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SCOTTISH POETRY.* 



IN James the First's writings, we see the commencement of the 

 Scottish rustic poetry ; his " Peblis to the Play/' written in the early 

 uncouth, northern verse, is full of rural festivity and glee, everywhere 

 distinguished for its quiet pleasant humour, and easy, harmonious 

 lines ; the former, so unexpected in the writings of a royal bard- and 

 the latter, so unlocked for, when we consider the barbarous period in 

 which the Poet wrote; a period in which little but rapacity and 

 cruelty prevailed. 



Before King James, Scotland could boast of no lyrics, or poetry of 

 a pure descriptive kind ; the " Bruce" of Barbour, and the "Wallace" 

 of Blind Harry, are, in fact, the only poems the country could speak 

 of. Though pieces of great merit, they tincture rather strongly 

 of fictitious Guy of Warwick adventures, peculiar to the writer's 

 supertitious age , they may be called chronicles in verse of the true 

 and fabulous deeds accomplished by, and awarded to, existing heroes, 

 and can make little or no pretensions to the higher classes of poetry. 

 Imaginative poetry, of a very high kind, came into Scotland with 

 Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay ; the Thistle and 

 the Rose of the former may, for poetic beauty of expression, be placed 

 with almost any piece of Chaucer's ; in truth, Dunbar had a true feel- 

 ing for poetry, as very many of his poems clearly show. From the 

 death of Chaucer till, according to Sir John Denham, 



ee Like Aurora Spenser rose/' 



we " Southrons" can bring forward none that have any pretensions to 

 be called poets ; while Scotland produced many great men, we had 

 only the names of Lydgate and Gower ! 



It is a singular circumstance that the next, and very successful 

 cultivator of the rustic muse, was James the Fifth his <e Christ's 

 Kirk on the Green," his two songs, the " Gaberlunzie Man/' and the 

 ft Jolly Beggar," by many degrees surpass the productions of his 

 royal ancestor. No songs partake so much of true drollery and fun ; 

 their graphic power even the wondrous muse of Burns never ex- 

 celled. There is a vividness and glutting humour of language about 

 them impossible for mortal to surpass ; the Gaberlunzie man's intro- 

 duction to the Gudewife's daughter is inimitable : 



" The night was cauld, the carle was wat, 

 And down ay out the ingle he sat ; 

 My;'daiighter's shouthers he 'gan to clap, 

 And cadgily ranted and sang ;" 



a picture so powerfully described, that no painter has skill to draw 

 up to it. 



The coarseness and vulgarity so strongly show r n in the songs of the 



* The Works of Robert Burns, with Life, by Allan Cunningham, in 6 vols. 

 Vol. I. London : Cochrane and M'Crone. 



