While, then, there is no absolute proof that the poet Blind Harry, Dunbar's predecessor, wrote the Wallace, the evidence in favor of its ascription to him, made unhesitatingly by the faithful Major within forty years of the composition of the work, and perpetuated without controversy for almost four hundred years, is sufficiently clear to convince all but the most skeptical, and we may proceed confidently on the assumption that it is correct. The present study will offer new confirmation of the orthodox view, explaining why the name of the poet, far from needing to raise difficulties, was a natural and appropriate one for him to bear. First, however, we must cut at the roots the prevalent conception (based solely, it would seem, even at the beginning, on improper inferences drawn from that name) that the author was actually an indigent blind bard.

Major's statements about Blind Harry appear in his History of Greater Britain. Major when he undertook this work was a man over fifty,* and had spent nearly all his mature years as a student and professor at Paris. He had gained a reputation there as a teacher of theology, and not until 1518 was persuaded to return to Scotland to live. He then became Regent of a college at Glasgow, Professor of Theology, and Treasurer of the Chapel Royal. In 1523 he was transferred to St. Andrews,

but returned to Paris in 1525. He wrote his book as a relief from more arduous scholastic labors, primarily attracted by the opportunity it afforded to teach lessons of proper ethical attitude, rebuke current uncritical views of past events, and advocate the union by royal marriage of the realms of England and Scotland. Major was a well-meaning and in many respects an enlightened person, but of a type not uncommon among academic folk, inclined in case of dispute to take the middle way. His biographer, Dr. Mackay, was quite right in saying that " balancing, hesitating, and inconclusive judgment is very characteristic of Major's intellect,' "* but only partially right in adding:

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With regard to the facts of his History, Major shows a wonderfully sound historical instinct, distinguishing truth from the fables with which the Scottish annals were then encrusted." Major, no doubt, desired to distinguish truth from fable, and pompously put on parade his judicial mind; but he showed himself very gullible in regard to legends and took all sorts of mythical persons for real. He believed, for example, that the inhabitants of Rochester were actually inflicted with tails because they mocked St. Augustine, but he declined to assert that the penalty lasted and that children were born with tails. He did not question the existence of Robin Hood (Robertus Hudus) and Little John,

whom he put in the time of Richard I, but he bravely condemned their robberies. He solemnly entered into argument whether it could be true that St. Baldred was buried entire in three different churches.*

As a proud schoolman of Paris, Major naturally assumed that anything written in the vernacular of his land was beneath his praise. He quotes frequently from Froissart, and refers to Monstrelet with respect; but the only historical works he greatly valued were in Latin. "Not even everything that is written in Latin," he says, "has a claim to infallibility, but only to a certain probability; for some of the writings in that language are known to possess more, and others less, of authority."

If one scrutinizes Major's account of Wallace, one soon sees that he used Blind Harry's poem (it had been printed thirteen years) far more than he was willing to admit.† Though he denies its credibility in certain respects, he accepts the general features of the hero's portrait, and certain incidents as there alone presented.

After having actually based his narrative to a considerable degree on his "vulgar" authority, his critical judgment yielding under the stress of his willingness to believe, he salves his conscience by a proud display of judicial protest against a few

features of Blind Harry's story which are so preposterous that it is doubtful if they were ever really credited, even by the most patriotic of the time. And he winds up as follows: "There was one Henry, blind from his birth, who, in the time of my childhood, composed a whole book about William Wallace, and therein he wrote down in our native rhymes - and this was a kind of composition in which he had much skill-all that passed current among the people in his day. I, however, can give but a partial credence to such writings as these. This Henry used to recite his tales in the households of the nobles, and thereby got the food and clothing that he deserved." *

In these words lies the whole basis for the legend of the poet Blind Harry. Even the most ardent Scot, even the stoutest admirer of the Wallace, must admit that there is nothing whatever in the work itself to justify belief that it was composed by a blind person such as Major describes. Mr. Neilson voiced the general opinion when he said in 1910: "It is hardly possible to believe that the author of the Wallace was blind from birth. It is infinitely more likely that Major blundered in saying so." But if Major blundered in this respect, why not in others? If, as should be clear to all, the author could not have been blind from his birth, then we are entitled to take questioningly Major's

other patronizing statement, supported by no one else, that "this Henry used to recite his tales in the households of the nobles, and thereby got the food and clothing which he deserved." Though Major does not perhaps explicitly affirm it, the "tales " he says Harry recited have always been taken to be identical with the "whole book " on Wallace which the critic has just described. Yet there is almost as grave a difficulty in accepting the view that the cultivated poet of the Wallace - Major himself noted the great skill of the verse went about reciting his tales, even coram principibus,* for food and clothing, as that he was blind from birth. Major does not pretend to have known Blind Harry. He was an infant, he says, when the poet wrote, and he had gone as a young man to Paris, where he had lived for most of the intervening stretch of twenty-five years wholly absorbed in scholastic pursuits. For Scottish vernacular poetry he had little leisure and less respect. Quite evidently, he did not know anything definite about the author of the Wallace, and probably only imagined what he said of him after consideration of his name.

There is one blind poet who since Major's time has leapt into everyone's mind at the mention of Blind Harry, namely Homer. Major was well acquainted with Homer, as is shown by his repeated