Cataline atbut Cicero

perceives Achitophel and Sinon endeavouring without success to scale the walls. tempts to enter by a window; approaches armed with a book, and repels him with a mighty blow. Many thousands beside are likewise foiled in their endeavours to ascend the lofty walls. A watchman named Equity appears on the battlements, and with a tremendous voice denounces vengeance against covetousness, envy, and falsehood. Patience, the portress of King Honour, admits the nymph and her ward into the palace. He enumerates at large the various officers of this august court, and describes the endless wonders which present themselves. He halts in amazement to contemplate the magnificence of the palace-gate, till his guardianess upbraids him for such infatuation. Having entered the precincts, he is confounded by the radiance of the surrounding objects.

The durris and the windois all were breddit
With massie gold, quhairof the fynes scheddit.
With birneist euir baith palice and towris
War theikit weill, maist craftilie that cled it;
For sa the quhitely blanschit bone ouirspred it,
Midlit with gold, anamalit all colouris,
Importurait of birdis and sweit flowris,
Curious knottis, and monie hie deuise,
Quhilks to behald war perfite paradice.

And to proceed my nymphe and I furth went
Straicht to the hall throwout the palice gent,

And ten stages of topas did ascend. Schute was the door: in at a boir I blent, Quhair I beheld the glaidest represent

That euer in eirth a wretchit catiue kend.

Breiflie this process to conclude and end, Me thocht the flure was all of amytist ;

Bot quhairof war the wallis I not wist.

The multitude of precious stainis seir
Thairon sa schone, my febill sicht but weir
Micht not behald thair verteous gudlines.
For all the ruif, as did to me appeir,
Hang full of plesand lowpit sapheiris cleir :
Of dyamontis and rubies, as I ges,
War all the buirdis maid of maist riches;
Of sardanis, of jasp, and smaragdane,
Traists, formis, and benkis, war poleist plane.

Baith to and fro amid the hall thay went,
Royal princes in plait and armouris quent,
Of birniest gold couchit with precious stanis.
Enthronit sat ane god omnipotent;
On quhais glorious visage as I blent
In extasie, be his brichtness atanis
He smote me doune, and brissit all
my banis.
Thair lay I still in swoun with colour blaucht,
Quhill at the last my nymphe up hes me caught.

Sine with greit pane, with womenting and cair,
In hir armis scho bair me doun the stair,

And in the clois full softlie laid me doun;
Upheld my heid to tak the hailsome air;
For of my life scho stude in greit dispair.

Me till awalk was still that lady boun,
Quhilk finallie out of that deidlie swown

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I swyith ouircome, and up mine ene did cast:
Be merrie man, quod scho, the werst is past.

Get up, scho said; for shame! be na cowart :
My heid in wed, thow hes ane wyfes hart,

That for a plesand sicht was sa mismaid.
Than all in anger upon my feit I start,
And for hir wordis was sa apirsmart,

Unto the nymphe I maid a busteous braid :

Carling, quod I, quhat was yone that thow said?
Soft yow, said scho, thay are not wyse that stryfis;
For kirkmen war ay gentill to the wyifis.."

His anger being appeased, she informs him that those whom he has observed in the court of Honour, are such as during their lives were constantly directed by the laws of equity, valour, and liberality: in battle they were found of most prowess with spear, sword, and dagger; to their promise they always adhered with the most scrupulous observance; they abounded in worth, and were illumined by liberality. Honour in these domains differs very widely from what obtains the same appellation among mankind: there it is only worldly pomp and parade, and conferred with a reference to birth or estate; here it is never bestowed even on princes and prelates, except their claims be founded in virtue.

Having descanted on the rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice, she offers to conduct him to a delightful garden, where the Muses are culling the flowers of rhetoric, and where trees bear VOL. II.

H

precious stones instead of fruit. It is surrounded by a deep moat, abounding in fish and aquatic birds and on the trees which adorn its banks, fowls are seen growing in a most remarkable manner. The only access to the garden is by a single tree laid across the ditch. The nymph immediately passes this slender bridge: but in attempting to follow her, the poet becomes giddy and falls headlong into the pool. The singing of the birds, and the agitation occasioned by this immersion, at length awake him from his trance. He composes a lay in praise of honour, and then concludes by inscribing the work to his sovereign James the Fourth.

The following is Mr Sage's criticism on The Palice of Honour: "The author's excellent design is, under the similitude of a vision, to represent the vanity and inconstancy of all worldly pomp and glory; and to shew that a constant and inflexible course of vertue and goodness is the only way to true honour and felicity, which he allegorically describes as a magnificent palace, situate on a very high mountain, of a most difficult access. He illustrates the whole with variety of examples, not only of these noble and heroic souls, whose eminent vertues procured them entrance into that blessed place, but also of those wretched creatures, whose vicious lives have fatally excluded them from it for ever, notwithstanding of all their worldly state and grandeur.

This work is addressed to James IV. on purpose to inspire that brave prince with just sentiments of true honour and greatness, and incite him to tread in the paths of vertue, which alone could conduct him to it. And to make it more agreeable and entertaining, he hath adorned it with several incident adventures; and throughout the whole discovers a vast and comprehensive genius, an exuberant fancy, and extraordinary learning, for the time he lived in. He seems to have taken the plan of it from the palace of happiness described in the Picture of Cebes; and it is not improbable that his country-man Florentius Volusenus had it in view, and improv'd his design, in his admirable (but too little known) book Dę Tranquillitate Animi & "

Between the description however of Cebes and that of Douglas, it will perhaps be difficult to discover any very remarkable affinity. If it can be evinced that a striking resemblance prevails between those two compositions and the work of Florence Wilson, it seems more safe to conclude that he imitated Cebes rather than Douglas. Wilson's dialogue De Animi Tranquillitate appeared in 1543; whereas The Palice of Honour was not printed till ten years afterwards. If therefore he ever perused this poem, it must have been previously to its publication.

Sage's Life of Bishop Douglas, p. 15.