Note 693:A — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

It is to be regretted that no complete edition of the Works of Montgomery has hitherto been published. Those printed by Foulis and Urie in 1751 and 1754, are very imperfect; but might soon be rendered faithful by consulting the manuscript collection of Montgomery's Poems, presented by Drummond to the University of Edinburgh. This MS., extending to 158 pages 4to., contains, beside odes, psalms, and epitaphs, 70 sonnets, written on the Petrarcan model; and, if we may judge from the six published by Mr. Irving, exhibiting a considerable portion of poetic vigour. The Cherrie and the Slae, which, as the critic just mentioned observes, "has maintained its popularity for the space of two hundred years," must be pronounced in some of its parts, beautiful, and, as a whole, much above mediocrity. Sibbald has printed ten of our author's poems in the third volume of his Chronicle of Scottish Poetry.