# Scotish Descriptive Poems/Preliminary Observations concerning Alexander Hume

THE
DAY ESTIVAL ;
A POEM.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
Alexander Hume, author of "The Day Estival," was the second son of Patrick, fifth Baron of Polwarth, from whom the family of Marchmont are descended. In the epistle to Dr. Moncrieff, royal physician, written about the 30th year of his age, he has mentioned some circumstances of his early life. After residing four years in France, he returned to Scotland, and applied to the study of law for three years, when disgusted with his profession, he retired from the bar, and exchanged the application of the lawyer for the assiduity of the courtier.
Retiring from the court, he entered into orders, and was appointed rector or minister of Logie, the names of ecclesiastical offices then floating between presbytery and prelacy. If, as has been conjectured with some plausibility, he was the author of the Invectives or Flytings, addressed to Montgomery under the signature of Polwart, these must have been composed while he retained the character of a courtier; and his disgust was probably completed by the superior applause which his adversary ​received. Hume, in his poems, speaks of the Scotch court with a considerable degree of asperity, and insinuates that he might be considered
And he says expressly,
I little gain deserved, and less I gat.
On the other hand, the invectives of Montgomery against Polwart, had the honour of being quoted by the young monarch James VI. himself, in the "Rewlls and Cautelis of Scotis Poesie." Montgomery, in one of his poems, triumphs on that poetical victory:
Polwart appears, from the invective of Montgomery, to have been born in the Merse; and it is certain that the name of Polwart is still retained with that of Hume by the Marchmont family. Dempster names the antagonist of Montgomery, Patrick Hume, and asserts that he derived the name of Polwart from his patrimonial estate. If Dempster could be depended on, the name of Patrick would determine the author of the Invective to have been the elder brother of the minister of Logie; but the authority of Dempster, who composed his work ​on Scotish authors in a foreign country, is by no means unerring; and Alexander our author admits, that in his youth he had practised a lighter kind of poetry than he afterwards cultivated. We are certain, however, that Alexander Hume published at Edinburgh, in 1599, his "Hymnes or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of poesie may be espied: Whereunto are added, the experience of the author's youth, and certain precepts serving to the practice of sanctification." The volume is dedicated "to the faithfull and vertuous Ladie Elizabeth Malvill, Ladie Cumrie," whom he celebrates for her poetry as well as for her piety. "I have seen," says he, "your compositions, so copious, so pregnant, so spiritual, that I doubt not but it is the gift of God in you." Lady Culross' Dream, one of these compositions, was long popular among the Scotish presbyterians; and Armstrong relates in his Essays that he recollected having heard it sung by the peasants to a plaintive air. The dedication is followed by an address to the Scotish youth, in which he exhorts them to avoid "profane sonnets and vain ballads of love, the fabulous feats of Palmerine, Amadis, and such-like reveries"; cautions them against the imitation of the profane ethnic poets either in phrase or substance, and advises them to follow the example of Du Bartas, and his own. "Some time," says he, "I delighted in such fantasies myself, after the manner of riotous young men; and were not the Lord, in his mercy, pulled me aback, and wrought a great repentance in me, I had doubtless run forward and employed my time and study in that profane and un​profitable exercise, to my own perdition." This address is dated December 9. 1594. His ideas concerning love poetry are exhibited in the following sonnet
ON LOVE.
This sonnet is less distinguished by poetical spirit, than by propriety of sentiment. The fire of chivalry was now evaporating in the extravagancies of romance and the vapid conceits of metaphysical love poetry; and both of these were regarded by the presbyterians as inimical to their cause. The Catholic party had encouraged the representation of plays, masques, and every other species of amusement which could attract the populace, and draw their attention from religious innovation. The presbyterians dreaded this species of seduction, as producing religious indifference and preserving a relish for the pomp of Romish worship. Plays, and every species ​of poetry, except religious, were proscribed; popular songs were parodied, to inculcate religious doctrines; and of all the early Scotish poets of the 16th century, Lindsay was the only one who retained his popularity. A similar process seems to have been observed by the Catholics in England; for L. Ramsey mentions that it was their custom to
The presbyterians interdicted the perusal of romances and love poems, with almost as great anxiety as the Catholics prohibited the use of the Scriptures. "Would thou intreat," says Hume to the Scotish ​youth; "Would thou intreat of prodigious miracles? Look the books of Genesis and Exode, or the works of our Saviour, of the prophets and apostles. Would thou have a subject of valiant deeds of arms? Read the books of Josua and the Judges, and of the kings of Israel and Judah. Would thou have store of wise sentences? Read the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Would thou have a subject of love? Look the Song of Songs; the love betwixt Christ and his church. Would thou rejoice or lament—praise or dispraise—comfort or threaten—pray or use imprecation? Imitate the old Hebrew David in his Psalms, as a pattern of all heavenly poesy." The general success of Hume, in the style of poetry which he adopted, will not render his example very attractive. He seems to have curbed his fancy assiduously, and to have forcibly confined his imagination to the common-place phraseology of Calvinism; a phraseology which, however proper for the simplicity of theology, is extremely unfit for the purposes of poetry. The selection of descriptive images, and the fluency of versification which he exhibits, are sufficient to prevent him from being confounded with the Sternholds and Hopkins of the period in which he lived. Besides the religious controversies of that period, the civil dissentions which agitated the country, may be enumerated among the causes which impeded the progress of Scotish poetry, and withered the laurels on the brows of her bards.
In preparing this poem for the press, the original edition of Hume's Poems has been collated with a MS. of the Wodrow collection, in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. The phraseology of Hume is rather English than Scotish; and the orthography, which, at the period when our author lived, was extremely fluctuating and uncertain, has therefore been reduced to the modern standard, except in the Scotish words and phrases which he has adopted.
* ↑ Montgomery's Poems, MS.
* ↑ L. Ramsey's Practice of the Divell, London.
* ↑ Welsted's Works, 1787, p. 74.
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