Part 2 (2/2)
Though personally disinclined to radical changes his writings amply show his deep dissatisfaction with things as they were. This renders the more improbable the honours a.s.signed him by Wadding (Scriptores Ordinis Minorum, 1806, p. 5), who promotes him to be Suffragan Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Bale, who, in a slanderous anecdote, the locale of which is also Wells, speaks of him as a chaplain of Queen Mary's, though Mary did not ascend the throne till the year after his death. As these statements are nowhere confirmed, it is not improbable that their authors have fallen into error by confounding the poet Barclay, with a Gilbert Berkeley, who became Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1559. One more undoubted, but tardy, piece of preferment was awarded him which may be regarded as an honour of some significance. On the 30th April 1552, the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, London, presented him to the Rectory of All Hallows, Lombard Street, but the well-deserved promotion came too late to be enjoyed. A few weeks after, and before the 10th June, at which date his will was proved, he died, as his biographers say, ”at a very advanced age;” at the good old age of seventy-six, as shall be shown presently, at Croydon where he had pa.s.sed his youth, and there in the Church he was buried. ”June 10th 1552, Alexander Barkley sepult,” (Extract from the Parish Register, in Lyson's Environs of London).
A copy of his will, an extremely interesting and instructive doc.u.ment, has been obtained from Doctors' Commons, and will be found appended. It bears in all its details those traits of character which, from all that we otherwise know, we are led to a.s.sociate with him. In it we see the earnest, conscientious minister whose first thought is of the poor, the loyal churchman liberal in his support of the house of G.o.d, the kind relative in his numerous and considerate bequests to his kith and kin, the amiable, much loved man in the gifts of remembrance to his many friends, and the pious Christian in his wishes for the prayers of his survivors ”to Almightie G.o.d for remission of my synnes, and mercy upon my soule.”
Barclay's career and character, both as a churchman and a man of letters, deserve attention and respect from every student of our early history and literature. In the former capacity he showed himself diligent, honest, and anxious, at a time when these qualities seemed to have been so entirely lost to the church as to form only a subject for clerical ridicule. In the latter, the same qualities are also prominent, diligence, honesty, bold outspokenness, an ardent desire for the pure, the true, and the natural, and an undisguised enmity to everything false, self-seeking, and vile.
Everything he did was done in a pure way, and to a worthy end.
Bale stands alone in casting aspersions upon his moral character, a.s.serting, as Ritson puts it, ”in his bigoted and foul-mouthed way,” that ”he continued a hater of truth, and under the disguise of celibacy a filthy adulterer to the last;” and in his Declaration of Bonner's articles (1561, fol. 81), he condescends to an instance to the effect that ”Doctoure Barkleye hadde greate harme ones of suche a visitacion, at Wellys, before he was Quene Maryes Chaplayne. For the woman whome he so religiouslye visited did light him of all that he had, sauinge his workinge tolas. For the whiche acte he had her in prison, and yet coulde nothing recouer againe.” Whether this story be true of any one is perhaps doubtful, and, if true of a Barclay, we are convinced that he is not our author. It may have arisen as we have seen from a mistake as to ident.i.ty. But apart from the question of ident.i.ty, we have nothing in support of the slander but Bale's ”foul-mouthed” a.s.sertion, while against it we have the whole tenor and aim of Barclay's published writings. Everywhere he inculcates the highest and purest morality, and where even for that purpose he might be led into descriptions of vice, his disgust carries him past what most others would have felt themselves justified in dealing with. For example, in the chapter of ”Disgysyd folys” he expressly pa.s.ses over as lightly as possible what might to others have proved a tempting subject:
”They disceyue myndes chaste and innocent With dyuers wayes whiche I wyll nat expres Lyst that whyle I labour this cursyd gyse to stynt I myght to them mynyster example of lewdnes And therfore in this 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 ”s.h.i.+p,” 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 pa.s.sages scattered throughout these works which no amount of polis.h.i.+ng could have improved. How could a man in a rage be better touched off than thus (”s.h.i.+p”
I. 182, 15).
”This man malycious whiche troubled is with wrath Nought els soundeth but the hoorse letter R.”
The pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sure 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 wors.h.i.+p 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.”
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