Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Historie of Scotland > Volume 1, 1888

INTRODUCTION.
xv
“forghet our auld plane Scottis, quhilk gour mother lerit
gou ” (Winzet’s ‘Tractatis,’ addressed to Knox). His
vocabulary is copious, often rendered more so by his habit
of giving all the possible equivalents of a Latin word, the
meaning of which he could not satisfactorily express by
one Scottish form. In judging the style, it must be remem¬
bered that the work is a translation—that is to say, a style
of composition that is crucial to the most practised writer
of any language, and one that tempts the less perfect master
to strain to the utmost the capabilities, both in style and
meaning, of his perhaps less ductile mother-speech. Father
Dalrymple’s style is necessarily affected by contact with
the Latin, which in those, and even in later days, was
looked upon as a perfect language, the type of excellence,
all departure from which was branded as “ barbarous.” On
the other hand, translation tends to bring out all the
powers of a language ; and this, together with the fact that
the present work is in prose form, will combine to give a
special interest to this specimen of “ Scottish text.”
III.
BISHOP LESLIE.
Bishop Leslie is too well-known a figure in Scottish his¬
tory to require minute delineation here. It will suffice to
recall the main facts of his life. He was born on the 27th
September 1526,1 of the Cults branch of the Leslie family,
descended from the Barons of Balquhain. He was educated
at the University of Aberdeen, and after a series of minor
1 Irving says 1527, but the epitaph at Brussels says : “ Excessit prid. kalend.
Junii a. D. mdxcvi. Aetatis suse 70.