breaking out of the bluid royal,
Whose precious virtue is imperial.

"The merle she sang, Hail, Rose of most delight,
Hail, of all floris queen an' sovereign!
The lark she sang, Hail, Rose both red and white;
Most pleasant flower, of michty colours twane:
The nichtingale sang, Hail, Nature's suffragane,
In beauty, nurture, and every nobleness,
In rich array, renown, and gentleness.

"The common voice up raise of birdes small,
Upon this wise, Oh, blessit be the hour
That thou was chosen to be our principal!
Welcome to be our Princess of honour,
Our pearl, our pleasance, and our paramour,
Our peace, our play, our plain felicity;
Christ thee comfort from all adversity."

But beautiful as these poems are, it is as a satirist that Dunbar has
performed his greatest feats. He was by nature "dowered with the scorn
of scorn," and its edge was whetted by life-long disappointment. Like
Spenser, he knew--

"What Hell it is in suing long to bide."

And even in poems where the mood is melancholy, where the burden is the
shortness of life and the unpermanence of felicity, his satiric rage
breaks out in single lines of fire. And although his satire is often
almost inconceivably coarse, the prompting instinct is healthy at bottom.
He hates Vice, although his hand is too often in the kennel to pelt her
withal. He lays his grasp on the bridle-rein of the sleek prelate, and
upbraids him with his secret sins in language unsuited to modern ears.
His greater satires have a wild sheen of imagination about them. They
are far from being cold, moral homilies. His wrath or his contempt
breaks through the bounds of time and space, and brings the spiritual
world on the stage. He wishes to rebuke the citizens of Edinburgh for
their habits of profane swearing, and the result is a poem, which
probably gave Coleridge the hint of his "Devil's Walk." Dunbar's satire
is entitled the "Devil's Inquest." He represents the Fiend passing up
through the market, and chuckling as he listens to the strange oaths of
cobbler, maltman, tailor, courtier, and minstrel. He comments on what he
hears and sees with great pleasantry and satisfaction. Here is the
conclusion of the piece:--

"Ane thief said, God that ever I chaip,
Nor ane stark widdy gar me gaip,
But I in hell for geir wald be.
The Devil said, 'Welcome in a raip:
Renounce thy God, and cum to me.'

"The fishwives net and sw