Lyndsay’s lesser productions are satires on minor subjects, such as court patronage and the absurdities of female fashions, showing their author in a lighter vein. But “Kitteis Confessioun” is another hard hit at the church abuses of the time, and the “Deploratioun of the Deith of Quene Magdalene” possesses interest as a picture of a royal welcome in the sixteenth century.
“The Tragedie of the Cardinall,” apart from a suggestion in the prologue, the appearance of Beaton’s ghost—
Ane woundit man, aboundantlie bledyng,
With vissage paill and with ane deidlye cheir—
displays no striking poetic power. The poem recounts in detail, as by the mouth of the prelate himself, the damaging part which Beaton had played in the contemporary history of Scotland, and it ends with serious admonitions addressed respectively to prelates and to princes to avoid the abuses which were then rampant in the government of the church.
“The Historie of Squyer Meldrum” is written in a different vein from the rest of Lyndsay’s works. As has already been said, it is modelled on the gestes and heroic epics of an earlier century. The narrative is lively, with vivid descriptive passages and great smoothness of versification. “In all Froissart,” says Dr. Merry Ross, “there is nothing more delightful in picturesque details than the description of the jousts between Meldrum and the English knight Talbart on the plains of Picardy.”
It has been the habit to regard Lyndsay in the character rather of a reformer than of a poet, and it cannot be doubted that his own purpose was to edify rather than to delight. But the merit of a satirist consists, not in his display of the more delicate sort of poetic charm, but in the brilliance and keenness of his satire. No critic can aver that in these qualities Lyndsay was lacking. If evidence of power in other fields be demanded, there are, according to the estimate of Professor Nichol, passages in “The Dreme,” “Squyer Meldrum,” and “The Monarche,” “especially in the descriptions of the morning and evening voices of the birds, which, for harmony of versification and grace of imagery, may be safely laid alongside of any corresponding to them in the works of his predecessors.” But it is as a satiric poet that he must chiefly be appraised, and in this character he stands the greatest that Scotland has produced. He remained popular for more than two centuries because he sympathised with the sorrows of the people and satirized the abuse of power by the great. In this respect he was not excelled even by his great successor, Robert Burns. For the reader of the present day the interest of Lyndsay, apart from the broad light which he throws upon the life and manners of his time, lies in his shrewd common-sense, his irresistible humour, vivacity, and dramatic power, with the consciousness that behind these burns a soul of absolute honesty. But the first value of his work, as of the work of every satiric poet, consisted in its wholesome effect upon the spirit of his age. With this fact in view it would be difficult to formulate a better summing-up of Lyndsay’s titles to regard than that by Scott in the fourth canto of Marmion. There, by a poetic license, he is introduced in the character of Lyon Herald on the eve of Flodden, sixteen years before he obtained that office—
He was a man of middle age;
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on king’s errand come;