Beautee by Reason’s “scheld of gold.” When wounded and made prisoner, he discovers the true beauty of the lady: when she leaves him, he is handed over to Heaviness. The noise of the ship’s guns, as the company sails off, wakes the poet to the real pleasures of a May morning. Dunbar works on the same theme in a shorter poem, known as Beauty and the Prisoner. The Thrissil and the Rois is a prothalamium in honour of James IV. and Margaret Tudor, in which the heraldic allegory is based on the familiar beast-parliament.
The greater part of Dunbar’s work is occasional—personal and social satire, complaints (in the style familiar in the minor verse of Chaucer’s English successors), orisons and pieces of a humorous character. The last type shows Dunbar at his best, and points the difference between him and Chaucer. The best specimen of this work, of which the outstanding characteristics are sheer whimsicality and topsy-turvy humour, is The Ballad of Kynd Kittok. This strain runs throughout many of the occasional poems, and is not wanting in odd passages in Dunbar’s contemporaries; and it has the additional interest of showing a direct historical relationship with the work of later Scottish poets, and chiefly with that of Robert Burns. Dunbar’s satire is never the gentle funning of Chaucer: more often it becomes invective. Examples of this type are The Satire on Edinburgh, The General Satire, the Epitaph on Donald Owre, and the powerful vision of The Dance of the Sevin Deidlie Synnis. In the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, an outstanding specimen of a favourite northern form, analogous to the continental estrif, or tenzone, he and his rival reach a height of scurrility which is certainly without parallel in English literature. This poem has the additional interest of showing the racial antipathy between the “Inglis”-speaking inhabitants of the Lothians and the “Scots” or Gaelic-speaking folk of the west country.
There is little in Dunbar which may be called lyrical, and little of the dramatic. His Interlud of the Droichis [Dwarf’s] part of the Play, one of the pieces attributed to him, is supposed to be a fragment of a dramatic composition. It is more interesting as evidence of his turn for whimsicality, already referred to, and may for that reason be safely ascribed to his pen. If further selection be made from the large body of miscellaneous poems, the comic poem on the physician Andro Kennedy may stand out as one of the best contributions to medieval Goliardic literature; The Two Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, as one of the richest and most effective pastiches in the older alliterative style, then used by the Scottish Chaucerians for burlesque purposes; Done is a battell on the Dragon Blak, for religious feeling expressed in melodious verse; and the well-known Lament for the Makaris. The main value of the last is historical, but it too shows Dunbar’s mastery of form, even when dealing with lists of poetic predecessors.
The chief authorities for the text of Dunbar’s poems are:— (a) the Asloan MS. (c. 1515); (b) the Chepman and Myllar Prints (1508) preserved in the Advocates’ library, Edinburgh; (c) Bannatyne MS. (1568) in the same; (d) the Maitland Folio MS. (c. 1570–1590) in the Pepysian library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. Some of the poems appear in the Makculloch MS. (before 1500) in the library of the university of Edinburgh; in MS. Cotton Vitellius A. xvi., appendix to Royal MSS. No. 58, and Arundel 285, in the British Museum; in the Reidpath MS. in the university library of Cambridge; and in the Aberdeen Register of Sasines. The first complete edition was published by David Laing (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1834) with a supplement (Edinburgh, 1865). This has been superseded by the Scottish Text Society’s edition (ed. John Small, Aeneas J. G. Mackay and Walter Gregor, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1893), and by Dr Schipper’s 1 vol. edition (Vienna; Kais. Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1894). The editions by James Paterson (Edinburgh, 1860) and H. B. Baildon (Cambridge, 1907) are of minor value. Selections have been frequently reprinted since Ramsay’s Ever-Green (1724) and Hailes’s Ancient Scottish Poems (1817). For critical accounts see Irving’s History of Scottish Poetry, Henderson’s Vernacular Poetry of Scotland, Gregory Smith’s Transition Period, J. H. Millar’s Literary History of Scotland, and the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ii. (1908). Professor Schipper’s William Dunbar, sein Leben und seine Gedichte (with German translations of several of the poems), appeared at Berlin in 1884. (G. G. S.)
DUNBAR (Gaelic, “the fort on the point”), a royal, municipal and police burgh, and seaport of Haddingtonshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3581. It is situated on the southern shore of the entrance to the Firth of Forth, 2914 m. E. by N. of Edinburgh by the North British railway. Dunbar is said to have the smallest rainfall in Scotland and is a favourite summer resort. The ruins of the castle, and the remains of the Grey Friars’ monastery, founded in 1218, at the west end of the town, and Dunbar House in High Street, formerly a mansion of the Lauderdales, but now used as barracks, are of historic interest. The parish church, a fine structure in red sandstone, the massive tower of which, 107 ft. high, is a landmark for sailors, dates only from 1819, but occupies the site of what was probably the first collegiate church in Scotland, and contains the large marble monument to Sir George Home, created earl of Dunbar and March by James VI. in 1605. Among other public buildings are the town hall, assembly rooms, St Catherine’s hall, the Mechanics’ institute and library.
There are two harbours, difficult of access owing to the number of reefs and sunken rocks. Towards the cost of building the eastern or older harbour Cromwell contributed £300. The western or Victoria harbour is a refuge for vessels between Leith Roads and the Tyne. On the advent of steam the shipping declined, and even the herring fishery, which fostered a large curing trade, has lost much of its prosperity. The industries are chiefly those of agricultural-implement making, rope-making, brewing and distilling, but a considerable business is done in the export of potatoes. Dunbar used to form one of the Haddington district group of parliamentary burghs, but its constituency was merged in that of the county in 1885.
About 4 m. S.W. is the village of Biel, where, according to some authorities, William Dunbar the poet was born. One mile to the S.E. of the town is Broxmouth Park (or Brocksmouth House), the first position of the English left wing in the battle of 1650, now belonging to the duke of Roxburghe.
The site of Dunbar is so commanding that a castle was built on the cliffs at least as early as 856. In 1070 Malcolm Canmore gave it to Cospatric, earl of Northumberland, ancestor of the earls of Dunbar and March. The fortress was an important bulwark against English invasion, and the town—which was created a royal burgh by David II.—grew up under its protection. The castle was taken by Edward I., who defeated Baliol in the neighbourhood in 1296, and it afforded shelter to Edward II. after Bannockburn. In 1336 it was besieged by the English under William, Lord Montacute, afterwards 1st earl of Salisbury, but was successfully defended by Black Agnes of Dunbar, countess of March, a member of the Murray family. Joanna Beaufort, widow of James I., chose it for her residence, and in 1479, after his daring escape from Edinburgh Castle, the duke of Albany concealed himself within its walls, until he contrived to sail for France. In 1567 Mary made Bothwell keeper of the castle, and sought its shelter herself after the murder of Rizzio and again after her flight from Borthwick Castle. When she surrendered at Carberry Hill the stronghold fell into the hands of the regent Moray, by whom it was dismantled in 1568, but its ruins are still a picturesque object on the hill above the harbour.
The Battle of Dunbar was fought on the 3rd (13th) of September 1650 between the English army under Oliver Cromwell and the Scots under David Leslie, afterwards Lord Newark. It took place about 3 m. S.E. of the centre of the town, where between the hills and the sea coast there is a plain about 1 m. wide, through the middle of which the main road from Dunbar to Berwick runs. The plain and the road are crossed at right angles by the course of the Brocksburn, or Spott Burn, which at first separated the hostile armies. Rising from the right bank of the Brock is Doon Hill (650 ft.), which overlooks the lower course of the stream and indeed the whole field. For the events preceding the battle, see Great Rebellion.
Cromwell, after a war of manœuvre near Edinburgh, had been compelled by want of supplies to withdraw to Dunbar; Leslie pursued and took up a position on Doon Hill, commanding the English line of retreat on Berwick. The situation was more than difficult for Cromwell. Some officers were for withdrawing by sea, but the general chose to hold his ground, though his army was enfeebled by sickness and would have to fight on unfavourable terrain against odds of two to one. Leslie, however, who
