Scottish Text Society publications > Third series > Chronicles of Scotland > Volume 2, 1941

APPENDIX.
459
may be due to a misunderstanding of the text; but most of the changes,
and they occur in every line, are arbitrary and meaningless “ improve¬
ments ” on the author’s spelling, scansion, and vocabulary. Allan
Ramsay’s estimate of Bellenden’s " muse ” is given, with rhetorical
exaggeration, in his lines on the contents of the Bannatyne MS.1:—
" Grave Balantyne in verse divinely wyse,
Makis Vertew triumph owre fals fleechand Vyse.”
Vertue and Vyce, mangled though it might be, was in 1750 republished,
along with Dunbar’s The Thistle and the Rose, as a sixpenny chapbook.2
A fair number of copies are extant, so that the book seems to have
had a certain, but not overwhelming, popularity. Thanks to Ramsay
also, Bellenden acquired a southern reputation : his “ tuneful vision ”
wins the praise of the Reverend John Langhorne,® whatever that may
be worth.
Later anthologies of Scottish verse usually include specimens of
Bellenden’s work.4 Sibbald 5 has the Proheme of the History and what
he calls An Allegorie of Vertue and Delyte (alias, the Proheme of the
Cosmographe). Eyre Todd8 prints selections from Bellenden’s known
1 David Laing’s Account of the Contents of the Bannatyne MS., given
as an Appendix in the S.T.S. edition of the Bannatyne MS., Vol. I.,
p. clxvi, and in The Sempill Ballates, p. 255. Printed from a broadside,
undated.
2 A volume of 38 pages, ? 200 x 120 mm. A general title-page
reads The Thistle / And / The Rose. / Vertue / And / Vyce / Two Antient
/ Allegorical / Scots Poems. / Price Sixpence. / A second title-page reads
The Thistle / And / The Rose. / A poem / In Honour Of Margaret, /
Daughter To Henry VII. Of England, / Queen to James IV. King of
Scots / The Thistle And The Rose, / O’er Flowers And Herbage Green, /
By Lady Nature Chose, / Brave King And Lovely Queen. / Glasgow : /
Printed And Sold By Robert And Andrew Foulis. / MDCCL. / p. (17)
is the title-page to Vertue and Vyce, which reads, Vertue / And / Vyce /
A / Poem, / Addrest To / James V. King Of Scots, / By The Famous
And Renown d Clerk, / Mr John Bellentyne, / Arch-dean of Murray. /
Glasgow : Printed And Sold By Robert And Andrew Foulis. / MDCCL. /
Ramsay’s version of the poem follows. Complete copies are in the Nat.
Lib. (Lauriston Castle collection) and the Mitchell Library, Glasgow.
Mitchell Library has also a copy, much cut down, containing only
Bellenden’s poem. The Signet copy wants the general title-page, and
has the order of the poems reversed, throwing out the paging. Edin.
Univ. Lib. copy wants the general title-page ; the book is bound
together with another chapbook from the Foulis press : The Speech
Of A Fife Laird . . . The Mare Of Collingtoun, The Banishment Of
Poverty ; Three Scots Poems (1751). The British Museum copy has the
general title-page misplaced, following p. 32.
3 Genius and Valour : A Scotch Pastoral, John Langhorne, Lond.,
1764 (2nd ed.), p. 12. 1st edition, ? 1763.
4 Cf. Geddie, Bibliography of Middle Scots Poets, p. 256 ff. Schipper
(Altenglische Metrik, 1881, pp. 520-522) quotes from Stewart (the
Metrical Chronicle), not from Bellenden, as stated by Geddie (p. 266).
6 Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, Vol. II.
* Scottish Poetry of the Sixteenth Century (Abbotsford Series).