APPENDIX 9 St. LIX.-Lord Hailes, who speaks of the Howlat as a verbose work, adds, that it must have merit with antiquaries, from the stanzas describing " the kyndis of instruments, the sportaris, (jugglers, the Irish bard, and the fulis." Many of the musical instruments here mentioned, are likewise named by Gawin Douglas, in his Palice of Honour. His words are,
- In modulatioun hard I play and sing
Faburdoun, priksang, discant, countering, Cant organe, figuration, and gemmell; On croud, lute, harp, with mony gudlie spring : Schalmes, clariounes, portatiues, hard I ring, Monycord, organe, tympane, and cymbell, Sytholl, psalterie, and voices sweet as bell," &c. Edit. Edin. 1579, p. 14. St. LX.-LXI.-The wonderful exploits of the juggler here described may re- mind some readers of the curious stanza, in Douglas's Palice of Honour, of a similar nature ; where the author says, “The Nigromansie thair saw I eik anone, Of Benytas, Bongo, and Freir Bacone, With mony subtill point of Juglairy; Of Flanders peis maid mony precious stone, Ane greit laid sadill of a siching bone, Of ane nutemug thay maid a Monk in hy, Ane paroche kirk of ane penny pye: And Benytas of ane mussill maid an aip, With mony uther subtill mow and jaip." Edil. Edin. 1579, p. 56. St. 111.-“ One is naturally arrested by the character of the Irish Bard, who breaks in at the banquet like a sturdy beggar, reciting in alternate lines the Irish gibberish by which he proposed to deserve entertainment; and ex- pressing in English his coarse and unmannerly wants and demands. The jar- gon he speaks is too much corrupted, I fear, to be intelligible." -Manuscript Note by Sir W. Scott. If such was the usual conduct of the strolling bards in those days, we need not be much surprised in finding them classed with sornaris, sturdy beggars, and other misterfull men, who were denounced as vagrants, and proceeded against accordingly. There is an Act of Parliament in the year 1449, against bardis, or "ony that makis thaim fulis that ar nocht bardis, or sic lik vtheris rynaris aboute.-(Acta Parl. Vol. II. p. 36.) In this stanza, as the writer of the manuscript critique on the poem has ob- served, " there are some lines wholly Irish, which have as uncouth and forbid- B
