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How kirk and causay they soop (1) clean.
The images into the kirk

May think of their syde taillis irk; (2)
For when the weather been maist fair,
And dust flies highest in the air,
And all their faces does begarie.

Nor wald cleid fifty score of freirs. .
Of tails I will no more indite,
For dread some duddron (7) me despite;
Notwithstanding, I will conclude,
That of syde tails can come nae gude,
Sider nor may their ankles hide,

Gif them could speak, they wald them The remanant proceeds of pride,

warie. (3)

But I have maist into despite

Poor claggocks (4) clad in raploch white,
Whilk has scant twa merks for their fees,
Will have twa ells beneath their knees.
Kittock that cleckit (5) was yestreen,
The morn, will counterfeit the queen:
And Moorland Mcg, that milked the

yowes,

Claggit with clay aboon the hows, (6)
In barn nor byre she will not bide,
Without her kirtle tail be syde.
In burghs, wanton burgess wives
Wha may have sydest fails strives,
Weel bordered with velvet fine,
But follow and them it is ane pyne:
In summer, when the streets dries,
They raise the dust aboon the skies;
Nane may gae near them at their ease,
Without they cover mouth and neese.
I think maist pane after ane rain,
To see them tuckit it up again;
Then when they step farte through the
street,

Their fauldings flaps about their feet;
They waste mair cloth, within few years,

And pride proceeds of the devil,
Thus always they proceed of evil.

Ane other fault, sir, may be seen-
They hide their face all but the een;
When gentlemen bid them gude-day,
Without reverence they slide away.
Without their faults be soon amended,
My flyting, (8) sir, shall never be ended;
But wald your Grace my counsel tak,
Ane proclamation ye should mak.
Baith through the land and burrow-
stouns, (9)

To shaw their face and cut their gowns
Women will say, this is nae bourds, (10)
To write sic vile and filthy words;
But wald they clenge (11) their filthy tails,
Whilk over the mires and middens trails,
Then should my writing clengit be,
None other mends they get of me.

Quoth Lyndsay, in contempt of the syde
tails,

That duddrons and duntibours (12) through the dubs trails.

We subjoin a few passages from the Satire of the Three Estates,' partly modernising the spelling:

1Sweep.

6 Houghs.

Abuses of the Clergy.

Pauper. Gude man, will ye give me of your charity,
And I shall declare you the black verity.

My father was ane old man and ane hoar,

And was of age fourscore of years and more.

And Maid, my mother, was fourscore and fifteen,

And with my labour I did them baith sustein.

We had ane mare that carried salt and coal,

And every ilk (13) year she brocht us hame ane foal.

We had three kye, that was baith fat and fair,

Nane tidier into the toun of Air.

My father was so weak of blude and bane,

That he died, wherefore my mother made great mane;
Then she died, within ane day or two;

And there began my poverty and woe.

Our gude gray mare was battened on the field,

And our land's laird took her for his hyreild. (14)
The vicar took the best cow by the head,

Incontinent, when my father was dead.

10 Scoff's, jests.

2 Be annoyed.

7 Slut.

3 Curse or cry out. 4 Draggle-tails.
8 Scolding, brawling. 9 Burgh towns.
11 Cleanse.
12 Harlots.

14 A-fine extorted by a superior on the death of his tenant.

5 Hatched.

13 Each.

And when the vicar heard tell how that my mother
Was dead, frae hand, he took to him ane other:

Then Meg, my wife, did mourn baith even and morrow,
Till at the last she died for very sorrow:

And when the vicar heard tell my wife was dead,

The third cow he cleekit (1) by the head.

Their umest (2) claithes, that was of raploch gray, (3)

The vicar gart his clerk bear them away.

When all was gane, I might mak na debate,

But with my bairns passed for till beg my meat.

Now, have I tauld you the black verity,

How I am brocht into this misery.

Diligence. How did the parson? was he not thy friend?

Pauper. The devil stick him! he cursed me for my tiend, (4)
And halds me yet under that same process

That gart me want the sacrement at Pasche. (5)

In gude faith, sir, though he would cut my throat,

I have na gear, except ane English groat,

Whilk I purpose to give ane man of law.

Diligence. Thou art the daftest (6) fuil that ever I saw;

Trow'st thou, man, by the law, to get remead

Of men of kirk? Na, nocht till thou be dead.

Pauper. Sir, by what law, tell me, wherefore or why
That ane vicar should take frae me three kye?
Diligence. They have na law except consuetude,
Whilk law, to them, is sufficient and gude.

Pauper. Ane consuetude against the common weal,
Should be na law, I think, by sweet Sanct Geil. (7)

Speech of the Pardoner.

My patent pardons ye may see,
Come frae the Khan of Tartaríe,
Weel sealed with oyster-shells;
Though ye have no contrition,
Ye shall have full remission,
With help of buiks and bells.

Here is ane relic, lang and braid,

Give me ane ducat for till drink,
He shall never gang to hell-

Without he be of Belial born:
Masters, trow ye that this be scorn?
Come, win this pardon, come!

Wha loves their wives nocht with their
heart,

Of Fin-mac-Coul the right chaft blade, (8) I have power them for till part,

With teeth and all togidder;

Of Colin's cow here is ane horn,
For eating of Makconnal's corn,
Was slain into Balquhidder.

Here is ane cord, baith great and lang,
Whilk hangit John the Armistrang:
Of gude hemp soft and sound;
Gude haly people, I stand for'd
Whaever beis hangit with this cord,
Needs never to be drowned!

The culum (9) of Sanct Bride's cow,
The gruntle (10) of Sanct Autone's sow,
- Whilk bore his haly bell!
Whaever he be hears this bell clink

1 Catched hold of. 2 Uppermost 6 Maddest.

9 The tail, the fundament.

Methink you deaf and dumb.

Has nane of your curst wicked wives
That halds you intill sturt and strifes?
Come, take my dispensation;
Of that cummer I shall make you quit,
Howbeit yourselves be in the wyte,
And make ane false narration.

Come win the pardon! Now let see,
For meal, for malt, or for money-

For cock, hen, goose, or grise, (11)
Of relics here I have ane hunder,
Why come ye nocht? This is ane won-
der;

I trow ye be nocht wise.

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The Law's Delay.

Marry, I lent my gossip my mare, to fetch hame coals,
And he her drounit into the quarry holes;

And I ran to the Consistory, for to pleinzie, (1)
And there I happenit amang ane greedie meinzie. (2)
They gave me first ane thing they called citendum,
Within aucht days I gat but libellandum;
Within ane month I gat ad opponendum,

In half ane year I inter-loquendum,

And syne I gat-how call ye it?-ad replicandum;
But I could never ane word yet understand him:
And then they gart me cast out many placks, (3)
And gart me pay for four-and-twenty acts.
But or they came half gate to concludendum,
The fiend ane plack was left for to defend him.
Thus they postponed me twa year with their train,
Sone, hodie ad octo, bad me come again:
And then thir rooks they roupit (4) wonder fast
For sentence, silver, they cryit at the last.

Of pronunciandum they made me wonder fain,
But I gat never my gude gray mare again.

There were several other Scottish poets of this period, one of whom, WALTER KENNEDY, has obtained some notoriety from having carried on a flyting or altercation with Dunbar in rhyme. The productions on both sides are coarse and scurrilous, though there was probably as much mirth as malice at the bottom of the affair. Most of these pieces, with several anonymous poems of no small merit, were preserved in the Maitland and Bannatyne manuscripts of the sixteenth century. The first was begun in 1555 by Sir Richard Maitland, and consists of a collection of miscellaneous poetry, in two volumes, ending with the year 1585. These precious volumes were preserved in the Pepysian Library, in Magdalene College, Cambridge. The Bannatyne manuscript contains a similar collection made by George Bannatyne, a merchant of Edinburgh, in the year 1568, when the prevalence of the plague compelled men in business to forsake their usual employments and retire to the country. In a valedictory address at the end of this compilation (containing upwards of 800 pages), Bannatyne says:

Heir endis this Buik written in tyme of pest,
Quhen we fra labour was compel'd to rest.

A judicious selection from Bannatyne's manuscript was published by Lord Hailes in 1770, accompanied with valuable notes and a glos

sary.

BALLAD POETRY.

The early ballads of England and Scotland have justly been admired for their rude picturesque energy and simple pathos. Some of them as those relating to King Arthur, St. George of England, Sir

1 Complain.

3 Plack, a Scotch coin equal to the third of an English penny.

2 Company. crew. 4 Cried, shouted.

Gawaine, &c.—are of great antiquity, and refer to a period before the formal institution of chivalry. Others of later date, whether embodying historical events, traditional romance, or domestic tragedies, illustrate the times in which they were composed, though often altered and vulgarised in their progress downwards by recitation. Sir Philip Sidney said the old ballad of Chevy Chase' stirred him up like the sound of a trumpet; and the classic Addison devoted two papers in the Spectator to a critique on a more modern version of the same artless but heroic metrical story. The ballads on the famous outlaw, Robin Hood, fill a volume. Another, 'The Nut-brown Maid,' was imitated by Prior, who failed to excel the simple original Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Heir of Linne,' 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid,' Tak your Auld Cloak about ye,' and numerous others, have enjoyed great popularity. Sir Walter Scott drew his first and strongest poetical inspiration from the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' which he carefully collected and edited. Most of these must be assigned to the 16th and 17th centuries, but many are older, including what Coleridge termed 'the grand old ballad' of' Sir Patrick Spens." James V. of Scotland is the reputed author of two excellent ballads, describing his own roving adventures. In Shakspeare and Beaumont and Fletcher are many fragments of ballads popular in their day, most of which have been collected and published in Percy's 'ReJiques of Ancient English Poetry. To this valuable repository and to Scott's Minstrelsy' we must refer the reader.

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The Deaths of Douglas and Percy.

The ballad of 'Chevy Chase' is supposed to have been written in the time of Henry VI. or between 1422 and 1461. The oldest MS. is in the Bodleian Library, with the name attached of 'Richard Sheale,' a ballad-singer or reciter of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. In the following extract, we have simplified the spelling, which in the original is careless and uncouth.

At last the Douglas and the Percy met,

Like to captains of might and of main;
They swapt together till they both swat,
With swords that were of fine Milan.

These worthy freckys (1) for to fight
Thereto they were full fain,

Till the blood out of their basnets sprent (2)
As ever did hail or rain.

"Yield thee, Percy!' said the Douglas,

And i' faith I shall thee bring

Where thou shalt have an earl's wages.
Of Jamie our Scottish king.

"Thou shalt have thy ransom free,

I hight thee hear this thing;

For the manfullest man yet art thou
That ever I conquered in field-fighting.'

1 Mon (Ang.-Sax, freca, a man).

2 Out of their helmets spirted.

'Nay,' said the Lord Percy,

I told it thee beforn,

That I wou'd never yielded be

To no man of a woman born."

With that there cam an arrow hastily
Forth of a nighty wane, (1)
It hath stricken the Earl Douglas
In at the breast-bane.

Thorough liver and lungs baith
The sharp arrow is gane,

That never after in all his life-days

He spake no words but ane:

That was: Fight ye, my merry men, whiles ye may,
For my life-days be gane.'

The Percy leaned on his brand,

And saw the Douglas dee;

He took the dead man be the hand,

And said: Wo is me for thee!

To have saved thy life, I would have parted with
My lands for years three,

For a better man of heart nor of hand

Was not in all the north countrie.'

Of all that saw, a Scottish knight,

Was called Sir Hugh the Montgomery,
He saw the Douglas to the death was dight,
He spended a spear, a trusty tree.

He rode upon a courser, through

A hundred archery,

Ile never stinted nor never blame (?)
Till he came to the good Lord Percy.

He set upon the Lord Percy

A dint that was full sore,

With a sure spear of a mighty tree

Clean thorough the body he Fercy bore,

At the other side that a man might see

A large cloth-yard and mair:

Two better captains were not in Christiantie

Than that day slain were there.

As a specimen of the modernised ballad, supposed to be of the time of Elizabeth or James, we quote a few stanzas, describing the death of Douglas; the line we have printed in italics is a touch of genius not in the old ballad:

With that there came an arrow keen

Out of an English bow,

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart,

A deep and deadly blow:

Who never spoke more words than these-
Fight on, my merry men all;

For why, my life is at an end,

1 Ane, one man.

Lord Percy sees my fall.

2 Ceased (Ang. -Sax. blinnan, linnan, to cease).

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