Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, Vol. 1 of 3: With Memoir, Notes and Glossary
I obeyed this call, with the more alacrity as I had recently traced, with a different view, the history of the scoto-saxon language, and had cast a curious eye on the life and labours of Lyndsay, the Langelande of Scotland. The notions of Lyndsay, indeed, are very different from mine, both as a politician and a poet; but, I perceived, that the republication of his poetrymight be made the commodious vehicle of my own sentiments, with regard to the origin, the nature, and the introduction of the Teutonic tongue into Gaelic Scotland. In performing the task, which I had thus imposed on myself, I now lay before the reader a new edition of the Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, corrected and enlarged, with the Historie of Squyer Meldrum, and the Satyre of the Three Estaitis. By troubling several friends, and making many searches, I have been enabled to give some new notices of our satirist, who, to use Dryden's phrase, may be said to have lashed vice into reformation. I have endeavoured to adjust the chronology of Lyndsay's several poems, which had never been before essayed. I have given an historical view of the Scottish speech, previous to his age, with observations on his language. I have settled the text of our vernacular poet, from a diligent collation of the oldest editions of his poems. And I have subjoined an appropriate Glossary which inciden tally demonstrates that the common source of Scottish speech is the anglo-saxon dialect of the Northum brian kingdom.
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