popularly called The Rhymer, and maintaining that theory in an elaborate and ingenious Introduction and a large body of curious illustrative annotation. One of the Appendices to this volume, which has been several times reprinted, contained an account of the contents of the Auchinleck MS., consisting of forty-four pieces in all of ancient poetry, complete or imperfect. Scott, it may be remarked, here acknowledges that there can be little doubt of the volume, which consists of 334 leaves of parchment, the writing being in double columns, in a nearly uniform hand of the earlier part of the fourteenth century, having been compiled in England; and many circumstances, he says, lead him to conclude that the MS. has been written in an Anglo-Norman convent. In 1810, Scott's friend, Mr. Henry Weber, brought out at Edinburgh, in 3 vols. 8vo., his collection entitled "Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, published from Ancient MSS.; with an Introduction, Notes, and a Glossary.' This work contains the romances of 'King Alisaunder' (8034 lines), 'Sir Cleges' (540 lines), Lay le Freine' (402 lines), 'Richard Cocr de Lion' (7136 lines), 'The Lyfe of Ipomydon' (2346 lines), 'Amis and Amiloun' (2495 lines), "The Proces of the Seuyn Sages' (4002 lines), 'Octouian Imperator' (1962 lines), 'Sir Amadas' (778 lines), and "The Hunttyng of the Hare' (270 lines). The next collection that appeared was that of Mr. Edward Vernon Utterson, entitled 'Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry; republished principally from early printed copies in the Black Letter:' 2 vols. 8vo., Lond. 1817. It contained the metrical romances or tales of 'Syr Tryamoure' (1593 lines), Syr Isenbras' (855 lines), Syr Degore' (993

lines), 'Syr Gowghter' (685 lines); besides a number of other pieces (occupying the second volume) which cannot be included under that denomination. Next followed Mr. David Laing's three collections :-the first entitled 'Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland,' 4to., Edinb. 1822; containing twenty-five pieces in all, among which are 'The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn,' being another copy, from a MS. of the fifteenth century in the library of Lincoln cathedral, of Pinkerton's 'Sir Gawan and Sir Galaron of Galloway ;' and the tale of 'Orfeo and Heurodis' (that is, Orpheus and Eurydice), from the Auchinleck MS., being another and very different version of Ritson's 'Sir Orpheo:' the second, entitled 'Early Metrical Tales,' 8vo., Edinb. 1826; containing 'The History of Sir Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Graysteel' (2860 lines), 'The History of Roswall and Lillian' (876 lines) (which the same editor had printed separately in 1822), together with other poems and shorter pieces, all from earlier printed copies: the third, entitled The Knightly Tale of Golagrus and Gawane, and other Ancient Poems,' black letter, 4to., 1827; being a reprint of an unique volume in the Advocates' Library, printed by W. Chapman and A. Myllar, in 1508, and containing eleven pieces in all, among which, besides Golagrus and Gawane,' are 'The Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice' (another version, attributed to Robert Henryson, a Scottish poet of the fifteenth century), and 'Sir Eglamour of Artoys,' which is analyzed in Ellis. This last-mentioned volume is extremely scarce, only seventy-four copies, most of them more or less damaged, having been saved from a fire at the printer's. The unique volume of which it is a reprint, and which is in a

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very decayed state, was presented to the Advocates' Library by a medical gentleman of Edinburgh, about 1788, and is understood to have been picked up somewhere in Ayrshire. One of the pieces, The Porteus of Noblenes,' the last in the collection, is in prose. Then came the Rev. Charles Henry Hartshorne's 'Ancient Metrical Tales, printed chiefly from Original Sources,' 8vo., Lond. 1829; containing, besides several pieces in other kinds of poetry, 'The Romance of King Athelstone,' 'Florice and Blanchefour' (apparently from the Auchinleck MS.), and a portion of the alliterative romance of Willyam and the Werwolf.' There have also been printed, by the Roxburgh Club, 'Le Morte Arthure; the Adventures of Sir Launcelot du Lake,' 4to., Lond. 1819, from the Harleian MS. 2252, being one of those analyzed by Ellis; Chevelere Assigne — that is, the Chevalier au Cygne, or Knight of the Swan-from the Cotton MS., Cal. A. 2, being a translation of a portion of a French romance, which is also preserved (with `a short Introduction and Glossary by Mr. Utterson), 4to., Lond. 1820; 'The Ancient English Romance of Havelok the Dane, accompanied by the French text, with an Introduction, Notes, and a Glossary, by Frederick Madden, Esq.' (now Sir F. Madden), 4to., Lond. 1828 ; and 'The Ancient English Romance of William and the Werwolf, edited, with an Introduction and Glossary, by Sir Frederick Madden,' 4to., Lond. 1832: by the Bannatyne Club, 'The Buik of Alexander the Great, reprinted from the Metrical Romance printed at Edinburgh, by Arbuthnot, about the year 1580,' 4to., Edinb. 1834; 'The Seven Sages, in Scotch metre, by John Rolland of Dalkeith, reprinted from the edition of 1578,'

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4to., Edinb. 1837; The Scottish Metrical Romance of Lancelot du Lak, from a MS. of the Fifteenth Century,' (edited by Joseph Stevenson, Esq.), 4to., Edinb. 1839; and Syr Gawayne, a Collection of Ancient Romance Poems, by Scottish and English Authors, relating to that celebrated Knight of the Round Table, with an Introduction, Notes, and a Glossary, by Sir Frederick Madden' (including 'Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyght,' The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne,' 'The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane,' and an Appendix of shorter pieces), 4to., Lond. 1839: by the Maitland Club, Sir Beves of Hamtoun, a Metrical Romance, now first edited from the Auchinleck MS.' (by W. B. D. D. Turnbull, Esq.), 4to., Edinb. 1838 : by the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs in conjunction, Clariodus, a Metrical Romance, from a MS. of the sixteenth century' (edited by Edward Piper, Esq.), 4to., Edinb. 1830 by the Abbotsford Club, 'The Romances of Rowland and Vernagu, and Otuel, from the Auchinleck MS.' (edited by A. Nicholson, Esq.), 4to., 1836; and Arthour and Merlin, a Metrical Romance, from the Auchinleck MS.' (edited by Mr. Turnbull), 4to., 1838: and by the Camden Society, Three Early English Metrical Romances, with an Introduction and Glossary, edited by John Robson, Esq.,' 4to., Lond. 1842; the three Romances (which are edited from a MS. of the fifteenth century, called the Ireland MS. from its former possessor of that name) being 'The Anturs of Arther at the Tarnewathelan' (other versions of which, as already noticed, have been printed by Pinkerton, Laing, and Madden*); 'Sir Amadace' (a different version of

*Mr. Robson (who is rather sparing of distinct references)

which is in Weber's Collection); and 'The Avowynge of King Arther, Sir Gawan, Sir Kaye, and Sir Baw

says (Introduction, p. xii.) that this romance was first printed by Pinkerton in his SCOTTISH BALLADS; remarking again (p. xvi.) that "Pinkerton published it as a Scottish ballad." The collection, in fact, in which Pinkerton published it, as mentioned above, was entitled 'Scotish Poems,' 1792. The curious notice of this proceeding by Ritson, to which Mr. Robson refers, occurs in his 'Ancient English Metrical Romances,' vol. iii. p. 230, in a note on Ywaine and Gawin,' where he says, "Two other romances on the same subject, but in a dialect and metre peculiar to Scotland, are printed in Pinkerton's Scotish Poems; the one from an edition at Edinburgh in 1508, the other from a MS., the property of the present editor, which the said Pinkerton came by very dishonestly." It appears from a letter of Ritson's, dated December 26, 1792, published in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1793 (vol. lxiii. p. 32), that he was then in possession of the MS., which had belonged to his friend Mr. Baynes of Gray's Inn, and that his complaint against Pinkerton was that the latter had printed the poem from a transcript made by a third party many years before, which transcript the gentleman who made it declared he had never considered fit for the press; assuring Ritson, moreover, on his refusal to allow a collation of the original, for which Pinkerton had applied, that the piece should not be printed by the latter at all. Pinkerton, in his Preface, or 'Preliminaries,' (vol. i. p. xxx.) merely says that the poem "was copied many years ago by a learned friend, from a MS. belonging to Mr. Baynes of Gray's Inn, who was a noted collector of romances of chivalry." The MS. afterwards got into the possession of the late Mr. Douce, and is now, with the rest of his collection, in the Bodleian Library. In another place (p. xviii.) Mr. Robson observes, "Sir Walter Scott, where he alludes to this poem in his MINSTRELSY, asserts that it is not prior to the reign of James the Fifth of Scotland; but in his Introduction to SIR TRISTREM he is satisfied that it was written long before the conclusion of the thirteenth century." The passages in which Scott advances these contradictory opinions are in the MINSTRELSY, iv. 147, and SIR TRISTREM, p. 57 (Poetical Works, edition 1833).