Scottish literature begins effectively with Archdeacon Barbour's Bruce some sixty years after Bannockburn, and to the Bruce and Blind Harry's Wallace… - John Barbour

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Scottish literature begins effectively with Archdeacon Barbour's Bruce some sixty years after Bannockburn, and to the Bruce and Blind Harry's Wallace (so staunch is the Scot, and such an antiquary in grain) must be attributed much of the colouring and subsequent tone of Scottish sentiment. The Bruce is the better poem, simple, truthful, noble, stirring, a proper start for the literature of a fighting people.