The importance of Gawin Douglas' Eneados, the first English translation of the Aeneid, has been acknowledged since the sixteenth century. In 1530 David Lindsay wrote of Douglas' “worthy workis . . . And, speciallye, the trew Translatioun / Off Uirgill,” and forty years later Barnabie Googe ranked the Scots poet's translation above that of his English successor, Surrey,
The Noble H. Hawarde once,
That raught eternall fame, With mighty style did bring a pece
Of Virgil's worke in frame, And Grimaold gave the lyke attempt,
And Douglas wan the Ball, Whose famous wyt in Scottysh ryme