ROBERT, one of the best of the old Scottish poets, flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Very little is known of his personal history. He is described as having been the chief schoolmaster of Dunfermline. In one of his works he alludes to himself as "ane man of age;" and from Sir Francis Kynaston we learn that, "being very old, he dyed of a diarrhoea or fluxe." As to the time of his death it is certain that he predeceased Dunbar, who, in his Lament, printed in 1508, says—

"In Dunfermline he has taen Broun With good Mr Robert Henryson;" but the exact date of his death is unknown.

The best of Henryson's pieces is the beautiful, pastoral of Robene and Malayne, the earliest specimen of that kind of composition in Scottish literature, and one of the best pastorals in any language. The conduct of the story is as skilful as the diction is terse and elegant. It was first printed in Ramsay's Evergreen, Edinb., 1724, but became much more widely known when reprinted by Percy in his Reliques. Besides this pastoral, Henryson wrote a supplement to Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida; which in the editions of Chaucer, is generally appended to that poem, under the title of The Testament of Pair Cresseide. This poem is so beautiful in many of its parts, and displays such richness of fancy, and such touching earnestness of pathos that we must ever regret the poet's unfortunate choice of a theme. His largest work, however, is a collection of fables, thirteen in number, of which the best is undoubtedly the tale of the Vponlands Mouse and the Burgessse Mouse. Most of the subjects of these fables are drawn from Aesop, but not all. Among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum are preserved the Morall Fablellis of Esop, compylit by Maister Robert Henryson, Scoilmaster of Dunfermling, 1571. A few years later appeared the Fabulous Tales of Esop, the Phrygian, compiled moste elegantly in Scottishe meter by Mr Robert Henryson, and now lately Englished: London, printed by Richard Smith, 1577. A reprint of Henryson's Fables was made in 1832 for the Maitland Club of Edinburgh, from the edition of Andrew Hart, of which the only copy known to exist is preserved in the Advocates' Library of that city. The disputed tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is attributed to Henryson by Dr Irving and Mr Laing, though it is decidedly inferior to nearly all his other works.