No More Learning

CH, III
6


## p. 82 (#100) #############################################

82
The Beginnings of English Prose
real author or authors of the Travels are: that he was not an
Englishman; that he never visited the places he describes, or visited
them without making any intelligent observation; that he wrote at
Liège before 1371, and in French; that he was a good linguist and
had access to an excellent library; that his intimate acquaintance
with nearly all the works of travel and of reference then known
implies long and diligent study hardly compatible with travelling ;
that he gauged exactly the taste of the reading public and its easy
credence; and, finally, that he (or they) carried out the most suc-
cessful literary fraud ever known in one of the most delightful
volumes ever written. It would be curious if Liège contained at
once two men so well read as Outremeuse and ‘Mandeville,' both
compiling wonder-books, secretly using the same basis, and not
in collusion, and it is remarkable that the Latin version with its
tale of the physician contains some adventures, not in the French
and English versions, of Ogir the Dane, a hero on whom Outremeuse
wrote an epic.
To the statements made by the author himself no credit need
be attached. This greater than Defoe used before Defoe the
art of introducing such little details as give to fictions the appear-
ance of personal recollection. He is great on numbers and
.
measurements not in his originals, on strange alphabets, some
real, some garbled or not to be identified'; and, as his statements
about himself cannot be verified, there is no more ground for
believing that he visited Cairo and met Jean à la Barbe there,
or was laid up at Liège with arthritic gout, than that he drank
of the fountain of youth and knew the road to the earthly
paradise. Similarly, the statement of the French MS that the
author ought to have written in Latin, to be more concise, but
preferred Romance as more readily understood by travelled gentle-
men who could testify to his truthfulness, is to be accepted on the
ground of internal evidence and because the Latin versions all
betray a later date and a French original. That the writer was
no Englishman, may be deduced from the absence of any local
colouring, and from his ignorance of English distances, more surely
than from the erroneous titles and coat of arms.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville were translated into almost
every European language, and some 300 MSS are said to be still
in existence. The three standard versions are the Latin, French
and English, all of which, as early as 1403, Mandeville was credited
with having himself composed. Of the five known Latin versions,
one' was far better known than the others; 12 copies of it survive,
1 Warner's 'vulgate. '


## p. 83 (#101) #############################################

Mandeville Manuscripts
83
and it was the basis of other translations. It contains the allusion
to the physician. Not a very early version, it was made from the
French, shortened in some respects, but with some interpolations.
The French manuscripts are said to be all of one type and many copies
remain; some of them were written in England for English readers,
proving that, in the fifteenth century, the educated might still read
French for pleasure. The best MS is the oldest, the French MS
of 1371, once in the library of Charles V. Of English versions
there seem to be three, represented by (1) the Cotton MS', (2) the
Egerton MS and (3) defective MSS. The Cotton translation
was the work of a midland writer who kept very closely to a good
French original. The Egerton was made by a northerner who
worked with both a Latin and a French exemplar, but whose
French model must have differed from any now known, unless
the translator, whose touch is highly individual, deliberately com-
posed a free paraphrase. But the version popular in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries was much shorter than either of these, being
taken from some French MS which lacked pages covering nearly
two chapters, while the translator, too dull to discover the omission,
actually ran two incongruous accounts together and made nonsense
of the words juxtaposed. The first printed edition corrected the
error only very briefly. Though it is possible that this defective
version, represented by several MSS, might come from the same
original as the complete and superior Cotton MS, seeing that
copyists not unfrequently shortened their tasks, the differences
are so numerous that it seems, on the whole, easier to assume an
independent hand. There is a curious variation in the dates
assigned: the best French and Latin texts and the Cotton give
1322 for the pilgrimage and 1355 or 1357 for the composition of
the book: the defective MSS and the Egerton put the dates ten
years later, 1332 and 1366.
Of these three versions, the defective one is the least spirited,
the Cotton is the most vraisemblable, owing to the fulness of
detail and the plausibility with which everything appears to be
accounted for, as it is in the French, while the Egerton is the most
original in style and, though it omits some passages found in the
Cotton, sometimes expands the incidents given into a more har-
monious picture. The change of the impersonal 'men' to 'I,'
the occasional emphatic use of 'he pis,’ ‘he pat' instead of the
mere pronoun, the vivid comparisons—the incubator 'like a hous
· First printed 1725.
: Printed 1899 for the Roxburghe Club.
8 Often printed 1499-1725.
>
6-2


## p. 84 (#102) #############################################

84 The Beginnings of English Prose
full of holes'-and countless similar touches, give a special charm
to the tale in this version. So vigorous and native is the composition
that it scarcely gives the impression of a translation, and gallicisms,
such as 'þat ilke foot is so mykill þat it will cover and oumbre all
the body,' are rare exceptions. We find plenty of old and northern
words? Slight hints of antipathy to Rome may be detected, and
there are some additions to the recital not found in other English
copies, in particular a legend of St Thomas of Canterbury, oddly
placed in Thule. The writer of this version so far identifies himself
with Sir John as to add to the account of the sea of gravel and the
fish caught therein an assertion that he had eaten of them himself.
It matters little that there are sundry inaccuracies of translation,
such as the rendering of latymers (Fr. lathomeres = interpreters)
by 'men þat can speke Latyne'; but the proper names are terribly
confused; we not only get ‘Ysai' and 'Crete' for ‘Hosea' and
'Greece,' or 'Architriclyne'as the name of the bridegroom at Cana,
but also other quite unintelligible forms. Indeed, the transforma-
tions of place-names might be worth while tracing: thus, the
town Hesternit appears in Latin as Sternes ad fines Epapie, in a
French version as Ny e puis a fine Pape, in Cotton as 'Ny and to the
cytie of fine Pape,' in Egerton as 'Sternes and to be citee of Affyn-
pane. ' The names of the Cotton version are far more accurate than
those of the Egerton, as its vocabulary and spelling are also less
archaic, but the translator sometimes errs by transferring the sound
of his French original; so, poy d'arbres becomes 'lytill Arborye,'
izles of Italy become ‘hills,' and, with like carelessness, porte du
fer is turned to 'gates of hell,' signes du ciel to 'swannes
of hevene, cure d'avoir to 'charge of aveer' (Egerton, ‘hafyng
of erthely gudes'). The Cottonian redactor is strong in scientific
explanations and moral reflections, and, like his Egertonian brother,
must add his mite to the triumphs of the traveller; to the account
of the vegetable lamb he adds: ‘Of that frute I have eten, alle
thoughe it were wondirfulle but that I knowe wel that God is
marveyllous in his werkes. '
This identification of themselves with Mandeville is partly the
cause of the high place which these three (or two) translators occupy
in the history of English letters. In all literary essentials their work
is original; tautology has disappeared ; they find in their model
6
1 Growe,''graven' (buried), . warne' (unless), "buse' (must), 'bese' (is), 'nedder'
(dragon or serpent), 'oker' (usury), “umqwhile' (formerly), “spire after' (ask for),
. mesells' (leprosy), salde wonder dere,' 'ga na ferrere,' 'to see on ferrum' (from
afar), 'mirkness umbelapped pe emperoure. '


## p. 85 (#103) #############################################

Mandeville's Style
85
no temptation to repetition or to jingling constructions and they
add none; the narrative goes smoothly and steadily forward,
with an admirable choice of words but without any phrasing,
as different from the lavish colloquialism of Trevisa as from
the unshapen awkwardness of the Wyclifite sermons. This natural
style of simple dignity undoubtedly aids the genius of the
original author in investing his fairy tales with that atmosphere
of truthfulness which is the greatest triumph of his art. In the
first place, Mandeville had the boldness not to be utilitarian, but
to write with no other aim than entertainment. It is true that
he professes to begin a manual of pilgrimage, but the thin disguise
is soon cast aside, and the book could scarcely be mistaken for
either a religious or a solidly instructive work. It was a new
venture in literature-amusement had been hitherto the sphere
of poets. And what vivifies the book, what marks it off from
medieval tales like those of Gesta Romanorum, was also a
new thing in prose: the sense of a human interest which is
really the inspiring principle of the whole and forms out of
scattered anecdotes a consistent story. The descriptions are of
people and their behaviour, and in the midst is the quiet but dis-
cernible figure of Sir John himself. It was to the interest in
human life that Mandeville appealed and this, in turn, he edu-
cated. He had, moreover, skilful devices for creating the feeling of
reality: the wonders are sometimes accounted for by what appears
a rational cause ; touches of criticism or personal reflection contra-
dict the supposition of simplicity ; with equally circumstantial
gravity he describes the trees which bear 'boumbe,' or cotton,
and those which bear the very short gourds 'which, when ripe,
men open and find a little beast with flesh and blood and bone,
like a little lamb without wool. Certainly, he was abreast of the
most recent knowledge of his time in his account of the cotton-tree
and in his assurance of the roundness of the earth. His readers,
he says, witten well that the dwellers on the other side of the earth
are straight against us, feet against feet, and he feels certain that
by always going onwards one may get round the world, especially
since Jerusalem is in the middle of the earth, as men may prove
by a spear pight into the ground which casts no shadow at midday
in the equinox. Then, as many journeys as it takes to reach
Jerusalem, so many more will bring one to the edge of the world,
after which one must proceed to India and other places on the
underneath side; 'I hafe oft tymes thoght on a tale þat I herd
;
when I was zung' of a man who travelled till he reached an island


## p. 86 (#104) #############################################

86 The Beginnings of English Prose
.
where he heard one calling to plow oxen in words of his own
tongue; 'but I suppose he had so long went on land and on see
envirounand be werld þat he was commen in to his awen marchez'
(Egerton). The author dovetails his bits of genuine information into
his fictions with deft ingenuity. One of the means of proving a
diamond is to 'take pe adamaund that drawez be nedill til him
by be whilk schippe men er governed in þe sea' (Egerton), and, if the
diamond is good, the adamant, 'that is the schipmannes ston'
(Cotton) will not act upon the needle while the gem rests upon it. But
Mandeville cannot refrain from heightening the marvellous stories
culled elsewhere. To the account of the diamond, sufficiently
strange in Ysidre' or 'Bertilmew,' to whose corroboration he
appeals, he must needs add that 'bai growe sammen, male and
female, and þai er nurischt with dew of heven. . . and bringes furth
smale childer and so þai multiply and growez all way' (Egerton).
He has often seen that they increase in size yearly, if taken up by the
roots with a bit of the rock they grow on and often wetted with
May dew. The source of this detail, as of the stories of Athanasius,
of the man who environed the earth and of the hole in the
Ark 'whare the fend 3ode out' when Noe said Benedicite, has
not yet been discovered. Probably Mandeville invented them,
as he did the details of the Great Cham's court: hangings of
red leather, said Odoric—hangings made of panther skins as red
as blood, says Mandeville; now, a panther, in those times, was
reckoned a beast of unheard-of beauty and magical properties.
Odoric expressly owned that he did not find such wonders in
Prester John's land as he had expected from rumour ; Mandeville
declares that the half had not been reported, but that he will be
chary of what he relates, for nobody would believe him. Such
indications of a becoming reticence help to create the air of
moderation which, somehow, pervades the book. The author's tone
is never loud, his illustrations are pitched on a homelier key than
the marvel he is describing-80 of the crocodiles, 'whan thei gon
bi places that ben gravelly it semethe as thoughe men hadde
drawen a gret tree thorghe the gravelly places' (Cotton). It is
a blemish on the grandeur of the Cham's court that the comouns
there eten withouten clothe upon here knees. ' Mandeville faces
the probability that his readers may withhold belief: 'he pat will
trowe it, trowe it; and he pat will no3t, lefe. For I will never be
latter tell sum what þat I sawe. . . wheder pai will trowe it or pai
nil'(Egerton). He discounts a possible comparison with Odoric by
mentioning that two of his company in the valley of devils were


## p. 87 (#105) #############################################

Mandeville's Detail
87
6
'frere menoures of Lombardye,' and artfully calls to witness the
very book that he stole from, 'the Lapidary that many men
knowen noght. ' Not that he ever avowedly quotes, save, rather
inaccurately, from the Scriptures. The necessary conventional
dress of orthodoxy he supplies to his travels by the device of credit-
ing the mysterious eastern courts with holding certain Christian
tenets. The shrine of St Thomas is visited 'als comounly and
with als gret devocioun as Cristene men gon to Seynt James'
(Odoric said, St Peter's); Prester John's people know the Pater-
noster and consecrate the host.
Mandeville hopes that everyone will be converted; his tolerance
of strange creeds and manners is that of a gentle, not of a careless,
mind. The Soudan of Egypt-who, indeed, rebuked the vices of
Christianity after the fashion of Scott's Saladin—would have wedded
him to a princess, had he but changed his faith. “But I thanke
God I had no wille to don it for no thing that he bebighten me'
(Cotton). It is with such light touches that Sir John pictures bim-
self. He is no egoist, nor braggart; we know nothing of his
appearance; he does no deeds of prowess himself 'for myn unable
suffisance'; his religion is that of ordinary men. He ventured,
duly shriven and crossed, down the perilous vale, full of treasure
and haunted by devils,
I touched none (he says) because that the Develes ben so subtyle to make a
thing to seme otherwise than it is, for to disceyve mankynde,. . . and also
because that I wolde not ben put out of my devocioun; for I was more devout
thaune than evere I was before or after, and alle for the drede of Fendes that
I saughe in dyverse Figures (Cotton).
Sir John, in short, reveals himself as a gentleman, filled with a
simple curiosity and with that love of strange travel which, he says,
is native to Englishmen, born under the moon, the planet which
moves round the world so much more quickly than the others.
He is honest and broad-minded, free from any taint of greed-
there is not a sordid observation in the whole book and that he
ever comes to an end is due to his consideration for others, for
were he to tell all he had seen uothing would be left for other
travellers to say: 'Wherfore I wole holde me stille. '


## p. 88 (#106) #############################################

CHAPTER IV
THE SCOTTISH LANGUAGE
EARLY AND MIDDLE SCOTS
The history of the Scots vernacular is, in its earlier stages,
a recapitulation of the tale of Northumbrian Old English and
northern Middle English. It is, perhaps, too dogmatic to say,
especially when the documentary evidence is so slight, that, in the
earliest period, the language north of the Tweed was identical with
that between the Tweed and the Humber; but we may reasonably
conclude that the differences were of the narrowest. The runic
verses of The Dream of the Rood on the cross at Ruthwell,
Dumfriesshire, might have been cut on the shores of the Forth,
or in Yorkshire. Later, though local differences may have been
accentuated, chiefly by the intrusion at one point or another of
Scandinavian or other words, the structural identity of the language
in the two areas was maintained. The justice of this assumption
appears when, in a still later period, we have an opportunity of
comparison by written texts. It is unnecessary to point out the
close kinship, in the fourteenth century, of the language of
Barbour's Bruce, written in Aberdeen, with that of the writings
of Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole, near Doncaster. The
likeness is the more remarkable, if we accept the opinion that
Barbour's text, in its extant form, was written out in the fifteenth
century. It is, therefore, not only scientifically accurate to
treat the language of the Bruce as northern English, but it is
historically justifiable to call that language English. ' To Barbour
and his successors—till a change in political circumstance made
a change in nomenclature necessary—their tongue is not 'Scots,'
but invariably ‘Ynglis,' or English.
The name 'Scots' or 'Scottish' has been applied to the
language of the whole or part of the area of modern Scotland
in such a variety of senses that some statement of the history
of the term is a necessary preliminary to even the briefest outline.
6


## p. 89 (#107) #############################################

• Scots' and `Ynglis'
89
Modern associations and modern fervour have too often obscured
the purely linguistic issues. In its original application, 'Scots' is
the speech of the Scottish settlers in Alban: that is, Celtic of the
Goidelic group, the ancestor of the present Scottish Gaelic. In
due course, the name was applied to the vernacular of the entire
area north of the dividing-line between the estuaries of the Forth
and Clyde. As this extension covered the eastern Pictish territory,
then under the rule of the kings of the Scots, it is possible that
some change was ultimately effected by the political association of
these several northern non-Teutonic communities. Whatever be
the outcome of speculation on this point, the only consideration
pertinent to our present purpose is that the speech of this wider
area was known as 'Scots' to all peoples south of the dividing-
line, whether Anglian settlers in the Lothians or Bretts (or
'Welsh') in Strathclyde.
When the limits of the Scottish' kingdom were enlarged
southward and had, in the thirteenth century, become identical
with those of modern Scotland, the name 'Scots' was no longer
applied to the language of the rulers. The process of amal-
gamation was, in every sense, an anglicisation, which became
more effective as the Scottish kings carried out their policy of
intruding Teutonic culture into the eastern fringe of their
ancestral 'Scotland. Thus, when the wider political idea of a
'Scotland' takes shape, we find 'Ynglis' the name of the speech
of the 'Scottish’ court and of the surrounding Anglian population
in the Lothians and Fife, and 'Scots' that of the speech of the
northern and western provinces. This alienation of the anglicised
Scot from the Gaelic Scot-illustrated in the story of Duncan and
Macbeth—was completed in the wars of independence, in which
the Teutonic or 'English' elements representing 'Scottish'
nationality were hampered in their resistance to the Anglo-
French civilisation of England by the vigorous opposition of
non-Teutonic Scots. When the struggle was ended and Teutonic
Scotland started on a fresh career of national endeavour, the
separation from the Celtic Scots was absolute. On the other hand,
certain elements of Anglo-French culture were readily assimilated.
The guiding factor was race. For some time after this, even at
the close of the fifteenth century, 'Scots' is the name for
the Gaelic speech of the north and west. By writers of Lothian
birth, this tongue is spoken of disrespectfully as the tongue of
'brokin men' and 'savages' and 'bribour bairdis. These
'
Lothian men are Scots, willing subjects of the king of 'Scots,'
6
1


## p. 90 (#108) #############################################

The Scottish Language
90
6
proud of their 'Scotland'; but they are careful to say that the
language which they speak is ‘Ynglis. '
Later, however, with the political and social advance of the
kingdom and the development of a strong national sentiment
during the quarrels with England, it came about, inevitably, that the
term ‘Ynglis' no longer commended itself to northern patriotism.
It was the language of the 'auld enemy,' an enemy the nearest
and the most troublesome. If these northerners were proud of
Scotland and of being Scots, why might not their tongue be
'Scots'? In some such way the historian guesses at the purpose
of sixteenth century literature in taking to itself the name of the
despised speech of the 'bards, and in giving to that speech the
name of 'Ersch' or 'Yrisch' (Irish). The old reproach clung to the
new title 'Ersch': and it was to be long before the racial animosity,
thus expressed in the outward symbol of language, was to be
forgotten in a more homogeneous Scotland. No better proof of
this internal fissure can be found than in Dunbar's Flyting with
Kennedieł, which is, in first intention, an expression of the feud
between the English east and the Gaelic west. If the poem be,
as we are asked to believe, a mere bout of rough fun, it is none
the less interesting as evidence of the material which gave the
best opportunities for mock warfare.
This break with the family name and historic association
indicates, in a blunt way, a more fundamental change in the
language itself. The causes which produced the one could not fail
to influence the other. For 'Scots,' erst ‘Ynglis,’ had, for some
time, lived apart: during more than two centuries there had
been little intercourse with England by any of the peaceful
methods which affect language most strongly; closer association
had been enforced with the unreconciled Gaels within its area or
with new friends beyond ; generally, a marked differentiation had
been established between the civilisations north and south of the
Tweed. These considerations, among others, prepare us for the
changes which soon become evident, though they may not be very
helpful in explaining the details of these changes. It may be
that some of them were longer in the making than our study of
the few extant documents of the earlier period has led us to
believe. We lack evidence of the extent of Scandinavian inter-
ference in the northern Anglic dialect, structural and verbal, and
we know too little of the Anglo-French influences resulting from the
Norman culture which had grown up in the Lothians. Yet, while
1 See Chapter .


## p. 91 (#109) #############################################

Middle Scots
91
allowing for possibilities, or probabilities, of this kind, we may
conclude that, on the whole, the literary language of Scotland down
to the early fifteenth century was in close conformity with the
usage of northern England. The texts of Barbour and Hampole
force us to accept this. Any qualification which may be made
must be due, not to the testimony of facts (for they are wanting),
but to an acknowledgment of the general principle that languages
and dialects change slowly and that the differences in the latter
part of the fifteenth century (to which we are about to refer)
are too fundamental to have taken shape of a sudden.
A change in the habit of the literary language is discernible
from the middle of the fifteenth century. It is definite and of
general occurrence; and it continues with but few variations,
which are due to the idiosyncrasies of writers or the circumstances
of publication, down to the opening decades of the seventeenth
century. To this period (1450-1620) the name of 'Middle Scots'
has been given. The title is not altogether satisfactory, but it is
the best that has been found ; and it is useful in suggesting the
special linguistic phase which intervened between earlier and later
(or modern) Scots. It is applied only to the literary speech. The
spoken language pursued its own course and showed fewer points
of difference from both the literary and spoken dialects of northern
England. When the middle period closes, spoken Scots is again
restored to something of the dignity of a literary medium. This is
said advisedly, for diversity of dialect and the lack of a fixed
orthography in Modern Scots are the denial of the main charac-
teristics of a standard instrument. In Middle Scots, on the other
hand, the linguistic peculiarities are, with the allowances already
noted, uniform within the period, and deliberately followed.
The name 'Early Scots,' for the period ending c. 1450, is
even less satisfactory than 'Middle Scots' for the next (from
1450 to 1620); but it will do no harm if it be understood to be the
literary language of Teutonic Scotland during the century and
a half before 1450, when such differentiation from early northern
English as may be assumed, but cannot readily be proved, was
established. The names 'Northumbrian' and 'Early Northern
English' may be applied to the still earlier stages. Of 'Early Scots'
the typical examples are Barbour's Bruce and Wyntoun's Chronicle :
of Middle Scots the writings of Henryson, Dunbar, Douglas and
Lyndsay. In a more exhaustive scheme it is convenient to have
an intervening 'Early Transition Period'-say from 1420 to 1460—
represented by such important works as The Kingis Quair, Lancelot
of the Laik, and The Quare of Ielusy. The linguistic basis of
a
>


## p. 92 (#110) #############################################

92
The Scottish Language
these poems is Early Scots; but they show an artificial mixture
with southern and pseudo-southern forms derived from Chaucer.
Their language represents no type, literary or spoken; it is a
bookish fabrication; but, though exceptional and individual, it has
the historical interest of being the first expression of a habit
which, in Middle Scots, was neither exceptional nor individual
In this transition period the foreign elements are exclusively
Chaucerian : in Middle Scots, Chaucerian influence, though great
and all pervading, is not the sole cause of the differences ?
The statement that Middle Scots is uniform throughout its
many texts must not be misunderstood. Full allowance must be
made, in each case, for the circumstances of composition and
production. Translations from Latin or French will show a larger
percentage of Romance forms; a dream-poem will attract more
Chaucerian words and phrases and tricks of grammar; a recension
of a southern text or the writing of a Scot in exile in England
will carry over' certain southern mannerisms; French printers
in Paris, or Chepman and Myllar's English craftsmen in Edinburgh,
will bungle and alter; and poets like Gavin Douglas will deal in
archaisms which even an educated contemporary might not readily
understand. Yet these exceptions, and others which might be
named, but prove the validity of the general rule.
Middle Scots stands in marked contrast with Early Scots in
phonology and orthography, in accidence, in syntax and in
vocabulary and word-forms. It is not desirable to attempt even
an outline of each of these in this short chapter. The reader who
wishes further acquaintance is referred to the bibliography.
The remaining pages will be devoted to brief consideration of the
main causes of change and of their relative importance in the
transformation of the dialect, especially in the matter of vocabulary.
The persistence of certain popular misconceptions, or overstate-
ments, of the indebtedness of Scots justifies some discussion of the
question in this place.
An artificial dialect such as is used by the greater Middle Scots
poets is, in some respecte, unaffected by the processes which mould
a living speech? It draws from sources which are outside the
natural means of supply; it adopts consciously and in accordance
1 It may be well to add that these transition' texts are more strongly southern
than are the later texts which continued the habit of borrowing.
If the entire literature of the period (prose as well as verse) be considered, this
impression of artificiality will, of course, be modified. This must always be so, even
when eccentricity is more marked than it is in the present case. Yet we must not
underestimate the importance of a habit which was, after all, followed by all Middle
Scots writers who make any claim to literary style.


## p. 93 (#111) #############################################

Southern Influence on Middle Scots
93
with a deliberately accepted theory of style. If it borrow the forms
which come to all languages with the new things of the market-
place, it does so advisedly, just as it recovers the older forms which
have been lost to ordinary speech. Books are its inspiration, and
the making of books is its end. In this way the literary conscious-
ness of an age as it appears in writers like Henryson and Dunbar
is an index to its linguistic habit. When poets show a new pride
in the vernacular and are concerned with the problems of poetic
diction and form, their admiration of the models of style takes
a very practical turn. Scottish literature, in the full enjoyment
of a new fervour, showed the effect of its enthusiasm in the
fashion of its language. In it, as in the Italian and Burgundian,
the chief effort was to transform the simpler word and phrase into
'aureate' mannerism, to “illumine' the vernacular, to add 'fresch
anamalit termis celicall. ' This Crétinism was the serious concern
of the Scottish poets for at least a century, and even of prose-writers
such as the author of The Complaynt of Scotlande, or Abacuck
Bysset, so late as 1622. In the later stages of Middle Scots, and
especially in the prose, other influences were at work, but the tra-
dition establisbed during the so-called 'golden age still lingered.
The chief modifying forces at work during the middle period
are English, Latin and French. Otherssay Celtic and Scan-
dinavian-may be neglected, but the case for the former will be
glanced at later.
The southern, or English, influence, which is the strongest, is
exerted in three ways. It comes through the study of Chaucer
and the English 'Chaucerians'; through religious and controversial
literature; and, lastly, through the new political and social
relations with England, prior to and following the accession of
James VI to the English throne. The first of these is the most
important. In a later chapter, attention is drawn to the debt
of the Scottish 'makars' to the southern poet and his followers
for the sentiment and fabric of their verse. The measure of
that debt is not complete without acknowledgment to Chaucer's
language. The general effect on Middle Scots of this literary
admiration was an increase in the Romance elements. It may
be taken for granted that the majority of words of Anglo-French
origin which were incorporated at this time were Chaucerian ; but
it is not always easy to distinguish these words from the Anglo-
French which had been naturalised in the early period. It must
not be forgotten, especially in estimating the French contribution
to Middle Scots (see post) that the most active borrowing
from that quarter had been accomplished before this time. In


## p. 94 (#112) #############################################

94
The Scottish Language
6
The Kingis Quair and Lancelot, which illustrate the first Chaucerian
phase in Scots, the infusion is not confined to the vocabulary.
Fantastic grammatical forms are common : such as infinitives in
-en (even -ine), weren for war, past participles with y, frequent
use of finale—all unknown and impossible to the northern dialect.
In these cases there is no mistaking the writer's artifice and its
source. Such freaks in accidence are hardly to be found in the
poetry of James IV's reign ; though Gavin Douglas's eclectic taste
allows the southern ybound and the nondescript ysoupit. In the
verse of the 'golden age' it is the word, or tag, which is the
badge of Chaucerian affectation. The prose shows little or nothing
of this literary reminiscence. John of Ireland, whose writing is
the earliest extant example of original Scots prose of a literary
cast, speaks of 'Galfryde Chauceir' (by whom he really means
Occleve), but exhibits no trace of his influence. When the Middle
Scots prose-writer is not merely annalistic, or didactic, or argu-
mentative, he draws his aureat termis from the familiar Latin.
So, when The Complaynt of Scotlande varies from the norm, it
is, in Rabelais's phrase, to despumate the Latial verbocination,'
or to revel in onomatopoeia.
In the prose, the second and third English influences are
more easily noted, and they are found towards the end
of the period, when a general decadence has set in. Indeed,
they are the chief causes of the undoing of Middle Scots, of
breaking down the very differences which Chaucer, Latinity
and (in a minor degree) French intercourse had accomplished.
It is to be observed that the language of nearly all religious
literature from the middle of the sixteenth century is either
purely southern or strongly anglicised : it is worthy of special
note that, until the publication of the Bassandyne Bible in 1576–9,
all copies of the Scriptures were imported direct from England,
and that the Bassandyne, as authorised by the reformed kirk,
is a close transcript of the Genevan version. This must have
had a powerful influence on the language, spoken and written.
Even in Lyndsay, whose dialect is unmistakable, translated
passages from the Vulgate are taken direct from the English
text. The literary influence was strengthened by protestant
controversialists, notably by Knox, perhaps the most 'English'
of all Scottish prose-writers. This ‘knapping' of 'sudroun’ was
one of the charges preferred against them by catholic pamphleteers
- among others by John Hamilton, author of Ane Catholik and
Facile Traictise (1581), who even saw treason in the printing of
Scottish books at London 'in contempt of our native language. "


## p. 95 (#113) #############################################

The French Element in Middle Scots 95
The third English influence, latest in activity, emphasised these
tendencies. It is easy to trace in state documents and in the
correspondence of the court the intrusion of southern forms. Sal
and shall, till and to, quhilk and which, participles in -and and
-ing, -it and -ed, jostle each other continually. The going of the
court to England, and the consequent affectation of English ways,
undid the artificial Middle Scots which had been fashioned at, and
for, that court. Poetry was transferred, almost en bloc, as if by
act of the British Solomon, to the care of the southern muse : all
the singers, Alexander, Aytoun, Drummond and the rest became
'Elizabethan’ in language and sentiment, differing in nothing,
except an occasional Scotticism, from their southern hosts. When
Scottish literature revives in the mid-seventeenth century, and in
the next is again vigorous, its language is the spoken dialect, the
agrest termis of the Lothians and west country?
That the Romance contribution to Middle Scots is large is
obvious ; that it is found in writings which are not mere tours
de force of aureate' ingenuity is also obvious. But the sorting
out of the borrowings according to their origin has not been
so clear to amateurs of Scots etymology. There has been no lack
of speculation, which, in its generally accepted form, must be
seriously traversed.
The non-Teutonic elements (excluding Celtic) are Latin and
French. An exaggerated estimate of the political and social inter-
course with France, and a corresponding neglect or depreciation
of the position of Latin in Scottish culture, have given vogue to a
theory of French influence on the language which cannot be
accepted without serious modification. The main responsibility
for the popular opinion that Scots is indebted, inordinately, to
French must rest with the late Francisque Michel's Critical
Inquiry into the Scottish Language, with the view of illustrating
the Rise and Progress of Civilisation in Scotland (1882). It
may be true that, 'to thoroughly understand Scottish civilisation,
we must seek for most of its more important germs in French
sources'; but certain important qualifications are necessary.
The French element in Middle Scots represents three stages of
borrowing: first, the material incorporated in the early period
during the process of Anglo-French settlement in the Lothians;
next, the material, also Anglo-French in origin, drawn from Chaucer
and the 'Chaucerian' texts; and, finally, the material adopted from
i Sume qualification is, of course, necessary in Ramsay's case. His antiquarian
taste must be reckoned with by the philologer.


## p. 96 (#114) #############################################

96
The Scottish Language
central French during the close diplomatic intercourse of the
Scottish and French courts, and as a result of the resort of Scottish
students to the university of Paris, and, later, of the national
interest in Calvinistic protestantism. The last of these groups
commends itself readily to the popular imagination: its plausibility
is enforced by recalling the stories of the Scot abroad, of careers
like Buchanan’s, of the Quentin Durwards, and by pointing to the
copies of French institutions in the College of Justice and the older
universities. Yet, when all these are allowed for, the borrowings
from this third source are the smallest in extent, and by no means
important. From the second source, which is, in a sense, English
(for the borrowings were already naturalised English words), the
influx is much greater ; but from the first, certainly the greatest.
So far as the vocabulary is concerned, nearly all the Romance
elements in Middle Scots which cannot be traced to the first or
second, the Anglo-French or Chaucerian source, are of Latin origin.
Even many of the borrowings which are French in form and derived
through French were taken direct from the rhétoriqueurs because
they yielded a ready-made supply of aureate terms and helped the
purposes of writers who, like Gavin Douglas, had set themselves
to cut and carve Latin for the betterment of the vernacular. It
was of the nature of an accident that the media were French books.
The forms appealed to the Latin-speaking, Latin-thinking Scot.
Moreover, not a few of the words which are certainly French, such
as the hackneyed ashet and gigot, belong to the period of Modern
Scots; others, as attour, boule, which appear to yield evidence
of French origin, are 'English' dialectal forms. When Francisque
Michel refers the child-word bae to the bleat in Pathelin we
begin to understand what a Frenchified thing Middle Scots
must have been! Nor is it easy, even with the authority of
another investigator', to allow a French origin to certain well-
known eccentricities of grammar and syntax in Middle Scots-
badges of that period and of no other—the indefinite article
and numeral ane, in all positions; the adjectival plural, e. g. saidis,
quhilkis ; and the frequent placing of the adjective after the
noun, e. g. factis merciall, concepcioun virginale, inimy mortall.
The assumption that such a usage as ane man is an imitation
of the French un homme is, in the first place, entirely unsupported
by historical evidence ; secondly, it shows a grammatical inter-
ference in a place where intrusion is least likely, or hardly possible.
See J. A. H. Murray's Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland (Historical
Introduction).


## p. 97 (#115) #############################################

The Latin Element
97
In the case of the other alleged Gallicisms, criticism may be more
constructive, for they may be explained (when they are not the
outcome of verse necessity) as relics or reminiscences of Latin
syntactical habit. The tradition of theological and legal Latin
must be reckoned with ; and the fact that the adjectival plural
is admitted to be first found 'in legal verbiage' is an important
link in the evidence.
So far, we have assumed that the Romance influence which is
not Anglo-French or Chaucerian comes through Latin rather than
French. We may strengthen this position by pointing to the
ascertained importance of Latin in the moulding of Middle Scots.
There is, in the first place, the direct testimony of contemporary
writers to the vitality of Latin, which stands in remarkable contrast
with their silence on the subject of French borrowing. The
circumstances of the writer and the nature of his work must, of
course, be considered. It is to be expected that, in a translation
from Latin, or in treatises on theology, political science, or law,
the infusion will be stronger than in an original work of an
imaginative or descriptive cast. This consideration may affect
our conclusion as to the average strength of the infusion, but it
does not minimise the importance of the fact that Middle Scots
was liable to influence from this quarter. The testimony of such
different writers as John of Ireland, Gavin Douglas and the
author of The Complaynt of Scotlande is instructive. John
excuses his Scots style because he was 'thretty zeris nurist in
fraunce, and in the noble study of Paris in latin toung, and knew
nocht the gret eloquens of chauceir na colouris þat men usis in
þis Inglis metir. Nor was he (we may be certain) the only Scot
who, when it was a question of writing 'in the commoun langage
of bis cuntre,' sought help from Latin, 'the tounge that [he]
knew better. ' Gavin Douglas allows the general necessity of
“bastard latyne, french, or inglis' to a progressive Scots, but
he discusses the advantages of only the first, and shows that in his
task of translating Vergil he must draw freely from Latin, if his
work is not to be 'mank and mutilait' as Caxton's was. The
author of The Complaynt says plainly that “it is necessair at sum
tyme til myxt oure langage vitht part of termis dreuyn fra lateen,
be reson that oure scottis tong is nocht sa copeus as is the lateen
tong. '
These confessions are amply supported by the texts. There we
find not only words of unmistakable Latin lineage such as
translatory, praetermittit, caliginus, but others used in their Latin
7
6
E, L. II
CH, Y.


## p. 98 (#116) #############################################

98
The Scottish Language
6
sense, such as prefferris (excels), pretendis (aims at), and the like.
Further, there is ample evidence of the process, at which Douglas
clearly hints, that Latin was drawn upon without hesitation and
without any attempt to disguise the borrowing. The word mank
in the quotation already given is an illustration. It may be Old
French (through Anglo-French), but its natural parent is manc -us
Examples of direct association with Latin are plentiful : here, two
must suffice. “Withoutin more or delay' is plain sine mora aut
dilatione : no imaginary French 'more'intervenes. Even at the
close of the period a man may be described in kirk minutes as
‘apt and idoneus to enter the ministry. In accidence even, as in
the uninflected past participle, e. g. did fatigat, being deliberat,
salbe repute—a form which still lingers in Scottish legal style-the
derivation from Latin is direct.
On the whole, therefore, the Romance material in Middle
Scots, in so far as it is not Anglo-French, directly or mediately,
is largely Latin. Central French is certainly represented in such
words as preaux and charpentier, but they are in many cases ära
Reyóueva or the liking of certain authors. To counterbalance this, it
may be pointed out that in The Complaynt of Scotlande, that strange
mosaic of verbatim translation from French with encyclopaedic
digressions in Scots which are assumed to be original, the author
is a more deliberate Latinist in the latter than he is when rendering
the passages from the rhétoriqueurs. Here, again, it is the
‘rhetorical' quality which attracts him to the French authors.
He pays little heed to the French timbre of their work, and
hastens, when he must be original, to find the closest imitation
in diction of this sort.
Nou for conclusione of this prolog, i exort the, gade redar, to correct me
familiarly, ande be cherite, Ande til interpreit my intention fauorablye, for
doutles the motione of the compilatione of this tracteit procedis mair of the
compassione that i hef of the publio necessite nor it dois of presumptione or
vane gloir. thy cheretabil correctione maye be ane prouocatione to gar me
studye mair attentiulye in the nyxt verkis that i intend to set furtht, the
quhilk i beleif in gode sal be verray necessair tyl al them that desiris to lyue
verteouslye indurand the schort tyme of this oure fragil peregrinatione, & sa
fayr veil.
And this writer dares to call these words 'agrest termis,' and to
add that he thocht it nocht necessair til hef fardit ande lardit
this tracteit vitht exquisite termis, quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit' and
that he has employed domestic Scottis langage, maist intel-
ligibil for the vulgare pepil. '
It has been argued that an additional cause of the differences


## p. 99 (#117) #############################################

Alleged Celtic Contributions
99
between Early and Middle Scots is to be found in Celtic. Inter-
action has been assumed because the Lowlander and Highlander
were brought into a closer, though forced, association in a unified
Scotland, or because the anti-English policy of the former, threw
him back, no matter with what feelings, upon his northern and
western neighbours. There are, however, serious objections to the
general assumption and to the identification of many of the alleged
borrowings from Celtic. In regard to the first, it must be kept in
mind (a) that the only possible interaction, literary or otherwise, was
with the Gaels of the west and south-west ; 6) that the inhabitants
of Strathclyde and Galloway were, to a certain extent, Romanised
Celts; and (c) that race-antipathies, as shown in The Flyting
of Dunbar and Kennedie, were a strong barrier to linguistic
give-and-take, especially in grammatical structure and orthography.
On the marches there would be borrowing of words, perhaps even
breaking down of inflections and phonetic change. There is
evidence of such effects in the initial f for quh (hw) of the pronoun,
at the Aberdeenshire end of the 'Highland line'; but changes of
this kind do not affect the literary standard, or every dialect of the
spoken language.
The alleged contributions from Celtic are (a) verbal and
(b) orthographic, perhaps phonological. The first are admittedly
of the slightest, and are being gradually reduced. In the second
a contingency is assumed which, as in the case of central French
interference, was the least likely to happen. The closest intimacy
is necessary before one language, especially that which is domi-
nant, permits modifications of its grammatical and orthographic
habit. Our chief authority on Lowland dialects1 has described
some of the salient variations of Middle Scots, 'in the form of
words, and consequently in their written form,' as 'due mostly to
Celtic influence. While it may be admitted that Middle Scots
was not 'founded upon precisely the same dialectic type as the
written language of the early period,' it is by no means clear that
buik, moir, glaid, etc. for older northern forms, the loss of t as
in direck, or its addition as in witht, the inserted mute l in chalmer
(or chaumer, as pronounced), rolkis (rocks) and waltir (water), the
t in the past part. as defamet, or in the adverb, as in fraroart
-that any of these things are the result of the Lowlander's
unconscious affectation of Ersch' speech. The onus probandi
lies with the supporters of this view. At present no evidence has
been produced : it will be surprising if it can be produced.
· Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland.
>
6
1-2


## p. 100 (#118) ############################################

CHAPTER V
THE EARLIEST SCOTTISH LITERATURE
BARBOUR, BLIND HARRY, HUCHOUN, WYNTOUN, HOLLAND
As has been indicated in the preceding chapter, it is probable
that, from a very early period in the English colonisation of Britain,
an English dialect was spoken from Forth to Tweed, which was,
in most respects, practically indistinguishable from that spoken
between the Tweed and the Humber. Even along the north-eastern
coast, English was soon the language of the little towns that traded
by sea. Before 1124, the communities of Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin,
Forres, Nairn and Inverness had formed themselves into a minia-
ture Hanseatic league, on which David I conferred sundry privi-
leges. The inland country behind these communities remained
for long in the hands of a Gaelic-speaking people. In the north
of Aberdeenshire there is evidence that the harrying of Buchan,
carried out by Robert the Bruce, in 1308, as part of his vengeance
on his enemies the Comyns, introduced the English language to the
inland districts, for in local documents the names of persons change
speedily after that date from Gaelic to English.
Of a Scottish literature before the wars of independence
there is no trace. In the period preceding the death of Alex-
ander III, in 1286, Scotland was so prosperous that it is difficult to
believe no such literature existed. But, as the dialect of Scotland
was not yet differentiated from that south of the Tweed, such
a literature, unless it took the form of chronicles or was of a
strictly local character, could not easily be identified. It is notice-
able that there is no lack of literature of which the scene is
connected with Scotland. The romance of Sir Tristram, which is
associated with the name of True Thomas, the mysterious seer of
Erceldoune, is preserved only in a dialect which is not Scots.
Though the Gawain cycle appears in different forms in different
dialects, all of them seem to be English. Yet Gawain, according


## p. 101 (#119) ############################################

Early Fragments
I01
to the legend, was prince of Galloway; and, as we shall see, there
is some reason to connect some of these poems with a Scottish
author. The contradiction, however, is more in appearance than
in reality. If these poems were composed by a Scottish author,
they were, undoubtedly, intended rather for recitation than for
reading; and, even if they were meant to be read, a southern
scribe would be certain to adapt the forms to his own dialect.
This adaptation might be either intentional or unintentional. If
intentional, the purpose would be to make the poem more easily
intelligible to southern readers; if unintentional, it would typify
the result which always ensues in all languages from the mechanical
copying of an alien dialect.
In the Scots dialect itself, the political separation brought
about by the wars of Wallace and Bruce produced considerable
changes. The oldest fragments of the dialect are to be found in
the phrases introduced for greater precision into the Latin laws
of David I and his successors. In these we hear of blodewit, styn-
gisdynt, herieth and so forth, for which, in the later Scots version,
are substituted bludewyt, stokisdynt, hereyelde. Till Scotland has
become again an independent kingdom, such words as these, and
the vernacular glosses on the hard words in a Latin lease, are all
that survive to us of the old Scottish tongue. Of early continuous
prose there are no remains. The earliest poetry extant appears in
the few musical and pathetic verses on the death of Alexander III,
which have been quoted a thousand times:
Quhen Alysandyr oure kyng was dedo
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away wes songoff ale and brede,
Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle;
Oure gold wes changyd into lede,
Cryst born into Vyrgynyté
Succoure Scotland and remede
That stad is in perplexyté.
Though preserved only by Wyntoun (c. 1420), they, no doubt,
are not far removed from the original form of a hundred and fifty
years earlier. In Fabyan's Chronicle are preserved some of the
flouts and gibes at the English, baffled in the siege of Berwick
and defeated at Bannockburn. But it is with Barbour, whose
poem The Bruce is the triumphant chronicle of the making of the
new kingdom of Scotland by Robert and Edward Bruce and the
great ‘James of Douglas,' that Scottish literature begins. As the
national epic, coloured, evidently, to a large extent by tradition,
1 abundance.


## p. 102 (#120) ############################################

102
The Earliest Scottish Literature
but written while men still lived who remembered Bannockburn
and the good king Robert, it is entitled to the first place, even
though conceivably some of the literature of pure romance be
not less old.
In John Barbour, the author of The Bruce, we have a typical
example of the prosperous churchman of the fourteenth century.
As we may surmise from his name, he had sprung from the
common folk. Of his early history we know nothing. We first
hear of him in 1357, when he applies to Edward III for a safe-
conduct to take him and a small following of three scholars to
Oxford for purposes of study. By that date, he was already arch-
deacon of Aberdeen, and, as an archdeacon, must have been at least
twenty-five years old. He probably was some years older. He
died, an old man, in 1396, and we may reasonably conjecture that he
was born soon after 1320. In those days there was no university
in Scotland, and it may be assumed that the archdeacon of
Aberdeen was, in all probability, proceeding in 1357 to Oxford
with some young scholars whom he was to place in that university;
for the Latin of the safe-conduct need not mean, as has often been
assumed, that Barbour himself was to 'keep acts in the schools. '
The safe-conduct was granted him at the request of 'David
de Bruys,' king of Scotland, at that time a captive in king
Edward's hands; and Barbour's next duty, in the same year, was
to serve on a commission for the ransom of king David Other
safe-conducts were granted to Barbour in 1364, 1365 and 1368; that
of 1365 allowing him to pass to St Denis in France, while, in 1368,
he was allowed to cross into France for purposes of study. In 1372
and 1373, he was clerk of the audit of the king's household; and, in
1373, also one of the auditors of the exchequer. By the early
part of 1376, The Bruce was finished; and, soon after, we find him
receiving by command of the king (now Robert II) ten pounds
from the revenues of the city of Aberdeen. In 1378, a pension
a
of twenty shillings sterling from the same source was conferred
upon him for ever-a benefaction which, in 1380, he transferred to
the cathedral of Aberdeen, that the dean and canons might, once a
year, say mass for the souls of his parents, himself and all the
faithful dead. With northern caution, he lays down careful regu-
lations as to how the dean is to divide the twenty shillings among
the staff of the cathedral, not forgetting even the sacrist (the
name still survives in Aberdeen) who tolled the bell. Other sums
were paid to Barbour by the king's order from the revenues of
Aberdeen, and, in 1388, his pension was raised by the king, ‘for his


## p. 103 (#121) ############################################

John Barbour
103
faithful service, to ten pounds, to be paid half-yearly at the
Scottish terms of Whitsunday and Martinmas. He died on
13 March 1396. Like Chaucer, he received from the king in
1380—1) the wardship of a minor, who lived in his parish of
Rayne in Aberdeenshire. On at least one of the many occasions
when he was auditor of the exchequer, Sir Hew of Eglintoun,
who, as we shall see, is also reputed a poet, served along with
him.
Such are the simple annals of John Barbour's life, as known
to us.
For thirty-eight years at least he was archdeacon of Aber-
deen, then, probably, one of the most prosperous towns in the
realm. Fortunately for itself, it was far removed from the border,
and had not suffered so severely as most towns in the wars of
liberation, though it had been visited by all the leading combat-
ants, by Wallace, by Edward I and by Bruce. The records of the
city, unfortunately, do not begin till a few years after Barbour's
death. There is, however, some reason to believe that Barbour
was not alone in his literary activity. To the same district and
to the same period belong the Lives of the Saints, a manuscript
discovered in the Cambridge University Library by Henry Brad-
shaw, who assigned the authorship to Barbour himself. From
Wyntoun we learn that Barbour was the author of other works
which are now lost. In many passages he refers to themes treated
of in a quasi-historical poem, The Brut, which clearly, in matter,
bore a close resemblance to Layamon's poem with the same title.
To Barbour, Wyntoun attributes, also, another lost poem, The
Stewartis Oryginalle, which carried back the genealogy of the
Stewart kings from Robert II of Scotland to Ninus who built
Nineveh—a tour de force excelled only by another Aberdonian,
Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, who carried the
genealogy of his family back to Adam himself. It was perfectly
well known that the Stewarts were a branch of the ancient English
house of FitzAlan; but, in the bitter feeling against England
which by this time had come to prevail in Scotland, it was, no doubt,
desirable to find another and more remote origin for the Scottish
royal family. The feeling which led to the production of this fabu-
lous genealogy is vouched for by the author of the Lives of the
Saints already mentioned, who tells us, in the life of St Ninian,
that a paralytic English lord desired his squire, who had brought
home a Scot as prisoner, to put a knife in his mouth with the
blade outward, that he might ‘reave the Scot of his life. ' This
lord, having been dissuaded from his deed of murder, and
a


## p. 104 (#122) ############################################

104
The Earliest Scottish Literature
having listened to the advice of the prisoner that he should try a
visit to St Ninian's shrine as a cure for his paralysis, finds the cure
long in coming, and says that he might have known, if he had been
wise, that a Scotsman of Galloway, as Ninian was, would never
help an Englishman, and would prefer to make him ill rather
than assist him to recover. The genealogy survives for us in
the History of Hector Boece, where we are told that Fleance,
the son of Banquo, had a son Walter, who became steward
of Scotland—a genealogy which passed from Boece through
Holinshed to Shakespeare.
To Barbour also has been attributed a poem on the Siege of Troy,
translated from the popular medieval Latin Troy Book of Guido
delle Colonne, of which two considerable fragments are preserved
with Barbour's name in a manuscript in the Cambridge Univer-
sity Library. The second fragment is found also in a Douce MS
in the Bodleian Library. There is no doubt that these fragments,
which have been utilised to complete an imperfect copy of
Lydgate's translation of Guido, are in the same metre as The
Bruce, which is shorter than that of Lydgate. They are also, no
doubt, in Scots, but, in all probability, they are in the Scots of
the fifteenth, not of the fourteenth, century, and, in detail, do not
resemble Barbour's undoubted composition. More recently, and
with much more plausibility, George Neilson has contended
that The Buik of Alexander, a Scottish translation from two
French poems, is by the author of The Bruce. The similarities
of phraseology between The Buik of Alexander (which exists
only in a printed copy of about 1580, reprinted for the Ban-
natyne Club in 1831) and The Bruce are so numerous and so
striking that it is impossible to believe they are of independent
origin.
To return to The Bruce. This, the work by which the repu-
tation of John Barbour stands or falls, dates from his later
middle life. He must have been a man of between fifty and sixty
before it was finished. It is in no real sense a history, for Barbour
begins with the astounding confusion of Robert the Bruce with
his grandfather the rival of John Balliol in claiming the crown.
As Barbour's own life overlapped that of king Robert, it is im-
possible to believe that this is an accidental oversight. The story
is a romance, and the author treated it as such; though, strange to
say, it has been regarded from his own time to this as, in all details,
a trustworthy source for the history of the period. So confident of
this was Wyntoun, writing about a quarter of a century after


## p. 105 (#123) ############################################

Barbour's Bruce
105
Barbour's death, that he says he will lightly pass over the details
of Bruce's career because
The Archedene off Abbyrdene
In Brwyss his Buk has gert be sene,
Mare wysly tretyde in-to wryt
Than I can thynk with all my wyt.
Like any other hero of romance, Robert has no peer and no
superior, though inferior to him and to him only are two other
knights, James of Douglas and Edward Bruce. It is only natural,
therefore, that, when he fights against the English, the English
have much the worst of it, even when the odds are very much in
their favour. But, though Barbour is an ardent patriot, he does
his best to be fair, and, no doubt, the main historical events are
related with good faith and as accurately as tradition allowed.
The English are not all villains, the Scots are not all angels from
heaven. For Maknab the traitor, who betrayed Christopher Setoun
to the English, he reserves his bitterest indignation :
In hell condampnyt mot he be. iv, 26.
All Barbour's resources are lavished upon the characters of
king Robert and the good James of Douglas. Edward Bruce is a
fine warrior, but attains not unto these first two for lack of self
control (1x, 661 ff. , XVI, 391 ff. ). Had he had 'mesur in his deid' he
might have equalled any warrior of his time, always excepted
his brother anyrly1
To quhom, in-to chevelry,
I dar peira nane, wes in his day. IX, 664 ff.
Douglas, too, is noble, but he is a darker spirit than king
Robert and more cruel in his treatment of the English, for he
has greater wrongs to revenge. Nothing becomes him better than
his reply to king Robert's advice not to venture into Douglasdale:
Schir, neidwais I will wend
And tak auentur that God will giff
Quhether sa it be till de or liff. V, 242 ff.
Barbour does not often draw full length portraits of his heroes;
but, almost at the end of his poem, tells us how Douglas looked
and what were his chief characteristics (xx, 511 ff. ). The only
other with whom he deals as fully is Sir Thomas Randolph,
earl of Murray (x, 280 ff. ). In both cases he praises, above all
else, their hatred of treason (from which the Scots, both in the
wars of Wallace and of Bruce, had suffered so much) and their
love of loyalty. Douglas, he thinks, can be compared only with
I alone.
compare.


## p. 106 (#124) ############################################

106
The Earliest Scottish Literature
Fabricius, who scorned the offer of Pyrrhus's physician to poison
him.
The kindliness and humour of king Robert he illustrates by
numerous instances—his delaying the army, in order that a poor
laundress, too ill to be moved, may not be left behind to the mercy
of Irish savages (XVI, 270 ff. ); his modesty in declaring that he
slew but one foe while God and his hound had slain two (VII,
484); his popularity among the country folk, when, disguised, he
seeks a lodging and is told by the goodwife
all that traualand ere
For saik of ane ar velcom here,
and that one
Gud kyng Robert the Bruce is he
That is rycht lord of this ountre.