endyng; þat is withouten qualitee good, {335} withouten quantytee gret; þat in alle places is present, and all thinges conteynynge; the whiche þat no goodnesse may amende, ne non euell empeyre; þat in perfyte Trynytee lyueth and regneth God, be alle worldes and be all tymes. Amen, Amen, Amen. {340} X THE BRUCE WRITTEN IN 1375 BY JOHN BARBOUR. John Barbour was archdeacon of Aberdeen, an auditor of the Scottish exchequer, and a royal pensioner. Consequently a number of isolated records of his activities have been preserved. In 1364 he was granted a safe-conduct to travel with four students to Oxford. In 1365 and 1368 he had permission to travel through England so that he might study in France. The notices of his journeys, his offices, and his rewards point to a busy and successful life. He died in 1395. According to Wyntoun, Barbour's works were (1) _The Bruce_; (2) _The Stewartis Oryginalle_ (or _Pedigree of the Stewarts_), now lost; (3) a _Brut_, which some have identified with extant fragments of a Troy Book (see the prefatory note to No. VII), and others with (2) _The Stewartis Oryginalle_. _The Bruce_ is found in two late MSS., both copied by John Ramsay; the first, St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. G 23, in the year 1487; the second, now at the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in 1489. It has been edited by Skeat for the Early English Text Society, and for the Scottish Text Society. The poem is valuable for the history, more especially the traditional history, of the period 1304-33. Barbour speaks of it as a romance, and the freedom and vividness of the narrative, with its hero-worship of Robert Bruce and Douglas, place it well above the ordinary chronicle. But far from disclaiming historical accuracy, Barbour prides himself that truth well told should have a double claim to popularity: Storys to rede ar delitabill Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill: Than suld storys that suthfast wer, And thai war said on gud maner, Hawe doubill plesance in heryng: The fyrst plesance is the carpyng, And the tothir the suthfastnes, That schawys the thing rycht as it wes. He did not misjudge the taste of his country, and _The Bruce_, with which the Scottish contribution to English literature begins, long held its place as the national epic of Scotland. The specimen describes an incident in the unsuccessful siege of Berwick, 1319. THE BRUCE, Bk. xvii, ll. 593 ff. St. John's College (Cambridge) MS. G 23 (A.D. 1487).