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

i88
THE WORKS OF SIR DAVID LINDSAY
Poems of Walter Mapes, ed. T. Wright, Camden Society (1841), pp.
120-21], lines 483-86 :
Miror quod veritas, qua nulla pulchrior
est morum gemmula, nulla praestantior
jam apud aulicos est vappa vilior,
et in palatio phcenice rarior.
Cf. also William Stewart, " This hyndir nycht ” [ante, III. 76]. The
poet dreams of Lady Verity [lines 14-19, Bann. MS. text, S.T.S., II.
228]:
I askit of hir name for cherite
Debonerly scho anserit me pat bricht
And said thay call me lady varite
Quhilk fra thir bowndis lang hes beneist bene
Nor heir mycht haif no rest nor residence
Quhairthrow my freindis ar confundit clene . . .
Cf. Isaiah lix. 14, “ for truth is fallen in the street,” quoted by Lindsay
in lines 1175-1181 [see note].
1092. The Newtestament. Cf. lines 1144-46 :
Quhat buik is that harlot, into thy hand ?
Out walloway, this is the New Test’ment,
In Englisch toung, and printit in England.
As previously noted [Version II. " Date of Composition,” note I. (6)], the
first New Testament to be printed in English in England was The Newe
Testament yet ones agayne corrected by W. Tyndale, folio, ? London:
? T. Godfray : 1536. This was the ninth English printed translation.
The first was printed at Cologne in 1525 ; the second at Worms in
? 1526 ; the third to eighth at Antwerp by various printers, 1534-1535.
Godfray's New Testament was probably printed secretly in London in
1536, for it bears no printer’s name or place. The first authorised
English printed New Testament was that translated by Thomas Matthew,
printed at London in 1538, but Coverdale’s revision was printed, again
secretly, at Southwark by J. Nycolson in two octavo editions and one
i6mo., all in ? 1538. Between 1536-1538 the Antwerp presses issued
a further six editions. While Lindsay specifies that Veritie’s copy was
printed in England he may have believed, if Veritie and her Testament
appeared in Version I. in 1540, that the Antwerp-printed Testaments
had been printed in England.
In Kitteis Confessioun, 21, the Curate asks Kittie “ hard ?e na Inglis
bukis,” and she replies, " my Maister on thame lukis.”
1118. Lutherians : Lutherans, followers of Martin Luther (1483-1526),
the German Reformer. The word, first used in England in 1521 by
Archbishop Warham, was used by the sixteenth century Roman Catholics
as identical with Protestant, but is now used to denote a member of
the German Lutheran Church.
Note that lines n 13-19 should be an eight-line stanza : the last line
is wanting.