and with him came armed boasters and braggarts, smiting each other with swords, jagging each other with knives. Then Envy, trembling with secret hatred, accompanied by his court of flatterers, backbiters, calumniators and all the human serpentry that lurk in the palaces of kings. Then came Covetousness, with his hoarders and misers, and these the fiends gave to drink of newly-molten gold. "Syne Swearness, at the second bidding, Came like a sow out of a midding:" and with him danced a sleepy crew, and Belial lashed them with a bridle-rein, and the fiends gave them a turn in the fire to make them nimbler. Then came Lechery, led by Idleness, with a host of evil companions, "full strange of countenance, like torches burning bright." Then came Gluttony, so unwieldy that he could hardly move:-- "Him followed mony foul drunkart With can and callop, cup and quart, In surfeit and excess." "Drink, aye they cried," with their parched lips; and the fiends gave them hot lead to lap. Minstrels, it appears, are not to be found in that dismal place:-- "Nae minstrels played to them but doubt, For gleemen there were halden out By day and eik by nicht: Except a minstrel that slew a man, So to his heritage he wan, And entered by brieve of richt." And to the music of the solitary poet in hell, the strange shapes pass. The conclusion of this singular poem is entirely farcical. The devil is resolved to make high holiday: "Then cried Mahoun for a Hielan Padyane, Syne ran a fiend to fetch Makfadyane, Far north-wast in a neuck; Be he the coronach had done shout, Ersche men so gatherit him about, In hell great room they took. Thae tarmigants, with tag and tatter, Full loud in Ersche begoud to clatter, And roup like raven and rook. The Devil sae deaved was with their yell, That in the deepest pot of hell He smorit them with smook." 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.