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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!
Fredome mayse man to haiff liking!
Fredome all solace to man giffis:
He levys at ese that frely levys!
A noble hart may haiff nane ese,
Na ellys nocht that may him plese,
Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking
Is yearnyt our all other thing
Na he, that ay hase levyt fre,
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome.
Bot gyff he had assayit it,

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.
And a short prayer there made they
To God, to help them in that ficht.
And when the English king had sicht
Of them kneeland, he said, in hy,

'Yon folk kneel to ask mercy.'

Sir Ingram1 said, 'Ye say sooth now

They ask mercy, but not of you;
For their trespass to God they cry:

I tell you a thing sickerly,
That yon men will all win or die;
For doubt of deid2 they sall not flee.'
'Now be it sae then!' said the king.
And then, but langer delaying,
They gart trump till the assembly
On either side men micht then sce
Mony a wicht man and worthy,
Ready to do chivalry.

1 Sir Ingram L'Umphraville.

2 Fear of death.

*

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Almighty God! how douchtily

Sir Edward the Bruce and his men
Amang their facs conteinit them than!
Fechting in sae gude covine,1

Sae hardy, worthy, and sae fine,
That their vaward frushit was.
Almighty God! wha then micht see
That Stewart Walter, and his rout,

And the gude Douglas, that was sac stout,
Fechting into that stalwart stour,

He sould say that till all honour

They were worthy. ***

There micht men see mony a steed

Flying astray, that lord had nane. * *
Their micht men hear ensenzies cry:

And Scottismen cry hardily,

On them! On them! On them! They fail !'
With that sae hard they gan assail,

And slew all that they micht o'erta'.

And the Scots archers alsua 2

Shot amang them so deliverly,

Engrieving them sae greatumly,

That what for them, that with them faucht,
That sae great routs to them raucht,
And pressit them full eagerly;
And what for arrows, that fellonly
Mony great wounds gan them ma',
And slew fast off their horse alsua,
That they vandist3 a little weel.

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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,
And fled sae fast, richt effrayitly,
That of them a full great party

Fled to the water of Forth, and there
The maist part of them drownit were.
And Bannockburn, betwixt the braes,
Of men, of horse, sae steekit was,
That, upon drownit horse and men,
Men micht pass dry out-ower it then.
And lads, swains, and rangle,5
When they saw vanquished the battle,
Ran amang them, and sae gan slay,
As folk that nae defence micht ma'.

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On ane side, they their faes had,
That slew them down, without mercy:
And they had, on the tother party,
Bannockburn, that sae cumbersome was,
For slike and deepness for to pass,
That they micht nane out-ower it ride:
Them worthies, maugre theirs, abide;
Sae that some slain, some drownit were:
Micht nane escape that ever came there.

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,
The devil came, in foul intent

For til found him with argument,
And said, 'St. Serf, by thy werk
I ken thou art a cunning clerck.'

St. Serf said, 'Gif I sae be,

Foul wretch, what is that for thee?'
The devil said, 'This question

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,
'Of creatures made he was maker.

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
His werkis all full gude had wroucht.'
St. Serf answered, 'That Goddis will
Was never to make his werkis ill,
And as envious he had been seen,

Gif nought but he full gude had been.'

St. Serf the devil askit than,

'Where God made Adam, the first man?'
'In Ebron Adam formit was,'

St. Serf said. And til him Sathanas,
'Where was he, eft that, for his vice,

He was put out of Paradise?'

St. Serf said, 'Where he was made.'
The devil askit, 'How lang he bade
In Paradise, after his sin.'

'Seven hours,' Serf said, 'bade he therein.'
'When was Eve made?' said Sathanas.
'In Paradise,' Serf said, 'she was.' * *
The devil askit, 'Why that ye

Men, are quite delivered free,

Through Christ's passion precious boucht,
And we devils sae are noucht?'

St. Serf said, 'For that ye

Fell through your awn iniquity ;

And through ourselves we never fell,

But through your fellon false counsell.'**
Then saw the devil that he could noucht,
With all the wiles that he wrought,
Overcome St. Serf. He said than
He kenned him for a wise man.
Forthy there he gave him quit,
For he wan at him na profit.
St. Serf said, 'Thou wretch, gae
Frae this stead, and 'noy nae mae
Into this stead, I bid ye.'

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

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