Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 10

[1] 'Price:' praise.

[2] 'Chere:' mien.

[3] 'Couthe:' knows to.

[4] 'Debonaire:' gentle.

[5] 'Avis:' opinion.

[6] 'Steven:' sound.

[7] 'Pitance:' allowance.

JOHN BARBOUR.

The facts known about this Scottish poet are only the following. He seems to have been born about the year 1316, in, probably, the city of Aberdeen. This is stated by Hume of G.o.dscroft, by Dr Mackenzie, and others, but is not thoroughly authenticated. Some think he was the son of one Andrew Barbour, who possessed a tenement in Castle Street, Aberdeen; and others, that he was related to one Robert Barbour, who, in 1309, received a charter of the lands of Craigie, in Forfars.h.i.+re, from King Robert the Bruce. These, however, are mere conjectures, founded upon a similarity of name. It is clear, from Barbour's after rank in the Church, that he had received a learned education, but whether in Arbroath or Aberdeen is uncertain. We know, however, that a school of divinity and canon law had existed at Aberdeen since the reign of Alexander II., and it is conjectured that Barbour first studied there, and then at Oxford. In the year 1357, he was undoubtedly Archdeacon of Aberdeen, since we find him, under this t.i.tle, nominated by the Bishop of that diocese, one of the Commissioners appointed to meet in Edinburgh to take measures to liberate King David, who had been captured at the battle of Nevil's Cross, and detained from that date in England. It seems evident, from the customs of the Roman Catholic Church, that he must have been at least forty when he was created Archdeacon, and this is a good reason for fixing his birth in the year 1316.

In the same year, Barbour obtained permission from Edward III., at the request of the Scottish King, to travel through England with three scholars who were to study at Oxford, probably at Balliol College, which had, a hundred years nearly before, been founded and endowed by the wife of the famous John Balliol of Scotland. Some years afterwards, in November 1364, he got permission to pa.s.s, accompanied by four hors.e.m.e.n, through England, to pursue his studies at the same renowned university.

In the year 1365, we find another casual notice of our Scottish bard. A pa.s.sport has been found giving him permission from the King of England to travel, in company with six hors.e.m.e.n, through that country on their way to St Denis', and other sacred places. It is evident that this was a religious pilgrimage on the part of Barbour and his companions.

A most peripatetic poet; verily, he must have been; for we find another safe-conduct, dated November 1368, granted by Edward to Barbour, permitting him, to pa.s.s through England, with two servants and their horses, on his way to France, for the purpose of pursuing his studies there. Dr Jamieson (see his 'Life of Barbour') discovers the poet's name in the list of Auditors of the Exchequer.

Barbour has himself told us that he commenced his poem in the 'yer of grace, a thousand thre hundyr sevynty and five,' when, of course, he was in his sixtieth year, or, as he says, 'off hys eld s.e.xty.' It is supposed that David II.--who died in 1370--had urged Barbour to engage in the work, which was not, however, completed till the fifth year of his successor, Robert II., who gave our poet a pension on account of it.

This consisted of a sum of ten pounds Scots from the revenues of the city of Aberdeen, and twenty s.h.i.+llings from the burgh mails. Mr James Bruce, to whose interesting Life of Barbour, in his 'Eminent Men of Aberdeen,' we are indebted for many of the facts in this narrative, says, 'The latter of these sums was granted to him, not merely during his own life, but to his a.s.signees; and the Archdeacon bequeathed it to the dean, canons, the chapter, and other ministers of the Cathedral of Aberdeen, on condition that they should for ever celebrate a yearly ma.s.s for his soul. At the Reformation, when it came to be discovered that ma.s.ses did no good to souls in the other world, it is probable that this endowment reverted to the Crown.'

Barbour also wrote a poem under what seems now the strange t.i.tle, 'The Brute.' This was in reality a metrical history of Scotland, commencing with the fables concerning Brutus, or 'Brute,' who, according to ancient legends, was the great-grandson of Aeneas--came over from Italy, the land of his birth--landed at Totness, in Devons.h.i.+re--destroyed the giants who then inhabited Albion--called the island 'Britain' from his own name, and became its first monarch. From this original fable, Barbour is supposed to have wandered on through a hundred succeeding stories of similar value, till he came down to his own day. There can be little regret felt, therefore, that the book is totally lost. Wynton, in his 'Chronicle,' refers to it in commendatory terms; but it cannot be ascertained from his notices whether it was composed in Scotch or in Latin.

Barbour died about the beginning of the year 1396, eighty years of age.

Lord Hailes ascertained the time of his death from the Chartulary of Aberdeen, where, under the date of 10th August 1398, mention is made of 'quondam Joh. Barber, Archidiaconus, Aberd., and where it is said that he had died two years and a half before, namely, in 1396.'

His great work, 'The Bruce,' or more fully, 'The History of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots,' does not appear to have been printed till 1616 in Edinburgh. Between that date and the year 1790, when Pinkerton's edition appeared, no less than twenty impressions were published, (the princ.i.p.al being those of Edinburgh in 1620 and 1648; Glasgow, 1665; and Edinburgh, 1670--all in black letter,) so popular immediately became the poem. Pinkerton's edition is in three volumes, and has a preface, notes, and a glossary, all of considerable value. The MS. was copied from a volume in the Advocates' Library, of the date of 1489, which was in the handwriting of one John Ramsay, believed to have been the prior of a Carthusian monastery near Perth. Pinkerton first divided 'The Bruce'

into books. It had previously, like the long works of Naerius and Ennius, the earliest Roman poets, consisted of one entire piece, woven 'from the top to the bottom without seam,' like the ancient simple garments in Jewry. The late respectable and very learned Dr Jamieson, of Nicolson Street United Secession Church, Edinburgh, well known as the author of the 'Scottish Dictionary,' 'Hermes Scythicus,' &c., published, in 1820, a more accurate edition of 'The Bruce,' along with Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' in two quarto volumes.

In strict chronology Barbour belongs to an earlier date than Chaucer, having been born and having died a few years before him. But as the first Scotch poet who has written anything of length, with the exception of the author of the 'Romance of Sir Tristrem,' he claims a conspicuous place in our 'Specimens.' He was singularly fortunate in the choice of a subject. With the exception of Wallace, there is no name in Scottish history that even yet calls up prouder a.s.sociations than that of Robert Bruce. The incidents in his history,--the escape he made from English bondage to rescue his country from the same yoke; his rise refulgent from the stroke which, in the cloisters of the Gray Friars, Dumfries, laid the Red Comyn low; his daring to be crowned at Scone; his frequent defeats; his lion-like retreat to the Hebrides, accompanied by one or two friends, his wife meanwhile having been carried captive, three of his brothers hanged, and himself supposed to be dead; the romantic perils he survived, and the victories he gained amidst the mountains where the deep waters of the river Awe are still telling of his name, and the echoes of Ben Cruachan repeating the immortal sound; his sudden reappearance on the west coast of Scotland, where, as he 'shook his Carrick spear,' his country rose, kindling around him like heather on flame; the awful suspense of the hour when it was announced that Edward I., the tyrant of the Ragman's Roll, the murderer of Wallace, was approaching with a mighty army to crush the revolt; the electrifying news that he had died at Sark, as if struck by the breath of the fatal Border, which he had reached, but could not overpa.s.s; the b.l.o.o.d.y summer's day of Bannockburn, in which Edward II. was repelled, and the gallant army of his father annihilated; the energy and wisdom of the Bruce's civil administration after the victory; the less famous, but n.o.ble battle of Byland, nine years after Bannockburn, in which he again smote the foes of his country; and the recognition which at last he procured, on the accession of Edward III., of the independence of Scotland in 1329, himself dying the same year, his work done and his glory for ever secured,--not to speak of the beautiful legends which have cl.u.s.tered round his history like ivy round an ancestral tower--of the spider on the wall, teaching him the lesson of perseverance, as he lay in the barn sad and desponding in heart--of the strange signal-light upon the sh.o.r.e near his maternal castle of Turnberry, which led him to land, while

'Dark red the heaven above it glow'd, Dark red the sea beneath it flow'd, Red rose the rocks on ocean's brim, In blood-red light her islets swim, Wild screams the dazzled sea-fowl gave, Dropp'd from their crags a plas.h.i.+ng wave, The deer to distant covert drew, The blackc.o.c.k deem'd it day, and crew;'

and last, not least, the adventures of his gallant, unquenchable heart, when, in the hand of Douglas,--meet casket for such a gem!--it marched onwards, as it was wont to do, in conquering power, toward the Holy Land;--all this has woven a garland round the brow of Bruce which every civilised nation has delighted to honour, and given him besides a share in the affections and the pride of his own land, with the joy of which 'no stranger can intermeddle.'

Bruce has been fortunate in his laureates, consisting of three of Scotland's greatest poets,--Barbour, Scott, and Burns. The last of these has given us a glimpse of the patriot-king, revealing him on the brow of Bannockburn as by a single flash of lightning. The second has, in 'The Lord of the Isles,' seized and sung a few of the more romantic pa.s.sages of his history. But Barbour has, with unwearied fidelity and no small force, described the whole incidents of Bruce's career, and reared to his memory, not an insulated column, but a broad and deep-set temple of poetry.

Barbour's poem has always been admired for its strict accuracy of statement, to which Bower, Wynton, Hailes, Pinkerton, Jamieson, and Sir Walter Scott all bear testimony; for the picturesque force of its natural descriptions; for its insight into character, and the lifelike spirit of its individual sketches; for the martial vigour of its battle- pictures; for the enthusiasm which he feels, and makes his reader feel, for the valiant and wise, the sagacious and persevering, the bold, merciful, and religious character of its hero, and for the piety which pervades it, and proves that the author was not merely a churchman in profession, but a Christian at heart. Its defects of rude rhythm, irregular constructions, and obsolete phraseology, are those of its age; but its beauties, its unflagging interest, and its fine poetic spirit, are characteristic of the writer's own genius.

APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM.

Ah! freedom is a n.o.ble thing!

Freedom makes man to have liking!

Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives!

A n.o.ble heart may have none ease, Nor nought else that may him please, If freedom fail; for free liking Is yearned o'er all other thing.

Nay, he that aye has lived free, May not know well the property, The anger, nor the wretched doom, That is coupled to foul thirldom.

But if he had a.s.sayed it, Then all perquier[1] he should it wit: And should think freedom more to prize Than all the gold in world that is.

[1] 'Perquier:' perfectly.

DEATH OF SIR HENRY DE BOHUN.

And when the king wist that they were In hale[1] battle, coming so near, His battle gart[2] he well array.

He rode upon a little palfrey, Laughed and jolly, arrayand His battle, with an axe in hand.

And on his ba.s.sinet he bare A hat of tyre above aye where; And, thereupon, into tok'ning, An high crown, that he was king.

And when Gloster and Hereford were With their battle approaching near, Before them all there came ridand, With helm on head and spear in hand, Sir Henry the Bohun, the worthy, That was a wight knight, and a hardy, And to the Earl of Hereford cousin; Armed in armis good and fine; Came on a steed a bowshot near, Before all other that there were: And knew the king, for that he saw Him so range his men on raw,[3]

And by the crown that was set Also upon his ba.s.sinet.

And toward him he went in hy.[4]

And the king so apertly[5]

Saw him come, forouth[6] all his feres,[7]

In hy till him the horse he steers.

And when Sir Henry saw the king Come on, forouten[8] abasing, To him he rode in full great hy.

He thought that he should well lightly Win him, and have him at his will, Since he him horsed saw so ill.

Sprent they samen into a lyng;[9]

Sir Henry miss'd the n.o.ble king; And he that in his stirrups stood, With the axe, that was hard and good, With so great main, raucht[10] him a dint, That neither hat nor helm might stint The heavy dush that he him gave, The head near to the harns[11] he clave.

The hand-axe shaft frus.h.i.+t[12] in two; And he down to the yird[13] 'gan go All flatlings, for him failed might.

This was the first stroke of the fight, That was performed doughtily.

And when the king's men so stoutly Saw him, right at the first meeting, Forouten doubt or abasing, Have slain a knight so at a straik, Such hardment thereat 'gan they take, That they come on right hardily.

When Englishmen saw them so stoutly Come on, they had great abasing; And specially for that the king So smartly that good knight has slain, That they withdrew them everilk ane, And durst not one abide to fight: So dread they for the king his might.

When that the king repaired was, That gart his men all leave the chase, The lordis of his company Blamed him, as they durst, greatumly, That be him put in aventure, To meet so st.i.th[14] a knight, and stour, In such point as he then was seen.

For they said, well it might have been Cause of their tynsal[15] everilk ane.

The king answer has made them nane, But mainit[16] his hand-axe shaft so Was with the stroke broken in two.

[1] 'Hale:' whole.

[2] 'Gart:' caused.

[3] 'Haw:' row [4] 'Hy:' haste [5] 'Apertly:' openly, clearly.

[6] 'Forouth:' beyond.

[7] 'Feres:' companions.

[8] 'Forouten:' without.

[9] 'Sprent they samen into a lyng:' they sprang forward at once, against each other, in a line.

[10] 'Raucht:' reached.

[11] 'Harns:' brains.

[12] 'Frus.h.i.+t:' broke.

[13] 'Yird:' earth.

[14] 'St.i.th:' strong.

[15] 'Tynsal:' destruction.

[16] 'Mainit:' lamented.

ANDREW WYNTOUN.