Sum the faitis full yarne

Of Portugal and Naverne ;

Sum counterfutit the gyis of Spayne,
Sum Italy, sum Almaine;

Sum noisit Napillis anone,

And uyir sum of Arragone;

Sum, "The Cane of Tartary,"

Sum, "The Soldane of Surry.'
Than all arrayit in a ring,

Dansit" My deir derling."

No more vestiges of this branch of our literature are traceable till the commencement of the sixteenth century, when we turn to the poems of Douglas and Dunbar, for an addition to our catalogue of empty names. But amidst these shadows of the departed, we are happy to have it in our power to present our readers with something more substantial, which never before reached publicity. These are two metrical performances, at least so they may be termed, although one of them is a mere fragment, and it may occasion some surprise when we mention the place where they have been discovered, viz. the Minute-book of Burgh Sasines of the city of Aberdeen! To what they owe their insertion in this inauspicious volume, whether to the truant propensities of some incorrigible youth, whose poetical aspirations were not to be restrained by the dull routine of legal drudgery, or whether they had been entered, along with other public documents, for better preservation, (as it is technically called,) we know not; but certain it is, that they appear there" duly recorded" (1503-7) along with some verses by Dunbar.

b

Supposed to be the same with "My dayis darling," mentioned in Constable's Cantus.

This and an unlooked-for discovery of music, which we shall afterwards have occasion to mention, may serve as examples of a truth well known to antiquaries, viz. that rarities of this description are often to be found where they are least of all to be expected. Sir John Graham Dalyell (Scotish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, p. 8) mentions a poem as having been found at the end of a manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem in the Advocates' Library, with two blank staves for music subjoined.

QUHY SO STRAT STRANG GO WE BY YOUE?

"Erle at the day doue,

Betuix the ald wark and the nowe,
I met ane wenkollet clede in ploue.
I said my fair and fresche of houe,
A bide lat nit our by youe,
Quhy so strat strang go we by youe?

Than scho wald nocht lene to me,
For luve the taile ende of hir E,
Bot saide away uncoucht man lat be,
And
ye followe I wele fflee
Be gode man I defy youe.

Quhy so strat strang go wee by youe?

I saide my suet hart be the hicht,
Your dignitie may not decht nar decht,
Bot wile ye bide quhile it be neycht,
Under neicht ther bowes brecht,
Sum wncoucht spret wile spy youe.
Quhy so strat strang go we by youe?

Scho unbechot hir at the last,

And traistit that scho has traispast.

Sho saide suet hart ye ryve our fast.

It sennks me ye ar a gast.

Quhy so strat strang go we by youe?"

These rude specimens of Scotish song may be justly accounted among the very dregs and "sweepings of Parnassus," but they are, nevertheless,

G

curious, as illustrative of the language, the style and structure of this class of composition, and, in some degree, of the manners of the time. Mr Chalmers observes, that the one half of the conversation of that age, both in England and Scotland, was made up by swearing; and if the reader will turn to certain contemporaneous productions in Ritson's Ancient Songs, pp. 98 and 101, he will observe the very same mode of address adopted on the part of the lady, and no inconsiderable resemblance in the general character of the phraseology.

From Gawin Douglas's Prologues to his translation of Virgil (1513) we only draw the following notices :—

12th Prologue.

"Some sang ring-sangs, dancis, ledis and roundis,
With vocis schil, quhil all the dale resoundis;

Quhareto thay walk into thare karoling,

For amourus layis dois all the rochis ring;

Ane
sang, The schip salis over the salt fame,
Will bring thir merchandis and my lemane hame.'
Some other sings, I will be blyith and licht,

My hert is lent apoun sae gudly wicht.""

66

— our awin native bird, gentil dow,

Do.

a

Singand on hir kynde 'I came hidder to wow.'"

Works of Sir David Lyndsay, vol. i. p. 360.

Leyden (Introduction to Complaynt, p. 130) says that "the ring dance, in which every aged shepherd leads his wife by the hand, and every young shepherd the maid whom he loves, was formerly a favourite in the south of Scotland, though it has now gone into desuetude." It was danced at the kirn, or feast of cutting down the grain, and with peculiar glee by the reapers, by whom the harvest was first dispatched, to the music of the Lowland bagpipe. They began with three loud shouts of triumph, thrice waving their hooks in the air, and they generally contrived that the dance should take place on an eminence, in the view of the reapers in the vicinity. Leyden adds, that "the dance is still retained by the Scottish Highlanders, who frequently dance the ring in the open fields, when they visit the south of Scotland, as reapers, during the autumnal months."

13th Prologue.

"Thareto thir birdis singis in thare schawis,

As menstralis playis The joly day now dawis.""

The last mentioned tune, along with another, is alluded to by the Poet Dunbar, who flourished about thirty years after Douglas, in a satirical address to the merchants of Edinburgh.

"Your commone menstralis hes no tone,

But Now the day dawis,' and ' Into Joun.""

Although there are various musical allusions in Sir David Lyndsay's poetical writings, we only observe the name of one Scotish tune. This

is in his "Complaynt,"add ressed to his royal patron, James V., in 1529, in which he recapitulates, in familiar terms, the services which he was wont to render him, in early life, when he acted in the capacity of his page and playfellow.

a 46

Hey the day now dawnes" is mentioned in the Muses Threnodie, a local poem, written at Perth in the reign of James VI., and Montgomery has a set of verses on the same theme, commencing

In the Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan, or the Epitaph of Habbie Simson, (Watson's Scots Poems, 1706,) there is the following line

"Now who shall play, the day it dawes ?”

from which, together with the citation from Dunbar, Mr Chambers (Introduction to Scottish Songs, p. 18) plausibly suggests, that the tune was probably the Reveillée, commonly played by the pipers or town's-minstrels throughout Scotland, to rouse the inhabitants to their daily labour; and this tune is believed to be the same with that to which "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" is now sung. An absurd popular notion is attached to it, for which there is no foundation, viz. that it was Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. All we can say is, that it is probably the same with the tune to which "The day dawes" was formerly sung, and this would appear, from the above notice, to have been a popular song, at least three hundred years ago; though, as we have not met with any written or printed copy of it earlier than those of the last century, even that opinion is liable to all the uncertainty of its being founded upon no better evidence than tradition, and the analogous structure and quantity of the verse.