Page:Life of the celebrated Scottish patriot Sir Wm. Wallace.pdf/23

Rh the point of a spear, lest it should fill them with terror, and disfigure their faces. In fine, both these had men and money; but Wallace had neither one nor the other. The one was a king, the other a wealthy citizen of Rome, and one of the first rank. Wallace was only a private gentleman, the second son of a poor Scotch laird; he had martial England and Edward to encounter, and only a few of the  and people to support him. Nor did either of these approach to his aid, until, by the power of his own arm, and by the number and power of his actions, he constrained them to conclude, that under his conduct, they would prove invincible. And is added, that the purity of their intentions, the objects for which they contended, and the means employed to prosecute their schemes, were not more noble and disinterested, than those that gave nerve to the arm, and motion to the soul, of the great Sir W W."

A poet of that age has expressed his own, and the of the nation, upon the sad event of his death,  the following lines:―