There is nocht else but ilk1 man for himself;— 4 "Therefore, adieu; I may no langer tarry." "6 "That questioun, it sall be soon decidit,” 1 Each. And on strang traitors mak punitioún. "Als yet, to thee I say ane other thing: I see richt weell that proverb is full true, Woe to the realm that has ower young ane king!" 10 2 "Farewell, and with Saint John for security" (?)-a curious old proverbial expression, or phrase of leave-taking, found in Chaucer, in the King's Quhair of James I., in Henryson, and in other poets, English and Scottish. 8 Know ye well. 4 Wondrous sorry. 5 Steeped. 6 Decided, answered. 8 To punish strong traitors. 7 To execute justice. 9 Yet also. 10 In 1528, when this was written, James V. was sixteen years of age. He had come to the throne as an infant by his father's death at Flodden in 1513. The same proverb (Væ terræ ubi puer rex est!) had been quoted and applied by Langland in the 1377 Text, or Edition, of his Piers Plowman Vision, with reference to Richard II., then just come to the English throne at the age of eleven. FROM THE HISTORY AND TESTAMENT OF A DYING SQUIRE'S COMMANDS CONCERNING HIS FUNERAL. Dool weeds2 I think hypocrisy and scorn, With hoodès heckled3 doun owerthort their een. About my bier sall ride ane multitude, Again that day, fail not to warn and call After the Evangel and the Offertour, 1 This poem was written about 1550. The subject is the life and adventures, together with the last will and testament, of a certain William Meldrum, laird of Cleish and Binns, near Loch Leven in Fifeshire. Meldrum was born about 1493; served in the Scottish wars with Ireland and France; obtained a great reputation for his bravery, gallantry, and misfortunes; and died about 1534. Sir David Lyndsay and the Fifeshire squire were neighbours and friends; and in this poem Lyndsay partly commemorates, partly idealises him. 3 Fastened. 4 Athwart. 8 Cause. 2 Mourning garments. 6 Emblem. 7 Yielded. 9 Solemnly. Each. 10 Story. When he has read my book frae end till end, Of service true, and all brocht to ane end, And close it up into my sepulture, Of balm, and other spices redolent.1 Let not be rung for me, that day, soul-knells, And syne hing up above my sepulture This beand done, I pray you take the pain That through the heavens sprang his noble fame : SQUIRE MELDRUM'S FAREWELL TO THE LADIES OF SCOTLAND. Fareweel, ye leaming lamps of lustiness! 1 The squire has already desired that his body should be embalmed before burial. 2 Make. 3 War. 4 Helmet. 5 Armour for the temples (?) 6 Pains. 7 In this manner. 8 Reputation. 9 A slave. 10 Star of Stratherne. 11 Ladv Gleneagles. The poem of Squire Meldrum relates the adventurous Yet, would my Lady look at even and morrow1 SIR THOMAS WYATT. (1503-1542.) THE family of Wyatt was of ancient Yorkshire origin. Sir Henry Wyatt, father of the poet, had been an adherent of the Lancastrian party during the Wars of the Roses, and was appointed by Henry VII. to be one of his Privy Councillors. He afterwards held various offices in the household of Henry VIII. His eldest son, Thomas, was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent, in 1503. He graduated at Cambridge when he was seventeen, and married in the same year Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, Lord Cobham. Their son, known in later years as "Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger," who was beheaded for taking part in the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy, was born in 1521, when his father was only eighteen years of age. Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet was one of the most accomplished courtiers of Henry VIII., and the foremost in a group of young poets who acknowledged no adherence to the satirical school of Skelton, but sought their models in the more graceful and cultured poetry of the Italians. Wyatt's Sonnets, with those of the Earl of Surrey, may be said to have introduced a new and favourite form into English verse; and these two men, close friends and fellow-workers, were for a considerable period the idols of the early literary Elizabethans. Wyatt was twice employed abroad, towards the end of his life, in diplomatic service for the king. On the second occasion he fell into trouble, and was committed, upon his return in 1539, to the Tower for offences alleged to have been committed by him during his ambassadorship. He was tried and acquitted with honour in 1540; after which he retired from court-life, and went to live upon his Kentish estates. There he wrote his latest works, consisting of some Satires and a Translation of the Penitential Psalms of David. In 1542, at the age of thirty-nine, he died of fever at Sherborne, whilst travelling to Falmouth by command of the king, to meet and conduct to London an embassy from the Emperor Charles V. One of the most interesting traditions concerning Wyatt's private history is that of his love for Anna Boleyn. Some of his poems seem to lend authority to this tradition; and it is said that during her imprisonment in the Tower, before her execution in 1535, the Queen occupied her time in reading Wyatt's poetry. A prayer-book which she presented in her last moments to the poet's sister was kept for a long time as a relic in the Wyatt family. Hitherto the chief lyrists had been Scotchmen. But it must not on this account be supposed that the English lyric, as exemplified in the writings of Wyatt and Surrey, had its origin in Scotland, nor that Henryson and Dunbar were the first Scottish lyrists. In the poetry of our oldest writers, both English and Scotch, we meet continually with the names of still older songs, and snatches of popular minstrelsy. In these names and refrains may be discerned the last surviving fragments of an unwritten literature of lyric song, which at one time existed in these islands. In the history of the lyric, Sir Thomas Wyatt's name, although English, follows in strict order of succession those of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth century. In his songs there is a dignified thoughtfulness which reminds us of Dunbar's most graceful strains; but there is an emotional richness, a power of tears, that distinguishes Wyatt not only from the Scottish lyrists who preceded him, but also from the English lyrists of his own time. Wyatt was an enthusiastic student of Italian poetry, and especially of the Sonnets of Petrarch, many of which he translated. Like his foreign models, he devoted his genius almost |