Scotish Descriptive Poems/Preliminary Observations concerning Alexander Hume
THE
DAY ESTIVAL ;
A POEM.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
Alexander Hume, author of "The Day Estival," was the second son of Patrick, fifth Baron of Polwarth, from whom the family of Marchmont are descended. In the epistle to Dr. Moncrieff, royal physician, written about the 30th year of his age, he has mentioned some circumstances of his early life. After residing four years in France, he returned to Scotland, and applied to the study of law for three years, when disgusted with his profession, he retired from the bar, and exchanged the application of the lawyer for the assiduity of the courtier.
Four years in France, and was returned again,
I longed to learn, and curious was to knaw,
The consuetudes, the custom, and the law,
Whereby our native soil was guide aright,
And justice done to every kind of wight:
To that effect three years, or near that space,
I haunted most our highest pleading place,
And senate, where great causes reasoned were;
My breast was bruised with leaning on the bar;
My buttons burst, I partly spitted blood;
My gown was trailed and tramped where I stood:
My ears were deafed with macers' cries and din
Which procutors and parties called in:
I daily learned, but could not pleased be,
I saw such things as pity was to see.———
To lead that kind of life, I wearied fast;
In better hope I left it at the last;
And to the court I shortly me addrest,
Believing well to chuse it for the best;
But from the rocks of Cyclades, from hand,
I struck into Charybdis' sinking sand———
But such as should it mend, let them lament;
I haunted court too long; now I repent.———
These cursed times, this worse than iron age,
Where virtue lurks, where vice doth reign and rage;
Where faith and love, where friendship is neglected,
Contagiously, with time, have me infected.
As others are, of force so mon I be;
How can I do, but as men do to me?
A true man ta'en with pirates on the sea,
Is forced to take a part in piracy.———
True Damon's part to play, I would me bind;
But Pythia as kind yet can I never find.———
My heart is stone within and iron without;
With triple brass my breast is set about.———
The line of love I have almost forget it,
For why, think I, to none I am addebted.
Retiring from the court, he entered into orders, and was appointed rector or minister of Logie, the names of ecclesiastical offices then floating between presbytery and prelacy. If, as has been conjectured with some plausibility, he was the author of the Invectives or Flytings, addressed to Montgomery under the signature of Polwart, these must have been composed while he retained the character of a courtier; and his disgust was probably completed by the superior applause which his adversary received. Hume, in his poems, speaks of the Scotch court with a considerable degree of asperity, and insinuates that he might be considered
And got no gain thereby, nor no reward.
And he says expressly,
I little gain deserved, and less I gat.
On the other hand, the invectives of Montgomery against Polwart, had the honour of being quoted by the young monarch James VI. himself, in the "Rewlls and Cautelis of Scotis Poesie." Montgomery, in one of his poems, triumphs on that poetical victory:
Whose highness laughed some time for to look
How I chased Polwart from the chimney nook[1].
Polwart appears, from the invective of Montgomery, to have been born in the Merse; and it is certain that the name of Polwart is still retained with that of Hume by the Marchmont family. Dempster names the antagonist of Montgomery, Patrick Hume, and asserts that he derived the name of Polwart from his patrimonial estate. If Dempster could be depended on, the name of Patrick would determine the author of the Invective to have been the elder brother of the minister of Logie; but the authority of Dempster, who composed his work on Scotish authors in a foreign country, is by no means unerring; and Alexander our author admits, that in his youth he had practised a lighter kind of poetry than he afterwards cultivated. We are certain, however, that Alexander Hume published at Edinburgh, in 1599, his "Hymnes or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of poesie may be espied: Whereunto are added, the experience of the author's youth, and certain precepts serving to the practice of sanctification." The volume is dedicated "to the faithfull and vertuous Ladie Elizabeth Malvill, Ladie Cumrie," whom he celebrates for her poetry as well as for her piety. "I have seen," says he, "your compositions, so copious, so pregnant, so spiritual, that I doubt not but it is the gift of God in you." Lady Culross' Dream, one of these compositions, was long popular among the Scotish presbyterians; and Armstrong relates in his Essays that he recollected having heard it sung by the peasants to a plaintive air. The dedication is followed by an address to the Scotish youth, in which he exhorts them to avoid "profane sonnets and vain ballads of love, the fabulous feats of Palmerine, Amadis, and such-like reveries"; cautions them against the imitation of the profane ethnic poets either in phrase or substance, and advises them to follow the example of Du Bartas, and his own. "Some time," says he, "I delighted in such fantasies myself, after the manner of riotous young men; and were not the Lord, in his mercy, pulled me aback, and wrought a great repentance in me, I had doubtless run forward and employed my time and study in that profane and unprofitable exercise, to my own perdition." This address is dated December 9. 1594. His ideas concerning love poetry are exhibited in the following sonnet
ON LOVE.
Not women wife, but witless, I disdain:
Not constant truth, but trompery I detract;
Not innocence, but insolence profane:
Not blessed bands, but secret workings vain;
As Pyramus and Thisbe took on hand;
As Jason and Medea made their train;
As Demophon and foolish Phillis fand;
As Hercules at Iöle's command,
Which like a wife, for love, sat down to spin:
And finally, all folly I gainstand,
That may allure the heart to shame or sin:
Bcware with vice, be not the cause of ill;
Syne speak, and sport, look, laugh, and love your fill.
This sonnet is less distinguished by poetical spirit, than by propriety of sentiment. The fire of chivalry was now evaporating in the extravagancies of romance and the vapid conceits of metaphysical love poetry; and both of these were regarded by the presbyterians as inimical to their cause. The Catholic party had encouraged the representation of plays, masques, and every other species of amusement which could attract the populace, and draw their attention from religious innovation. The presbyterians dreaded this species of seduction, as producing religious indifference and preserving a relish for the pomp of Romish worship. Plays, and every species of poetry, except religious, were proscribed; popular songs were parodied, to inculcate religious doctrines; and of all the early Scotish poets of the 16th century, Lindsay was the only one who retained his popularity. A similar process seems to have been observed by the Catholics in England; for L. Ramsey mentions that it was their custom to
Of Robinhood and Guy, which was both tall and stout,
And Bevis of Southampton, to seek the matter out.
And praise the old fashion in King Arthur's days,
Of abbays and monasteries how it is great ruth
To have them plucked down, and so the eldest says;
And how it was merry when Robinhood's plays
Was in every town, the morrice, and the fool,
The maypole and the drum, to bring the calf from school,
And Stephen, that tall stripling, to lead Volans dale,
With roguing Gangweeke, a goodly remembrance,
With banners all aflaunt, with cakes, cheese and ale,
With beads in every hand, our prayers stood by tale:
This was a merry world, talk among our meany,
And then of good eggs ye might have twenty for a penny[2].
The presbyterians interdicted the perusal of romances and love poems, with almost as great anxiety as the Catholics prohibited the use of the Scriptures. "Would thou intreat," says Hume to the Scotish youth; "Would thou intreat of prodigious miracles? Look the books of Genesis and Exode, or the works of our Saviour, of the prophets and apostles. Would thou have a subject of valiant deeds of arms? Read the books of Josua and the Judges, and of the kings of Israel and Judah. Would thou have store of wise sentences? Read the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Would thou have a subject of love? Look the Song of Songs; the love betwixt Christ and his church. Would thou rejoice or lament—praise or dispraise—comfort or threaten—pray or use imprecation? Imitate the old Hebrew David in his Psalms, as a pattern of all heavenly poesy." The general success of Hume, in the style of poetry which he adopted, will not render his example very attractive. He seems to have curbed his fancy assiduously, and to have forcibly confined his imagination to the common-place phraseology of Calvinism; a phraseology which, however proper for the simplicity of theology, is extremely unfit for the purposes of poetry. The selection of descriptive images, and the fluency of versification which he exhibits, are sufficient to prevent him from being confounded with the Sternholds and Hopkins of the period in which he lived. Besides the religious controversies of that period, the civil dissentions which agitated the country, may be enumerated among the causes which impeded the progress of Scotish poetry, and withered the laurels on the brows of her bards.
And through its various periods time pursue;
In every age which generous spirits bore,
The muse was cherished, and had strength to soar;
Disturbed by civil tumult she withdrew
From cities far, and lay concealed from view:
So the bright passion flower, in sunshine days,
Its varied colours to the light displays;
But when the blackening sky pours down a storm,
Close folds its leaves, and hides its radiant form;
Nor can the careful florist then behold
Its purple lustre, and its beams of gold[3].
In preparing this poem for the press, the original edition of Hume's Poems has been collated with a MS. of the Wodrow collection, in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. The phraseology of Hume is rather English than Scotish; and the orthography, which, at the period when our author lived, was extremely fluctuating and uncertain, has therefore been reduced to the modern standard, except in the Scotish words and phrases which he has adopted.