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APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM.

Ah! freedom is a noble thing!
Freedom makes man to have liking!
Freedom all solace to man gives:
He lives at ease that freely lives!
A noble heart may have none ease,
Nor nought else that may him please,
If freedom fail; for free liking
Is yearned o'er all other thing.
Nay, he that aye has lived free,
May not know well the property,
The anger, nor the wretched doom,
That is coupled to foul thirldom.
But if he had assayed it,

Then all perquier1 he should it wit:
And should think freedom more to prize
Than all the gold in world that is.

DEATH OF SIR HENRY DE BOHUN.

And when the king wist that they were

In hale2 battle, coming so near,
His battle gart3 he well array.
He rode upon a little palfrey,
Laughed and jolly, arrayand
His battle, with an axe in hand.
And on his bassinet he bare
A hat of tyre above aye where;
And, thereupon, into tok'ning,
An high crown, that he was king.
And when Gloster and Hereford were
With their battle approaching near,

1 'Perquier:' perfectly.-2 2 Hale:' whole.-3 Gart:' caused.

Before them all there came ridand,
With helm on head and spear in hand,
Sir Henry the Bohun, the worthy,
That was a wight knight, and a hardy,
And to the Earl of Hereford cousin;
Armed in armis good and fine;
Came on a steed a bowshot near,
Before all other that there were:
And knew the king, for that he saw
Him so range his men on raw,1

And by the crown that was set

Also upon his bassinet.

And toward him he went in hy.2
And the king so apertly3

Saw him come, forouth all his feres,5

In hy till him the horse he steers.
And when Sir Henry saw the king
Come on, forouten abasing,
To him he rode in full great hy.

He thought that he should well lightly
Win him, and have him at his will,
Since he him horsed saw so ill.

Sprent they samen into a lyng;7
Sir Henry miss'd the noble king;
And he that in his stirrups stood,
With the axe, that was hard and good,
With so great main, raucht him a dint,
That neither hat nor helm might stint
The heavy dush that he him gave,
The head near to the harns he clave.

The hand-axe shaft frushit 10 in two;

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1 Raw:' row.-2 Hy:' haste.-3 Apertly:' openly, clearly.-4 Forouth:' beyond.-Feres:' companions.-6' Forouten:' without. Sprent they samen into a lyng:' they sprang forward at once, against each other, in a line.-8 Raucht:' reached.-Harns:' brains.-10 Frushit:' broke.

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And he down to the yird1 'gan go
All flatlings, for him failed might.
This was the first stroke of the fight,
That was performed doughtily.
And when the king's men so stoutly
Saw him, right at the first meeting,
Forouten doubt or abasing,

Have slain a knight so at a straik,
Such hardment thereat 'gan they take,
That they come on right hardily.
When Englishmen saw them so stoutly
Come on, they had great abasing;
And specially for that the king
So smartly that good knight has slain,
That they withdrew them everilk ane,
And durst not one abide to fight:
So dread they for the king his might.
When that the king repaired was,
That gart his men all leave the chase,
The lordis of his company

Blamed him, as they durst, greatumly,
That he him put in aventure,

To meet so stith2 a knight, and stour,
In such point as he then was seen.
For they said, well it might have been
Cause of their tynsal3 everilk ane.
The king answer has made them nane,
But mainit his hand-axe shaft so

Was with the stroke broken in two.

3 "

1 Yird:' earth.-2 'Stith:' strong. Tynsal:' destruction.- 'Maini :' lamented.

ANDREW WYNTOUN.

THIS author, who was prior of St Serf's monastery in Loch Leven, is the author of what he calls 'An Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.' It appeared about the year 1420. It is much inferior to the work of Barbour in poetry, but is full of historical information, anecdote, and legend. The language is often sufficiently prosaic. Thus the poet begins to describe the return of King David II. from his captivity, referred to above.

'Yet in prison was king Davy,

And when a lang time was gane bye,
Frae prison and perplexitie

To Berwick castle brought was he,
With the Earl of Northamptoun,
For to treat there of his ransoun;
Some lords of Scotland come there,

And als prelates that wisest were,' &c.

Contemporary, or nearly so, with Wyntoun were several other Scottish writers, such as one Hutcheon, of whom we know only that he is designated of the 'Awle Ryall,' or of the Royal Hall or Palace, and that he wrote a metrical romance, of which two cantos remain, called 'The Gest of Arthur;' and another, named Clerk of Tranent, the author of a romance, entitled 'The Adventures of Sir Gawain.' Of this latter also two cantos only are extant. Although not perhaps deserving to have even portions of them extracted, they contain a good deal of poetry. A person, too, of the name of Holland, about whose history we have no information, produced a satirical poem, called 'The Howlate,' written in the allegorical form, and bearing some resemblance to Pierce Plowman's Vision.'

BLIND HARRY.

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ALTHOUGH there are diversities of opinion as to the exact time when this blind minstrel flourished, we prefer alluding to him at this point, where he stands in close proximity to Barbour, the author of a poem on a subject so cognate to Wallace' as 'Bruce.' Nothing is known of Harry but that he was blind from infancy, that he composed this poem, and gained a subsistence by reciting or singing portions of it through the country. Another Wandering Willie, (see 'Redgauntlet,') he 'passed like night from land to land,' led by his own instincts, and wherever he met with a congenial audience, he proceeded to chant portions of the noble knight's achievements, his eyes the while twinkling, through their sad setting of darkness, with enthusiasm, and often suffused with tears. In some minds the conception of this blind wandering bard may awaken ludicrous emotions, but to us it suggests a certain sublimity. Blind Harry has powerfully described Wallace standing in the light and shrinking from the ghost of Fawdoun, (see the ‘Battle of Black-Earnside,' in the 'Specimens,') but Harry himself seems walking in the light of the ghost of Wallace, and it ministers to him, not terror, but inspiration. Entering a cot at night, and asked for a tale, he begins, in low tones, to recite that frightful apparition at Gaskhall, and the aged men and the crones vie with the children in drawing near the 'ingle bleeze,' as if in fire alone lay the refuge from

'Fawdoun, that ugly sire,

That haill hall he had set into a fire,

As to his sight, his OWN HEAD IN HIS HAND.'

Arriving in a village at the hour of morning rest and refreshment, he charms the swains by such words as

'The merry day sprang from the orient

With beams bright illuminate the occident,
After Titan Phoebus upriseth fair,

High in the sphere the signs he made declare.

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