DUNBAR.-DOUGLAS. 23 The moral and didactic style of Dunbar is considered superior even to his allegorical manner. Altogether, he was certainly a man of the first order of genius; and it is evidently his antiquated language alone which prevents his works from being more generally known than they are. The third eminent Scottish poet of this era was GAVIN DOUGLAS, bishop of Dunkeld, who flourished between the years 1496 and 1522; he shines as an allegorical and descriptive poet. His principal original compositions are entitled the Palace of Honour, and King Hart, -the former being an allegory designed to show to his sovereign, James IV., that nothing but virtue could lead to happiness, while the latter is a metaphorical view of the progress of human life. It is worthy of notice, that there is a remarkable resemblance between the ⚫ former of these allegories and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which was written about a century and a half later. Douglas also wrote a translation of the Eneid of Virgil in metre, with an original introductory poem to each of the twelve books. This was the first translation of a Roman classic into English verse, and it is considered one of considerable merit, notwithstanding the writer takes some liberties with the original. The language employed in it is nearly the same as that used by English writers of the same period, and affords a striking example of the rage which had begun to prevail for bringing Latin words with English terminations into the stock of our current speech.* Hid Malice and despite. For privy hatred that traitor trembled, And flatterers unto men's faces, The spelling is here modernized, except in the words given in italic. *For instance, in a beautiful description of sunrise in the introduction to the twelfth book, the following passage occurs: The auriate vanes of his throne-soverane † Forward youths. +Circulators of false reports. SIR DAVID LINDSAY was another eminent poet of this class, though he flourished a little later than the others. He was the personal attendant and friend of James V., and latterly enjoyed the dignified heraldic office of Lyon King-at-Arms. He began to write about the year 1524, and died some time after 1567. He chiefly shines as a humorous and satirical writer. Besides several miscellaneous pieces, which display much talent, he composed a rude species of play called the Satire of the Three Estates, which was performed at Edinburgh and Cuparin-Fife, and was supposed to have some effect in causing the overthrow of the Catholic church in Scotland. The reign of Henry VIII., extending from 1509 to 1548, produced some writers, both in prose and poetry, considerably superior to those who had flourished in the three or four preceding reigns. Of the former, SIR THOMAS MORE, Lord Chancellor, is particularly worthy of notice. Being a devoted adherent of the Catholic faith, he published several pamphlets in defence of it, some of which were in English. He wrote, in 1516, his celebrated scheme of a moral republic, called Utopia; first published in Latin, and afterwards translated into English, though not by himself. Another of More's works was a History of Edward V., and of his Brother, and of Richard III., which appeared first in English and then in Latin, and has been the chief source of information respecting those reigns to later writers, though it has recently been proved to give a very incorrect view of various important transactions. More was a man of most amiable character, and of great learning and natural talent, and was put to death by Henry VIII., in 1535, on account of his refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of that monarch over the church. Another great prose-writer of the reign of Henry VIII. was JOHN LELAND, a Protestant clergyman, who, The largé fludis leaming all of licht, With but ane blink of his supernal sicht. For to behold it was ane glore to see The stabled windis and the coloured sea, The soft season, the firmament serene, The lowne illuminate air, and firth amene, &c. The words here given in italic are Latin, and would not have been employed in an earlier age. LELAND. BERNERS.-BELLENDEN.-SURREY. 25 having devoted many years to the study of the antiquities of his native country, wrote a large and valuable work on that subject, entitled an Itinerary, which was not printed till the year 1710. Leland published, in his own lifetime, several books of less importance, in one of which he gave an account of all the English authors before his own time. There also flourished at this period several prose chroniclers of English history, whose writings, though destitute of judgment, and aiming at no literary excellence, are yet valuable for the facts which they contain. In 1523, LORD BERNERS published an English translation of Froissart's celebrated work, which commemorates the history of England, France, and other countries, during the chivalrous period of the fourteenth century. A few years later, JOIN BELLenden, Arch-dean of Moray, was employed by James V. to translate Hector Boece's History of Scotland, and the works of Livy; the former was published in 1536, and is the earliest existing specimen of Scottish literary prose. The first original prose work in that language was one entitled the Complaynt of Scotland, which was published at St. Andrew's in 1548, by an unknown author, and consists of a meditation on the distracted state of the kingdom. The difference between the language of these works, and that employed by More and other English contemporary writers, is very little. The EARL OF SURREY and Sir Thomas Wyatt are the only poets of the reign of Henry VIII. whose writings now bear any considerable value. The former was the eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, and was born in 1516. He was educated at Windsor, in company with a natural son of the king, and in early life became accomplished, not only in the learning of the time, but in all kinds of courtly and chivalrous exercises. Having travelled into Italy, he became a devoted student of the poets of that country, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, and formed his own poetical style upon theirs. His poetry is chiefly amorous, and, notwithstanding his having married in early life, much of it consists of the praises of a lady whom he names Geraldine, supposed to have been a daughter of the Earl of Kildare. Surrey was a gallant soldier as well as a poet, and conducted an important expedition, in 1542, for the devastation of the Scottish borders. He finally fell under the displeasure of Henry VIII., and was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1547. For justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, Surrey may be pronounced the first English classical poet; and it is worthy of notice that, in some translations from Virgil, he gave the earliest known specimen of blank verse. SIR THOMAS WYATT was another distinguished character at the court of Henry VIII., and wrote many poems in much the same style with Surrey. He was the first polished satirist in English literature. *Although Surrey and Wyatt surpassed their cotemporaries, yet there were other poets during the reign of Henry VIII. that, in a history of the English language and literature, deserve our notice. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was author of Ferrex Porrex, the first regular English play; and also the Legend of the Duke of Buckingham, which the Edinburgh Review considers incomparably the best part of the Mirrour for Magistrates, and a production of great value. The Mirrour for Magistrates was a series of poems published at that period. To Sackville succeeded Churchyard and Edwards, the last of whom was a large contributor to the Paradise of Dainty Devices, a collection of poems published after his death. One or two of the pieces have been liked. These four lines describing a mother and her child, are tender and graceful. "She was full weary of her watch and grieved with her child, She rock-ed it, and rat-ed it, until on her it smiled: Then did she say, Now have I found the proverb true to prove, That falling out of faithful friends is the renuyng (renewing) of love.' *To this period may be referred the names of Lord Vaux, and Lord Rocheford. The former was a writer of sonnets, and "his commendation," as an antiquarian says, "lay chiefly in the facilitie of his meetre, and the aptnesse of his descriptions, such as he taketh upon him to make, namely in sundry of his songs, wherein he showeth the counterfait action very lively and pleasantly." Lord Rocheford is spoken of by the 'Earl of Orford, in his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, as * AM. ED. ROCHEFORD.-TYNDALE.-COVERDALE. 27 having written one piece with simplicity, harmony, and elegance. The title of the poem is, A Lover complaineth of the Unkindness of his Love, a stanza of which is "The rocks do not so cruelly, Whereby my lute and I have done."* The religious reformation which took place during his reign, caused several English versions of the Bible to be placed before the public; and these were perhaps the most important of all the literary efforts of the time. The first part of the Scriptures published in an English form, was the New Testament in 1526, a translation being executed by WILLIAM TYNDALE, a young scholar of Oxford university. The Old Testament, translated by the same individual, appeared in 1530, and both were eagerly received and read by the people. Tyndale, five years after, was burnt to death in Flanders for these services to the Protestant cause. In 1535, a new translation of the whole Bible was published by MILES COVERDALE, of the university of Cambridge; and other versions soon after appeared. The dissemination of so many copies of the Scriptures, where neither the Bible nor any considerable number of other books had formerly been in use, produced very remarkable effects. The versions first used, having been formed in some measure from the Latin translation called the Vulgate, contained many words from that language, which had hardly before been considered as English; such as perdition, consolation, reconciliation, sanctification, immortality, frustrate, inexcusable, transfigure, and many others requisite for the expression of compound and abstract ideas, which had never occurred to our Saxon ancestors, and therefore were not represented by any terms in that language. These words, in the course of time, became part of ordinary discourse, and thus the language was enriched. In the Book of Common Prayer, compiled in the subsequent reign of Edward VI., and which affords many beautiful specimens of the English of that time, the efforts of the learned to make such words familiar, are perceptible in many places; where * AM. ED. |