Page:The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.djvu/727



was renowned among his contemporaries, as the author of the celebrated romance of "Sir Tristrem." Of this once-admired poem only one copy is now known to exist, which is in the Advocates' Library. The Editor, in 1804, published a small edition of this curious work; which, if it does not revive the reputation of the bard of Ercildoune, is at least the earliest specimen of Scottish poetry hitherto published. Some account of this romance has already been given to the world in Mr. "Specimens of Ancient Poetry," vol i. p. 165, part iii. 410; a work to which our predecessors and our posterity are alike obliged;