SCOTISH POEMS, NEVER BEFORE IN PRINT. BUT NOW PUBLISHED FROM THE MS. COLLECTIONS OF SIR RICHARD MAITLAND, WITH LARGE NOTES, AND A GLOSSARY PREFIXED ARE AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN OF SCOTISH POETRY. AND AN APPENDIX IS ADDED, CONTAINING, AMONG VOLUME I.. LONDON, PRINTED FOR CHARLES DILLY; AND FOR M.DCC.LXXXVI. PREFACE. THAT the most valuable collection of Scotifh Poetry in the world fhould remain, for a century, in a public library in England, without having its best contents put in print; and even without being known to the prefs; will not move our wonder, when we recollect that the Bannatyne MS. fell into like obfcurity in Scotland itself till 1724, when the Evergreen was published: nay that the fecond publication from it fo late as 1770, by Sir David Dalrymple Lord Hailes, is the only one to be depended on. It cannot indeed be matter of furprize that all the manuscripts of Scotish poetry written in the Sixteenth century fhould meet no notice till the commencement of the Eighteenth, For the Seventeenth century, fatal to the good taste of Italy, threw a total night over Scotland: a night of Gothic darkness, haunted by the most fhocking spectres of frenzy and fanaticism, mingling in infernal uproar with still more horrible phantoms of ecclefiaftic vengeance, bigotted perfecution, civil tyranny, flaughter, and flavery. Paffing, almost without refpite, from the ecclefiaftic dæmonarchy of Land to the civil dæmonarchy of Lauderdale; from the rancour of a hot brained priest, to the favage madness of a brutal peer; Scotland weeped over her unhappy fons, who, having long maintained their liberties against tyrants, now last them to the flaves of tyrants: and, overwhelmed with anguish, could never attend to fcience, nor the arts of elegance. Not one writer who does the leaft credit to the nation flourished during the century from 1615 to 1715, excepting Burnet, whofe name would indeed. honour the brightest period. In particular no poet whofe works merit prefervation arofe. By a fingular fatality, the century, which ftands highest in English history and genius, is one of the darkeft in thofe of Scotland. But, when that era was paft, the tafte for literature and poetry revived in Scotland. In 1710 Gawin Douglas's Virgil was republifhed at Edinburgh, with a most learned gloffary, by Ruddiman; and about the fame time Watson the printer publifhed a collection of Scotish poetry in two parts, tho of little value; and also reprinted Gordon's poem on Bruce, from the Dort edition 1615 In 1719 Lord Prefident Forbes published Hardy knute. At laft, in 1724, Allan Ramfay found access to the Bannatyne MS. and publifhed the Evergreen, for a long time the best collection of Scotifh poetry. And, from 1748 to 1760 chiefly, many pieces of that kind appeared from the elegant prefs of the Foulifes at Glasgow. Since which time, this province of literature has been further honoured with the names of of Lord Hailes, Dr. Percy, Mr. Calander, and Mr. Tytler. But, returning to our MSS. thofe which furnish this publication are cotemporary with Bannatyne's. The date of these manuscript collections of Scotish poetry made by Mr. George Bannatyne, one of the canons of the cathedral of Murray, is inaccurately given 1568. Was the collection begun, or finished at that time? Does the date stand at the beginning, or the end? Pieces are there found of Heywood, and of Withers, English poets; certainly no work of the latter was published before 1568. To suppose the collection written in one year were groundless, when in all probability it took twenty. His last respectable editor has even been fo cruel as to call him one Ballantyne, in the first fentence of his preface; but every reader would certainly wish for fome notices, even from parish-registers, about a man by whom alone, it was then thought, fome of the best pieces of the ancient poetry of Scotland had been faved from utter perdition. The ftory of the manufcript itself were certainly worth giving; for all we know of it is, that it belonged to the Earls of Hyndford, but was within. thefe dozen years given to the Advocates' Library. From whom did it país to the Earls of Hyndford, or was it always in the family? The Maitland Collections, from which this work is felected, confist of two volumes; a Folio, begun as would feem from dates about 1555, and ending with an epitaph on the collector, who died March 20, |