of the writers who afforded this relief, we shall, therefore, now proceed; but as we shall have occasion first to mention some of the early authors of Scotland, we may remark, in passing, that the language used at this time in the lowland district of that country, was, like that of England, based upon the Teutonic, and had, like the cotemporary English, a Norman admixture. To account for these circumstances, some writers have supposed that the language of England, in its various shades of improvement, reached the North through the settlers who are known to have flocked thither from England during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; while others. suggest that the great body of the Scottish people, apart from the Highlanders, must have been of Teutonic origin; and they point to the very probable theory as to the Picts having been a German race. They farther suggest that a Norman admixture might readily have come to the national tongue, through the long intercourse between the two countries during the three centuries just mentioned. Thus it is presumed, 'one common language was separately formed in the two countries, and owed its identity to its being constructed out of similar materials, by similar gradations, and by nations in the same state of society." Whatever might have been the cause, there can be no doubt that the language used by the first Scottish vernacular writers in the fourteenth century, greatly resembled that which was used cotemporaneously in England. Of these writers, John Barbour is the first of whom we possess any certain knowledge. JOHN BARBOUR was born in 1320, but at what precise place is unknown. His early education, and the development of his genius must have been, for the age in which he lived, very remarkable; as we find him in 1357, when he was in the thirty-seventh year of his age, exercising the duties of the important office of archdeacon of Aberdeen. Besides his clerical attainments, Barbour was distinguished for political abilities also; and was, accordingly, chosen by the Bishop of Aberdeen to act as his commissioner at Edinburgh, when the ransom of David the Second was there debated. His learning too was such that on several occasions he accompanied men of rank to study at Oxford. His death occurred in 1396, when he was in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Barbour, in all probability, formed his taste upon the Romance writers who preceded him in England, as his first poem was founded upon The Brute-a subject made famous, as already observed, by Geoffrey of Monmouth and other writers. The Bruce, his great poem, is conducted upon a similar plan; but unlike the former work, the principal incidents which it narrates, are founded on authenticated facts. It is, therefore, a very important production, and may be considered as a complete history of the memorable transactions in which king Robert the First, asserted the independence of Scotland, and obtained its crown for himself and his family. At the same time it is far from being destitute of poetical spirit or rhythmical sweetness and har mony. It contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and even pathetic sentiment. In the opening of this important poem, the author, contemplating the enslaved condition of his country, breaks forth in the following animated APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM. A fredome is a nobill thing! Then all perquer he suld it wyt; And suld think fredome mar to pryse Than all the gold in warld that is. From this poem we might select many other passages fraught with deep interest; particularly that which describes the death of Sir Henry De Bohun ----an event which took place on the eve of the battle of Bannockburn; but our space will permit us to introduce a single extract only from the description of that important battle itself. THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN. When this was said The Scottismen commonally Kneelit all doun, to God to pray. 'Yon folk kneel to ask mercy.' Sir Ingram1 said, 'Ye say sooth now They ask mercy, but not of you; I tell you a thing sickerly, 1 Sir Ingram L'Umphraville. 2 Fear of death. * * Almighty God! how douchtily Sir Edward the Bruce and his men Sae hardy, worthy, and sae fine, And the gude Douglas, that was sac stout, He sould say that till all honour They were worthy. *** There micht men see mony a steed Flying astray, that lord had nane. * * And Scottismen cry hardily, On them! On them! On them! They fail !' And slew all that they micht o'erta'. And the Scots archers alsua 2 Shot amang them so deliverly, Engrieving them sae greatumly, That what for them, that with them faucht, 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, Fled to the water of Forth, and there On ane side, they their faes had, ANDREW WYNTOUN, the next important poet that the Scottish literature of this period presents, lived some time after the age of Barbour, but neither the place nor the period of his birth is now known. He was Prior of St. Serf's monastery at Lochleven, and about the year 1420, he completed an Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, including much universal history, and extending down to his own time. The genius of this author was inferior to that of Barbour; but his versification is easy, his language pure, and his style often animated. His Chronicle is valuable as a picture of ancient manners, as a repository of historical anecdotes, and as a specimen of the literary attainments of that age in Scotland. It contains a considerable number of fabulous legends, such as we may suppose to have been told beside the parlor fire of the monasteries of those days, and which convey a curious idea of the credulity of the age. From this Chronicle we extract the following singular imaginary interview between St. Serf and Sathanas. St. Serf lived in the sixth century, and was the founder of the monastery f which Wyntoun was Prior: .2 ~NTERVIEW OF ST. SERF WITH SATHANAS. While St. Serf, intil a stead, Lay after matins in his bed, For til found him with argument, St. Serf said, 'Gif I sae be, Foul wretch, what is that for thee?' I ask in our collation, Say where was God, wit ye oucht, Before that heaven and erd was wroucht?' St. Serf said, 'In himself steadless His Godhead hampered never was.' The devil then askit, 'What cause he had To make the creatures that he made?' To that St. Serf answered there, A maker micht he never be, But gif creatures made had he.' 1 Slime, mud. 2 Ellis The devil askit him, 'Why God of noucht Gif nought but he full gude had been.' St. Serf the devil askit than, 'Where God made Adam, the first man?' St. Serf said. And til him Sathanas, He was put out of Paradise?' St. Serf said, 'Where he was made.' 'Seven hours,' Serf said, 'bade he therein.' Men, are quite delivered free, Through Christ's passion precious boucht, St. Serf said, 'For that ye Fell through your awn iniquity ; And through ourselves we never fell, But through your fellon false counsell.'** Suddenly then passed he; Frae that stead he held his way, And never was seen there to this day. Besides Wyntoun there were a few other Scottish writers of the same period, such as Hutcheon of the Hall Royal, who wrote a metrical Romance entitled the Gest of Arthur; and Clerk of Tranent, who wrote a Romance entitled The Adventure of Sir Gawain. In the narrative of what remains of this latter poem, there is a sort of wildness which is very striking, though the language is often so obsolete, as to be quite unintelligible. The Howlate, an allegorical, satirical poem written about the same time by a poet named Howland, but of whom nothing more is known, strikingly reminds us of The 'Pricke of Conscience,' and 'Pierce Ploughman's Vision." The last of the romantic or minstrel class of compositions in Scotland of this period was The Adventures of Sir William Wallace, written about the middle of the fifteenth century by a wandering poet usually called Blind Harry. Of the author, however, nothing is farther known than that he |