Robert, son of the Earl of Carrick, and competitor with Baliol for the crown of Scotland, which he lost by the arbitration of Edward I. of England, for generously refusing to hold of him the crown of Scotland, which his ancestors had left him independent. But Baliol having afterwards broken his agreement with Edward, Bruce was easily persuaded by that king to unite with him against Baliol, upon a promise that he would settle him on the throne. Having contributed much to the breaking up of Baliol's party, he demanded the accomplishment of King Edward's promise; but the latter is said to have given him this answer: "What! have I nothing else to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" However, he recovered his crown, defeated the English in several battles, raised the glory of the Scots to an unexampled height of splendour, and extended their dominions. See SCOTLAND.

James, F. R. S., a celebrated traveller, was born at Kinnaird House in the county of Stirling, Scotland, on the 14th of December 1730. The Bruces of Kinnaird are a very ancient family, being descended from a younger son of Robert de Bruce; and they have been in possession of that estate for upwards of three centuries.

Mr Bruce was instructed in grammatical learning at the school of Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, where he acquired a considerable share of classical knowledge. Returning to Scotland, he applied to the study of the laws of his country; but soon contracting a dislike to this pursuit, he determined to push his fortune in the East Indies, and for that purpose went to London. While in the metropolis soliciting permission from the directors of the East India Company to go out and settle under their auspices as a free trader, he was introduced to a Miss Allan. This lady was the daughter of Mrs Allan, the widow of an opulent wine merchant. Her beauty and amiable temper soon gained the affections of Bruce; and on the proposal of a marriage, he was induced to forego his East India speculations, and take a share in the wine trade, which he did on marrying Miss Allan. She soon, however, fell into a bad state of health, and Bruce, in hopes that the genial climate of the south of France would benefit her, proceeded thither. But she died on the journey, within a year after her marriage.

Bruce returned to his business in London, but the bond which had connected him with it was now broken; and giving up the principal management of the concern to his partner, he applied himself to studies calculated to dispel the grief which had settled on his mind. For two years he laboured at the Spanish and Portuguese languages, which he learned to pronounce with great accuracy. He also assiduously practised several styles of drawing. His business having afforded him an opportunity of visiting the Continent, he proceeded thither, and travelled first through Portugal, and afterwards through Spain. In the latter country, the traces of oriental manners still visible, the desolate palaces of the caliphs, and the tales of chivalry, interwoven with the Moorish wars, awakened in his mind that spirit of romantic enterprise which afterwards led him to the fountains of the Nile. At Madrid he proposed to explore the collections of Arabic manuscripts which were buried in the monastery of St Lawrence, and in the library of the Escorial. But the jealousy of the Spaniards disappointing him in this, he proceeded to France, and afterwards to Holland, where the news of his father's death reaching him, he returned to England.

By the demise of his father he succeeded to an inheritance which, though respectable, was inadequate to the wants of his growing ambition. From the period of his return in 1738, to the year 1761, he intently employed himself in the acquisition of the eastern languages. A circumstance had occurred which introduced him to Mr Pitt. While at Ferrol in Galicia, there was a rumour of a war between Great Britain and Spain. It immediately occurred to the fertile mind of Bruce that a descent upon Spain at this point could scarcely fail of being successful. He boldly resolved to submit his project to Mr Pitt, through his friend Mr Wood, under secretary of state, to whom he fully explained the circumstances on which he had formed his opinion. Mr Pitt sent for him, and after a conversation upon the subject, Bruce, at the minister's suggestion, drew up a memorandum of his project. He was then informed by Mr Wood, that Mr Pitt intended to employ him upon a particular service; that he might, however, go down and settle his affairs in his own country, but by all means to be ready upon a call. No time was lost on his part; but just after he received orders to return to London, Mr Pitt resigned.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, which he very sensibly felt, his hopes promised to be yet realized. The memorandum which he drew up for Mr Pitt had been laid before the king, and strongly recommended by Lord Halifax. The Earl of Egremont and Mr Greville had several meetings with Mr Bruce upon the subject, but the death of Egremont put an end to his expectations for the present. Lord Halifax, however, had appreciated Bruce's character. He proposed to him a journey to the coast of Barbary, which had as yet been but partially explored by Dr Shaw. The discovery of the source of the Nile also formed a subject of conversation; and it is unnecessary to state that the enterprising mind of Bruce eagerly caught up the idea.

"Fortune," says he, "seemed to enter into this scheme. At the very instant Mr Aspinwall, very cruelly and ignominiously treated by the dey of Algiers, had resigned his consulship, and Mr Ford, a merchant, formerly the dey's acquaintance, was named in his place. Mr Ford was appointed, and dying a few days after, the consulship became vacant. Lord Halifax pressed me to accept of this, as containing all sorts of conveniences for making the proposed expedition."

This favourable event determined him. After providing a large apparatus of instruments, he set out for Italy through France. On his arrival at Rome he was ordered to proceed to Naples, there to await his majesty's commands. From Naples he again returned to Rome, and from thence proceeded to Leghorn, where he at last embarked for Algiers, and arrived there on the 15th of March 1762.

"After a year spent at Algiers, constant conversation with the natives while abroad, and with my manuscripts within doors, had qualified me to appear in any part of the continent without the help of an interpreter. Ludolf had assured his readers that the knowledge of any oriental language would soon enable them to acquire the Ethiopic; and I needed only the same number of books to have made my knowledge of that language go hand in hand with my attainments in the Arabic. My immediate project of setting out on my journey to the inland parts of Africa had made me double my diligence; night and day there was no relaxation from these studies, although the acquiring any single language had never been with me either an object of time or difficulty."

At Algiers Mr Bruce was detained longer than he expected, in consequence of a dispute with the dey concerning Mediterranean passes. This being adjusted, he proceeded to Mahon, and from Mahon to Carthage. He next visited Tunis and Tripoli, and travelled over the interior parts of these states. At Benghazi, a small town on the Mediterranean, he suffered shipwreck, and with extreme difficulty saved his life, though with the loss of all his baggage. He afterwards sailed to the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus, and proceeding to Asia Minor, travelled through a considerable part of Syria and Palestine, visiting Hassia, Latakia, Aleppo, and Tripoli, near which last city he was again in imminent danger of perishing in a river. The ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec were next carefully surveyed and sketched by him; and his drawings of these places are deposited in the king's library at Kew; "the most magnificent present in that line," to use his own words, "ever made by a subject to his sovereign."

Mr Bruce published no particular account of these various journeys; but Dr Murray, in the second edition, introduced from Bruce's MSS. some account of his travels in Tunis.

In these various travels some years were passed; and Mr Bruce now prepared for the grand expedition, the accomplishment of which had ever been nearest his heart,—the discovery of that dangerous object he left Sidon on the 15th of June 1768, and arrived at Alexandria on the 20th of that month. He proceeded from thence to Cairo, where he remained till the 12th of December following, when he embarked on the Nile, and sailed up the river as far as Syene, visiting in the course of the voyage the ruins of Thebes. Leaving Komé on the Nile on the 16th February 1769, he crossed the desert of the Thebaid to Cosceir on the Red Sea, and arrived at Jidda on the 3rd of May. In Arabia Felix he remained, not without making several excursions, till the 3rd of September, when he sailed from Lobeh, and arrived on the 19th at Masnah, where he was detained near two months by the treachery and avarice of the naybe of that place. It was not till the 15th of November that he was allowed to quit Arkeeko, near Masnah; and he arrived on the 15th of February 1770 at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, where he ingratiated himself with the most considerable persons of both sexes belonging to the court. Several months were employed in attendance on the king, and in an unsuccessful expedition round the lake of Demben. Towards the end of October Mr Bruce set out for the sources of the Bahr el Azrek, which he supposed to be the principal branch of the Nile, though it is now generally agreed that this rank ought to be assigned to the Bahr el Abiad. At this long-desired spot he arrived on the 14th of November; and his feelings on the accomplishment of his wishes cannot be better expressed than in his own words:

"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies; and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly and without exception followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour, had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads whom princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to the presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain-glory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence: I was, however, but half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."

When he returned to rest on the night of that discovery, repose was sought for in vain. "Melancholy reflections..." upon my present state, the doubtfulness of my return in safety, were I permitted to make the attempt, and the fears that even this would be refused, according to the rule observed in Abyssinia with all travellers who have once entered the kingdom; the consciousness of the pain that I was then occasioning to many worthy individuals, expecting daily that information concerning my situation which it was not in my power to give them; and some other thoughts, perhaps, still nearer the heart than those crowded upon my mind, and forbade all approach of sleep.

"I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rise in one hill; three rivers, I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in beauty, preferable to it in the cultivation of those countries through which they flow; superior, vastly superior, to it in the virtues and qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of the flocks, crowding its pastures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beast. I had seen the rise of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent sources of the Saone; I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy. Grief and despondency now rolling upon me like a torrent, relaxed, not refreshed, by unquiet and imperfect sleep, I started from my bed in the utmost agony. I went to the door of my tent. Every thing was still; the Nile, at whose head I stood, was not capable either to promote or to interrupt my slumber; but the coolness and serenity of the night braced my nerves, and chased away those phantoms that while in bed had oppressed and tormented me.

"It was true, that numerous dangers, hardships, and sorrows, had beset me through this half of my excursion; but it was still as true, that another guide, more powerful than my own courage, health, or understanding, if any of them can be called man's own, had uniformly protected me in all that tedious half. I found my confidence not abated, that still the same guide was able to conduct me to my wished-for home. I immediately resumed my former fortitude, considered the Nile as indeed no more than rising from springs as all other rivers do, but widely differing in this, that it was the palm for three thousand years held out to all the nations of the world as a dar al-digasiw, which, in my cool hours, I had thought was worth the attempting at the risk of my life, which I had long either resolved to lose, or lay this discovery as a trophy, in which I could have no competitor, for the honour of my country, at the feet of my sovereign, whose servant I was."

The object of Mr Bruce's wishes being now gratified, he bent his thoughts on his return to his native country. He arrived at Gondar on the 19th November 1770, but found, after repeated solicitations, that it was by no means an easy task to obtain permission to quit Abyssinia. A civil war in the mean time breaking out, several engagements took place between the king's forces and the troops of the rebels, particularly three actions at a place called Serbraxos, on the 19th, 20th, and 23rd of May 1771. In each of these Mr Bruce acted a considerable part, and for his valiant conduct in the second, received, as a reward from the king, a chain of gold. At Gondar, after these engagements, he again preferred the most earnest entreaties to be allowed to return home, entreaties which were long resisted; but his health at last giving away, from the anxiety of his mind, the king consented to his departure, on condition of his engaging by oath to return to him in the event of his recovery, with as many of his kindred as he could engage to accompany him.

After a residence of nearly two years in that wretched country, Mr Bruce left Gondar on the 16th of December 1771, taking the dangerous way of the desert of Nubia, instead of the more easy road of Masuah, by which he entered Abyssinia. He was induced to take this route, from his former experience of the cruel and savage temper of the naybe of Masuah. Arriving at Teawa on the 21st March 1772, Mr Bruce had the misfortune to find the sheikh Fidele at Atbara, the counterpart of the naybe of Masuah in every bad quality. By his intrepidity and prudence, however, he obtained permission to depart next day, and he arrived at Sennar on the 29th of the same month.

Mr Bruce was detained upwards of four months at that miserable and inhospitable place, the inhabitants of which he thus describes: "War and treason seem to be the only employment of these horrid people, whom Heaven has separated by almost impassable deserts from the rest of mankind, confining them to an accursed spot, seemingly to give them an earnest in time of the only other state worse which he has reserved to them for an eternal hereafter." This delay was occasioned by the villany of those who had undertaken to supply him with money; but at last, by disposing of nearly the whole of his gold chain, the well-earned trophy of Serbraxos, he was enabled to make preparations for his dangerous journey through the deserts of Nubia.

He left Sennar on the 5th of September, and arrived on the 3d of October at Chendi, which he quitted on the 20th, and travelled through the desert of Gooz, reaching the village of that name on the 26th of October. On the 9th of November he left Gooz, and entered upon the most dreadful and dangerous part of his journey. All his camels having perished, Mr Bruce was under the necessity of abandoning his baggage in the desert, and with the greatest difficulty reached Assouan upon the Nile on the 29th of November. After some days' rest, having procured fresh camels, he returned into the desert, and recovered his baggage, among which was a quadrant of three feet radius, supplied by Louis XV. from the military academy at Marseilles.

On the 10th of January 1773, after more than four years' absence, he arrived at Cairo, where, by his manly and generous behaviour, he so won the heart of Mahomet Bey, that he obtained a firman, permitting the commanders of English vessels belonging to Bombay and Bengal to bring their ships and merchandise to Suez, a place far preferable in all respects to Jidda, to which they were formerly confined. Of this permission, which no European nation could ever before acquire, many English vessels have since availed themselves; and it has proved peculiarly useful both in public and private dispatches. Such was the conclusion of his laborious and memorable journey through the desert.

At Cairo Mr Bruce's earthly career had nearly been concluded by a disorder in his leg, occasioned by a worm in the flesh. This accident kept him five weeks in extreme agony, and his health was not re-established till a twelvemonth afterwards, at the baths of Porretta in Italy. On his return to Europe Mr Bruce was received with all the admiration due to his enterprising character. After passing a considerable time in France, particularly at Montbard, with his friend the Comte de Buffon, by whom he was received with much hospitality, and is mentioned with great applause, he at last revisited his native country, from which he had been upwards of twelve years absent.

It was now expected that he would take the earliest opportunity of giving to the world a narrative of his travels, in which the public curiosity could not but be deeply interested. But several circumstances contributed to delay the publication. "My friends at home," says he, "gave me up for dead; and as my death must have happened in circumstances difficult to have been proved, my property became as it were a hereditas jecoris, without an owner, abandoned in common to those whose original title extended no further than temporary possession. A number of law-suits were the inevitable consequence of this upon my return. To these disagreeable avocations, which took up much time, were added others still more unfortunate. The relentless ague, caught at Benghazi, maintained its ground, at times, for a space of more than sixteen years, though every remedy had been used, but in vain; and what was worst of all, a lingering distemper had seriously threatened the life of a most near relation (his second wife), which, after nine years constant alarm, where every duty bound me to attention and attendance, conducted her at last, in very early life, to her grave." Amidst the anxiety and the distress thus occasioned, Mr Bruce was by no means neglectful of his private affairs. He considerably improved his landed property, inclosing and cultivating the waste grounds; and he highly embellished his paternal seat.

The termination of some law-suits, and of other business, which had occupied much of his time, having at length afforded leisure to Mr Bruce to put his materials in order, his long-expected work made its appearance in 1790, seventeen years after his return to Europe. It consisted of five large quarto volumes, embellished with plates and charts; was dedicated to the king; and introduced by a striking and manly preface. It is unnecessary to enter into any criticism or analysis of this celebrated work. It is universally allowed to be replete with curious and useful information, and to abound in narratives which at once excite our admiration and interest our feelings. The very singular and extraordinary picture which it gives of Abyssinian manners startled the belief of some. One fact in particular which he stated shipwrecked his reputation, and the world of literature from Johnson down to the author of Munchausen ridiculed the statement as unworthy of credit. It was, that the Abyssinians were in the practice of eating raw meat cut out of a living cow. This, though believed in France and other continental countries, was treated as a fable in England. The shafts of ridicule, envy, and malice, were levelled at his devoted head. The great moralist himself went so far as to doubt his ever having been in the country at all. This was too much for a spirit like that of Bruce, proud, and conscious of its own integrity. He had braved the simoom in the burning sands of Nubia; he had perseverance and strength of mind enough to achieve a triumph which had baffled the efforts of mankind for three thousand years; but all that he received at the hands of his contemporaries was obloquy and contempt. Posterity, however, has done him justice. Every succeeding traveller who has visited the country bears testimony to his veracity, and shows that he has in an eminent degree kept faith with his honour and his fame. The most startling statements, in particular, which he made, have since been fully verified. (See Abyssinia, vol. ii. p. 61 of this work.) There are indeed a few errors in dates and other circumstances, but they are of no great moment, and in no degree deduct from the general authenticity of his travels.

The language of the work is in general harsh and unpolished, though sometimes animated. Too great a display of vanity runs through the whole; and the apparent facility with which the traveller gained the most familiar access to the courts, and even to the harems, of the sovereigns of the countries through which he passed, is apt to create in readers some doubts of the accuracy of the narration. Yet there appears upon the whole such an air of manly veracity, and circumstances are mentioned with a minuteness so unlike deceit, that these doubts are overcome by the general impression of truth which the whole detail irresistibly fastens upon the mind. The first impression being almost wholly disposed of within a short time, Bruce had stipulated for a second edition, which was preparing for the press when death removed the author from this transitory stage.

This event happened on the 26th of April 1794. In the evening of that day, when some company were departing, Bruce attended them down stairs; but on the steps his foot slipped, and he fell down headlong. He was taken up speechless, and remained in a state of insensibility for eight or nine hours, when he expired on the 27th of April 1794, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He married, for his second wife, at Carronhall, on the 20th May 1776, Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Dundas of Fingask. Mrs Bruce died in 1784, after a long and lingering indisposition, during which she was attended with the most affectionate assiduity by her husband. By this marriage Mr Bruce had two sons and one daughter.

The second edition of these travels was published in 1805, in seven vols. 8vo, with a quarto volume of plates, edited by Dr Alexander Murray, who obtained access to all his papers, and illustrated the work with a learning and research which established his name as an oriental scholar. A third edition was published in 1813, which, we believe, is now out of print.

There never, perhaps, existed a man better qualified for the hazardous enterprise he undertook, than Bruce. His person was of the largest size, his height exceeding six feet, and the bulk as well as the strength of his body being proportionally great. He excelled in all personal accomplishments, being a hardy, practised, and indefatigable swimmer, trained to exercise and fatigue of every kind, while his long residence among the Arabs had given him a more than ordinary facility in managing the horse. In the use of fire-arms he was so unerring, that in innumerable instances he never failed to hit the mark; and his dexterity in handling the spear and lance on horseback was also uncommonly great. He was master of most languages, understanding the Greek perfectly; and he was so well skilled in oriental literature, that he revised the New Testament in the Ethiopic, Samaritan, Hebrew, and Syriac, making many useful notes and remarks on difficult passages. He had applied from early youth to mathematics, drawing, and astronomy, and had acquired some knowledge of physic and surgery. His memory was astonishingly retentive, and his judgment sound and vigorous. He was dexterous in negociation, a master of public business, animated with the warmest zeal for the glory of his king and country, a physician in the camp or city, a soldier and horseman in the field; whilst, at the same time, his breast was a stranger to fear, though he took every precaution to avoid danger. Such, at least, is his own representation of his character; and though an impartial judge would probably make considerable abatement for the natural bias of a man drawing his own portrait, yet it cannot be denied, that in personal accomplishments Bruce equalled, if he did not excel, most of his contemporaries; that he was distinguished for vigour of understanding, as well as great literary attainments; and that in active and persevering intrepidity he may be classed with the most eminent characters in any age or country. Thus accomplished, Bruce could not but be eminently fitted for an attempt so full of difficulty and danger as that of penetrating into the heart of Abyssinia; and no one who peruses his account of the expedition can fail to pay an unfeigned tribute of admiration to his intrepidness, manliness, and uncommon dexterity in extricating himself out of situations the most dangerous and alarming; in the course of his long and hazardous journey. Not to mention his conduct during his residence in Abyssinia, his behaviour at Masauh, Teawa, and Sennar, evinces the uncommon vigour of his mind; but it was chiefly during his passage through the Nubian desert that his fortitude, courage, and prudence, appeared to the greatest advantage. Of his learning and sagacity, his delineation of the course of Solomon's fleet from Tarshish to Ophir, his account of the cause of the inundations of the Nile, and his comprehensive view of the Abyssinian history, afford ample proofs. He expresses throughout all his works a deep and lively sense of the care of a superintending Providence, without whose influence he was convinced of the futility of all human ability and foresight to preserve from danger. He appears to have been a serious believer of the truth of Christianity; and his illustrations of some parts of the sacred writings are original and valuable.