Chapter XX

_The Literature of the Nation in the
First Half of the Sixteenth Century._

IN the eleventh chapter of the first volume an account of the national literature to the end of the fifteenth century was presented; and in this chapter it is intended to present a continuation, till the current of thought and feeling became affected by the revolutionary movement; and then in the succeeding chapter to treat of the literature of the Reformation, and the latter part of the century; and thus exhibit a connected narrative of its development. Education, culture, and literature, in one point of view are mutually related words, and in many ways reciprocal in their effects; although they are far from being co-extensive in meaning. Education of some kind precedes literature and culture; but at a comparatively early stage of civilisation, literature assumes a more general, if a less definite influence than education. In nations with pretty well developed civilisations, the customary education and the national literature sometimes run on opposite lines. This is especially observable in revolutionary periods, when the established education and the national literature may each be seen pursuing diverse ends. At such times, the existing school ♦education is often more than ever conservative and opposed to any change. Illustrations of this will occur to every one; and yet all the elements and influences of a nation are closely related, and act and re-act upon each other in manifold ways; still, in historic exposition it is necessary to signalise the opposites, in what appears to be the most nearly allied and interdependent agencies in the organisation of a nation.

♦ “eduction” replaced with “education”

In the first section of this volume, reference to the invention and the introduction of printing was made; but it is a singular fact that until near the end of the last century, it was unknown when the typographic art was first introduced into Scotland. Mr. George Chalmers, the author of _Caledonia_, first announced the real date of its introduction. He said that “it was the intelligent and industrious William Robertson, of the General Register House, who, to gratify my desire, discovered a patent by James IV., which plainly demonstrates that a printing press was established at Edinburgh during the year 1507.” Prior to this there was no printing press in Scotland. Since Chalmers’ time, the late Dr. David Laing and others, and the efforts of printing clubs, have rendered the earlier productions of the Scottish press familiar.

The history of the matter may be briefly told. In 1507, James IV. granted a patent to Walter Chepman, a burgess of Edinburgh, and Andrew Myllar, to erect a printing press, for printing within the kingdom the Books of Law, Acts of Parliament, Chronicles, Mass Books, Legends of Scottish Saints then collected, and all other books, that should be necessary, and to sell them for competent prices, “by our advice and discretion their labour and expense being considered.... It is also devised and thought expedient by us and our council, that in time coming, Mass Books, after our own Scottish use, and with Legends of Scottish Saints, as now collected by a Reverend Father in God, and our trusty counsellor, William, Bishop of Aberdeen, and others, should be used generally within the realm as soon as the same may be printed and provided, and that no manner of such books of Salisbury use be brought to be sold within our realm in time coming; and if any one does in the contrary, that they shall lose the same. Wherefore we charge strictly and command you all, our officers and subjects, that none of you take upon hand to do anything contrary to this our ordinance, under the penalty of escheating the books and punishment of their persons.” As Bishop Elphinstone’s _Breviary_ was to be printed as soon as possible, while other service books were to be excluded, it may be inferred that he had used his influence with the King in the granting of the patent to Chepman and Myllar for erecting a printing press.

Both Chepman and Myllar were burgesses of Edinburgh. Chepman was a merchant, and traded in wood, wool, cloths, and other articles of merchandise, a man of some capital and property, and appears to have had a connection with the King’s household; while Myllar was a bookseller in the city, and had supplied books to the King for some time, importing them from England and the Continent; and he also appeared as a publisher in 1505 and 1506, and as a practical printer in 1508. Chepman possessed several houses in Edinburgh, in one of which, at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd, in the Cowgate, he and Myllar erected their printing press. After obtaining the patent, they immediately proceeded to work; and in April, 1508, they issued a number of short pieces. These consisted of: 1. “The Porteous of Noblenes,” in commendation of the twelve virtues “in ane nobil man;” 2. “The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane,” a somewhat singular romance, which has been assigned to the fourteenth century; 3. “Syr Eglamoure of Artoys,” a short romance; 4. “Book of Good Council to the King,” a piece which also forms the last chapter of the eleventh book of the “Liber Pluscardensis;” 5. “The Maying of Chaucer,” found in all the collections of his works; 6. “The Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice,” one of Robert Henryson’s poems; 7. “The Gest of Robyn Hode,” and the following four pieces of Dunbar’s: “The Golden Targe,” “The Flyting between Dunbar and Kennedy,” “A Ballad of Lord Barnard Stewart,” and the “Two Married Women and the Widow.” Only one imperfect copy of the volume containing the above pieces is known to be extant. As in it have been preserved the very earliest specimens of the first Scottish press, it was deemed of inestimable value. Early in the present century the late Dr. Laing undertook the reproduction of this volume in facsimile, and also to supply the deficiencies of the original. After the volume had been completed, excepting the preliminary notices, a disastrous fire happened, which consumed the premises of Abram Thomson, bookbinder in Edinburgh, where the sheets were lying, and the greater part of the volume was destroyed or rendered useless. At last the volume was published in 1827, seventy-two copies on paper, and four on vellum were issued. One of the vellum copies was sold at Dr. Laing’s sale in December 1879, and was purchased by Mr. Quaritch for £71. Dr. Laing in his valuable introduction to the volume, presented a body of interesting information touching the earliest Scottish printers, to which subsequent inquirers have been much indebted.¹

¹ _Annals of Scottish Printing_, from 1507 to 1599, by A.
Dickson and J. P. Edmond, Chapters I. to IX.

As the _Aberdeen Breviary_ was intended to supersede the _Sarum Breviary_, and to become the chief church service book for the priesthood of Scotland, it might be presumed that its publication had excited some interest. It was the most important work issued from the primitive Scottish press, and consisted of two volumes――the first was completed on the 13th of February 1510, and the second on the 4th of June the same year. The text was printed in double columns of thirty-seven lines each, and done in black and red ink; and the whole work extended to 1527 pages of comparatively small type. The printing is unequally executed, some pages being very clear and distinct, while others are blurred. Four copies of the original edition are known to be extant, all of which are incomplete. One in the University of Edinburgh, which has the title to the first volume but not to the second; one in the Advocates’ Library which wants twenty-seven leaves of the first volume and fourteen of the second; an imperfect copy of the first volume in the University Library of Aberdeen; and one belonging to the Earl of Strathmore in the Library at Glamis Castle, which wants only a few leaves. Under the editorship of the Rev. James Blew, a reprint of this _Breviary_ was published in 1854 by James Toovey, London, in two volumes. A number of special copies were executed for the members of the Bannatyne Club, to which Dr. Laing contributed an excellent preface.¹

¹ _Annals of Scottish Printing._

Myllar’s name does not appear in the pages of the _Breviary_, and it has been supposed that he had retired from the partnership or died. It seems probable that with the completion of the _Breviary_ Chepman’s connection with printing ceased; and the printing materials were perhaps sold, or laid aside. Chepman died in the winter of 1529; and during the last fifteen years of his life, all the works of learned Scotsmen were printed on the Continent. But it cannot be supposed that the pieces and fragments which have been preserved, represent all the works printed by Chepman and Myllar. It appears that they printed some small school books; and probably an edition of blind Henry’s _Wallace_.

Excepting a fragment of eight leaves, containing “the Office of our Lady of Pity,” and the legend of the relics of St. Andrew, which was printed at Edinburgh in 1520, by John Story, the printing art seems to have ceased in Scotland for nearly twenty years. Although during this interval there is evidence that books were imported into Scotland from England and the Continent.

Thomas Davidson, said to have been a north countryman, born on the banks of the river Dee, was a practical printer. The exact date when he began to print in Edinburgh has not been ascertained; some writers have supposed that he commenced about 1530, but only one of his works is dated 1542. In December, 1541, he was commissioned by the Lord Clerk Register to print the Acts of three Parliaments of James V., which he executed in the following February. This placed him in the position of King’s printer, and he assumed that title in his works. As only three complete specimens of his works have been preserved, the number of different books which he printed cannot be ascertained; but the finest specimen of his press is Bellenden’s translation of Boece’s _History of Scotland_.

John Scot was a contemporary of Davidson. It appears that Scot printed books both in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and possibly also in Dundee, where it seems he was living in 1547. In 1552 he printed Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism at St. Andrews. After the Reformation he printed the new Confession of Faith. In August, 1562, he was engaged in printing “The Last Blast of the Trumpet,” by Ninian Winzet, when the magistrates of Edinburgh and their officers entered the printing office, seized the copies of the work, and imprisoned the printer. Scot again appeared in 1568, when he printed an edition of Sir David Lindsay’s works; and in 1571 he printed the same work, but after this his name disappeared. From this time to the end of the century, the chief printers in Scotland were――Robert Lekpreuik, Thomas Bassandyne, John Ross, Henry Charteris, Vantrollier, Robert Waldegrave, and Robert Smyth.

The most eminent Scottish writer of this period was William Dunbar, the court poet of James IV. He was born in East Lothian about the year 1460, and on rather slender ground it has been conjectured that he was descended from the fourth son of the tenth Earl of Dunbar. It seems probable that Dunbar received his early education at the well-known school of Haddington; and he entered the University of St. Andrews in 1474, attained the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1477, and graduated as Master of Arts in 1479. He became a novice in the order of Franciscans; and in the character of a friar, he for some time travelled and preached in France and England, as well as in Scotland. At a later stage of his life, it seems he visited France in 1491, in connection with an embassy from Scotland to negotiate a marriage for James IV.; yet little is clearly known touching the life and wanderings of Dunbar from 1479 to the end of the century. But in one of his poems he claims to have served the King, not only in France, England, Ireland, and Germany, but also in Italy and Spain. His name first occurs in the public records in 1500, when he obtained from the King an annual pension of ten pounds, which should “be paid to him of our Sovereign Lord’s coffers, by the Treasurer, for all the days of his life, or until he be promoted by the King to a benefice of the value of forty pounds or more yearly.” In 1507, the King increased Dunbar’s pension to twenty pounds, and again in 1510 it was increased to eighty pounds――“to be paid to him half-yearly by the Treasurer, until he be promoted to a benefice of one hundred pounds or above.” Dunbar also occasionally received presents from his royal master, and, while James IV. lived, at least, the poet was pretty liberally rewarded; although he never obtained the great object of his ambition――to wit, a benefice. From the end of the fifteenth century to the death of James IV., Dunbar attended the Scottish court regularly; and he addressed many of his short poems to the King, and also to the Queen, while the burden of most of these effusions was that the poet wanted to be presented to a benefice. Though Dunbar had abandoned the order of St. Francis, still he had become a priest; and on the 17th of March, 1504, he performed his first mass in presence of the King, who gave an offering of four pounds and eighteen shillings in honour of the occasion. Yet he was only one of the many servants who catered to the royal pleasure and the court.¹ Most of Dunbar’s writings, between 1500 and 1513, were poems composed to amuse the court, or to suit his own humour, by satirising its policies and vices; and they show the favour in which he was held, especially by the Queen, and his constant petitions for salary and for a benefice. The picture which they presented of the Scottish court was a real, but not a flattering or a pleasing one――to modern taste and sentiment. The poet’s benefactor fell on the fatal field of Flodden, and whether he continued to receive his pension subsequent to that event, has not been ascertained, as the Treasurer’s accounts from August, 1513, to June, 1515, have not been preserved, and in those of a subsequent date Dunbar’s name does not occur. Most of his religious poems or hymns were supposed to have been written between the date of Flodden and the time of his death. The exact date of Dunbar’s death has not been discovered; but it has been supposed that he died about the year 1520, when he had reached sixty years of age.²

¹ See Volume I., pages 417, 459, 468.

² Dunbar’s Poems, _Memoir_, pages 7‒17; Volume I., pages 28,
149; Volume II., pages 231‒234, Laing’s Edition; _Scottish
Text Society, Edinburgh_, Part III., Introduction.

Although during Dunbar’s lifetime, and for a few years after his death, his writings received attention and were admired, and a few of his poems were printed as mentioned in a preceding paragraph, yet from about the year 1530 to 1724 his name was rarely mentioned in Scottish literature; and therefore the historian cannot assume that Dunbar’s writings have had much influence upon the nation, seeing that for two hundred years few, if any of them, were read by the people. The chief historic value of his poems consists in the many pictures of the Scottish court and its coarse manners and speech, which they so vividly portray; and the illustrations of the habits and manners of other classes of society in his time, which they presented. If we look for great conceptions, any inspiring ideals, or striking thought and ennobling passion or sentiment calculated to stimulate and improve the civilisation of the people, in Dunbar’s writings, we will be somewhat disappointed.

Since 1724, when Allan Ramsay called attention to the long forgotten poems of Dunbar, and published sixteen of them in his _Evergreen_, there have been several notable efforts made to restore the lost fame of this poet. In 1770 Lord Hailes, in his “Ancient Poems from the Bannatyne Manuscript,” published thirty-one of Dunbar’s poems; in 1786, Pinkerton, in his “Ancient Scottish Poems from the Maitland Manuscript,” published twenty-one of Dunbar’s; and in 1802, Sibbald’s “Chronicle of Scottish Poetry from the Thirteenth Century,” was published, which included thirty-two poems by Dunbar. About the beginning of this century George Chalmers, the well-known author of “Caledonia,” made collections for a complete edition of Dunbar’s poems; but he died before accomplishing the work. Chalmers’ intention was carried into effect by the late Dr. Laing, who had acquired his transcripts for the purpose. Dr. Laing’s edition appeared in 1834, in two volumes, to which he issued a supplement in 1865: this edition has been long much esteemed, as it is enriched with various readings, interesting and valuable notes, and a concise but excellent glossary. The works of Dunbar, including his life, by James Paterson, author of “The History of Ayrshire and Ayrshire Families,” was published at Edinburgh in 1863. The very valuable researches of Dr. Laing, and the excellent work of Professor Schipper of Vienna, which appeared in 1884, and made Dunbar known on the Continent, seems to have given a remarkable stimulus to the study of this ancient Scottish poet. It has been reported that Schipper’s is the best work which has been written on Dunbar, and that his German translations of the Scotch poet are executed with surprising skill and fidelity, and astonishing lucidity. Kaufmann has also written a Dissertation on Dunbar, which was published in 1873. But apparently the most elaborate edition of Dunbar’s poems will be the one undertaken by the Scottish Text Society, which when completed will consist of five parts. Part I. was published in 1884, and Part II. in 1885; these contain the text of the poems, which was ably and carefully edited by Mr. John Small, M.A., F.S.A., Scotland;