part I

shall say les Than doth my actour."

Elsewhere he declares:

"for my boke certaynly I haue compyled: for vertue and goodnes And to reuyle foule synne and vyciousnes"

But citation is needless; there is not a page of his writings which will not supply similar evidence, and our great early moralist may, we think, be dismissed from Court without a stain on his character.

Indeed to his high pitched morality, he doubtless owed in some degree the great and extended popularity of his poetical writings in former times and their neglect in later. Sermons and "good" books were not yet in the sixteenth century an extensive branch of literature, and "good" people could without remorse of conscience vary their limited theological reading by frowning over the improprieties and sins of their neighbours as depicted in the "Ship," and joining, with a serious headshaking heartiness, in the admonitions of the translator to amendment, or they might feel "strengthened" by a glance into the "Mirrour of good Maners," or edified by hearing of the "Miseryes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in generall," as told in the "Eclogues."

Certain it is that these writings owed little of their acceptance to touches of humour or satire, to the gifts of a poetical imagination, or the grace of a polished diction. The indignation of the honest man and the earnestness of the moralist waited not for gifts and graces. Everything went down, hard, rough, even uncouth as it stood, of course gaining in truth and in graphic power what it wants in elegance. Still, with no refinement, polish or elaboration, there are many picturesque passages scattered throughout these works which no amount of polishing could have improved. How could a man in a rage be better touched off than thus ("Ship" I. 182, 15).

"This man malycious whiche troubled is with wrath Nought els soundeth but the hoorse letter R."

The passion of love is so graphically described that it is difficult to imagine our priestly moralist a total stranger to its power, (I. 81).

"For he that loueth is voyde of all reason Wandrynge in the worlde without lawe or mesure In thought and fere sore vexed eche season And greuous dolours in loue he must endure No creature hym selfe, may well assure From loues soft dartis: I say none on the grounde But mad and folysshe bydes he whiche hath the wounde

Aye rennynge as franatyke no reason in his mynde He hath no constaunce nor ease within his herte His iyen ar blynde, his wyll alwaye inclyned To louys preceptes yet can nat he departe The Net is stronge, the sole caught can nat starte The darte is sharpe, who euer is in the chayne Can nat his sorowe in vysage hyde nor fayne"

For expressive, happy simile, the two following examples are capital:--

"Yet sometimes riches is geuen by some chance To such as of good haue greatest aboundaunce. Likewise as streames unto the sea do glide. But on bare hills no water will abide. . . . . . . So smallest persons haue small rewarde alway But men of worship set in authoritie Must haue rewardes great after their degree."--ECLOGUE I.

"And so such thinges which princes to thee geue To thee be as sure as water in a siue . . . . . . . So princes are wont with riches some to fede As we do our swine when we of larde haue nede We fede our hogges them after to deuour When they be fatted by costes and labour."--ECLOGUE I.

The everlasting conceit of musical humanity is very truthfully hit off.

"This is of singers the very propertie Alway they coueyt desired for to be And when their frendes would heare of their cunning Then are they neuer disposed for to sing, But if they begin desired of no man Then shewe they all and more then they can And neuer leaue they till men of them be wery, So in their conceyt their cunning they set by."--ECLOGUE II.

Pithy sayings are numerous. Comparing citizens with countrymen, the countryman says:--

"Fortune to them is like a mother dere As a stepmother she doth to us appeare."

Of money:

"Coyne more than cunning exalteth every man."

Of clothing:

"It is not clothing can make a man be good Better is in ragges pure liuing innocent Than a soule defiled in sumptuous garment."

It is as the graphic delineator of the life and condition of the country in his period that the chief interest of Barclay's writings, and especially of the "Ship of Fools," now lies. Nowhere so accessibly, so fully, and so truthfully will be found the state of Henry the Eighth's England set forth. Every line bears the character of truthfulness, written as it evidently is, in all the soberness of sadness, by one who had no occasion to exaggerate, whose only object and desire was, by massing together and describing faithfully the follies and abuses which were evident to all, to shame every class into some degree of moral reformation, and, in particular, to effect some amelioration of circumstances to the suffering poor.

And a sad picture it is which we thus obtain of merrie England in the good old times of bluff King Hal, wanting altogether in the _couleur de rose_ with which it is tinted by its latest historian Mr Froude, who is ably taken to task on this subject by a recent writer in the Westminster Review, whose conclusions, formed upon other evidence than Barclay's, express so fairly the impression left by a perusal of the "Ship of Fools," and the Eclogues, that we quote them here. "Mr Froude remarks: 'Looking therefore, at the state of England as a whole, I cannot doubt that under Henry the body of the people were prosperous, well-fed, loyal, and contented. In all points of material comfort, they were as well off as ever they had been before; better off than they have ever been in later times.' In this estimate we cannot agree. Rather we should say that during, and for long after, this reign, the people were in the most deplorable condition of poverty and misery of every kind. That they were ill-fed, that loyalty was at its lowest ebb, that discontent was rife throughout the land. 'In all points of material comfort,' we think they were worse off than they had ever been before, and infinitely worse off than they have ever been since the close of the sixteenth century,--a century in which the cup of England's woes was surely fuller than it has ever been since, or will, we trust, ever be again. It was the century in which this country and its people passed through a baptism of blood as well as 'a baptism of fire,' and out of which they came holier and better. The epitaph which should be inscribed over the century is contained in a sentence written by the famous Acham in 1547:--'Nam vita, quæ nunc vivitur a plurimis, non vita sed miseria est.'" So, Bradford (Sermon on Repentance, 1533) sums up contemporary opinion in a single weighty sentence: "All men may see if they will that the whoredom pride, unmercifulness, and tyranny of England far surpasses any age that ever was before." Every page of Barclay corroborates these accounts of tyranny, injustice, immorality, wretchedness, poverty, and general discontent.

Not only in fact and feeling are Barclay's Ship of Fools and Eclogues thoroughly expressive of the unhappy, discontented, poverty-stricken, priest-ridden, and court-ridden condition and life, the bitter sorrows and the humble wishes of the people, their very texture, as Barclay himself tells us, consists of the commonest language of the day, and in it are interwoven many of the current popular proverbs and expressions. Almost all of these are still "household words" though few ever imagine the garb of their "daily wisdom" to be of such venerable antiquity. Every page of the "Eclogues" abounds with them; in the "Ship" they are less common, but still by no means infrequent. We have for instance:--

"Better is a frende in courte than a peny in purse"--(I. 70.) "Whan the stede is stolyn to shyt the stable dore"--(I. 76.) "It goeth through as water through a syue."--(I. 245.) "And he that alway thretenyth for to fyght Oft at the prose is skantly worth a hen For greattest crakers ar nat ay boldest men."--(I. 198.) "I fynde foure thynges whiche by no meanes can Be kept close, in secrete, or longe in preuetee The firste is the counsell of a wytles man The seconde is a cyte whiche byldyd is a hye Upon a montayne the thyrde we often se That to hyde his dedes a louer hath no skyll The fourth is strawe or fethers on a wyndy hyll."--(I. 199.) "A crowe to pull."--(II. 8.) "For it is a prouerbe, and an olde sayd sawe That in euery place lyke to lyke wyll drawe."--(II. 35.) "Better haue one birde sure within thy wall Or fast in a cage than twenty score without"--(II. 74) "Gapynge as it were dogges for a bone."--(II. 93.) "Pryde sholde haue a fall."--(II. 161). "For wyse men sayth ... One myshap fortuneth neuer alone." "Clawe where it itchyth."--(II. 256.) [The use of this, it occurs again in the Eclogues, might be regarded by some of our Southern friends, as itself a sufficient proof of the author's Northern origin.]

The following are selected from the Eclogues as the most remarkable:

"Each man for himself, and the fende for us all." "They robbe Saint Peter therwith to clothe Saint Powle." "For might of water will not our leasure bide." "Once out of sight and shortly out of minde." "For children brent still after drede the fire." "Together they cleave more fast than do burres." "Tho' thy teeth water." "I aske of the foxe no farther than the skin." "To touche soft pitche and not his fingers file." "From post unto piller tost shall thou be." "Over head and eares." "Go to the ant." "A man may contende, God geueth victory." "Of two evils chose the least."

These are but the more striking specimens. An examination of the "Ship," and especially of the "Eclogues," for the purpose of extracting their whole proverbial lore, would be well worth the while, if it be not the duty, of the next collector in this branch of popular literature. These writings introduce many of our common sayings for the first time to English literature, no writer prior to Barclay having thought it dignified or worth while to profit by the popular wisdom to any perceptible extent. The first collection of proverbs, Heywood's, did not appear until 1546, so that in Barclay we possess the earliest known English form of such proverbs as he introduces. It need scarcely be said that that form is, in the majority of instances, more full of meaning and point than its modern representatives.

Barclay's adoption of the language of the people naturally elevated him in popular estimation to a position far above that of his contemporaries in the matter of style, so much so that he has been traditionally recorded as one of the greatest improvers of the language, that is, one of those who helped greatly to bring the written language to be more nearly in accordance with the spoken. Both a scholar and a man of the world, his phraseology bears token of the greater cultivation and wider knowledge he possessed over his contemporaries. He certainly aimed at clearness of expression, and simplicity of vocabulary, and in these respects was so far in advance of his time that his works can even now be read with ease, without the help of dictionary or glossary. In spite of his church training and his residence abroad, his works are surprisingly free from Latin or French forms of speech; on the contrary, they are, in the main, characterised by a strong Saxon directness of expression which must have tended greatly to the continuance of their popularity, and have exercised a strong and advantageous influence both in regulating the use of the common spoken language, and in leading the way which it was necessary for the literary language to follow. Philologists and dictionary makers appear, however, to have hitherto overlooked Barclay's works, doubtless owing to their rarity, but their intrinsic value as well as their position in relation to the history of the language demand specific recognition at their hands.

Barclay evidently delighted in his pen. From the time of his return from the Continent, it was seldom out of his hand. Idleness was distasteful to him. He petitions his critics if they be "wyse men and cunnynge," that:--

"They shall my youth pardone, and vnchraftynes Whiche onely translate, to eschewe ydelnes."

Assuredly a much more laudable way of employing leisure then than now, unless the translator prudently stop short of print. The modesty and singleness of aim of the man are strikingly illustrated by his thus devoting his time and talents, not to original work as he was well able to have done had he been desirous only of glorifying his own name, but to the translation and adaptation or, better, "Englishing" of such foreign authors as he deemed would exercise a wholesome and profitable influence upon his countrymen. Such work, however, moulded in his skilful hands, became all but original, little being left of his author but the idea. Neither the Ship of Fools, nor the Eclogues retain perceptible traces of a foreign source, and were it not that they honestly bear their authorship on their fore-front, they might be regarded as thoroughly, even characteristically, English productions.

The first known work from Barclay's pen[3] appeared from the press of De Worde, so early as 1506, probably immediately on his return from abroad, and was no doubt the fruit of continental leisure. It is a translation, in seven line stanzas, of the popular French poet Pierre Gringore's Le Chateau de labour (1499)--the most ancient work of Gringore with date, and perhaps his best--under the title of "The Castell of laboure wherein is richesse, vertu, and honour;" in which in a fanciful allegory of some length, a somewhat wearisome Lady Reason overcomes despair, poverty and other such evils attendant upon the fortunes of a poor man lately married, the moral being to show:--

"That idleness, mother of all adversity, Her subjects bringeth to extreme poverty."

The general appreciation of this first essay is evidenced by the issue of a second edition from the press of Pynson a few years after the appearance of the first.

Encouraged by the favourable reception accorded to the first effort of his muse, Barclay, on his retirement to the ease and leisure of the College of St Mary Otery, set to work on the "Ship of Fools," acquaintance with which Europe-famous satire he must have made when abroad. This, his _magnum opus_, has been described at some length in the Introduction, but two interesting personal notices relative to the composition of the work may here be added. In the execution of the great task, he expresses himself, (II. 278), as under the greatest obligations to his colleague, friend, and literary adviser, Bishop:--

"Whiche was the first ouersear of this warke And vnto his frende gaue his aduysement It nat to suffer to slepe styll in the darke But to be publysshyd abrode: and put to prent To thy monycion my bysshop I assent Besechynge god that I that day may se That thy honour may prospere and augment So that thy name and offyce may agre . . . . . . In this short balade I can nat comprehende All my full purpose that I wolde to the wryte But fayne I wolde that thou sholde sone assende To heuenly worshyp and celestyall delyte Than shoulde I after my pore wyt and respyt, Display thy name, and great kyndnes to me But at this tyme no farther I indyte But pray that thy name and worshyp may agre."

Pynson, in his capacity of judicious publisher, fearing lest the book should exceed suitable dimensions, also receives due notice at p. 108 of Vol. I., where he speaks of

"the charge Pynson hathe on me layde With many folys our Nauy not to charge."

The concluding stanza, or colophon, is also devoted to immortalising the great bibliopole in terms, it must be admitted, not dissimilar to those of a modern draper's poet laureate:--

Our Shyp here leuyth the sees brode By helpe of God almyght and quyetly At Anker we lye within the rode But who that lysteth of them to bye In Flete strete shall them fynde truly At the George: in Richarde Pynsonnes place Prynter vnto the Kynges noble grace. Deo gratias.

Contemporary allusions to the Ship of Fools there could not fail to be, but the only one we have met with occurs in Bulleyn's Dialogue quoted above, p. xxvii. It runs as follows:--_Uxor_.--What ship is that with so many owers, and straunge tacle; it is a greate vessell. _Ciuis_.--This is the ship of fooles, wherin saileth bothe spirituall and temporall, of euery callyng some: there are kynges, queenes, popes, archbishoppes, prelates, lordes, ladies, knightes, gentlemen, phisicions, lawiers, marchauntes, housbandemen, beggers, theeues, hores, knaues, &c. This ship wanteth a good pilot: the storme, the rocke, and the wrecke at hande, all will come to naught in this hulke for want of good gouernement.

The Eclogues, as appears from their Prologue, had originally been the work of our author's youth, "the essays of a prentice in the art of poesie," but they were wisely laid past to be adorned by the wisdom of a wider experience, and were, strangely enough, lost for years until, at the age of thirty-eight, the author again lighted, unexpectedly, upon his lost treasures, and straightway finished them off for the public eye.

The following autobiographical passage reminds one forcibly of Scott's throwing aside Waverley, stumbling across it after the lapse of years, and thereupon deciding at once to finish and publish it. After enumerating the most famous eclogue writers, he proceeds:--

"Nowe to my purpose, their workes worthy fame, Did in my yonge age my heart greatly inflame, Dull slouth eschewing my selfe to exercise, In such small matters, or I durst enterprise, To hyer matter, like as these children do, Which first vse to creepe, and afterwarde to go. . . . . . . . . So where I in youth a certayne worke began, And not concluded, as oft doth many a man: Yet thought I after to make the same perfite, But long I missed that which I first did write. But here a wonder, I fortie yere saue twayne, Proceeded in age, founde my first youth agayne. To finde youth in age is a probleme diffuse, But nowe heare the truth, and then no longer muse. As I late turned olde bookes to and fro, One litle treatise I founde among the mo Because that in youth I did compile the same, Egloges of youth I did call it by name. And seing some men haue in the same delite, At their great instance I made the same perfite, Adding and bating where I perceyued neede, All them desiring which shall this treatise rede, Not to be grieued with any playne sentence, Rudely conuayed for lacke of eloquence."

The most important revelation in the whole of this interesting passage, that relating to the author's age, seems to have been studiously overlooked by all his biographers. If we can fix with probability the date at which these Eclogues were published, then this, one of the most regretted of the lacunæ in his biography, will be supplied. We shall feel henceforth treading on firmer ground in dealing with the scanty materials of his life.

From the length and favour with which the praises of the Ely Cathedral and of Alcock its pious and munificent bishop, then but recently dead, are sung in these poems (see p. lxviii.), it is evident that the poet must have donned the black hood in the monastery of Ely for at least a few years.

Warton fixes the date at 1514, because of the praises of the "noble Henry which now departed late," and the after panegyric of his successor Henry VIII. (Eclogue I.), whose virtues are also duly recorded in the Ship of Fools (I. 39 and II. 205-8), but not otherwise of course than in a complimentary manner. Our later lights make this picture of the noble pair appear both out of drawing and over-coloured:--

"Beside noble Henry which nowe departed late, Spectacle of vertue to euery hye estate, The patrone of peace and primate of prudence, Which on Gods Church hath done so great expence. Of all these princes the mercy and pitie, The loue of concorde, iustice and equitie, The purenes of life and giftes liberall, Not lesse vertuous then the said princes all. And Henry the eyght moste hye and triumphant, No gifte of vertue nor manlines doth want, Mine humble spech and language pastorall If it were able should write his actes all: But while I ought speake of courtly misery, Him with all suche I except vtterly. But what other princes commonly frequent, As true as I can to shewe is mine intent, But if I should say that all the misery, Which I shall after rehearse and specify Were in the court of our moste noble kinge, I should fayle truth, and playnly make leasing."--ECLOGUE I.

This eulogy of Henry plainly implies some short experience of his reign. But other allusions contribute more definitely to fix the precise date, such as the following historical passage, which evidently refers to the career of the notorious extortioners, Empson and Dudley, who were executed for conspiracy and treason in the first year of the new king's reign.

"Such as for honour unto the court resort, Looke seldome times upon the lower sort; To the hyer sort for moste part they intende, For still their desire is hyer to ascende And when none can make with them comparison, Against their princes conspire they by treason, Then when their purpose can nat come well to frame, Agayne they descende and that with utter shame, Coridon thou knowest right well what I meane, We lately of this experience haue seene When men would ascende to rowmes honorable Euer is their minde and lust insaciable."

The most definite proof of the date of publication, however, is found in the fourth Eclogue. It contains a long poem called The towre of vertue and honour, which is really a highly-wrought elegy on the premature and glorious death, not of "the Duke of Norfolk, Lord High admiral, and one of Barclay's patrons," as has been repeated parrot-like, from Warton downwards, but of his chivalrous son, Sir Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral for the short space of a few months, who perished in his gallant, if reckless, attack upon the French fleet in the harbour of Brest in the year 1513. It is incomprehensible that the date of the publication of the Eclogues should be fixed at 1514, and this blunder still perpetuated. No Duke of Norfolk died between Barclay's boyhood and 1524, ten years after the agreed upon date of the Elegy; and the Duke (Thomas), who was Barclay's patron, never held the position of Lord High Admiral (though his son Lord Thomas, created Earl of Surrey in 1514, and who afterwards succeeded him, also succeeded his brother Sir Edward in the Admiralship), but worthily enjoyed the dignified offices of Lord High Steward, Lord Treasurer, and Earl Marshal, and died one of Henry's most respected and most popular Ministers, at his country seat, at a good old age, in the year above mentioned, 1524. The other allusions to contemporary events, and especially to the poet's age, preclude the idea of carrying forward the publication to the latter date, did the clearly defined points of the Elegy allow of it, as they do not.

Minalcas, one of the interlocutors, thus introduces the subject:--

"But it is lamentable To heare a Captayne so good and honorable, _So soone_ withdrawen by deathes crueltie, Before his vertue was at moste hye degree. If death for a season had shewed him fauour, To all his nation he should haue bene honour."

"'The Towre of Vertue and Honor,' introduced as a song of one of the shepherds into these pastorals, exhibits no very masterly strokes of a sublime and inventive fancy. It has much of the trite imagery usually applied in the fabrication of these ideal edifices. It, however, shows our author in a new walk of poetry. This magnificent tower, or castle is built on inaccessible cliffs of flint: the walls are of gold, bright as the sun, and decorated with 'olde historyes and pictures manyfolde:' the turrets are beautifully shaped. Among its heroic inhabitants are Henry VIII., ['in his maiestie moste hye enhaunsed as ought a conquerour,' no doubt an allusion to the battle of the Spurs and his other exploits in France in 1513], Howard Duke of Norfolk, ['the floure of chiualry'], and the Earl of Shrewsbury, ['manfull and hardy, with other princes and men of dignitie']. Labour is the porter at the gate, and Virtue governs the house. Labour is thus pictured, with some degree of spirit:--

'Fearefull is labour without fauour at all, Dreadfull of visage, a monster intreatable, Like Cerberus lying at gates infernall; To some men his looke is halfe intollerable, His shoulders large, for burthen strong and able, His body bristled, his necke mightie and stiffe; By sturdy senewes, his ioyntes stronge and stable, Like marble stones his handes be as stiffe.

Here must man vanquishe the dragon of Cadmus, Against the Chimer here stoutly must he fight, Here must he vanquish the fearefull Pegasus, For the golden flece here must he shewe his might: If labour gaynsay, he can nothing be right, This monster labour oft chaungeth his figure, Sometime an oxe, a bore, or lion wight, Playnely he seemeth, thus chaungeth his nature,

Like as Protheus ofte chaunged his stature. . . . . . . . Under his browes he dreadfully doth loure, With glistering eyen, and side dependaunt beard, For thirst and hunger alway his chere is soure. His horned forehead doth make faynt heartes feard.

Alway he drinketh, and yet alway is drye, The sweat distilling with droppes aboundaunt,' . . . . . . .

"The poet adds, 'that when the noble Howard had long boldly contended with this hideous monster, had broken the bars and doors of the castle, had bound the porter, and was now preparing to ascend the tower of Virtue and Honour, Fortune and Death appeared, and interrupted his progress.'" (Warton, Eng. Poetry, III.)

The hero's descent and knightly qualities are duly set forth:--

"Though he were borne to glory and honour, Of auncient stocke and noble progenie, Yet thought his courage to be of more valour, By his owne actes and noble chiualry. Like as becommeth a knight to fortifye His princes quarell with right and equitie, So did this Hawarde with courage valiauntly, Till death abated his bolde audacitie."

The poet, gives "cursed fortune" a severe rating, and at such length that the old lady no doubt repented herself, for cutting off so promising a hero _at so early an age_:--

"Tell me, frayle fortune, why did thou breuiate The liuing season of suche a captayne, That when his actes ought to be laureate Thy fauour turned him suffring to be slayne?"

And then he addresses the Duke himself in a consolatory strain, endeavouring to reconcile him to the loss of so promising a son, by recalling to his memory those heroes of antiquity whose careers of glory were cut short by sudden and violent deaths:--

"But moste worthy duke hye and victorious, Respire to comfort, see the vncertentie Of other princes, whose fortune prosperous Oftetime haue ended in hard aduersitie: Read of Pompeius," [&c.] . . . . . . "This shall be, this is, and this hath euer bene, That boldest heartes be nearest ieopardie, To dye in battayle is honour as men wene To suche as haue ioy in haunting chiualry.

"Suche famous ending the name doth magnifie, Note worthy duke, no cause is to complayne, His life not ended foule nor dishonestly, In bed nor tauerne his lustes to maynteyne, But like as besemed a noble captayne, In sturdie harnes he died for the right, From deathes daunger no man may flee certayne, But suche death is metest vnto so noble a knight.

"But death it to call me thinke it vnright, Sith his worthy name shall laste perpetuall," [&c.]

This detail and these long quotations have been rendered necessary by the strange blunder which has been made and perpetuated as to the identity of the young hero whose death is so feelingly lamented in this elegy. With that now clearly ascertained, we can not only fix with confidence the date of the publication of the Eclogues, but by aid of the hint conveyed in the Prologue, quoted above (p. lv.), as to the author's age, "fortie saue twayne," decide, for the first time, the duration of his life, and the dates, approximately at least, of its incidents, and of the appearance of his undated works. Lord Edward Howard, perhaps the bravest and rashest of England's admirals, perished in a madly daring attack upon the harbour of Brest, on the 25th of April, 1514. As the eclogues could not therefore have been published prior to that date, so, bearing in mind the other allusions referred to above, they could scarcely have appeared later. Indeed, the loss which the elegy commemorates is spoken of as quite recent, while the elegy itself bears every appearance of having been introduced into the eclogue at the last moment. We feel quite satisfied therefore that Warton hit quite correctly upon the year 1514 as that in which these poems first saw the light, though the ground (the allusion to the Henries) upon which he went was insufficient, and his identification of the hero of the elegy contradicted his supposition. Had he been aware of the importance of fixing the date correctly, he would probably have taken more care than to fall into the blunder of confounding the father with the son, and adorning the former with the dearly earned laurels of the latter.

It may be added that, fixing 1514 as the date at which Barclay had arrived at the age of 38, agrees perfectly with all else we know of his years, with the assumed date of his academical education, and of his travels abroad, with the suppositions formed as to his age from his various published works having dates attached to them, and finally, with the traditional "great age" at which he died, which would thus be six years beyond the allotted span.

After the Ship of Fools the Eclogues rank second in importance in a consideration of Barclay's writings. Not only as the first of their kind in English, do they crown their author with the honour of introducing this kind of poetry to English literature, but they are in themselves most interesting and valuable as faithful and graphic pictures of the court, citizen, and country life of the period. Nowhere else in so accessible a form do there exist descriptions at once so full and so accurate of the whole condition of the people. Their daily life and habits, customs, manners, sports, and pastimes, are all placed on the canvas before us with a ready, vigorous, unflinching hand. Witness for instance the following sketch, which might be entitled, "Life, temp. 1514":--

"Some men deliteth beholding men to fight, Or goodly knightes in pleasaunt apparayle, Or sturdie souldiers in bright harnes and male. . . . . . . . . Some glad is to see these Ladies beauteous, Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous: A number of people appoynted in like wise: In costly clothing after the newest gise, Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce, Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce: To see fayre houses and curious picture(s), Or pleasaunt hanging, or sumpteous vesture Of silke, of purpure, or golde moste orient, And other clothing diuers and excellent: Hye curious buildinges or palaces royall, Or chapels, temples fayre and substanciall, Images grauen or vaultes curious; Gardeyns and medowes, or place delicious, Forestes and parkes well furnished with dere, Colde pleasaunt streames or welles fayre and clere, Curious cundites or shadowie mountaynes, Swete pleasaunt valleys, laundes or playnes Houndes, and suche other thinges manyfolde Some men take pleasour and solace to beholde."

The following selections illustrative of the customs and manners of the times will serve as a sample of the overflowing cask from which they are taken. The condition of the country people is clearly enough indicated in a description of the village Sunday, the manner of its celebration being depicted in language calculated to make a modern sabbatarian's hair stand on end:--

"What man is faultlesse, remember the village, Howe men vplondish on holy dayes rage. Nought can them tame, they be a beastly sort, In sweate and labour hauing most chiefe comfort, On the holy day assoone as morne is past, When all men resteth while all the day doth last, They drinke, they banket, they reuell and they iest They leape, they daunce, despising ease and rest. If they once heare a bagpipe or a drone, Anone to the elme or oke they be gone. There vse they to daunce, to gambolde and to rage Such is the custome and vse of the village. When the ground resteth from rake, plough and wheles, Then moste they it trouble with burthen of their heles:

FAUSTUS.

To Bacchus they banket, no feast is festiuall, They chide and they chat, they vary and they brall, They rayle and they route, they reuell and they crye, Laughing and leaping, and making cuppes drye. What, stint thou thy chat, these wordes I defye, It is to a vilayne rebuke and vilany. Such rurall solace so plainly for to blame, Thy wordes sound to thy rebuke and shame."

Football is described in a lively picture:--

"They get the bladder and blowe it great and thin, With many beanes or peason put within, It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre, While it is throwen and caste vp in the ayre, Eche one contendeth and hath a great delite, With foote and with hande the bladder for to smite, If it fall to grounde they lifte it vp agayne, This wise to labour they count it for no payne, Renning and leaping they driue away the colde, The sturdie plowmen lustie, stronge and bolde, Ouercommeth the winter with driuing the foote ball, Forgetting labour and many a greuous fall."

A shepherd, after mentioning his skill in shooting birds with a bow, says:--

"No shepheard throweth the axeltrie so farre."

A gallant is thus described:--

"For women vse to loue them moste of all, Which boldly bosteth, or that can sing and iet, Which are well decked with large bushes set, Which hath the mastery ofte time in tournament, Or that can gambauld, or daunce feat and gent."

The following sorts of wine are mentioned:--

"As Muscadell, Caprike, Romney, and Maluesy, From Gene brought, from Grece or Hungary."

As are the dainties of the table. A shepherd at court must not think to eat,

"Swanne, nor heron, Curlewe, nor crane, but course beefe and mutton."

Again:

"What fishe is of sauor swete and delicious,-- Rosted or sodden in swete hearbes or wine; Or fried in oyle, most saporous and fine.-- The pasties of a hart.-- The crane, the fesant, the pecocke and curlewe, The partriche, plouer, bittor, and heronsewe-- Seasoned so well in licour redolent, That the hall is full of pleasaunt smell and sent."

At a feast at court:--

"Slowe be the seruers in seruing in alway, But swift be they after, taking thy meate away; A speciall custome is vsed them among, No good dish to suffer on borde to be longe: If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther fleshe or fishe, Ten handes at once swarme in the dishe: And if it be flesh ten kniues shalt thou see Mangling the flesh, and in the platter flee: To put there thy handes is perill without fayle, Without a gauntlet or els a gloue of mayle."

"The two last lines remind us of a saying of Quin, who declared it was not safe to sit down to a turtle-feast in one of the city-halls, without a basket-hilted knife and fork. Not that I suppose Quin borrowed his bon-mots from black letter books." (Warton.)

The following lines point out some of the festive tales of our ancestors:--

"Yet would I gladly heare some mery fit Of mayde Marion, or els of Robin hood; Or Bentleyes ale which chafeth well the bloud, Of perre of Norwich, or sauce of Wilberton, Or buckishe Joly well-stuffed as a ton."

He again mentions "Bentley's Ale" which "maketh me to winke;" and some of our ancient domestic pastimes and amusements are recorded:--

"Then is it pleasure the yonge maydens amonge To watche by the fire the winters nightes long: At their fonde tales to laugh, or when they brall Great fire and candell spending for laboure small, And in the ashes some playes for to marke, To couer wardens [pears] for fault of other warke: To toste white sheuers, and to make prophitroles; And after talking oft time to fill the bowles."

He mentions some musical instruments:

" . . . . Methinkes no mirth is scant, Where no reioysing of minstrelcie doth want: The bagpipe or fidle to vs is delectable."

And the mercantile commodities of different countries and cities:--

"Englande hath cloth, Burdeus hath store of wine, Cornewall hath tinne, and Lymster wools fine. London hath scarlet, and Bristowe pleasaunt red, Fen lands hath fishes, in other place is lead."

Of songs at feasts:--

"When your fat dishes smoke hote vpon your table, Then layde ye songes and balades magnifie, If they be mery, or written craftely, Ye clappe your handes and to the making harke, And one say to other, lo here a proper warke."

He says that minstrels and singers are highly favoured at court, especially those of the French gise. Also jugglers and pipers.

The personal references throughout the Eclogues, in addition to those already mentioned, though not numerous, are of considerable interest. The learned Alcock, Bishop of Ely (1486-1500), and the munificent founder of Jesus College, Cambridge, stands deservedly high in the esteem of a poet and priest, so zealous of good works as Barclay. The poet's humour thus disguises him.--(Eclogue I., A iii., recto.):--

"Yes since his dayes a cocke was in the fen, I knowe his voyce among a thousande men: He taught, he preached, he mended euery wrong; But, Coridon alas no good thing bideth long. He all was a cocke, he wakened vs from slepe, And while we slumbred, he did our foldes hepe. No cur, no foxes, nor butchers dogges wood, Coulde hurte our fouldes, his watching was so good. The hungry wolues, which that time did abounde, What time he crowed, abashed at the sounde. This cocke was no more abashed of the foxe, Than is a lion abashed of an oxe. When he went, faded the floure of all the fen; I boldly dare sweare this cocke neuer trode hen! This was a father of thinges pastorall, And that well sheweth his Church cathedrall, There was I lately about the middest of May, Coridon his Church is twenty sith more gay Then all the Churches betwene the same and Kent, There sawe I his tome and Chapell excellent. I thought fiue houres but euen a little while, Saint John the virgin me thought did on me smile, Our parishe Church is but a dongeon, To that gay Churche in comparison. If the people were as pleasaunt as the place Then were it paradice of pleasour and solace, Then might I truely right well finde in my heart. There still to abide and neuer to departe, But since that this cocke by death hath left his song, Trust me Coridon there many a thing is wrong, When I sawe his figure lye in the Chapell-side, Like death for weping I might no longer bide. Lo all good thinges so sone away doth glide, That no man liketh to long doth rest and abide. When the good is gone (my mate this is the case) Seldome the better reentreth in the place."

The excellence of his subject carries the poet quite beyond himself in describing the general lamentation at the death of this worthy prelate; with an unusual power of imagination he thus pictures the sympathy of the towers, arches, vaults and images of Ely monastery:

"My harte sore mourneth when I must specify Of the gentle cocke whiche sange so mirily, He and his flocke wer like an union Conioyned in one without discention, All the fayre cockes which in his dayes crewe When death him touched did his departing rewe. The pretie palace by him made in the fen, The maides, widowes, the wiues, and the men, With deadly dolour were pearsed to the heart, When death constrayned this shepheard to departe. Corne, grasse, and fieldes, mourned for wo and payne, For oft his prayer for them obtayned rayne. The pleasaunt floures for wo faded eche one, When they perceyued this shepheard dead and gone, The okes, elmes, and euery sorte of dere Shronke vnder shadowes, abating all their chere. The mightie walles of Ely Monastery, The stones, rockes, and towres semblably, The marble pillers and images echeone, Swet all for sorowe, when this good cocke was gone, Though he of stature were humble, weake and leane, His minde was hye, his liuing pure and cleane, Where other feedeth by beastly appetite, On heauenly foode was all his whole delite."

Morton, Alcock's predecessor and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury (1486-1500), is also singled out for compliment, in which allusion is made to his troubles, his servants' faithfulness, and his restoration to favour under Richard III. and Henry VII. (Eclogue III.):--

"And shepheard Morton, when he durst not appeare, Howe his olde seruauntes were carefull of his chere; In payne and pleasour they kept fidelitie Till grace agayne gaue him aucthoritie Then his olde fauour did them agayne restore To greater pleasour then they had payne before. Though for a season this shepheard bode a blast, The greatest winde yet slaketh at the last, And at conclusion he and his flocke certayne Eche true to other did quietly remayne."

And again in Eclogue IV.:--

"Micene and Morton be dead and gone certayne."

The "Dean of Powles" (Colet), with whom Barclay seems to have been personally acquainted, and to whom the reference alludes as to one still living (his death occurred in 1519), is celebrated as a preacher in the same Eclogue:--

"For this I learned of the Dean of Powles I tell thee, Codrus this man hath won some soules."

as is "the olde friar that wonned in Greenwich" in Eclogue V.

The first three Eclogues are paraphrases or adaptations from the Miseriæ Curialium, the most popular of the works of one of the most successful literary adventurers of the middle ages, Æneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II., who died in 1464). It appears to have been written with the view of relieving his feelings of disappointment and disgust at his reception at the court of the Emperor, whither he had repaired, in the hope of political advancement. The tone and nature of the work may be gathered from this candid exposure of the adventurer's morale: "Many things there are which compel us to persevere, but nothing more powerfully than ambition which, rivalling charity, truly beareth all things however grievous, that it may attain to the honours of this world and the praise of men. If we were humble and laboured to gain our own souls rather than hunt after vain glory, few of us, indeed, would endure such annoyances." He details, with querulous humour, all the grievances of his position, from the ingratitude of the prince to the sordour of the table-cloths, and the hardness of the black bread. But hardest of all to bear is the contempt shown towards literature. "In the courts of princes literary knowledge is held a crime; and great is the grief of men of letters when they find themselves universally despised, and see the most important matters managed, not to say mismanaged, by blockheads, who cannot tell the number of their fingers and toes."

Barclay's adaptation is so thoroughly Englished, and contains such large additions from the stores of his own bitter experience, as to make it even more truly his own than any other of his translations.

The fourth and fifth eclogues are imitations,--though no notice that they are so is conveyed in the title, as in the case of the first three,--of the fifth and sixth of the popular eclogue writer of the time, Jo. Baptist Mantuan, which may have helped to give rise to the generally received statement noticed below, that all the eclogues are imitations of that author. The fourth is entitled "Codrus and Minalcas, treating of the behauour of Riche men agaynst Poetes," and it may be judged how far it is Barclay's from the fact that it numbers about twelve hundred lines, including the elegy of the Noble Howard, while the original, entitled, "De consuetudine Divitum erga Poetas," contains only about two hundred. The fifth is entitled "Amintas and Faustus, of the disputation of citizens and men of the countrey." It contains over a thousand lines, and the original, "De disceptatione rusticorum et civium," like the fifth, extends to little more than two hundred.

In the Prologue before mentioned we are told (Cawood's edition):--

"That fiue Egloges this whole treatise doth holde To imitation of other Poetes olde,"

Which appears to be a correction of the printer's upon the original, as in Powell's edition:--

"That X. egloges this hole treatyse dothe holde."

Whether other five were ever published there is no record to show; it appears, however, highly improbable, that, if they had, they could have been entirely lost,--especially considering the popularity and repeated issue of the first five,--during the few years that would have elapsed between their original publication and the appearance of Cawood's edition. Possibly the original reading may be a typographical blunder, for Cawood is extremely sparing of correction, and appears to have made none which he did not consider absolutely necessary. This is one of the literary puzzles which remain for bibliography to solve. (See below, p. lxxix.)

The next of Barclay's works in point of date, and perhaps the only one actually entitled to the merit of originality, is his Introductory to write and pronounce French, compiled at the request of his great patron, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, and printed by Copland in 1521. It is thus alluded to in the first important authority on French grammar, "Lesclarissement de la langue Francoyse compose par maistre Jehan Palsgraue, Angloys, natyf de Londres," 1530: "The right vertuous and excellent prince Thomas, late Duke of Northfolke, hath commanded the studious clerke, Alexandre Barkelay, to embusy hymselfe about this exercyse." Further on he is not so complimentary as he remarks:--"Where as there is a boke, that goeth about in this realme, intitled The introductory to writte and pronounce frenche, compiled by Alexander Barcley, in which k is moche vsed, and many other thynges also by hym affirmed, contrary to my sayenges in this boke, and specially in my seconde, where I shall assaye to expresse the declinations and coniugatynges with the other congruites obserued in the frenche tonge, I suppose it sufficient to warne the lernar, that I haue red ouer that boke at length: and what myn opinion is therin, it shall well inough apere in my bokes selfe, though I make therof no ferther expresse mencion: saue that I haue sene an olde boke written in parchement, in maner in all thynkes like to his sayd Introductory: whiche, by coniecture, was not vnwritten this hundred yeres. I wot nat if he happened to fortune upon suche an other: for whan it was commaunded that the grammar maisters shulde teche the youth of Englande ioyntly latin with frenche, there were diuerse suche bokes diuysed: wherupon, as I suppose, began one great occasyon why we of England sounde the latyn tong so corruptly, whiche haue as good a tonge to sounde all maner speches parfitely as any other nacyon in Europa."--