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Updated: June 23, 2025
In 1804 he went to reside at Ashestiel on the Tweed, where he ed. the old romance, Sir Tristrem, and in 1805 he produced his first great original work, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which was received with great favour, and decided that literature was thenceforth to be the main work of his life.
With this view he hurried up into the little old vaulted room, called 'the Douglas's study, in which there might be some dozen old books written by the ancient chaplains, in what the minstrels call the letter black. He immediately discovered the celebrated lay, called Sir Tristrem, which has been so often altered and abridged as to bear little resemblance to the original.
De Lacy made a sign of acquiescence, and laid himself as if to slumber; while Vidal began one of those interminable and almost innumerable adventures concerning that paragon of true lovers, fair Ysolte; and of the constant and uninterrupted faith and affection which she displayed in numerous situations of difficulty and peril, to her paramour, the gallant Sir Tristrem, at the expense of her less favoured husband, the luckless King Mark of Cornwall; to whom, as all the world knows, Sir Tristrem was nephew.
The same story is to be traced through all the ages. Even Ulysses could shed a tear for Argus, hiding the fact as well as he might from Eumæus; and Tristrem and Ysolde, in the legend, took Hodain to be their intimate companion, because he had once shared with them "the drink of might."
In this form it is supposed they were sung or recited at the feasts of princes and knights in their baronial halls. The following specimen of the language and style of Robert de Beauvais, who flourished in 1257, is from Sir Walter Scott's "Introduction to the Romance of Sir Tristrem": "Ne voil pas emmi dire, Ici diverse la matyere, Entre ceus qui solent cunter, E de le cunte Tristran parler."
He had at his paternal home of Auchinleck a remarkable collection of rare books and manuscripts; one of these afforded the text from which the romance of Sir Tristrem was printed. He reprinted from the one remaining copy in his own possession the disputation between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy, a priest who came forward against the great Reformer as the champion of the old religion.
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