Quher is the well of mercie and of grace,
That I may [ftand] befoirr his godlie face:
Unto the devill I leif my fynnis" all,

Fra him thai came, to him agane thei fall *.

Some readers may perhaps be of opinion, that Makgregor was one of those Scottish lairds, who lived profeffedly by rapine and pillage: a practice greatly facilitated, and even fupported, by the feudal system. Of this fort was Edom o' Gordon, whofe attack on the caftle of Dunse is recorded by the Scotch minstrels, in a pathetic ballad, which begins thus.

It fell about the Martinmas,

Qhen the wind blew fchril and cauld,
Said Edom o' Gordon to his men,

We maun draw to a hauld:

And quhat a hauld fall we draw to,

My mirry men and me?

We wul gae to the houfe o' the Rhodes,

To fee that fair ladie'.

Other parts of Europe, from the fame fituations in life, afford instances of the fame practice. Froiffart has left a long narrative of an eminent robber, one Amergot Marcell; who became at length fo formidable and powerful, as to claim a place in the history of France. About the year 1380, he had occupied a strong castle for the space of ten years, in the province of Auvergne, in which he lived with the fplendor and dominion of a petty fovereign; having amaffed, by pillaging the neighbouring country, one hundred thoufand francs. His depredations brought in an annual revenue of twenty thousand floreins. Afterwards he

w Sins..

- V. 309. Leq.

Percy's BALL. i. 100.

is tempted imprudently to fell his castle to one of the generals of the king for a confiderable fum. Froiffart introduces Marcell, after having fold his fortress, uttering the following lamentation, which strongly paints his system of depredation, the feudal anarchy, and the trade and travelling of those days. "What a joy was it when we rode forthe at adventure, "and fomtyme found by the way a ryche priour, or mar"chaunt, or a route of mulettes, of Montpellyer, of Nar"bone, of Lymons, of Fongans, of Tholous, or of Car"caffone, laden with clothe of Bruffelles, or peltre ware comynge from the fayres, or laden with spycery from Bruges, from Damas, or from Alysaunder! What"foever we met, all was ours, or els raunfomed at our pleasures. Dayly we gate newe money; and the vyllaynes of Auvergne and of Lymofyn dayly provyded, and brought to our caftell, whete mele, breed [bread] ready baken, otes for our horfes and lytter, good wynes, beffes, "and fatte mottons, pullayne, and wylde foule. We were ever furnyfhed, as though we had been kings. Whan we "rode forthe, all the country trembled for feare. All was "oures, goynge or comynge. Howe toke we Carlafte, I "and the Bourge of Companye! and I and Perot of Bernoys "toke Calufet. How dyd we scale with lytell ayde the

ત

“

'

stronge ́caftell of Marquell pertayninge to the erle Dolphyn! I kept it not past fyve dayes, but I receyved for "it, on a fayre table, fyve thousand frankes; and forgave one thousand, for the love of the erle Dolphyn's chyldren. By my faithe, this was a fayre and goodlie life! &c."

But on the whole I am inclined to think, that our teftator Makgregor, although a robber, was a perfonage of high rank, whose power and authority were fuch, as to require this indirect and artificial mode of abufe. For the fame reafon, L believe the name to be fictitious.

z See tom. ii. c. 170. f. 115. a. 313. b. Berners's Transl.

And tom. i. c. 149. f. 73. See also, ib. c.. 440.

I take this opportunity of observing, that the old Scotch poet Blind Harry belongs to this period; and, at the fame time, of correcting the mistake, which, in conformity to the common opinion, and on the evidence of Dempster and Mackenzie, I have committed, in placing him towards the close of the fourteenth century. John Major the Scotch hiftorian, who was born about the year 1470, remembered Blind Harry to have been living, and to have published a poem on the achievements of Sir William Wallace, when he was a boy. He adds, that he cannot vouch for the credibility of those tales which the bards were accustomed to fing for hire in the castles of the nobility. I will give his own words. Integrum librum Gulielmi Wallacei Henricus, a nativitate "luminibus captus, meæ infantiæ tempore cudit: et quæ vulgo dicebantur carmine vulgari, in quo peritus erat, confcripfit. Ego autem talibus fcriptis folum in parte "fidem impertior; quippe qui HISTORIARUM RECITATIONE

CORAM PRINCIPIBUS victum et veftitum, quo dignus erat, "nactus eft"." And that, in this poem, Blind Harry has intermixed much fable with true hiftory, will appear from fome proofs collected by fir David Dalrymple, in his judicious and accurate annals of Scotland, lately published “.

I cannot return to the English poets without a hint, that a well-executed history of the Scotch poetry from the thirteenth century, would be a valuable acceffion to the general literary history of Britain. The fubject is pregnant with much curious and instructive information, is highly deferving of a minute and regular research, has never yet been uniformly examined in its full extent, and the materials are both acceffible and ample. Even the bare lives of the vernacular poets of Scot

land have never yet been written with tolerable care; and at prefent are only known from the meagre outlines of Dempster and Mackenzie. The Scotch appear to have had an early propensity to theatrical reprefentations; and it is probable, that in the prosecution of fuch a defign, among several other interesting and unexpected discoveries, many anecdotes, conducing to illuftrate the rife and progrefs of our ancient drama, might be drawn from obscurity.

SECT.

SECT. XV.

OST of the poems of John Skelton were written in the reign of king Henry the eighth. But as he was laureated at Oxford about the year 1489, I confider him as belonging to the fifteenth century.

Skelton, having studied in both our universities, was promoted to the rectory of Difs in Norfolk'. But for his buffooneries in the pulpit, and his fatirical ballads against the