Part 3 (2/2)

a.s.suredly 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 ill.u.s.trated 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, ”Englis.h.i.+ng” 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 s.h.i.+p of Fools, nor the Eclogues retain perceptible traces of a foreign source, and were it not that they honestly bear their authors.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tle 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 ”s.h.i.+p 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 aduys.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sent Besechynge G.o.d 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 a.s.sende 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.ble grace.

Deo gratias.

Contemporary allusions to the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p is that with so many owers, and straunge tacle; it is a greate vessell. _Ciuis_.--This is the s.h.i.+p 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, h.o.r.es, knaues, &c. This s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 lacunae 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 Alc.o.c.k 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 ”n.o.ble Henry which now departed late,” and the after panegyric of his successor Henry VIII. (Eclogue I.), whose virtues are also duly recorded in the s.h.i.+p 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 n.o.ble pair appear both out of drawing and over-coloured:--

”Beside n.o.ble Henry which nowe departed late, Spectacle of vertue to euery hye estate, The patrone of peace and primate of prudence, Which on G.o.ds 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 rehea.r.s.e and specify Were in the court of our moste n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sage, 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 l.u.s.t insaciable.”

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