EXPLANATION OF THE VIGNETTE IN THE TITLE-PAGE OF THIS VOLUME.

As the cruel and unmerited fate, which terminated the bright career of Wallace, appeared to that ingenious gentleman who furnished me with this design, to be the object on which the mind especially rests in contemplating the history of his life, he has given to the block the principal place here. To this melancholy symbol, the crown of laurel, which, as we learn from the English chroniclers, was contemptuously put on the head of the hero during his trial at Westminster, is with great propriety transferred. Before it appears the fatal axe; also, the target of Wallace, together with the sword of his faithful friend Longueville, exactly copied from that preserved under this name in the house of Kinfauns. The headless body appears from behind. In the back-ground, rays of light are seen to dart forth, giving ground of hope that the dark clouds, which envelope this dismal scene, should be dispelled; and intimating, according to the sense of the inscription, that this cruel act of the tyrannical Edward, by which he hoped to extinguish the spirit of liberty in our native land, should only excite it anew,—the fall of Wallace being immediately succeeded by the intrepid appearance of Bruce, as asserting his claim to independent royalty.

By some of my learned friends, who are acquainted with the manuscripts of the preceding poems, I may be censured, perhaps, because I have rendered the contraction

by ss, instead of making it to denote is. I have not done so unadvisedly; and I could not have acted otherwise without sacrificing my own conviction. I preferred this mode for several reasons.

Another well known contraction, totally different in form, is used throughout these manuscripts, where there can be no doubt that is is meant. Had I adopted a different plan, I would have been laid under the necessity of rendering the contraction in a variety of modes. I must frequently have viewed it as signifying se. But here, in many places, I met with an obstacle that seemed insurmountable;—a different contraction being employed for denoting a word of this form, sometimes in the same verse, as in The Bruce, B. VIII. 353.

The king thus, that wes wycht and wys,

And rycht awise at diuiss, &c.

Here both contractions occur. If I did not give to the sign so ambulatory and indefinite a character, I must often have used a double i, where it could not be supposed that the writer meant to introduce it. Thus I must have given maiss, makes, in the form of maiis; raiss, arose, as raiis; cheiss, choose, as cheiis; pass, a strait and steep passage, as pais; and leiss, loss, as leiis, &c. &c.

The rhythm, as well as the sense, would also, in different instances, have materially suffered. Thus, in B. IX. 259, where we read;

And with all thair mycht schot egrely

Amang the horss men, that thar raid;

It would have been,

Amang the horsis men that thar raid.

In reading these poems, it must be observed, that, although is, the mark of the plural, is more generally to be viewed as a distinct syllable, this rule does not apply universally. Scottis, for example, is sometimes to be read Scott-is; at other times, when the rhythm requires an abbreviation, as if Scots. Even monosyllables are occasionally to be lengthened; as armes, denoting armour, must at times be pronounced armés. The same liberty seems to have been taken by Chaucer and other old English poets.

In the following Glossary, I do not pretend to explain all the words that may stumble a reader who is not well acquainted with our ancient language; for this would have almost required a volume. But I have not overlooked a single term that seemed to demand attention. For further elucidation, and for the explanation of some words that may have been overlooked here, I beg leave to refer to my Dictionary of the Scottish Language. It will greatly aid the reader of these works, if he recollect that many common words appear here under a disguised orthography, especially by the frequent use of w for v.

A
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[FOOTNOTES]

[A] Two or three words, apparently eucharistic, which have been added here, are mutilated in the MS.

[B] This building was taken down in 1835 and rebuilt.

[Transcriber's Note]

Duplicate headings have been removed.

The following apparent errors have been corrected:

The text contains many variant Scots spellings. In addition, the following are inconsistently used:

The following possible errors have been left as printed: