1106 ROBERT AYTOUN (1570-1638) HIS Scottish poet was born in his father's castle of Kinaldie, near St. Andrews, Fifeshire, in 1570. He was descended from the Norman family of De Vescy, a younger son of which settled in Scotland and received from Robert Bruce the lands of Aytoun in Berwickshire. Kincardie came into the family about 1539. Robert Aytoun was educated at St. Andrews, taking his degree in 1588, traveled on the Continent like other wealthy Scottish gentlemen, and studied law at the University of Paris. Returning in 1603, he delighted James I. by a Latin poem congratulating him on his accession to the English throne. Thereupon the poet received an invitation to court as Groom of the Privy Chamber. He rose rapidly, was knighted in 1612, and made Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King James and private secretary to Queen Anne. When Charles I. ascended the throne, Aytoun was retained, and held many important posts. According to Aubrey, "he was acquainted with all the witts of his time in England.” Sir Robert was essentially a court poet, and belonged to the cultivated circle of Scottish favorites that James gathered around him; yet there is no mention of him in the gossipy diaries of the period, and almost none in the State papers. He seems, however, to have been popular: Ben Jonson boasts that Aytoun "loved me dearly." It is not surprising that his mild verses should have faded in the glorious light of the contemporary poets. ROBERT AYTOUN He wrote in Greek and French, and many of his Latin poems were published under the title 'Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum' (Amsterdam, 1637). His English poems on such themes as a 'Love Dirge,' The Poet Forsaken,' 'The Lover's Remonstrance,' 'Address to an Inconstant Mistress,' etc., do not show depth of emotion. He says of himself: "Yet have I been a lover by report, Yea, I have died for love as others do; The lines beginning "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair," quoted below with their adaptation by Burns, do not appear in his MSS., collected by his heir Sir John Aytoun, nor in the edition of his works with a memoir prepared by Dr. Charles Rogers, published in Edinburgh in 1844 and reprinted privately in 1871. Dean Stanley, in his 'Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' accords to him the original of 'Auld Lang Syne,' which Rogers includes in his edition. Burns's song follows the version attributed to Francis Temple. Aytoun passed his entire life in luxury, died in Whitehall Palace in 1638, and was the first Scottish poet buried in Westminster Abbey. His memorial bust was taken from a portrait by Vandyke. I INCONSTANCY UPBRAIDED LOVED thee once, I'll love no more; Nothing could have my love o'erthrown, When new desires had conquered thee, It had been lethargy in me, Not constancy, to love thee still. Yea, it had been a sin to go And prostitute affection so; Since we are taught no prayers to say Yet do thou glory in thy choice, Thy choice of his good fortune boast; I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice To see him gain what I have lost. The height of my disdain shall be I LINES TO AN INCONSTANT MISTRESS DO confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee. Had I not found the slightest prayer That lips could speak had power to move thee. As worthy to be loved by none. I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find Which kisseth everything it meets! And since thou canst love more than one, The morning rose that untouched stands, Armed with her briers, how sweet she smells! But plucked and strained through ruder hands, Her scent no longer with her dwells. But scent and beauty both are gone, Such fate ere long will thee betide, When thou hast handled been awhile, Hath brought thee to be loved by none. BURNS'S ADAPTATION I DO Confess thou art sae fair, I wad been ower the lugs in love Had I na found the slightest prayer That lips could speak, thy heart could move. I do confess thee sweet-but find Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, Thy favors are the silly wind, That kisses ilka thing it meets. See yonder rosebud rich in dew, Among its native briers sae coy, When pu'd and worn a common toy. Tho' thou may gaily bloom awhile; WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN (1813-1865) YTOUN the second, balladist, humorist, and Tory, in proportions of about equal importance, -one of the group of wits and devotees of the status quo who made Blackwood's Magazine so famous in its early days,- was born in Edinburgh, June 21st, 1813. He was the son of Roger Aytoun, "writer to the Signet"; and a descendant of Sir Robert Aytoun (1570-1638), the poet and friend of Ben Jonson, who followed James VI. from Scotland and who is buried in Westminster Abbey. Both Aytoun's parents were literary. His mother, who knew Sir Walter Scott, and who gave Lockhart many details for his biography, helped the lad in his poems. She seemed to him to know all the ballads ever sung. His earliest verses were praised by Professor John Wilson ("Christopher North "), the first editor of Blackwood's, whose daughter he married in 1849. At the age of nineteen he published his 'Poland, Homer, and Other Poems' (Edinburgh, 1832). After leaving the University of Edinburgh, he studied law in London, visited Germany, and returning to Scotland, was called to the bar in 1840. He disliked the profession, and used to say that though he followed the law he never could overtake it. While in Germany he translated the first part of Faust' in blank verse, which was never published. Many of his translations from Uhland and Homer appeared in Blackwood's from 1836 to 1840, and many of his early writings were signed "Augustus Dunshunner." In 1844 he joined the editorial staff of Blackwood's, to which for many years he contributed political articles, verse, translations of Goethe, and humorous sketches. In 1845 he became Professor of Rhetoric and Literature in the University of Edinburgh, a place which he held until 1864. About 1841 he became acquainted with Theodore Martin, and in association with him wrote a series of light papers interspersed with burlesque verses, which, reprinted from Blackwood's, became popular as the 'Bon Gaultier Ballads. › Published in London in 1855, they reached their thirteenth edition in 1877. "Some papers of a humorous kind, which I had published under the nom de plume of Bon Gaultier," says Theodore Martin in his 'Memoir of Aytoun,' "had hit Aytoun's fancy; and when I proposed to go on with others in a similar vein, he fell readily into the plan, and agreed to assist in it. In this way a kind of a Beaumont-and-Fletcher partnership commenced in a series of humorous papers, which appeared in Tait's and Fraser's magazines from 1842 to 1844. In these papers, in which we ran a-tilt, with all the recklessness of youthful spirits, against such of the tastes or follies of the day as presented an opening for ridicule or mirth, at the same time that we did not altogether lose sight of a purpose higher than mere amusement, — appeared the verses, with a few exceptions, which subsequently became popular, and to a degree we then little contemplated, as the Bon Gaultier Ballads.' Some of the best of these were exclusively Aytoun's, such as 'The Massacre of the McPherson, The Rhyme of Sir Launcelot Bogle, The Broken Pitcher,' 'The Red Friar and Little John,' (The Lay of Mr. Colt,' and that best of all imitations of the Scottish ballad, The Queen in France.) Some were wholly mine, and the rest were produced by us jointly. Fortunately for our purpose, there were then living not a few poets whose style and manner of thought were sufficiently marked to make imitation easy, and sufficiently popular for a parody of their characteristics to be readily recognized. Macaulay's 'Lays of Rome and his two other fine ballads were still in the freshness of their fame. Lockhart's 'Spanish Ballads' were as familiar in the drawing-room as in the study. Tennyson and Mrs. Browning were opening up new veins of poetry. These, with Wordsworth, Moore, Uhland, and others of minor note, lay ready to our hands, as Scott, Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey had done to James and Horace Smith in 1812, when writing the Rejected Addresses.' Never, probably, were verses thrown off with a keener sense of enjoyment.» With Sir Theodore Martin he published also (Poems and Ballads of Goethe) (London, 1858). Aytoun's fame as a poet rests on his (Lays of the Cavaliers, the themes of which are selected from stirring incidents of Scottish history, ranging from Flodden Field to the Battle of Culloden. The favorites in popular memory are (The Execution of Montrose) and (The Burial March of Dundee.> This book, published in London and Edinburgh in 1849, has gone through numerous editions. His dramatic poem, "Firmilian: a Spasmodic Tragedy,' written to ridicule the style of Bailey, Dobell, and Alexander Smith, and published in 1854, had so many excellent qualities that it was received as a serious production instead of a caricature. Aytoun introduced this in Blackwood's Magazine as a pretended review of an unpublished tragedy (as with the 'Rolliad,' and as Lockhart had done in |