THE following old Poem, the composition of King James I. of Scotland, was discovered by Dr. Percy, the Editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, and published in the Second Volume of a late Collection of Select Scottish Ballads, (by Mr Pinkerton) anno 1783. Dr. Percy informs us, that this poem is preserved in the Pepysian Library, at Magdalen College, Cambridge, in an ancient M. S. collection of old Scottish songs and poems in folio, which had been a present to the founder of that library, (Mr Pepys) from the duke of Lauderdale, minister to king Charles II. It had originally belonged to that duke's ancestor Sir Richard Maitland, Knt. who lived in the reign of Queen Mary, and her son, King James VI. This poem is alluded to by King James I. in the 4th line of first stanza, of his poem of Christ's Kirk of the Green, and it is quoted as his composition by John Major in his Scottish History. Major seems to hint that a parody had been made of this poem of the King's, for on the subject of some low intrigue in which he had been discovered, his words are" Jucundum artificiosum il"lum Cantum (composuit) at Beltayn, &c. quam "alii de Dalkeith et Gargeil mutare studuerunt, quia in arce aut camera clausus servabatur, in qua mulier cum matre habitabat." σε Peebles, the scene of the poem is the head town of the county of Tweeddale, situated on the banks of the river Tweed, in a pastoral country abounding with game, which made it often to be resorted to by our ancient Scottish Kings, who frequently spent the summer months in administering justice, and the diversions of the chase,, and where a great annual fair was held on the first of May, or Beltein, which was attended by multitudes from the surrounding country. James was undoubtedly present at one of these fairs; and as he frequently strolled about the country under an assumed character, was probably an actor in the scuffle which he so admirably delineates. The annual games of archery, and other pastimes at Peebles, appear to have been of very ancient institution. |