292
having fallen into extreme rarity, the whole has been
reprinted by the Bannatyne Club. In the prose intro-
duction the author, addressing the youth of Scotland,
exhorts them to avoid "profane sonnets and vain
ballads of love, the fabulous feats of Palmerine, and
such like reveries."—"Some time," he adds, "I de-
lighted in such fantasies myself, after the manner
of riotous young men: and had not the Lord in his
mercy pulled me aback, and wrought a great repent-
ance in me, I had doubtless run forward and em-
ployed my time and study in that profane and un-
profitable exercise, to my own perdition." The first
of his hymns he styles his '' Recantation:" it commences
in the following solemn terms :—
" Alace, how long have I delayed
To leave the laits1 of youth !
Alace how oft have I essayed
To daunt my lascive mouth,
And make my vayne polluted thought,
My pen and speech prophaine,
Extoll the Lord quhilk made of nocht
The heaven, the earth, and maine,
Skarce nature yet my face about
Her virile net had spun,
Quhen als oft as Phæbea stout
Was set agains the Sun:
Yea, als oft as the fierie flames
Arise and shine abroad,
I minded was with sangs and psalms
To glorifie my God.
But ay the cancred carnall kind,
Quhilk lurked me within,
Seduced my heart, withdrew my mind,
And made me sclave to sin.
My senses and my saull I saw
Debait a deadlie strife,
Into my flesh I felt a law
Gainstand the law of life.
Even as the falcon high, and hait,
Furth fleeing in the skye,
With wanton wing hir game to gaif,
Disdaines her caller's cry;
So led away with liberty,
And drowned in delight,
I wandred after vanitie—
My vice I give the wight."
But by far the most beautiful composition in the col-
lection is that entitled the "Day Estival," the one
which Leyden has thought worthy of revival. This
poem presents a description of the progress and
effects of a summer day in Scotland, accompanied
by the reflections of a mind full of natural piety, and
a delicate perception of the beauties of the physical
world. The easy flow of the numbers, distinguishing
it from the harsher productions of the same age, and
the arrangement of the terms and ideas, prove an
acquaintance with English poetry; but the subject
and the poetical thoughts are entirely the author's
own. They speak strongly of the elegant and fasti-
dious mind, tired of the bar and disgusted with the
court, finding a balm to the wounded spirit in being
alone with nature, and watching her progress. The
style has an unrestrained freedom which may please
the present age, and the contemplative feeling thrown
over the whole, mingled with the artless vividness of
the descriptions, bringing the objects immediately
before the eye, belong to a species of poetry at which
some of the highest minds have lately made it their
study to aim. We shall quote the commencing
stanza, and a few others scattered in different parts
of the poem:—
" O perfect light ! which shed away
The darkness from the light,
And left one ruler o'er the day,
Another o'er the night;
Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
More vively does appear,
Nor at mid-day unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.
1 Habits or manners.
The shadow of the earth anone
Removes and drawis by;
Syne in the east, when it is gone
Appears a clearer sky:
Which soon perceives the little larks,
The lapwing, and the snipe;
And tunes their songs, like nature's clerks.
O'er meadow, moor, and stripe.
*            *             *             *             *          *
The time so tranquil is and still,
That no where shall ye find,
Save on a high and barren hill,
An air of passing wind.
All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear.
Nor they were painted on a wall
No more they move or stir.
Calm is the deep and purpour sea,
Yea smoother nor the sand:
The waves that weltering wont to be
Are stable like the land.
What pleasure 'twere to walk and see,
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear;
The salmon out of crooves and creels
Up hauled into skouts,
The bells and circles on the weills
Through louping of the trouts.
O then it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calme,
The praise of God to play and sing
With cornet and with shalme."
Rowe, in his manuscript History of the Church of
Scotland, has told us that Hume "was one of those
godlie and faithful servants who had witnessed against
the hierarchy of prelates in this kirk." He proceeds
to remark, "as to Mr. Alexander Hoome, minister
at Logie, beside Stirlin, I nixt mention him: he has
left ane admonition behind him in write to the Kirk
of Scotland, wherein he affirmes that the bishops,
who were then fast rising up, had left the sincere
ministers, who wold gladlie have keeped still the
good old government of the kirk, if these corrupt
ministers had not left them and it; earnestlie entreat-
ing the bishops to leave and forsake that course
wherin they were, els their defection from their
honest brethren (with whom they had taken the
covenant), and from the cause of God, would be re-
gistrate afterwards to their eternale shame." The
person who has reprinted Hume's Hymnes and Sacred
Songs for the Bannatyne Club has discovered, among
the elaborate collections of Wodrow in the Advo-
cates' Library, a small tract, entitled Ane Afold Ad-
monition to the Ministerie of Scotland, be ane Deing
Brother, which he, not without reason, presumes to
be that mentioned by Rowe; founding the supposi-
tion on the similarity of the title, the applicability of
the matter, and a minute circumstance of internal
evidence, which shows that the admonition was writ-
ten very soon after the year 1607, and very probably
at such a period as might have enabled Hume (who
died in 1609) to have denominated himself "ane
deing brother." The whole of this curious produc-
tion is conceived in a style of assumption which
cannot have been very acceptable to the spiritual
pride of the Scottish clergy. It commences in the
following terms of apostolical reprimand:—"Grace,
mercy, and peace, from God the Father, through our
Lord Jesus Christ. It is certainlie knawin, bretheren,
to the greiff of monie godlie heartes and slander of
the gospell, that thair ar dissentionis among you :
not concerning the covenant of God, or the seales of
the covenant, but chieflie concerning twa poyntis of
discipline or kirk government, wharanent you are
divydit in twa factionis or opinionis." From this as-
sumed superiority, the admonitionist stalks forth,
bearing himself in lofty terms, never condescending
to argue, but directing like a superior spirit; and