Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XIII.GAWIN DOUGLAS.A.D. 1513.Gawin Douglas, born in 1474 or 1475, was the third son ofArchibald, Earl of Angus, known in history by the nickname ofArchibald Bell-the-Cat ; see Note 2Y (59) to Sir Walter Scott'sMarmion. He is described in the Trinity IMS., mentioned below,as ' Master Ga^^7n Dowglas, provest of Sanct Gylys kyrk inEdinburgh, and person of lyntoun in louthiane, quhilk eftyr wasbischop of Dunkeld.' He died of the plague in 1522, in London.The poems by which he is best known are King ' Hart,' The'Palice of Honour,' and his translation of Virgil's ^neid. He notonly translated the twelve books of Virgil, but also the thirteenthbook of the ^neid, added by Maphaeus Vegius, who died in1458. This translation occupied him for sixteen months, as hehimself informs us, and was finished in 151 3. The whole of thework is of considerable merit, but the more interesting portionsof itare the original Prologues which are prefixed to each book.The best of these is, on the whole, that to the twelfth book, hereprinted entire from an excellent MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge,marked O. 3. 12. A good edition of the entire work,from the same MS., was printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1839,and was to have been followed by a Glossary, which has, how-