It may be added that what are by far the finest passages in Dunbar’s poems are passed unnoticed and unquoted by Mr. Smeaton. Indeed, his acquaintance with Dunbar, or, at all events, his taste in selection, is exactly on a par with that of Ned Softley’s with Waller. “As that admirable writer has the best and worst verses among our English poets, Ned,” says Addison, “has got all the bad ones by heart, which he repeats upon occasion to show his reading.” Should Mr. Smeaton ever meet his idol in Hades, we would in all kindness advise him to avoid an encounter; let him remember that the fulsome eulogy is his own, but that the verses quoted are the poet’s. Attempted murder--so the irate shade might argue--is less serious than compulsory suicide. Dunbar was undoubtedly a man of genius, but a reference to the poets who immediately preceded him will make large deductions from the praises lavished on him by his eulogists. He struck no new notes. _The Thistle and the Rose_ and _The Golden Terge_ are mere echoes of Chaucer and Lydgate, and, in some degree, of the author of _The King’s Quair_, and are indeed full of plagiarisms from them. _The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins_ is probably little more than a faithful description of a popular mummery. His moral and religious poems had their prototypes, even in Scotland, in such poets as Johnston and Henryson. His most remarkable characteristic is his versatility, which ranges from the composition of such poems as _The Merle and the Nightingale_ to the _Twa Maryit Wemen and the Wedo_, from such lyrics as the _Meditation in Winter_ to such lyrics as the _Plea for Pity_. Mr. Smeaton calls him “a giant in an age of pigmies.” The author or authoress of _The Flower and the Leaf_ was infinitely superior to him in point of style, Henryson was infinitely superior to him in originality, and Gavin Douglas at least his equal in power of expression and in description. Let us do Dunbar the justice which Mr. Smeaton has not done him, and take him at his very best. Here is part of a picture of a May morning,-- “For mirth of May, wyth skippis and wyth hoppis The birdis sang upon the tender croppis, With curiouse notis, as Venus Chapell clerkis. The rosis yong, new spreding of their knoppis, War powderit brycht with hevinly beriall droppis; Throu bemes rede, birnyng as ruby sperkis, The skyes rang for schoutyng of the larkis.”