say, the triumphs and justings, the terrible tournaments, the fighting on foot in barras, the names of lords and knights that were hurt that day of the great tournament, whose circumstances I have written at length in articles to show the King's Grace at my home coming.' It is a pity that Chalmers' Life, p. 14. * these "articles," containing an account of such splendid entertainments, and, it is to be presumed, some description also of Antwerp, the great commercial emporium of Europe, cannot now be discovered. On his return from this mission, Lindsay's mind was occupied with two great subjects—his marriage, and the celebrated "Satire of the three Estates." His marriage was unhappy, originating, probably, in ambition, (for he united himself to a daughter of the house of Douglas,) and ending in disappointment. He had no children, and, from the terms in which he commonly talks of the sex, it may be plausibly conjectured that the Lady Lioness was not possessed of a very amiable disposition. His Satire of the three Estates" was a more successful experiment, and is well deserving of notice, as the first approach to the regular drama which had yet been made in Scotland. In this country, as in the other European kingdoms, we may believe there was the same progress in the history of the stage, from the ancient exhibitions, entitled mysteries, to the more complicated pageants known by the name of moralities; and from thence the transition must have been easy, to the mixed species of drama of which Lindsay's satire presented, probably, a perfect specimen. Jugglers, minstrels, buffoons, and masked characters, appear at the Scottish court, anterior to, and during the reign of James the First. "At the celebration of the nuptials of James the Fourth and the lady Margaret, a company of English comedians, under the management of John English, regaled the court with a It may be suspected dramatic representation." that John English is the "Gentle Johne, the English Fule," whom we have already noticed as making so prominent a figure in the accounts of the Lord Of this exhibition it is to be High Treasurer. regretted that we have only a very brief account by a contemporary author:-" After dinnar," says Johne Younge, "a moralitie was played by the said Master Inglishe and his companions, in the presence of the kyng and quene; and then daunces In 1515, when John, Duke of were daunced."* Albany, arrived from France to assume the regency, we learn from Lesly, that he was received by many lords and barons, on the 26th of May, and sundrie farces and good playes were made by the burgesses to his honor and praise. Lindsay, as we have already seen, played farces on the floor, "for the amusement of his youthful and royal master; and now, in 1535, when his genius was more vigorous, and his acquaintance with human nature more extensive, he produced a moralitie, which, in the regularitie of its form, the breadth and boldness of its satire, and the variety of its delineations of character, was superior to the productions of any of the early English dramatists." "Whether," says Chalmers, "the matter or the manner of this drama be considered, it must be allowed to be a very singular performance, and to have carried away the palm of dramatic composition from the contemporary moralities of England, till the epoch of the first tragedy in Gorboduc, * Leland Collect. vol. iv. p. 258. and of the first comedy in Gammar Gurton's Needle." Some things are remarkable in this early dramatic composition. It was acted before as refined an audience as could then be assembled. The king and queen, the ladies and nobles of the court, with the spiritual estate, were present, and yet its coarseness and licentiousness is extreme, and, on many subjects, its wit of such a kind as to preclude all quotation. Yet Lindsay wrote in the character of a professed reformer of manners; but, if its grossness and vulgarity give us a low picture of the morality or delicacy of the age, the boldness of the author, and the liberality or folly of the audience, are equally conspicuous. The representation took place before the king, with his favourite ministers and advisers; yet it lashes his youthful excesses, and their profligate and selfish devices, with unsparing severity. It was performed in presence of the bishops and clergy, and before an immense multitude of the people, the burgesses, the yeomen, the poor labourers, and tacksmen; and yet it exposes, with a poignancy of satire, and a breadth of humour which must have made the deepest impression, the abuses of the Catholic religion-the evils of pluralities and non-residence-the ignorance of the priests-the grievances of tithes the profligacy of the prelates-and the happy effects which would result from a thorough and speedy reformation. Hitherto, what had been written against these excesses, had never reached the people; it was generally shut up in a learned language, which they did not understand: if com |