But British history offers another character to our notice, who bears perhaps a nearer personal resemblance to Aristomenes, although both his own fate and the issue of the struggle in which he engaged were different,—Wallace, the earliest, the stoutest, and the most fondly remembered champion of Scottish independence: whose name has been preserved and magnified in the recollection of his countrymen, with an affection not inferior to that which led the Messenians to pay divine honours to their departed hero. The fame of both rests chiefly upon tradition, for the earliest Scottish author who gives the history of Wallace wrote more than a century after his death, and the notices of his exploits in the English chroniclers are meagre and unsatisfactory. It is impossible therefore accurately to depict his character, or to draw the line minutely between truth and fiction. We see a form of commanding and colossal proportions, but we see it dimly, and the features must be filled up from our own imaginations: but we may at least trace indomitable courage, constancy, and patriotism; and if these lofty qualities were sometimes sullied by ferocity, yet, in justification of the sympathy and interest which his career excites, we may plead not only the character of the age, and the sufferings endured by Scotland under the English yoke, but the exacerbation of temper which must necessarily arise from a life of constant hardship and danger. Hunted continually from morass to forest, denied the enjoyment of domestic happiness, dependent upon his own right hand for the security which was to be found only in the death of his pursuers, it is rather matter for regret, than for stern censure, if in the hour of victory the call of mercy was unheeded. And in further extenuation we may add, that to control the excesses of his followers does not seem always to have been in the power even when it was in the wish of their chief; and that it is reasonable and consistent with the bitter spirit of national enmity which long prevailed, to conjecture that the blind minstrel, who is his principal biographer, consulted the passions and prejudices of his hearers no less by exaggerating the deeds of vengeance acted by his hero, than his hair–breadth escapes, and almost superhuman might. It is amusing to note how party spirit has biassed the view taken of his origin and motives. The English writers speak of him slightingly, without notice of the extraordinary qualities ascribed to him, as a common robber, who having by degrees collected round him a large band of desperate men, was emboldened to attack and plunder the suite of Ormesby, chief justiciary of Scotland. Compare this with the account given by Bower,[44] in whose eyes, it is but fair to say, the having fought stoutly in defence of Scotland was cloak enough to cover a multitude of offences.