History of the house and race of Douglas and Angus

HOUSE OF DOUGLAS. I55
No man In arms that durst to him make head,
Did 'scape unfoil'd, on foot or foaming steed.
Which he, speaking of Marcellus, if he had lived, is wit-
nessed of this Earl Douglas, even by the adversary, whilst he
yet lived. To which purpose I remember, that worthy Sir
Philip Sidney, in his defence of poetry, writes of himself,
That he never heard the song of Douglas and Percy, but
he found his heart more moved therewith than with a trum-
pet; whereof he allegeth the cause to be the force and power
of poetry: though it be sung (saithhe) by some rude crowder,
and with no rougher voice than a gross style. What he saith
of himself, I doubt not but others have found in themselves:
neither is it the music of that rough singer that giveth it this
force, far less the virtue of the gross rhyme; it is the matter
that gives the efficacy, and the virtue of the man that beget-
teth a resembling virtue in the heart; not by poetry, but bv
the rightly described history. Indeed this is the man appar-
ently who hath given subject to those songs, being the first
that encountered with Percy in such a particular conflict: but
that which is commonly sung of the hunting of Cheviot seem-
eth indeed poetical, and a mere fiction, perhaps to stir up virtue;
yet a fiction whereof there is no mention either in the Scotch
or English chronicle: neither are the songs that are made of
them both one; for the Scotch song made of Otterburn tell-
eth the time, about Lammas, and the occasion to take
preys out of England; also the dividing of the armies betwixt
the Earls of Fife and Douglas, and the several journies, al-
most as in the authentic history. It beginneth thus:
It fell about the Lammas tide,
When yeomen won their hay.
The doughty Douglas 'gan to ride,
In England, to take a prey.
Whereas the other maketh, another occasion, and altogether
different; yet it is not more effectual to move virtue than the
true history here set down, nor indeed so effectual as it: and
therefore let it be read, and read over again, by such as 6le-