Specimens of Middle Scots

This book was at first intended to be merely a reprint of a few representative texts of Middle Scots for the convenience of students of English. I have been tempted to enlarge the original purpose, and to offer the volume as a General Introduction to the subject. My chief excuse for the venture, that there is no work of the kind available, may but prove my rashness, when so much remains to be done before an adequate survey can be made. Yet the book does not claim to give an exhaustive account of the whole matter, nor even of the minor propositions which are already established. It asks no more than the privilege of introducing the student, and perhaps the general reader, to the systematic treatment of the language of our older Northern literature during the period of its greatest renown.

All the texts have been carefully collated with the originals. A few errors of the scribes or printers have been corrected, and are indicated in the Notes, where I have occasionally suggested an editorial emendation.