was member of a mission to Denmark which obtained certain privileges for Scottish merchants. There is reason to believe that he died in or about 1555.
Most of Lyndsay’s literary work, by which he secured great reputation in his own day and by which he still lives, was written during the period of prosperity at court. In this respect he is unlike his predecessor Gavin Douglas (q.v.), who forsook literature when he became a politician. The explanation of the difference is partly to be found in the fact that Lyndsay’s muse was more occasional and satirical, and that the time was suitable to the exercise of his special gifts. It is more difficult to explain how he enjoyed a freedom of speech which is without parallel even in more secure times. He chastised all classes, from his royal master to the most simple. There is no evidence that he abjured Catholicism; yet his leading purpose was the exposure of its errors and abuses. His aid was readily accepted by the reforming party, and by their use of his work he shared with their leaders throughout many generations a reputation which is almost exclusively political and ecclesiastical.
Lyndsay’s longer poems are The Dreme (1134 lines), The Testament and Complaynt of the Papynago (1190 lines), The Testament of Squyer Meldrum (1859 lines), Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteour of the Miserabyll Estait of the World (6333 lines), and Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (over 4000 lines). These represent, with reasonable completeness, the range of Lyndsay’s literary talent. No single poem can give him a chief place, though here and there, especially in the last, he gives hints of the highest competence. Yet the corporate effect of these pieces is to secure for him the allowance of more than mere intellectual vigour and common sense. There is in his craftsmanship, in his readiness to apply the traditional methods to contemporary requirements, something of that accomplishment which makes even the second-rate man of letters interesting.
Lyndsay, the last of the Makars, is not behind his fellow-poets in acknowledgment to Chaucer. As piously as they, he reproduces the master’s forms; but in him the sentiment and outlook have suffered change. His nearest approach to Chaucer is in The Testament of Squyer Meldrum, which recalls the sketch of the “young squire”; but the reminiscence is verbal rather than spiritual. Elsewhere his memory serves him less happily, as when he describes the array of the lamented Queen Magdalene in the words which Chaucer had applied to the eyes of his wanton Friar. So too, in the Dreme, the allegorical tradition survives only in the form. “Remembrance” conducts the poet over the old-world itinerary, but only to lead him to speculation on Scotland’s woes and to an “Exhortatioun to the Kingis Grace” to bring relief. The tenor is well expressed in the motto from the Vulgate—“Prophetias nolite spernere. Omnia autem probate: quod bonum est tenete.” This didactic habit is freely exercised in the long Dialog (sometimes called the Monarche), a universal history of the medieval type, in which the falls of princes by corruption supply an object lesson to the unreformed church of his day. The Satyre is more direct in its attack on ecclesiastical abuse; and its dramatic form permits more lively treatment. This piece is of great historical interest, being the only extant example of a complete Scottish morality. It is in respect of literary quality Lyndsay’s best work, and in dramatic construction and delineation of character it holds a high place in this genre. The farcical interludes (in places too coarse for modern taste) supply many touches of genuine comedy; and throughout the play there are passages, as in the speeches of Veritie in the First Part and of Dame Chastitie in the “Interlude of the Sowtar and the Taylor,” in which word and line are happily conceived. The Testament of the Papyngo (popinjay), drawn in the familiar medieval manner, is another tract for the time, full of admonition to court and clergy. Of his shorter pieces, The Complaynt and Publict Confessions of the Kingis Auld Hound, callit Bagsche, directit to Bawtie, the Kingis best belovit Dog, and his companyeonis, and the Answer to the Kingis Flyting have a like pulpit resonance. The former is interesting as a forerunner of Burns’s device in the “Twa Dogs.” The Deploratioun of the Deith of Queen Magdalene is in the extravagant style of commemoration illustrated in Dunbar’s Elegy on the Lord Aubigny. The Justing betwix James Watsoun and Jhone Barbour is a contribution to the popular taste for boisterous fun, in spirit, if not in form, akin to the Christis Kirk on the Grene series; and indirectly, with Dunbar’s Turnament and Of ane Blak-Moir, a burlesque of the courtly tourney. Lyndsay approaches Dunbar in his satire The Supplicatioun in contemptioun of syde taillis (“wide” trains of the ladies), which recalls the older poet’s realistic lines on the filthy condition of the city streets. In Lyndsay’s Descriptioun of Pedder Coffeis (pedlars) we have an early example of the studies in vulgar life which are so plentiful in later Scottish literature. In Kitteis Confessioun he returns, but in more sprightly mood, to his attack on the church.
In Lyndsay we have the first literary expression in Scotland of the Renaissance. His interest lies on the theological side of the revival; he is in no sense a humanist, and he is indifferent to the artistic claims of the movement. Still he appeals to the principle which is fundamental to all. He demands first-hand impression. He feels that men must get their lesson direct, not from intermediaries who understand the originals no more “than they do the ravyng of the rukis.” Hence his persistent plea for the vernacular, nowhere more directly put than in the Dialog, in the “Exclamatioun to the Redar, toucheyng the wrytting of the vulgare and maternall language.” Though he is concerned only in the theological and ecclesiastical application of this, he undoubtedly stimulated the use of the vernacular in a Scotland which in all literary matters beyond the concern of the irresponsible poet still used the lingua franca of Europe.
A complete edition of Lyndsay’s poetical works was published by David Laing in 3 vols. in 1879. This was anticipated during the process of preparation by a cheaper edition (slightly expurgated) by the same editor in 1871 (2 vols.). The E.E.T.S. issued the first part of a complete edition in 1865 (ed. F. Hall). Five parts have appeared, four edited by F. Hall, the fifth by J. A. H. Murray. For the bibliography see Laing’s 3 vol. edition, u.s. iii. pp. 222 et seq., and the E.E.T.S. edition passim. See also the editions by Pinkerton (1792), Sibbald (1803), and Chalmers (1806); and the critical accounts in Henderson’s Scottish Vernacular Literature (1898), Gregory Smith’s Transition Period (1900), and J. H. Millar’s Literary History of Scotland (1903). A professional work prepared by Lyndsay in the Lyon Office, entitled the Register of Scottish Arms (now preserved in MS. in the Advocates’ Library), was printed in 1821 and reprinted in 1878. It remains the most authoritative document on Scottish heraldry. (G. G. S.)
LYNEDOCH, THOMAS GRAHAM, 1st Baron (1748–1843), British general, was the son of Thomas Graeme, laird of Balgowan, and was born on the 19th of October 1748. He was educated by private tutors, among whom was James Macpherson (q.v.), and was a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, between 1766 and 1768. He then travelled on the continent of Europe, and in 1772 unsuccessfully contested a parliamentary seat in Perthshire. In 1774 he married a daughter of the ninth Lord Cathcart, and took a house in the Leicestershire hunting country. After a few years, owing to the state of his wife’s health, Graham was compelled to live mainly in the south of Europe, though while at home he was a prominent sportsman and agriculturist. In 1787 he bought the small estate of Lynedoch or Lednock, a few miles from Perth. In 1791 his wife died in the Mediterranean, off Hyères. Graham tried to find distraction in renewed travels, and during his wanderings fell in with Lord Hood’s fleet on its way to Toulon. He joined it as a volunteer, served on Lord Mulgrave’s staff during the British occupation of Toulon, and returned, after the failure of the expedition, to Scotland, where he organized a regiment of infantry, the 90th Foot, Perthshire Volunteers (now 2nd Battalion Scottish Rifles). Graham’s men were the first regiment in the army to be equipped and trained wholly as light infantry, though they were not officially recognized as such for many years. In the same year (1794) Graham became member of parliament, in the Whig interest, for the county of Perth. He saw some active service in 1795 in “conjunct expeditions” of the army and navy, and in 1796, being then a brevet colonel, he was appointed British commissioner at the headquarters of the Austrian army in Italy. He took part in the operations against Napoleon Bonaparte, was shut
