much needed; and there is ample evidence extant to shew, that he had cultivated them with more than ordinary success. He was an assiduous student, and wrote much; but on these points, let us listen for a moment to the sweet bard himself.

Quhare as in ward full oft I wold bewaille

My dedely lyf, full of peyne and penance,
Saing ry' thus; quhat have I gilt, to faille*
My fredome in this warld and my pleasance?
Sen every wight has thereof suffisance
That I behold, and I a creature

Put from all this, hard is myne adventure!

The bird, the beste, the fisch eke in the sea,
They lyve in fredome everie in his kynd;
And I a man, and lakith libertie.

Quhat sall I seyne, quhat reason may I fynd
That fortune suld do so?

*

The long dayes and the nyghtis eke

I wold bewaille my fortune in this wise
For qwhich again distresse, comfort to seke
My custom was on mornis for to rise
Airly as day, O happy exercise!

The long ny' beholding, as I saide,
Myne eyne gan to smert for studying
My boke I schet, and at my head it laide
And down I lay :

*

*

*

King's Quair.

* What have I done, to lose.

Again, speaking of his determination to write the King's Quair," that chief memorial of his fame, he says:

And in my tyme more ink and paper spent
To lyte effect, I tuke conclusion

Sum new thing to write;

His favorite volume, while in prison, appears to have been Boethius' ethic piece, " de Consolatione Philosophiæ."

Or ever I stent, † my best was more to loke
Upon the writing of this nobil man.

This work was, indeed, well calculated to tranquilize an elegant mind, suffering from early and long continued bereavements. It was the production of a man, who, from being "the warldis flowre," had himself drunk deep of the cup of adversity; and with whom "the Latin tongue and the last remains of Roman dignity" are said " to have sunk in the western world." The book consists of a supposed conference between the author, and a personification of philosophy, who endeavours to comfort him for the various ills of a life of persecution, poverty, and exile. Chaucer has translated this work into English, and Camden informs us, that Queen Elizabeth, after having read it, to assuage a fit of grief, also made an elegant translation of it.

James did not seek the consolations of philosophy in vain. Amid all his bewailings for the singular se

"Quair," quire or book, from cahier, Fr. + Stretched myself; lay down.

verity of his fate, it is affecting to observe, with how much sweetness and resignation they are mingled. Even when despair began, at last, to shew its haggard front, nothing can be more plaintively tender than the strains in which he indulged.

Bewailling in my chamber thus allone,
Despeired of all joye and remedye;
Fortirit of my thought and wo begone,
And to the wyndow gan I walk in hye,
To see the warld and folk yt went forbye,
As for the tyme though I of mirthis fude
Myt have no more, to luke it did me gude.
Quair, canto ii.

Nearly eighteen years of joyless imprisonment had now passed over his head; and it would have required more than mortal fortitude not to have experienced some abandonment of soul at the dreary prospect of the all of life that remained to him. His uncle, the murderer of his brother, and the accessory to his own captivity, was, indeed, no more, but he had been succeeded in the regency and in all his faithless designs by his son, Murdo; neither the nobles nor the people of Scotland had shewn the least zeal to accomplish his liberation; and, being himself shut up from all opportunity of negociating, the chance of something being done to restore him to the world seemed almost as remote as ever. He was, as he says,

Ane wofull wrache yt to no wight myt spede,
And zit of every lyvis* help had nede.

* Persons.

Happily, however, the day of liberty at length arrived; and, to a prince of his sanguine and romantic cast of mind, it could not come with the less charm, that it was ushered in by the magic wand of female beauty.

The window of his chamber in Windsor Tower looked forth into a small garden, which occupied the place that was once the moat of the keep. It was a sweet embowered spot;

So thick, the beuis and the leves grene
Reschadit all the allyes yt were there,
And myddis every herbere myt be sene
The scharp grene suete junepere
Grouing so fair wt branchis here and there,
That as it semyt to a lyf* wt out
The bewes spred the herbere all about.

And on the small grene twistis + sat
The litil suete nightingale, and song
So loud and clere, the hymnis consecrate
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among
That all the gardynis and the wallis rong.
Quair, canto ii.

As he was listening on a May-morning to these "hymnis of love," he cast his eyes downwards, and saw, walking under the tower, "the fairest and the freschest young floure" that he had ever seen. His heart, open and unoccupied, languishing after communion with some kindred nature, was instantly captivated. He caught up, with a rapid and insatiate + Twigs.

* Person.

eye, every feature of grace and beauty about the fair unknown; and, in a few moments, all his feelings were in an ecstacy of commotion.

So farre I falling into lufis dance,

That sodeynly my wit, my countenance,
My hert, my will, my nature, and my mynd,
Was changit clene ryt in ane other kind.

He tenderly adds:

so much gude

It did my woful heart I zow assure,

That it was to me joye without measure.

The departure of the lady from the garden put an end to this temporary enchantment.

To see hir part and folowe I na myt
Methought the day was turnyt into nyt.

He instantly relapsed into that moodiness of despair from which the fair vision had aroused him; his destiny seemed now a hundred times more cruel, more heart-breaking, than ever; the whole of a long day, he spent in "sighing with himself allone;" and, when Phœbus

"Bad go farewele every lef and floure,"

he found himself still lingering at the window, and for "lack of myt and mynd" to stir from the spot, made sacred by the morning's adventure, he laid his head on the cold stone. Falling asleep, he was transported in imagination on a "cloude of crystall, clere and faire," to the sphere of "blissful Venus;" thence