Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/22

 text, though frequent, consist wholly of obvious errors in transcription or printing, and it is altogether probable, therefore, that Erskine's MS. was merely a copy of the one now in the Museum.

A more important collection of James's poems is the one entitled Lusus Regius, edited by R. S. Rait in 1901 from two MSS. in the Bodleian Library (MS. Bodl. 165-166). These MSS. are in the Scottish dialect, almost entirely in the King's handwriting, and contain many of his compositions in prose and verse. From corrections and marginal notes it seems probable that they were among the first drafts from which the Museum collection was prepared. Nine of the twelve pieces published by Mr. Rait, or all save the psalms and the prose, appear in the Museum MS. and are now printed. His table of contents follows, with references to the corresponding poems in the present volume.

I. Fragment of a Masque. . . An Epithalamion upon the Marques of Huntlies Mariage, pp. 47-52. The sonnet on p. 49 is not in Rait.

II. 'Ane Admonition to the Maister Poete to leave of greit crakking.'. . . An admonition, etc., pp. 40-44. The final stanza, following the sonnet, is not in Rait.

III. Sonnet to Bacchus. . . The sonnet referring to the death of Montgomerie, p. 37.

IV. On Wornen. . . A Satire against Woemen, pp. 19-21.

V. 'Bot be the Contraire I Reiose.'. . . This, with the stanzas properly arranged, is Song I, pp. 22-23.

VI. ' If Mourning micht Amende.'. . . A Dier at her Mties Desyr, pp. 7-9.

VII. 'Gif all the Floudis amangis Thaime walde Concluid.'. . . Ex Lucano libro quinto, pp. 44-45.