Seeking some uncouth cave where I may dwell,
Pensive and solitarie without measure."
[691:B] For an account of this author, and of a poem of his printed in 1631, see Wood's Fasti, vol. i. col. 147; and Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 291.
[691:C] A poem in Alexandrines, printed at the end of the first edition of his "Pilgrimage of Princes."
[692:A] The 200 Sonnets are followed by 100, entitled "Sundry affectionate Sonets of a feeling conscience;" by 20, called "An Introdution to peculiar prayers," and by 59, termed "Sonnets of the Author to divers." In "The Return from Parnassus," Lok is thus, not undeservedly, sentenced to oblivion:—"Locke and Hudson, sleep you, quiet shavers, among the shavings of the press, and let your books lie in some old nook amongst old boots and shoes: so, you may avoid my censure."—Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49.
[692:B] This is attributed to Markham on the authority of Mr. Haslewood. See British Bibliographer, No. IV. p. 381.
[692:C] Mr. Park conceives this translation to be the production of Robert Tofte, rather than of Markham.—Ritson's Bibliographia, p. 274, note.
[693:A] It is to be regretted that no complete edition of the Works of Montgomery has hitherto been published. Those printed by Foulis and Urie in 1751 and 1754, are very imperfect; but might soon be rendered faithful by consulting the manuscript collection of Montgomery's Poems, presented by Drummond to the University of Edinburgh. This MS., extending to 158 pages 4to., contains, beside odes, psalms, and epitaphs, 70 sonnets, written on the Petrarcan model; and, if we may judge from the six published by Mr. Irving, exhibiting a considerable portion of poetic vigour. The Cherrie and the Slae, which, as the critic just mentioned observes, "has maintained its popularity for the space of two hundred years," must be pronounced in some of its parts, beautiful, and, as a whole, much above mediocrity. Sibbald has printed ten of our author's poems in the third volume of his Chronicle of Scottish Poetry.
[694:A] The Sonnets of Murray appeared five years anterior to those of Drummond, and though not equal to the effusions of the bard of Hawthornden, are yet entitled to the praise of skilful construction and frequently of poetic expression. A copy is now seldom to be met with; but specimens may be found in Campbell's History of Poetry in Scotland, and in Censura Literaria, vol. x. p. 374, 375.
[694:B] This poet, who, in the former part of his life, practised as a physician, at Butley, in Cheshire, was a Latin poet of some eminence, and one of the translators of Seneca's Tragedies, published in 1581.