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THIS celebrated author of
that most interesting poem, containing the History of the Deliverance of
Scotland, under the valour and patriotic enterprise of King Robert
Bruce, was born at Aberdeen, about 1330. The year is somewhat uncertain,
but as he could not be in priests' orders before he was twenty-four, and
was made an archdeacon in 1356, it must have been either that year or
before it. He had, probably, his early education at the seminary
supported by the cathedral, and, were we to judge of the state of
knowledge from the good sense and most extensive information displayed
in the poems of Barbour, we should form a very high opinion of the state
of learning at that time. His infancy and youth were passed in the
stormy period of the civil and foreign wars, carried on in the reign of
King David Bruce, for the independence of Scotland, in the calamities of
which time Aberdeenshire had more than an equal share. Yet his attention
was not withdrawn from the cultivation of elegant literature, and the
best proof of his attainments and genius is the zeal with which he
pursued his studies in future life. John Barbour received holy orders,
and in 1356 was appointed archdeacon of the bishopric of Aberdeen. In
1357 he was one of the three commissioners appointed by the Bishop of
Aberdeen to attend the Parliament at Edinburgh, to concert measures for
the redemption from captivity of King David Bruce, who had been a
prisoner in England ever since the unfortunate battle in 1346. At that
period we find three descriptions of persons obtaining passports to come
to England, or to pass through into other countries. One class was
mercantile men, of which were several from Aberdeen. The second was of
pilgrims, proceeding for purposes of devotion, to Canterbury, to St.
James's, or to Rome. John Barbour has the honour to have his name
recorded at the head of a third class, which came to Oxford in pursuit
of literary and scientific knowledge. For this purpose he had a passport
from Edward III. in 1357, and in 1365 and 1368 we find him travelling to
France, with the same enlightened view, attended by an honourable
retinue. Such a man would in any age have arrived at distinction, and in
the period in which he lived he shone like the day-star of learning.
"The Bruce," the great
poem for which every Scottish patriot and lover of antiquity will ever
reverence his memory, is written in a style of great elegance, and it is
remarkable that it is more intelligible than the works of Chaucer in the
same age. His verses are in general far from flowing easily, and perhaps
this defect is increased to us by the antique costume of the
orthography, and the difference of pronunciation between that period and
the present may augment the want of harmony. The rhymes are in general
very correct, and it is in every respect a work superior to that of the
mere versifier or composer of doggerel rhymes. That Barbour was a man of
enlarged mind appears from his rejecting all belief in the doctrines of
astrology, and of the influence of the stars, so generally received in
that age, and in fact for many ages after. Most interesting anecdotes
are detailed respecting the brave King Robert Bruce, and his chosen band
of faithful heroes, who accomplished the deliverance of Scotland, and
most interesting delineations are given of traits in their private
character, which we in vain look for in the ordinary historians. Much
satisfactory information is afforded respecting the manners of the Scots
of that period, and of their knowledge of the arts and sciences. In
whatever light the work is viewed, it must be considered as the
production of a great mind, of the poet, the patriot, the philosopher,
and historian.
King David Bruce bestowed
upon Barbour, as a reward for writing this poem on the life of his
father, an annuity of ten pounds, from the king's customs of the port of
Aberdeen, which sum contained as much silver as twenty-two pounds four
shillings of our present coinage, at twenty shillings to the pound, and
was in that age a very handsome recompense, being nearly double what was
allowed to Boëthius, the first principal of Kings, more than a century
afterwards.
King David Bruce also
made him comptroller of his household.
King Robert Stewart, the
first of that family, bestowed upon Barbour one pound in perpetuity from
the fee-farms of the borough, which he, with a spirit of liberality and
of piety, as it was believed in that age, bestowed on the cathedral
church, for celebrating a yearly mass or requiem for his soul. He died
about 1396.
From a passage in
Winton's Chronicle, it appears that Barbour wrote also a Geneological
History of the Kings of Scotland. This work is lost. His poem of "The
Bruce," he informs us, was completed in 1375. It was first published in
1616, in 12mo, at Edinburgh. The other editions are 1648, at Edinburgh;
1665, in 8vo, at Glasgow and Edinburgh; and 1670, in 12mo, at Edinburgh.
Mr. Pinkerton, in 1791, published an excellent edition, in three volumes
of large I2mo, from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, dated 1489,
in which care is taken to preserve the genuine antique orthography.
It was Pinkerton's
opinion that, on the whole, "The Bruce" is preferable to the early
efforts of the Italian muse, to the melancholy sublimity of Dante, and
the amorous quaintness of Petrarca. The following affords a very
favourable specimen of his style, and of his talent at rural
description:
This was in midst of
month of May,
When birdis sing on ilka spray,
Melland their notes, with seemly soun,
For softness of the sweet seasoun
And leavis of the branchis spreeds,
And blossomis bight, beside them breeds,
And fieldis strowed are with flow'rs
Well savouring of seir colours;
And all things worthis, blyth, and gay.
Often has the following
been quoted as expressing remarkable liberality of public opinion for as
early a period as the fourteenth century. But it must not be forgotten
that the thirteenth was the century of Wallace, who fought and died for
Scottish independence:
A! fredome is a nobil
thing!
Fredome mayss a man to haiff liking,
Fredome all solace to man giffs
He levys at ess that frely levys.
A noble hart may haiff nane ess,
No ellys nocht that may him pless,
Gyff fredome failythe; for fre liking
Is yharnyt our all othir thing,
Na he that ay hass levyt fre,
May nocht know weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome,
Bot gyff he had assayit it,
Than all perquer he suld it wyt,
And suld think fredome mar to pryss
Than all the gold in world that is.
Thinking of Burns' Scots
wha hae," Bruce's address to his army at Bannockburn, as given by
Barbour, is interesting:
And when they assembled
were
He gart array them for the fight:
And syne gart cry oure all on height,
That whasoever he were that fand
His heart nocht sicker4 for to stand
To win all or die with honour,
For to maintain that stalwart stour,
That he betime should hold his way;
And none should dwell with them but they
That would stand with him to the end,
And tak the ure5 that God would send.
Then all answered with a cry,
And with a voice said generally
That none for doubt of deid should fail
Quhill discomfort were the great battaile. |
