Your law may be perfect, your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill, and yet without individual acquaintance with men, their haunts and habits, the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult, slow, and expensive.

Since the customary age for entering a Scottish university at this time was fourteen a birth-date of 1459 or 1460 has been assumed. Several of Dunbar's poems were included in the Chepman and Myllar prints of 1508 the first books to be printed in Scotland. Examples of this type are The Satire on Edinburgh The General Satire the Epitaph on Donald Owre and the powerful vision of The Dance of the Sevin Deidlie Synnis.

He was closely associated with the court of King James IV of Scotland and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguiWilliam Dunbard by its great variation in themes and literary styles. This article is about the Scottish poet for other people of this name see William Dunbar (disambiguation).