Page:Buke of the Howlat.djvu/99

 10 APPENDIX ding an appearance, as the scene in the Punic or Carthaginian language, which Plautus has inserted in one of his comedies.-(Poenulus, Act. v. Sc. 1.)" St. LXLIV.--"The order of the entertainment is given very correctly, and may be considered as a picturesque delineation of a banquet of the period. There is first a religious hymn to the Virgin ; then a vocal and instrumental concert ; then the deceptions and tricks of a juggler or conjuror ; then the in- trusion of the Irish bard, with behaviour as rude as his dialect—his combat with the two professed fools-and the fight of the two fools or jesters with each other—all of which were amusements peculiar to the period. In paint- ings of the older schools, we often see such strange associations as persons of quality feasting at the high dais, while beggars attend in the porch, and dwarfs and jesters are gamboling or fighting on the floor." -Manuscript Note by Sir W. Scott. St. LXVIII.- If nothing more were meant by the Owl, than the bird com- monly so called, I should scarcely think the improvement of his form, what the critics call a Dignus Vindice Nodus, a cause of sufficient importance to war- rant the introduction of such a Prosopopeia as Nature." -Manuscript Critique, &c. p. 12. St. LXXVI. 1. 9.—In a note to the preface, (p. 2,) the false reading of The CROWNE in Pinkerton's edition is taken notice of; as on these words part of the strength of his argument is founded. But except in one other instance, I have not thought it necessary to trouble either the reader or myself in pointing out the errors which have crept into that edition of the Howlat; which, indeed, without any sort of exaggeration, might perhaps be termed the most inaccu- rate copy of any old Scotish poem which has in our days been submitted to the publick. The blame, however, (it is but just to remark,) does not rest with the editor, who, in this, as well as in other instances, was obliged to trust to persons who were not very competent to the task. In the conclusion to the preface, a curious passage in Blind Harry's Wallace, alluding to the Howlat, is given; and it is rather singular, that the comparison which is there made use of, should have been adopted from so fabulous a writer by our old historian, John Major, whose words again have been re-echoed by subsequent writers.--Historia, etc. Paris, 1521, fol. LXXI. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY. MDCCCXXIII.