LINDSAY, SIR DAVID, a Scottish poet, was born at Garmylton, in Haddingtonshire, about the end of the 15th century. He inherited from his father the estate of The Mount,' in Fifeshire, whence, to distinguish him from many others of the same name, he is usually called Sir David Lindsay of the Mount In the year 1512, he was appointed servitor, or gentleman usher, to the young prince of Scotland, afterwards James V., In which office his duties seem really to have been of a servile kind. There is little doubt that his genius and good humour must have made him a very animated and delightful companion to his charge. He seems never to have been entrusted with the educa tion of the prince, which was placed in the hands of a much graver personage—Bishop Gavin Dunbar.
Lindsay's name is connected with a curious and poetical incident. He is the authority on which his kinsman, Lindsay of Pitseottie, in his Chronicles of Scotland,' describes a spectral apparition which, in 1513, appeared to James IV. in the church of Linlithgow, and warned him against that campaign which terminated so fatally in the battle of Flodden. Sir David professed to have seen the apparition approach and vanish, and described him as " ane man clad in a blue gown, beltit about him with a roll of linen cloth, a pair of bootikins on his feet to the great of his legs, with all other clothes conform thereto." The 'Drama,' supposed to be the earliest of his writings, appeared in 1523 ; it is a satire on the times, representing a vision of the punish ment of the prevailing iniquities in the other world. His principal pieces are Complaint of the Papingo ;" Complaint of John the Com monweil ;" History of Squyer Meldrum;" The Monarchie ;' and The Play, or Satire on the Three Estates.' There is little sentiment or pathos in Lindsay's poetry—a fierce and unscrupulous tone of sarcasm is his principal quality. All that was powerful in the country came
nnder his lash, and it is one of the most inexplicable circumstances in literary history that he should not have been the victim of his audacity. Ile particularly excelled in his attacks on the priesthood and the cor ruptions of the court ; and after the Reformation his name was long popular as that of a Protestant champion. 'The Satire on the Three Estates' stands half way between the early 'Mysteries' and the dramas of the latter part of the 16th century. It was sometimes acted in the open air, and could not have failed strongly to excite popular feeling tgainst the corruptions, civil and ecclesiastical, which it unsparingly :xpose I. "It is a singular proof," says Sir Walter Scott, "of the iberty allowed to such representations at the period, that James V. and his queen repeatedly witnessed a piece in which the corruptions of the existing government and religion were treated with such satirical severity." Another feature that makes the circumstance of Lindsay's performances having such an audience, seem strange at the present lay, is their broad indecency. It is certainly beyond that of the other writers of the age, for 'Davie Lindsay,' as he was long called in Scot land, seems to have had an innate liking for what was impure. His Squyer Meldrum' is a sort of chivalric history of adventures, some of which exhibit a very loose and dangerouimerality. Lindsay held the office of Lord Lyon King at Arms. In 1537 he had the task of preparing some masques or pageants to celebrate the arrival of Mary of Guise, queen of James V. The time of his death is not known, but he is said to have been alive in 1567.
(Lord Lindsay, Lives of the Lindsays ; Irving, Lis es of Scottish Poets.)