"That riche Dooke his fest gan hold
With Erls and with Baronns bold."
I cannot conclude my account of this curious manuscript, without acknowledging that I was indebted to the friendship of the Rev. Dr. Blair, the ingenious professor of Belles Lettres, in the University of Edinburgh, for whatever I learned of its contents, and for the important additions it enabled me to make to the foregoing list.
To the preceding articles two ancient metrical romances in the Scottish dialect may now be added, which are published in Pinkerton's Scottish Poems, reprinted "from scarce editions," Lond. 1792, in 3 vols. 8vo. viz.
38. Gawan and Gologras, a metrical romance; from an edition printed at Edinburgh, 1508, 8vo. beginning:—
"In the tyme of Arthur, as trew men me tald."
It is in stanzas of thirteen lines.
39. Sir Gawan and Sir Galaron of Galloway, a metrical romance, in the same stanzas as No. 38, from an ancient MS. beginning thus:
"In the tyme of Arthur an aunter[526] betydde
By the Turnwathelan, as the boke tells;
Whan he to Carlele was comen, and conqueror kyd," &c.
Both these (which exhibit the union of the old alliterative metre, with rhyme, &c., and in the termination of each stanza the short triplets of the Turnament of Tottenham), are judged to be as old as the time of our K. Henry VI., being apparently the production of an old poet, thus mentioned by Dunbar, in his Lament for the Deth of the Makkaris:
"Clerk of Tranent eik he hes take,
That made the aventers of Sir Gawane."