Quo' she, to leave thee I will be laith,
My winsom Gaberlunzie-man.

IX.

O kend my minny I war wi' you,
Ill-fardly wad she crook her mou',
Sic a pure man she'd nevir trow,
After the Gaberlunzie-man.

My dear, quod he, zere zet ow'r zoung,
An' hae na learn'd the beggar's tongue,
To fallow me frae toun to toun,
And carry the Gaberlunzie on.

X.

Wi' kauk and keel I'll win zour bread,
And spinnels and quhorles for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed,

To carry the Gaberlunzie on.

I'll bow my leg and crook my knee,
An' draw a black clout ow'r my eye,
A cripple or blind they will ca' me,
While we will sing and be merrie.

T. C.

WILLIAM DUNBAR.

THE village of Salton, on the coast of the Forth in
East Lothian, is supposed to have given birth to
William Dunbar, one of the greatest of our antient
Scottish poets. In the piece, called The Flyting be-
tween Kennedy and Dunbar, the former tells Dunbar,
Thy geir and substance is a widdy teuch
On Saltoune Mount, about thy craig to rax;
And yet Mount Saltoune gallows is our fair
For to be fleyt with sic a frontles face, &c.

Dunbar himself, in the same piece, says,

I haif on me a pair of Lowthiane hipps.

The date of his birth is uncertain. His Thistle and Rose, which was certainly written in 1503, bears evident marks of being the composition of an experienced hand; and he says of himself in it, that he was a poet who had already written" mony sangis." If we suppose him to have been then in the prime of life, his birth must have fallen about the year 1460 or 1465.

Of Dunbar's parentage, youth, and education, nothing is known. The first character in which we meet with him, is that of a travelling noviciate of the Franciscan Order of Friars. In one of his pieces, entitled "How Dunbar was designed to be ane Friar," he thus addresses St. Francis:

Gif evir my fortoune was to be a freir,
The dait thairof is past full mony a yeir,
For into every lusty town and place
Of all Yngland, from Berwick to Calaice,
I haif into my habeit maid gud cheir.
In freiris weid full fairly haif I fleichit;
In it haif I in pulpit gane and preichit,
In Derntoun kirk, and eik in Canterberry.
In it I past at Dover ou'r the ferry ;

Throw Picardy, and thair the people teachit.

This mode of life appears not to have been very agreeable to his inclination; he confesses, that it compelled him to have recourse to many a pious fraud, from the guilt of which no holy water could cleanse him. He returned to Scotland, as is generally supposed, about the year 1490; and, though he had now abandoned the character of mendicant or itinerant friar, his hopes appear still to have rested on promotion in the church. His smaller poems abound with allusions to this effect.

I knaw nocht how the kirk is gydit,
Bot beneficis ar nocht leil devydit;
Sum men has sevin, and I nocht nane,
Quhilk to consider is ane pane.

And sum, unworthy to brouk ane stall,
Wald clym to be ane cardinall:
Ane bishopric may nocht him gane.
Quhilk to consider is ane pane.

Unwourthy I, amang the laif,

Ane kirk dois craif, and nane can have, &c.

On the Warld's Instabilitie, addressed to the King.

Nay, so humble were his expectations, and so great must have been his corresponding disappointment, that he afterwards adds:

Greit abbais grayth I nill to gather

Bot ane kirk scant coverit with hadder,*
For I of lytil wald be fane,

Quhilk to consider is ane pane.

It does not appear, that any ecclesiastical benefice was ever conferred on him; a fact the more remarkable, that it is certain he became a favourite at the Scottish court. His "Dance in the Quene's Chalmer," and his lines on "James Doig, Keper of the Quein's Wardrep," shew that he was on very familiar terms at the palace. It must be confessed, however, that his interest appears to have been established rather with the queen than the king; and hence, his Prayer that the King war Johne (Joan) Thomson's man," that is, that his majesty were as hen-pecked as Joan Thomson's man,

66

For war it so, than weill war me;
But benefice I wald nocht be;
My hard fortoun wer endit than.

God gif ye war Johne Thomsounis man!

To be John or Joan Thomson's man, was a proverbial expression for being a hen-pecked husband. Thus, Colville in his Scottish Hudibras :

We read in greatest warriour's lives

They oft were ruled by ther wives;

* Covered with heather, thatched; a poor indication of the state of some of our churches in antient

times.

A. S.

Made the Great Turk Johne Thomson's man.'

The queen, in whose favour Dunbar held so high a place, was Margaret Tudor, sister to Henry the VIII. of England, whose marriage with James the Fourth, Dunbar celebrated in his " Thistle and the Rose." She was a lady of a warm and joyous temperament, as a fine whole-length portrait of her, to be seen in Hampton-Court Palace, sufficiently indicates; and it is probable, that the qualifications which recommended Dunbar to her esteem, may not have been of that nature which a sovereign of the stern and martial character of James the Fourth might consider the best calculated to do honour to the sacerdotal function. Dunbar, though he has left many moral pieces, which are not excelled by any productions of the age in which he wrote, has left others, of which no age, pretending to the least delicacy in amatory sentiment, would wish to boast. If it was by such lines as those, "To the Quene," or a " Dance in the Quene's Chalmer," or by the tale of his "Twa Marit Wemen and the Wedo," that Dunbar gained the ear of Henry's gallant sister, no person need be surprised,

*To pay rent to John Thomson is still a common expression in some parts of Scotland, for being henpecked.

A. S.