[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

;—
; ;
trooper." Of his personal appearance, all that we know is from his own
pen. Reasoning with his " maistres," he says
Again
—
" Howbeit zour beuty far and breid be blaune,
I thank my God, I shame not of my shap
If ze be guid, the better is zour auin.
And he that getis zou, hes the better hap."
" Zit I am not so covetous of kynd,
I
I
Bot I prefer my plesur in a pairt
\ Though I be laich, I beir a michtie mynd
e
I count me rich, can 1 content my hairt."
I
That the Poet had been in the military service of his country at some
I
period or other, is presumable from the prefix of Captain being generally
\ associated with his name. He is well known, at all events, to have been
J
attached to the Court both during the Regency of Morton, and for some
i time after the assumption of power by James VI. A pension of five
I
hundred marks,* payable from the rents of the Archbishopric of Glasgow,
was granted to him in 1583 ; and in 1686 he set out on a tour of the Continent,
having obtained the royal license of absence for a period of five
years. No memorials of his travels remain, farther than it appears from
an entry in the Register of the Privy Seal, that while abroad his pension
had been surreptitiously withheld, and he was thrown into prison, " to his
great hurt, hinder, and prejudice." The grant, in consequence of a me-
I
l
morial from the Poet, was renewed and confirmed in 1589 : but it seems
5 to have occasioned a protracted law-suit to enfore payment of the sums
I due to him. Of this his " Sonnets," preserved by Drummond of Haw-
; thornden, afford abundant evidence ; and he hesitates not to accuse the
5 Lords of Session of a perversion of justice. Like most courtiers, Mont-
{
gomerie had experienced the fickleness of fortune, at best capricious, but
I
proverbially so when dependent on the smiles of royalty.
The precise date
of Montgomerie's death is as uncertain as his birth. There is good reason,
> however, for believing that his demise did not occur until between 1605
\ and 1615.
* £333, 6s. 8d. sterling.