We have really learned nothing as to the personality of the poet. That he was a keen student and a great reader as well as a trustworthy official, and stood high in the royal favour, may be inferred. The respectful and admiring references of Wyntoun and Bower attest his high reputation as a writer and authority on history. But _The Bruce_ of itself would suggest neither the cleric nor the accountant. His pious reflections would be commonplaces even for a lay writer, and his handling of figures is not in any way distinctive. Even of Scotland in the background we get but casual, fleeting glimpses. Barbour is occupied entirely with his heroes and their performances. It is these he undertakes to celebrate, not, primarily, even the great cause which called them forth; and personal loyalty is his master virtue.[36] That he so conceived and developed his subject, his hurried passage from incident to incident, his grim, practical humour, his impatience of inaction or commonplace achievement, his actively descriptive vocabulary, and his vivid realization of the details of movement and conflict--all contribute to the impression of a man of lively, energetic temperament, with a delight in action and the concrete, and so, as his time and circumstances would make him, an amateur and idealist of chivalry. [36] “His theme was Freedom,” writes Mr. Cosmo Innes. Barbour gives out his “theme” in the first thirty-six lines, and never once mentions it. Besides _The Bruce_, Wyntoun credits Barbour with _The Stewartis Oryginalle_, a metrical genealogy starting from “Sere Dardane, lord de Frygya”(!), which has not survived.[37] Skeat has also suggested, basing on certain references by Wyntoun, that Barbour wrote a _Brut_ on the mythical colonization of Britain by Brutus, but the inference is disputed by Mr. Brown,[38] and Wyntoun’s language is too vague for a definite opinion. On better grounds there has been attributed to him a _Trojan War_ or _Troy Book_, portions of which have been used to fill up gaps in a MS. of Lydgate’s _Siege_ with the rubric, “Here endis Barbour and begynnis the monk,” and again conversely. An independent MS. gives a larger number of lines in continuation. These fragments have been subjected to close linguistic and metrical criticism by P. Buss in _Anglia_, ix., pp. 493-514, and by E. Koeppel in _Englische Studien_, x., pp. 373-382, and their reasoning on differences of verbal and grammatical usages has been summarized by Skeat,[39] who concurs with their conclusion against Barbour’s authorship. But there are other elements of evidence, and the sceptical discussion of Medea’s alleged astronomical powers with the affirmation, Bot na gude Cristene mane her-to Sulde gif credence--that I defend,[40]