Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/168

 "Barbour," says an eminent critic in Scottish poetical literature, "was evidently skilled in such branches of knowledge as were then cultivated, and his learning was so well regulated as to conduce to the real improvement of his mind; the liberality of his views, and the humanity of his sentiments, appear occasionally to have been unconfined by the narrow boundaries of his own age. He has drawn various illustrations from ancient history, and from the stories of romance, but has rarely displayed his erudition by decking his verses with the names of ancient authors: the distichs of Cato, and the spurious productions of Dares Phrygius, and Dictys Cretensis, are the only profane books to which he formally refers. He has borrowed more than one illustration from Statius, who was the favourite classic of those times, and who likewise appears to have been the favourite of Barbour: the more chaste and elegant style of Virgil and Horace were not so well adapted to the prevalent taste as the strained thoughts and gorgeous diction of Statius and Claudian. The manner in which he has incidentally discussed the subject of astrology and necromancy, may be specified as not a little creditable to his good sense. It is well known that these branches of divination were assiduously cultivated during the ages of intellectual darkness. The absurdity of astrology and necromancy he has not openly attempted to expose; for as the opinions of the many, however unfounded in reason, must not be too rashly stigmatized, this might have been too bold and decided a step. Of the possibility of predicting events he speaks with the caution of a philosopher; but the following passage may be considered as a sufficient indication of his deliberate sentiments:

To form such an estimate, required a mind capable of resisting a strong torrent of prejudice; nor is it superfluous to remark, that in an age of much higher refinement, Dryden suffered himself to be deluded by the prognostications of judicial astrology. It was not, however, to be expected that Barbour should on every occasion evince a decided superiority to the general spirit of the age to which he belonged. His terrible imprecation on the person who betrayed Sir Christopher Seton, "In hell condampnyt mot he be!" ought not to have been uttered by a Christian priest. His detestation of the treacherous and cruel King Edward, induced him to lend a credulous ear to the report of his consulting an infernal spirit. The misfortunes which attended Bruce at almost every step of his early progress, he attributes to his sacrilegious act of slaying Comyn at the high altar. He supposes that the women and children who assisted in supplying the brave defenders of Berwick with arrows and stones, were protected from injury by a miraculous interposition. Such instances of superstition or uncharitable zeal are not to be viewed as marking the individual: gross superstition, with its usual concomitants, was the general spirit of the time; and the deviations from the ordinary track are to be traced in examples of liberal feeling or enlightened judgment."

One further quotation from the Scottish contemporary and rival of Chaucer may perhaps be admitted by the reader. As the former refer, one to a lofty incident, the other to a beautiful sentiment, the following is one of the slight and minute stories with which the poet fills up his narrative:—