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

IV. JAMES I {OF SCOTLAND). 381will be found ' A full lamentable Cronycle of the Dethe and falseMurdure of James Stewarde, last Kynge of Scottys.' This account differsin many particulars from that given by Bower and other Scottishhistorians. In an edition of the Mirrour for Magistrates, printed in1563, there is a legend written by Baldwyn, and entitled How Kyng'James the First, for breaking his othes and bondes, was by God'ssuffraunce miserably murdered of his owne Subiectes ; ' but this wasomitted in later editions.There are other editions of the Kingis Quhair, beside those byTytler and Chalmers, as e. g. one printed at Perth in 1786. Warton hasa note upon the poem in his Hist, of Eng. Poetry, sect, xxv., note thefirst; vol. ii. p. 328, ed. 1840; vol. iii. p. 121, ed. 1871.The word qnhair, our modern quire, was originally applied to anysmall book. Thus Lydgate begins the last stanza of his Chorle andBird with the line'Goo, litell qnayer, and recomande me,' &c.Roxburghe Club edition, 181 8.Again, in the colophon, to the Paternoster, Ave, and Credo, printedby Wynkyn de Worde in 1509, we are told that Thomas Betson ' dreweand made the contentes of this litell quayer and exhortation.'See alsoSkelton's Works, ed. Dyce, i. 422.The extract here given may be compared with the edition ofthe Kingis Quhair, in The Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish'Kings,' by G. Chalmers, 1824; p. 84. The text given by Chalmers ismodernized throughout, except in the case of such words as he printsin italics. It is consequently not very correct, neither are the notesquite to be depended upon. I quote a few of them, which I mark withthe letter C.Stanza 152. Endlang, along; Germ, entlang.Maner sonn, kind of sound.153. Sonne-, the final e is sounded, being preserved from elisionby caesura. Chalmers prints sun, to the injury of the metre.154. 'I found a way which seemed to be a highway.' The final ein bye should, perhaps, be sounded, but an extra word seems to berequired. It must be carefully borne in mind that this poem is by nomeans written in pure Lowland-Scotch ; the influence of Chaucer wasthen so supreme that his Scottish imitators frequently copied, not onlyhis words, but his dialect and mode of pronunciation.155. Fere, companion, mate.Smaragdyne, emerald or green-coloured stone. Mr. Chalmers ispuzzled to know how a panther can be like an emerald ;but we must