"To give them openly bataille:

"But at this time their thought shall fail.
"For we, tomorn here, all the day,
"Shall make us merry as we may:
"And make us boon against the night;
"And then ger make our fires light;
"And blow our hornys, and make fare
"As all the world our own were,
"While that the night well fallen be;
"And then, with all our harness, we
"Shall take our way homeward in hy.
"And we shall gyit1 be graithly,*
"While we be out of their danger
"That lies now enclosed here.
"Then shall we all be at our will.
"And they shall let them trumpet ill,
"Fra they wyt well we be away."
To this wholly assented they, &c.

The story here told by Douglas, has every appearance of being a French fabliau: and Barber has unquestionably borrowed, from the same language, the romance of FIER ABRAS, which the king relates to his followers during their tedious passage of Loch Lomond. (See book iii. v. 435. edit. 1790.) It is not transcribed here, because • Cautiously?

• Guised.

it is unnecessary to multiply extracts from a work which is so easily attainable: it might, indeed, be proper to apologize for the length of the foregoing specimen, but that the capricious and obsolete orthography of the ancient MS. to which Mr. Pinkerton has, with great propriety, scrupulously adhered, may possibly have deterred many readers, from attempting to peruse this very curious and entertaining historical poem.

CHAPTER X.

Reign of Henry IV.-Andrew of Wyntown— Extracts from his "original Chronicle of Scotland."-Thomas Occleve.-Anonymous English Poetry.

ANDREW of Wyntown claims a place in our catalogue of English poets, in consequence of his having written, in tolerable eight-syllable verse, and in very pure language, his " Orygynale Cronykil" of Scotland, from the creation of the world to the year 1408. This is a very curious work, of which a most sumptuous and apparently correct edition, from a comparison of the best MSS. has lately (in 1795) been given to the public by Mr. Macpherson, together with a list of various readings, many valuable historical notes, a copious index, and a most useful glossary.

All the information that the learned editor has been able to collect respecting his author, amounts to this; that Andrew of Wyntown was a canon regular of the priory of St. Andrews, and that, in or about the year 1395, he was, by the favour of his fellow-canons, elected prior of the monastery

of St. Serf's island, in Loch-Levin, one of the most ancient religious establishments in Scotland. As he was not likely to be chosen for such an office in very early youth, and as he complains much of the infirmities of age, while occupied in his Chronicle, which appears, from internal evidence, to have been finished between the years 1420 and 1424, he was probably born, not long after the middle of the fourteenth century.

With respect to his poetical talents, the opinion of his editor is, that his work in general partakes little "or nothing of the nature of poetry, unless rhyme

can be said to constitute poetry; yet, he now "and then throws in some touches of true poetic "description." This, indeed, seems to be as much as can be fairly expected from a metrical annalist; for dates and numerals are, of necessity, unpoetical; and, perhaps, the ablest modern versifier who should undertake to enumerate, in metre, the years of our Lord in only one century, would feel some respect for the ingenuity, with which Wyntown has contrived to vary his rhymes, thoughout such a formidable chronological series, as he has ventured to encounter. His genius is certainly inferior to that of his predecessor, Barber; but at least his versification is easy, his language pure, and his style often animated. As an historian, he is

highly valuable; but perhaps it may be more amusing to the reader, to examine him both as a narrator and as a poet, in the early and nearly fabulous part of his work, for which purpose some extracts are here selected from his history of Macbeth.

It is well known that Shakspeare's immediate model was Hollinshed, who abridged the work of Bellenden, translated from the Latin of Boyce. Wyntown's narrative is, in some respects, very different, and, in one instance at least, is much more dramatic.

This author gives the following as the popular

and fabulous account of Macbeth's parentage:

But, as we find by some stories

2

Gotten he was on1 ferly wise,

His mother to woods made oft repair

For the delight of wholesome air.

So she past upon a day

Till a wood, her for to play;

She met of case 3 with a fair man,

(Ne'er none so fair as she thought than
Before then had she seen with sight.)

Of beauty pleasant, and of height

. In.

By chance; per cas. Fr.

• Wonderful.

-