Back and side, go bare, go bare!

Both hand and foot, go cold!

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old!

But if that I may have truly

Good ale my belly full,

I shall look like one, by sweet Saint John,
Were shorn against the wool.
Though I go bare, take you no care,

I am nothing cold,

I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side, &c.

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I could drink

With him that weareth an hood.
Drink is my life, although my wife

Sometime do chide and scold;
Yet spare I not to ply the pot
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side, &c.

I love no roast, but a brown toast,
Or a crab in the fire;

A little bread shall do me stead,-
Much bread I never desire.

Nor frost nor snow, nor wind, I trow,
Can hurt me if I wold;

I am so wrapped within and lapped
With jolly good ale and old.
Back and side, &c.

I care right nought, I take no thought
For clothes to keep me warm ;
Have I good drink, I surely think

Nothing can do me harm.

For truly than I fear no man,

Be he never so bold,

When I am armed and thoroughly warmed
With jolly good ale and old.

Back and side, &c. . . .

They that do drink till they nod and wink,
Even as good fellows should do,
They shall not miss to have that bliss

That good ale hath brought them to.
And all poor souls that scour black bowls,
And them that lustily trolled,

God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be young or old!
Back and side, &c.

Warton gives 1551 as the date at which this song was written, and, if he is correct, the composition is singularly in advance, in merit as well as in time, of much that was written within fifty years afterwards. It has a lilt and a swing and a freedom from obscurity not always visible in work which, if Warton is to believed, was contemporary with it.

To this period, also, belong the celebrated names of the Scotch poets, Dunbar, Barclay, Lyndsay, and Maitland.

William Dunbar has been designated by Sir Walter Scott as 'unrivalled' among northern writers. He is certainly the most considerable man produced by Scotland before Burns. His Thistle and the Rose is full of genuine poetry, whilst his Golden Terge is marked by great imaginative power. The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins is very striking, but didactic rather than humorous in its satire. The most amusing work of Dunbar's comic muse was his 'Twa Married Women and the Widow,' a work in which, however, the fun is far too gross for reproduction here; nor is the dialect easily comprehensible. Even the following lines (from Tidings fra the Session') have to be slightly annotated before they can be quite understanded' by the modern reader. Their subject is very similar to that of London Lickpenny,' with which they may be profitably compared:

* Born 1465, died 1530; works ed. by Hailes (1770) and Laing (1824).

Ane muirland man, of upland make,
At hame thus to his neighbour spake :
'What tidings, gossip, peace or weir [war]?'
The other rounit [whispered] in his ear:
'I tell you under this confession,

But lately lichtit [alighted] off my meare [mare];
I come of Edinburgh fra the Session.'

'What tidings heard you there, I pray you?'
The t'other answerit, I sall tell you:

Keep well this secret, gentle brother;
Is na man there that trusts another :

Ane common doer of transgression
Of common folk preveens a futher :*
Sic tidings heard I at the Session.

'Some with his fellow rouns him to please,
That wald for envy bite off his nese [nose];
His fa' some by the oxter [armpit] leads;
Some patten with his mouth on beads,

That has his mind all on oppression;
Some becks full law and shaws bare heads,
Wad look full heigh were not the Session.

Some, bydand the law, lays land in wed [pledge];

Some, super-expended, goes to bed;

Some speeds, for he in court has means;

Some of partiality compleens

How feid [feud] and favour flemis [bans] discretion;

Some speaks full fair and falsely feigns;

Sic tidings heard I at the Session. . .

'Some swearis and forsakis God;

...

Some in ane lamb's-skin is ane tod [fox];
Some in his tongue his kindness turses [carries];
Some cuts throats, and some pykes purses;
Some goes to gallows with procession;

Some sains the seat, and some them curses:
Sic tidings heard I at the Session.'

* Is advanced before a great number.

Barclay's great work was his Ship of Fools, which is partly original and partly a translation or adaptation from the German of Sebastian Brandt. The ship in question is supposed to be manned by fools of every kind, who are passed in review by the satirist, and described with a certain. amount of pungency. As in several other early satires, the individuals satirised are made to discuss their own peculiarities, and condemn themselves out of their own mouths. Thus, the book-worm is made to say:

Still am I busy books assembling;

For to have plenty is a pleasant thing

In my conceit [opinion], and to have them aye in hand:
But what they mean I do not understand.

But yet I have them in great reverence

And honour, saving them from filth and ordure,
By often brushing and much diligence.
Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture

Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure.

I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost;
For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.

Of books I have store,

But few I read, and fewer understand.
I follow not their doctrine or their lore,
It is enough to bear a book in hand:
It were too much to be in such a band,
For to be bound to look within the book:
I am content on the fair covering to look.

The satire is all of this description. Hypocrisy is everywhere exposed in a manner which to us is now very trite, yet with a vigour which is creditable to the writer, who drew largely upon his observations among his fellow-countrymen, and has bequeathed to us many useful pictures of his times. There is satire in all Sir David Lyndsay's work, but it

* That Barclay was a Scotchman is evident from the statement of one of his contemporaries, who says he was born beyond the cold river of "Tweed.' He died in 1552. † Lyndsay died in 1557.

The Satire' appeared in 1535.

is most forcible and effective in his morality called A Satire on the Three Estates, in which he lashes the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the clergy with considerable freedom, and, it must be added, grossness. The writer glances incidentally at many other abuses of his time, notably at the 'law's delay,' which, as we have seen, was a favourite subject of animadversion by medieval writers. Thus does one of the characters complain :

Marry, I lent my gossip my mare to fetch hame coals,
And he her drounit into the quarry holes;

And I ran to the Consistory, for to pleinzie [complain];
And there I happenit amang ane greedie meinzie [lot];
They gave first ane thing they call citendum;
Within aucht [eight] days I gat but libellandum;
Within ane month I gat ad opponendum;

In half ane year I gat inter-loquendum,

And syne [afterwards] Igat-how call ye it?-ad replicandum; But I could never ane word yet understand him :

And then they gart [made] me cast out many placks,*

And gart me pay for four-and-twenty acts;

But or they came half gate to concludendum,

The fiend ane plack was left for to defend him.

Thus they postponed me twa year with their train,

Syne, hodie ad octo, bad me come again :

And then their rooks they roupit [shouted] wonder fast
For sentence, silver, they cryit at the last.

Of pronunciandum they made me wonder fain,
But I gat never my gude gray mare again.

A characteristic specimen of Lyndsay's style is his Supplication directed to the King's Grace, in contemption of Side Tails,' i.e. long dresses. It would appear that the ladies of that era were as greatly addicted as the ladies of later times to the wearing of superfluous skirts, and that the indignation of Sir David was greatly roused thereby. He did not object to the lengthy robes of the king or queen or bishops, for these were necessary to support their dignity,

* A Scotch coin of that time, equivalent to about a third of a penny.