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Foular, that tald tales, and brocht foulis to the king;" on the 12th of the same month we meet with Watschod the tale-teller; on the 19th of April, 1497, we discover the king "listhening to twa filhilaris, who sung to him the ballad of Grey Steel" (pity that the lord-treasurer had not given us the ballad itself.) And on the 13th March, 1506, a poor man, wha tald tales to the Majesty of Scotland," received for the issue of his brain the reward of six shillings and eight pence. It would be easy to increase the catalogue of the royal amusements from the same authentic records. Hunting, hawking, racing, plays, and tournaments, are constantly recurring, whilst the King of Bene, the Abbot of Unreason, the Queen of May, the daft Queen of the Canongate, all contribute their stated and periodic portions of mirth, license, and absurdity. One singular instance of James's love of practical jokes and vulgar merriment is to be met with under the 14th August, 1491-" Item, to a wife at Bathgate bog that the king revit a rung fra,' 18 shillings."

In the midst of all this reckless dissipation of the royal mind, it is curious to remark the outbreakings of superstitious feelings, the strange mixture of levity and austerity, which distinguishes his character. Pilgrimages and pantomimes succeed each other with startling rapidity. In the midst of his career of gaiety, the monarch seems to be awakened suddenly by a sting of remorse, and a messenger is despatched for St. Duthoc's relic, or a profuse donation is made to the grey friars for additional prayers and masses;

1 wrested a stick from.

וי

or, in a still more homely frame of superstition,
the monarch borrows an angel, or gold noble, from
his high treasurer, and, after cruking, or bending
it, fixes the talisman to his beads. I may here
be permitted to add a word on the common story
of James's iron girdle, which, it is said, the king
ever wore as a penance for his having appeared in
arms against his father. No evidence of this in-
strument is to be traced in the treasurer's accounts;
and yet, such is the minuteness of their infor-
mation, that we might have expected it to be
noticed. It appears, however, that on the 3rd of
March, 1496, the king employed a goldsmith to
make a case of gold, which was to be worn about
his halse, or neck, and that three days after this
the same case was made larger or heavier than it
had been originally. It has been conjectured that
the wearing this case of gold may have been a
penance, and the origin of the story of the iron
girdle; but I am inclined to think that it partook
rather of ornament than of mortification.
It was
probably nothing more than a golden collar or
gorget.

THE END.

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