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

292
THE WORKS OF SIR DAVID LINDSAY
form which is evidently experimental, and not, admittedly, to his
credit as a versifier. The real stanzas of the measure are much better,
and do not cast discredit upon Howell’s performance at all.
The honour of having used the stanza really well has all gone to
Montgomery, and to this is due the traditional belief, which Ritson a
hundred and fifty years ago [Caledonian Muse (1785-1821), p. 37]
tried in vain to dispose of, that Montgomery invented the form. Ritson
stated quite rightly that ‘ Captain Montgomery was not, as is generally
supposed, the inventor of this measure. He only imitated a more ancient
piece entitled The Bankis of Helicon, which is still extant.’ Ritson,
however, was mistaken in thinking ‘ the " tune ” to which both poems
appear to have been “ sung ” ’ to be lost.
The existence of The Cherry and the Slae, which is also written
in this measure as early as 1584, is testified to by the admission of
one stanza as an example of the form in James VI.'s Reulis
and Cautelis of that year. The whole poem, however, was not pub¬
lished, so far as is known, until 1597, some seven years after the
appearance of John Burel’s poem in the same measure; while an
enlarged edition, done by the poet himself, appeared in 1615, five years
after his death. Burel’s poem. The Passage of a Pilgremer, the longest
ever to be written in this measure, dates from about 1590. This was
reprinted in A Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems . . .
Part II. (Edinburgh : Watson, 1710), a type-facsimile of which, to¬
gether with facsimilies of Part I. [1709] and Part III. [1711], was
published in one volume at Glasgow in 1869. After this the measure
fell into disuse until revived by Allan Ramsay for The Vision [‘ Compylit
in Latin be a most lernit Clerk . . . anno 1300, and translaitit 1524,’
but almost certainly by Ramsay himself], published in The Evergreen,
I. 211-230, and ‘ascribed’ by Ramsay to Alexander Scot, a false
ascription believed in by Ritson [Caledonian Muse, 204-218), though
the poem is not, of course, to be found in the Poems of Alexander Scot,
edited by J. Cranstoun for the Scottish Text Society, 1896.
From Ramsay it was borrowed by Burns for use in the first recitative
of The Jolly Beggars ; To Gavin Hamilton, Esq., recommending a Boy ;
Answer to Verses ; Epistle to Davie ; Despondency : an Ode ; To Ruin ;
and Written on a Blank Leaf in one of Mrs Hannah More’s Books. The
only modern poet to use it is Swinburne, A Word for the Navy.
The stanza is a quatorzain rhyming aab / ccb / dede / fgfg, in feet
of 443/443/4343/23/23. Lines n and 13 [f] are composed
of two internally rhyming amphibrachs, which led the writer of the
Mary Maitland Quarto MS., whether Mary Maitland or a professional
scribe, and also George Bannatyne, either to divide the last four lines
into six, as in the Maitland Quarto MS., or to mark with a double sign
of punctuation, //, the break in the line. One of Howell’s stanzas is
printed with the four lines divided into six.
Certain lines and half lines of Maitland’s Ballat of the Creatioun of
the Warld and Lindsay’s Monarche [685-1122] are identical, proof enough
of Maitland’s original source. The following list of parallel lines
indicates the most direct transferences, those marked with an asterisk
being identical. The two poems should, however, be compared in