Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XIII. GAWIN DOUGLAS. 415the soft season, the serene fiiTnament, the still [illumined] air, and thepleasant frith. The silver-scaled fishes, on the gravel, ghding hastily, asit were, from the heat or sun, through clear streams, with fins shiningbrown as cinnabar, and chisel-tails, dartled here and there. The newlustre enlightening all the land, (60) the beryl-like strands shone over againstthose gravelly-beds-of-streams, till the reflection of the beams [of day]filled the pleasant banks ivith variegated gleams ; and [sweet] Flora threwforth her blooms under the feet of the sun's brilliant steed. The bladedsoil was embroidered with various hues. Both wood and forest weredarkened with boughs, whose pretty bratiches were depicted on the groundthe red roclts appeared distinct, with clearly-marked shadows. Towers,turrets, battlements, and high pinnacles, (70) of churches, castles, andevery fair city stood depicted, every finial (?) vane arid story npon theplain country, by their own shadoiv. The glebe, fearless of the northernblasts of [Eolus], spread out her broad bosom [in order to receive lowdown in her lap the comforting inspiration of Zephyrus.] The corntopsand the new-spning barley reclothe the earth with a gladsomegarment. [So thick the plants sprang in every plot, (80) that the fieldswonder at their fertile covering. Busy dame Ceres, and proudPriapus, rejoice in the fertile plains, replenished so pleasantly andmost fittingly, nourished wondrously nobly by nature, stretching abroad,under the round circle, upon the fertile skirt-laps of the ground]. Thevariegated vesture of the [beauteous] valley covers the ttirfy furrow,and every sod was diversified with leaves of very various shapes.(90) Eachspray was sprinkled dispersedly loith springing shoots ; because of the freshmoisture of the dewy night, restoring [partially] its former height to theherbage, as far as the cattle [in the long summer's day], had [eaten and]cropped [it away in their pasture.] The [pretty] blossoms in the blowinggarden tnist their heads to the protection of the young sun. Rankivy-leaves overspread the wall of the rampart. The blooming hawthornclothed all his thorns in flowers.'The latter part of Warton's paraphrase is so sketchy, and, in manyplaces, so hopelessly incorrect, that the reader could only glean ageneral idea of the sense from it, and it is hardly worth consulting.Some of his errors are extraordinary, and serve as instances of the factthat many a scholar who can translate Latin and Greek with ease ishelplessly at sea as to the meaning of many words in Old English.the part which I have already quoted, the tenses are sometimes confused.It must be observed, however, that the grammar in the original also shewssigns of confusion.This was owing to the great influence of Chaucer^ swritings. His Scotch imitators sometimes go so far as to imitate hisgrammar. Thus the true Scottish pres. participle ends in -and, as inIn