BRUCE, James, a celebrated African traveller, was born at Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire, on the 14th December 1730. He was educated at Harrow, and at first turned his attention to the bar. After his marriage, however, he entered into business as a wine-merchant, but soon gave up any active share in the concern. His wife had died within a year of their marriage, and Bruce, after acquiring a knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, travelled on the Continent for some time, returning to England in 1758. He then made a proposal to the English Government that they should make a descent upon Spain at Ferrol, assuring them from his own observation that the coast was without defence at that place. His suggestions were not adopted; but Lord Halifax, to whom he had been introduced, and who had consulted him about the exploration of the Nile, appointed him soon afterwards to the consulship at Algiers. He arrived at that place in March 1762, and after spending a year in the study of Arabic and other Oriental languages, set out through Tunis, Tripoli, and the North of Africa. He then visited Rhodes and Cyprus, and explored great part of Syria and Palestine, making very careful drawings of Palmyra and Baalbec. These drawings were afterwards presented to the king and placed in the royal library at Kew. It was not till June 1768 that Bruce arrived at Alexandria, and prepared to start on his great exploring expedition. From Cairo he sailed up the river as far as Syene; he then struck across the desert to Kosseir, and reached Jidda in May 1769. He remained for some time in Arabia, set sail from Loheia on the 3d September, and on the 19th arrived at Massowah. There he was detained for some time; but at last, on the 15th February 1770, he made his way to Gondar, the capital of ...Abyssinia. He gained great favour with the Abyssinian king, and remained with him till October, when he set off up the Bahr-el-Azrek, which he looked upon as the main branch of the Nile. On the 14th November he reached the sources of the Bahr-el-Azrek, and proudly imagined himself to have solved the great geographical problem. Slowly and with great difficulty he made his way back through the deserts of Nubia. On the 29th November 1772 .he reached Assouan on the Nile. Thence he returned into the heart of the desert to recover his baggage, which had been abandoned in consequence of the death of all his camels. In January 1773 he arrived at Cairo. On his way home to England he spent some time at Paris, where he was warmly received by Buffon and other eminent men of science. The celebrated Travels did not appear till 1790, when they were published in five large quarto volumes, profusely illustrated. The work was received with favour on account of its freshness and interest, but with almost universal incredulity. The Travels were looked upon as veritable travellers’ tales, not entitled to any respect as authentic narrative. Succeeding investigations, however, have thoroughly dispelled these suspicions, and reinstated the book in popular estimation. Bruce died in 1794, in consequence of a fall down the staircase of. his own house. A second edition of his work, on which he was engaged at the time of his death, was published in 1804.
BRUCE, Michael, a minor Scottish poet, was born at Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, 27th March 1746, and was the son of a weaver. He was early sent to school, but his attendance was often interrupted. He had frequently to herd cattle on the hills in summer, and this early companionship with nature greatly influenced his mind and awoke the latent poetry of his genius. Delicate from birth he grew up contemplative, devotional, and humorous, the pet of his family and his friends. His parents gave him an education superior to their position; at fifteen, when his school education was completed, his father was enabled to send Michael to Edinburgh University, which he attended during the four winter sessions 1762-5. In 1765 he got employment as a teacher during the summer months at Gairney Bridge, receiving about £11 a year in fees. He became a divinity student of a dissenting Scotttish sect known as the Burghers, and in the first summer of his divinity course accepted the charge of a new school at Forrest Mill, where “he lead a melancholy kind of life.” Poverty, disease, and want of companions depressed his spirits, but in that solitariness he wrote “Lochleven,” a poem inspired by the memories of his childhood. In consequence of advanced consumption he had to give up the school, and returned to his father’s house, where he wrote his last and finest poem, “Elegy written in Spring,” and died on 5th July 1767. aged twenty-one years and three months. As a poet his reputation has been increased, first, through sympathy for his early death, and secondly, from the alleged theft by Logan of several of his poems. The Rev. John Logan, minister of Leith, a fellow-student of Bruce, edited in 1770 the Poems on several occasions, ^by Michael Bruce, in which the “Ode to the Cuckoo” appeared. In the preface he stated, “To make up a miscellany, some poems written by different authors are inserted.” In a collection of his own poems in 1781, Logan printed the “Ode to the Cuckoo” as his own; of this the friends of Bruce were aware, but did not challenge it. Dr M*Kelvie, in his Life and Works of Bruce (1837), was the first to claim for him the authorship of the Ode, and of other verses of which Logan had hitherto been the reputed author. This claim rests on the oral tradition of his birthplace and the evidence of a few of his friends; it was made nearly fifty years after Logan’s death, and no explanation can be given of this great lapse of time. Of direct testimony there is none, and irrelevant matter is brought in affecting Logan’s character, while Logan’s authorship rests on such ground as publication under his own name, and his reputation as author during his lifetime. By reiteration of Bruce’s claims in many forms popular opinion has been gained for him, though Isaac D’Israeli, Thomas Campbell, Robert Chambers, and David Laing have strenuously supported Logan. The dispute cannot now, perhaps, be satisfactorily settled, owing to tho conflict of evidence and lapse of time; but on the whole it may be doubted whether M ’ Kelvie has proved ⅛s case. All Bruce’s poems breathe the thoughts of a shepherd lad, as Bloomfield’s retained the fresh observations of a farmer’s boy. With two exceptions they are immature and lack strength]; his imagery is in great measure borrowed; his rhymes evince a paucity of poetical skill. His early attempts are weak imitations of Milton, Thomson, and Young, his favourite poets. His “Lochleven” and “Elegy written in Spring” are alone worthy of preservation, and both were composed in his last year. The former abounds in happy word-painting and moral reflections. The tale of Levina, which forms about the half of the poem, and is by far the prettiest flower in the bouquet, bears distinct marks of the same hand that wrote “Runnimede.” The “Elegy” is most affecting, when read in the knowledge of the circumstance of its having been written by a dying youth of twenty-one :—
“Led by pale ghosts I enter death’s dark gate, And bid the realms of light and life adieu.”
It is a death song, remarkable for exquisite beauty and chaste simplicity. Bruce is not to be compared with another young Scottish poet, Robert Nicoll. His life wanted the fulness and strength, his poems the wide and vivid sympathies of his later compeer.
BRUCE, Robert, king of Scotland. See Scotland.
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