or LYNDSAY, SIR DAVID, a Scottish poet, descended from a younger branch of the family of Lord Lindsay of Byres, was the eldest son of Lindsay of Gar- myton, in the county of Haddington, and of the Mount, in the county of Fife. He was born in Fife at some period before 1500, and, according to the ordinary opinion, studied at St Andrews from 1505 till at least 1508. How he was employed for several years after this period is uncertain; but in 1512 he became an attendant upon the infant prince, afterwards James V., and, according to Buchanan, in his History, was also "special servant" to the king. His wife, Janet Douglas, had for many years charge of the king's linen. In 1524 he was removed from his post, as an obstacle to the ambitious projects of the Earl of Arran, who had married the queen dowager. His pension, however, was continued. Impatient under his absence from court, he published in 1529 his Complaynt, in which he feelingly reminds the king of his gentle and devoted services to him when a child. No sooner had James secured, in 1530, the full regal power, than he conferred upon Lindsay the office of Lyon King-at-Arms, and soon afterwards the honour of knighthood. In his new capacity, he was sent with two others, in 1531, on an embassy to Charles V. touching the commerce between Scotland and the Netherlands. He was one of the ambassadors that bore proposals of marriage from the king, first in 1535, to a princess of the imperial family, and in the following year to a daughter of the Duke of Vendôme; but in both cases without success. James married Magdalene of France in July 1537; and in two months after Lindsay wrote his poem entitled, The Deploration of the Death of Quene Magdalene. After the king's death in 1542 he supported the regency of the Earl of Arran as long as it was favourable to church reformation. In 1543, and the two succeeding years, he represented in parliament the burgh of Cupar; and in 1544 he was sent on an embassy to the emperor to deliver the insignia and the statutes of the order of the Golden Fleece, which had been conferred on the late king. Four years afterwards he was an ambassador at Copenhagen. At an early stage of his career Lindsay had incurred the hatred of the priesthood, by lashing with his piquant satire their avarice, profligacy, licentiousness, and absurd religious ceremonies, but had been shielded from their persecution by the favour of James V. Soon after the murder of Cardinal Beaton in 1544, he was forced to take refuge, along with other reformers, in the castle of St Andrews; and, in 1547, was one of those who urged Knox to receive ordination. In 1548, by his mission to Denmark, he secured free trade in grain with that country for Scottish merchants. He is supposed to have passed his latter years in retirement, and to have died at some period between 1555 and 1558.

A poet, in the highest sense of the term, Lindsay certainly was not. His claim to notice is chiefly derived from his stinging satire, and his intrepid exposure of ecclesiastic disorders, the two weapons that he wielded so effectively in the battle of the Reformation. His vivacity, his manly common sense, and his true and humorous delineations of manners, long rendered him a favourite with his countrymen. His paintings, however, of the vices of that age are too minute, and too severely faithful to suit the taste of the present day. Amid much inelucence and pedantry, he displays occasional taste, and a fair acquaintance with history, divinity, and Latin literature.

His largest poem, The Monarchie, ane Dialog betwixt Experience and ane Courteour, seems to have been the work of his advanced age, and is little else than a compendium of universal history, forming the basis, however, of many acute generalizations. A translation of it into Latin prose, by Andrew Robertson, was, in 1591, re-translated into Danish verse by Jacob Mattson. His Dreame, supposed to be his earliest poem, is characterized by Warton as evincing strong talents for high description and rich imagery. In his Complaynt there is a lively and faithful sketch of the author's own fortunes, of the manners of the age, and of the gradual corruption of James V., by the designs and vicious example of his courtiers. More amusing and satirical is his Supplication directit to the Kingis Grace, in contemplation of Side Teillis; in which, after an unscrupulous exposure of the absurdities of the over-long skirts of the ladies, he concludes that they are the offspring of pride, the parent of all evil. Kitteis Confession, a satire upon auriicular confession, is characterized alike by good sense and severe pungency. A more poisoned weapon, his Testament and Complaynt of our Sovereane Lordis Papingo (or Parrot), was aimed at both courtiers and clergy. His Tragodie of the Cardinall Beaton is deficient in elegance and vigour. The mock-heroic tilt of two rival leeches of the king's household is cleverly described in his Justing betwixt Watson and Barbour. In spite of its offences against good taste and decency, the Historie of Squyer Melstrum is, perhaps, the most amusing of all his works. The Squire, a contemporary of the author, combines the character of a hero of classical antiquity with that of the hero of more modern romance; but his adventures, though facetiously enough described, bear too strong a similarity to the real events on which they are founded, to be romantic. The most elaborate, however, of all his productions, is the Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, the earliest specimen now extant of the genuine Scottish drama. A moral play, rather than a regular drama, it contains real characters, who mingle freely with impersonations of virtues and vices. Its merciless blows are dealt indiscriminately against the monarch, the nobility, and especially the clergy; a severity, however, which did not prevent it from being represented before the king and his court at Cupar, about 1535, and at Linlithgow about 1539. Its mixture of piety with gross obscenity is almost unexampled.

Besides his poetical works, he left two treatises on Heraldry, the one still in manuscript, and the other a curious collection of blazonings, lately published. The MSS. of these are preserved in the Advocates' Library. Bale, in his Scriptores Britanniae, attributes to him the Acta sui Temporis; and Mackenzie affirms that he was the author of a History of Scotland. There is no sufficient ground for believing, with Dr Leyden, that Lindsay wrote the Complaynt of Scotland.

The latest edition of Sir David Lindsay's poems was published, with a life, prefatory dissertation, and glossary, by George Chalmers, London, 1806, 3 vols. 8vo. The chief authorities for the Life of Lindsay are, Lord Lindsay's Lives of the Lindsays, and Irving's Lives of Scottish Poets.