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do not see how the conclusion can be avoided that, if Golagrus and Gawane is Scottish, the Stately Poem must be Scottish also.

Having referred to Glossaries, we may farther here remark that, just as the Glossary of Sir F. Madden's volume, containing Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knight, with the two poems named before, &c., serves as a Glossary for Morte Arthure, very few words excepted, and the words in both occurring very much in the same proportion, so also will that Glossary be found to serve, in a great measure, for the Stately Poem. More words in the latter are not to be found in Sir F. Madden's volume, but that arises from the greater extent and variety of the work. Not a few, however, of those awanting may be supplied from Barbour's Bruce, or Jamieson. And in this case too the same proportion obtains in the marked occurrence of certain peculiar words, and their use in connection with others.

Independently of mere words, expressions, or language, Scottish and idiomatically Scottish too, which may be found with the least possible trouble, as occurring in common in all the four works that we have ascribed to the same author, there are very many whole lines to be found in almost every page of each, which have their parallels or counterfeits in some one or other of the rest. These lines are manifestly produced by the same mind-they are medals struck in the same mint, and from the same dies. These similar and almost identical common lines are found sometimes in two, sometimes in three, and occasionally in all four of these works. We might give specimens of these lines, but this head of proof labours under a perfect embarras de richesses, and the difficulty is to select, as our notes and scraps are quite covered with them. It is not necessary here, however, to go very largely or exhaustively, or indeed at all, into this branch of proof; as Mr Donaldson, at a very early period, made a selection of these parallel lines occurring in our author's works, and embodied them in an Introductory Essay, which it is intended shall follow this Preface.

That Huchowne was the author of the Stately Poem, our Troy Book, most satisfactorily accounts for the various references to Troy, and to Trojan and Greek leaders, which we meet with in Morte

Arthure, Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knight, &c. In the opening lines of Syr Gawayne we almost seem to meet with a quotation from the conclusion of the Stately Poem:

"Sithen the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye,
The borgh brittened & brent to brondes & askes,
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun ther wroght,
Was tried for his tricherie, the trewest on erthe;
Hit was Ennias the athel, & his highe kynde,

That sithen depreced prouinces, & patrounes bicome
Welneye of al the wele in the west iles,” &c.

These lines, and similar ones at the end of that poem, seem the natural outpouring of a mind that had been, or was still, engaged with such a subject as the Destruction of Troy.

While quite at sea as to everything else regarding the MS., except that it was partly a translation and partly an amplified paraphrase of Guido, one passage especially drew my attention, as giving no uncertain sound with respect to the nationality, if not to the authorship, of the work, and to that passage we may now advert at some length. It occurs on page 53 of the Gest Hystoriale, at line 1580, and thus commences,

"There were stallis by the strete stondyng for peopull,
Werkmen into won, and thaire wares shewe,

Both to selle and to se as thaim selfe lyked,

Of all the craftes token as there course askit," &c.

In the description of the rebuilding of Troy by Priam, Guido de Colonna has a similar passage, to which there is nothing corresponding in the Roman de Troie of Benoit de St-More, whom he translates or paraphrases. This passage contains an enumeration of the various artists, mechanics, and tradesmen who had their "stationes" in the streets of the new city. Guido enumerates 41 or 42 classes of these artists and tradesmen, of whom, while several have classical designations, so to say, the great majority are manifestly the craftsmen and mechanics of Italy in his time. In the corresponding paraphrase of our author there is also a list of 40 different craftsmen, but the two lists of names have very few in common. With the names of several given by our author I was especially struck, as very obviously and undeniably Scottish. Indeed, the whole list looked like the counter

part of that in Maitland's History of Edinburgh, or that which we meet with in the Historical Account of the Blue Blanket, or Craftsmen's Banner, while the concluding lines,

"With Barburs biggit in bourders of the stretes;

With all Maister men that on molde dwellis,

Onestly enabit in entris aboute "

at once stamped the author as at least quite familiar with the peculiarities, if not even a denizen of Auld Reekie.

There may not be much, indeed there would be nothing in this conjunction alone, as the name Entry is far more extensively used than from our inquiries we were at first disposed to believe. We were aware that it was used in the North of England, but with a meaning different from that which it bears in Edinburgh. In Hunter's Glossary of Hallamshire words an Entry is " a narrow passage among buildings," or what in Edinburgh is a close. The editor of the Townley Mysteries applies the word to a 'lobby in a farm house,' or what in Scotland is called a trance. The term is used in Belfast, where its introduction may be accounted for, and in other places, as with us; while in Suffolk, I am informed, it is applied "to the little passage inside the front or back door of a cottage or small farm-house." This is the porch, as it is called now in Scotland-the space behind the door separated from the rest of the house by the partition wall or hallan of olden times. But the question is, where, not of recent introduction, is the term applied in any place to the same thing as in this country; and, along with Entries, is there proof from early public records, such as Edinburgh or some other of the larger towns of Scotland can supply, that the crafts or trades of the city or town were at or about the date of our poem named as they are in it, and, with one exception, as they are in the Ancient Burgh Laws and City Records of Edinburgh? The question is relevant, because, as we shall see, one place with Entries has an old list of its crafts that materially differs from that of the poem. The poem has been ascribed to a Midland author, and in these days of public research it would not be difficult to ascertain how the matter stands with other Midland towns.

To every town-born Scot, and especially to every one familiar

A

with Edinburgh and its dwellings of the olden time, an entry is the very place to which he would look for, or in which expect, a countryman to speak of the dwellings of Master Craftsmen to be found.1 The circumscribed space and peculiar site on which Old Edinburgh stands rendered its lofty houses, eight or ten stories high, with its entries, wynds, and closes, absolutely necessary; and similar peculiarities elsewhere in Scotland have produced similar building arrangements, and hence the name entry, like wynd and close, is perfectly familiar to every town-born native of the country. For the benefit of others, however, it will be necessary to say that the entry was, as it still is, the covered or arched passage at the end of a house leading from the street to the back, where the common stair to the upper stories commenced. This covered entry might lead into a court or back square, or into a close, or narrow alley. Such common or public entries or passages were necessarily at all times open, and expressly under the jurisdiction of the magistrates. Some entries, however, were private, and closed especially at night, of which not a few examples yet remain throughout the country. The old house, in a country town, in which the writer's youth was spent, had such a private entry, like many others. The house itself was an ancient Temple tenement of three stories, the undermost being occupied as shops. It was built upon a strong vaulted substructure, like a church crypt, on which had probably stood long before a small monastic fortalice of the Knights Templars. The entry, in this case at the end of the house, was a flagged passage raised one step above the level of the street, and closed by a heavy two-leaved door. It terminated in a square space with the main entrance to the house on one side, and a flight of steps on the other leading to the offices and garden. In the same street a tenement, quite as old, but larger and more imposing, had its entry, not at the end of the house as usual, but right in the centre. The wide door-way was arched and closed with a ponderous gate. The spacious flagged passage leading to the back was several steps below the level of the

1 The phrase, or expression, besides, is the very one still used in Scotland. Persons are said to live in the entry, although their dwellings may be the attics of the house leading from it.

street, having the house entrance in the middle of the one side, and the writing chambers of the owner on the other. It terminated behind in the first of a series of garden terraces, which sloped down to the riverside or "Water Ends." Such entries, it will at once be seen, were the very places where the "Maister Men" and substantial Burgesses of these times would "enabit."

The "Stationes" of Guido, translated by our authors "Stallis," into which the "Operarii," or "Werkmen won," in all likelihood suggested the Lucken booths and the Cremes or Krames of the High Street of Edinburgh; and then how natural to name the "Craftes," or Incorporated Trades and Guildry of the city and its "Entris aboute." In the Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland, A.D. 1124-1424, the "Burges and the Marchand" take precedence, but the very first craftsmen that are mentioned are the "Baxtaris at bakis brede," and they are the first, too, named in the City Records of Edinburgh under date April 9th, 1443. As a surname how common Baxter is in Scotland any one may see, while Baker, except in one or two of the larger towns, is unknown.

In the Ancient Laws' mention is next made of 'thaim that sellis fysche,' what gif fleschewars graythis ivil flesche,' 'giff sowtaris that makis schone be barkaris,' 'off wobstaris that thai mak our lang thryms,''off sadillaris that mak sadillis of grene tymmer,' 'tailyeouris that sow with fals graith,' 'of coukes makand reddie flesche,' skynnaris that mak gluvis,' of wyn tawernaris,' &c. In the City Records these craftsmen are also named as well as Goldsmyths, Armoreris, Blaksmyths, Cutlaris, Masons, Wrights, &c., with such business as 'setting of mylnis,' and such words as 'woll wroght na lyttyt,' 'chese thaim,' 'werkaris, byggyt, ordanyt,' and a great many more that appear in our poem. In the Decreet Arbitral of James VI., which determined the "sett" of the burgh in his day, we read of

"the choosing of the Deakens of Crafts, quhilks are fourteen in number, to wit,

"Chirurgyans, Goldsmyths, Skynners, Furriers, Hammermen, Wrights, Masons, Tailyeours, Baxters, Fleshers, Cordiners, Websters, Waulkers, Bonnet-makers."

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