There is one other poem of Dunbar’s which may be quoted as a contrast to what has been already given.  It is remarkable as being the only one in which he assumes the character of a lover.  The style of thought is quite modern; bereave it of its uncouth orthography, and it might have been written to-day.  It is turned with much skill and grace.  The constitutional melancholy of the man comes out in it; as, indeed, it always does when he finds a serious topic.  It possesses more tenderness and sentiment than is his usual.  It is the night-flower among his poems, breathing a mournful fragrance:—­

  “Sweit rose of vertew and of gentilnes,
  Delytsum lyllie of everie lustynes,
  Richest in bontie, and in beutie cleir,
  And every vertew that to hevin is dear,
  Except onlie that ye ar mercyles,

  “Into your garthe this day I did persew: 
  Thair saw I flowris that fresche wer of dew,
  Baith quhyte and reid most lustye wer to seyne,
  And halsum herbis upone stalkis grene: 
  Yet leif nor flour fynd could I nane of rew.

  “I doute that March, with his cauld blastis keyne,
  Hes slane this gentill herbe, that I of mene;
  Quhois pitewous deithe dois to my hart sic pane,
  That I wald mak to plant his rute agane,
  So comfortand his levis unto me bene.”

The extracts already given will enable the reader to form some idea of the old poet’s general power—­his music, his picturesque faculty, his colour, his satire.  Yet it is difficult from what he has left to form any very definite image of the man.  Although his poems are for the most part occasional, founded upon actual circumstances, or written to relieve him from the over-pressure of angry or melancholy moods, and although the writer is by no means shy or indisposed to speak of himself, his personality is not made clear to us.  There is great gap of time between him and the modern reader; and the mixture of gold and clay in the products of his genius, the discrepancy of elements, beauty and coarseness, Apollo’s cheek, and the satyr’s shaggy limbs, are explainable partly from a want of harmony and completeness in himself, and partly from the pressure of the half-barbaric time.  His rudeness offends, his narrowness astonishes.  But then we must remember that our advantages in these respects do not necessarily arise from our being of a purer and nobler essence.  We have these things by inheritance; they have been transmitted to us along a line of ancestors.  Five centuries share with us the merit of the result.  Modern delicacy of taste and intellectual purity—­although we hold them in possession, and may add to their sheen before we hand them on to our children—­are no more to be placed to our personal credits than Dryden’s satire, Pope’s epigram, Marlborough’s battles, Burke’s speeches, and the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo.  Intellectual delicacy has grown like our political constitution.  The