I buted to Chaucer, appear to belong to this period. But though Henry VI. was likely to be the patron of a talent, to which he had himself some pretensions; the general despondence and discontent which prevailed during a great part of his reign, could not but discourage men of rank and learning, from employing their leisure in works of imagination. In Scotland, on the contrary, the progress of poetry seems to have been uninterrupted; for Dunbar has enumerated no less than eighteen distinguished "Makers," many of whom must have flourished as early as the middle of the fifteenth century. One of these, Clerk of Tranent, is cele In the Nuga Antiquæ, Vol. II. p. 247, the following wretched lines are ascribed to this wretched prince. Kingdomes are bote cares; State ys devoyd of staie; Plesure is a pryvie prycke Wich vyce doth styll provoke ; Pompe unprompt; and fame a flayme; Powre a smouldryng smoke. Who meenethe to remoofe the rocke, Owte of the slymie mudde, Shall myre hymselfe, and hardlie scape The swellynge of the flodde. brated as the author of the "Adventures of Sir "Gawain," a romance, of which two cantos appear to be preserved. They are written in stanzas of thirteen lines, with alternate rhymes, and much alliteration; and in a language so very obsolete as to be often quite unintelligible. There is, however, a sort of wildness in the narrative, which is very striking. (Vide Pinkerton's Scotish Poems, 3 vols. 1792). Another Scotish poet, of the name of Holland, has left an allegorical satire, called the Houlate (the Owl), composed in the same metre with the preceding; and in language equally obscure, but far less beautiful. Mr. Warton seems to have proved, that it was written before 1455. (See the same collection). But the most interesting composition of this period is, the celebrated metrical history of Sir William Wallace, written by a poet whose surname is not known, but who is distinguished by the familiar appellations of Henry the Minstrel and Blind Harry. "The date of this book, (according to the account " prefixed to the edition printed at Perth, 1790), " and consequently the age of the author may be "almost exactly ascertained. In the time of my "infancy (says Major) Henry, who was blind from "his birth, composed a book consisting entirely of 66 "the achievements of William Wallace. Major "was born at North Berwick, in East Lothian, in "1446. It was therefore about the year 1446 that "Henry wrote, or made public, his entire history "of Wallace." From the same account it appears, that he was a kind of itinerant minstrel, and that "by reciting his histories before princes or great 66 men, he gained his food and raiment; of which "(says Major, very justly), he was worthy." That a man born blind should excel in any science is sufficiently extraordinary, though by no means without example; but that he should become an excellent poet is almost miraculous; because the soul of poetry is description. Perhaps, therefore, it may be safely assumed, that Henry was not inferior, in point of genius, either to Barber, or Chaucer; nor indeed to any poet of any age or country but it is our present business to estimate the merit of the work, rather than the genius of the author. The similarity of the subject will naturally induce every reader to compare the life of Wallace with Barber's life of Bruce; and, on such a comparison, it will probably be found that Henry excels his competitor in correctness of versification, and, perhaps, in perspicuity of language (for both of which he was indebted to the gradual improvements which had taken place during near a century); but that in every other particular he is greatly inferior to his predecessor. Though Henry did not invent what he relates, but probably employed such materials as he believed to be authentic; and though this may serve as a general excuse for many exaggerations and false facts, and, among the rest, for his carrying Wallace, at the head of a victorious army, to dictate a peace at St. Albans; yet, to represent the fierce and politic Edward I. trembling for his safety in the Tower of London; weeping over the body of his nephew; and sending his queen to supplicate for a disgraceful peace; is to confound all our ideas of historical characters, and to disgust the reader with useless improbability. The Bruce is evidently the work of a politician as well as poet. The characters of the king, of his brother, of Douglas, and of the earl of Murray, are discriminated, and their separate talents always employed with judgment; so that every event is prepared and rendered probable by the means to which it is attributed: whereas the life of Wallace is a mere romance, in which the hero hews down whole squadrons with his single arm, and is indebted for every victory, to his own muscular strength. Both poems are filled with descriptions of battles, but in those of Barber our attention is successively directed to the cool intrepidity of king Robert, to the brilliant rashness of Edward Bruce, or to the enterprising stratagems of Douglas; while in Henry we find little more than a disgusting picture of revenge, hatred, and blood. Still however it must be confessed, that the life of Wallace is a work of very great poetical merit. The following extracts are chosen as specimens of our author's style in different kinds of description; the first, representing a visionary spectre, seen by Wallace, soon after he had put to death one of his own partisans (of the name of Fawdon), whom he suspected of treachery. The scene is a solitary castle, called Gask Hall, at which Wallace arrived with a few partisans, after a very distressing retreat. In the Gask Hall their lodging have they taen; • Made ready. |