Your twa fair ene maks me aft syis to sing, Your twa fair ene maks me to sich also, Your twa fair ene maks me grit comforting, Your twa fair ene is wyt of all my woe, Your twa fair ene will not ane heart let go, But links him fast that gets a sicht of them: Of every virtue bricht, ye bear the name. Ye bear the name of gentilness of blude, Ye bear the name that mony for ye deis, Ye bear the name ye are baith fair and gude, Ye bear the name of every sweit can pleis, Ye bear the name fortune and you agres, Ye bear the name of lands of lenth and breid; The well of vertew and flower of womanheid! RONDEL OF LOVE. Lo what it is to luve, Learn ye that list to pruve, By me, I say, that no ways may The grund of greif remuve, But still decay, both nicht and day; Lo what it is to luve. Luve is ane fervent fire, Kendillit without desire. Short plesour, lang displesour; Repentance is the hire; Ane pure tressour, without messour; Luve is ane fervent fire. To luve and to be wise, To rege with gude adwise: Now thus, now than, so goes the game, There is no man, I say, that can Flee alwayis from the snare, It is ane pain and dowble train TO HIS HEART. Hence, heart, with her that must depart, Nor have the heart that does me pain; Love preysis, bot comparison, As fortune chances to befal: To baser men of birth and blude; Get maistrice o'er great men of gude. Firm love, for favour, fear, or feid, That men and women, less and mair, Are come from Adam and from Eve. So though my liking were a lady, And I no lord, yet ne'ertheless, She should my service find as ready As duke to duchess dought him dress; For as proud princely love express Is to have soverainitie; So service comes of simpleness, And lealest love of low degree. So lovers lair no leid should lack, Ane proper page her time to pass- As gold-though gold give greater price. THE EAGLE AND ROBIN REDBREAST. The prince of all the fethert kynd, That with spred wings out fleis the wind, And tours far out of humane sicht To view the schynand orb of licht: This ryall bird, the braif and great, And armit strang for stern debait, Nae tyrant is, but condescends Aftymes to treit inferiour friends. Ane day at his command did flock To his hie palace on a rock, The courtiers of ilk various syze That swiftly swim in christal skyis; Thither the valiant tersals doup, And heir rapacious corbies croup, With greidy gleds and slie gormahs, And dinsome pyis and clatterin daws; Proud pecocks, and a hundred mae, Bruscht up thair pens that solemn day, Bowd first submissive to my lord, Then tuke thair places at his borde. Mein tyme quhyle feisting on a fawn, And drinking blude frae lamies drawn, A tunefull robin trig and yung, Hard by upon a bour-tree sung. He sang the eagles ryall lyne, His persing ee and richt divyne, To sway out-owre the fetherit thrang, Qaha dreid his martial bill and fang; His flicht sublime, and eild renewit, His mynd with clemencie endewit; In safter notes he sang his luve, Mair hie his beiring bolts for Jove. The monarch bird with blythness hard Said, Ah! ye sing sae dull and ruch, He spak, qubyle robinis swelling breist Whattane ane glaikit fool am I To slay myself with melancholy, Sen weill I ken I may not get her? Or what should be the cause, and why, To break my heart, and nought the better? My heart, sen thou may not her please, Go choose another, and forget her! That breaks his heart, and nought the better. GEORGE BUCHANAN. BORN 1506- DIED 1582. GEORGE BUCHANAN, the best Latin poet of his time, and known as the Scottish Virgil, was born at Killearn, Stirlingshire, in February, 1506. He was educated at the Univer sity of Paris, and at the College of St. Andrews, taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts, October 3, 1525. While employed as tutor to the Earl of Murray he gave great offence to the clergy by a satirical poem, and was obliged to take refuge on the Continent, from which he did not return to Scotland until 1560. While living abroad he was for a time tutor to the celebrated Montaigne, who records the fact in his Essays; and for a year and a half he was confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition, then transferred to a monastery, where he employed his leisure in writing a considerable portion of his inimitable Latin version of the Psalms. Though he had embraced the Protestant religion, and was well known as a reformer, his reception at the court of Queen Mary was favourable; he became her classical tutor, was employed to regulate the universities, and became Principal of St. Leonard's College, in the University of St. Andrews. Dr. Johnson greatly admired Buchanan's beautiful verses addressed to Mary, and said, "All the modern languages cannot furnish so melodious a line as "Formosam resonare doces Amarillida silras.” The queen bestowed on Buchanan a pension of 500 pounds Scots. Although a layman he was in June, 1567, on account of his great abilities and extraordinary learning, elected moderator of the General Assembly of Scotland. It is uncertain at what precise date his admirable version of the Psalms was first printed, At but a second edition appeared in 1566. The work was inscribed in an elegant dedication to Queen Mary, who in 1564, after the death of Quentin Kennedy, had conferred upon him the temporalities of Crossraguel Abbey. The murder of Darnley and Mary's marriage to Bothwell induced Buchanan to join the party of the Earl of Murray, whom he accompanied to the conference at York, and afterwards at Hampton Court. Whilst in London he addressed some highly complimentary verses to the English queen, who had no dislike to praise, especially from the learned, and she settled upon the poet a pension of £100. the desire of the earl he was prevailed upon to write his famous Detectio Maria Reginæ, which was published in 1571, a year after the regent's assassination by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The year previous (1570) he was appointed by the estates of the realm one of the preceptors to the young king, who was then in his fourth year; and to Buchanan James VI. was indebted for all his classical learning. The poet proved his independence by a liberal application of the rod, the fame whereof has come down to our own day; and he said of the Scottish Solomon that he made him a pedant because he could make nothing else of him." When seated on the English throne the king used to say of a person in high place about him, that he ever "trembled at his approach: it minded him so of his pedagogue." James regarded Buchanan's History of Scotland as an infamous invective, and admonished his son in his Basilicon Doron to punish such of his future subjects as should be guilty of possessing copies of the work. In the seventy-fourth year of his age Buchanan composed a brief sketch of his own life, and about the same time published his famous treatise De Jure Regni, advocating strongly the rights of the people. The last twelve years of his life he employed in composing in Latin his well-known history of Scotland, published in Edinburgh in 1582, under the title of Rerum Scoticarum Historia. He died, unmarried, on the morning of Friday, Sept. 25, 1582, and was honourably interred by the city of Edinburgh in the Greyfriars' Church-lishman what I will say of him as a Scotchman, yard; and, says Dr. Irving in his life of the that he was the only man of genius his country poet, his ungrateful country never afforded ever produced." Certainly the most applauded his grave the common tribute of a monumental of Buchanan's poetical works is the translation Since those lines were written the of the Psalms, particularly Ps. civ., which has poet of whom Scotland is justly proud has been rendered into Latin by nine Scottish been indebted to a simple Scottish artisan for poets. Mackenzie remarks that his "version erecting a tablet to point out to the pilgrim of the Psalms will be esteemed and admired to his grave the last resting-place of not only as long as the world endures, or men have any the first Latin poet of his country, but of his relish for poetry;" and Bishop Burnet said, age. An edition of Buchanan's works was "Buchanan in his immortal poems shows so published by Ruddiman at Edinburgh, in two well how he could imitate all the Roman poets folio vols. in 1714, and another at Leyden in in their several ways of writing, that he who 4to in 1725. compares them will be often led to prefer the The character and works of Buchanan, who copy to the original." was equally distinguished as a poet, historian, and jurist, exhibit a rare union of philosophical dignity and research with the finer sensibilities and imagination of the poet. Even Dr. Johnson admitted his great literary achievements in his happy reply to Buchanan's countryman, who said, "Ah! Dr. Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan had he been an Englishman?" "Why, sir," he replied, "I should not have said had he been an Eng stone. ON NEERA.1 My wreck of mind and all my woes, Like stars that shine At first, with hapless fond surprise, When my glance met her searching glance, With eager fondness leaping, panting. Just as a boy, whose nourice wooes him, This and the succeeding poem were translated from the Latin of Buchanan by Robert Hogg, a nephew of the Ettrick Shepherd - ED. When she may once regard him, watches, That cannot fly, yet constant trying, Beats with the vain desire of flying. Thou, wary mind, thyself preparing But you, induc'd by dalliance deep, Then cease to weep: use is there none But go to her, entreat, obtain; You sightless in your sockets roll, THE FIRST OF MAY. All hail to thee, thou First of May, Hail! glory of the fleeting year! FRANCISCANUS.1 (EXTRACTS.) Oft musing on the ills of human life, Its buoyant hopes, wild fears, and idle strife, 1 These extracts, published anonymously, are believed to have been translated from Buchanan's bitter and powerful satire against the Franciscan friars by the Rev. Dr. Candish.-ED. And joys-of hue how changeful! tho' serene, A life ethereal, that shall upward rise, If 'tis thine aim to reach the goal of life That points to truth the undiscovered way. Or raise again vain war against the sky. Still deathful is the drug-envenom'd draught, Tho' golden be the bowl from which 'tis quaff'd The ass, in Tyrian purple tho' array'd, Is as much ass, as ass-like when he bray'd; Still fierce will be the lioness--the fox Still crafty--and still mild the mighty ox |