his sole remaining work, The Bruce, is altogether of that character. It is not unlikely that, in The Brute, Barbour adopted all the fables he could find: in writing The Bruce, he would, in like manner, adopt every tradition respecting his hero, besides searching for more authoritative materials. We must not be surprised that, while the first would be valueless as a history, the second is a most important document. There would be the same wish for truth, and the same inability to distinguish it, in both cases; but, in the latter, it chanced that the events were of recent occurrence, and therefore came to our metrical historian comparatively undistorted. The Bruce, in reality, is a complete history of the memorable transactions by which King Robert I. asserted the independency of Scotland, and obtained its crown for his family. At the same time, it is far from being destitute of poetical spirit or rhythmical sweetness and harmony. It contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and even in pathetic sentiment. This poem, which was completed in 1375, is in octo-syllabic lines, forming rhymed couplets, of which there are seven thousand. Barbour died at an advanced age in 1396. [Apostrophe to Freedom.] [Barbour, contemplating the enslaved condition of his country, breaks out into the following animated lines on the blessings of liberty.-Ellis.] A! fredome is a nobill thing! Than all perquer he suld it wyt; [Death of Sir Henry De Bohun.] [This incident took place on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn.] And when the king wist that they were * 1 Caused, ordered In this and the subsequent extract, the language is as far possible reduced to modern spelling. And by the crown that was set Saw him come, forouth all his fears, Have slain a knicht sae at a straik, Sae dreid they for the king's micht. ⚫⚫ [The Battle of Bannockburn.] When this was said 1 Haste. Openly, clearly. 8 They sprang forward at once, against each other, in a line. 4 Reached. 5 Earth. 8 Sir Ingram D'Umphraville. Destruction. 7 Lamented 9 Fear of death. Mony a wicht man and worthy, Ready to do chivalry. Thus were they bound on either side; Governt and led, held straight their way. Were steeds stickit mony ane; And mony gude man borne doun and slain; * * * The gude earl thither took the way, With his battle, in gude array, And assemblit sae hardily, That men micht hear had they been by, A great frush of the spears that brast. * On their faes; where they were, Ay ten for ane, or mair, perfay; Them pressit they with all their micht. And other wappins, wisslit their lives: And the gude lord, als, of Douglas, And their battle in gude array, coming weel. They assembled sae hardily, That time thir three battles were The van of the English army. There micht men hear mony a dint, And wappins upon armours stint. And see tumble knichts and steeds, And mony rich and royal weeds Defoullit foully under feet. Some held on loft; some tint the seat. A lang time thus fechting they were; That men nae noise micht hear there; Men heard noucht but granes and dints, That flew fire, as men flays on flints. They foucht ilk ane sae eagerly, That they made nae noise nor cry, Fechting in a front halily. Almighty God! how douchtily Fechting in sae gude covine, 1 Sae hardy, worthy, and sae fine, They were worthy. There micht men see mony a steed Flying astray, that lord had nane. * * * There micht men hear ensenzies cry : And Scottismen cry hardily, .. 'On them! On them! On them! They fail!" With that sae hard they gan assail, And slew all that they micht o'erta'. And the Scots archers alsua2 Shot amang them sae deliverly, That what for them, that with them faucht, And pressit them full eagerly; [The appearance of a mock host, composed of the servants of the Scottish camp, completes the panic of the English army; the king flies, and Sir Giles D'Argentine is slain. The narrative then proceeds.] They were, to say sooth, sae aghast, Edward Bruce. 1 Company. Also. 7 I promise you. 8 Cruel. 4 Shut up. 5 Rabble. 3 Failed, gave way. 6 Slime, mud. Lost amidst so great a multitude. Exchanged. All privily went hame their way; The whether, upon the morn, when he He gart them all have sic dreading, All winning bowsome to be him till. Wyntoun has been included in this section of our literary history, because, although writing after 1400, his work is one of a class, all the rest of which belong to the preceding period. Some other Scottish writers who were probably or for certain of the fifteenth century, may, for similar reasons, be here introduced. Of one named HUTCHEON, and designed of the Awle Ryall' that is, of the Hall Royal or Palace-it is only known that he wrote a metrical romance entitled the Gest of Arthur. Another, called CLERK, 'of Tranent,' was the author of a romance entitled The Adventures of Sir Gawain, of which two cantos have been preserved. They are written in stanzas of thirteen lines, with alternate rhymes, and much alliteration; and in a language so very obsolete, as to be often quite unintelligible. There is, however, a sort of wildness in the narrative, which is very striking.* The Howlate, an allegorical satirical poem, by a poet named HOLLAND, of * Without rigour. whom nothing else is known, may be classed with the Prick of Conscience and Pierce Plowman's Vision, English compositions of the immediately preceding age. Thus, it appears as if literary tastes and modes travelled northward, as more frivolous fashions do at this day, and were always predominant in Scotland about the time when they were declining or becoming extinct in England. The last of the romantic or minstrel class of compositions in Scotland was The Adventures of Sir William Wallace, written about 1460, by a wandering poet usually called BLIND HARRY. Of the author nothing is known but that he was blind from his infancy; that he wrote this poem, and made a living by reciting it, or parts of it, before company. It is said by himself to be founded on a narrative of the life of Wallace, written in Latin by one Blair, chaplain to the Scottish hero, and which, if it ever existed, is now lost. The chief materials, however, have evidently been the traditionary stories told respecting Wallace in the minstrel's own time, which was a century and a half subsequent to that of the hero. In this respect, The Wallace resembles The Bruce; but the longer time which had elapsed, the unlettered character of the author, and the comparative humilit or the class from whom he would chiefly derive his facts, made it inevitable that the work should be much less of a historical document than that of the learned archdeacon of Aberdeen. It is, in reality, such an account of Wallace as might be expected of Montrose or Dundee from some unlettered but ingenious poet of the present day, who should consult only Highland tradition for his authority. It abounds in marvellous stories respecting the prowess of its hero, and in one or two places grossly outrages real history; yet its value has on this account been perhaps understated. Within a very few years past, several of the transactions attributed by the blind minstrel to Wallace, and heretofore supposed to be fictitious-as, for example, his expedition to France -have been confirmed by the discovery of authentic evidence. That the author meant only to state real facts, must be concluded alike from the simple unaffectedness of the narration, and from the rarity of deliberate imposture, in comparison with credulity, as a fault of the literary men of the period. The poem is in ten-syllable lines, the epic verse of a later age, and it is not deficient in poetical effect or elevated sentiment. A paraphrase of it into modern Scotch, by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, has long been a favourite volume amongst the Scottish peasantry: it was the study of this book which had so great an effect in kindling the genius of Robert Burns.* [Adventure of Wallace while Fishing in Irvine Water.] * See his Life by Dr Currie. † A few couplets in the original spelling are subjoined : So on a tym he desyrit to play. In Aperill the three-and-twenty day, Till Erewyn wattir fysche to tak he went, Sic fantasye fell in his entent. To leide his net a child furth with him yeid; 1 Left. * Ellis. 2 Reached. 3 Rigour. But he, or nowne, was in a fellowne dreid. |