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Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century

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Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Hbbotsforfc Series of tbe Scottfsb poets Edited by GEORGE EYRE-TODD SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SIR ROBERT AYTOUN SIR DAVID MURRAY SIR ROBERT KER SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER WILLIAM DRUMMOND THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE THE SEMPLES OF BELTREES LONDON AND EDINBURGH SANDS & COMPANY TO His GRACE THE DUKE OF MONTROSE, K.T., THIS VOLUME WHICH CONTAINS THE COMPLETE EXTANT POETICAL WORKS OF His HEROIC ANCESTOR, THE MOST NOBLE JAMES, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE, is De&fcatefc. NOTE. THERE has hitherto existed no anthology of the " Scottish poetry of the Stuart Period." Owing to this circumstance, and to the consequent difficulty of forming a comprehensive judgment, it has been usual to consider that period somewhat lightly. The credit of the productions of the time has also suffered greatly from the typographical diffi- culties which have stood in the way of clear reading. These have been enough, in many cases, not only to obscure the beauties, but to obliterate the meaning of the poems. It is hoped that the present volume, by clearing away these obstructions and affording means of collective perusal, may help towards a more popular appreciation of the work of a neglected century. CONTENTS. PAGE SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, i SIR ROBERT AYTOUN, n The Lover's Remonstrance, 19 The Exercise of Affection, 20 Song, 22 To a Variable Mistress, ...... 23 To an Inconstant Mistress, ..... 24 The Author's Answer, ...... 26 The Forsaken Mistress, . 28 Unrecompensed Devotion, 30 Sonnet left in a Lady's Mirror, .... 31 On a Lady that was Painted, .... 32 On Tobacco, ....... 33 SIR DAVID MURRAY, 37 A Question, 41 His Mistress, . 42 Adieu ! . 43 Love's Idea, ........ 44 Love's Accompt, ....... 45 SIR ROBERT KEK, 49 In Praise of a Solitary Life, 55 First Psalm, 56 Psalm cxxx., . 58 SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER, . 62 " Sonnets and Songs from Aurora," . 75 A Paraenesis to Prince Henry, .... 97 Olympias before Execution 122 Brutus and Portia, . .128 viii CONTENTS. PAGE WILLIAM DRUMMOND, ...... 139 Poems : Amorous, Funeral, Divine (First Part}, . 155 Poems : Amorous, Funeral, Divine (Second Part), 171 Tears on the Death of Moeliades, . .187 Urania, or Spiritual Poems, ..... 191 Epigram, ........ 192 Forth Feasting, . 193 Flowers of Sion, ....... 207 Posthumous Poems, 211 Epitaphs, 216 Epigrams, ........ 217 THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE, 221 Love Verses, ........ 235 Lines Written in his Copy of Quintus Curtius when a Youth, 241 Epitaph on a Dog, 241 In Praise of Women, . 242 Sovereignty in Danger, ...... 243 On the Faithlessness and Venality of the Times, . 243 Sympathy in Love, ...... 245 On Receiving News of the Death of Charles I., . 246 On the Death of Charles I., . 247 Written on the Eve of his Execution, . 248 THE SEMPLES OF BELTREES, 251 The Packman's Paternoster, ..... 261 The Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan, . 270 Hallow Fair, 275 Maggie Lauder, 278 The Blythsome Bridal, 280 The Banishment of Poverty, ..... 284 She Rose and Let Me In, ..... 292 Old Longsyne, . 293 SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. IN the year 1603 James VI. passed over Berwick bridge to assume the crown of his English kingdom. It was not, however, till 1707 that the legislative union of England and Scotland was effected. The century between these dates, from the union of the crowns to the union of the parliaments, was in both countries a period of immense significance. The previous century has been marked in British history as the of Reformation and with century ; equal justice the seventeenth century may be named the century of Revolution. Nor does this epithet refer merely to the disaster which during that century overtook the throne. In the hundred years which elapsed between the end of the House of Tudor with the death of Elizabeth and the accession of the House of Hanover in the person of George I. a greater revolution than the mere overturn of a B v 2 SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE dynasty was taking place. During the Stuart the period, as it has been named, was effected great passage from ancient to modern times. It was the misfortune rather than the fault of the Stuart kings that they happened to be the rulers at the time of this great change. Their shortcomings, it is true, were many, and they made grievous mistakes, but the period was one of conflict between the old order and the new, between government by the king and govern- ment by the people, and by the nature of their office the princes of the time were upon the losing side. No one, at anyrate, can deny that the Stuarts paid dearly for their errors, since one of the race, within the period, suffered on the block, and another was deprived of his throne. These catastrophes, the execution of Charles I. and the exile of James II., were the great political events which marked the transition effected in the two kingdoms during the seven- teenth century. At the same time there are other circumstances, less conspicuous, perhaps, but hardly less significant, which remain tokens of the change. In the Scottish poetry of the period, in particular, a remarkable departure is to be noticed. From the dawn of the century it not only abandoned absolutely all its ancient national fields of inspiration, but actually almost SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 3 entirely ceased to use the ancient national tongue. The immediate causes of this depar- ture are easily traced. During the last forty years of the previous century the national mind of Scotland had been convulsed and engrossed by the events of the Reformation. Such a period of struggle is never itself productive of much poetry : song, whether of love or of patriotism, is invariably an after- production. Moreover, the grim new asceticism of the Reformers set its face sternly against " what they termed the profane and unprofit- able art of poem-making." By the end of the sixteenth century, owing to these discourage- ments, the ancient vigorous school of native Scottish poetry had become extinct. The rollicking humour of James V., the biting satire of Lyndsay and Maitland, the quaint love- philosophy of Scot, and the richly coloured allegory of Montgomerie the entire river of national song, in short, of which these were characteristic features, had ceased to flow. George Buchanan, one of the greatest Scotsmen of his time, it is true, wrote poetry, but he wrote in Latin. The vernacular muse of the country was represented by nothing stronger than such pedantic versifyings as the "Essayes" of James VI., such a sweet but slender rivulet of fancy as Alexander Hume's "Day Aestival," or such 4 SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE godly imaginings as were set forth in Lady " Culross's Dream." Poetry was at this low ebb in Scotland when the king crossed the Border, and the transference of the court to London threw the ancient Scots tongue out of fashion, and brought the southern idiom into vogue. At the same time the great era of English poetry was at its zenith. Marlowe and Spenser were but lately dead, while Shakespeare was at the acme of his powers, and was the centre of a galaxy of dramatic poets the like of which the world had never seen. It was the time of Ben Jonson and of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Massinger, Ford, Webster, and a dozen others. In the hands of these poets, and of such masters of prose as Lord Bacon and Sir Philip Sidney, the English language just then had been wrought to its highest pitch of dignity, beauty, and strength. It remains small matter for marvel, therefore, that the Scottish poets of the new period were caught by the glamour of the new fashion, and strove to sing in the tongue of their English contemporaries. It can be understood that ability to do this with sufficient ease and elegance to attract notice was confined to those few persons whose education and opportunities had made them familiar with the speech and literature of the SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 5 southern kingdom. Hence it came about that the Scottish poets of note in the seventeenth century were all men of position and rank a circumstance in itself not without effect upon choice of subject and style of thought. There must also, it is true, have been a few poets of the people, those nameless, humble singers to whom is owed the folk-song of the " time such ballads as The Dowie Dens o' " Yarrow," The Bonnie House o' Airlie," and "The Baron o' Brackley." But the ballads of the seventeenth century are singularly few. Barely half-a-dozen of the first rank, indeed, are to be found. They cannot therefore qualify the fact that the body of Scottish poetry of the period followed the southern vogue. For this fashion lasted the ancient fifty years ; themes, as well as the characteristics and the language, of the Scottish poets of former days were abandoned, and the verse of the north might almost as aptly have been the product of southern pens. It might have been feared that at such a time the muse of the north, labouring under the double disadvantage of an adopted style and an alien tongue, was in danger of becoming a mere echo of its southern rival. From this abject position it was saved by a few great names, not all of the first rank in poesie, 6 SCOTTISH POETRY OF THE indeed, but all entitled to an honourable place and esteem beside thdse of the English singers of their day. Even in that great English era, from the time of Spenser to that of Dryden, which included the transcendent names of Shakespeare and Milton, the Scottish poetry cannot be passed by which contains the stren- uous passion of Montrose, the sense and dignity of the Earl of Stirling, and the wit, grace, and harmony of Drummond of Hawthornden.
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