m to Barbour's accepted work in verse-length, dialect and style,
and the facts that the lives of English saints are excluded and those of St
Machar (the patron saint of Aberdeen) and St Ninian are inserted, made the
ascription plausible. Later criticism, though divided, has tended in the
contrary direction, and has based its strongest negative judgment on the
consideration of rhymes, assonance and vocabulary (see bibliography). That
the "district" of the author is the north-east of Scotland cannot be
doubted in the face of a passage such as this, in the fortieth legend (St
Ninian), 11, 1359 et seq.

"A lytil tale [gh]et herd I tel,
that in to my tyme befel,
of a gudman, in murrefe [_Moray_] borne
in elgyne [_Elgin_], and his kine beforne,
and callit was a faithful man
vith al thame that hyme knew than;
& _this mare trastely I say,_
_for I kend hyme weile mony day._
_John balormy ves his name,_
a man of ful gud fame."

But whether this north-east Scots author is Barbour is a question which we
cannot answer by means of the data at present available.

(5) If Barbour be the author of the _Legends_, then (so does one conclusion
hang upon another) he is the author of a Gospel story with the later life
of the Virgin, described in the prologue to the _Legends_ and in other
passages as a book "of the birth of Jhesu criste" and one "quhare-in I
recordit the genology of our lady sanct Mary."

(6) In recent years an attempt has been made to name Barbour as the author
of the _Buik of Alexander_ (a translation of the _Roman d'Alexandre_ and
associated pieces, including the _Voeux du Paon_), as known in the unique
edition, _c._ 1580, printed at the Edinburgh press of Alexander Arbuthnot.
The "argument" as it stands is nothing more than an exaggerated inference
from parallel-passages in the _Bruce_ and _Alexander_; and it makes no
allowance for the tags, epithets and general vocabulary common to all
writers of the period. Should the assumption be proved to be correct, and
should it be found that the "_Troy fragments_ were written first of all,
followed by _Alexander_ and _Bruce_ or _Bruce_ and _Alexander_, and that
the _Legends_ end the chapter," it will be by "evidence" other than that
which has been produced to this date.

For Barbour's life see _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, ii. and iii.;
_Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis_ (Spalding Club); Rymer's _Foedera_.

WORKS.--(1)_The Brus_ MSS. and early edition