The poem, entitled the Buke of the Howlat, written about 1450, shows his devotion to the house of Douglas:—
| “On ilk beugh till embrace Writtin in a bill was O Dowglass, O Dowglass Tender and trewe!” |
(ii. 400-403).
and is dedicated to the wife of a Douglas—
| “Thus for ane Dow of Dunbar drew I this Dyte, Dowit with ane Dowglass, and boith war thei dowis.” |
but all theories of its being a political allegory in favour of that house may be discarded. Sir Walter Scott’s judgment that the Buke is “a poetical apologue ... without any view whatever to local or natural politics” is certainly the most reasonable. The poem, which extends to 1001 lines written in the irregular alliterative rhymed stanza, is a bird-allegory, of the type familiar in the Parlement of Foules. It has the incidental interest of showing (especially in stanzas 62 and 63) the antipathy of the “Inglis-speaking Scot” to the “Scots-speaking Gael” of the west, as is also shown in Dunbar’s Flyting with Kennedy.
The text of the poem is preserved in the Asloan and Bannatyne MSS. Fragments of an early 16th century black-letter edition, discovered by D. Laing, are reproduced in the Adversaria of the Bannatyne Club. The poem has been frequently reprinted, by Pinkerton, in his Scottish Poems (1792); by D. Laing (Bannatyne Club 1823; reprinted in “New Club” series, Paisley, 1882); by the Hunterian Club in their edition of the Bannatyne MS., and by A. Diebler (Chemnitz, 1893). The latest edition is that by F. J. Amours in Scottish Alliterative Poems (Scottish Text Society, 1897), pp. 47-81. (See also Introduction pp. xx.-xxxiv.)
HOLLAND, officially the kingdom of the Netherlands (Koningrijk der Nederlanden), a maritime country in the north-west of Europe. The name Holland is that of the former countship, which forms part of the political, as well as the geographical centre of the kingdom (see the next article).
Topography.—Holland is bounded on the E. by Germany, on the S. by Belgium, on the W. and N. by the North Sea, and at the N.E. corner by the Dollart. From Stevensweert southward to the extreme corner of Limburg the boundary line is formed by the river Maas or Meuse.[1] On the east a natural geographical boundary was formed by the long line of marshy fens extending along the borders of Overysel, Drente and Groningen. The kingdom extends from 53° 32′ 21″ (Groningen Cape on Rottum Island) to 50° 45′ 49″ N. (Mesch in the province of Limburg), and from 3° 23′ 27″ (Sluis in the province of Zeeland) to 7° 12′ 20″ E. (Langakkerschans in the province of Groningen). The greatest length from north to south, viz. that from Rottum Island to Eisden near Maastricht is 164 m., and the greatest breadth from south-west to north-east, or from Zwin near Sluis to Losser in Overysel, 144 m. The area is subject to perpetual variation owing, on the one hand, to the erosion of the coasts, and, on the other, to reclamation of land by means of endiking and drainage operations. In 1889 the total area was calculated at 12,558 sq. m., and, including the Zuider Zee and the Wadden (2050 sq. m.) and the Dutch portion of the Dollart (23 sq. m.), 14,613 sq. m. In no country in Europe has the character of the territory exercised so great an influence on the inhabitants as in the Netherlands; and, on the other hand, no people has so extensively modified the condition of its territory as the Dutch. The greatest importance attaches therefore to the physical conformation of the country.