now) we have no dread of 'em in no kind; for here God will not helpen 'em in no wise.'

And then I asked him how he knew the state of Christian men. And he answered me, when he knew all the states of the commons also by his messengers, that he sent to all londs, in manner as they were merchants of precious stones, of cloths of gold, and of other things, for to knowen the manner of every country amongs Christian men. And then he let clepel in all the lords, that he made voiden first out of his chamber; and there he showed me four that were great lords in the country, that tolden me of my country, and of many other Christian countries, as well as if they had been of the same country; and they spak French right well, and the Soudan also, whereof I had great marvel. Alas, that it is great slander to our faith and to our laws, when folk that ben withouten law shall reproven us, and undernemen 2 us of our sins. And they that shoulden ben converted to Christ, and to the law of Jesu, by our good example, and by our acceptable life to God, ben through our wickedness and evil living, far fro us; and strangers fro the holy and very belief shall thus appallen us and holden us for wicked livirs and cursed. And truly they say sooth. For the Saracens ben good and faithful. For they keepen entirely the commandment of the holy book Alcoran, that God sent 'em by his messager Mahomet; to the which, as they sayen, St. Gabriel, the angel, oftentimes told the will of God.

Lecture the Chird.

CAUSES OF THE DEARTH IN LITERATURE THAT FOLLOWED THE AGE OF EDWARD THE THIRD-THE FORMATION OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE LOWLANDS OF SCOTLAND-SCOTTISH POETS-JOHN BARBOUR-ANDREW WYNTOUN-BLIND HARRYJAMES THE FIRST-ROBERT HENRYSON-WILLIAM DUNBAR-GAVIN DOUGLASSIR DAVID LYNDSAY-SIR PATRICK SPENS.

THE light of genius which spread such lustre over the English nation du

ring the reign of Edward the Third, and that of his successor Richard the Second, when Wickliffe was shaking the papal power of Rome to its very center, and Chaucer was chanting forth his sweet poetic strains, and Gower was clothing his severe moral and didactic lessons in harmonious numbers, was succeeded by a long period of literary darkness and gloom; for, from that time until toward the close of the reign of Henry the Eighthembracing a period of more than a century and a half-only an occasional literary star glimmered through the surrounding darkness. The civil disturbances by which the kingdom was then convulsed, was probably the principal reason why this was the state of the national mind; for while men were trembling for their lives, they were not likely to occupy themselves very greatly, either in the production, or the perusal of literary works.

The sceptre first passed from the strenuous grasp of Edward the Third into the feeble hands of his grandson Richard the Second. Then came the usurpation of the Duke of Lancaster, which was soon followed by the rebellion of the Earl of Northumberland, and afterward the long and bloody war of the Roses. Henry the Seventh of the House of Lancaster, however, after triumphing over Richard the Third of the opposite faction, by marrying Elizabeth, heiress of the House of York, united the interest of the contending parties; but it occupied the whole of that monarch's long and vigorous reign to raise the kingdom from the exhausted state in which he found it, to happi ness and prosperity. His son and successor, Henry the Eighth, succeeded to an undisputed crown; and as he had been carefully educated, and possessed some small degree of literary taste, he made some pretensions to the patronage of learning. This dark period was, it is true, occasionally relieved by some light of genius twinkling through its murky gloom. To a brief notice

of the writers who afforded this relief, we shall, there.ore, now proceed; but as we shall have occasion first to mention some of the early authors of Scotland, we may remark, in passing, that the language used at this time in the lowland district of that country, was, like that of England, based upon the Teutonic, and had, like the cotemporary English, a Norman admixture.

To account for these circumstances, some writers have supposed that the language of England, in its various shades of improvement, reached the North through the settlers who are known to have flocked thither from England during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; while others suggest that the great body of the Scottish people, apart from the Highlanders, must have been of Teutonic origin; and they point to the very probable theory as to the Picts having been a German race. They farther suggest that a Norman admixture might readily have come to the national tongue, through the long intercourse between the two countries during the three centuries just mentioned. Thus it is presumed, 'one common language was separately formed in the two countries, and owed its identity to its being constructed out of similar materials, by similar gradations, and by nations in the same state of society.'

Whatever might have been the cause, there can be no doubt that the language used by the first Scottish vernacular writers in the fourteenth cen tury, greatly resembled that which was used cotemporaneously in England. Of these writers, John Barbour is the first of whom we possess any certain knowledge.

JOHN BARBOUR was born in 1320, but at what precise place is unknown. His early education, and the development of his genius must have been, for the age in which he lived, very remarkable; as we find him in 1357, when he was in the thirty-seventh year of his age, exercising the duties of the important office of archdeacon of Aberdeen. Besides his clerical attainments, Barbour was distinguished for political abilities also; and was, accordingly, chosen by the Bishop of Aberdeen to act as his commissioner at Edinburgh, when the ransom of David the Second was there debated. His learning too was such that on several occasions he accompanied men of rank to study at Oxford. His death occurred in 1396, when he was in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

Barbour, in all probability, formed his taste upon the Romance writers who preceded him in England, as his first poem was founded upon The Brute-a subject made famous, as already observed, by Geoffrey of Monmouth and other writers. The Bruce, his great poem, is conducted upon a similar plan; but unlike the former work, the principal incidents which it narrates, are founded on authenticated facts. It is, therefore, a very important production, and may be considered as a complete history of the memorable transactions in which king Robert the First, asserted the independence of Scotland, and obtained its crown for himself and his family. At the same time it is far from being destitute of poetical spirit or rhythmical sweetness and har mony. It contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and even pathetic sentiment.

In the opening of this important poem, the author, contemplating the enslaved condition of his country, breaks forth in the following animated

APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM.

A! fredome is a nobill thing!
Fredome mayse man to haiff liking!
Fredome all solace to man giffis:
He levys at ese that frely levys!
A noble hart may haiff nane ese,
Na ellys nocht that may him plese,
Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking
Is yearnyt our all other thing
Na he, that ay hase levyt fre,
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome.
Bot gyff he had assayit it,

Then all perquer he suld it wyt;
And suld think fredome mar to pryse
Than all the gold in warld that is.

From this poem we might select many other passages fraught with deep interest; particularly that which describes the death of Sir Henry De Bohun -an event which took place on the eve of the battle of Bannockburn; but our space will permit us to introduce a single extract only from the description of that important battle itself.

THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN.

When this was said

The Scottismen commonally
Kneelit all doun, to God to pray.
And a short prayer there made they
To God, to help them in that ficht.
And when the English king had sicht
Of them kneeland, he said, in hy,
'Yon folk kneel to ask mercy.'
Sir Ingram1 said, 'Ye say sooth now-
They ask mercy, but not of you;
For their trespass to God they cry:
I tell you a thing sickerly,
That yon men will all win or die;
For doubt of deid2 they sall not flee.'
'Now be it sae then!' said the king.
And then, but langer delaying,

They gart trump till the assembly
On either side men micht then see

Mony a wicht man and worthy,
Ready to do chivalry.

*

Almighty God! how douchtily
Sir Edward the Bruce and his men
Amang their faes conteinit them than!
Fechting in sae gude covine, 1

Sae hardy, worthy, and sae fine,
That their vaward frushit was. * *
Almighty God! wha then micht see
That Stewart Walter, and his rout,
And the gude Douglas, that was sae stout,
Fechting into that stalwart stour,
He sould say that till all honour
They were worthy. * * *

There micht men see mony a steed
Flying astray, that lord had nane. * *
Their micht men hear ensenzies cry:

And Scottismen cry hardily,

'On them! On them! On them! They fail!'

With that sae hard they gan assail,

And slew all that they micht o'erta'.

And the Scots archers alsua 2

Shot amang them so deliverly,

Engrieving them sae greatumly,

That what for them, that with them saucht,
That sae great routs to them raucht,
And pressit them full eagerly;
And what for arrows, that fellonly
Mony great wounds gan them ma',
And slew fast off their horse alsua,
That they vandist a little weel.

The appearance of a mock host, composed of the servants of the Scottish camp, completes the panic of the English army; the king flies, and Sir Giles D'Argentine is slain. The narrative then proceeds :

They were, to say sooth, sae aghast,
And fled sae fast, richt effrayitly,
That of them a full great party
Fled to the water of Forth, and there
The maist part of them drownit were.
And Bannockburn, betwixt the braes,
Of men, of horse, sae steekit was,
That, upon drownit horse and men,
Men micht pass dry out-ower it then.
And lads, swains, and rangle,5
When they saw vanquished the battle,
Ran amang them, and sae gan slay,
As folk that nae defence micht ma'.