Barbour and Blind Harry as Literature
[In the following essay, Craigie contends that historical considerations have caused critics to prefer The Bruce over Blind Harry's Wallace and that, judged purely on literary merit, The Bruce is the inferior effort.]
The misguided man who goes so far astray as to compose a historical poem, that is, a poem professing to be a substitute for history, generally 'wirkis sorrow to himsel', as Dunbar says, or at least to his own memory. To begin with, his hearers or readers may be pleased with this vivid and interesting form of bringing before them their heroes, who are perhaps their own immediate ancestors, and any little deviation from the plain facts does not at all interfere with this pleasure, if it is even noticed. The further back in time the scene is laid the more licence will the poet be allowed, and his audience will not permit want of historic accuracy to detract from their appreciation of the work as a literary product. But now comes your historian, the man who prizes a charter more than the best couplet, and an act of parliament more than a whole canto, and from these tenants of chests and record-rooms laboriously pieces together the history of a period. The afore-mentioned poet gives perhaps the only connected narrative of the events of the time, and now armed with these charters, etc., and 'the spirit of criticism, which lands you in all manner of infidelity,' the critic proceeds to disillusionise the formerly admiring public. Not a page of the poet can be turned to which does not show some woful error of date, place or person, and the exact historian waxes wroth and denounces this most inexact man of letters. So far all were pretty well; the poet was not a raker of charter-chests, nor an editor of Privy Council records, and both his information and his way of using it were not always very exact, but then he had other and perhaps greater ends in view. All this historical criticism has, we conceive, nothing to do with literary merit, yet just as new discoveries in the physical world prove to some moralists a mare's nest and to others a fox in the farmyard, so do the literary critics get scared by the fierce blasts of the historian, and as if afraid of being caught resetting such dubious goods, they too hold the poet's work at arm's length, and say nothing in its praise which is not carefully recanted in the next sentence. Thus it comes that the geniuses of both history and literature pass by on the other side, and the public, which takes its cue from the great ones, is afraid to protest against the sentence.
This is a view which has found many victims within no long time back, and will probably go on for some time yet, but it seems strange that the two sides of the question should thus get rolled into one and judged together, and judged by the party least likely to do justice to the more prominent side. The tendency is so strong that the mass are easily carried away with it; they are of the kind for whom a text-book of geology can destroy all the poetry of the first chapter of Genesis. Yet to us the method seems mistaken, even from a historical point of view. Not only do Herodotus and Thucydides remain masters of prose literature in spite of Professor Sayce or Müller-Strütibing, but every line of them still has its historic value, for it proves, if not what was done, at least what was believed and asserted, and this has often as great influence on the world as the actual fact. To speak, however, from the literary side only, not all the Egyptology of Europe will ever diminish the charm of the 2nd Book of Herodotus, nor all the discoveries of Greek archeology make the faintest difference to Homer. The two things stand utterly apart, and the historian must not be allowed to browbeat the imaginative poet any more than the evolutionist in the physical world to shout down the idealist in morals.
All this method is, we think, capable of excellent illustration in the case of the two poets whose names stand at the head of this article. Both of these have left an enduring memory in two long poems,1 dealing with historic subjects of closely connected nature, for the one begins where the other ends, and each has for his hero a deliverer of his native land, and each has made his hero's name immortal to his countrymen. During all last century, despite the various editions of Barbour, it was Blind Harry who was the favourite, and even if we admit that this was because he could be read in the modernized version by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, yet there must be some merit in a poem which could go through this process and yet live. The work it did during two generations in fostering Scottish patriotism and developing Scottish character is well known from the testimony of Burns. Barbour, on the other hand, was scarcely known, and this cannot have come altogether from the difference in language, but must have been also due to the difference in the good Archdeacon's idea of a national poem. With the critical study of Scottish history begins the above-mentioned confusion between the merits of a poem and the truth of its historical basis, and straightway Barbour begins to supplant Blind Harry in the favour of the critics. As no one will venture to quote the latter as an authority for anything, so writers on literature, whether English literature in general or Scottish in particular, dispose of their best epithets on Barbour, and apologetically give their remaining ones to Blind Harry, if indeed they do not leave him only the disparaging ones. So we are told that the Brus 'is imbued with a spirit of genuine poetry,' while Blind Harry, after being branded as only 'the oracle of the unlettered crowd,' or 'the rude embodiment of a popular feeling,' is charged with barbarous taste,' 'ludicrous prejudice,' or 'fierce vulgarity,'2 and we take leave of him with the critic's assurance that 'the literary merit of the work is, in general, insufficient to constitute it a great poem,' or that 'it posseses no poetical merit except a certain rude fire and energy, and as a literary production its place must be reckoned a very humble one.' (This last is from the Encyclopcedia Britannica, which however makes the common mistake of speaking as if Hamilton's version was meant—'it has enjoyed a long popularity among the Scottish peasantry'). Yet even Saul sometimes forgets himself and lands among the prophets, and speaks contrary to the doctrine he has learned. Ross, for instance, discovers that, after all, 'it is throughout a graphic and picturesque poem, and in particular passages it even reaches an exquisite beauty,' (O subtle power of 'barbarous taste' combined with 'vulgarity'!) What, however, could we say to this of Ellis (in Specimens of Early English Poets), who after making allowance for the poet's blindness, goes on to assert that 'it may be assumed that Henry was not inferior in point of genius either to Barbour or Chaucer' (a strange pair) 'nor indeed to any poet of any age or country!' Brave words these, and enough to make us fear 'Danaos et dona ferentes,' a suspicion only too truly verified when we discover that nevertheless the vulgar minstrel has given us 'little more than a disgusting picture of revenge, hatred, and blood,'—surely a woful misapplication of such exalted talent.—These are not unfair specimens of Blind Harry's critics, and the less outspoken of them take care to say little of his literary merit as a whole; the careful, if somewhat long-winded Irving, for instance, takes refuge finally in a commendation of the smoothness of his verse.
Meanwhile John Barbour basks in all the favours of criticism, or rather of commendation, and his greatest mistakes, or perversions of history, are minimised in proportion as Blind Harry's aremagnified, while his style finds many an encomiast. 'There is none of the customary symptoms of romancing mendacity in his work,' 'a modest simplicity in describing the most thrilling incidents,' 'no crude fervour, no credulous wonderment' (all this is pointed at somebody), and so the 'earnest gravity' of the Archdeacon reckons for far more than the 'rude fire and energy' of the wandering minstrel,—fact must be more poetic than fiction. For us, however, it is comforting to observe the nature of the praise which thus exalts the author of the Brus. 'Simplicity,' says one, 'may be said to be the main feature in the plan and conduct of his poems,' and we willingly admit it. 'Even the stirring day of Bannockburn,' says another, the same who discovered the Archdeacon's 'earnest gravity,' 'hardly quickens the poet's blood, or disturbs the even flow of his verse;' true, right true, but we fail to see any merit in the fact. Then as to Barbour's mistakes in history, such as the notorious one of confounding Bruce with his grandfather, this is only because the grave ecclesiastic 'deliberately deviates from historic fact to enhance the glory of that national freedom,' which of course Blind Harry was too vulgar to appreciate, and besides, was so ignorant that he could not 'deliberately' deviate from historic fact, but was only mistaken, a fatal sin. Barbour, 'in short, takes a poetic licence in a somewhat hurried introduction,' of which this mistake is line 477! We presume that his other 'deviations' are also poetic licences, but the post-dating by 10 years of the Act of Settlement can hardly be excused by the hurried introduction, for it occurs somewhere about line 13000. Yet Blind Harry, living at a period removed from that of his hero by a century and a half, gets no credit for a poetic licence which John Barbour enjoys less than 50 years after his hero's death. This, however, is the historian's matter, not ours; we only protest against this being made a part of Barbour's literary merit and yet reckoned as a fault in the minstrel.
Our purpose then, in this article, is to compare the two authors on literary grounds alone, without regard to historical considerations, except so far as they influence the aim and procedure of each,—how far one or other is mistaken does not really concern us,—and we must decline to say how far either of them has 'deliberately' altered fact for purposes of effect: in our opinion neither of them did so. Barbour was perhaps wise enough to pass gently over Bruce's previous connection with England: Blind Harry may have made his hero a mere youth at the outset to emphasize a lifelong patriotism, but where all this is so uncertain we can hardly make it a part of literary criticism. The only legitimate way is to compare the two poems in point of general plan and style, note their different treatment of the many similar incidents that occur throughout, their respective accounts of their hero's character (remembering in this case the different conditions under which the two works were composed), and adding to these all the innumerable little touches which distinguish the poet from the chronicler in verse, endeavour to decide which of the two authors stands highest as literature.
Barbour, as we learn from contemporary documents, was a busy ecclesiastic, well-educated and well-travelled, entrusted with important matters of Church and State, and, for this reason, encouraged and patronised by royalty. That the Brus was written in accordance with royal wish or command is extremely probable; at any rate we may say, almost with certainty, that he was rewarded for it. His other two works, the Brut, and 'the propyr genealogy' of the Stewarts (to which Blind Harry refers in 1, 34: 'Go reid the rycht lyne of the fyrst Stewart,') in which he traced that family from 'Dardane, lord de Frygya,' down to Robert II., both of which are vouched for by Wyntoun, were also closely connected with the history of the royal family. From this circumstance one might justly infer that the scholarly churchman, who was indebted to the English King for various safe-conducts, and as amember of the universal Church could hardly be exclusively Scottish, was not impelled to compose the Brus from any burning feeling of patriotism alone, but also from other motives, honourable enough in themselves, but not likely to make a poet out of the scholar. This, we are convinced, was Blind Harry's view, for his words towards the end of his Wallace are unmistakably pointed at the Brus:—
'I suld have thank, sen I nocht travaill spard;
For my laubour na man hecht me rewaird.
Na charge I had off king nor other lord;
Gret harm I thocht his gud deid suld be
smord.
I haiff said her ner as the process gais,
And fenyeid nocht for frendschip nor for fais.
Costis her for was no man bond to me,
In this sentence I had no will to be.'
(11, 1433 ff.)
Certainly on a priori grounds we should expect that such a spirit as this would produce a far finer national poem than a calm and cultured mind like Barbour's. The latter's other works, did they now exist, would probably exhibit the same somewhat misplaced learning and even flow of verse which mark the Brus: according to Wyntoun, the Genealogy was 'in metyre fayre,' and proceeded 'be gud contynuatyown In suc-cessyve generatyown' (8, 1445), and the very choice of subjects does not argue a mind primarily poetic, while the political bearing of the pieces is shown by his invention of a new Stewart line of descent, complained of by Bower.
As to the purpose of the poem, Prof. Cosmo Innes says it is designed as a glorification of freedom. Barbour himself has another view of it: for him it is a 'Romance' to show how men came out of great trouble and adversity to high estate, and ended their life in dignity and honour. The two heroes he especially names are Bruce himself and Douglas, and these certainly occupy the larger part of the poem, but not by any means exclusively. After the poet gets really started (at 1, 477), he goes on keeping fairly close to his subject, except for many digressions about ancient tales and abstract qualities, sometimes for 100 lines at a time, until he reaches the Battle of Bannockburn, which occupies nearly 2,000 lines of Books 11 to 13. A true poet, whose main idea was to show the triumph of freedom, would certainly have made this the real end of the poem, but Barbour now begins a second section altogether, the hero of which is Sir Edward Bruce (Books 14 to 18.) In these five books the King and Douglas figure very little (about 400 lines each), Sir Edward and the siege of Berwick have about 1000 lines each, and the rest is filled up with minor incidents. In all this there is scarcely anything that rises above the level of a mere chronicle, and not a very interesting one at that; the often-quoted passage about Bruce and the laundress (16, 270-292) has no special literary merit, and the only striking lines are those describing the May scene when the King sets out for Ireland (16, 63-71). The third part, covering the later years of Bruce and Douglas, is also singularly uninteresting, and the only part usually quoted is Douglas's tale of the 'Fox and the Fisher,' which is a good little fable but not brilliantly told. Then the whole ends abruptly with the poisoning of Murray. Surely if Barbour had meant his work to be a glorification of freedom, he would have stopped before having to record that Bruce paid £20,000 to the English King to be left in peace.
With this very disconnected work, some parts of which at least are nothing but a chronicle, contrast Blind Harry's poem. His prologue is only of 16 lines, and gives at once the tone of the whole work. From 1, 41 to 1, 180 there is a historical introduction, giving quite as much information as Barbour does, and, even in this, lines 144 to 158 are concerned with Wallace. From this point right on to the end the minstrel never loses sight of his central figure for more than a very few lines at a time; whenever he has outside remarks to make he does so in the briefest manner possible, yet in such well-chosen language that they give far clearer impressions than Barbour's lengthy digressions. If a poem ought to be a whole, then the minstrel far outdoes the Archdeacon in this respect, although the latter has the great advantage of the two parallel stories of Bruce and Douglas, one of which can relieve the other.
The spirit in which the two approach their subject may also be seen in their respective introductions. Barbour opens with scholastic remarks on the pleasures of reading and a frigid distinction between truth and fiction: he does not see why true tales should not be as interesting reading as fictitious ones, and therefore he will write one, and hopes he may be able to do it so 'that I say nocht bot suthfast thing.' Yet, according to his eulogist, Prof. Innes, 'he did not trouble himself about accuracy in detail.' Blind Harry, on the other hand, plunges at once into the intensely national tone which characterises his whole work. We neglect the noble deeds of our ancestors 'throw very sleuthfulness.'
'Our ald ennemys, cummyn of Saxonis blud,
That nevyr yeit to Scotland wald do gud;
Bot evir on fors and contrair haile thair will,
Quhow gret kyndnes thar has beyne kyth
thaim till.
It is weyle knawyne on mony divers syde
How thai haff wrocht into thair mychty pryde,
To hald Scotlande at undyr evirmair.'
(1, 7-13).
Reading this in the light of Scottish history, we fail to see in it anything but a strong and true expression of patriotic feeling, certainly not a 'ludicrous prejudice:' read Barbour himself (1, 179 to 224) and see whether his or Harry's tone is most likely to be that of Scottish feeling in general. As a point of literary merit compare also the ending of the two works; first Barbour's:—
'The lordis deit apon this wiss;
He, that hye Lorde of al thing is,
Vp till his mekill bliss thame bryng
And grant his grace, that thar ofspryng
Lede weill the land, and ententif
Be to folow in all thair lif
Thair nobill elderis gret bounté.'
(20, 611-617).3
and then Blind Harry's:—
'Go, nobill buk, fulfillyt off gud sentens,
Suppos thow be baran of eloquens.
Go, worthi buk, fulfillit off suthfast deid;
Bot in langage off help thow has gret neid.
Quhen gud makaris rang weill into Scotland,
Gret harm was it that nane of thaim thee fand.
Yet thar is part that can thee weill avance;
Now byd thi tym and be a remembrance.'
(11, 1451-58).
The feeling of imperfection with which the old man leaves the work of his lifetime to future generations is surely something far finer than Barbour's somewhat conventional desire for the good behaviour of his heroes' descendants.
In one respect Barbour perhaps keeps up the impersonal character of the epic better than Blind Harry, in that he rarely names the authorities for his statements, though he not unfrequently speaks in the first person. In Bk. 7 he gives two accounts of how Bruce escaped from the hound (v. line 75); at 9, 572 he names Sir Allan of Cathcart as the authority for the story about Sir Edward defeating the English with 50 against 1,500, but in general he makes no mention of where he got his information. Blind Harry, on the other hand, all through, appeals to the authority of his 'autor,' John Blair, though his relation to this original is an insoluble enigma.4 The frequent recurrence of this does perhaps take away a little from the flow of the poem; it always brings us back, as it were, from the verse of the minstrel to the Latin prose of the priest, and suggests thoughts of historic truth where they ought not to come in at all.
The immense difference between the two poets is, however, best seen in their use of language. Even making all allowance for the fact that Blind Harry has a better form of verse to work with than Barbour, whose octosyllabic line is much more apt to lead to padding and consequent weakness, yet the way in which the former can, in a word or two, get at the heart of his matter and bring it vividly before us, shows a power in the use of words which the latter does not possess. Over against the condensed and vigorous phrases of the minstrel we have the archdeacon's extreme diffuseness,5 which manifests itself not only in his numberless digressions but also in his round-about way of describing incidents, in repetitions of similar phrases as many as three times within a very few lines, and yet after all often leaving the matter very obscure in spite of all his pains to make it clear. A few examples will illustrate this fault:—
'Fortoun has traualit us this day,
a That scalit us so suddandly.
b Our fayis this nycht sail trastly ly;
a For thai trow we so scalit ar,
And fled to-waverand her and thar
That we sail nocht thir dayis thre
All to-giddir assemblit be.
b Tharfor this nycht thai sall trastly
But vachis tak thair eis and ly.
(7, 298-306.)
a 'And with swerdis that scharply schare
b Thai servit thame full egyrly.
c Thai war slayn doune so halely
That thar neir weill eschapit nane.
b Thai servit thame in full gret wayne (plenty)
a With scherand swerdis and with knyvis,
c That weill neir all lesyt thar livis.'
(16, 450-456.)
and many more instances might be given (e.g., 20, 162, 208). For obscurity his masterpiece is probably the account of the claims of Balliol and Bruce, extending to 20 lines, in which 'sum,' 'othir sum,' 'thai said,' 'thar,' 'thai said,' 'than,' are mixed up in desperate confusion.6 Blind Harry explains the whole matter in six lines (1, 45-50). To such faults of style may also be reckoned, his frequent weak phrases, such as 'I underta,' 'I trow,' 'I trow he sall,' or needless padding as in—
'For to hunt him out of the land
With hund and horn, richt as he were
A wolf, a theif, or thefts fere.'
(6, 647.)
'He wist him behufit ma
Of all this life the commoune end
That is the ded quhen God will send.'
(20, 154.)
Blind Harry is too straightforward to waste time with such circumlocutions, and, on the other hand, vivid phrases which give a whole picture in a line are comparatively rare in Barbour, but abound in the Wallace. From the Brus may be instanced:—
That, as ane hyrcheoune, all his rout
Gert set out speris all about.'
(12, 353).
Thai
War tynt omang so gret menyé
As thai war plungit in the se.'
(12, 567.)
'And blaw our homis, and mak fair
As all the warld our awne it war.'
(19, 703),
but in Blind Harry may be found many such lines as—
'The worde of him walkit baith far and nere.'
(3, 252),
'That land is strait and maisterfull to wyn.'
(4, 159),
'Sad men of arms that war off egyr will.'
(4, 603),
'The folk was fey that he before him fand.'
(4, 616),
'Thai mycht be bath a wand Agayne Sotheroun.'
(5, 996),
and the frequent occurrence of such pregnant lines gives his whole style a conciseness that raises it far above the diffuseness of Barbour.
Both Barbour and Harry attempt at times a certain grim humour, always in reference to fighting, as if to relieve the monotony of earnest battles. It is doubtful if the one is any better than the other in this respect; Barbour is perhaps the sprightlier of the two, and has a tendency to compare fighting with eating (see 14, 187 and 16, 457); the minstrel is more in earnest, and his humour is of a slightly sterner cast. But had the Archdeacon anticipated Sydney Smith's assertion when he thought it necessary to explain Douglas's retort to the Spanish knight: 'I praise God I had always hands to defend my face'? 'Quha wald tak tent to this answer,' he says, 'Suld se in it understandyng' (20, 380), and then paraphrases the perfectly plain words of Douglas in their application to his interrogator.
We now come to consider more closely Barbour's many digressions from the course of the story, partly to tell parallel cases from ancient history and legend, and partly to discourse on various topics of more or less abstract interest. To the former Blind Harry offers no parallel; he has no time to tell any story but that of his hero. Barbour, on the other hand, is ready on every possible occasion with a classic legend, more rarely a Biblical one, whether it be about the Machabees (1, 465-476), the siege of Troy, Alexander, Cesar, and Arthur (1, 521-560), the siege of Thebes (2, 528-547), Gaudifer (3, 72-92), Han-nibal (3, 207-248), Earl Ferrand (4, 223-306), or Tydeus, or Tyre, or Fabricius; sometimes he makes Bruce himself the teller of the story. Or, again, he discourses on treason, love, despair, parting, weeping for joy, 'worschip,' falsehood, hardiment, etc., which Blind Harry also does at times, but far more briefly and to the point, and whereas we may say boldly that not a single one of Barbour's digressions (the one on 'freedom' will be noticed afterwards) is possessed of any literary merit whatever, the passages where Blind Harry lingers over Wallace's straits in prison (2, 171 ff.), or the story of his love (6, 1-104), are among the noblest specimens of old Scottish literature, and the author himself has so designed them by the change in the form of his verse. If some of his other discourses (e.g., that on 'cowatice' in 11, 833-848) are not very brilliant, yet they have the merit of being few and short, and he knows on occasion how to say a thing in a single couplet, as
'Is nayne in warld, at scaithis ma do mar
Than weile trastyt in borne familiar.'
(1, 111),
or a single line, as
'Gold may be gayn, bot worschip is ay new.'
(7, 886.)
We have referred more than once to this desire of the minstrel to get on with his tale; expressions almost of impatience meet us every now and then, especially when he gets involved in some incident which has no special significance. Then it comes: 'Quhat suld I spek of frustir?' (1, 313), 'On to my taile I left' (1, 327), 'On my mater now brieffly will I wend' (5, 406); or, after five lines about Hector, 'Ectour I leiff, and spek furth off our men' (8, 484), but the most noticeable of all is perhaps when, after 76 lines, containing a remark on Thomas of Longueville, a conversation between Robert and Edward Bruce, the death of Comyn, first rising of Douglas, Bruce's early adventures, a comparison of Wallace and Bruce and praise of Douglas, the minstrel fears he is getting tiresome—
'In this mater prolixt I am almaist
To my purpos breiffly I will me haist.'
(11, 1215.)
This is a feeling which Barbour never seems to have had, and we feel pretty sure that a fitting subject would have made a veritable John Gower of him. As an instance of one of Barbour's more interesting episodes may be mentioned the fable of the fox and the fisherman, told by Douglas to the Earl of Murray (19, 649), which is not seldom quoted as a good example of his story-telling, as it certainly is; but the very circumstantial way in which it is told, and the minute application of the details, contrasts very strongly with the bolder strokes in which Blind Harry narrates how Stewart applied the fable of the owl to Wallace before the Battle of Falkirk (10, 130), where the story has the additional interest of its fatal consequences for Scotland, as indicated in 'Unhappyly his taill thus he began.'
This 'prolixitness' in Barbour is not at all diminished by the great similarity between some of the incidents, especially in the adventures of Bruce, as noticed by Skeat in his note on 5, 521. There are the two Macindrossers, with a confederate, who attacked him on horseback (3, 73), a one-eyed man and his two sons who attacked him and his page (5, 485), five of John of Lorn's men who assail him and his foster-brother (6, 595), followed immediately by three traitors who manage to kill the foster-brother (7, 79), and three who attack him alone and are killed with the assistance of a dog (7, 400). All these are told at considerable length, and the sleuth-hound adventure, for example, occupies nearly 300 lines. The similar incidents which of course occur in Blind Harry are more diversified than these, (of accounts of battles we need not speak, for these are common to both and cannot well be differentiated), and are not repeated so often: his commonest is perhaps the account of a good defence in a wood, or market-fights between Wallace and the 'Sotheroun.' For a very similar incident in both see the taking of Linlithgow throw William Bunnock (Br., 10, 150-250), and that of 'the Sawchar' through Tom Dickson (Wall., 9, 1589-1655), where Blind Harry's narrative is certainly not inferior to Barbour's. Compare also Barbour's account of the death of Comyn and his reflection thereon with Blind Harry's: Barbour says, from an ecclesiastical point of view—
'He mysdyd thar gretly, but wer,
That gave na gyrth to the Awter,
Tharfor sa hard myscheiff him fell,
That Ik herd neuir in Romanys tell
Off man sa hard sted as wes he
That eftirward com to sic bounte.'
(2, 43-48).
Blind Harry looks at it more from a political standpoint—
'That hapnys wrang, our great haist in a king;
Till wyrk by7 law it may scaith mekill thing.'
(11, 1187-8).
We now come to the part of our thesis which it is impossible for us to prove here, as it could only be done by very extensive quotations: we can only indicate some of the passages on which our conclusions are based: those which to our mind place Blind Harry's literary merit on a much higher level than Barbour's. What for instance are the ordinary quotations given as a specimen of Barbour's literary power?—one or two of the battle-scenes perhaps, one or other of his few descriptions of scenery, and besides these the story of the Fox and Fisher already alluded to, that of King Robert and the Laundress (which is a fine touch of character, but not of literature) and above all, the 'far-famed encomium on political freedom,' which is said to be 'distinguished by a manly and dignified strain of sentiment.' Let us look a little into this freedom, and into the usual way of quoting it. Every one knows the first line: 'A! freedom is a noble thing,' and then the ordinary extract goes on for another 15 lines to 'And suld think fredome mar to prys than all the gold in warld that is,' or perhaps another 6 lines that add nothing in particular. But at this point Barbour is only beginning his subject, and now he goes on for another 34 lines with a vile scholastic dilemma whether a man ought first to satisfy his wife's or his master's demands and points out what a fearful thing thraldom must be when it can be compared to marriage, which is 'the hardest band that ony man may tak on hand; and thryldome is weill wer than deid.' Nor is the first line perhaps so fine as it appears (not to speak of its great obviousness) for in 6, 325, we find very similar words—
'A! quhat worschip is prisit thing
For it makis men to haf loving
Gif it be followit ythandly.'
which worschip turns out to be Aristotle's 'Andreia,' being defined (in 34 lines) as the mean between foolhardiness and cowardice. Taking everything into account, we do not know if the praise of freedom stands on a higher literary level than Wyntoun's praise of Britain, beginning 'Blessyd Britain beild suld be of all the ilis in the se,' which no one has ever called him a poet for.
Of really fine passages in the Brus, besides those mentioned afterwards, we may point to his occasional descriptions of the splendidly arrayed hosts of England (8, 216-2328 or 11, 126,185, 460), the beginning of the fire at Kildrummy (4, 125), the picture of Edward's grasping ambition (1, 91-118, beginning 'A! blynd folk full of all folly,'), the voyage to Rathlin (3, 693), and perhaps one or two of the more spirited battle scenes. But over against these can be set the many passages where Blind Harry rises to his highest poetic level, whether in tender feeling or in vivid delineation of stirring incidents. Some of these (as Wallace in prison, or the story of his love) have already been noticed, but there are many more, and it must especially be noticed how often by a single line a more human interest is given to the object or incident he is speaking of (e.g. the 'rousty swerd' which Wallace found, of which he says, 'Ane agyt man it left quhen he was dede,' (2, 375). Others that may be instanced are Fawdoun's ghost (5, 175), the pursuit of Wallace after slaying the Butler (5,277, where the minstrel's verse becomes as hurried and rapid as the chase itself, and yet admits of such local touches as 'and left him there beside the stannand stanes'), his subsequent slumber in the thicket (5, 357), the part of his love affair in 5, 579-717, the ghastly realism of the burning of the Barns (6, 438), Wallace's dream (7, 71), the splendid meeting of Wallace and the Queen of England (8, 1181), 'the gret debait in Wallace wit' (10, 217), and many other passages which the reader will discover for himself, to which Barbour offers no parallel. In the actual battle-scenes, or where the hero of each displays his own prowess, Barbour, even if at times not lacking spirit, is far less Homeric than Blind Harry, whose minuteness in the anatomy of wounds fully equals that of the Iliad. Whether such minuteness is pleasing to us or not is not the question at issue: we are convinced that a true soldier of that time would be much more interested to hear of a stroke 'aboune the kne' which 'through thé (thigh) and brawn in sondyr straik the bayne,' than in Barbour's indefinite 'he smat the fyrst … with his spere that sa scharply schare.' If it is part of the poet's task to tell of, and part of his hearer's interest to hear of such scenes, surely the more closely and clearly each is described the better the poet is. Barbour's battles are for the most part described in mere general phrases, as if by one who looks on from a distance, Blind Harry's are as of one who is in the heart of the fight itself. So much of both poems is taken up by the fighting element that a superiority in this line goes a long way to make the one better than the other, and we have no hesitation in saying that that one is the Wallace. For this reason we refuse to accept the definition of the poem as 'a disgusting picture of revenge, hatred and blood;' so is the Iliad if it comes to that, and the Barns of Ayr and some other horrid but true scenes of international warfare in the Wallace are not unparalleled in the Brus; witness that disgusting mess facetiously called the Douglas larder, or the long-remembered Hership of Buchan. Surely the realism of these scenes is not to be made any ground for denying the genius of the poet whose description of them makes our softer natures shudder at them; that the Wallace contains only such scenes is a gross misrepresentation, and no more true of it than of the Brus.
Hitherto we have merely alluded to the descriptions of scenery in the Brus, to those of Spring and of May there mentioned may be added a very short one of Autumn in 10, 185. The first of these is the longest, and may be given here:
'This wes in were, quhen wyntir tyde
With his blastis, hydwis to byde,
Wes ourdriffin: and byrdis smale
As thristill and the nychtingale
Begouth rycht meraly to syng,
And for to mak in thair singing
Syndry notis and soundis sere,
And melody plesande to here.
And the treis begouth to ma
Burgeonys and brycht blomys alsua,
To wyn the heling of thar hevede
That wikkit wyntir had thame revede:
And all grewis begouth to spryng.'
Line 6 is rather weak, and the idea is put more musically in 16, 64 ('Quhen byrdis syngis on the spray, Melland thair notis with syndry soune, For softnes of that sweit sesoune'), but it seems peculiarly inappropriate that Barbour should insert this account of spring just when it was almost getting dark ('a litill forrow the evyn.') Blind Harry is not wanting either in such passages (see the opening lines of Books 3, 6 and 99) but he has a much more subtle way of dealing with nature than this, which afterwards developes into the catalogue style of such pieces as Gawin Douglas's otherwise excellent prologues. His secret consists in a close connection between the action of the poem and the nature of the season when the event takes place, and herein he shows in most unexpected ways his real depth of feeling and wonderful sympathy with nature. Instances of this abound throughout:—
'Thys pees was cryede in August moneth myld'
(3, 341).
'In Atryk forrest has my wonnyng beyne;
Thar I was born amang the schawis scheyne.'
(4, 369.)
'The dyrk regioun appearand wondyr fast
In November, quhen October was past.
The day faillit, throu the rycht cours worthit
schort,
Till banyst men that is no gret comfort,
With thair power in pethis worthis gang;
Hevy thai think quhen at the nycht is lang.'
(5, 1,)
'Sternys be than began for to apper;
The Inglismen was cummand wondyr ner.'
(5, 125.)
'The nycht was myrk: to consaill ar thai gayne:
Off mwne nor stern gret perans was thair
mayne.'
(5, 1003.)
'In Aperill amang the schawis scheyn
Quhen the paithment was cled in tendyr greyn,
Plesand war it till ony creatur
In lusty lyff that tym for till endur.'
(8, 935), etc.
There must also be noticed the ingenious and effective way in which Blind Harry sometimes brings in the contrast between the wandering free life of his hero and the walled strength of the English overlords. Thus after describing the Sheriff's court and the examination of Sir Ranald:—
'Fra this consaill my purposs is to pass,
Off Wallace spek, in wyldirnes so wyde;
The eterne God his govemour be and gyde!'
(4, 128.)
or Wallace's teeling immediately after learning of the hanging of the barons:—
'we will our purpos tak
Into Laglane, quhilk has my succour beyne,
Adew market, and welcum woddis greyne.'
(7, 293.)
A few such lines as these are worth many of mere description, and indicate the real sympathy Blind Harry has with his hero, which indeed is sufficiently manifest in other places, but especially in his reluctance to speak of the execution, which a person of 'barbarous taste' would almost certainly have dwelt on at length. To him even 'litill reherss is our mekill off cair,' he 'will lat slaik of sorrow the ballance,' and goes off to other matters, and so skilfully interweaves the distasteful details with other and more attractive scenes that he fully realises his intention:—
'Off Wallace end to her it is peté:
And I wald nocht put men in gret dolour
Bot lychtly pass atour his fatell hour.'
Be it noted that this 'vulgar' minstrel is so dexterous in carrying out his noble purpose, that, without betraying any appreciable deficiency, he avoids telling even the atrocious sentence passed on Wallace, far less the carrying of it into execution, except a mere hint at the dividing of his body. So, too, as to the death of Wallace's wife, he says 'I can nocht tell you how, Off sic mater I may nocht tary now.' (6, 193.)
This tenderness in the minstrel is also beautifully shown in the sorrow over the dead which finds expression now and then, particularly Wallace's after his wife's murder by Heselrig, and for Sir John Graham, slain at Falkirk. Over against these scenes Barbour has nothing to show: even the death of his great heroes is but coldly described, and the grief for their loss mixed up with the arrangements for their funeral. Take his account of the sorrow for Bruce's death:—
'And fra his folk wist he was ded,
The sorow rais fra sted to sted,
Thair mycht men se men rif thair hare,
And cumly knychtis gret ful sar,
And thair nevis oft samyn driff,
And as wode men thair clathes rif,
Regratand his worthy bounte,
His wit, strynth, and his honeste,
And, our all, the gret Cumpany
That he oft maid thame curtesly.'
(20, 253.)
'I hop that nane that is on lif
The lamentacioune suld descrif
That thai folk for thair lord maid.
And quhen thai lang thus sorrowit had,
And he debowalit was clenly.'
(id. 281.)
'Quhen his men lang had maid mumyng
Thai debowellit hyme, and syne
Gert seth him, swa that mycht be tane
The flesche all haly fra the bane."'10
(20, 569.)
At the risk of being 'prolixt almaist' we may also refer to Bruce's grief for his foster-brother, which is no doubt exactly what Bruce did, but is not very poetic:—
'His fostir-brothir menyt he
And waryit (cursed) all the tothir thre.'
(7, 228.)
Contrast these very tame expressions with the minstrel's burning phrases, when Wallace hears of his wife's death:—
'The paynfull wo socht till his hart full sone;
War nocht for schayme he had socht to the
ground
For bitter baill that in his breyst was bound;'
and how when he sees his men so much affected 'he fenyeit him for to comfort thaim all':—
"'Cess, men," he said, "this is a butlass
payne;
We can nocht now chewys hyr lyff agayne."
Wness a word he mycht bryng out for teyne,
The bailfull teris bryst braithly fra his eyne'
(6, 201, ff.)
We should also like to quote the lament for Sir John the Graham, how when they found him on the battlefield:—
'He lychtyt down and hynt him fra thaim aw
In armys up: behaldand his paill face
He kyssyt him and cryt full oft, "Allace"'
but we must refer the reader to the passage itself (10, 562).
Like the minstrel we must hurry on, and we now propose to deal with the assertion as to 'the fierce vulgarity of Blind Harry, whose Englishmen are generally poltroons or braggarts or felons.' That Harry does hate everything English, we do not dream of denying; but we are prepared to show that his Englishmen by no means belong to the class above described. In the first place, the Archdeacon is generally praised for his unprejudiced spirit towards England. Some reasons for this comparative mildness of tone we have already indicated, but all the same his expressions are by no means so mild as has been sometimes asserted. Phrases like 'sa wykkit and sa cowatous, and swa hawtane and dispitous,' 'sa angry and sa fell,' 'fulfillit of dispit and pride,' 'sa angirly led thame with danger and with aw,' 'the harme and the outrage that Ynglismen has to yow done,' are by no means very flattering, and allowing for Barbour's lack of vigorous language are no milder than Blind Harry's. His language, too, regarding traitors to the Scottish cause is more forcible even than the minstrel's: for the person who betrayed Setoun his pious wish is, 'In hell condampnyt mot he be!' and the Osbarn who fired Kildrummy is 'A fals lurdane, a losengour.' Just as Barbour's feeling towards England is not to be estimated by his courteous treatment of some of the great English names, neither is Blind Harry's to be altogether gathered from what he makes Wallace do and say in his most violent moods. That a conquering soldiery like Edward's would include a considerable proportion of 'poltroons, braggarts, and felons,' is extremely probable, but be it noted that Wallace and his men rarely perform such marvellous feats as Bruce and his followers. Wallace, says the minstrel, was always ready to engage if the English were no more than five to one, but in Barbour we find such marvellous numbers as 50 against 1500, or even against 10,000, not merely acting on the defence, as in Wallace's case when the odds are too great, but actually defeating their opponents! Blind Harry's English can fight far better than this: so far from despising the 'auld ennemys,' he knows well that 'it cummys off witt enemys to commend' (8, 562), and does so on many occasions, e.g.—
'Perseys war trew and ay of full gret waill,
Sobyr in pes and cruell in battaill.'
(3, 307.)
'Hew off Morland on Wallace followid fast;
He had befor maid mony Scottis agast,
Haldyn he was off wer the worthiast man,
In north Ingland with thaim was leiffand than'
(5, 815.)
'Gude men off wer ar all Northummyrland.'
(7, 559.)
'Yeit Inglismen, that worthi war in wer,
Into the stour rycht bauldly can thaim ber.'
(7, 1001.)
'Yon Sewart is a nobill worthy knycht;
Forthwart in wer, rycht worthy, wys and wicht.
His assailye he ordannys wondyr sayr
Ws for to harm, no mannys wyt can do mar.
Plesand it is to se a chyftane ga
So chyftanlyk,' etc.
(9, 893.)
Despite all his patriotism, he can recognize the deplorable side of the internecine war:—
'Off crystin blud to se it was gret syn
For wrangwis caus: and has beyn mony day.'
(9, 918.)
He can also recognize the Scottish defects, such as their inferiority with the bow:—
'Few off thaim was sekyr of archary;
Bettyr thai war, and thai gat evyn party,
In field to byde, othir with suerd or speyr.'
(4, 559.)
'Quhen schot was gayn, the Scottis gret confort
had
At hand-strakys thai war sekyr and sad.'
(10, 859.)
In all the course of the poem we cannot recall a single expression against the English which does not result entirely from a sense of cruel injustice at their hands, or describes them otherwise than as rendered wicked by the sense of unbridled power: certainly he never uses such a phrase concerning them as he does when he calls the Highlanders and Irish 'thai bestly folk' (7, 646, 790). His standpoint is one of pure national hatred of the oppressors, and what Scot will say it was unjust? It is all very well for us after nearly three centuries of peaceful union to try to look at these things calmly, but how could Scotland think calmly of England about the year 1460? Where was the 'ludicrous prejudice' then in the solemn exhortation—
'Yhe nobill men that ar off Scottis kind
Thar petous dede yhe kepe into your mind.'
They had to their own satisfaction proved for a century and a half that 'Suthroun are full sutaille euirilk man,' and every true Scot would echo the minstrel's words—
'Becaus I am a natyff Scottis man,
It is my dett to do all that I can
To fend our kynrik out off dangeryng.'
It is of Scotland, as it ought to be, that the minstrel's foremost thought always is. When Wallace and Stewart fall out at Falkirk, he does not think of the consequences to either of them: it is, 'Allace, gret harm fell Scotland throuch that stryff!' It is of Wallace as the deliverer of Scotlandthat he has told his tale:
'Scotland may thank the blyssyt happy tym
At he was born,'
and he has not dealt more severely with England than was absolutely necessary to emphasise with sufficient force the great service of his hero and the value of the national freedom which his efforts helped so much to gain.
There remains yet one important feature of the poem, one concerning which many more or less wise remarks have often been made—that of the character of Wallace as depicted by Blind Harry. A German scholar has been at the pains to depict the characters of Robert and Edward Bruce as described by Barbour,—'ein literar-historischer Versuch,' he calls it: let us look a little at Wallace as described by Blind Harry, but here we must omit the 'historic' part of the attempt, and simply regard it from the point of view of a literary account of a national hero, though this is a section which must be given in outline merely.
In the first place, it makes us smile as much as his predecessors' maps made Herodotus, when we hear or read that Blind Harry has given us such accounts of Wallace at times as would lower our opinion of him as a national hero, inasmuch as he represents him committing atrocious acts of cruelty and bloodthirstiness. Now, where does our whole idea of Wallace in the first instance come from except from the pages of Blind Harry himself, or rather Hamilton's version of him? But for this poem, Wallace would never have occupied a prominent place in the popular imagination, for the simple reason that so little would have appeared about him in history, to say nothing of the impossibility of writing such books as the Scottish Chiefs and other more or less inspiring works, whereby Wallace's fame has been spread. Barbour never mentions him; Wyntoun treats of him very briefly, and refers to the 'gret gestis' which he had heard of as composed about 'his gud dedis and manhade;' and even the voluminous and veracious Hector Boece tells us little of him; as his patient translator remarks somewhere in the course of his 61,000 lines—
'Of this matere quha likis for to luke,
There sal ye fynd into Blind Hareis buke
The fassoun al declairit at gret length:
I can nocht say gif it has ony strength
Of suthfastness or yit of verite:
Thairfor as now I lat al sic things be.'
Neither can we vouch for the soothfastness or the verity of the portrait, but we do maintain that we have no right to take all the good and noble sides of Wallace's character out of Blind Harry, and from these build up a beautiful ideal of a humane knight and far-sighted patriot, and then denounce our original authority because he is so unfeeling as to mar our fair picture with less pleasing touches. Has it ever entered any one's head to deny the Douglas Larder or the Hership of Buchan, or Bruce's method of getting information 'throu vomen that he wald with play, That vald tell all that thai mycht here,' or Bruce's angry remonstrance with Sir Colin Campbell, when he knocked him down 'with ane trunsioune,' or his dissimulation with regard to the English array before Bannockburn, because they might lower our idea of such great heroes? Surely not; and if Blind Harry conceives Wallace as one in whom the sense of wrongs from the Southeron could overcome every feeling save that of revenge, what proof have we that his view is a mistaken one? It is plain, too, that the minstrel has a fine appreciation of propriety in the matter, and only brings Wallace to the full height of savage exasperation after the murder of his wife. At first Wal-lace opposes the English with all his might on purely patriotic grounds:
'Willyham Wallace, or he was man of armys,
Gret pitte thocht that Scotland tuk sic harmys;
Mekill dolour it did hym in his mynd,
For he was wys, rycht worthy, wycht and
kynd.'
This feeling and the loss of several of his near kindred are given as Wallace's first incitements to hatred of the Southeron, the 'Inglis men that dois us meikle der' (injury), and against them his whole mind is bent on nothing but slaughter.
'It was his lyff and maist part of his fude,
To see them shed the byrnand Sothroun
blude.'
His chief regret in prison is that 'our few Sothroune on to the deid I drave;' too little had been done to satisfy his revenge: 'off us thai haif undoyne may (more) than ynew; My faithfull fadyr dispitfully thai slew, My brothir als and gude men mony ane.' His first important battle is appropriately fought on the very spot where he suffered this loss: 'Her was my fadyr slayne; My brothyr als, quhilk dois me mekill payne.' From this determined hatred nothing can turn him:—
'Thocht thai mycht pies him as a prince or
king,
In his mynde yet remanyt ane other thing;
He saw his enemys maistris in this regioune.'
As regards the means adopted to lessen the number of these enemies, the cutting off of small bands or single men, what other course could be adopted by a handful of outlaws, however brave or desperate? Does anyone suppose that Bruce and Douglas never touched an Englishman, unless the latter were immensely superior in numbers, as they always are when Barbour thinks the story worth relating? Where the country was so overrun with English soldiery it is surely no disparagement to Wallace, or to Blind Harry's conception of him, to believe that he took every means in his power to carry out his one aim in life:—
'Na syn thai thai thocht, the samyn thai leit us
feil,
Bot Wilyam Wallace quyt our quarrell weill.'
The murder of his wife and the subsequent hanging of the Barons naturally only intensify this savage resentment against every Englishman capable of bearing arms, women and priests being always excepted. His treatment of the English heralds, which seems so shocking to us, follows immediately on the first of these events, and the hearers of the minstrel's narrative would find its justification in this, as well as in the fact that the heralds had forfeited their right of safe conduct by conniving at the disguise of the Squire Fehew. It is in judging these things by modern standards that the great mistake lies, and the cruel punishments of the period would render the deed attributed to Wallace less atrocious then than it seems to us now. On the other occasion, under the excitement of a fresh grief, the death of Sir John Graham, we find him in as savage a mood:—
'The pytuous payn so sor thyrlyt his thocht,
All out off kynd it alteryt his curage,
Hys wyt in wer was than bot a wod rage.
His hors him bur in field quhar so him lyst:
For off himself as than litill he wyst.
Like a wild best that war fra resoun rent
As wytlace wy in to the ost he went,
Dingand on hard.'
(10, 394).
This may be all very barbarous, but it is none the less vigorous, and probably more like the real Wallace than our 19th century notions would have him to be. To say that Blind Harry's picture of him goes against our conception of Scotland's greatest patriot must either mean that this conception is a purely a priori one, or that the minstrel is inconsistent, and this he certainly is not. His Wallace is of the same mind from beginning to end, and we must take him as we have received him, or be content with meagre facts that give us no ground for estimating his character at all.
We have only space to say a little of Blind Harry's conception of Bruce, which is by no means so favourable as Barbour's. Not only does he emphasise Bruce's earlier connection with England, which Barbour gracefully passes over, but he plainly states his preference for Wallace, except for the fact that Bruce was King. Perchance his hearers, he thinks, may say that Wallace was nothing to Bruce.
'He was als gud, quhat deid was to assaill,
As off his handis, and bauldar in battaill,
Bot Bruce was knawin weyll ayr of this kynrik.'
Nor is it the least charming part of Blind Harry's work, though the most full of tragic irony, when he tells of Wallace's renewed efforts to win Bruce over to the Scottish side. It is one of his striking contrasts, already referred to, to bring in
'Robert Bruce contrar his natiff men.'
or when Bruce wounds Wallace at Falkirk,11 and the conversations between the two heroes, whether by Carron side or in the chapel at Dunipace, are perhaps the most dramatic scenes in the whole of old Scottish literature. The terrible earnestness of Wallace is so well contrasted with the lighter spirit with which Bruce regards the matter, who can keep his good humour even when told, 'In cursyt tym thou was for Scotland born.'—'Than lewch the Brus at Wallace ernystnas,' a lightness of heart which appears again in Barbour when Bruce searched out Comyn—
'And schawyt him with lauchand cher
The endentur: syne with a knyff
Rycht in that sted hym reft the lyff.'
(2, 34).
It is noticeable that Blind Harry makes Bruce anxious to have Wallace to help him.
'Than said the Bruce: "Fell thar sa fayr a
chance
That we mycht get agayn Wallace fra France,
Be witt and force he couth this kynryk wyn.
Allace, we haiff our lang beyn haldin in
twyn!"
To that langage Cumyn maid na record,
Off ald deides intill his mynd remord.'
(10, 1141).
And whether this be historically accurate or not, any more than Bruce's grief at coming too late to Scotland, or Sir Edward's high commendation of him ('War nocht Wallace, we had neuir entryt in;"Had nocht beyne he, ye suld nocht had entress into this rewlm, for tresoun and falsnes,') yet it shows the minstrel's keen appreciation of the value of contrasting the two characters with each other, a point which Barbour loses in having no other great personage to contrast Bruce with. It is this which forms one of the great interests of the last two books of the Wallace, and makes the end of it so much less tame than that of the Brus where the two great heroes have disappeared and left no one to take their place.
The question has often been discussed whether Blind Harry was really blind, or at least whether John Major was right in saying that he was blind from his birth. This is another of those side issues which are apt to vitiate all real judgment of a literary work, and we conceive that it has really no place in an estimate of his literary merit. That the minstrel was blind for a great part of his life must be accepted as certain, both from Major's testimony and from his name itself, but it is quite possible that his blindness in earlier life may only have been partial. It is not uncommon even yet, especially in country districts, to call people blind who have really only defective vision, and it is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that the minstrel may never have been totally blind. But to make the poem any test of this seems a very precarious proceeding; we might with equal plausibility assert that we have not Blind Harry's Wallace at all—neither the MS. nor the early editions say so! Blind or not, however, his work is a wonderful one; the literature of the middle English period has nothing which exactly parallels it; its only rival is the Brus, and we trust we have given reason for asking the learned critics to reconsider their judgment as to the relative merits of the two, poems, a judgment which we conceive to have been greatly influenced by the historical considerations set forth in the beginning of this article. First of all, we beg of them to read him, 'and againe and againe,' and make bold to add in the words of the finest preface ever penned by man, 'And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him.' Finally, if in this comparison we have said many things against the worthy John Barbour, we have done it from no idea of depreciating his great service to Scottish history and nationality, but only to maintain what seems to us the superior grace and power of the blind singer, whose own words may well be applied here:—
'Thocht he was best, non othir lak we nocht;
All sorvit thank to Scotland evirmar.'
Notes
1 Of much the same length, for Blind Harry's longer verse would make his something under 12,000 lines more than equal to Barbour's 13,500. The texts used in this article are Professor Skeat's Brus, published for the Early English Text Society, and Mr. Moir's Wallace, for the Scottish Text Society.
2 These phrases come from Ross (Early Scottish History and Literature) as also some of the quotations immediately following. It may be noted that Ross first discusses at great length the historical value of Blind Harry, 'before estimating his literary worth, and so is an excellent example of our thesis.
3 The closing three lines are merely a prayer, as also in Blind Harry.
4 That this work did exist we do not doubt for a moment, and if it could possibly be recovered the manifold confusions in the poem might be explained more simply than they can with our present imperfect knowledge of the period. A man who could say 'I haiff had blayme to say the suthfastnes' (7, 917) was not likely to be utterly reckless in his use of his authority.
5 Compare the rapid and clear sketch of Scottish history from Alexander III.'s death in Wallace, 8, 1327-74, with Bk. I. of the Brus.
6 So Skeat says in note on 1, 455: 'Barbour's use of the word "thai" is perfectly reckless.' As regards repetition of the same idea, Blind Harry's worst specimen is perhaps 4, 293 ff. but this is quite exceptional.
7By, of course, means past, regardless of, and not by, which is always be in Old Scottish. The Editor of the Sc. T. S. Ed. has not noticed this.
8 The last lines here are curious though:—
'And hawbrekis that war quhit as flour,
Maid thame glitterand, as thai war lik
Till angellis he of hevinis rik'
9 His astronomical lore is however rather strange at times, if it is not rather due to the scribe than to himself.
10 This is the end of Douglas, whose 'carioune' was then buried in Spain and 'the banys' taken home. It may be noticed that the story of Douglas throwing Bruce's heart into the battle before him does not come from Barbour. The 12 lines found in Hart's edition (after 20, 420), which Skeat says are 'no doubt genuine,' contain three rhymes impossible for Barbour (battell: tell, to be: de, withouten ho: to.) and are probably modelled on the story in the 'Buke of the Howlate.'
11 Mr. Moir says here in a note, 'Nobody but Bruce could hurt Harry's hero!' We think the idea is much better than that: it is the contrast noted above: cf., 'Behald, yon Scot ettis his awn blud' (10, 536).
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