Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to George Ellis, 26 May 1805
Edinburgh, May 26, 1805.
“Your silence has been so long and opinionative, that I am quite authorized, as a Border ballad-monger,
to address you with a—‘Sleep you, or wake you?’ What has
become of the Romances,
which I have expected as anxiously as my neighbours around me have watched for
the rain, which was to bring the grass, which was to feed the new-calved cows,
and to as little purpose, for both Heaven and you have obstinately delayed your
favours. After idling away the spring months at Ashestiel, I am just returned
to idle away the summer here, and I have lately lighted upon rather an
interesting article in your way. If you will turn to Barbour’s Bruce (Pinkerton’s edition, p. 66), you will
find that the Lord of Lorn, seeing Bruce covering the retreat of his followers, compares him to
Gow MacMorn (Macpherson’s Gaul the son of
Morni). This similitude appears to Barbour
a disparagement, and he says, the ![]()
| 48 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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Lord of Lorn might more mannerly have compared the King to
Gadefeir de Lawryss, who was with the mighty
Duke Betys when he assailed the forayers in Gadderis,
and who in the retreat did much execution among the pursuers, overthrowing
Alexander and Thelomier and
Danklin, although he was at length slain; and here,
says Barbour, the resemblance fails. Now, by one of those
chances which favour the antiquary once in an age, a single copy of the romance
alluded to has been discovered, containing the whole history of this
Gadefeir, who had hitherto been a stumbling-block to
the critics. The book was printed by Arbuthnot, who flourished at Edinburgh in the seventeenth
century. It is a metrical romance, called ‘The Buik of
the Most Noble and Vauliant Conquerour, Alexander the Grit.’
The first part is called the Foray of Gadderis, an
incident supposed to have taken place while Alexander was besieging Tyre; Gadefeir is
one of the principal champions, and after exerting himself in the manner
mentioned by Barbour, unhorsing the persons whom he named,
he is at length slain by Emynedus, the Earl-Marshal of the
Macedonian conqueror. The second part is called the Avowis
of Alexander, because it introduces the oaths which he and others
made to the peacock in the ‘chalmer of Venus,’ and gives an account
of the mode in which they accomplished them. The third is the Great Battell of Effesoun, in which
Porus makes a distinguished figure. This you are to
understand is not the Porus of
India, but one of his sons. The work is in decided Scotch, and adds something
to our ancient poetry, being by no means despicable in point of composition.
The author says he translated it from the Franch, or Romance, and that he accomplished his work in 1438-9.
Barbour must therefore have quoted from the French
Alexander, and perhaps his praises ![]()
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of the work excited the Scottish
translator. Will you tell me what you think of all this, and whether any
transcripts will be of use to you? I am pleased with the accident of its
casting up, and hope it may prove the forerunner of more discoveries in the
dusty and ill-arranged libraries of our country gentlemen.
“I hope you continue to like the Lay. I have had a flattering assurance of
Mr Fox’s approbation, mixed with
a censure of my eulogy on the Viscount of
Dundee. Although my Tory principles prevent my coinciding with
his political opinions, I am very proud of his approbation in a literary sense.
W. S.”
Alexander the Great (356 BC-323 BC)
Macedonian conqueror; the son of Philip II, he was king of Macedon, 336-323 BC.
Alexander Arbuthnet (d. 1585)
Edinburgh printer who issued Buchanan's
Rerum Scoticarum historia
(1582) in twenty books.
John Barbour (1330 c.-1395)
Scottish clergyman and poet, author of
The Bruce.
George Ellis (1753-1815)
English antiquary and critic, editor of
Specimens of Early English
Poets (1790), friend of Walter Scott.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
James Macpherson (1736-1796)
Scottish poet who attributed his adaptations of Gaelic poetry to the blind bard Ossian;
author of the prose epics
Fingal (1761) and
Temora (1763).
John Barbour (1330 c.-1395)
The Bruce. (1375). Barbour's early Scots poem on Robert the Bruce was printed several times in the
eighteenth century, including a 1790 volume edited by John Pinkerton.
