At the head of the poets of Scotland stands JOHN BARBOUR (about 1320-1395), Archdeacon of Aberdeen, and a contemporary of Chaucer. His chief work, The Bruce, consisting of more than thirteen thousand octosyllabic lines, is an epic poem, celebrating, with great vividness and agreeable vigour, the glorious struggles of the Scotch King Robert I. (the Bruce) with King Edward I. of England for the independence of Scotland. This spirit of independence is responsible for the wonderful Hymn to Freedom, which, like a trumpet-blast, interrupts the narrative without any special reason. It is a glorious monument of the oldest Scottish (and English) literature, for this song of freedom of the fourteenth century is written in good English, and no European literature of the period can show anything like it. This memorable poem may serve at the same time as a specimen of the old Scottish language: Ah, Freedom is a noble thing! Na he that aye has livit free May nought know well the property,* Then all perquer" he suld it wit, The epic poem, William Wallace, by Henry, a blind Scottish "minstrel," otherwise quite unknown, who is hence usually called HENRY THE MINSTREL, deals with a similar heroic theme. It was written nearly a century later than The Bruce, about 1460. The tradition that the poet was born blind seems doubtful, considering the vivid descriptions of nature that abound in the poem. The epic of the Scotch national hero, William Wallace, contains about twelve thousand decasyllabic lines, and is full of episodes of adventure. The extract below from the conclusion also shows the liberal character of English literature, which is distinguished by a manly pride from the outset. When the king would refuse the dying hero, Wallace, the services of a priest A blyth bishop soon, present in that place, An thou through force will stop me of this thing, Syne take thy choice, to starve or let him live." The king gave charge they should the bishop ta, All Englishmen said that his desire was right. 1 Makes. 2 Pleasure. 3 Desired. The nature, condition. 5 Exactly. WILLIAM DUNBAR (1465-1520), another Scotch minstrel, is the author of three somewhat lengthy allegorical poems: The Golden Targe, The Thistle and the Rose, and The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins. He was a young Franciscan monk, who roamed for many years through England and France. In metre, he followed Chaucer, but, with artistic skill, increased his stanza to one of nine lines, the two rhyming syllables of which are combined according to the scheme: aabaabbab (in The Golden Targe). At the end of his poem he wrote the following somewhat high-flown stanza on his master Chaucer :O reverend Chaucer! rose of rhetors all; As in our tongue a flower imperial, That raise in Britain ever who reads right, Thy fresh enamelled termès celical.1 This matter could illuminate have full bright: Lastly, KING JAMES I. of Scotland (born 1394, murdered 1437) may be mentioned as the author of the protracted poem which, under the name of the King's Quire (Quhair, the King's Book, Quire from Cahier), is generally ascribed to him, and is said to have been written during his imprisonment in Windsor Tower (1424). Its subject is the love of the royal captive for Lady Jane Beaufort, afterwards his wife, whom he first saw from his prison window, walking in the garden in front of the tower. The poem consists of one thousand four hundred lines, written in the seven-lined Chaucerian stanza, which, after it had been used by a king, was called the "stanza royal." Many parts display great tenderness of feeling and expression; the whole is an allegorical vision in imitation of the Roman de la Rose, which exercised an influence, incomprehensible to us at the present day, upon all the poets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. How well the king learnt his lesson from Chaucer, in the matter of description and style, is shown by the following account of his mistress : BIBLIOGRAPHY. WICLIF.-Edition of his Bible by Forshall and Madden; other writings by the Wiclif Society; Th. Arnold, Select English Works of Wiclif; Minor Writings in the Early English Texts; R. L. Poole, Wiclif and Movements for Reform; Buddensieg, Life and Writings of Wiclif. PIERS PLOUGHMAN.-Best edition by Skeat; J. Jusserand, Piers Ploughman. MINOT.-War Songs, by Ritson, T. Wright, Scholle; latest edition by A. Rosenthal. GOWER.-Confessio Amantis, by Chalmers, Pauli; also Pauli, Bilder aus Allengland. OCCLEVE.-Editions by Wright, Furnivall. LYDGATE.-London Lickpenny, in the specimens by Skeat; other poems in Morley's Library of English Literature. CAXTON.-Blades, Biography and Typography of Caxton. BARBOUR.-Bruce and William Wallace, by Jamieson and Skeat. DUNBAR.-Works by Laing, Paterson; Schipper: Dunbar, sein Leben und seine Gedichte (with translations). KING JAMES.-King's Quhair, by Skeat; Rogers, The Poetical Remains of King James I.; J. Nichol, A Sketch of Scottish Poetry; D. Irving, The History of Scottish Poetry. T CHAPTER VI OLD ENGLISH NATIONAL POETRY HE national songs, especially the Ballads of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many of which have fortunately been preserved and, since the eighteenth century, collected as a labour of love, possess far greater poetical charm than all the artificial productions of that period (with the single exception of Chaucer's). The long poetical romances of French origin (p. 46) were almost, if not entirely, inaccessible to the great mass of the people; the simple citizen or peasant had no time to listen to poems containing several thousands of lines, which, moreover, only sang of an imaginary world of chivalry. The poetical romance was the literature of the nobility, and presupposed a minstrel who knew how to read, or an equally accomplished feudal lord who was rich enough to buy an expensive copy of such a work. The people wanted shorter poems and popular poets provided them. Minot's songs (p. 69) on English victories had the requisite ring, and were clearly meant to be sung. The Ballads of Robin Hood stood highest in general favour. It can never be ascertained whether Robin Hood, the hero of these old ballads, was an historical personality or a creature of the singer's imagination. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and for a long time afterwards, the English people certainly believed in him as an actual hero after their own heart. According to the ballads, he was an "outlaw," a fugitive under the ban of the law, a hero of the forests, the terror of the Norman king and the French priests, and one who, in the majority of the ballads, appears as a champion of the Saxon people against the Norman intruders. According to an old tradition, Robin Hood was called Robert Fitzood, and was of noble birth; according to others, he was identical with an Earl of Huntingdon. The kernel of the legends is, that Robin Hood, owing to the severity of the game laws of the Norman-English kings of the twelfth century, took refuge in the impenetrable thickets of Sherwood Forest, which he made his headquarters in his campaign of revenge against the king's officials in town and country and the hated priests, who supported the dominion of the foreigner. Just like the romantic highwaymen of melodrama, Robin Hood only plundered the rich, but protected and gave gifts to the poor. Hence, his popularity was bound to increase immensely, and survived long after his death, which was supposed to have taken place in 1247. He is mentioned by Piers Ploughman (p. 67), and, even then, as the hero of national songs : I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood. Later the bold huntsman was elevated into a hero of the national drama (even of a pastoral play by Ben Jonson), and even in modern times he was revered as the patron of country shooting-clubs. His claim to be regarded as a popular hero is also shown in the fact that his contests with the sheriff and military do not always end gloriously for him; he is frequently obliged to put up with a sound cudgelling, which, it must be admitted, he pays back with interest on the earliest opportunity. The The best collection of Robin Hood Ballads is to be found in the magnificent collection of ballads in five volumes by Child. following extracts may serve as specimens of the style : ROBIN HOOD'S DEATH. When Robin Hood and Little John1 We have shot for many a pound: But I am not able to shoot one shot more, Now Robin is to fair Kirkley gone, As fast as he can win ; But before he came there, as we do hear, He was taken very ill. And when that he came to fair Kirkleyhall, He knock'd all at the ring, But none was so ready as his cousin herself, For to let bold Robin in. Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin, she said, And drink some beer with me? "No, I will neither eat nor drink, Till I am blooded by thee." Well, I have a room, cousin Robin, she said, Which you did never see, And if you please to walk therein, She took him by the lily-white hand, She blooded him in the vein of the arm, He then bethought him of a casement door, Thinking for to be gone; He was so weak he could not leap, He then bethought him of his bugle-horn, And blew out weak blasts three. 1 The constant companion of Robin Hood: it may be added that he was about seven feet in height ! |