"_A Roaring Meg._"--What is the origin of calling any huge piece of
ordnance "a roaring Meg?"
Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, says:
"Musica est mentis medecina mæstæ, _a roaring meg_ against
melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul."
The earliest edition of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ is, I believe, the
Oxford one of 1624.[6]
[Footnote 6: The first edition was published in 1621, 4to.--ED.]
The large old-fashioned piece of artillery, called _Mons Meg_, in the
castle of Edinburgh, which is so great a favourite with the Scottish
common people, is said by Sir Walter Scott to have been "fabricated at
Mons in Flanders, in the reign of James IV. or V. of Scotland;" that is,
between A.D. 1508 and 1514 (note to _Rob Roy_, vol. ii. ch. 10.).
This accounts for the _Mons_; but whence comes the _Meg_? The tradition
of the Edinburgh people is different from that of Sir Walter: and Black,
in his _Tourist of Scotland_, pp. 51. 341., says, it was forged at
Threave Castle, a stronghold of the Black Douglases; was used by James
II. in 1455; and that it was called _Mons Meg_ after "the man who cast
it and his wife." The date in the above must be a mistake, as I believe
James II. was killed in A.D. 1437.
There is another cannon of similar caliber, and bearing the name of
_Roaring Meg_, presented by the Fishmongers' Company of London to the
city of Londonderry in 1642 (Simpson's _Annals of Derry_, chap. vii. p.
41.).
Can any of your readers explain the origin of the name, and say whether
the phrase "A roaring Meg" occurs in any English author earlier than
Burton?