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INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
there is no great difficulty in supposing that this slight
variation in the interlacing rhymes of the sonnet should
not have suggested itself to the two poets independent
of one another. Still the fact remains that, so far as
can be ascertained, priority of publication rests with the
Scottish writers.
§ 23. A question of wider interest is the extent to
which in Montgomerie’s day the cultivation of Scottish
poetry in general was affected by the influence of
Elizabethan writers. Any lengthy discussion of this
would be out of place here ; but attention may be drawn
to some neglected scraps of evidence which tend to show
that the literary intercourse of the two countries was
more intimate than has as yet perhaps been supposed.
One initial difficulty, serious enough too, in the way of
reaching a satisfactory conclusion on this debatable
matter, is the comparative scantiness of the poetic re¬
mains which have come down to us from James’s reign.
It would appear that in Montgomerie’s time there was
no widely diffused interest in, and consequently but
little demand for, general literature, — a circumstance
attributable in large measure, no doubt, to the narrow¬
ing controversies of the Reformation, which warped the
Jowr Lordship his hienes first pruif and prentissage in poesie, Be the reiding
(\uheroi jowr Lordship will persaue a gude Inclinatioun in his rna/'gjtie to
do weill. I doubt not hot his nixt sail mak these fruictis to seme abortif.
Remitting the parent consideration of thame to Jowr Lordshipis discretioun
I commit jour gude Lordship to goddis holy protectioun. Arran, halyrude-
hous this xxviii of december 1584. To the richt honourabile my very gude
Lord, my L. Burghley L. heich thesaurer of England” (Lansdowne MSS.
No. 7, Brit. Mus.) It is very interesting to compare this very temperate
opinion of James’s “ first pruif and prentissage in poesie,” expressed in a
private letter, with the adulation which the royal author was receiving in
public.