Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/78

Ixx PREFACE. and there are two editions of it — one in the MS. of Fordun, which belonged to the Scotch College of Paris ; the other a version containing numerous ad- ditions, which is to be found in the Edinburgh Col- lege MS., the Royal MS., and several others. Innes considered that these additions were later inter- polations, and that the Scotch College MS. presented the poem in its original form. He also considered that the poem consisted of two parts : the first of which was composed in the reign of Alexander the Third ; and the second in the year 1447, the date given in the end of the poem itself, as that of its composition. Pinkerton, in a paper in the ap- pendix to the first volume of his essay, has con- troverted this opinion of Innes, and argues that the whole poem was composed at the same time, viz., the year 1447 ; but the Editor concurs with Innes in his opinion that a part of the poem must have been written in or shortly after the reign of Alexander the Third, for in the " Instructiones," and in the "Processus" of Baldred Bisset in 1301, reference is made to the " Versus," — " A muliere Scota vocetatur Scocia tota ;" and this Hue is found in the early part of the " Chronicon Ehythmicum." In both versions there is a prose prologue ; that in the Scotch CoUege MS. is as foUows : — " Quum huius precedentis Scoticronicon voluminis prolixitas, " hominum quoque memorie labilitas et incerti temporis brevitas, " non sinunt universa que inibi scripta sunt animo scire multa