Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/124

Rh 108 L Y N D S A Y and ecclesiastical reformer. That his works are written in verse is merely incidental. Though not destitute of poetical genius, this was scarcely the special characteristic of his mind. His greatest work, and the only one to which it is necessary here to make further allusion, was his Satire of the Three Estates. It is a drama, and may be said to be in some respects one of the most remarkable that ever was written. The dramatis persons?, are chiefly allegorical, and under the names of Rex Humanitas, Wantonness, the Vices (Flattery, Falset, and Deceit) in the habit of friars, King Correction, Good Counsel, Temporality, Sensuality, Chastity, Verity, John the Com monweal, &c., the most bitter and unsparing exposure is made of the wickedness and corruption of all classes of the community. King, clergy, lords, merchants, craftsmen no one escapes the severest censure and the most unmitigated ridicule. And yet this extraordinary produc tion was acted on the borough muir of Edinburgh before the king himself, many of the highest nobility and clergy, and an immense crowd of all classes of the people. How the author escaped being torn in pieces by the mob or burnt at the stake by the ruling powers it is difficult to understand. Perhaps the explanation is that each class saw every other brought under the lash equally with itself, and felt consoled for its own shame by enjoying the infliction visited on its neighbours. Very likely too the grotesque wit and the fun with which the serious matter of the play was so largely spiced charmed the audience into good humour, and left them unable to think of vengeance. It may be somewhat confidently inferred too that the dramatist so exactly expressed the public feel ing of the time as to the evils and corruption under which the state was rapidly going to destruction that, even when his stinging reproaches most nearly touched themselves, their consciences were smitten and they were compelled to assent to the perfect truth and justness of his rebukes. But be this as it may, there can hardly be a doubt that this most singular drama formed one of the chief means by which the way was paved for the Reformation afterwards carried out by Knox and his coadjutors. 1 One thing is especially remarkable in Lyndsay s politics both civil and ecclesiastical, that, hopeless and depressing as the condition of the country must have been to a man like him, his opinions never end in mere negations, but are throughout constructive in their character. And yet more thorough going radicalism it would be difficult elsewhere to find. He does not for example scruple to declare that kings who govern ill should be deposed. This, however, was merely a speculative opinion, and it is of more interest to ascertain what his practical suggestions were. Among them we find the following : that the king should on no account attempt to do anything without the advice of his council and parliament ; that John the Commonweal should have a greater voice in parliament, i.e., in our modern phrase, that there should be a considerable extension of the franchise ; that (as already mentioned) all close corporations and monopolies should be abolished ; that temporal lands should be set in feu to the tenants on condition of their duly rendering the prescribed services to the state, a measure not very dissimilar in principle (if we understand it aright) to that lately introduced into Ireland ; that lords should be responsible for thieves who find refuge on their lands, and make restitution to the poor who have been plundered by them ; that courts of justice should be established in the remoter parts of the country, such as Elgin and Inverness, in order to avoid the expense attendant on the transference of pleas to the metropolis, and, to provide for their maintenance, the nunneries in that quarter to 1 See Ellis, Original Letters, 3d series, vol. iii. p. 280 ; ami Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 7. be abolished and their revenues sequestrated, the reason given being &quot; Thir wanton nuns are na way necessair Till common-veill, nor yet to the glorie Of Christis kirk, thoclit they be fat and fair, And als that fragile order feminine Will noclit be missit in Christ s religion.&quot; No less stringent and sweeping are his proposals for the reform of the church. The religion of Christ must be purged of all deceit and hypocrisy. The consistorial courts are to have no jurisdiction in matters temporal. No clergyman is to be admitted to office unless duly qualified in learning and piety. Celibacy is to be abolished. Bishops and priests must be compelled to preach regularly and &quot;take better tout to souls under their dominion.&quot; Benefices are not to be purchased either from prince or pope, nor is money to be permitted to go to Rome for bulls and pleas. Pluralities and patronage are to be abolished, residence is to be enforced, and the people are to have a voice in the choice of their spiritual guides. In fact many of Lyndsay s proposals of reform have quite a modern look, and this perhaps explains in some degree the long-continued popularity of his works among his country men, which otherwise it is rather difficult to account for. They have none of the chivalric spirit-stirring power of many of our ancient songs and ballads, none of the tender love and melancholy which form the charm of Burns s lyrics, none of the joyous abandon of convivial or amorous ditties, and none of the fascination which springs from well-con structed tales or narrative poems, like those of Chaucer or Scott. It is difficult to suppose that even the humour which pervades them, seldom of the most refined kind and often very much the reverse, can have been in any great degree pleasing to readers of a later age than the author s own. The only explanation, we suspect, is that Lyndsay s intense and uncompromising love of liberty, his strong sympathy with the poor, his love of justice, his keen hatred of tyranny, wrong, and oppression, and his shrewd common sense easily found a responsive chord in Scottish bosoms. Nor was the interest which his works so long retained among the Scottish peasantry merely of a senti mental kind. For many of the evils against which he directed his severest invectives continued long afterwards to afflict his country, and even when somewhat changed in their aspect still reappeared in analogous forms or character. Prelatic usurpation and cruelty were as rife as ever in the century which succeeded that in which Lyndsay wrote ; aristocratic venality and heartlessness have perhaps even yet hardly ceased out of the land ; church patronage, always hateful to religious-minded Scotsmen, was hardly abolished before it was reimposed. And then such inci dents as the massacre of Glencoe, the union with England, a measure intensely disliked by the great mass of the Scottish people, the infamous treatment of the Darien colonization scheme, the barbarities which followed the two Jacobite rebellions, the deprivation up to 1832 of any true parliamentary representation, and the continuance of close municipal and trade corporations, all tended to keep up a bitter sense of wrong to which Lyndsay s satires gave point and expression. The best accessible editions of Lyndsay s works are those of George Chalmers, in 3 vols., London, 1806, and of David Laing, also in 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1879. These, with the Early English Text Society s edition, leave little to be desired for the establishment of a correct text, and for purely antiquarian illustration. In &quot;Warton s History of English Poetry, and in Irving s History of Scottish Poetry, good critical estimates will be found of Lyndsay s place as a poet. It is possible, however, that something yet remains to be done in order to determine his exact position as a great political and religious reformer, and to illustrate the effect which bis works have had in directing popular feeling and opinion in Scotland. (J. T. BR.)