Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/89

Rh It may be remarked that a complicated verse has been a favourite among the Scottish poets down to the present time. Burns, for instance, has injured some of his best pieces by adopting the jingling stanza of the "Cherry and the Slae."

By the recovery of this work, Scotland can lay claim to a poem more ancient than England; and, indeed, it would appear from what is said by Robert de Brunne, and other circumstances, that the gests of the northern minstrels were written in an ambitious and ornate style which the southern harpers marred in repeating, and which plebeian audiences were unable to comprehend; in other words, that the English language received its first rudiments of improvement in this corner of the island, where it is now supposed to be most corrupted.

SAGE, (the Right Reverend), was born in 1652, in the parish of Creich, in the north-east part of the county of Fife, where his ancestors had lived with much respect, but little property, for seven generations; his father was a captain in lord Duffus's regiment, which was engaged in the defence of Dundee, when it was stormed and taken by the .parliamentary general, Monk, on the 30th August, 16 51. Captain Sage's property was diminished in proportion to his loyalty, and all the fortune he had to bestow on his son was a liberal education and his own principles of loyalty and virtue. Young Sage received the rudiments of his education at the school of his native parish, and at a proper age was removed to the university of St Andrews, where he remained during the usual course, performing the exercises required by the statutes of the Scottish universities, and where he took the degree of master of arts in the year 1672. He made letters his profession; but, his means being narrow, he was compelled to accept the office of parochial schoolmaster of Bingry in Fife, from which parish he was soon afterwards removed to the same office in Tippermuir, near Perth. Though, in these humble stations, he wanted many of the necessaries, and all the comforts of life, he prosecuted his studies with unwearied diligence; unfortunately, however, in increasing his stock of learning, he imbibed the seeds of several diseases, which afflicted him through the whole of his life, and, notwithstanding the native vigour of his constitution, tended ultimately to shorten his days. To the cultivated mind of such a man as Sage, the drudgery of a parish school must have been an almost intolerable slavery; he therefore readily accepted the offer from Mr Drummond of Cultmalundie, of a situation in his family, to superintend the education of his sons. He accompanied these young persons to the grammar school of Perth, and afterwards attended them in the same capacity of tutor to the university of St Andrews. At Perth, he acquired the esteem of Dr Rose, who was afterwards bishop of Edinburgh, and one of the most distinguished men of his age; and at St Andrews, he obtained the friendship and countenance of all the great literary characters of the period.

In 1684, the education of his pupils was completed, and he was again thrown on the world without employment, without prospects, and without any means of subsistence. His friend, Dr Rose, however, having been promoted from the station of parish minister at Perth to the chair of divinity at St Andrews, did not forget young Sage at this moment of indecision and helpless-