Montgomery

Montgomery, ALEXANDER, Scottish poet, was born most probably at Hessilhead Castle, near Beith, in Ayrshire, about 1555. He was related to the noble House of Eglinton, was first in the service of the Regent Morton, next of the king, and was awarded a pension of 500 marks a year. Traditionally he lived at Compton Castle, near Kirkcudbright, where enthusiastic readers have recognised the scenery of his principal poem. He travelled in France, Flanders, and Spain, was small in stature, given to drinking, and unhappy in his amours. He became devout in his later years, and was dead before 1615. Montgomery had something of the tastes of the scholar, but his poems, especially the Sonnets, reveal a pitiful meanness and servility of character. His pasquinades are savage without being strong, his Flying between Montgomery and Polwart [Sir Patrick Hume] merely coarse, vulgar, and unclean. It is a war of words in feeble imitation of the famous piece of Dunbar. Montgomery's miscellaneous poems are mostly amatory in character, and are laboured in style; his devotional poems are poor; but his fame rests securely on the Cherry and the Slae, which at once leapt into popularity, and really contains fine work, in spite of Pinkerton. Its earlier portion is a love-piece; the later, a moral and didactic poem. Here at least there is real freshness and descriptive power, with dexterous mastery of rhyme. There are editions by Dr David Irving (1821), and Dr J. Cranstoun for the Scottish Text Society (1886-87).