beautiful pieces of picturesque description, in which the Scotch poets in general have so particularly excelled. The relation of Wallace's fishing adventure, in the first book; that of his engagement with the "red reiffar" (rover), in the ninth; and several smaller incidents dispersed through the work, are sketched with singular ability, and prove that Henry was a great master of his art, and that he deserved the popularity which he acquired among his countrymen, and which he continues to retain, after the lapse of more than three centuries.

Of the almost numberless editions of this work, the most elegant, and apparently the most correct, is that of Perth, 1790, which professes to be exactly copied from the MS. in the Advocate's library at Edinburgh.

The only poets who occur in the reign of Edward IV. are, John Harding; whose chronicle is beneath criticism, in point of composition, and can only be an object of curiosity to the antiquary: Scogan, whose pretended jests were published by Andrew Borde, a mad physician in the court of Henry VIII.; and John Norton and George Ripley, whose didactic poems, on the subject of Alchemy, are preserved, together with much other trash, in the strange farrago edited by Ashmole, under the title of "Theatrum Chemicum."

But the greatest literary curiosity of this reign, is the work of the Lady Juliana, sister to Richard lord Berners, and prioress of the nunnery of Sopewell, which was written in 1481, and published soon after, at the neighbouring monastery at St. Albans. It contains treatises on hawking, hunting, and heraldry; in all of which the good lady seems to have rivalled the most eminent professors of those arts. A second edition, which was printed at London by Winken de Worde, in 1496, contains an additional treatise on the art of angling; as also a sort of lyrical epilogue to the book of hunting, which is not entirely devoid of merit. In the third edition (printed partly by Robert Toy, and partly for him by W. M. Copland), the treatise on heraldry is wanting; but the epilogue is preserved. It is as follows:

To have a faithful friend.

A faithful friend would I fain find,
To find him there he might be found;
But now is the world wext so unkind,
That friendship is fall to the ground.
Now, a friend have I found,

That I will neither ban1 nor curse;
But, of all friends in field or town,
Ever grammercy mine own purse.

1 Execrate.

My purse it is my privy wife ;

(This song I dare both sing and say :)
It parteth men of muche strife,

When every man for himself shall pay.
As I ride in rich array

For gold and silver men will me flourish :1
By this matter I dare well say
Ever grammercy mine own purse.

As I ride with gold so red,

And have to do with landes law,

Men for my money will make me speed,
And for my goods they will me knowe:

More and less to me will draw;

Both the better and the worse:

By this matter I say in sawe

2

Ever grammercy mine own purse.

It befell me upon a time

As it hath done by many a one mo,
My horse, my neat, my sheep, my swine,
And all my goods were gone me fro:

I went to my friends and told them so;
And home again they bade me truss :
I said again, when I was wo,

Ever grammercy mine own purse.

Probably flatter: but the rhyme is indefensible. • Proverbially.

Therefore I rede you, sires all,

To assay your friends ere you have need:
For, an ye come to have a fall,

Full few of them for you will grede.'
Therefore, assay them every one,

Both the better and the worse:—

Our Lord, that shope both sun and moon
Send us spending in our purse.

The treatise on hunting, though written in rhyme, has no resemblance to poetry; the other parts of the work are professedly written in prose.

Mr. Warton notices, as contemporary with dame Juliana, William of Nassington, a proctor in the ecclesiastical court of York, who translated in 1480, into English verse, a Latin essay on the Trinity, written by John of Waldenby, an Augustine friar of Yorkshire. About the same time, was published an anonymous work, called the Calendar of Shepherds, translated from the "Calendrier des Bergers." It is a sort of perpetual almanack, consisting of mingled prose and verse, and containing, like many of our modern almanacks, a vast variety of heterogeneous matter.

A ballad, written by Anthony Woodville, earl of Rivers, during his confinement in Pontefract

Castle (vide Percy's Reliques, Vol. II. p. 44, last edit.; or Ritson's Ancient Songs, p. 87.), completes the catalogue of English poetry during this period.

Among the minor poets of Scotland, at this time, the most conspicuous, perhaps, is Robert Henrysoun, of whose life, however, no anecdotes are preserved, except that, according to Sir Fr. Kinaston, who translated his Testament of Cressida, he was a schoolmaster at Dumferling. His "Complaint of Cressida" is to be found in Urry's edition of Chaucer, and several of his poems are inserted in lord Hailes's extracts from the Bannatyne MSS. Among the best of these, is the popular ballad of "Robene and Makyne;" but the most singular is the following, which is called

The Garment of good Ladies.

Would my good lady love me best,
And work after my will,

I should a garment goodliest
Gar make her body till.1

Of high honour should be her hood,

Upon her head to wear,

Cause to be made to her shape.