BRUCE, JAMES. 



BRUCE, MICHAEL. 



866 



ben evidently of material use to him. (Salt's ' Abyssinia,' oh. 8.) 

 Bruce's great ambition was to be considered the first and only Euro- 

 pean who had ever visited the sources of the Nile, and he accordingly 

 throws discredit on the accounts of the Jesuits Paez and Lobo, who 

 had described them before him. He also omits in his narrative to 

 mention the fact of three Franciscan friars from the Propaganda 

 haviog reached Gondar ouly twenty jears before him, where they rose 

 for awhile into great favour, and made several proselytes to Catho- 

 licism, among others Bruce's friend Ayto Aylo and the iteghe' or queen 

 dowager; and yet in Bruce's original memoranda (Appendix, vol. vii.) 

 we find it stated " that Ayto Aylo had been converted by Father 

 Antonio, a Franciscan, in 1750." (Salt, ch. 10, and Appendix iii., 

 where the journal of the Franciscans is translated from the Italian 

 manuscript.) With regard to Bruce's translation of the 'Annals of 

 Abyssinia,' Dr. Murray says, in a letter to Salt, 25th of February 1812, 

 " The bulk of the facts are true, but they are often misplaced in time 

 and local circumstance. The Portuguese and Abyssinian accounts are 

 blended together, and the whole does not merit the title of an accurate 

 narrative. Bruce often committed blunders in an unconscious way, 

 particularly as to classic quotations and minute facts of ancient his- 

 tory, which he was not qualified by literary habits to balance and 

 collate." (Hall's ' Life of Salt.') The latter part of this remark leads 

 us to observe that Bruce, though he has had a character for learning 

 among those who have none themselves, was very far from being an 

 exact scholar or a really learned man. His dissertations on various 

 subjects show sometimes great ignorance, and nearly always equal pre- 

 sumption and deficient judgment. Such are the dissertations in the 

 second volume on the ' Indian Trade in its Earliest Ages,' on the ' Origin 

 of Characters or Letters,' ' The Voyage to Ophir and Tarshish," &c. 



Notwithstanding these numerous defects, Bruce will always rank 

 high .! iiong African travellers, and his journey to Abyssinia forms an 

 epoch ;u the annals of discovery, for he may be said to have re -discovered 

 a couLtry of which no accounts had reached Europe for nearly a cen- 

 tury, and to have renewed our intercourse with it. The Ethiopic 

 manuscripts which he brought to Europe formed likewise a valuable 

 addition to our literary treasures. A list of them is given in the 

 Appendix to ' Brace's Life,' by Dr. Murray, 4to. 1808. Bruce's courage, 

 activity, and presence of mind are deserving of the highest praise. 



The campaign of 1771 having turned against Has Michael, and that 

 chief being deserted by his followers, and taken prisoner, the opposite 

 faction got possession of the king's person. Bruce was now tired of 

 this distracted country and anxious to return home. Having obtained 

 the king's leave, after much difficulty, he set off from Koscam in 

 December 1771, attended by three Greeks and a few common 

 servant*. He arrived at Tcherkin in January 1772, where he found 

 Ozoro Esther, Ay to Confu, and several of his Goudar friends. Taking 

 leave of them, he proceeded by Ras-el-Feel, Teawa, and Beylah, to 

 Sennaar, where he arrived in May. Hera he was detained till 

 September, and it was with much difficulty he found means to leave 

 that barbarous country. He proceeded northwards by Herbagi, 

 Halfay, Shendi, and across the Atbara or Tacazze to Gooz, in the 

 Barabra country, and then plunged into the desert, which he was a 

 fortnight in crossing to Assouan, and in which he was near losing his 

 life through thii st and fatigue. He left Assouan in December, aud 

 after resting some time at Cairo, proceeded to Alexandria, where he 

 embarked in March 1773, for Marseille. In France he was received 

 with marked attention by the Count de Buffon and other distinguished 

 men. He thence went to Italy, and at last returned to England in 

 June 1774, after an absence of twelve years. 



ilruce was presented at court, and the king, George III., received 

 him in a flattering manner; but he obtained no more substantial 

 rewards, except a gratuity for the drawings which he had made for 

 the king's collection. The strange stories he told in company about 

 the Abyssiuians and the Galks interested his hearers, but at the same 

 time excited ill-natured strictures. Some even went so far as to 

 pretend that he had never been in Abyssinia. Bruce's haughty aud 

 disdainful manner was not calculated to soothe criticism. After some 

 months spent in London, he went to Scotland, where his family 

 affairs were in great disorder owing to Ms long absence. Upon these 

 he bestowed much of his time, giving up meanwhile all thoughts about 

 his Abyssinian journals. He married, in May 1776, Miss Dundas, 

 with whom he lived in quiet retirement till 1785, when she died. 

 After this loss, and by the advice of his friends, and especially Daines 

 Barrington, he set about preparing his travels for publication. This 

 work wa published in 1790, in five 4to. volumes, ' Travels to Discover 

 the Sources of the Nile, in the Years 1768-73.' The attractions of his 

 narrative are generally acknowledged. His sketch of the character of 

 Has Michael has been particularly admired, and its truth is authen- 

 ticated by the manuscripts of the ' Annals of Abyssinia,' vol. v., which 

 includes the history of that chief down to the murder of the Emperor 

 Joai in 1769 (Appendix to Murray's 'Life of Bruce,' in 4to.), as well 

 a* by the current report in the country. Bruce's work was sharply 

 mailed in the critical journals of the day, especially in the ' Monthly 

 Review.' It was translated into French by Casters, and into German 

 by J. Volkman, with notes by J. F. Blumenbach. 



Bruce died on the 27th of April, 1794, at Kinnaird, of a fall down 

 tairs as he was going to hand a lady to her carriage. He waa buried 

 in the churchyard of Larbert, in the same tomb with his wife. 



In 1805 hia friend Dr. Alexander Murray published a second edition 

 of Bruce's Travels, to which he added a biography of the traveller, and 

 copious extracts from his original journals, which are of considerable 

 importance. By consulting these journals, and the editor's notes and 

 remarks in the life, the reader is enabled to separate the reality from 

 the fiction or exaggeration which prevails in many parts of the 

 author's narrative. Mr. Salt's two missions to Abyssinia, 1805 and 

 1810, having revived the discussion, Dr. Murray entered into a 

 correspondence with Salt, which serves greatly to elucidate the 

 question. A third edition of Bruce's 'Travels,' published in 1813, in 

 seven volumes 8vo., is little more than a reprint of the previous 

 edition. The preface by Dr. Murray, in which he adverts to Salt's 

 correction of several of Bruce's statements, is deserving of attention. 



BRUCE, MICHAEL, was born at Kinnesswood. in the parish of 

 Portmoak and county of Kinross, on the 27th of March, 1746. His 

 father was an operative weaver ; and, in his religious sentiments, of 

 that class of seceders called Burghers. He had eight children who, 

 having little or nothing to inherit from their parents, were all brought 

 up to rely on their own character and industry for support. Michael 

 who was the fifth child, was destined for the office of a minister of the 

 Gospel. To the great body of the people of Scotland that office has 

 long been one of much reverence; aud to furnish a member of the 

 family for that holy calling is there to this day an object of nearly 

 universal ambition. The strict and religious parents of Bruce partook 

 in the common feeling; and in his devotion to reading from his 

 earliest years, and bis pious and domestic habits, they imagined they 

 saw the elements of a character which would gratify their most 

 ardent wishes. Accordingly, after besti>wing on him such instruction 

 as their humble roof and the village school could afford, his parents 

 sent him to the schools in the neighbouring town of Kinross, and 

 thence, in the year 1762, to Edinburgh, where he applied himself 

 with equal assiduity and success, for some years to literature and 

 philosophy, and to the learning more peculiarly necessary for the 

 profession which he had in view. 



In his native district young Bruce met with friends whose con- 

 versation and friendly suggestions contributed not a little to lead him 

 to the love of reading and the study of the higher class of English 

 poets. Soon after proceeding to Edinburgh he contracted an 

 acquaintance with Logan, whose congenial spirit made him the 

 intimate companion of Bruce in his lifetime, and his warm eulogist 

 and editor of his works after his death. So long as Bruce remained 

 about his father's house, his wants, which were then indeed but few, 

 were readily supplied, but after his removal to Edinburgh his 

 resources diminished, while his wants, both physical and mental, 

 multiplied, and his desires increased in intensity. But poverty was 

 not the only difficulty with which the youthful Bruce had to contend. 

 He had also the narrow views of worthy but illiterate parents, who 

 seem to have regarded general learning as unnecessary, if not positively 

 mischievous. Bruce could not but feel how unnatural these pre- 

 judices were, what injustice they did to those powers and aspirations 

 with which he was endowed and which glowed within him. He was 

 too dutiful a son however to give his parents any cause of offence, 

 and he accordingly took the greatest pains to conceal from them the 

 knowledge of his stud ies in poetry and general literature. Ho had 

 hardly reached his eighteenth year when his letters mark the begin- 

 ning of that morbid melancholy which is frequently the attendant on 

 a poetical temperament, and was in him also the forerunner of a fatal 

 disease. He had by this time obtained a few evening scholars, but ho 

 states that the attending on them, though few, fatigued him. He 

 spent the winters at school or college, and in the summer he en- 

 deavoured to earn a small pittance by teaching a school, first at 

 Gairney Bridge and afterwards at Forest Mill, near Alloa. 



" In the autumn of J766," saysDr. Anderson (' British Poets,' vo) ii., 

 p. 277), " his constitution, which was ill calculated to encounter the 

 austerities of his native climate, the exertions of daily labour, and the 

 rigid frugality of humble life, began visibly to decline. Towards the 

 end of the year his ill-health, aggravated by the indigence of his 

 situation, and the want of those comforts and conveniences which 

 might have fostered a delicate frame to maturity and length of days, 

 terminated in a deep consumption. During the winter he quitted his 

 employment at Forest Mill, and with it all hopes of life, and returned 

 to his native village to receive those attentions and consolations which 

 his situation required from the anxiety of parental affection aud the 

 sympathy of friendship." He lingered through the winter, and in the 

 spring he wrote the well-known ' Elegy ' in which he so pathetically 

 describes his feelings at that time, aud calmly anticipates his 

 dissolution. This elegy, from the circumstances in which it was 

 written, the nature of the subject, and the merit of its execution, had 

 an unusual share of popularity. It was the last composition which 

 Bruce lived to finish. He died July 6, 1767. 



The poems of Bruce are not numerous for which his early death 

 may well account but they evince talents of a very hivh order. They 

 are distinguished for their elegance and harmony ; and, with little of 

 the fervour of opening genius, they display sustained dignity and the 

 polish of mature life. Soon after Bruce's death his works were sub- 

 jected to the rerisal of his friend Logan, who published a collection 

 of them in a small duodecimo volume ; but unfortunately they were 

 not only unaccompanied with any account of the state in which they 



