This copy, which was originally John Pinkerton's, cost Mr. Heber 21l., and
was resold at his sale for 12l. 5s., for the library of Mr. Miller, of
Craigentenny; another is in the possession of Dr. Keith, Edinburgh.
Pinkerton, in his _Ancient Scottish Poems_, London, 1792, thus describes
_Penardo and Laissa_:
"Rare to excess; nor can more than two copies be discovered, one in the
editor's possession, another in that of an anonymous correspondent in
Scotland. The author was probably so ashamed of it as to quash the
edition, for it is the most puerile mixture of all times, manners, and
religions that ever was published; for instance, the Christian religion
is put as that of Ancient Greece."
Of the author, Patrick Gordon, little or nothing seems to be known beyond
the fact of his styling himself "gentleman," probably the only ground for
Pinkerton calling him "a man of property." The fame of Gordon, however,
rests upon a better foundation than the above work, he having also "doone
in heroik verse _The Famous Historie of the Renouned and Valiant Prince
Robert, surnamed the Bruce, King of Scotland_," "a tolerable poem," says
the same critic, "but not worth reprinting, although it had that compliment
twice paid to it." {162}
The "Bruce" of our author is a concoction from Barbour and a certain _Book
of Virgin Parchment_, upon the same subject, by Peter Fenton, known only to
Gordon, and, like _Penardo_, sets propriety at defiance, "Christ and
Jupiter being with matchless indecorum grouped together:"[4] it, too, came
originally from the press of Dort, 1615; again from that of James Watson,
Edinburgh, 1718; and a third time, Glasgow, by Hall, 1753.