Monarchie* declared that, after his "conceit," if St. Jerome had been born in Argyle he would have

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done compile" his books in the Irish tongue. As a result of the agitation, stories in the Irish tongue no doubt gained wider currency.

Knowledge of Blind Harry begins and ends with Major and Dunbar. Major in his History gives the first sure evidence of his connection with the Wallace, and Dunbar in his Lament gives the first sure testimony to his existence as a poet. But if we had only these two references we should have no key to the problem of Blind Harry already defined. We must turn to another poem by Dunbar for the help needed. It will guide us to that prime requisite for an understanding of the Wallace, an understanding of the author's assumed name.

O

CHAPTER III

THE DWARF'S PART OF THE PLAY

That Dwarf was scarcely an earthly man,
If the tales were true, that of him ran

Through all the Border, far and near.
Lay of the Last Minstrel

FTEN mentioned in connection with Blind

Harry, is a "Little Interlude " attributed to Dunbar, entitled The Droichis [Dwarf's] Part of the Play, or "The Manner of the Crying of a Play," probably written about 1500.* Though highly fantastic and coarse, this poem possesses general interest for the folklore material it contains, as well as for the vigor of its style and the fact that it is the earliest extant specimen of dramatic verse in Scots.

Here a Dwarf makes a whirlwind appearance on the stage, crying "See who is come now!" promptly announces that he is a sergeant out of Sultan-land, or "the spirit of Guy," or one who can go by the sky, light as the lind." "Yet," he adds:

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I trowe that I wary;

I am the nakit Blynd Hary,
That lang has bene in the Fary,
Farleis to fynd.t

It is, indeed, one of the mysteries of criticism that every commentator on this passage has seen in it an allusion by name to the author of the Wallace. In his learned edition of Dunbar, Professor Schipper wrote: "The poet Blind Harry, or Henry the Minstrel, the author of the famous epic poem 'William Wallace,' seems to be alluded to here as a popular personage." Just what Professor Schipper meant by" a popular personage " is not clear; but surely, to be able to identify the Dwarf with the author of the Wallace, he must have given scant consideration to the former's account of himself. The Dwarf is particular to affirm that he came of no mortal race. His fore-grandsire, he tells us, was the Ossianic hero whom we have come to know as Fingal:

Fyn Mac Kowle

That dang the devill, and gart [made] him 30wle,
The skyis ranyd quhen he wald scowle,

He trublit all the air.

His grandsire was Gog Magog, who, when he grew up, had a mouth eleven miles wide and teeth ten

ells square.

He wald upon his tais stand,

And tak the sternis doune with his hand,

And set them in a gold garland

Above his wyfis hair.*

Gog's wife was an unholy terror. " She spit Loch Lomond with her lips," and performed still stiffer deeds, too indecent to repeat. And the Dwarf's father, Gow Mackmorne, was so huge a champion that he had to be cut even from her womb.

Or he of eld was 3eris thre,

He wald stepe our the Occeane se;

The mone sprang nevir above his kne;

The hevyn had of him feir.

As for the Dwarf himself, he was older than King Arthur or Gawain, and now all shrivelled-up for age "this little, as ye may see."

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The genius of wealth," wrote Professor Schipper, ‚* “is here represented under the character of a dwarfish minstrel, who introduces himself, it is true, as the well-known poet Blind Harry, but who probably was nobody else but Dunbar himself, whose stature must have been very small." † Dr. Mackay went one step farther and declared it possible" that Dunbar himself may have acted as well as written the part of the Dwarf;"‡ and Mr. Brown followed on with the remark that if the poet was himself a dwarf, "his recitation of gests recounting the prowess of the national hero would doubtless be all the more mirth-provoking on that account." Such speculation was unjustified. But the following comment by Professor Schipper reached the lowest level of conjecture: "From the

epithet nakit connected with his [Blind Harry's] name in this verse, it would appear that the old minstrel lived in needy circumstances during the later years of his life, when the infirmities of old age may have hindered him from continuing his occupation, wandering from one nobleman's seat to the other and reciting pieces of his poems there."

This conclusion is really bewildering, both in its initial assumption and in its ridiculous development. One who had before him only the three lines above quoted, in which the name Blind Harry appears, might perhaps carelessly think they contained a reference, though a very puzzling one, to an actual poet; but how an editor of the complete text could stumble into so deep a pit of error is hard to comprehend. Especially is that the case when one realizes that Professor Schipper understood the meaning of the words in the passage.* Mr. Brown, on the contrary, made a grave mistake in translating them." The Littill Interlud," the latter says, seems to belong to some lost masque in which a dwarf personating Blynd Harry was brought in. After introducing himself as a 'Sultan from Syria, a giant that by the strength of his own hand could bind bears,' he goes on to say that he 'warrants himself to be the naked Blynd Harry who has long been on the road in quest of strange stories.' Fary or faré is simply way, road, journey;

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