is a large use of the mechanism of vows in the Wallace doubtless reflecting the alliterative poem.[1]
But it is not in these incidental adaptations of earlier poetical episodes or ideas that the peculiar quality of Harry consists. Mr. Joseph Bain was well within the mark when he said[2] that a great part of the Wallace was 'plagiarized from Barbour '. How remarkable a fact this is will appear the more when we recall the deliberate challenge of comparison which Harry makes between his hero and the Bruce:
All worthi men that has gud witt to waille,
Be war that yhe with myss deyme nocht my taille,
Perchance ye say that Bruce he was none sik?
He was als gud quhat deid was to assaill,
As off his handis, and bauldar in battaill.
Bot Bruce was knawin weyll ayr off this kynrik;
For he had rycht, we call no man him lik.
Bot Wallace thriss this kynrik conquest haile,
In England fer socht battaill on that rik.
We may come again to this passage in order to consider the ethical aspect of the comparison in the face of Harry's method of conducting it.
In all literary work there are embedded indications of the time and circumstances of the writing. In a long piece of versification on a historical plan, like the Wallace, such indications could not be lacking. Mr. Bain and Mr. Brown have pointed out how numerous in the Wallace are the events 'which occurred', as Mr. Bain said, 'long after Wallace was in his grave.' They have recognized in 'Auld Rukbe',[3] whom Harry made warden of Stirling, Sir Thomas Rokeby, actually warden from 1337 until 1340; and in
- ↑ Morte Arthure, 296–396, 2044–89 (cf. Neilson's Huchown of the Awle Ryale, pp. 44–6), Wallace, vi. 216, 384, 897, vii. 387, 735, viii. 409, 442, 972, ix. 667, 995, 1860, x. 579, xi. 304, 959.
- ↑ Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, iii. p. xxxvi.
- ↑ For Rokeby: Wallace, vii. 685, Rot. Scot. i. 488–601, Bain's Calendar, iii. pp. xxxvii. 364–8.
