Scottish Text Society publications > New series > Kingis quair; together with A ballad of good counsel

INTRODUCTION.
xxxui
St. 97, 1. 5. A syllable too much. Omit that; the omis¬
sion of the relative is common.
St. no, 1. 4. Read tabartis as tab arts ; this use of s for
final -is occurs frequently, when a substantive has more
than one syllable, and the accent is thrown back. So also
kdlend's, st. 177, 1. 7.
St. 158, 1. 3. Imperfect, either owing to the caesura, or
because furth should be forouth; see the note, p. 92.
St. 159, 1. 2. Perhaps read round-e, dissyllabic.
St. 161, 1. 1. Er-myn seems to count as having three
syllables.
For further information, as to elision, slurring, &c., the
reader is referred to my remarks on Chaucer, already
noticed above.
§ 18. The Ballad of Good Counsel is written in a pure
Northern dialect, without a single example of a Southern
form. As several stanzas in the Kingis Quair are free from
Southern forms, this circumstance furnishes no presumption
against its authenticity. The style is precisely that of the
Kingis Quair, and I have no doubt that it should be ac¬
cepted as being from the same hand. The earliest MS. is
of the end of the fifteenth century.
§ 19. I have to add a final remark on the grammar. The
Northern writers who imitated Chaucer seem to have got
into trouble with the suffix -ing, or else the scribes did not
understand it. This is shown in my preface to Lancelot of
the Laik (Early English Text Society). The Chaucerian
suffix -ing denoted the present participle, or a substantive
derived from a verb; but it was confused with the Midland
suffix -en of the present indicative plural, and with the com¬
mon English suffix -en of the past participles of strong verbs.
Hence, in st. 45, 1. 4, I-fallyng stands for I-fallen, the pp.,
c