The whole scene was beautiful. The dews hung like orient pearls upon the branches, the tender flowers, beginning to open, exhaled their richest fragrance. The lord of day, springing up from the gorgeous east, ascended his throne, in his glorious golden robes, whilst Cynthia waxed paler, and, at last, her silver crescent faded away into empty air; the birds, awakening, sang their morning welcome to the day, and all nature seemed to rejoice but the charming scene failed to inspire with mirth the pensive bosom of the aged poet. He refuses to address any invocation to the fabled muses of Greece or Rome. "Such a strain," says he, "befits not a man mourning over the miseries of this world, and shut up in a vale of sorrow. I call no fabled muses, Minerva, Melpomene, Euterpe, or even Apollo" "For I did never sleep on Parnaso, To such mischeant muses, nor mahmutrie "Were I," he continues, "to invoke any, it would be reverend Rhamnusia, the goddess of despite; but I scorn," continues he, "all such heathenish inventions, and only implore the great God, who created heaven and earth, to impart to me somewhat of that spirit which gave wisdom to Solomon, grace to David, and strength to the mighty Samson. Let me repair, then, not to Mount Parnassus, but to Mount Calvary; let me be refreshed, not by the fabled Heliconian rill, but by the blessed and real fountain which flowed from the pierced side of my Redeemer. Walking onward, with his mind filled with these holy aspirations, he sees an aged man, sitting under a holly: "Into that park I saw appear An aged man, that drew me near; Of whose presence I was rejosit. I sperit his name, with reverence, The picture of the aged man, reclining under the shade of the holly, his beard descending down his breast, his white locks scattered over his shoulders, his flowing robe of sapphire blue, contrasted with the green of the soft, natural couch on which he lies, the grave and placid deportment which inspired reverence, and the courtesy which won affection, is finely conceived and executed. The poem henceforth assumes the form of a dialogue between the author and this venerable sage, who, with great shrewdness and learning, and often with much eloquence and poetic fervour, delivers a kind of chronicle of human error and sin, from its earliest appearance in Eden, until its final doom in the day of judgment. The tedium of this narrative is occasionally relieved by little episodes, in which the author speaks in his own person. Thus, in imitation of Chaucer and Lydgate, in England, and of his Scottish brethren, Douglas and Wedderburn, Lindsay introduces "an Exclamation to the Reader, touching the writing of his Poem in the vulgar and maternal Language." argument or apology is sound and unanswerable. "I write," says he, "for Jok and Thom, coilzears, carters, and cooks; and I, therefore, make use of their language." "Aristotle and Plato," says he, "did not communicate their philosophy in Dutch or Italian; Virgil and Cicero did not write in Chaldee or Hebrew. Saint Jerome, it is true, translated the Bible into Latin, but if Saint Jerome had been born in Argyleshire, he would have translated it into Gaelic."* His One of the most interesting portions of Lindsay's "Monarchy" is that of the second book, where he considers the subject of the Catholic worship of images, and draws a vigorous parallel between the idolatries of the Gentiles and that of the Romish church. Unlike the more violent reformers who succeeded him, he is far from uttering an uncompromising anathema against the use of images; on the contrary, if properly employed, he considers them useful helps to devotion, means which may be instrumental to the instruc * Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. iii. p. 137. tion and the fortifying the faith of the unlearned. It is only when we kneel and pray to them that they become sinful and unscriptural. "But we, by counsel of clergy, They suffered pain richt patiently. Or when thou seest ane portraiture How she should be both mother and maid. Praying to any images, With orison or offerand, In the following stanza, Lindsay alludes to an image of St. Giles, the patron saint of Edinburgh, which was afterwards connected with a noted event in the history of the reformation ; "Of Edinborough the great idolatrie, On their feast-day, all creatures may see- * Poems, vol. iii. p. 5. see. With priestes and freiris into processioun, Sic lyke as Bel was borne thro' Babylon." The fate of this image Lindsay did not live to It was destroyed by the populace, on the 1st of September, 1558, during one of the annual processions, in which the priests and friars paraded it through the city; on which occasion, to use the words of Knox, "One took the idol by the heels, and, dadding his head to the street, left Dagon without head or hands. The Grey Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first gat the house."* The use and abuse of the temporal power of the Popedom, the unholy lives of many of the clergy, the injurious effects of pilgrimages, the disastrous consequences which spring from the ignorance of the people, the happy results to be anticipated from the publication of the Scriptures and missals in the vernacular language of the country, are all enlarged upon by Lindsay, in a strain of vigorous and convincing, though sometimes homely argument; at last, Experience, having concluded his heavenly lessons, takes leave of his pupil in these sweet stanzas: "Of our talking now let us make an end, Behald1 how Phoebus downwart dois descend Dame Cynthia, I see, she does pretend 2 pale. 3 steeps. 4 rejoiced. 5 closed. |