“This speech of Wallace has generally been related and explained in a sense very different. I must therefore give my reasons for having departed so widely from the common opinion. _Walsingham_, p. 75, says, ‘Dicens eis patriâ linguâ,--_I haif brocht you to the_ King, _hop gif you cun_.’ This short speech has always appeared to me as utterly inconsistent with the character of Wallace. It is commonly understood to mean, ‘I have brought you to the King, hope if you can hope.’ To say nothing of the impropriety of the appellation of _King_, bestowed by Wallace on Edward, the sentiment, ‘hope, if you can hope,’ seems only fit for the mouth of a coward or a traitor. Abercrombie, perceiving this, has given a more plausible interpretation of the word _hop_. He renders the phrase thus, ‘_Fly_ if you can;’ as if Wallace had meant to say, ‘_Fight_, for you cannot fly.’ There is nothing incongruous in this sentiment; but surely it did not merit to be recorded: Neither was it strictly true; for the Scottish army might have retired with unbroken forces into the forest which lay in the rear. The only satisfactory interpretation of Wallace’s address to his troops, is to be found in _W. Westm._ p. 451, ‘Ecce adduxi vos ad _annulum_ charolate (chorolate) sive tripudiate vos, sicut melius scitis.’ _King_, in Walsingham, ought to be _ring_. The words of Wallace were, ‘I haif brocht you to the ring, hap gif you cun.’ _The ring_ means the dance _à la ronde_. _Douglas_ translates ‘Exercet Diana _choros_,’ Æneid ii., thus, ‘Ledand _ring-dances_,’ p. 28. l. 42. ‘Te lustrare _choros_,’ Æneid vii., thus: ‘To the scho led _ring-sangis_ in karoling,’ p. 220, l. 31. Elsewhere, in his own person, he says, ‘Sum sang _ring-sangis_,’ Prologue, xii. B. p. 402, l. 33. That _hap_ or _hop_ is understood of dancing, is also plain from _Douglas_. He thus paraphrases ‘Hic exultantes Salios,’ Æneid, viii. ‘The dansand Preistis, clepit _Salii_, _Happand_ and singand.’ P. 267, l. 21. “I need not prove, that ‘gif you cun’ implies ‘if you have skill,’ or, ‘according to your skill.’ The verb is obsolete; but the noun and the adjective are still remembered. ‘Let my right hand forget its _cunning_,’ ‘a _cunning_ artificer,’ ‘a _cunning_ man.’ _Langtoft_, vol. ii. p. 305, as translated by Brunne, reports the words thus: “To the renge ere ye brouht, hop now if ye wille.” But he does not seem to have understood the import of the words.”