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 6. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. to some of his companiors, "for as often as it v reported by Mr Patrick, the prophet would me this, I never understood what the prophet me Montgomery appears afterwards to have been the service of king James, who, in his Rewles a Cautelis, published in 1582, quotes some of t poems of the subject of this memoir. His service were acknowledged by a pension of five hundr merks, chargeable upon certain rents of the arc bishopric of Glasgow, which was confirmed in 15 and again in 1589. Various places throngha Scotland are pointed out by tradition, as have been the residence of Montgomery, particular the ruins of Compston Castle, near Kirkcudbrigl now involved in the pleasure grounds connect with the modern mansion of Mr Maitland of Du drennan. In 1586, the poet commenced a tour the continent. After his return, he was involv, in a tedious and vexatious lawsuit respecting 1 pension, which has drawn from him some seve remarks upon the lawyers and judges of that time. Of his principal poem, "The Cherry and the Slae the first known edition was printed by Robe Waldegrave, in 1607." The poet appears, from passage in a memoir of Mure of Rowallan, boy nephew, to have died between this date and 161 "The poems of Montgomery," says Dr Irving "display an elegant and lively fancy; and his vel sification is often distinguished by a degree of ha mony, which most of his contemporaries were in capable of attaining: He has attempted a great variety of subjects, as well as of measures, but h:

• Mr Chambers has overlooked the edition revised by t Author, published by the same person in 1597. See Lives Eminent Scotsmen, by the Society of Ancient Scots, London 1821, also The Cherry and the Slae, Glasgow, 1746.