If povertie, imprisonment, or pane,
If for guid-will ingratitude agane,
If languishing in langour but relief,
If det, if dolour, and to become deif,
If travell tint and labour lost in vane,
Do properly to poets appertane,
Of all that craft my chance is to be chief.
Like Dunbar, Montgomerie appears to have become serious in his later years, “the productions of which,” to quote his latest editor, “breathe a tender melancholy and unaffected piety, inspired with hopes of a fairer future, in strange contrast to some of his earlier work.” To the spirit of these years must also be attributed a metrical version of Psalms, fifteen in number, apparently part of a complete metrical paraphrase which he, in conjunction with some other writers, offered to execute for the public free of charge.
It is gathered from the anonymous publication of this collection of Psalms, entitled “The Mindes Melodie,” and from his series of epitaphs, that the poet was still alive in the year 1605; but he was dead before 1615, according to the title-page of a new edition of “The Cherrie and the Slae,” printed by Andro Hart in that year.
According to his own poetic statement, he was small of stature, fairly good-looking, and afflicted with the painful disease of gravel.