ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

WHEN we find different places contending for the distinction of having given birth to an individual, we need require no better proof to convince us, that there must have been much in his character to make affinity with it an honor. Such rivalry is the tribute which we pay to worth and greatness alone; to the first poet of a country, the first founder of an art; to a Homer or to a Guttemberg.*

Mackenzie affirms, that the subject of the present memoir, Alexander Barclay, was a Scotsman, though apparently for no better reason known to him, than that Alexander is a Christian name, peculiarly Scottish. Bale contends, that he is an Englishman, and of the county of Somerset, because there are Barcleys in Somersetshire; on the same principle, that Macedon is like Monmouth, because there is a river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth. Pits thinks, that he was born in Devonshire, on no other ground seemingly, than that his first preferment in the church was in that county. And Mr. Warton is of opinion, that he as probably belonged to Gloucestershire, because it contains a village called Barcley.

*The inventor of printing.

Amid so many empty conjectures, it is pleasant to be able to produce some solid evidence on the subject; and to a Scotsman not the less so, that the evidence is in favor of his country's claim to rank Alexander Barclay among the number of eminent men whom it has produced. The authority which gives Barclay to Scotland ought to be of the greater weight, that it is not that of a Scotsman, but of an Englishman, Dr. William Bulleyn, well known to the learned as a physician and botanist, of great eminence, about the middle of the sixteenth century. Bulleyn was a native of the isle of Ely, and Barclay was a monk of the monastery of Ely, at the period when Bulleyn was a youth. Whether they were personally acquainted or not is uncertain; but from living in the same neighbourhood, Bulleyn had an opportunity of knowing, better than any contemporary whose evidence on the subject is extant, to what country Barclay was, by all about him, reputed to belong. Now to the evidence. In an allegorical description of the early English poets, by Dr. Bulleyn, he states positively, that Barclay was "born beyond the cold river Tweed." As the whole passage possesses considerable elegance, and has been so universally overlooked by the critics, the transcription of it here will not probably be deemed out of place.*

66

Witty Chaucer, who sat in chair of gold covered with roses, writing prose and rhyme, accompanied

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the orthography, as I find it in the MS. of this memoir, is modernized.

A. S.

with the spirits of many kings, knights, and fair ladies, whom he pleasantly besprinkled with the sweet water of the well, consecrated to the muses, named Aganippe. Near also sat old moral Gower, with pleasant pen in hand, commending honest love without lust, and pleasure without pride; holiness in the clergy without hypocrisy; no tyranny in rulers, no falsehood in lawyers, no busary in merchants, no rebellion in the commons, and unity among the kingdoms, &c. There appeared also Lydgate lamenting among the lilies, with his bald sconce, and a garland of willows about it. Booted he was after St. Burnet's guise; and a black stammel robe, with a monstrous hood, hanging backward; his body stooping forward, bewailing every state with the spirit of Providence ; foreseeing the falls of wicked men, and the slippery seats of princes; the ebbing and flowing, the rising and falling of men in authority; how virtue advances the simple, and vice overthrows the most noble of the world. Skelton sat in the corner, with a frosty bitten face, frowning and scarcely yet cooled of the hot burning choler kindled against the cankered Cardinal Wolsey, writing many a sharp disticon with bloody pen against him, which he sent through the infernal Styx, Phlegeton, and Acheron, by the ferryman of hell, called Charon, to the said cardinall. Then Barclay, in a hooping russet long coat, with a pretty hood on his neck, and fine knots upon his girdle, after Francis's tricks. He was born beyond the cold river Tweed; he lodged upon a bed of sweet camomile, under the cinnamon tree; about him many shepherds and sheep, with pleasant pipes, greatly abhorring the life of courtiers."

The certainty with which Bulleyn here speaks of

Barclay, as born beyond the Tweed, is not a little strengthened by the accuracy with which even in allegory he delineates his peculiar characteristics. "He lodged upon a bed of sweet camomile." What figure could have been more descriptive of that agreeable bitterness, that pleasant irony, which distinguishes the author of the "Ship of Fools?" "About him many

shepherds and sheep with pleasant pipes, greatly abhorring the life of courtiers." What could have been a plainer paraphrase of the title of Barclay's " Eclogues," or "Miseries of Courtiers and Courtes, and of all Princes in general"? As a minor feature," the fine knots upon his girdle after Francis's tricks" may also be noticed. Hitherto, the fact of Barclay having been a member of the Franciscan order has been always repeated as a matter of some doubt; "he was a monk of the order of St. Benedict, and afterwards, as some say, a Franciscan." Bulleyn knows, and mentions, with certainty, what others only speak of as the merest conjecture. In short, every thing tends to shew a degree of familiar acquaintance with the man, his habits, and his productions, which entitles the testimony of Bulleyn to the highest credit.

Although the country of Barclay is thus fixed with sufficient certainty, nothing farther respecting his nativity or early youth is known. The first trace we have of him is at Oriel College, Oxford, about 1495, where he was patronized by Thomas Cornish, then provost of that house. After finishing his studies at the university, he travelled through Holland, Germany, Italy, and France. On returning to England, he found his patron, Dr. Cornish, had become Bishop of Tyne, and received from him an appointment to be

chaplain in the college of St. Mary Ottery, in Devonshire, founded by John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter.

It was while resident here, that Barclay wrote his great work, the Ship of Fools; this we learn from the title as it is to be found in Pynson's, the parent edition. "This present boke, named the Shyp of Folys of the Worlde, was translated i' the College of Saynt Mary Ottery, in the Counte of Deuonshyre, out of Laten, Frenche, and Doche, into Englyshe tonge, by Alexander Barclay, Preste; and at that tyme chaplen in the said colledge."

Some time after this, Barclay entered into monastic orders; first, into that of St. Benedict; next, into that of St. Francis; and, at the dissolution of the monastery of Ely in 1539, we find him among the number of its ejected monks.

Barclay appears not to have been without friends in this emergency. He was appointed successively to the vicarage of St. Matthew, at Wokey in Somersetshire, and to that of Much-Badew or BadewMagna, in the county of Essex and diocese of London; nor were these, as Wood supposes, his only preferments; for the dean and chapter of London, in April 1552, presented him to the living of Allhallows, Lombard Street. The last appointment, however, he lived to enjoy only a very few weeks; he was now far advanced in years; and, in the month of June, 1552, died at Croydon, in Surrey, in the church of which place his remains were interred.

Barclay had the reputation, among his contemporaries, of being a man of rare wit and learning; and the numerous editions of his works, which have been