"Methought that y Hoved on High on an Hill,
And loked Doun on a Dale Depest of othre;
Ther y Sawe in my Sighte a Selcouthe peple;
The Multitude was so Moche, it Mighte not be nombred:
Methoughte y herd a Crowned Kyng, of his Comunes axe
A Soleyne[912] Subsidie, to Susteyne his werres.
* * * * *
With that a Clerk Kneled adowne and Carped these wordes,
Liege Lord, yif it you Like to Listen a while,
Som Sawes of Salomon y shall you shewe sone."
The writer then gives a solemn lecture to kings on the art of governing. From the demand of subsidies "to susteyne his werres," I am inclined to believe this poem composed in the reign of K. Henry V., as the MS. appears from a subsequent entry to have been written before the 9th of Henry VI. The whole poem contains but 146 lines.
The alliterative metre was no less popular among the old Scottish poets, than with their brethren on this side the Tweed. In Maitland's collection of ancient Scottish poems, MS. in the Pepysian library, is a very long poem in this species of versification, thus inscribed:
"Heir begins the Tretis of the Twa Marriit Wemen, and the Wedo, compylit be Maister William Dunbar.[913]
Upon the Midsummer evven Mirriest of nichtis
I Muvit furth alane quhen as Midnight was past
Besyd ane Gudlie Grene Garth,[914] full of Gay flouris
Hegeit[915] of ane Huge Hicht with Hawthorne treeis
Quairon ane Bird on ane Bransche so Birst out hir notis
That nevir ane Blythfuller Bird was on the Beuche[916] hard &c."
The Author pretends to overhear three gossips sitting in an arbour, and revealing all their secret methods of alluring and governing the other sex; it is a severe and humorous satire on bad women, and nothing inferior to Chaucer's Prologue to his Wife of Bath's Tale. As Dunbar lived till about the middle of the sixteenth century, this poem was probably composed after Scottish Field (described above in p. [384]), which is the latest specimen I have met with written in England. This poem contains about five hundred lines.
But the current use of the alliterative metre in Scotland, appears more particularly from those popular vulgar prophecies, which are still printed for the use of the lower people in Scotland, under the names of Thomas the Rymer, Marvellous Merling, &c. This collection seems to have been put together after the accession of James I. to the crown of England, and most of the pieces in it are in the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions, The first of them begins thus:
"Merling sayes in his book, who will Read Right,
Although his Sayings be uncouth, they Shall be true found.
In the seventh chapter, read Whoso Will,
One thousand and more after Christ's birth, &c."
And the prophesie of Beid:
"Betwixt the chief of Summer and the Sad winter;
Before the Heat of summer Happen shall a war
That Europ's lands Earnestly shall be wrought
And Earnest Envy shall last but a while, &c."