[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

—
THE PKAIS OF AIGE.
It is rather surprising that either Lord Hailes or Dr Irving, in commenting
on the " Flying," should have had the slightest doubt as to the real
character of the " vi'ar of vi^ords" between the Poets. Such invective in
an age, and amongst a people by no means deficient of honour, could not
have been exercised, unless as good-natured banter, without leading to
serious consequences—neither Dunbar nor Kennedy being persons of mean
estate. So far from umbrage existing between them, Dunbar, in his
" Lament for the Makars," thus feelingly alludes to the dangerous state of
Kennedy's health :
" And Mr Walter Kennedie
In pynt of dede lies wearily.
Grit reuth it Were that so should Be,
Timor mortis conturbat me."
The egotism of Kennedy, when he lauds himself as " of Rhetory the Rose,"
and as having been
" Inspirit with Mercury fra his golden spheir,"
would be perfectly intolerable, were not the Flyting understood as a burlesque.
From the allusions to Carrick by Dunbar in the Flyting, there
\
can be no doubt that Kennedy belonged to that part of Ayrshire. Be- \
yond this fact, however, and that he was the third son of Gilbert, first
Baron Kennedy, very little is known of his history. Mr David Laing, to
whom the literai'y world is greatly indebted for his valuable edition of
Dunbar's poems,* and who has gleaned all that is likely to be ever ascer-
\
\
tained regarding Kennedy, conceives that he must have been born " be-
\
fore the year 1460." He was educated for the Church, and studied at
the University of Glasgow, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in \
1478, and was " elected one of the four masters to exercise the office of \
examinator in 1481." Mr Laing is of opinion that the Flyting was writ- \
ten between the years 1492 and 1497. If so, it is evident, both from the
allusions of Dunbar and Kennedy himself, that the latter resided at the \
time in Carrick, where he seems, from an action brought before the Lords \
of Council, to have filled the situation of Depute-Baille of Carrick, under
|
* The Poems of William Dunbar, liow first collected. With notes, and a memoir }
of his life. By David Laing. Edinbm-gh, 1843.