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HENRY, the minstrel, more
commonly styled BLIND HARRY, was a wandering poet of the fifteenth
century, who wrote a well-known narrative of the life of Sir William
Wallace.
The character of a
wandering bard or minstrel was in early ages highly valued and honoured,
although at a late period it fell into discredit. HENRY THE MINSTREL, or
BLIND HARRY, had not the fortune to live during the sunshine of his
profession; for in the Scottish laws of his own time, we find bards
classed with "vagabonidis, fuilis, and sic like idill peopill;" but the
misfortune of his blindness, and the unquestionable excellence of his
talents, would in all probability secure to him a degree of respect and
attention which was not then generally bestowed on individuals of his
class. Indeed, we learn from Major, that the most exalted in the land
countenanced the minstrel, and that he recited his poetical narratives
before them. Major is the only writer from whom any information
regarding Blind Harry is derived, and the meagreness of that information
may be judged of, when it is known, that the whole is comprised in the
following brief sentence. "Integrum librum Gullielmi Vallacei Henricus,
nativitate luminibus captus, meae infantiae tempore cudit; et quae vulgo
dicebantur, carmine vulgari, in quo peritus erat, conscripsit; (ego
autem talibus scriptis solum in parte fidem impertior;) qui historiarum
recitatione coram principibus victum et vestitum quo dignus erat nactus
est."[Hist. lib. iv. c. 15.]—" Henry, who was blind from his birth, in
the time of my infancy composed the whole book of William Wallace; and
committed to writing in vulgar poetry, in which he was well skilled the
things that were commonly related of him. For my own part, I give only
partial credit to writings of this description. By the recitation of
these, however, in the presence of men of the highest rank, he procured,
as he indeed deserved, food and raiment."
Brief, however, as this
passage is, we gather from it the principal points of Henry’s
life—namely, that he was born blind - that he was well skilled in
vernacular poetry—that he composed the book of William Wallace - and
that by reciting it he procured food and raiment. The passage, also, is
the only source from which we can learn the date of the poem or the
period when its author flourished. Major was born in the year 1469, and
as he says that the book of William Wallace was composed in his infancy,
Blind Harry must have lived about that time, and the date of this work
may be placed between 1470 and 1480. More than this, regarding the
biography of a once popular poet, and one whose name is still familiar
in the mouths of his countrymen, cannot be ascertained. Of the book
itself, a few observations may be taken.
"That a man," says Mr
Ellis, ["Specimens of Early English Poets," vol. I] born blind should
excel in any science is extraordinary, though by no means without
example: but that he should become an excellent poet is almost
miraculous; because the soul of poetry is description. Perhaps,
therefore, it may be easily assumed that Henry was not inferior in point
of genius either to Barbour or Chaucer, nor indeed to any poet of any
age or country." The question of what a man might have been under
certain circumstances, is one of assumption altogether, and is too
frequently used by individuals regarding themselves as a salve for their
indolence and imperfections. Neither can we admit that description is
the soul of poetry: we consider it rather as the outward garb or
frame-work of the divine art, which unless inspired by an inward spirit
of contemplation, has no further charm than a chronicle or gazetteer.
Milton was blind when he composed Paradise Lost, and although he had the
advantage of Henry in that he once saw, yet we have often heard his
calamity adduced, to increase our wonder and admiration of his great
work, whereas, had he retained his eyesight, Paradise Lost would
probably never have been finished, or, if finished, might not have
proved, as it has done, one of the noblest productions which a human
being ever laid before his fellow creatures. Although, however, we
disapprove of assuming a possible excellence in Henry had he been
blessed with vision, it would be unjust not to acknowledge the
disadvantages under which his poem has come down to us. He himself could
not write it; nor is there any probability that it was regularly taken
down from his dictation; the incorrectness and unintelligibility of many
of its passages rather prove that much of it must have been written from
recollection, while editors have, in too many instances, from gross
misapprehensions, succeeded in rendering absurd what was previously only
obscure. With all this, the poem is still of extraordinary merit—and, as
a poem, is superior to Barbour’s or Winton’s. In an historical light,
doubtless, its value can never be put in competition with the works of
the above authors; it is rather a romance than a history, and is full of
exaggerations and anachronisms; and narrative Henry professes to have
derived from a complete history of Wallace (now lost) written, in Latin,
partly by John Blair and partly by Thomas Gray; and this circumstance,
if true, exculpates the poet from the invention at least of its manifold
and manifest absurdities. His information seems to have been, for the
period, respectable. In his poem he alludes to the history of Hector, of
Alexander the Great, of Julius Caesar, and of Charlemagne; but without
profiting from the character which these heroes exhibited in history, of
policy combined with prowess and bravery, he has in his book taken the
childish or gross conception of a warrior, and held up Sir William
Wallace as a mere man of muscular strength and ferocity – capable of
hewing down whole squadrons with his single arm, and delighting in the
most merciless scenes of blood and slaughter. It is in this point that
the Minstrel is so far inferior to Barbour. He is destitute of that fine
balancing of character displayed by the latter, and those broad
political views which render "The Bruce" as much a philosophical history
as a poem. [In his work, entitled "Lives of Scottish Worthies," Mr. P.
F. Tytler has expressed his deliberate conviction, founded upon recent
investigation, that the minstrel holds too low a rank as a credit-worthy
historian. "I am persuaded," says Mr Tytler, "that Wallace is the work
of an ignorant man, who was yet in possession of valuable and authentic
materials. On what other supposition can we account of the fact, that
whilst in one page we meet with errors which show a deplorable
perversion of history, in the next we find circumstances unknown to
other Scottish historians, yet corroborated by authentic documents, by
contemporary English annalists, by national monuments and records only
published in modern times, and to which the minstrel cannot be supposed
to have had access. The work, therefore, cannot be treated as an entire
romance." The ingenious historian then adduces a number of instances in
which Henry’s statements are proved by lately discovered documents to
have been correct.] |
