From which it would appear, that the “eldare brodyre” outlived the father, since he succeeded to “the herytage;” and though he may have fallen by the hands of the English, it must have been subsequent to the death of his father. Sir William, the subject of our narrative, was born in the reign of Alexander III. The precise year of his birth is not mentioned in any record at present known to exist. It is usual, however, for our historians to commence their accounts of him in 1297, as if he had then, for the first time, burst forth upon the notice of his countrymen, though they are represented as being already prepared to place implicit confidence in his talents as a leader, without any explanation of his previous deeds to merit the honourable distinction. In the preface to _one_ edition of Blind Harry, he is stated to have been about twenty-seven years of age at the time of his execution. This, however, would imply a precocity of stature and strength, and a maturity of judgment too miraculous not to be dwelt on at greater length by those early writers who have handed down his story. If he was twenty-seven in 1305, he would consequently be only nineteen in 1297. Can it be supposed that a youth of that age, without influence, and without fame, would have been able to persuade men, his superiors in birth, years and experience, to array themselves under his banner, and submit to his control? In the work of the Minstrel we are told “Fourty and fyve off age, Wallace was cauld, That tym that he was to [the] Southeron sauld.” As this, however, is at variance with what is elsewhere stated in the same work, it is probably an error of the transcriber, who may have mistaken “thirtie” for “fourty,” as we find it is said, in “Buke Fyrst,” in alluding to our hero, “Scotland was lost quhen he was bot a child.” The term “child” here made use of, is not to be considered as inferring that degree of infancy usually understood in our day, but a youth acting, or able to act, as page or squire to some feudal superior. That this is the Minstrel’s meaning, is evident from the following lines, “Yhit he was than semly, stark and bald; And he of age was bot auchtene yer auld,”