291
script history of Northumberland, it would also ap-
pear that he had a son, but we find no other mention
made of him, either in his own writings or else-
where. The greater part of Mr. Horsley's various
unfinished works, correspondence, and other manu-
scripts, fell after his death into the hands of John
Cay, Esq. of Edinburgh, great-grandson of Mr. Robert
Cay, an eminent printer and publisher at Newcastle,
to whose judgment in the compiling, correcting, and
getting up of the Britannia Romana Mr. Horsley
appears to have been much indebted. From these
papers, as printed in a small biographical work by
the Rev. John Hodgson, vicar of Whelpington in
Northumberland, published at Newcastle in 1831,
the most of the facts contained in this brief memoir
were taken.
HUME, ALEXANDER, a vernacular poet of the
reign of James VI., was the second son of Patrick
Hume, fifth Baron of Polwarth. Until revived by
the tasteful researches of Dr. Leyden, the works of
this, one of the most elegant of our early poets, lay
neglected, and his name was unknown except to the
antiquary. He had the merit of superseding those
"godlie and spiritual sangis and ballads," which,
however sacred they may have once been held, are
pronounced by the present age to be ludicrous and
blasphemous, with strains where piety and taste
combine, and in which the feelings of those who
wish to peruse writings on sacred subjects are not
outraged. The neglect which has long obscured the
works of this poet has impeded inquiries as to his
life and character. He is supposed to have been
born in the year 1560, or within a year or two
prior to that date. Late investigators have found
that he studied at St. Andrews, and that he may be
identified with an Alexander Hume, who took the
degree of Bachelor of Arts at St. Leonard's College
of that university in the year 1574. The outline of
his further passage through life is expressed in his
own words, in his epistle to Mr. Gilbert Moncrieff,
the king's physician. He there mentions, that, after
spending four years in France, he was seized with a
desire to become a lawyer in his own country, and
he there draws a pathetic picture of the miseries of
a briefless barrister, sufficient to extract tears from
half the faculty.
" To that effect, three years, or near that space,
I haunted maist our highest pleading place
And senate, where great causes reason'd war;
My breast was bruisit with leaning on the bar;
My buttons brist, I partly spitted blood,
My gown was trail'd and trampid quhair I stood;
My ears were deif'd with maissars cryes and din
Quhilk procuratoris and parties callit in."
Nor did the moral aspect of the spot convey a more
soothing feeling than the physical. He found
"The puir abusit ane hundredth divers wayes;
Postpon'd, deffer'd with shifts and mere delayes,
Consumit in gudes, ourset with grief and paine."
From the corrupt atmosphere of the law he turned
towards the pure precincts of the court; but here he
finds that
" From the rocks of Cyclades fra hand,
I struck into Charybdis sinking sand."
He proceeds to say that, "for reverence of kings he
will not slander courts," yet he has barely main-
tained his politeness to royal ears in his somewhat
vivid description of all that the calm poet experienced
during his apprenticeship at court.
" In courts, Montcrief, is pride, envie, contention,
Dissimulance, despite, disceat, dissention,
Fear, whisperings, reports, and new suspition,
Fraud, treason, lies, dread, guile, and sedition;
Great greadines and prodigalitie;
Lusts sensual, and partialitie,"
with a continued list of similar qualifications, whose
applicability is likely to be perceived only by a dis-
appointed courtier or a statesman out of place.
During the days of his following the bar and the
court, it is supposed that Hume joined in one of
those elegant poetical amusements called "flytings,"
and that he is the person who, under the designation
of "Polwart," answered in fitting style to the abuse
of Montgomery. That Alexander Hume was the
person who so officiated is, however, matter of great
doubt : Dempster, a contemporary, mentions that
the person who answered Montgomery was Patrick
Hume, a name which answers to that of the elder
brother; and though Leyden and Sibbald justly pay
little attention to such authority, knowing that
Dempster is, in general, as likely to be wrong
as to be right, every Scotsman knows that the
patrimonial designation "Polwart" is more appro-
priately the title of the elder than of the younger
brother; while Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a more
fortunate courtier, and less seriously disposed than
his brother, has left behind him no mean specimen
of his genius in a poem addressed to James VI.,
entitled the Promise. Whichever of the brothers
has assumed Polwart's share in the controversy, it
is among the most curious specimens of the employ-
ments of the elegant minds of the age.
If the sacred poet Alexander Hume was really
the person who so spent his youthful genius, as life
advanced he turned his attention to more serious
matters: that his youth was spent more unprofitably
than his riper years approved is displayed in some
of his writings, in terms more bitter than those which
are generally used by persons to whom expressions
of repentance seem a becoming language. He
entered into holy orders, and at some period was
appointed minister of Logie, a pastoral charge of
which he performed with vigour the humble duties,
until his death in 1609.
Before entering on the works which he produced
in his clerical retirement, it may be right to observe
that much obscurity involves his literary career, from
the circumstance that three other individuals of the
same name, existing at the same period, passed lives
extremely similar, both in their education and in
their subsequent progress. Three out of the four at-
tended St. Mary's College at St. Andrews in com-
pany;—presuming that the subject of our memoir
took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1574, one of
his companions must have passed in 1571, the other
in 1572. It is supposed that one of these was minister
of Dunbar in 1582; the other is known to have been
appointed master of the high-school of Edinburgh
in 1596, and to have been author of a few theological
tracts, and of a Latin grammar, appointed by act of
parliament and by the privy-council to be used in
all grammar-schools in the kingdom: this individual
has been discovered by Dr. M'Crie to have afterwards
successively officiated as rector of the grammar-
schools of Salt-Preston and of Dunbar. The fourth
Alexander Hume was a student at St. Leonard's
College, St. Andrews, where he entered in 1578.
Alexander Hume, minister of Logie, is, however,
the undoubted author of "Hymnes or Sacred Songs,
wherein the right Use of Poesie may be espied:
whereunto are added, the Experience of the Author's
Youth, and certain Precepts serving to the Practice
of Sanctification." This volume, printed by Walde-
grave in 1599, was dedicated to Elizabeth Melvill, by
courtesy styled Lady Culross, a woman of talent and
literary habits, the authoress of Ane Godlie Dream,
compylit in Scottish Meter, printed at Aberdeen in
1644. The Hymnes and Sacred Songs have been
several times partially reprinted, and the original