My sister fair, quoth she, have me excused, With tender meat my stomach still is us❜d- Thir withir'd nuts and pease, or they be bored, Will break my chaffs, and mak my teeth full slender, Which have been us'd before to meat more tender. The rest of the story and the catastrophe are well known; the invitation of the city mouse, its acceptance, their perilous journey to town, their delicious meal, and its fearful interruption by Hunter Gib, (the jolly cat,) the pangs of the rural mouse, whose heart is almost frightened out of its little velvet tenement, her marvellous escape, and the delight with which she again finds herself in her warm nest in the country, are described with great felicity of humour. No one who has witnessed the ingenuity of the torment inflicted by a cat on its victim, will fail to recognize the perfect nature of Hunter Gib's' conduct, when the unfortunate rural citizen is under his clutches: From foot to foot he cast her to and frae, Whiles up, whiles down, as tait1 as ony kid, Till at the last, thro fortune fair and hap, Syne up in haste beside the panaling 4. Sae high she clam 5, that Gibby might not get her, Till he was gane7; her cheer was all the better; Pinkerton has declared that this is the only fable of Henryson's worthy of preservation; a clear proof that he had little feeling for true poetry. The Lion and the Mous' completely refutes his tasteless criticism. It commences with that sweet picture of the rural delights of the leafy-month June, which we have already quoted; and, besides the truth and spirit with which the story is given, is curious, from its evident allusion to that treasonable combination of the nobles, which cost James III. his crown and his life :— Thir cruel men that stentit has the net1, For hurt men write with steel in marble stane. But king and lord may well wote what I mean, When this was said, quoth Easop, My fair child, That justice ring and nobles keep their fay WILLIAM DUNBAR. Or this great genius, who has enriched the poetry of his country with a strain of versification superior in power, originality, and sweetness to any of his predecessors, we have to repeat, alas! the same story of unavailing regret, that little is known; and that little, founded on very imperfect evidence. Pinkerton, relying upon a stanza in Kennedy's Flyting (or Railing) against Dunbar,' conjectures that he was born at Salton, a village on the delightful coast of the Forth, in East Lothian; but, unfortunately, the acuteness of a future antiquary discovered that the truc reading of the passage was Mount Falcon; a circumstance which gave rise to a new hypothesis, equally vague and unsatisfactory. It seems not improbable, however, that he first saw the light somewhere in Lothian, about the year 1465; and from his own works, a few circumstances may be gleaned, which illustrate his individual history. He was educated for the church; and, undoubtedly, travelled over England and a part of the Continent, as a noviciate of the order of St. Francis. This is evident from his satirical poem, entitled The Visitation of St. Francis.' The saint appears to the poet in a vision, shortly before the dawn, and holding in his hand the habit of his order, commands him to renounce the world and become his servant. Dunbar excuses himself, observing, that he has read of many bishops, but exceeding few friars, who had been admitted to the honour of canonization; but he allows that, in his early years, he had worn the habit : Gif ever my fortoun' wes to be a frier, The date thereof is past full mony a year; Of all Ingland, fro Berwick to Cales, 4 I haif into thy habit maid gude cheir". In me, God wit, wes mony wink and wile; Whilk might be flemit 6 with na haly water; Where he received his education it is impossible to discover; but from the colophon of one of his poems, it is presumable that he had studied at Oxford; and we may conclude from his address To the Lordes of the King's Chekkar,' that he was in the receipt of an annual pension which was scarcely sufficient to supply his ordinary wants. 'Ye need not,' says he to these grave personages, earnestly. 1 fortune. 5 entreated. 2 friar. 8 cheer. 4 'spend your time or tire your thumbs, or consume your ink and paper in the reckoning up my rents or annuities. It is a short story: I got a sum of money from my lord-treasurer, which is all gone. Is not that a sad enough tale without more labour?' My Lordis of Chacker, pleis yow to heir For rekkyning of my rentis and roumes I tuik fra my Lord Thesaurair I can nocht tell yow how it is spendit, Even when thrown into a modern dress, the spirit does not wholly evaporate: My Lords of Chequer, please you hear Nor cross nor copper is there left |