Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/64

92 that while the journey ends, in both cases, at a place full of celestial glories, there is, in both cases, a limbo, or hell, by the ay side, a little before the ultimate object is reached.

In all probability, these poems were written at his residence in the town of Hawick, where he was surrounded with scenery in the highest degree calculated to nurse a poetical fancy. In 1509, he was nominated to be provost of the collegiate church of St Giles, at Edinburgh, and it is likely that he then changed his residence to the capital. Some years before, he had contemplated a translation of the Æneid into Scottish verse, as appears from his Palace of Honour, where Venus presents him with a copy of that poem, in the original, and, in virtue of her relation to the hero, requests the poet to give a version of it in his vernacular tongue. In his preface to the work, he thus explains the real earthly reason of his engaging in such a labour:

At the urgent request of this literary nobleman, which seems to have been necessary to get over the diffidence of the poet himself, Douglas commenced his labours in January, 1511-12, and although he prefaced each book with an original poem, and included the poem written by Mapheus Vigius as a thirteenth book, the whole was completed in eighteen months, two of which, he tells us, were spent exclusively in other business. The work was completed on the 22nd of July, 1513. The "Æneid" of Gavin Douglas is a work creditable in the highest degree to Scottish literature, not only from the specific merit of the translation, but because it was the first translation of a Roman classic executed in the English language. To adopt the criticism of Dr Irving "Without pronouncing it the best version of this poem that ever was, or ever will be executed, we may at least venture to affirm, that it is the production of a bold and energetic writer, whose knowledge of the language of his original,