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QUINTINE SHAW..

THIS poet is the last mentioned in Dunbar's list of dead "makars" in "The Lament." He was the son of John Schaw of Haily, in Ayrshire, who was one of the ambassadors to Denmark in 1469, in reference to the marriage of James III. By the Treasurer's accounts it is shown he was in receipt of a pension of £10 a year, and received various other presents from King James IV. July 1504 is the last entry of payment of his pension; and as he is mentioned by Dunbar as dead about 1505, it is obvious that he died about the end of 1504. In "The Flyting," Kennedy calls him his cousin and commisar; and Gavin Douglas, in his "Palace of Honour," mentions him, in company with Dunbar and Kennedy, as the only Scottish poets he observed in the court of the Muses. Sir David Lindsay, in "The Complaynt of the Papyngo," referring to the merits of Bellenden,

says:

"Get he into court auctoritie,

He will precell Quintyn and Kennedy." The only poem known to be his, is preserved in the Maitland MS., and was first published by Pinkerton. It is characterised by much of that easy grace, and, in the last stanza, by somewhat of the vigour and directness, that distinguishes Dunbar's short pieces.

ADVICE TO A COURTIER.

I.

Suppose the court you cheer and treats, And fortune on you shines and beats,

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GAVIN DOUGLAS.

1474-1522.

No family from the days of "The Good Sir James," the trusted friend of Bruce, and eighth lord of that ilk, till the fatal battle of Flodden, occupies such❘ a prominent position in the annals of Scotland, as that which bears the surname of Douglas. Hume of Godscroft, the historian of The Houses of Douglas and Angus, relates a legendary incident accounting for the origin of the name, but which is as likely to owe its existence to the name, as the name to it. Yet, as a characteristic specimen of an etymological application of Gaelic nomenclature, a study requiring and deserving more careful handling than it has hitherto received, -it is worthy of notice. Sholto, chief of the Brigantes, with his son Hugh, and a company of their followers, about A.D. 767, rendered such signal assistance to the King of Scotland, in a particular battle, as to have decided the victory in his favour. Wishing to be introduced to the man to whom he owed so much, the king desired one of his generals to point him out to him. On observing the chief, he exclaimed in Gaelic, Sholto duine Du glasse, "See yonder dark grey man." The king, struck with the aptness of the designation, called him Du Glasse, and, along with other marks of royal favour, gave him an extensive grant of land.

George Chalmers, the author of Caledonia, gives the family a much more recent and less romantic origin, tracing the founder to one Theobald, a

Fleming, who, about 1170, obtained a grant of land on the Douglas water, in Lanarkshire, from Arnold, abbot of Kelso. The fact of the Celtic designations, Gavin and Archibald, being family names, taken in connection with the etymology of the surname, Dhu glas, dark grey, which appears to have been the characteristic complexion of the race, at least infers an infusion of Celtic blood. Douglas has been interpreted black water, but the term has no reference to water; and dark grey, the literal meaning, would be as inappropriate a description of a river in Gaelic as it is in English.

Although the military sphere was that in which the genius and natural force of character of the Douglases was mostly exhibited, this may have been owing to the fact that it was almost the only field open to distinguished talent during the times of their ascendancy; yet since the advent of peaceful times, the name has not maintained its ancient distinction; from which it might be inferred that the instincts of the race were better suited to times of turmoil and strife.

Gavin Douglas, if not the first, at least the first conspicuous member of the family who sought distinction in a peaceful profession, has been characterized as of a peace-loving disposition; yet a considerable portion of his life was spent in strife and party contention, more in keeping with the traditions of

his family than with the principles of his professions. But it is not to be inferred from this that he was not of a peace-loving disposition; for it has to be observed that it would have taken a very peaceable disposition indeed to occupy the position he did, and, inheriting such family traditions and connections as his, to have kept out of trouble during the trying times in which his lot

was cast.

He was a scion of the Angus branch of the Douglas tree, being the third son of Archibald, the fifth earl, known as the great Earl of Angus, but popularly best known as "Bell the Cat," and one of the chief characters in Scott's Marmion. His mother, Elizabeth Boyd, was the daughter of Robert Lord Boyd, Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland.

The exact date of his birth, or at which of the many seats of the family in Scotland he was born, has not been ascertained; but in a minute of the proceedings of the Lords of Council, in 1515, he is described as of forty years of age or thereby; which refers his birth to 1474-75. Prior to the date of his entering the University of St Andrews, in which he matriculated in 1489, it is not known where his education was conducted, but it is supposed to have been, according to the custom of the times, in some monastic seminary. He continued at St Andrews till 1494, in which year he took his degree of Master of Arts; but it is related by Warton, that he completed his studies at the University of Paris.

He entered the Church soon after finishing his education, for in 1496 he obtained a grant of the teinds of Mony

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musk, in Aberdeenshire. In 1498, he was presented to the parsonage of Glenquhom, and sometime after was made parson of Linton and rector of Hauch, which has been. mistaken for Hawick in Roxburgh, owing to the name being afterwards dropped in favour of Prestonkirk or East Linton. This mistake has been discovered through Dr David Laing's more exact reading of the MS. of Douglas's translation of Virgil, in which he is styled "Provost of Sanct Geyls Kirk in Edinburgh, and Person of Lyntoun in Lothian." About 1501, he was made Provost of the Collegiate Church of St Giles in Edinburgh, yet retaining his other appointments.

His first essay in literature, "The Palace of Honour," was finished this year; and it is supposed by Dr Laing that it was on account of this poem, which is dedicated to the king in a poetical address at the end, that he was preferred to the opulent city appointment of Provost of St Giles.

From this time till the battle of Flodden, an event so fatal to his country, his family, and his own interests, little is known of him; yet this decade may be regarded as the most useful and possibly the most happy of his life, while it is also that in which was composed the greatest of his literary achievements, his Translation of the Æneid of Virgil, which he finished in the space of eighteen months, in July 1513, about two months before the calamitous event of Flodden. It is supposed that, previous to undertaking Virgil's great work, he translated Ovid, but this work appears to be lost. It is

also probable that during this tranquil period of his life, he diversified the routine of his professional duties, and the severer labours of his literary studies, with occasional visits abroad, particularly to Rome. Although he does not appear to have taken any share in matters of public interest beyond occasionally attending the meetings of the Lords of Council, yet in September 1315, he was presented with the freedom of the City of Edinburgh, of which his father was then Provost.

On September 9, 1573, was fought the battle of Flodden, the sad conclusion of a reckless war, undertaken against the advice of the sagacious Earl of Angus, who, on hearing of the result, retired to a monastery in Galloway, where in twelve | months after he died of grief for the loss of his two eldest sons, along with two hundred knights and gentlemen of the name of Douglas.

Another event which ultimately proved more prejudicial to the interests and happiness of the poet, and perhaps not less to those of the nation than that by which it was brought about, was the marriage of the queen, less than twelve months after the fall of her husband, without the advice or approval of the national representatives, to Douglas's nephew, the young Earl of Angus. Immediately after the death of the king, the queen was appointed regent during the minority of her son James V.; and Gavin Douglas was one of the Lords of Council appointed to advise and comfort her; but the effect of her hasty marriage was to destroy the national confidence in her discretion, which the

character of her husband was not calculated to restore. As a natural consequence, most of the nobility, who were jealous of the ambitious aspirations inherent in the Douglas race, and particularly resentful at the assumption of the young and inexperienced member of the family, who, as the husband of the queen-regent, aspired to monopolise the government of the nation, formed a party for the purpose of bringing the Duke of Albany, with French assistance, to assume the government. The poet, as was natural, took the side of his family; and did we possess evidence that he exercised a wise control, and endeavoured to persuade the party to the adoption of measures calculated to enlist the sympathy and support of those who might be reconciled by moderation and firmness, and a manifest regard for the national welfare, his adherence to the side of his nephew might not only have been that in which he could best serve the interests of the country, but would have been to his credit. It is recorded to his honour that he did interfere for the purpose of controlling the fury of party strife, and saved the life of the Archbishop of Glasgow from the resentment of the soldiers of his party; yet there is no evidence that he so endeavoured to direct the aims of the party as to prevent the outbreak of those struggles, which were simply the overt outcome of the intrigue and counterplotting of each side, selfishly bent on its own advancement, to the entire neglect of the commonweal. As was not long afterwards manifest enough, neither the queen nor her husband was actuated

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