Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 17

WILLIAM DUNBAR

This was a man of the true and sovereign seed of genius. Sir Walter Scott calls Dunbar 'a poet unrivalled by any--that Scotland has ever produced.' We venture to call him the Dante of Scotland; nay, we question if any English poet has surpa.s.sed 'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins through h.e.l.l' in its peculiarly Dantesque qualities of severe and purged grandeur; of deep sincerity, and in that air of moral disappointment and sorrow, approaching despair, which distinguished the sad-hearted lover of Beatrice, who might almost have exclaimed, with one yet mightier than he in his misery and more miserable in his might,

'Where'er I am is h.e.l.l--myself am h.e.l.l.'

Foster, in an entry in his journal, (we quote from memory,) says, 'I have just seen the moon rising, and wish the impression to be eternal.

What a look she casts upon earth, like that of a celestial being who loves our planet still, but has given up all hope of ever doing her any good or seeing her become any better--so serene she seems in her settled and unutterable sadness.' Such, we have often fancied, was the feeling of the great Florentine toward the world, and which--pained, pitying, yearning enthusiast that he was!--escaped irresistibly from those deep- set eyes, that adamantine jaw, and that brow, wearing the laurel, proudly yet painfully, as if it were a crown of everlasting fire! Dunbar was not altogether a Dante, either in melancholy or in power, but his 'Dance'

reveals kindred moods, operating at times on a kindred genius.

In Dante humour existed too, but ere it could come up from his deep nature to the surface, it must freeze and stiffen into monumental scorn --a laughter that seemed, while mocking at all things else, to mock at its own mockery most of all. Aird speaks in his 'Demoniac,' of a smile upon his hero's brow,

'Like the lightning of a hope about to DIE For ever from the furrow'd brows of h.e.l.l's Eternity.'

Dante's smile may rather be compared to the RISING of a false and self- detected hope upon the lost brows where it is never to come to dawn, and where, nevertheless, it remains for ever, like a smile carved upon a sepulchre. Dunbar has a more joyous disposition than his Italian prototype and master, and he indulges himself to the top of his bent, but in a style (particularly in his 'Twa Married Women and the Widow,'

and in 'The Friars of Berwick,' which is not, however, quite certainly his) too coa.r.s.e and prurient for the taste of this age.

'The Merle and the Nightingale' is one of the finest of Moelibean poems.

Beautiful is the contest between the two sweet singers as to whether the love of man or the love of G.o.d be the n.o.bler, and more beautiful still their reconciliation, when

'Then sang they both with voices loud and clear, The Merle sang, "Man, love G.o.d that has thee wrought."

The Nightingale sang, "Man, love the Lord most dear, That thee and all this world made of nought."

The Merle said, "Love him that thy love has sought From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone."

The Nightingale sang. "And with his death thee bought: All love is lost, but upon him alone."

_'Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen, Singing of love among the leaves small.'_

William Dunbar is said to have been born about the year 1465. He received his education at St Andrews, and took there the degree of M.A.

in 1479. He became then a friar of the Franciscan order, (Grey Friars,) and in the exercise of his profession seems to have rambled over all Scotland, England, and France, preaching, begging, and, according to his own confession, cheating, lying, and cajoling. Yet if this kind of life was not propitious, in his case, to morality, it must have been to the development of the poetic faculty. It enabled him to see all varieties of life and of scenery, although here and there, in his verses, you find symptoms of that bitterness which is apt to arise in the heart of a wanderer. He was subsequently employed by James IV. in some official work connected with various foreign emba.s.sies, which led him to Spain, Italy, and Germany, as well as England and France. This proves that he was no less a man of business-capacity and habits than a poet. For these services he, in 1500, received from the King a pension of ten pounds, afterwards increased to twenty, and, in fine, to eighty. He is said to have been employed in the negotiations preparatory to the marriage of James with Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., which took place in 1503, and which our poet celebrated in his verses, 'The Thistle and the Rose.' He continued ever afterwards in the Court, hovering in position between a laureate and a court-fool, charming James with his witty conversation as well as his verses, but refused the benefices for which he pet.i.tioned, and gradually devoured by chagrin and disappointment.

Seldom has genius so great been placed in a falser position, and this has given a querulous tinge to many of his poems. He seems to have died about 1520. Even after his death, misfortune pursued him. His works were, with the exception of two or three pieces, locked up in an obscure MS. till the middle of last century. Since then, however, their fame has been still increasing. In 1834, Mr David Laing, so favourably known as one of our first antiquarians, published a complete and elaborate edition of Dunbar's works; and in a newspaper this very day (May 23) we see another edition announced, in a popular and modernised shape, of the poetry of this great old Scottish _Makkar_.

THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS THROUGH h.e.l.l.

I.

Of Februar' the fifteenth night, Full long before the dayis light, I lay into a trance; And then I saw both Heaven and h.e.l.l; Methought among the fiendis fell, Mahoun[1] gart[2] cry a Dance, Of shrewis[3] that were never shrevin,[4]

Against the feast of Fastern's even, To make their observance: He bade gallants go graith[5] a guise,[6]

And cast up gamounts[7] in the skies, As varlets do in France.

II.

Holy harlottis in hautane[8] wise, Came in with many sundry guise, But yet laugh'd never Mahun, Till priests came in with bare shaven necks, Then all the fiends laugh'd and made gecks,[9]

Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun.[10]

III.

'Let's see,' quoth he, 'now who begins:'

With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins Began to leap at anis.[11]

And first of all in dance was Pride, With hair wyld[12] back, and bonnet on side, Like to make wasty weanis;[13]

And round about him, as a wheel, Hang all in rumples to the heel, His kethat[14] for the nanis.[15]

Many proud trompour[16] with him tripped, Through scalding fire aye as they skipped, They girn'd[17] with hideous granis.[18]

IV.

Then Ire came in with sturt[19] and strife, His hand was aye upon his knife, He brandish'd like a beir; Boasters, braggers, and barganeris,[20]

After him pa.s.sed into pairis,[21]

All bodin in feir of weir.[22]

In jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel, Froward was their affeir,[24]

Some upon other with brands beft,[25]

Some jaggit[26] others to the heft[27]

With knives that sharp could shear.

V.

Next in the dance follow'd Envy, Fill'd full of feud and felony, Hid malice and despite, For privy hatred that traitor trembled; Him follow'd many freik[28] dissembled, With feigned wordis white.

And flatterers into men's faces, And backbiters in secret places To lie that had delight, And rowneris[29] of false lesngs;[30]

Alas, that courts of n.o.ble kings Of them can never be quite![31]

VI.

Next him in dance came Covetice, Root of all evil and ground of vice, That never could be content, Caitiffs, wretches, and ockerars,[32]

Hood-pikes,[33] h.o.a.rders, and gatherers, All with that warlock went.

Out of their throats they shot on other Hot molten gold, methought, a fother,[34]

As fire-flaucht[35] most fervent; Aye as they tumit[36] them of shot, Fiends fill'd them new up to the throat With gold of all kind prent.[37]

VII.

Syne[38] Sweirness[39] at the second bidding Came like a sow out of a midding,[40]

Full sleepy was his grunyie.[41]

Many sweir b.u.mbard[42] belly-huddroun,[43]

Many s.l.u.te daw[44] and sleepy duddroun,[45]

Him served aye with sounyie.[46]

He drew them forth into a chenyie,[47]

And Belial with a bridle-rennyie,[48]

Ever lash'd them on the lunyie.[49]

In dance they were so slow of feet They gave them in the fire a heat, And made them quicker of counyie.[50]

VIII.