Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/601

 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 593 Combed knitting wool is exceedingly ancient, and it is hard to believe that it was not prepared everywhere. Mr. Heaton's general level of care is extraordinarily high. It may, however, be noted that on p. 209 he calls the same fight in the Civil War. in one place Atherton and in another Adwalton Moor. Both spellings are, I believe, possible, but the use of both is confusing. On p. 116 a rise in prices between 1588 and 1676 is attributed in part to debasement early in the century. The point might perhaps be sustained in argument, but not easily. No other even disputable passages or statements have been noted. Throughout the book, material, construction, deductions from facts established are all as thorough and satisfactory as could be wished. They will stand the severest tests. J. H. Clapham. Mythical Bards and the Life of William Wallace. By William Henry Schofield. (Harvard : University Press, 1920.) In this fresh study of the poem which passes under the name of Blind Harry, or Henry the Minstrel, the late Professor Schofield has attempted to provide a purely literary solution for a problem which has hitherto been reckoned as one of both literature and history. Briefly stated, his answer to the vexed questions which have caused so much inconclusive discussion is that in this instance, as in others, the blind minstrel is not a real person but a type, a late parallel to Homer and Ossian. Blind Harry is only one of those ' mythical bards ' who are not to be taken too seriously, and on this account much of the controversy relating to him naturally falls to the ground. The thesis is elaborated with much learning and literary skill, and there is much in the book that is both interesting and instructive. Yet even on the literary side the argument is less closely reasoned than might fairly be expected, and at times is based on mis- conceptions or assumptions without which it would lose much of its force. Those who are specially interested in the historical bearings^of the problem will readily discover other weaknesses in Dr. Schofield's main position. Some of these arise from unfamiliarity with the more local aspects of Scottish literature and history, others from the assumption that what is possible in the dim traditions of Homer, Ossian, or Taliessin is equally possible about the year 1500, and that sober contemporaries are no more to be trusted than a remote and imaginative posterity. This removal of the problem from the sphere of historical study into the vague region of literary parallels has led Dr. Schofield to deal too briefly and too dis- connectedly with the evidence for a real Blind Harry, which, when fairly put together, is much stronger than it appears in his pages. The argument that his existence is rendered suspect by the very form of his name and the absence of a surname will appear of little weight to those who have been familiar with similar cases in Scotland in modern times, and the citation of ' Stobo ' as a parallel will be recognized as a misunderstanding of Scottish methods of naming persons. It is perhaps in the chapters on ' Master Blair ' and ' The Wallace as History ' that the avoidance of the historical issues is most prominent. Thus the important question of the proper reading in bk. x. 895 is obscured by attributing the significant VOL. XXXVI. — NO. CXLIV. Q q