14. =JOHN BARBOUR.=--Another eminent contemporary of Chaucer was John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, who wrote in the Scottish, or Northern English, form of our tongue. He was a learned man, and a man of the world, who filled important office in the employment of the Scottish king. His great work was a narrative poem, _The Bruce_, giving an account of the life and adventures of the great Bruce. It is valuable both as a monument of our language and a storehouse of historical incident. Barbour died about 1395. The literature of Scotland was worthily continued by the royal poet, James I. (1394-1437), brought up as a prisoner in England, and well educated. His great work was the _King’s Quhair_ (or book), a poem in the style and in one of the metres of Chaucer. 15. =SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.=--Sir John Mandeville is the first writer of the _new_ English prose--the prose with a large addition of French words. He is sometimes called the Father of English Prose. He was born at St Albans, in Hertfordshire, in 1300, and died at Liège, in 1372. He was a great traveller, soldier, and physician; travelled through the Holy Land, served under the Sultan of Egypt and the Great Khan of Cathay (the old name for _China_); and wandered through almost all the then known parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. He wrote his travels in three languages--first in Latin for the learned; then in French for the Norman-French; and lastly in English, ‘that every man of the nation might understand them.’ The following is a specimen of his prose: And 2 myle from Ebron (Hebron) is the grave of Lothe (Lot) that was Abrahames brother. And a lytille fro Ebron is the mount of Mambre, of the whiche the valeye takethe his name. And there is a tree of oke, that the Sarazinis clepen (call) _Dirpë_, that is of Abrahames tyme, the whiche men clepen the drye tree. And thei saye, that it hathe ben there sithe the beginnynge of the world, and was sumtyme grene, and bare leves, unto the tyme that oure Lord dyede on the cros; and thanne it dryede, and so dyden alle the trees, that weren thanne in the world. This is almost quite like modern English--with the exception of the spelling;