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Significant Scots
Walter
Bower |
BOWER, WALTER, an historical writer of the
fifteenth century, was born at Haddington, in 1385. At the age of
eighteen, he assumed the religious habit; and after finishing his
philosophical and theological studies, visited Paris in order to study the
laws. Having returned to his native country, he was unanimously elected
Abbot of St Colm, in the year 1418. After the death of Fordoun, the
historian, (see that article,) he was requested, by Sir David Stewart of
Rossyth, to undertake the completion of the Scotichronicou, or Chronicles
of Scotland, which had been brought up by the above writer only to the 23d
chapter of the fifth book. In transcribing the part written by Fordoun,
Bower inserted large interpolations. He completed the work in sixteen
books, which brought the narrative to the death of James the First; and he
is said to have been much indebted for materials to the previous labours
of Fordoun. Bower, like Fordoun, wrote in a scholastic and barbarous
Latin; and their work, though it must be considered as one of the great
foundations of early Scottish history, is characterised by few of the
essential qualities of that kind of composition.
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