Here the talents of Sir David Lindsay were again brought into request in the construction and composition of the court festivals and pageants. 'James,' says Pitscottie, entertained his bride with great honors and playes made for her; and first she was received at the New Abbey, upon the east side whereof there was made a triumphant arch by Sir David Lindsay, lyon herauld, which caused a great cloud to come out of the heavens, above the gate, and open instantly, and there appeared a fair lady most like an angel, having the keys of Scotland in her hand, and delivered them to the Queen, in sign that all the hearts of Scotland were open to receive her Grace, with certain orations and exhortations made by the said Sir David Lindsay to the Queen, instructing her to serve God, and obey her husband according to God's commandments. Here the King and Queen remained forty days, with great merriness, such as justing, running at the lists, archery, hunting, hawking, with singing and dancing in masquery, and playing, and all other princely games, according to a King and Queen*. It was during these festivities that the Lion King composed his satirical poem entitled The Justing between James Watson and John Barbour,' in which his object was to ridicule the splendid solemnities and unnecessary bloodshed often caused by the tournaments. It is the least happy of his productions,-ponderous, laboured, and far inferior to a contemporary piece written with the same design by an English author, The Tournament of Tottenham.' It will be seen at *Lindsay of Pitscottie, pp. 248, 249. VOL. III. S once by a short quotation that Lindsay's measure cramps the easy flow of his humour : In St. Andrew's, on Whitsun-Monoday, * 2 The ane of them was gentle James Watsoun, And of his chalmer both cubiculars. * * * * * Fra time they entered were into the field The poet of The Tournament of Tottenham has wisely selected a merrier species of rhythm. He that beareth him best in the tournament Shall be granted the gree6 by the common assent, For to win my daughter with doughty dent, And copple my brood hen that was brought out of Kent, And my dun cow; For no spenee will I spare, For no cattle will I care, He shall have my grey mare and my spotted sow. Neither of these parodies, however, possess any high merit. It was, perhaps, a little previous to this that Lindsay composed his answer to the King's Flyting. It appears that James had attacked his Lord Lion in some verses, whose ornate metre Sir David · 6 highly commends, although their object was to make him' abominable in the sight of the ladies, and to banish him, on account of his age and infirmities, from the Court of Venus. In these abusive poetical contests, entitled Flytings,' it is no disparagement to Lindsay when we say he does not equal the multifarious and recondite scurrility of Dunbar or Kennedy; whilst, if we are to judge of the 'dittay' of the king by the coarseness and vulgarity of the reply, it is not much to be regretted that the royal Flyting has perished. In his concluding stanza, the monarch is highly complimented on his poetical talents; he is styled of flowing rhetorick the flower;' nor,-making all due allowance for the strain in which a poet may be supposed to indulge himself when addressing a prince, was the praise of the Lion King overstrained. We have seen the vicious and neglected education under which the youth of James V. had been blighted; yet there emerged out of this ungenial nurture a character of that strength and vigour which soon enabled him to make up for the time which he had lost. Amongst other qualities, he possessed that genius for the fine arts, and more especially for poetry and architecture, which had distinguished the first and third James; and it is easy to see that a congeniality of taste had recommended the Lion Herald to his royal master. We learn from Drummond that the king naturally given to poesie, as many of his verses yet exstant testify;' and few readers of Scottish poetry are unacquainted with the admirable ballad of the Gaberlunzieman,' which we owe to this monarch. was The pauky auld carle cam o'er the lea, The night was cauld1, the carle was wat2, O wow, quoth he, were I as free He grew canty and she grew fain"; What these slee twa thegither were saying, The result of the adventure is well known, in the elopement of the old woman's daughter with the Gaberlunzie. Nothing can be more felicitously described than the consequences of the discovery. The picture of the auld wife's despair, when she finds that the beggar had decamped, the anticipation that some of their gear must have walked away with him, and the complacent awakening of her charitable feelings on finding all safe, are finely true to nature. 1 cold. Upon the morn the auld wife raise, To speer 12 for the silly puir man. She gaed to the bed where the beggar lay: 2 wet. 7 fond. 11 clothes. 6 cheerful. busy. 14 goods. 2 Some ran to coffers, and some to kists1; 3 I've lodg'd a leil puir man, Since naething's awa3, as we can learn, Gae but the house, lass, and wauken the bairn, It is not too much to say that this picture, and the rest of the ballad, are, in point of humour, superior to anything of Dunbar's or of Lindsay's. From his zeal for the administration of strict justice to the lowest classes of his subjects, and his anxiety personally to inspect the conduct of his officers and judges, it was James's frequent practice to disguise himself and mingle much with the common people. The dangers of the wilderness,' says Pinkerton, in one of his Gibbonian flights, the gloom of night, the tempests of winter, could not prevent his patient exertions to protect the helpless, to punish the guilty, to enforce the observance of the laws. From horseback he often pronounced decrees worthy of the sagest seat of justice; and, if overtaken by night, in the progresses which he made through his kingdom, or separated by design or by accident from his company, he would share the meal of the lowest peasant with as hearty a relish as the feast of his highest noble.' It was on one of these occasions that the following pleasing anecdote is related of him :-' Being benighted when hunting, he entered a cottage, situated in the midst of a moor, at the foot of the Ochil hills, |