Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/784

SCOTTISH LANGtTAGE. 710 SCOTTISH LANGUAGE. foiiiiponlh iciiturv. I'".ii;;li>li l)CcoinL'3 again a iMiltivatcd language alier the linguistic ilistuib- nnoos following tlic Norman Conquest, it falls into throe clearly marked dialects: The southern (south of the Thames), the midland (the central counties of England), and the northern, spoken and written from the llundjer to the north as far as the Teutons had settled in Scotland. For England the midland dialect, the language of the Court, soon became the standard. Hut Scot- land in the meantime had won her independence at IJannockhurn (1314), and had established her own govcrnnunt, which she maintained till the union of the crowns by the accession of .James to the English throne (liiO."?). iMore precisely, then, the Scottish language is the cultivated language of Scotland from about I.SIO to 1003. From the standard Knglish of England it differed origi- nally in sounds, in spelling, and in syntax. And these differences subsequently increased, owing to the hostility between the two countries. The Scottish dialect also came under the influence of the Gaelic and the Kyniric, from which many words w-ere taken. It was in the north, too, that the Norsemen, settling in the ninth and tenth centuries, influenced in vocabulary and perhaps in synta.x the speech of the people by whom they were absorlied. Jlovcover, Scotland was for a long period in close alliance with France. Scotchmen went to France rather than to England to complete their education, and they entered the French service in large numbers. As a result there was introduced into the Scotch dialect a body of French words not found in the literature south of the Tweed. To the vernacular of Scotland as a cultivated language the Ref- ormation proved a death blow: for it put an end to the friendship with Catholic France, and eventually brought to the cottage of the Scotch pea.sant the Bible written in the standard Eng- li.sh of the south. Except for some fragments of minstrelsy and the romances which in origin may go back to the mysterious Thomas the Rhymer, Scottish ver- nacular literature begins with .John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, whose Bruce (137.5) appeared while Chaucer, then in his prime, was showing the artistic possibilities of the new Eng- lish as spoken in JjOndon. Barbour's poem, nar- rating the exploits of Robert Bruce from his wanderings as an outlaw in the mountains to his victory at Bannockburn and then on to Irish and other wars, gave stirring expression to the Scotch feeling of independent nationality. Andrew Wyn- toun, prior of Saint Serf's Inch, in Loch Leven, followed Barbour with a metrical history called the Orygt/nulle Chrotii/kil of Scotland (about 1424). Though less exultant in its patriotism than the liriicc, this poem is nevertheless very significant as a plain narrative of events in Scot- land founded on the best traditions and authori- ties at the command of the author. Ijiterature had thus discovered the hero and the history of Scotland. Patriotic themes were continued by others, especially by Henry the Minstrel or Blind Harry (toward the close oif the fifteenth century) , who matched Barbour's poem with William Wal- lace, pervaded with the spirit of freedom. Oddly enough, Scotch verse had already come under the influence of Chaucer. Patriotism proved weaker than the sense for form and beauty. The first and best of the Chaucerians was .Jarnes the First, who ruled Scotland from 1420 to 1437. For nineteen years lie had been lield in captivity by the English, and wliile in the Tower of London he is said to liave composed The Kinyis Quair (i.e. The King's Hook), an allegorical poem in the manner of the romance poems of Chaucer. In previous Scotch i)uetry the octosyllabic rhym- ing coiplct had usually been employed. James adopted the seven-line stanza of Chaucer. His language, too, with its infusion of English words, was not strictly Scotch. Chaucer's inlluence in the north reached its height in The Testament of Cresseid by Robert Henrjson of Dunfermline (d. about ISOti), long attributed to Chaucer himself. It is a continuation of Troilus and Cressida. Henry.son was also the author of Rohene and Maki/ne, the earliest pastoral in any English dialect, and of several delightful fables in verse. The greatest name of this period is William Dun- bar (d. about 1513), w-ho was connected with the Court of James IV. He was likewise afKli- ated with the scliool of Chaucer by The Goldyti Targe and The Thrissill and the I{ois. His mas- terpiece is the grim Dance of the Hevin Deidli/ Hynnes. Gavin Duglas, who also handled alle- gorical themes in The Palice of Honour, trans- lated Vergil's .Jhieid, to the various books of which he prefixed remarkable verse descriptions of the months and seasons. A poet more widely read was Sir David Lindsay (d. 1555), who pos- sessed rare power of observation and a vigorous style. His richly imaginative Dreme was fol- lowed by several trenchant satires on abuses in Church and State, such as The Testament and CoiJiidai/nt of our Sovfrane Lordis Papyngo, and an interlude entitled Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, interesting as a link in the his- tory of the English drama and as a vivid picture of contemporary manners. Lindsay was the last of the great poets distinctly Scottish. After him Scotch verse lost itself in the bitter theological debates of the Reformation. In the period we have covered there had appeared many poets of less fame and a large body of anonymous verse. Particular attention should he called to the pop- ular Itallads, which, like the Scotch Chevy Chace, far surpass in imaginative detail similar work in England. If the Reformation, as has been said, proved luicongenial to Scotch verse, it gave an impetus to Scotch prose. Much of this pro.se, however, hardly rises to the plane of literature. The earli- est prose work of interest was John Bellenden's translation (completed 1533) of Hector Boece's nistoria Scot or um. Of greater importance was The Complaynt of Hcotlande (printed 1549), whose avithorship is still uncertain. It is a curious and brilliant satire on Scotland. Scotch prose attained its most effective power in The History of the Reformation (completed 1564) and the various tractates of .John Knox. Other prose writers of the period were Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie (d. lofio?), author of a continua- tion of Boece's chronicle history, CJeorge Buchan- an, who wrote both in Latin and in the vernacu- lar: and Bishop .John Leslie (d. 1596), the lead- ing Roman Catholic historian of Scotland. Scotch prose may be said to end with .James VI., author of Demonoloyic (1587) and other treat- ises. After ascending the English thi'one as James I. in 1603 he adopted in his books the language of the south. The Scotch poets of the time, like Sir William Alexander and William Drumraond of Hawthorn-