JOHN BARBOUR

JOHN BARBOUR, a Scotch poet and chronicler, archdeacon of Aberdeen, a man of learning and sagacity; his only extant work a poem entitled "The Bruce," being a long history in rhyme of the life and achievements of Robert the Bruce, a work consisting of 13,000 octosyllabic lines, and possessing both historical and literary merit; "represents," says Stopford Brooke, "the whole of the eager struggle for Scottish freedom against the English, which closed at Bannockburn, and the national spirit in it full grown into life;" d. 1195.