SOURCE: "Barbour and Blind Harry as Literature," The Scottish Review, Vol. XXII, July-October, 1893, pp. 173-201.

In the following essay, Craigie contends that historical considerations have caused critics to prefer The Bruce over Blind Harry's Wallace and that, judged purely on literary merit, The Bruce is the inferior effort.

The misguided man who goes so far astray as to compose a historical poem, that is, a poem professing to be a substitute for history, generally 'wirkis sorrow to himsel', as Dunbar says, or at least to his own memory. To begin with, his hearers or readers may be pleased with this vivid and interesting form of bringing before them their heroes, who are perhaps their own immediate ancestors, and any little deviation from the plain facts does not at all interfere with this pleasure, if it is even noticed. The further back in time the scene is laid the...