epic poem, The Bruce, was in progress; and in 1377 a sum of ten pounds was paid by the king's command, apparently as a first recognition of the work. This gift was followed in a few months by a royal grant of a perpetual annuity of twenty shillings. For another poem on the Troy legend (of which fragments have been preserved) he received a pension for life of ten pounds a year, payable half-yearly. The authorship of The Legends of the Saints is on strong grounds ascribed to him; and Wyntoun speaks of his having written a history of the Stewart family, 'The Stewartis Oryginale.' The last payment which Barbour received was at Martinmas 1394, and entries in the chartulary of Aberdeen Cathedral prove that his death took place on 13th March 1396. Barbour's anniversary continued to be celebrated on that day in the cathedral church of St Machar at Aberdeen until the Reformationthe expense of the service being defrayed from the perpetual annuity granted to the Archdeacon by the first of the Stewart kings in 1378, pro compilacione Libri de Gestis illustrissimi principis quondam Domini Regis Roberti de Brus.' Barbour's poem of The Bruce is in some 14,000 octosyllabic lines, which by no means rhyme smoothly, are sometimes little more than the sheer doggerel of the chronicler, and but rarely rise to the level of real poetry. To call Barbour 'the father of Scottish poetry' is accordingly misleading, though his work is lacking neither in interest nor attraction, and in some respects is really poetic. If he is not altogether a poet, neither is he a mere chronicler; and, as is pointed out below, he drew extensively on French romances for his representation of Scottish events, deeds, and speeches. As Professor Skeat has insisted, Barbour, though he professes to give us substantially soothfast story,' expressly calls his work romance; consciously or unconsciously he would embellish facts. But we must not ascribe to that cause Barbour's most startling departure from historical fact-he confounds Bruce, competitor for the crown and grandfather, with Bruce the liberator and grandson; for this confusion is common to him with many other early histories of this period. He makes his hero reject the crown said to have been offered to him by Edward, and so the same Norman noble whose claims had been finally rejected by Edward triumphs at Bannockburn; and the poet-chronicler omits the fact that the grandson had sworn fealty to Edward and done homage to Baliol. He sought to present in Bruce a true hero and patriot, throwing off the yoke of oppression, and all that could weaken the heroic picture was excluded. With Bruce, Douglas is specially honoured. Almost all the personal traits and adventures of Bruce-all that gives individuality, life, and colour to his history-will be found in the pages of Barbour. The rhyming narrative of the wanderings, trials, sufferings, and fortitude of the monarch; the homely touches of tender ness and domestic feeling interspersed, as well as the knightly courtesy and royal intrepid bearing, tended greatly to endear and perpetuate the name of the Scottish sovereign. Bruce comforts his men by telling how Rome was brought low by Hannibal, but rose triumphant from her humiliation; and when he was himself in very evil case, retreating across Loch Lomond, he entertained them with tales of French chivalry: The Kyng the quhilis merily douze-pairs The characters and exploits of Bruce's brave associates, Randolph and Douglas, are also admirably drawn. Strange to say, Barbour makes no mention of Wallace, obviously for the reason already given-Wallace's presentment would have diminished the glory of the hero. He is perhaps at his best in telling a good story, a picturesque episode or anecdote. He has a singular gift for vivid description of the pomp and circumstance of war, and shows great skill in contrasting the magnificence of the English knights with the poor and hardy Scottish countrymen. Amongst really poetic flights are Barbour's description of May, his account of the friendship between Bruce and Douglas, his tale of Bruce and the poor washerwoman, and the burst on freedom. Dignity rarely fails him; he can always infuse true tenderness into his work; and in his fervid patriotism he strikes the note repeated all down the course of Scottish history to Burns and Scott-Scott, indeed, has repeatedly followed Barbour closely. Of humour Barbour has traces. His poem begins with the story of the Bruce, and ends with the burial of his heart at Melrose. It is an invaluable monument of the early language of the Lowlands, which Barbour, like the rest, calls Inglis. The first book contains the exultant burst in praise of freedom (225–240): A! fredome is a nobill thing! makes-joy ease yearned for-over 374 On Sonday than in the mornyng, And he, that in his sterapis stude, soon inass shrove, confessed Weill soyn eftir the sonne-rising, Thai herd the mess full reuerently, And mony shraf thame deuotly, That thoucht till de in that melle, Or than to mak thar cuntre fre. 380 To god for thair richt prayit thai. Thair dynit nane of thame that day, Bot, for the vigill of sanct Iohne, Thai fastit bred and vattir ilkone. The king, quhen that the mess ves done, Went for to se the pottys1 soyne, And at his liking saw thaim maid. On athir syde the vay, weill braid, It wes pottit, as I haf tald. escape Gif that thair fais on horss will hald 390 Furth in that vay, I trow thai sall Nocht weill eschew foroutyn fall. Throu-out the host syne gert he cry That all suld arme thame hastely, And busk thame on thar best maner. And quhen thai all essemblit wer, He gert aray thame for the ficht, And syne our all gert cry on hicht, That quhat sa euir man that fand His hert nocht sekir for till stand 400 To wyn all or de vith honour, For to manteyme that stalward stour, That he be tyme suld tak his way, And nane suld duell vith him bot thai That wald stand with him to the end, And tak the vre that god vald send. Than all ansuerd with a cry, And vith a voce said generaly, That nane for dout of dede suld fale, 409 Quhill discumfit war the battale. die-mêlée country free each one was soon way foes without falling garred, caused proclaim caused--aloud sicker, safe die struggle hour fear of death Until Bruce's encounter with Bohun is detailed at length in Book xii. : 25 And Glowcister and Herfurd wer, 40 And quhen the kyng so apertly forces stirrups check thump clave the head to the brains With ax that wes bath hard and gude With so gret mayn roucht hym ane dynt, reached-stroke That nouthir hat no helme mycht stynt The hevy dusche that he him gaf, That he the hed till harnyss claf. The hand-ax-schaft ruschit in twa, And he doune till the erd can ga All flatlyngis, for hym falzeit mycht; 60 This wes the first strak of the ficht, That wes perfornyst douchtely. And quhen the kyngis men so stoutly Saw him, richt at the first metyng, Bohun cousin mark-shot, distance between the butts Schir Yngerame said, 'ze say suth now; He gert trwmp vp to the assemble; Men herd nocht ellis bot granys and dyntis, blows rudely nevertheless hesitation Sum of the horss, that stekit wer, stuck, thrust through Quhar-with wes roucht full mony rout. 541 The gud erll thiddir tuk the way And assemblit so hardely, ... Quhill men mycht her, that had beyn by, well ground dealt-blow Till A gret frusche of the speres that brast. crashing-broke Com prikand as thai wald our-ryd 550 Bot thai met thame so sturdely, earth-bare rise-yet royal blow severe dealt Be roucht thair apon athir syde, 560 That till the erd doune stremand zud. And quhen the Yngliss men has seyne And mony men of gret valour With speris, macyss, and with knyvis, 6 On thame! On thame! With that so hard thai can assaill, And slew all that thai mycht our-ta, And the Scottis archeris alsua Schot emang thame so sturdely, 210 Ingrevand thame so gretumly. 220 For thai that with thame fechtand weir Set hardyment, and strynth, and will, With hart and corage als thar-till, And all thair mayne and all thar mycht, To put thame fouly to the flycht. 228 And fra schir Amer with the king Wes fled, wes nane that durst abyde, Bot fled, scalit on ilka syde. And thair fais thame presit fast, Thai war, to say suth, all agast, And fled swa richt effrayitly That of thame a full gret party Fled to the wattir of Forth; and thar The mast part of thame drownit war. 337 And Bannokburn, betuix the braiss, Of horss and men so chargit wass, That apon drownit horss and men 340 Men mycht pass dry atour it then. did overtake also Distressing severely valour foully Aymer de Valence scattered-every foes river Forth braes, banks filled upon over [The Bulk of Alexander and other Works attributed to Barbour.-Entirely fresh light was in 1900 cast on Barbour's Bruce, explaining some of its peculiarities and furnishing an admirable key to its construction as a poem. As history it remains what it has always been, a prime document the veracity of which in essential substance and detail has been many times unexAs pectedly corroborated. a poem, however, and to a restricted degree as history also, it was unquestionably influenced by the French Roman d'Alexandre, especially the Fuerre de Gaderis and the Vœux du Paon, both of which, as we had occasion to notice, are believed to have been in the repertory of the mysterious Huchown.' Barbour in the Bruce refers to the 'Forrayours' in 'Gadyris' (iii. 75), and the speech he assigns to Bruce at Bannockburn is in part a faithful rendering of the address of Alexander the Great at the battle of 'Effesoun' in the l'aux du Paon. Besides, Barbour's citations include one passage from that part of the French Roman d'Alexandre which is known as the Assaut de Tyr, and which was not, like the Fuerre and the Vaux, rendered into vigorous Scottish in The Buik of the most noble and vailzeand Conquerour Alexander the Great, written according to the disputed colophon-in 1438, printed about 1580, and reprinted for the Bannatyne Club in 1831. Attention having at last been called to the quite phenomenal relation between this poem and the Bruce, it is now contended that such overwhelming resemblances of so many lines through and through both poems-sometimes in matters of relative specialty, oftenest in mere commonplace phrases-are only explicable on the basis of the colophon being an error-perhaps for 1378-and of Barbour having himself written the translation. Possibly, according to this view, the Scottish Alexander was in hand before the Bruce was written, and when the latter work was undertaken the poet's mind was saturated with reminiscences of his other task. At any rate, the amount of material common to both poems is truly extraordinary. Historians as well as poets have ever exercised the right of making speeches for their kings and warriors, and Barbour did not go far amiss in heroically supplying for the Scottish monarch at Bannockburn a battle-speech equally poetical in its origin borrowed from Alexander the Great. The Scottish Alexander is a vivid, energetic, wellrounded poem in precisely the metre, style, and diction of the Bruce, using the same rhymes and the same mannerisms repeated again and again. Some of these have been found so characteristic as to admit of classification as idiosyncrasies of translation. The Alexander, however, although a capital and most interesting piece in itself, derives its chief importance from the unique character of its connection with the Bruce. The battle of Bannockburn as described in the latter is simply studded with lines identical with others in the Alexander. The reader will best appreciate this from a few examples, which may be compared with the Bannockburn lines in the Bruce printed above: an xiij. 28 xiij. 36 xiij. 207 There are some hundreds of analogous parallels, and as the lines thus owned in common by the Bruce and the Alexander are seldom such as any author would be likely to plagiarise, although often far from being mere commonplaces of the period, the inference has been drawn that nobody but Barbour himself could have made the Scottish translation. This conclusion has received ample corroboration from rhyme tests, and from comparison of methods of translation disclosed by Barbour's other works of that order. It assumes that the colophon date-1438-must have been merely scribal or error of the press.1 No doubt this fact presents a slight difficulty, but it is the only one which exists ; and scribal errors and intentional changes were far from uncommon. On the other hand, the date 1438 can only be accepted on the extravagant supposition that the translator was so imbued with Barbour's technique as to enable him to copy even his distinguishing error of rhyme, that of occasionally equating yng with yne. Not only so it would require us to believe that Barbour and the anonymous translator both had recourse to Huchown when they wished to describe the month of May. Huchown, translating Guido, had written in the Destruction of Troy (line 12,969): Hit was the moneth of May when mirthes begyn, mingled Groves brightwoods The Alexander has two descriptions of May especially noteworthy, because they differ from the rest of the poem in respect that seventeen lines out of twenty-three combine rhyme and alliteration. The Bruce also has two descriptions of May (that of Were or Ver being truly of the summer month) likewise remarkable for the quite exceptional and systematic alliterations they contain in thirteen lines out of twenty-two. Alexander, page 107. In mery May quhen medis springis And foullis in the forestis singis, 1 Dr Albert Herrmann, a German scholar, had in his Unter suchungen über das schottische Alexanderbuch (1893) suggested that the translator of the Alexander in 1438 had learned the Bruce by heart, and thus came to imitate it so frequently and closely. Mr J. T. T. Brown is, it is understood, publishing in Germany his view that the Bruce was rewritten towards the close of the fifteenth century by a scribe who 'edited' it by the insertion of romance embellishments, including the numerous passages from the Alexander. The ascription to Barbour of the Alexander was first made by the present writer in a paper on John Barbour, Poet and Translator,' read to the Philological Society in London on 22nd June 1900, when it was unanimously accepted as proved beyond doubt. Alexander, page 248. This was in middes the moneth of May, And foulis singis of soundis seir And ynde with uther hewis ma Bruce, Book v. lines 1-12. That wikkit wynter had thame revede, Bruce, Book xvi. lines 63-71. nature blossoms winsome robes various groves various indigo, blue hideous Began varied began covering robbed groves No inconsiderable proportion of the alliterations in those four May pieces occur in Huchown's May descriptions, one of which is above quoted: these are found in the Bruce as well as in the Alexander, and Huchown's own indubitable familiarity with the French Alexandre lends countenance to the suggestion that through these descriptions of May, which have a music of their own, we can hear the echo of the romance culture of the fourteenth century, and recognise in Barbour this evident trace of Huchown's intellectual ascendency over him. As we have seen, they were colleagues at the Exchequer, and it is pleasant to have grounds so solid for the belief that their leisure talk may have turned to the Nine Worthies, to Arthur, or to 'Sir Hector of Troy.' The last-named theme had probably enlisted Barbour's poetical sympathies early in his career, for no really tenable objection has been stated to the ascription to Barbour by a fifteenth-century scribe of portions of a rhymed translation of Guido. These Troy Fragments Bot twenty mene gud and ill. Na of the gret oste hyme thane socht, Trumpeter joker knowing host by chance foes then gait, road weened well he not knowing without delay Weened-betrayed The story of Jak (afterwards Carrick Herald) is told so much in the Archdeacon's manner as to form a remarkable connecting-link between the chivalry of the Bruce and the Alexander and the biographical piety of the Legends. GEO. NEILSON.] There are two principal MSS. of the Bruce, both 15th c. The poem, printed in 1571 and 1616, was edited by Jamieson (1820), Cosmo Innes (1856), and Skeat (E. E.T. Soc. 1870-77, and again for the Scottish Text Society, 1894). The Legends of the Saints and the Troy Fragments, discovered by Bradshaw in the Cambridge University Library (see Bradshaw's Life by Prothero, 1889), were edited as Barbour's by Horstmann in 1881-82. These attributions were at first accepted, but Köppel (Engl. Studien, Similarly x. 373) and Buss (Anglia, ix. 493) disputed them. |