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SECTION XXIX.

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I PLACE Alexander Barklay within the year 1500, as his SHIP OF FOOLS appears to have been projected about that period. He was educated at Oriel college in Oxforda, accomplished his academical studies by travelling, and was appointed one of the priests, or prebendaries, of the college of saint Mary Ottery in Devonshire. Afterwards he became a Benedictine monk of Ely monastery; and at length took the habit of the Franciscans at Canterbury 8. He temporised with the changes of religion; for he possessed some church-preferments in the reign of Edward the Sixth". He died, very old, at Croydon, in Surry, in the year 1552.

d He seems to have spent some time at Cambridge, EGLOG. i. Signat. A. iii. And once in Cambridge I heard a scol

ler say,

One of the same that go in copès gay,

The chief patron of his studies appears to have been Thomas Cornish, provost of Oriel college, and Suffragan bishop of Tyne, in the diocese of Bath and Wells; to whom he dedicates, in a handsome Latin epistle, his SHIP OF FOOLS. But in the poem, he mentions My Maister Kyrkham, calling himself "his true servitour, his chaplayne, and bede-man." fol. 152. b. edit. 1570. Some biographers suppose Barklay to have been a native of Scotland. It is certain that he has a long and laboured encomium on James the Fourth, king of Scotland; whom he compliments for his bravery, prudence, and other eminent virtues. One of the stanzas of this panegyric is an acrostic on Jacobus. fol. 206. a. He most probably was of Devonshire or Gloucestershire.

f In the title to his translation from Mancinus, called the MIRROUR OF GOOD MANNERS.

MS. Bale, Sloan. f. 68.

h He was instituted to Much Badew in Essex, in 1546. Newcourt, REP. i. 254. And to Wokey in Somersetshire, the same year. Registr. Wellens. He had also the church of All Saints, in Lombard-street, London, on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which was vacant by his death, Aug. 24, 1552. Newcourt, ut supr.

iHe frequently mentions Croydon in his EGLOGES. He was buried in Croydon church. EGL. i. Signat. A. iii.

And as in CROIDON I heard the Collier preache. Again, ibid.

While I in youth in CROIDON towne did dwell.

Again, ibid.

He hath no felowe betwene this and
CROIDON

Save the proude plowman Gnatho of
Chorlington.

He mentions the collier again, ibid.
Such maner riches the collier tell thee

can.

Also, ibid.

As the riche shepheard that woned in
Mortlake.

Barklay's principal work is the SHIP OF FOOLES, above mentioned. About the year 1494 [1470*], Sebastian Brandt, a learned civilian of Basil, and an eminent philologist, published a satire in German with this title. The design was to ridicule the reigning vices and follies of every rank and profession, under the allegory of a Ship freighted with Fools of all kinds, but without any variety of incident, or artificiality of fable; yet although the poem is destitute of plot, and the voyage of adventures, a composition of such a nature became extremely popular. It was translated into French*; and, in the year 1488+, into tolerable Latin verse, by James Locher, a German, and a scholar of the inventour Brandt'. From the original, and the two translations, Barklay formed a large English poem, in the balade or octave stanza, with considerable additions gleaned from the follies of his countrymen. It was printed by Pinson, in 1509, whose name occurs in the poem.

Howbeit the charge PINSON has on me layde
With many fooles our navy not to charge.TM

It was finished in the year 1508, and in the college of saint

[In the Additions to this volume, Warton instructed the reader to expunge the date 1494, and substitute that of 1470. But Brandt was not born till the year 1458, a circumstance which makes this correction quite untenable. The German bibliographers speak of an edition printed at Basle without date, as the earliest known to them, though others maintain the Strasburg edition of 1494 to be the first of the German original, If this be true, Locher must have translated from Brandt's manuscript. EDIT.]

JI presume this is the same Sebastian Brandt, to whom Thomas Acuparius, poet laureate, dedicates a volume of Poggius's works, Argentorat. 1513. fol. He is here styled, "Juris utriusque doctor, et S. P. Q. Argentinensis cancel larius." The dedication is dated 1511. See Hendreich. PANDECT. p. 703.[Brandt was a doctor of laws, an imperial counsellor, and Syndic to the Senate of Strasburg.-EDIT.]

k

* By Joce Bade. Paris, 1497. [In

verse. From which the French prose translation was made the next year.— ADDITIONS.]

+[With this title, "Sebastiani Brandt Navis STULTIFERA Mortalium, a vernaculo ac vulgari sermone in Latinum conscripta, per JACOBUM LOCHER cognomine Philomusum Suevum cum figuris. Per Jacobum Zachoni de Romano, anno 1488." 4to. In the colophon, it is said to have been jampridem traducta from the German original by Locher; and that this Latin translation was revised by the inventor Brandt, with the addition of many new FooLs. A second edition of Locher's Latin was printed at Paris in 1498. 4to. There is a French prose translation by Jehan Drouyn, at Lyons, 1498. fol. In the royal library at Paris, there is a curious copy of Barklay's English SHIP of FOLYS, by Pinson, on vellum, with the wood-cuts: a rarity not, I believe, to be found in England. ADDITIONS.]

1 See THE PROLOGUE.

m Fol. 38. In another place he com

Mary Ottery, as appears by this rubric, "The SHYP OF FOLYS, translated in the colege of saynt Mary Otery, in the counte of Devonshyre, oute of Laten, Frenche, and Doch, into Englishe tonge, by Alexander Barclay, preste and chaplen in the sayd colledge, M.CCCCC.VIII. " Our author's stanza is verbose, prosaic, and tedious: and for many pages together, his poetry is little better than a trite homily in verse. The title promises much character and pleasantry: but we shall be disappointed, if we expect to find the foibles of the crew of our ship touched by the hand of the author of the CANTERBURY TALES, or exposed in the rough yet strong satire of Pierce Plowman. He sometimes has a stroke of humour: as in the following stanza, where he wishes to take on board the eight secondaries, or minor canons, of his college. "Alexander Barclay ad FATUOS, ut dent locum ocro SECUNDARIIS beatæ Mariæ de Ottery, qui quidem prima hujus ratis transtra merentur°"

"

Softe, Foolis, softe, a litle slacke your pace,

Till I have space you to' order by degree;

I have eyght neyghbours, that first shall have a place
Within this my shyp, for they most worthy be:
They may their learning receyve costles and free,
Their walles abutting and joining to the schooles;
Nothing they can, yet nought will they learn nor see,
Therefore shall they guide this one ship of fooles.

The ignorance of the English clergy is one of the chief objects of his animadversion. He says',

plains that some of his wordes are amis, on account of the printers not perfect in science. And adds, that

The printers in their busynes

folly of all states, with divers other works adjoined to the same," &c. This has both Latin and English. But Ames, under Wynkyn de Worde, recites "The

Do all their workes speediely and in Ship of Fools in this World," 4to. 1517.

haste.

fol. 258. b.

" In folio. A second edition, from which I cite, was printed with his other works, in the year 1570, by Cawood, in folio, with curious wooden cuts, taken from Pinson's impression, viz. "The SHIP OF FOOLES, wherein is shewed the

HIST. PRINT. p. 94.

° fol. 68.

To the collegiate church of saint Mary Ottery a school was annexed, by the munificent founder, Grandison, bishop of Exeter. This college was founded in the year 1337, q know.

fol. 2.

For if one can flatter, and beare a hawke on his fist,

He shalbe made parson of Honington or of Clist.

These were rich benefices in the neighbourhood of saint Mary Ottery. He disclaims the profane and petty tales of the times.

I write no jeste ne tale of Robin Hood',

Nor sowe no sparkles, ne sede of viciousnes;
Wise men love vertue, wilde people wantonnes,
It longeth not my science nor cuning,

For Philip the sparrow the dirige to sing.

The last line is a ridicule on his cotemporary Skelton, who wrote a LITLE BOKE OF PHILIP SPARROW, or a Dirge,

For the soule of Philip Sparrow

That was late slaine at Carow, &c.'

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And in another place, he thus censures the fashionable reading of his age: much in the tone of his predecessor Hawes.

For goodly scripture is not worth an hawe,
But tales are loved ground of ribaudry,
And many are so blinded with their foly,
That no scriptur thinke they so true nor gode

As is a foolish jest of Robin hode, "

As a specimen of his general manner, I insert his character of the Student, or Bookworm: whom he supposes to be the First Fool in the vessel.

That" in this ship the chiefe place I governe,

By this wide sea with foolis wandering,

The cause is plaine and easy to discerne;
Still am I busy bookes assembling,

⚫ fol. 23.

See Skelton's WORKS, p. 215. edit. 1796. This will be mentioned again, below. u fol. 23. "I subjoin the Latin from which he translates, that the reader may judge how much is our poet's own. fol. 1. a.

Primus in excelso teneo quod nave rudentes,

Stultivagosque sequor comites per flu

mina vasta,

Non ratione vacat certa, sensuque la

tenti : Congestis etenim stultus confido libellis ;

For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thing,
In my conceyt, to have them ay in hand;
But what they meane do I not understande.
But yet

I have them in great reverence
And honour, saving them from filth and ordure;
By often brusshing and much diligence,
Full goodly bounde in pleasaunt coverture
Of damas, sattin, or els of velvet pure:

I keepe them sure fearing least they should be lost
For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.

But if it fortune that any learned man
Within my house fall to disputation,

I drawe the curtaynes to shewe my bokes then,
That they of my cunning should make probation :
I love not to fall in alterication :

And while the commen, my bookes I turne and winde,
For all is in them, and nothing in my minde.

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Cur vellem studio sensus turbare fre

quenti,

Aut tam sollicitis animum confundere rebus?

Qui studet, assiduo motu fit stultus et

amens.

Seu studeam, seu non, dominus tamen esse vocabor;

Et possum studio socium disponere nostro,

Qui pro me sapiat, doctasque examinet

artes:

Aut si cum doctis versor, concedere malo Omnia, ne cogar fors verba Latina profari.

* Students and monks were antiently the binders of books. In the first page this note occurs, of a manuscript Life of Concubranus, "EX CONJUNCTIONE dompni Wyllelmi Edys monasterii B. Mariæ S. Modwenæ virginis de Burton super Trent monachi, dum esset studens Oxoniæ, A.D. MDXVII." See MSS. Cotton. CLEOPATR.ii. And MSS. Coll. Oriel. N. vi. 3. et 7. Art. The word Conjunctio is ligatura. The book is much older than this entry.

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