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HENRYSON, or HENDERSON,
ROBERT, a poet of the fifteenth century, is described as having been
chief schoolmaster of Dunfermline, and this is almost the only
particular of his life that is sufficiently ascertained. According to
one writer, he was a notary public, as well as a schoolmaster; and
another is inclined to identify him with Henryson of Fordell, the father
of James Henryson who was king’s advocate and justice clerk, and who
perished in the fatal battle of Flodden. This very dubious account seems
to have originated with Sir Robert Douglas; who avers that Robert
Henryson appears to have been a person of distinction in the reign of
James the Third, and that he was the father of the king’s advocate.
Douglas refers to a certain charter, granted by the abbot of Dunfermline
in 1478, where Robert Henryson subscribes as a witness; [Douglas’s
Baronage of Scotland, p. 518.] but in this charter he certainly appears
without any particular distinction, as he merely attests it in the
character of a notary public. A later writer is still more inaccurate
when he pretends that the same witness is described as Robert Henryson
of Fordell;" [Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Peotry, vol. i. p. 88.] in
this and other two charters which occur in the Chartulary of
Dunfermline, he is described as a notary public, without any other
addition. [Cartulary of Dunfermline, f. 64. a. – Robert Henryson is a
witness to other two charters which occur in the same record, f. 63. a.b.
His only mark of distinction is that of being designated Magister, while
the names of several other witnesses appear without this title. He had
perhaps taken the degree of master of arts.] That the notary public, the
schoolmaster of Dunfermline, and the proprietor of Fordell, were one and
the same individual, is by no means to be admitted upon such slender and
defective evidence. Henryson, or, according to its more modern and less
correct form, Henderson, was not at that period an uncommon
surname. It is not however improbable that the schoolmaster may have
exercised the profession of a notary. While the canon law prevailed in
Scotland, this profession was generally exercised by ecclesiastics, and
some vestiges of the ancient practice are still to be traced; every
notary designates himself a clerk of a particular diocese; and by
the act of 1584, which under the penalty of deprivation prohibited the
clergy from following the profession of the law, they still retained the
power of making testaments; so that we continue to admit the rule of the
canon law, which sustains a will attested by the parish priest and two
or three witnesses. [Decretal, Gregorii IX. lib. iii. tit. xxvi. cap.
x.] If therefore Henryson was a notary, it is highly probable
that he was also an ecclesiastic, and if he was an ecclesiastic, he
could not well leave any legitimate offspring. The poet, in one of his
works, describes himself as "ane man of age;" and from Sir
Francis Kinaston we learn that "being very old he died of a diarrhae or
fluxe." With respect to the period of his decease, it is at least
certain that he died before Dunbar, who in his Lament, printed in the
year 1508, commemorates him among other departed poets:
"In Dunfermling he hes tane Broun,
With gude Mr Robert Henrysoun."
The compositions of
Henryson evince a poetical fancy, and, for the period when he lived, an
elegant simplicity of taste. He has carefully avoided that cumbrous and
vitiated diction which began to prevail among the Scottish as well as
the English poets. To his power of poetical conception he unites no
inconsiderable skill in versification: his lines, if divested of their
uncouth orthography, might often be mistaken for those of a much more
modern poet. His principal work is the collection of Fables, thirteen in
number, which are written in a pleasing manner, and are frequently
distinguished by their arch simplicity; but in compositions of this
nature, brevity is a quality which may be considered as almost
indispensable, nor can it be denied that those of Henryson sometimes
extend to too great a length. The collection is introduced by a
prologue, and another is prefixed to the fable of the lion and the
mouse.
The tale of Vpoulands
Mouse and the Burgesse Mouse may be regarded as one of his happiest
efforts in this department. The same tale, which is borrowed from AEsop,
has been told by many other poets, ancient as well as modern. Babrias
has despatched the story of the two mice in a few verses, but Henryson
has extended it over a surface of several pages. Henryson’s Tale of Sir
Chauntecleire and the Foxe is evidently borrowed from Chaucer’s Nonnes
Preestes Tale. From these apologues some curious fragments of
information may be gleaned. That of the Sheepe and the Dog, contains all
the particulars of an action before the consistory court, and probably
as complete an exposure of such transactions as the author could
prudently hazard. The proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts seem
about this period to have been felt as a common grievance.
Another conspicuous
production of Henryson is the Testament of Cresseid, [The Testament of
Cresseid, compylit be Mr Robert Henrysone, Sculemasister in Dunfermling.
Imprentit at Edinburgh be Henrie Charteris, 1593, 4to. – "Ffor the
author of this supplement, " say Sir Francis Kinaston, "Called the
Testament of Cresseid, which may passé for the sixt and last books of
this story, I have very sufficiently bin informed by Sr. Tho. Erskin,
late earle of Kelly, and divers aged schollers of the Scottish nation,
that it was made and written by one Mr Robert Henderson, sometime chiefe
schoole-master, in Dumfermling, much about the time that Chaucer was
first printed and dedicated to King Henry the 8th by Mr
Thinne, which was neere the end of his reigne. This Mr Henderson wittily
observing that Chaucer in his 5th books had related the death
of Troilus, but made no mention what became of Cresseid, he learnedly
takes upon him, in a fine poeticall way, to express the punishment and
end due to a false unconstant whore, which commonly terminates in
extreme misery." See the Loves of Troilus and Cresseid, written by
Chaucer; with a Commentary by Sir Francis Kinaston, p. xxix. Lond. 1796.
8 vo. Kinaston had translated into Latin rhyme two books of Chaucer’s
poems, 1635, 4 to. He completed his version of the poem, together with a
commentary; and his manuscript at length came into the possession of Mr
Waldron, who announced his intention of committing it to the press, but
did not find encouragement to proceed beyond a short specimen.] which is
the sequel to Chaucer’s Troylus and Creseyde, and is commonly printed
among the works of that poet. It evidently rises above the ordinary
standard of that period, and on some occasions evinces no mean felicity
of conception. The silent interview between Troilus and Cresseid is
skilfully delineated; and the entire passage has been described as
beautiful by a very competent judge of old poetry. [Scott’s Notes to Sir
Tristrem, p. 362.] It is unnecessary to remark that for "the
tale of Troy divine," neither Chaucer nor Henryson had recourse to the
classical sources: this, like some other subjects of ancient history,
had been invested with all the characteristics of modern romance; nor
could the Scottish poet be expected to deviate from the models which
delighted his contemporaries. Sir Troilus is commended for his knightly
piety; a temple is converted into a kirk; Mercury is elected
speaker of the parliament; and Cresseid, on being afflicted with a
leprosy, is consigned to a spittal-house, in order to beg with cup and
clapper. The personages are ancient, but the institutions and manners
are all modern.
Henryson’s tale of
Orpheus is not free from similar incongruities, and possesses fewer
attractions; it is indeed somewhat languid and feeble, and may have been
a lucubration of the author’s old age. Sir Orpheus is represented as a
king of Thrace, and is first despatched to heaven in search of the lost
Eurydice.
Quhen endit was the sangis
lamentable,
He tuke his harp, that on his breast can hyng,
Syne paasit to the hevin, as sais the fable,
To seke his wyf, bot that auailit no thing:
By Wadlyng street * he went but tarying,
Syne come doun throu the spore of Saturn ald,
Quhilk fader is of all thir sternis cold.
[* Watling street is a name given to one of the
great Roman ways in Britain. (Horsley’s Roman Antiqities of Britain, p.
387. Lond. 1732, fol.) This passage, which to some persons may appear so
unintelligible, will be best explained by a quotation from Chaucer’s
Home of Fame, b. ii.
Lo, quod he, caste up thyne eye,
Se yonder, lo, the Galaxye,
The whiche men clepe the Milky Way,
For it is white; and some perfay
Callen it Watlynge strete.]
Having searched the sun
and planets without success, he directs his course towards the earth,
and in his passage is regaled with the music of the spheres. His
subsequent adventures are circumstantially, but not very poetically
detailed. In enumerating the various characters whom he finds in the
domains of Pluto, the poet is guilty of a glaring anachronism: here
Orpheus finds Julius Caesar, Nero, and even popes and cardinals; and it
is likewise to be remarked that the heathen and Christian notions of
hell are blended together. But such anachronisms are very frequently to
be found in the writers of the middle ages. Mr Warton remarks that
Chaucer has been guilty of a very diverting, and what may be termed a
double anachronism, by representing Cresseid and two of her female
companions as reading the Thebaid of Statius. [In Shakspeare’s Troilus
and Cressida, says Mr Douce, "Hester quotes Aristotle, Ulysses speaks of
the ball-bearing Milo, and Pendarus of a man born in April. Friday and
Sunday, and even minced-pies with dates in the, are introduced."
(Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 291.)] Like the
fables of Henryson, his tale, of Orpheus is followed by a long moral;
and here he professes to have derived his materials from Boethius and
one of his commentators.
The Bludy Seth is an
allegorical poem of considerable ingenuity. The poet represents the fair
daughter of an ancient and worthy king as having been carried away by a
hideous giant, and cast into a dungeon, where she was doomed to linger
until some valiant knight should achieve her deliverance. A worthy
prince at length appeared as her champion, vanquished the giant, and
thrust him into his own loathsome dungeon. Having restored the damsel to
her father, he felt that he had received a mortal wound: he requested
her to retain his bloody shirt, and to contemplate it whenever a new
lover should present himself. It is unnecessary to add that the
interpretation of this allegory involves the high mysteries of the
Christian faith.
The Abbay Walk is of a
solemn character, and is not altogether incapable of impressing the
imagination. Its object is to inculcate submission to the various
dispensations of Providence, and this theme is managed with some degree
of skill. But the most beautiful of Henryson’s productions is Robene and
Makyne, the earliest specimen of pastoral poetry in the Scottish
language. I consider it as superior in many respects to the similar
attempts of Spenser and Browne; it is free from the glaring
improprieties which sometimes appear in the pastorals of those more
recent writers, and it exhibits many genuine strokes of poetical
delineation. The shepherd’s indifference is indeed too suddenly
converted into love; but this is almost the only instance in which the
operations of nature are not faithfully represented. The story is
skilfully conducted, the sentiments and manners are truly pastoral, and
the diction possesses wonderful terseness and suavity.
The Fables of Henryson
were reprinted in 1832, for the Bannatyne Club, [From this accurate
memoir prefixed to this volume, we have, by the kind permission of the
editor, Dr Irving, abridged the above article. In the Lives of Scottish
Worthies, Mr P. F. Tytler has entered at considerable length into the
merits of Henryson’s poetry, of which he gives copious extracts. He says
– "of the works of this remarkable man it is difficult, when we consider
the period in which they were written, to speak in terms of too warm
encomium. In strength, and sometimes even in sublimity of painting, in
pathos and sweetness, in the variety and beauty of his pictures of
natural scenery, in the vain and quiet and playful humour, which runs
through many of his pieces, and in that fine natural taste, which
rejecting the faults of his age, has dared to think for itself – he is
altogether excellent."] from the edition of Andrew Hart; of which the
only copy known to exist had been recently added to that great
repository of Scottish literature, the Advocates’ Library. |
