with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

25
MOW Schoolmaster in Irvine. He is the Davie to
whom I address my 'printed -poetical epistle in the
measure of the Cherry and the Slae.^
* The Cherry and the Slae was written by Capt. Alexander
Montgomery (See "The Evergreen," 1724). He died 1591.
To the admirers of this Allegory the following excerpt from an
-unpublished work by the late Mr. Ritson will be interesting.
" That this Poem was written before 1584 is evident from its
being repeatedly quoted by K. James VI. in his ' Rewlis and
Cautells of Scottis Poesie,' printed in that year. Ramsay tells
ns, that his edition is taken from two curious old ones, the first
printed by Robert Walgrave, the King's printer, in 1597, accord-
ing to a copy corrected by the author himself; the other by
Andro Hart, printed 1615, said on the title-page to be newly
altered, perfyted, and divided into 114 quatuorzeims, not long
before the author's death."
" The first of these editions, however, so far from having been
corrected by the author, is both grossly inaccurate and mani-
festly surreptitious, not containhig above half the Poem, and
breaking off abruptly in the middle of a stanza. The other has
not been met with, which is one reason why the entire Foera
was not reprinted. Captain Montgomery was not, as is gene-
rally supposed, the inventor of this sort of stanza. He only imi-
tated a more ancient piece, intitled, * The Banks of Helicon,*
which is still extant; and the tune, to which both Poems appear
to have been originally sung, is still known in Wales by the name
of Glyn Helicon. The Allegory of this Poem (according to
Dempster, who translated it into Latin) is the conflict of the
Virtues and Vices, or theA^hoice of a state in Youth."