. The poems of William Dunbar : now first collected . VOLUME SECOND. POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO DUNBAR. THE FREIRIS OF BERWIK.—Page 3. N printing this very admirableTale from Maitlands MS., MrPinkerton, in 1786, was thefirst to ascribe its compositionto Dunbar. It is also preservedin Bannatynes MS., and in anEdition printed at Aberdeen, in162-2; but in these copies it is. also anonymous. This admirable Tale the Editor (Pinkerton) sup-poses to have been written by Dunbar ; though theReader will at once see a great difference between thelanguage of this and the last tale; namely, The TwoMaryit Wemen an
. The poems of William Dunbar : now first collected . VOLUME SECOND. POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO DUNBAR. THE FREIRIS OF BERWIK.—Page 3. N printing this very admirableTale from Maitlands MS., MrPinkerton, in 1786, was thefirst to ascribe its compositionto Dunbar. It is also preservedin Bannatynes MS., and in anEdition printed at Aberdeen, in162-2; but in these copies it is. also anonymous. This admirable Tale the Editor (Pinkerton) sup-poses to have been written by Dunbar ; though theReader will at once see a great difference between thelanguage of this and the last tale; namely, The TwoMaryit Wemen and the Wedo. But this is owing solelyto the necessity of alliteration, and the consequent useof old and uncommon words in the last Tale, while the NOTES. 373 measure of this has no such constraint. That the lan-guage of the Freirs of Berwik is not too modern for Dun-bar, will be apparent to any one who has read his GoldinTerge, or any of his other poems. But this Tale cannot,at any rate, be above thirteen years later than Dunbar,who must have died about 1525. In 1482, Berwickwas wrested from Scotland, and was ever after in thepossession of the English. Now, this poem speaks ofall the Monasteries as actually standing and nourishingwhile it was written; and it is well known, that in 1535Henry VIII. suppressed the lesser monasteries, and in1539 the greater. It
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