Note 702:B — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

The most interesting part of this volume, from the nature of its subject, is "Ane schort Treatise conteining some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie," in which the regal critic observes, that "sindrie hes written of it in English," an assertion which would lead to the supposition that some of our earliest critics had perished; for Gascoigne's "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Rhyme," 1575, appears now to be the only piece of criticism on poetic composition which preceded James's "Essayes."