BRUCE, Michael, the son of a weaver in a hamlet three miles south of Kinross, was born in 1746. He was destined by his family for the office of pastor in a dissenting chapel, for which purpose his parents sent him to Edinburgh in 1762. His health was never robust; and about 1765, his biographer, Dr Anderson, mentions that he began to exhibit that grave melancholy which tinges the beautiful productions of the muse of this amiable young man. In the autumn of 1766 consumption had evidently begun to mark him for its victim. He lingered through the winter, and perished in the succeeding spring, at the early age of twenty years. His poems were collected and published after his death by Logan, a kindred poetic spirit, for the benefit of Bruce's family. They were immediately brought into notice by the elegant and feeling criticism on them by Lord Craig, in the 36th number of The Mirror. Many of them breathe a fine spirit of love for the simple beauties of nature, and a deep pathos; as for example the fine elegiac stanzas on his own approaching dissolution, beginning,
Now spring returns, but not to me returns
The vernal joys my better years have known;
the poem entitled Lochleven; and the lines To the Cuckoo. BRUCE, Robert, king of Scotland, was born in the year 1274, and was grandson of that Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, who was competitor for the crown with John Baliol. In his earlier life he was attached to the interest of Edward I. of England; yet his conduct was cautiously neutral, and he was therefore narrowly watched by that politic monarch. In the year 1299 he was associated with John Comyn, as one of the regents of Scotland; but, from the powerful rivalry that existed between them, the coalition did not last long. We find him shortly afterwards in favour with Edward. At this time he entered into a secret league with Comyn and the bishop of St Andrews
to establish his claim to the throne. Comyn, however, revealed it to Edward; and Bruce having his suspicion excited, fled to Scotland, collected his friends and followers, and proceeded to Scone, where he was solemnly crowned on the 27th of March 1306. He proceeded to expel the English from the kingdom; but was surprised at Methven, near Perth, and completely routed. For two years after this his life may be considered as a romance. He and his band suffered the greatest hardships in sustaining life, and in making head against the numerous foes who on all sides surrounded them. From 1308 to the establishment of his kingdom by the battle which he gained at Bannockburn on 24th June 1314, over the English commanded by Edward II. in person, he and his generals were continually engaged in warfare, making incursions into England, and reducing the strongholds in Scotland which were still garrisoned for the English interest. The consolidation of his kingdom was not allowed to be made in peace; for from the period of that celebrated battle he was constantly engaged in war with England, and with such success, that Edward and his nobles were reduced to the necessity of accepting terms of peace on the condition of renouncing all their pretended superiority over Scotland, of recognising it as a free and independent kingdom, and acknowledging Bruce to be its king. He died at Cardross, on the 7th June 1329, at the age of fifty-five, and was buried at Dunfermline. On his death-bed he expressed a wish that his heart might be conveyed to the Holy Land, whither he had often meditated a pilgrimage to atone for the murder of the Red Comyn. The good Lord James of Douglas undertook to fulfil the dying prayer of his king, but landing in Spain to help the Christians against the Moors, he was slain in battle. The heart of Bruce was brought back to Scotland by the survivors, and buried before the high altar of Melrose Abbey. See SCOTLAND.