A great deal of excellent poetry was composed in Scotland in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1603, when James Stewart became also king of England and Ireland, several Scottish poets moved to London, and commented on events at Court. Others preferred to remain in their homeland, at a distance from the metropolis; and some who had gone south soon returned home. In addition to the perennial themes of love and religion, attention was given to topics such as national identity, foreign travel, civil society, monarchy, the good life, friendship, retreat, and the nature and language of literature itself. Poets faced the political and cultural challenges inherent in the novel concept of Great Britain in a variety of ways, and the thistle and the rose bloomed together in the Jacobean garden of verses.

New edition of a collection of songs and ballads from sixteenth-century Scotland, shedding important new light on the English and Scottish Reformation. The Gude and Godlie Ballatis is a collection of religious lyrics from the early years of the Scottish Reformation. It was a highly popular, if controversial, volume, was often reprinted, and is considered one of the most important literary works of vernacular Scots from the period. It contains translations of a number of Psalms, but most of the contents consist of shorter songs and ballads, many of which have been adapted from a secular to a spiritual use. The previous edition of the collection dates from 1897. The new edition not only revises the information given there, but presents the text of the earliest print (1565), which was unknown to the previous editor. The textual development of the collection through the various printings is studied, and is related to the changing historical, political, literary, cultural and theological contexts of Reformation Scotland. The editor addresses questions of authorship, transmission, source material, and the use and significance of these lyrics. Drawing on recent work in book history and English psalmody, as well as a deep knowledge of Older Scots lyric, he demonstrates the close connections between the collection and Continental hymnody, as well as interactions with English and Scots lyric, both sacred and profane. Alasdair A. MacDonald is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literatureof the Middle Ages, University of Groningen.

First full study and edition of the works of George Lauder, "the poet whom Scotland forgot". The Scottish poet George Lauder began as a "university wit", by imitating anti-papal satires popular in the Italian Renaissance. He set off for London as a young man, looking for patronage, but instead became an officer in the army, seeing service in France, the Low Countries, Germany, Denmark and Sweden -- an experience which provides the backdrop to the poetry of his mature years. At the Restoration he wrote a lengthy poem of advice to Charles II, and his final masterwork was a poetic conflation of the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ. Lauder was influenced by Ben Jonson, William Drummond, and by the Metaphysical and the Caroline styles. His personal library testifies to his wide range of interests, and to his acquaintance with European literature in neo-Latin and other languages. This volume traces Lauder's career, collects all his surviving verse (presented with full notes and commentary), and examines his interactions with certain of the greatest intellectuals of the Dutch Golden Age. Lauder was a British patriot and a loyal supporter of the House of Orange; above all, however, he is the author of a unique corpus of highly accomplished poetry. ALASDAIR A. MACDONALD is Emeritus Professor of English Language and Literature of the Middle Ages, University of Groningen, Netherlands.