ANNALS OF SCOTLAND. 45 



pearl, &c. were prohibited to be wore, excepting 

 by knights and lords, or their heirs. 



All taverns of wine, ale, or beer, were to be 

 fhut upon tolling a bell at nine o'clock in the even- 

 ing, by the magiftrates of burghs, who were to 

 forfeit fifty {hillings to the king's chamberlain ai 

 often as they fliould fail in their duty. 



James, to the excellent ftatutes which diftin- 

 guifhed his reign, endeavoured to foften the man- 

 ners of his fubjects, by introducing the polite arts, 

 particularly thofe of poetry, painting, and mufic, 

 to their acquaintance. In poetry, he was an au- 

 thor j and of muiic, he was one of the bed judges 

 and compofers of his time. He is generally fup- 

 pofed to have been the reformer of the Scottifh 

 vocal mufic, if not the father of that elegant fim- 

 plicity, for which the antient Scottilh mufic is 

 every where celebrated. Several pieces of his 

 poetry were extant in the reign of James V. but 

 nothing hath reached the prefent times that can be 

 attributed to him, with any certainty, excepting a 

 panegyric upon the princefs Jane, before Ihe was 

 married to him, called the King's guair* which in 



the 



* The King's Quair was refcued from oblivion by the affiduity 

 of the learned and ingenious William Tytler, Eiq. of Edinburgh, 

 who, with the affiilance of a fludent at Oxford, found the copy 

 amongfl the Seldean manufcripts, in the Bodleian library. la the 

 fame manner, Dr. Percy firfl difcovered the fong of Peblis to the 

 Play, in an antieut manufcript collection of Scottifh fongs, pre- 

 ierved in the Pepyfian library. 



Mr. Tytler hath lately favoured the public with an elegant edi- 

 tion of the King's Quair, and Chrift Kirk on the Green, accom- 

 panied with a Gloilary > a Diflertation oft' the Life and Writings 

 of King James, and on Scottifli Mufic. Peblis to the Play, is now 

 firfl publifhed by Mr. Nichols of London, in the fecond volume of 

 his Selctf Bcottijb Ballads* The fame gentleman is printing a con- 

 tinuation of Scottifli Songs, now firfl collected from the or ignals in 

 the Pepylian library. 



" The genius of the Scots,*' fays Mr. Tytler, " has in every age 

 ihone conipicuous in poetry and mufic. Of the firil, the poems of 

 compofed in au age of rude antiquity, are fufficient proof. 



Tht 



