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Men of good discretion
Should excuse and love Huchowne
That cunnand was in literature,
He made the great Gest of Arthure,
And the Adventure of Gawane,
The Pystyl also of sweet Susane.
He was curious in his style,
Fair of facund,2 and subtile,
And ay to pleasans and delyte,
Made in metre meet his dyte,3
Little or nought nevertheless,
Waverand frae the soothfastness." 4

THE above specimen of affectionate early criticism, from Wyntoun's Chronicle, modernized in the spelling, contains all that we know directly of the writer, whom the best authorities agree in placing second, in point of time, on the list of Scottish poets. His language is more obscure than that of Sir Tristrem; and Sir Frederic Madden considers the MS. of the poems, to which he maintains he has the best claims, the oldest extant of any author born north of the Tweed. But perhaps the best reason for placing him before Barbour is, that all the poetry attributed to him belongs to the romance school.

Dunbar, in his Lament for the Deth of the Makkaris (makers of poetry), mentions that—

"Clerk of Tranent, eik he hes tane,

That made the awenteris of Gawane."

In a second reference to this otherwise unknown poet, in the Maitland MS., the name is written The Clerk;

1 Skilful. 2 Speech.

3 Writing.

4 Wavering from the truth.

hence it has been assumed, by several Scottish antiquarian writers, that the Huchowne of Wyntoun, and the Clerk of Dunbar, must be the same person; and that Huchowne being the old Scottish form of the name Hugh, the one gives his name, and the other his profession, seeing both agree in making him the author of a poem bearing the same title. Dr Irving objects to this assumption, on the ground that both Wyntoun and Huchowne, in quoting the name Hugh, spell it Hew; yet he is disposed to follow Chalmers, who thinks there cannot be any doubt about the matter, in considering "the gude Schir Hew of Eglintoun," mentioned by Dunbar, as the author, on account of his connection with the Court of Robert Second, without seeming to see that, in that case, his name must be taken in the Gaelic form, which he calls the old Scottish. Besides, Dunbar does not make Sir Hugh the author of "The Adventures of Gawane," &c. Sir Fre deric Madden says the former assumption "is satisfactorily refuted by the internal evidence of the poem itself;" and that there are so many difficulties about the latter, "as justly to prevent our yielding assent to it without some additional evidence." There is the further objection that Wyntoun does not prefix any title to Huchowne, who, if he were Sir Hugh of Eglintoun, who was knighted in 1342, Wyntoun, about fifty years after, was not likely to

name as simple Huchowne. Dr David Laing, in his preface to The Pystyl of Swete Susan, says—“It seems however agreed among our poetical antiquaries, that this Hucheon was one and the same person with Sir Hugh of Eglynton, a Scottish poet of the fourteenth century."

Besides the poems ascribed to him by Wyntoun, all of which are still extant, Sir F. Madden credits him with the authorship of other three poems, still in MS., on allegorical or scriptural subjects, possessing great merit, and not previously pointed out. He also prints for the first time, from a MS. in the Cotton Collection of the British Museum. the romance of Sir Gawayne and The Grene Knyght. The Gret Gest of Arthure, the Gest Hystoryale, and the Gest of Broytty's Auld Story, mentioned by Wyntoun, he considers to be the same poem under different titles; and that, what in all probability is the MS. of this poem, is in Lincoln Cathedral Library.

Of the author he remarks-"It is I think certain, that the writer of the romance (Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyght) must have been a man of birth and education; for none but a person intimately versed in the gentle science of wodecraft, could so minutely describe the various sports of the chase; nor could any but an educated individual have been so well acquainted with the early French literature. Of his poetical talents, the pieces contained in the manuscript afford unquestionable proofs, and the descriptions of the change of the seasons, the bitter aspect of winter, the tempest that preceded the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, and the sea storm

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Als he to Carelele was commene, that conqueroure Kyde,

With dukes and ducheperes that with that dere duellys,

For to hunnte at the herdys, that lang hase bene hyde ;

And one a day thay tham dighte to the depe dellis,

To felle of the femmales, in the foreste wele frythede,

Faire in the fernysone tyme, by frythis and fellis.

Thus to the wode are thay wente, the
wlonkeste in wedys,
Bothe the kynge and the qwene.
And all the doghety by-dene,
Syr Gawane, gayeste one grene.
Dame Gayenoure he ledis.

* Sir Gawayne; a Collection of Ancient Romance-Poems, edited by Sir Frederic Madden, for the Bannatyne Club, 1839, pp. 301-2.

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