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

BIBLIOGRAPHY
5
1556
Lambeth MS. 332.
On paper, consisting of a title-leaf and 132 numbered folios,
signed in twelves, (A)-H, K-L, written on both sides, 25 lines
to the page, with rubricated initials, and sub-titles in Gothic.
The size of the folios is io£" X 8f". Bound in full calf of
late seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries. The title recto
is blank, the description of the contents being on the verso:
Heir begynnis ane litill dialog / betuix experience and ane /
courteoure of the miserabill / estait of ye Warld compylit be
/Schir dauid Lindesay of the/mont knicht, Lioun king of/
armis Ouhilk is diuidit in / foure parties as eftir followis /
begun on thurisday ye | ii | of / Junij 1556 |
The volume is excellently preserved. There is no evidence
of provenance or ownership, but sr . g, evidently the cost of
rebinding, is inscribed on the front cover. The binders sup¬
plied two blank leaves at the beginning and three at the
end, and on the first page of the MS. itself, the recto of the
title-leaf, pasted a small piece of paper over an inscription
consisting of two quatrains of religious verse, not in the same
hand as the MS., though belonging to the sixteenth century.
This MS. was supposed to have been thoroughly collated by
John Small for the second impression of the Early English
Text Society’s edition of The Monarche, but Small recorded
approximately only one-sixth of the variants, and although
I tried, I could not discover any system upon which he worked
in choosing his variants. For the first stanza of the Epistill
Small recorded four variants : actually there are twenty-two.
Among minor errors, which are many, he noted that the
heading The Epistill was not in the MS. when it is ; and in
another place, 1. 164, he noted sche as the MS. variant for the
printed he, when the scribe himself had deleted in red the
first two letters, sc. Small also omitted to record the very
important reading of 11. 94-95.
1554 reading:
Than neid that not to charge the realme of France
With Gounnis Galayis nor vther Ordinance
MS. reading :
Than neid you noc/rt to dreid ye greit outtrance
Off Innemyis 'frith aufull ordinance