was blind from his infancy, that he wrote this poem, and that he supported himself by reciting it before company. The work abounds with marvellous stories respecting the prowess of its hero, and in one or two places, grossly outrages real history: its value has, perhaps, on this account been generally understated. But within a very few years past, several of the transactions attributed by the blind minstrel to Wallace, and hitherto supposed to be fictitious—such as his expeditions to France--have been confirmed by the discovery of authentic evidence. The poem is in ten-syllable lines, and is not deficient in poetical effect, and elevated sentiment. A paraphrase of it into modern Scotch, by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, has long been a favorite volume among the Scotch peasantry; and it was the study of this book which had so great an effect in kindling the genius of Robert Burns. Perhaps the most striking passages in this poem are the Adventures of Wallace while fishing in Irvine Water-The Escape of Wallace from Perth--and Wallace's Death: the last of which follows:

THE DEATH OF WALLACE.

On Wednesday the false Southron furth brocht
To martyr him, as they before had wrocht.2
Of men in arms led him a full great rout.
With a bauld sprite guid Wallace blent about:
A priest he asked, for God that died on tree.
King Edward then commanded his clergy,
And said, 'I charge you, upon loss of life,
Nane be sae bauld yon tyrant for to shrive.
He has reigned long in contrar my highness.'
A blyth bishop soon, present in that place.
Of Canterbury he then was righteous lord;
Again the king he made this richt record,
And said, 'Myself shall hear his confession,
If I have micht in contrar of thy crown,
An thou through force will stop me of this thing,
I vow to God, who is my righteous king,

That all England I shall her interdite,
And make it known thou art a heretic.

The sacrament of kirk I shall him give:

Syne take thy choice, to starve 3 or let him live.
It were mair weil, in worship of thy crown,

To keep sic ane in life in thy bandoun,

Than all the land and good that thou hast reived,
But cowardice thee ay fra honour dreived,
Thou has thy life rougin4 in wrangeous deed;
That shall be seen on thee or on thy seed.'

The king gart5 charge they should the bishop ta,

But sad lords counsellit to let him ga.
All Englishmen said that his desire was richt.
To Wallace then he rakit in their sicht

And sadly heard his confession till ane end:
Humbly to God his sprite he there commend
Lowly him served with hearty devotion
Upon his knees and said ane orison.

A psalter-book Wallace had on him ever
Fra his childheid-fra it wald nocht dissever;
Better he trowit in wyage1 for to speed.

But then he was despalyed of his weed.2

This grace he asked at Lord Clifford, that knicht,
To let him have his psalter-book in sicht.

He gart a priest it open before him hald,

While they till him had done all that they wald.
Stedfast he read for ought they did him there;
Feil3 Southrons said that Wallace felt na sair.
Guid devotion, sae, was his beginning,
Conteined therewith, and fair was his ending.
While speech and sprite at anis all can fare
To lasting bliss, we trow, for evermair.

From these romantic writers of Scotland, we proceed to notice a few of a different class, the first of whom, in the order of time, is the Scottish king, James the First.

JAMES THE FIRST was the son of Robert the Third, king of Scotland, and was born in 1395. His father being of a weak mind and easy disposition, allowed his brother, the Duke of Albany, to gain a complete ascendency over him. The reins of government consequently passed entirely into the duke's hands; and as he was the next heir to the crown after Robert and his issue, he soon entertained the ambitious and criminal design of securing the kingdom for himself. With this view, he so misrepresented the conduct of the king's eldest son, the Duke of Rothsay, that the weak monarch committed the prince to the care of the regent Albany, by whom he was immediately imprisoned in Falkland Castle, and soon after starved to death. The king, too weak to punish the man to whom he had foolishly committed the administration of the government, had still sufficient discernment to perceive the necessity of preserving his remaining son from a similar fate. With this view he, in 1404, caused the prince to embark, attended by a large retinue, for the court of his ally, Charles the Sixth of France, there to be educated. The vessel in which the prince sailed, had the misfortune to be captured on its way thither by an English ship-of-war, and James and his attendants were immediately conveyed to London as prisoners. This event occurred in the sixth year of the reign of Henry the Fourth; and during the remaining eight years of that monarch's reign, throughout the whole of the reign of Henry the Fifth, and until the commencement of the fourth year of the reign of Henry the Sixth, James remained a prisoner in England. Though Windsor Castle was his prisonhouse during the eighteen years of his captivity, yet his captors treated him 3 Many.

1 Expedition.

2 Clothes.

with every mark of respect and kindness, and bestowed upon him an education far superior to what he could, in that age, have received in his own country.

The captivity of the young prince so deeply affected his father's mind, that he soon sunk under the weight of the affliction, and James was, accordingly, in 1405, declared king by an assembly of the Scottish states, though the Duke of Albany still retained the regency.

In 1424, when James was set at liberty, and assumed the reins of the government of his country, he found his kingdom in such disorder that the most rigorous measures were required to curb the existing abuses. These measures bore very severely upon the usurpations of the crown lands by the nobility, in consequence of which a conspiracy was formed against the king, at the head of which was his uncle, the Earl of Athole. James received timely intelligence of the designs of the conspirators, but his natural intrepidity led him to treat the threatened danger with contempt; and while in the Dominican Convent, near Perth, attended by his queen and a very few of his courtiers, he was murdered in the most cruel manner, in the fortyfourth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.'

9 1

While James was a prisoner in Windsor Castle, and pining for his liberty, he accidentally saw, in an adjacent garden, a young princess, Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. This incident exerted a most remarkable influence over the captive, and induced him to seek the hand of the princess, which he eventually obtained. To the Lady Jane, James was most ardently attached, and her praises elicited his finest poetic strains.

The only unquestioned production of this youthful monarch, is a long poem entitled The King's Quhair, or Book. This poem, which embraces the relation of various particulars in his own life, and a full development of his passion for the Lady Jane, abounds in simplicity and pathos, and contains poetry superior to any other, with the exception of that of Chaucer, produced in England previous to the reign of Elizabeth. To sustain this remark, we need only present the following stanzas:

THE FIRST SIGHT OF LADY JANE BEAUFORT AS SEEN FROM
WINDSOR CASTLE.

Bewailing in my chamber, thus alone,
Despaired of all joy and remedy,
For-tired of my thought, and woe-begone,
And to the window gan I walk in hy2
To see the world and folk that went forbye,3
As, for the time, though I of mirthis food
Might have no more, to look it did me good.

Now was there made, fast by the towris wall,
A garden fair; and in the corners set
Ane arbour green, with wandis long and small
Railed about, and so with trees set

1 Pinkerton.

2 Haste.

3 Past.

1. Twigs.

✩ Say.

Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,
That lyf was none walking there forbye,
That might within scarce any wight espy.

So thick the boughis and the leavis green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And mids of every arbour might be seen
The sharpe greene sweete juniper,
Growing so fair with branches here and there,
That as it seemed to a lyf without,

The boughis spread the arbour all about.
And on the smalle greene twistis1 sat,
The little sweete nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrat
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung
Right of their song.

*

Cast I down mine eyes again,

Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
Full secretly, new comen here to plain,
The fairest or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour,
For which sudden abate, anon astart,2
The blood of all my body to my heart.

And though I stood abasit tho a lite 3

No wonder was; for why? my wittis all

Were so overcome with pleasance and delight,
Only through letting of my eyen fall,

That suddenly my heart became her thrall,

Forever of free will,-for of menace

There was no token in her sweete face.

And in my head I drew right hastily,
And eftesoons I leant it out again,
And saw her walk that very womanly,
With no wight mo', but only women twain.
Then gan I study in myself, and sayn,4
'Ah, sweet! are ye a worldly creature,
Or heavenly thing in likeness of nature?

Or are ye god Cupidis own princess,
And comin are to loose me out of band?

Or are ye very Nature the goddess,

That have depainted with your heavenly hand,
This garden full of flowers as they stand?
What shall I think, alas! what reverence
Shall I mister5 unto your excellence?

If ye a goddess be, and that ye like

To do me pain, I may it not astart:6

If ye be warldly wight, that doth me sike,7

2 Went and came.

7 Makes me sigh.

5 Minister.

3 Confounded for a little while. 6 Fly.

1 Pleased.

Why list1 God make you so, my dearest heart,
To do a seely? prisoner this smart,

That loves you all, and wot of nought but woe?
And therefore mercy, sweet! sin' it is so.' *

Of her array the form if I shall write,
Towards her golden hair and rich attire,
In fretwise couchit3 with pearlis white
And great balas leaming5 as the fire,
With mony ane emeraut and fair sapphire;
And on her head a chaplet fresh of hue,
Of plumis parted red, and white, and blue.
Full of quaking spangis bright as gold,
Forged of shape like to the amorets,
So new, so fresh, so pleasant to behold,
The plumis eke like to the flower jonets, 6
And other of shape, like to the flower jonets;
And above all this, there was, well I wot,
Beauty enough to make a world to doat.

About her neck, white as the fire amail,"
A goodly chain of small orfevory,8
Whereby there hung a ruby, without fail,
Like to ane heart shapen verily,
That as a spark, of low,9 so wantonly
Seemed burning upon her white throat,
Now if there was good party,10 God it wot.

And for to walk that fresh May's morrow,
Ane hook she had upon her tissue white,
That goodlier had not been seen to-forow,11
As I suppose; and girt she was alite,12
Thus halflings loose for haste, to such delight
It was to see her youth in goodlihede,
That for rudeness to speak thereof I dread.

In her was youth, beauty, with humble aport,
Bounty, richess, and womanly feature,
God better wot than my pen can report:
Wisdom, largess, estate, and cunning 13 sure,
In every point so guided her measure,
In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,
That nature might no more her child avance!

4 A kind of precious stone.

6 A kind of lily. It is conjectured that the royal poet may here allude covertly to the name of his mistress, which, in the diminutive, was Janet or Jonet.-Thompson's Edition of King's Quhair, Ayr, 1824.

7 Enamel.