for special objects, he reveals his whole versatility and inventive caprice. And as he achieved his best work in romantic allegory, so at this period he produced the more important of his satirical poems. His alliterative poem, The Two Married Women and the Widow, is rich in striking characterization and a comedy taken from the life full of force. Chaucer, in his "Confessions of the Wife of Bath," had started satire against women, but it receives an even more dramatic form in Dunbar's hands, where he causes three women to converse unconstrainedly over their wine. Here, too, the views and experiences of love and marriage are discussed, the characteristics of men and the secrets of feminine policy. The three ladies, who have no notion that the poet is listening to their conversation, put no restraint upon their feelings, and their but little edifying remarks, the cynicism of which stands in so great a contrast with the charming picture we had received of their outward appearance, perfectly justifies the question with which the poem closes a question pretty difficult to answer: "Of thir thré wanton wives, that I have written here, which would ye waile to your wif, if ye suld wed one?" His satire takes a burlesque form in The Justis betuix the Tailyeour and Soutar (The Dispute between the Tailor and Shoemaker), without the extravagant humour losing any of its pungency. The Testament of Master Andro Kennedy, with its effective mixture of Scottish and Latin verses, recalls the best productions of the songs of the Vagantes. Everywhere in the poems of this species Dunbar develops the most telling humour, a striking sense of the ludicrous, and a boldness of caprice that does not allow itself to be deterred by anything; further, a remarkable originality of fancy, which manages effectively to introduce what is furthest removed from the subject, and delights in the combination of the horrible and the burlesque. Dunbar is fond of making use of hell and the devil according to the popular idea. The dispute between the Tailor and Shoemaker takes place in hell. In the poem Against Swearing; or, the Devil's Inquest, he causes the Fiend to give the prize for swearing to a priest: "Thou art my clerk; renounce thy God and come to me.' tendency, however, is reached in the The climax of this Deadly Sins, which probably belongs to the year 1507. On the night of the 15th of February the poet dreams of Hell, where preparations are being made to celebrate the "fastern's even. "Mahoun" then calls upon the seven deadly sins -each accompanied by a numerous train-to lead off the dance. Only one minstrel plays to them, one who had slain a man to get possession of his inheritance. The poem is descriptive throughout, yet gives the impression of animated action. The rapid advance of the presentation in smoothly flowing and richly freighted strophes (Dunbar here, with great artistic skill, employs the twelvelined stanza of the minstrels), the abundance of rapidly sketched and characteristic traits, some of them not unworthy of Dante, sustain and heighten the illusion. We fancy we have before us a grotesque nocturne, the gloomy character of which is relieved with a species of grim humour; it is a sketch, popular in style, drawn with bold, vigorous, though somewhat angular strokes. Some pictorial representation of the Dance of Death may have inspired Dunbar to handle the subject. During the year 1507 we have the beginning of a new stage in the poet's mental development. A serious illness appears to have been the cause-an illness from which Dunbar did recover, it is true, but not without its leaving a moral effect upon the man who was now pretty well advanced in years. The crisis was not over when he wrote his Lament for the Makars, which shows signs of a melancholy and serious frame of mind, and of having been produced under the impression of gloomy thoughts of death, unrelieved even by his attempt at pious resignation "I that in heill wes and glaidness, Timor Mortis conturbat me. "Our plesance heir is all vane glory, The flesche is brukle, the feynd is flé: He goes on to say that the state of man changes and varies, no state on earth being secure; like a flag before the wind, doth wave this world's vanities: unto the dead go all estates, princes, prelates, and potentates; Death takes the knights in the field, though armed with helm and shield, he remains victor everywhere; the strong, merciless tyrant takes the sucking infant from its mother's breast; he takes the champion, the captain, the fine lady in her chamber, he spares no lord in his power, no clerk in his intelligence, no art-magicians or learned men, no physician or poet. Death, he says, carried off Chaucer, the monk of Bury, and Gower, all three. Then come the names of a number of Scottish poets, some of which are not found mentioned elsewhere. At the end of the list of those removed by Death is "gentle Stobo and Quintin Schaw," and "Gud Maister Walter Kennedy, In point of dede lies veraly." "Sen he has all my Brethar tane, "Sen for the Deid remeid is none, This "Lament," both in tone and form, reminds one of the well-known song (Pos de chanter m'es pres talens) where the earliest of the troubadours bids farewell to his country and people, his vassals and child. Like the old song, it does not lack poetic tendency or expression; still, the long enumeration of Scottish poets is more valuable for its literary and historical interest than for æsthetic charm. The poems of the third period differ distinctly from those of the earlier ones. Dunbar's love of sarcasm, his unbridled humour, his fits of cynicism and frivolity, diminish and give place to a more deeply serious view of life. And although his poetic impulse may, even at this time, have induced him eagerly to handle a variety of subjects, still it is religious and moral motives which now mainly attracted him. Of Dunbar's religious poems some are of value only as devotional subjects, while others are full of poetry. He sings with fervour and poetic inspiration of the "Nativitie" THE MERLE AND NIGHTINGALE." 77 and of the "Resurrection." But he is above all successful in depicting the contrast between Divine and earthly love. This contrast is admirably developed in The Merle and Nightingale, which, in spite of a more refined style of art, and although betraying Chaucer's influence, reminds us vividly in its construction, of the earlier poem of the "Throstle and Nightingale." The Merle represents earthly love, and its remarks occasionally give us a whiff of Dunbar's old humour "God bade eik luve thy neighbour fro the splene, And quho than ladeis suetar nychtbouris be?" The refrain of the Merle is ever "a lusty life in Luvis service bene," which the Nightingale opposes by maintaining in impressive words, that "All luve is lost but upone God allone." In the end the Merle is converted-perhaps somewhat too suddenly-and the opponents unite in praise of Divine love. The same theme gives both substance and title to another poem of this period called "Of Love Earthly and Divine." In his moralizing poems, Dunbar gives expression to sound worldly wisdom-not unfrequently reminding one of Horace—and, where elegance of form is so rich in substance, it would, in fact, not be unworthy of a Horace. At one time he reflects on the transitoriness of life, on the vanity of earthly possessions, and the fickleness of fortune; at another he describes the follies and vices of mankind. He is fond of preaching moderation in all things, restraint in desire, in giving as well as in taking; extols the happiness of contentment; and recommends a rational enjoyment of life and a cheerful mind. "Be mirry, Man, and tak nocht far in mynd The wavering of this wrechit Warld of sorrow; For oft with wyse men it hes bene said afcrrow: "Mak thé gud cheir of it that God thé sendis, Seik to solace quhen sadnes thé assailis ; Dunbar had a prototype in the scanty memorials preserved of Chaucer's moralizing lyrics-with the rapid succession of their concise maxims or examples, the working out of which is left to the reader. Still, it will readily be admitted that Dunbar in this domain far surpasses Chaucer, not to mention a fellow-worker like Lydgate. A fertility of mind, which manages to obtain ever new points from a limited circle of motives, and the art of applying simple, yet striking and choice expressions amid a variety of turns and forms,—all this is, in these poems, found combined with a mature knowledge of human nature and a refined and kindly disposition, the waggishness of which seems now to have become pleasantly tempered. The year of Dunbar's death is unknown. If he outlived the battle of Flodden and the death of James IV. (September, 1513), and was still writing poetry in 1517which is not altogether certain-the period of his actual literary activity would, nevertheless, coincide with James's reign and be its most imperishable ornament. Dunbar is chiefly a lyrical and satirical poet. As an epic writer he had the talent for giving graphic descriptions and vivid representations, which, however, he frequently employed in a non-epic fashion. The calmness, the long-sustained effort and complacency of the epic-writer were foreign to him. He manifests as little of the objectivity with which Chaucer mirrors life, as he does of the capacity for work, or the creative power of Chaucer, to whom we owe so many complete and life-like pictures of human nature. Dunbar's poetry does not possess altogether the directness of Chaucer's, it demands a greater amount of reflective power. The Scottish poet is a Master who shows himself in his limitation, and although he frequently does not limit himself in his descriptions, this is not done with the intention of becoming discursive, but because he takes artistic pleasure in his own charming delineations. His style is always clear, precise, and pregnant; and there are few poets who can command such a far-reaching scale of tones |