of his age, has dared to think for itself, he is altogether excellent; and, did the limits of these sketches permit, it would be easy to justify this high praise by examples. Where, for instance, could we meet, even in the works of Chaucer or Spenser, with a finer personification than this early poet has given us of Saturn, sitting shivering in his cold and distant sphere, his matted locks falling down his shoulders, glittering and fretted with hoar-frosts; the wind whistling through his grey and weather-beaten garments, and a sheaf of arrows, feathered with ice and headed with hailstones, stuck under his girdle?

"His face frouned, his lere1 was like the lede,

His teeth chattered and shivered with the chin,
His eyin droupid,2 whole sonkin in his hede;
Out at his nose the mildrop fast gan rin,
With lippis blew, and chekis lene and thin;
The icicles that fro his heer doune honge,
Were wonder grete, and as a speer were longe.

"Attour his belte his lyart 3 lokkis laie

Feltrid unfair or fret with frostis hore,
His garment and his gite 5 full gay of graie,
His withered wede fro him the winde out wore;
A bousteaus bow within his hande he bore;

Under his girdle a fasche of felon flains

Fedrid with ice, and headed with holstains."

Let us turn now for a moment from this wintry picture, and observe with what a fresh and glowing pencil, with what an ease and gracefulness of execution, the same hand can bring before us a summer landscape:

1 flesh or skin. 2drooped.

5 fashion of his clothing.

3 hoary. 4 matted.

6 feathered.

66

"In middis of June, that joly swete sessoun,

Quhen that fair Phoebus with his beamis brycht
Had dryit up the dew fra daill and down,
And all the land maid with his lemyss1 lycht,
In a morning, between midday and nycht,
I rais and put all sloth and sleep aside,
Ontill a wod I went alone, but gyd.2

"Sweet was the smell of flouris quhyt and reid,
The nois of birdis rycht delitious,
The bewis brod blumyt abone my heid,
The grund growand with grasses gratious,
Of all plesans that place was plenteous
With sweit odours and birdis armonie,
The morning myld, my mirth was mair forthy.

"The roses red arrayit, the rone and ryss,3

The primrose and the purpure

viola;

To heir, it was a point of paradyss,

Sic mirth, the mavis and the merle couth ma; 4 The blossomyss blyth brak up on bank and bra,5 The smell of herbis, and of foulis the cry, Contending quha suld have the victory."

a

Henryson's greatest work is that to which we have already alluded-the completion of Chaucer's beautiful poem of Troilus and Creseide❞—in strain of poetry not unworthy of the original. Henryson," says Mr. Godwin, in his 'Life of Chaucer,' "perceived what was defective in the close of the story of Troilus and Creseide, as Chaucer had left it. The inconstant and unfeeling Creseide, as she appears in the last book, is the just object of aversion, and no reader can be satisfied that Troilus, the loyal and heroic lover, should suffer all the consequences of her crime, whilst she escapes with impunity. The

1 beams.

3 the brambles and bushes.

2 without guide.

4 make.

5 a hill side.

poem of Henryson," he continues, "has a degree of merit calculated to make us regret that it is not a performance standing by itself, instead of thus serving merely as an appendage to the work of another. The author has conceived, in a very poetical manner, his description of the season in which he supposes himself to have written this dolorous tragedy. The sun was in Aries-his setting was ushered in with furious storms of hail, the cold was biting and intense, and the poet sat in a little solitary building, which he calls his oratoure. The evening star had just

isen.

"A doly season for a careful dite1

Suld correspond and be equivalent;
Richt so it was when I began to write
This tragedy; the weather right fervent,
Whan Aries in middis of the Lent,

Shouris of hail gan fro the north descende,
That scantly from the cold I mighten me defende.

"Yet neerthelesse within mine oratoure

66

I stode, whan Titan had his bemis brycht
Withdrawin doun, and seylid under cure,2
And faire Venus the beaute of the night
Upraise, and sette unto the weste full right,
Her golden face, in oppositioun

Of God Phoebus, directe discending down.

Throughout the glasse her bemis brast3 so faire,
That I might see on every side me by;

The northern winde had purified the aire,

And shedde his misty cloudis fro the skie;
The freste fresid, the blasts bitterly

From Pole Arcticke came whisking loud and shrill,
And caused me remove agenst my will.

1a sad season for a melancholy story.

2 unknown.

3 pierced.

"For I trusted, that Venus, lovers Quene,
To whom sometime I hight obedience,
My faded heart of love she wad make grene;
And thereupon, with humble reverence,
I thought to praie her hie magnificence,
But for grete cold as then I lettid was,
I in my chambre to the fire gan pass.
"Though love be hote, yet in a man of age
It kindlith not so sone as in youthheid,
Of whom the blode is flowing in a rage,

And in the old the corage dull and dede,
Of which the fire outward is best remeid,
To helpe by phisiche where that nature faild
I am experte, for both I have assailed.
"I made the fire and bekid me aboute,1

Then toke I drinke my spirits to comforte,
And armed me wele fro the cold thereoute;
To cutt the winter night, and mak it schort,
I took a querè,2 and lefte all othir sporte,
Written by worthy Chaucer glorious,
Of fair Creseide and lusty Troilus."

S

The picture presented in these striking line possesses the distinctness of outline and conception, and the rich poetic colouring, which marks the hand of genius. We see the aged bard sitting in a winter's evening in his oratory; we hear the bitter northern blast shaking the casement; the hail-stones are pattering on the glass; the sun has sunk; but, as the storm subsides, the air clears up to an intense frost, and the beautiful evening star, the planet of love, shows her golden face in the west. For awhile, with the enthusiasm of a lover of nature, the poet contemplates the scene; but, warned by the increasing cold, he closes his shutters, stirs his fire, wheels in his oaken chair, and, after warming his sluggard 1 warmed myself on every side. a book

2

blood with a cup of generous wine, takes up a volume of Chaucer, and happens to light upon the story of "fair Creseide and lusty Troilus."

In the poem, to use the words of an excellent critic, "Creseide is represented as deserted by Diomed, filled with discontent, and venting her rage in bitter revilings against Venus and Cupid. Her ingratitude is resented by these deities, who call a council of the seven planets, in which it is decreed that Creseide shall be punished with leprosy. Cynthia is deputed in a vision to inform her of her ate: she wakes, and finds that the dream is true. She then entreats her father to conduct her to an hospital for lepers, by the govenors of which she is compelled to go as a beggar on the highway. Among the passers by comes Troilus, who, in spite of the dreadful disfigurement of her person, finds something in her that he had seen before, and even draws, from a glance of her horrible countenance, a confused recollection of the sweet visage and amorous glances of his beloved Creseide. His instinct leads him no farther; he does not suspect that his mistress is actually before him; yet,

'For knightly pitie, and memorial

Of faire Creseide,'

he takes a girdle, a purse of gold, and many a gaie jewell, and shakes them doun in the skirt of the miserable beggar,

'Then rode awaye, and not a worde he spake.'

"No sooner is he gone, than Creseide becomes aware that her benefactor is no other than Troilus himself. Affected by this unexpected occurrence,