Rolland, John

(fl. 1560)

   Scottish poet who was possibly the son of John Rolland, sub-dean of Glasgow in 1481. He is known to have been a priest in Glasgow, to have been acting as a notary in Dalkeith, Midlothian, in 1555, and to have turned Protestant around 1560. His two major poems are The Court of Venus, in four books, thought to date from the reign of James V (1527-1542); and The Seven Sages (1560), which went through several reprints. One of the books contains 17,784 lines. Three of his other known poems: "The Author Says to the Book," "To the Reader," "The Prologue."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).