The later Chaucerian type is less directly derivative in its treatment of allegory and in its tricks of style, and is less southern in its linguistic forms. The greater poets who represent this type are Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas and Sir David Lyndsay. A critical tradition has exaggerated the importance of the minor writers who shared in this poetical outburst. Of some of the best known minors, such as Walter Kennedy (q.v.) and Quintyn Schaw, it would be hard to say that they are not as dull as their southern contemporaries. The greater portion of this Middle Scots "Chaucerian" literature is courtly in character, in the literary sense that it continues the verse of the cows d'amour type ; and in the personal sense that it was directly associated with the Scottish court and conditioned by it. What is not strictly allegorical after the fashion of the Romaunt of the Rose or Chaucer's exercises in that kind is for the most part occasional, dealing with courtiers' sorrow and fun, with the conventional plaints on the vanity of the world and with pious ejaculation. Even Henryson, perhaps the most original of these poets, is in his most original pieces strongly "Chaucerian," not ably in his remarkable series of Fables and in his Testament of Cresseid; and in the satire and Reformation heat of Lyndsay we have the old manner persisting in his Testaments and in his tale of Squyer Meldrum. There are, as might be expected, points of contact between the work of the "makars" and the more native and "popular" material. Each of the greater poets has left one example of the old manner of the alliterative romance-poem ; but the fact that in each case their purpose is strongly burlesque is significant of the change in literary outlook.
The non-Chaucerian verse of this period is represented by (a) alliterative romance-poems and (b) verse of a rustic and domestic character. Of the historical romance-poem there is little or nothing beyond Henry the Minstrel's Wallace (supra). Pieces of the gen eral description of Holland's (q.v.) Buke of the Howlat and the anonymous poems The Awntyrs of Arthur, Raul Coil3ear and The Pistill of Susan represent outworn forms. Strong as the Chaucerian influence was, it was too artificial to change the native habit of Scots verse ; and though it helps to explain much in the later history, it offers no key to the main process of succeeding centuries. Our knowledge of the non-Chaucerian material, as of the Chaucerian, is chiefly derived from the manuscript collections of Asloan, Bannatyne (q.v.) and Maitland (q.v.). The historical student will find anticipations of the manner of Ramsay, Fergus son and Burns, which criticism has too often treated as the exclusive expression of later Scotticism. It would not be diffi cult to show that the reaction in the 18th century against literary and class affectation (however editorial and bookish it was in the choice of subjects and forms) was in reality a re-expression of the old themes in the old ways. It is im possible here to do more than to point out the leading elements and to name the leading examples. These elements are, briefly stated (I) a strong partiality for subjects dealing with humble life, in country and town; (2) a whimsical, elfin kind of wit, delighting in extravagance and topsy-turviness; (3) a frank inter est in the pleasures of good company and good drink. The read ing of 15th- and 16th-century verse in the light of these will bring home the critical error of treating such poems as Burns's Cottar's Saturday Night, the Address to the Deil and Scotch Drink as en tirely expressions of the later poet's personal predilection. Of the more "ethical" or "theological" mood which counts for so much in the modern estimate of Scottish literature, there is little evi dence in the middle period. Even in the deliberately religious and moral work of the more academic poets this seriousness is never more oppressive than it is elsewhere at the time. If it becomes an obsession of many of the post-Reformation writers, it becomes so by the force majeure of special circumstances rather than in the exercise of an old habit.
Among examples of this rustic style are Peblis to the Play and Christis Kirk on the Grene, ascribed by some to James V. (q.v.), Sym and his Brudir, The Wyf of Auchtirmuchty and the Wowing of Jok and Jynny. The more elfin quality, familiar in Dunbar's Ballad of Kynd Kittok and his Interlude of the Droichis Part, appears in such pieces as Gyre Carling (the mother-witch), King Berdok and Lichtounis Dreme. The convivial verse, at its best in Dunbar's Testament of Mr. Andrew Kennedy, may be studied in Quhy sould nocht Allane honorit be, one of many eulogies of John Barleycorn before Burns's well-known piece. In the collections there are few examples of the simple fabliau, the best being the Thrie Priestis of Peblis and The Dumb Wyf, or of the social va riety of the same as shown in Raul Coil3ear and John the Reeve. For the latter Sir David Lyndsay remains the chief exponent. Of historical and patriotic verse there are few specimens, but some of the lyrics and love-songs, more or less mediaeval in timbre and form, are of importance. Of these, Tayis Bank and The Murning Maiden are perhaps the best.
Vernacular prose was, as might be expected, and especially in Scotland, late in its appearance. The main work continued to be done in Latin, and to better purpose by Hector Boece (q.v.), John Major (q.v.) and George Buchanan (q.v.) than by the earlier annalists Fordun (q.v.) and Bower (q.v.). It is not till the middle of the 15th century that we encounter any works seriously under taken in the vulgar ; before that time there is nothing but an occa sional letter (e.g., that of the earl of March to Henry IV.), a few laws, and one or two scraps in the Asloan and other mss., all of the plainest and without any effort towards style. Nor can it be said that the first works of a more deliberate character show the awakening artistic consciousness found in contemporary writings in England. The earliest books are Sir Gilbert Haye's Buke of the Law of Arms, Bake of the Order of Knighthood and Government of Princes, preserved in a single ms. at Abbotsford. The dull treatise of John of Ireland (q.v.) lays claim to originality of a kind. The author's confession that, being "thretty 3eris nurist in Fraunce, and in the noble study of Paris in Latin toung," he "knew nocht the gret eloquens of Chauceir," and again that he had written another work in Latin, "the tounge that I knave bet ter," is valuable testimony to the difficulties in the way of a strug gling Scots prose. Other preliminary efforts are the Portuus of Nobilnes; the Spectakle of Luf, translated by G. Mill (1492) ; and the Schort Memoriale of the Scottis Corniklis, an account of the reign of James II. In the early 16th century the use of the ver nacular is extended, chiefly in the treatment of historical and polemical subjects, as in Murdoch Nisbet's version of Purvey, a compromise between northern and southern usage; Gau's Richt Vay; Bellenden's (q.v.) translation of Livy and Scottish History; the Complaynt of Scotlande, largely a mosaic of trans lation from the French; Ninian Winzet's Tractates; Lesley's (q.v.) History of Scotland; Knox's (q.v.) History; Buchanan's (q.v.) Chamaeleon; Lindesay of Pitscottie's (q.v.) History; and the tracts of Nicol Burne and other exiled Catholics. In these works, and especially in Knox, the language is strongly southern. The Scriptures, which had an important bearing on literary style, were, with the exception of Nisbet's version, accepted in the southern text. It was not till the publication of Bassandyne's Bible in 1576-79 that a Scottish version was used officially. Lynd say in the midst of passages in Scots quotes directly from the Genevan version. The Complaynt of Scotlande is the most strik ing example of "aureate" Middle Scots, the prose analogue of the verse of the "Chaucerians"; but the manner is rare in prose, even at this time. The last and most extravagant illustration of it is the Rolment of Courtis by Abacuck Bysset, as late as 1622.