wornen most desire," to be sovereign of man's love-in short-to have their own way. The bride then thus answers the happy groom:

"My lord," she saide, "grand-merci1
For of this word that ye now sayn
That ye have made me sovereign,
My destiny is overpass'd;

That ne'er hereafter shall be lass'd2
My beauty, which that I now have,
Till I betake unto my grave.
Both night and day, as I am now,
I shall alwáy be such to you.
Thus, I am yours for evermó.”

JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 1395-1437.

To an incident which happened in the reign of Henry IV. of England, we are indebted for the most elegant poem that was produced during the early part of the fifteenth century-" The King's Quair,"3 by James I. of Scotland.

This prince was the second son of Robert III., and was born in 1395. Hit elder brother died, and the king determined to send his surviving son, James, to be educated at the court of his ally, Charles VI., of France; and he em barked for that country with a numerous train of attendants in 1405. But the ship was stopped by an English squadron, and the passengers were, by order of Henry IV., sent to London. It was, of course, an outrageous violation of all right, for Henry to make James a prisoner; but the accident that placed him in his power was ultimately advantageous to the prince as well as to the nation he was born to govern. He was at that time only ten years of age, but Henry, though he kept him closely confined, took great pains to have him educated in the most thorough manner, and so rapid was the progress that he made in his studies that he soon became a prodigy of erudition, and excelled in every branch of polite accomplishments.

During fifteen years of his captivity, he seemed forgotten or at least neglected by his subjects. The admiration of strangers and the consciousness of his own talents only rendered his situation more irksome, and he had begun to abandon himself to despair, when he was fortunately consoled for his seclusion at Windsor Castle by a passion of which sovereigns in quiet possession of a throne have seldom the good fortune to feel the influence The object of his admiration was the lady Jane Beaufort, (daughter of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset,) whom he afterwards married, and in whose commendation he composed his principal poetical work, "The King's Quair.” In 1423 he was released, and, taking possession of the throne of his ancestors, he did very much to improve the civilization of his country, by repressing many disorders, and enacting many salutary laws. But his stringent measures

1 Many thanks.

2 Lessened.

8 "Quair," quire, pamphlet, or book; hence the "King's Quair" means the King's Book. See Ellis's "Specimens," i. 299, Warton's "History of English Poetry," ii. 437, and Park's edition of Walpole's "Royal and Noble Authors.'

of reform were very offensive to a lawless nobility; a conspiracy was formed against him, and he was murdered at Perth, in 1437.

The chief poem of James I., as mentioned above, consists of one hundred and ninety-seven stanzas. It contains various particulars of his own life; is full of simplicity and feeling, and, as has been correctly said, is superior to any poetry besides that of Chaucer produced in England before the reign of Elizabeth,—as will be testified by the following stanzas.

ON HIS BELOVED.

The longe dayes and the nightis eke

I would bewail my fortune in this wise;
For which again' distress comfort to seek,
My custom was on mornis for to rise
Early as day: O happy exercise!
By thee come I to joy out of torment;—
But now to purpose of my first intent.

Bewailing in my chamber thus alone,
Despaired of all joy and remedy,
For-tired of my thought, and woe-begone,
And to the window gan I walk in hye,
To see the world and folk that went forby;
As, for the time, (though I of mirthis food
Might have no more,) to look it did me good.

Now was there made, fast by the Touris wall,'
A garden fair;3 and in the corners set
An herbere,4 green; with wandis long and smalt
Railed about, and so with treeis set

Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet
That life was none [a] walking there forby,
That might within scarce any wight espy.

And on the smalle grene twistis sat

The little sweete nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear the hymnis consecrate

Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung
Right of their song; and on the couple next6
Of their sweet harmony: and lo the text!

"Worshippe ye that lovers bene this May,

For of your bliss the calends are begun;
And sing with us, 'Away! winter away!

1'gainst.

2 Haste.

3 he gardens of this period seem to have been very small. In Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide" we and the same place indifferently called a garden and a yard; and this, at windsor, fast by the Touris walt, was probably either in the yard or on the terrace.

4 Frobably an arbour, though the word is also very frequently used for an herbary, or garden of simpler. 5 Living person.

6 Mr' ytler imagines that this relates to the pairing of the birds; but the word couple seems here to be used as a musical term.

Come, summer, come! the sweet season and sun!
Awake, for shame! that have your heavens won!!
And amorously lift up your headis all;

Thank Love, that list you to his mercy call!''

When they this song had sung a little throw,2
They stents awhile, and, therewith unafraid

As I beheld, and cast mine eyen a-lowe,

From bough to bough they hipped4 and they play'd,
And freshly, in their birdis kind, array'd
Their feathers new, and fret them in the sun,
And thanked Love that had their makis6 won.

*

And therewith cast I down mine eye again,
Whereas I saw, walking under the Tower
Full secretly, new comyn her to pleyne,7

The fairest, or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour;
For which sudden abate anon astert8

The blood of all my body to my heart.

And though I stood abased tho a lyte,9

No wonder was; for why? my wittis all
Were so o'ercome with pleasance and delight
Only through letting of mine eyen fall,
That suddenly my heart become her thrall
For ever; of free will; for of menáce

There was no token in her sweete face.

And in my head I drew right hastily;
And eft-soones I lent it forth again:
And saw her walk that very womanly,
With no wight mo10 but only women twain.
Then gan I study in myself, and sayn,
"Ah sweet, are ye a worldly créature,
Or heavenly thing in likeness of nature?

"Or are ye god Cupidis own princess,

And comen are to loose me out of band?
Or are ye very Nature the goddéss,

That have depainted with your heavenly hand
This garden full of flouris as they stand?
What shall I think, alas! what reverence
Shall I mesterll [un] to your excellence?

"Giff12 ye a goddess be, and that ye like
To do me pain, I may it not astert:
Giff

ye be worldly wight, that doth me sike,13

1 Mr. Tytler explains this as follows: "Ye that have attained your highest bliss, by winning your mates."-See the last line of the next stanza.

4 Hopped.

2 A little time.

5 Pecked.

3 Stopped

6 Mates.

13 Make me sigh.

This seems to mean complain; but should it not rather be playen, to play or sport? 8 Started back.

9 Then a little.

10 More.

11 Administer ? 12 If.

Why lest1 God make you so, my dearest heart,
To do a silly prisoner thus smart,

That loves you all, and wote of nought but wo?
And, therefore, mercy sweet! sen it is so."

*

Of her array the form gif I shall write,

Toward her golden hair and rich attire,
In fret-wise couch'd2 with pearlis white,
And greaté balas3 lemyng4 as the fire,
With many an emerant and fair sapphire,
And on her head a chaplet fresh of hue
Of plumys, parted red, and white, and blue.

Full of quaking spangis5 bright as gold,
Forged of shape like to the amorettis ;6
So new, so fresh, so pleasant to behold;

The plumis eke like to the floure-jonettis,7
And other of shape like to the floure-jonettis ;8
And above all this there was, well I wote,
Beauty enough to make a world to dote!

About her neck, white as the fyre amaille,9
A goodly chain of small orfeverye ;10
Whereby there hung a ruby without fail,
Like to an heart [y-] shapen verily,

That as a spark of lowe,ll so wantonly
Seemed burning upon her white throat;
Now gif there was good party, God it wote.

And for to walk, that freshe Maye's morrow,
And hook she had upon her tissue white,
That goodlier had not been seen to-forrow,12
As I suppose; and girt she was a lyte ;13
Thus halfling14 loose for haste, to such delight
It was to see her youth in goodlihead,
That, for rudenéss, to speak thereof I dread.

In her was youth, beauty, with humble aport,
Bounty, richess, and womanly feature;
God better wote than my pen can report:
Wisdom, largéss, estate, and cunning sure,
In every point so guided her measure,
In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,
That Nature might no more her child avance.

1 Pleased: that is, "If thou art a goddess, I cannot resist thy power; but if only a mortal crea ture, God surely cannot lest or incline you to grieve or give pain to a poor creature that loves you.”—Tytler. 3 A sort of precious stone. 4 Shining.

5 Spangles.

2 Inlaid like fret-work.
6 "Made in the form of a love-knot or garland."-Tytler.

7 A kind of lily. It is conjectured that the royal poet may here allude covertly to the name of his mistress, which, in the diminutive, was Janet or Jonet.-Thomson's Edition of King's Quhair. Ayr, 1824, 8 The repetition of this word is apparently a mistake of the original transcriber.

9 Qu. Is this an error for fair email, i. e. enamel ? 12 Refore.

13 A little.

10 Gold-work.

11 Fire, flame.
14 Half.

THE name of William Caxton will ever be held in grateful remembrance by the world of letters, for he it was who introduced the art of printing into England. He was born in the county of Kent in the year 1413, and at the age of fifteen was put as an apprentice to a merchant of London. In consideration of his integrity and good behavior, his master bequeathed him a small sum of money as a capital with which to trade. He was soon chosen by the Mercer's Company to be their agent in Holland and Flanders, in which countries he spent about twenty-three years. While there, the new invention of the art of printing2 was everywhere spoken of; and Caxton, at a great

1 "It would, perhaps, be difficult to select even from Chaucer's most finished works a long specimen of descriptive poetry so uniformly elegant as this: indeed some of the verses are so highly finished, that they would not disfigure the compositions of Dryden, Pope, or Gray."-Ellis.

2 It is not a little singular that the history of printing, that art which commemorates all other inventions, and which hands down to posterity every important event, is so enveloped in mystery that the ablest minds in Europe have had long and acrimonious disputations respecting the question to what place and to what person the invention is rightfully due. There is not space here to give even an outline of these controversies; I can merely give the result. The two cities which claim the discovery are Haarlem or Haerlem, a city of North Holland, and Mentz, in Germany on the Rhine. The dispute, however, as Mr. Timperley properly observes, has turned rather on words than facts, arising from the different definitions of the word PRINTING. If the honor is to be awarded from the discovery of the principle, it is unquestionably due to Lawrence Coster, of Haarlem, who first found out the method of impressing characters on paper, by means of blocks of carved wood, about 1430. If movable types be considered the criterion, as it seems to me they must, the merit of the invention is due to John Guttenburg, of Mentz, who used them about 1440: while Schoeffer, in conjunction with Faust, was the first who founded types of metal.

From all the arguments and opinions, therefore, which have been adduced in this important controversy, the following conclusion may be satisfactorily drawn. To JOHN GUTTENBURG, of Mentz, is due the appellation of FATHER OF PRINTING; to PETER SCHOEFFER that of FATHER OF LETTER-FOUNDING; and to JOHN FAUST that of ENERGETIC PATRON, by whose pecuniary aid the wonderful discovery was brought rapidly to perfection