Burd—Eight Unedited Letters of Joseph Ritson 19 
ingly mutilated, MS. in the library of the faculty of advocates 
at Edinburgh, marked W. 4. 1. and presented to the late lord 
Auchinleck in 1744; its age to the best of my judgment, being 
about the year 1400, 57) and, evidently compiled and written in 
England. 58) The reasons from which i infer this imperfect 
romance to be the work of the ancient Scotish bard already men¬ 
tioned are these: Robert of Brunne, in the prologue to his 
metrical version of Peter Langetoft, says, 59) 
“I see ill song in sedgeyng tale 
Of Brceldoun, & of Kendale, 
Non >am says as tai tarn wrought, 
& in her sayng it semes noght. 
hat may hou here in Sir Tristvem, 
Ouer gestes it has he steem, 
Ouer all hat is or was. 
If men it sayd as made Thomas. 
But I here it no man so say, 
hat of some copple is away. 
So harefare sayng her beforne, 
Is hare trauayle nere forlorne. 
hai sayd in so quaynte Inglis, « 
hat many one wote not what is, 
herfore heuyed wele he more 
In. strange ryme to trauayle sore.” 
I shall now proceed to gratify your curiosity, by a transcript 
of the first stanza, which will serve at the same time, to illus¬ 
trate the censure of the English critick, and to ascertain the 
title of the Scotish poet. It runs thus: 
“I was at Ercildoun (To supply by conjecture, what is illegible) 
Wih Thomas spak y hare, 
her herd y rede in roune. 
Who Tristrem gat & bare, 
Scot was more nearly right in referring the MS. to “the earlier part of 
the fourteenth century’. See also McNeill, who places it at the beginning, 
and Murray, who sets it at the middle, of the century. 
On this point there is no difference of opinion. Ritson agreed that the 
English version was from a Norman or Anglo-Norman source. He frequently 
contended, as did Tyrwhitt and Warton, that there exists no English ro¬ 
mance which is not derived, directly or indirectly, from a French original. 
See ‘Observations on the ancient English minstrels’, prefixed to English 
Songs and Ballads, London, 1790, and ‘A dissertation on romance and min¬ 
strelsy’, in Ancient Engleish Metrical Romancees. 
®®11. 93-104. Scott also quotes these lines. 
