Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Poems of Alexander Montgomerie

362
NOTES TO MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
A sonnet ofWyatt’s deals with the same theme : ‘ The Lover having
dreamed enjoying of his Love, complaineth that his Dream is not
either longer or truer’ (Aldine Edition, p. 4). Compare also the poem
entitled ‘ A most rare and excellent Dreame ’ in the Elizabethan
miscellany, ‘The Phoenix Nest’ (1593), where the line occurs, ‘She
with hir hand doth put the curtaine by,’ a close parallel to ‘And
with hir harmeles handis the cowrteingis drew,’ 1. 3 of the sonnet
in the Laing MS. Sonnet li. in Alexander of Menstrie’s Aurora
has the same subject:—
“ I dream’d the nymph that ore my fancie reignes
Came to a part whereas I pans’d alone
Then said, ‘ What needs you in such sort to mone?
Have I not power to recompense your pains ? ’ ” &c.
The ultimate source of his fancy is no doubt to be found in the
‘Romance of the Rose.’ Cf. 11. 2552-2585.
XXIII.
The appearance of the name ‘I. Arnot’ at the end of this sonnet,
without the customary ‘ quod ’ before it, does not warrant us in taking
this to be the name of the author. Underneath Sonnet xxv. are
scribbled four names (v. p. 220 n.), two of which are lames and loannes
ArnoL There is no means of identifying these. A ‘Johnne Arnot’
was provost of Edinburgh in 1589 {v. Pitcairn’s ‘Criminal Trials,’ 14th
May 1589). Another, or perhaps the same, John Arnot appears in the
Register of the Privy Council in 1606, and is described as burgess of
Edinburgh and servitor to the King. In the same year also appears
the name of ‘Sir Johne Arnote, Treasurer-depute.’ See also Letters
and State Papers of the reign of James VI., p. 153 (Abbotsford Club).
The sonnet is quite in the manner of Montgomerie.
219. 3. Quhois teith surpasSS \e oriant peirle in hew. Cf. Mont¬
gomerie, xxxv. 44, ‘Hir teeth lyk pearle of orient.’
XXIV.
The author of this sonnet has probably had in mind a passage from
Henryson’s fable of ‘ The Preiching of the Swallow’:—
“ The firmament payntit with sternis cleir
From eist to west rolland in cirkill round
And euerilk Planet in his proper Spheir
In mouing makand Harmonic and sound ;
The Fyre, the Air, the Walter, and the ground—
Till understand it is aneuch, I wis,
That God in all his werkis wittie is.”
It may strengthen the supposition that the sonnet is by Mont¬
gomerie to point out that Henryson’s fable of the Swallow is alluded