Scottish Text Society publications > Third series > Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, 1490-1555 > Volume 4, 1936

INTRODUCTION.
xlix
in 1622 records Lindsay as a historian and poet of Scot¬
land, but gravely notes him as a heretic.1 John Row,
about 1625, tells a remarkable story of the confusion of a
friar by some schoolboys who had been reading Lindsay.2
The story refers back to the years immediately after
Lindsay’s death, and was probably traditional. In 1627
William Drummond presented a manuscript of Ane Satyre
of the Thrie Estaitis to Edinburgh University Library,
but it has long been missing.3 About 1639 John Spottis-
wood included a brief account of Lindsay’s share in the
work of reform in his History of the Church of Scotland*
and about 1645 David Buchanan wrote a bibliographical
‘ Life,’ he being the first to claim that Lindsay had been
educated at St Andrews University.5
In 1681 Samuel Colvil, in an imitation of Hudibras,6
mentions Lindsay’s Works and Squyer Meldrum as forming
part of the intellectual equipment of the Scottish Knight-
Errant, the first occasion on which Lindsay’s popularity
with the people is held up to ridicule. W. Nicolson in
1702 shows, in a brief biographical note, some accuracy of
information about Lindsay, but much also which is
woefully inaccurate.7 George Mackenzie,8 however, has
earned much more contempt on this account. Alexander
Pennecuik, in the light-hearted Merry Tales for the Lang
1 Thomas Dempster, Apparatus ad Historiam Scoticam (1622), pp. 9,
114 (cf. p. 22).
2 J. Row, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Maitland Club (1842), pp. 3-5.
For William Row’s notes, see pp. 311-12, and on these, see post, p. 156.
3 Auctarium Bibliotheca Edinburgena, sive Catalogue Librorum, etc.
(1627), p. 22.
4 J. Spottiswood, History of the Church of Scotland, Bannatyne Club
(1847-50), I. 144, 192.
5 Davidis Buchanani de Scriptores Scotis Libri duo, Bannatyne Club
(i837). PP- 99-ioo.
6 Samuel Colvil, Mock Poem. Or, Whiggs Supplication (1681), 2 parts ;
Part ii., p. 9.
7 W. Nicolson, Scottish Historical Library (1702), p. 159.
8 George Mackenzie, Lives and Characters of the Most Eminent Writers
of the Scots Nation, 3 vols. (1709-22); III. 35-40.
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