Wallace, Burns, Stevenson; appreciations . llace. I humbly submit that even to propose hismemory is a very perilous task. There are, Ithink, two classes of my fellow-countrymen whowould gladly be in the position in which I findmyself. One is the class of minute archaeologicalhistorians who would find a savage, an almostdevilish delight in winnowing the true from thefalse in the legends that surround Sir WilliamWallace, and in distinguishing all that islegendary from the few golden facts whichremain. But I think that you will agree withme that this would not be an occasion for sucha discourse,
Wallace, Burns, Stevenson; appreciations . llace. I humbly submit that even to propose hismemory is a very perilous task. There are, Ithink, two classes of my fellow-countrymen whowould gladly be in the position in which I findmyself. One is the class of minute archaeologicalhistorians who would find a savage, an almostdevilish delight in winnowing the true from thefalse in the legends that surround Sir WilliamWallace, and in distinguishing all that islegendary from the few golden facts whichremain. But I think that you will agree withme that this would not be an occasion for sucha discourse, and were it the occasion I am notthe man. After all, these points are not always ofvery first-rate importance. There is however,one to which I will allude. It is sometimes,I believe, the subject of controversy, as towhether Wallace was a Scotsman at all. Iregard that as a point of the most infinitesimalimportance. It may be a subject of interest tomany to know what is the birthplace or thedistrict in which a person is brought up when that. BATTLE OF STIRLING painting in Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. 13 person has achieved a certain eminence. Butthere are greater figures than these, who embodyand absorb a nation, and whom a nation hasabsorbed and embodied, but whose exact placeof birth is a matter of no importance at all. Weall know that Catherine the Second of Russiawas a German Princess. We all know thatthe first Napoleon was of Italian origin andborn in Corsica. But I do not suppose thereis anybody who has read a page of historywho will deny that Catherine is one of thegreatest of Russians, and that Napoleon isincomparably the greatest of Frenchmen. Then there is another class who would haverejoiced to fill my place, but I am not sure eitherthat they would have been the right persons—Imean the class of passionate and indiscriminatingpatriots, to whom everything- true or falseconnected with the memory of a national hero isdea
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