The Ship of Fools, Volume 1-2 by Sebastian Brant (novels in english TXT) 📕

the different kingdoms of Asia, was

very popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, as one of the earliest

accounts of the East, and the conjecture of the Grenville Catalogue is not

improbable, though there is no sufficient evidence, that Barclay was the

author of the English version which appeared from the press of Pynson.

 

Bale further enumerates in his list of Barclay’s works “Contra Skeltonum,

Lib. I.; Quinq: eglogas ex Mantuano, Lib. I; Vitam D. Catherinæ, Lib. I.,

[Libros tres, Pits]; Vitam D. Margaritæ, Lib. I.; Vitam Etheldredæ, Lib.

I.; Aliaq: plura fecit.” Tanner adds: “Orationes varias, Lib. I.; De fide

orthodoxa, Lib. I.”

 

Of these various fruits of Barclay’s fertility and industry no fragment has

survived to our day, nor has even any positive information regarding their

nature been transmitted to us.

 

The “Orationes varias,” probably a collection of sermons with especial

reference to the sins of the day would have been historically, if not

otherwise, interesting, and their loss is matter for regret. On the other

hand the want of the treatise, “De fide orthodoxa,” is doubtless a relief

to literature. There are too many of the kind already to encumber our

shelves and our catalogues.

 

The Lives of the Saints, the work, it is stated, of the author’s old age,

were, according to Tanner, and he is no doubt right, translations from the

Latin. Barclay’s reputation probably does not suffer from their loss.

 

“Quinque eglogas ex Mantuano,” though Bale mentions also “De miserijs

aulicorum; Bucolicam Codri; Eglogam quartam,” apparently the five, but

really the first four of the eclogues known to us, are, I am strongly

inclined to believe, nothing else than these same five eclogues, under, to

use a bibliographical phrase, “a made up” title. That he mentions first,

five from Mantuan, and afterwards adds “Bucolicam Codri” and “Eglogam

quartam,” as two distinct eclogues, apparently not from Mantuan, while both

titles must refer to the same poem, an imitation of Mantuan’s fifth

eclogue, is proof enough that he was not speaking with the authority of

personal knowledge of these works.

 

Johannes Baptista Spagnuoli, commonly called from his native city, Mantuan,

was the most popular and prolific eclogue writer of the fifteenth century,

to which Barclay himself testifies:—

 

“As the moste famous Baptist Mantuan

The best of that sort since Poetes first began.”

 

Barclay’s Eclogues being the first attempts of the kind in English, Bale’s

“Ex Mantuano,” therefore probably means nothing more than “on the model of

Mantuan;” otherwise, if it be assumed that five were the whole number that

ever appeared, it could not apply to the first three, which are expressly

stated in the title to be from Æneas Sylvius, while if ten be assumed, his

statement would account for nine, the “quinque eglogas” being the five now

wanting, but if so, then he has omitted to mention the most popular of all

the eclogues, the fifth, and has failed to attribute to Mantuan two which

are undoubtedly due to him.

 

The loss of the “Contra Skeltonum,” is a matter for regret. That there was

no love lost between these two contemporaries and chief poets of their time

is evident enough. Skelton’s scathing sarcasm against the priesthood no

doubt woke his brother satirist’s ire, and the latter lets no opportunity

slip of launching forth his contempt for the laureate of Oxford.

 

The moralist in announcing the position he assumes in opposition to the

writer of popular tales, takes care to have a fling at the author of “The

boke of Phyllyp Sparowe”:—

 

“I wryte no Ieste ne tale of Robyn Hode,

Nor sawe no sparcles, ne sede of vyciousnes;

Wyse men loue vertue, wylde people wantones,

It longeth nat to my scyence nor cunnynge,

For Phylyp the sparowe the (Dirige) to synge.”

 

A sneer to which Skelton most probably alludes when, enumerating his own

productions in the Garlande of Laurell, he mentions,

 

“Of Phillip Sparow the lamentable fate,

The dolefull desteny, and the carefull chaunce,

Dyuysed by Skelton after the funerall rate;

Yet sum there be therewith that take greuaunce,

And grudge thereat with frownyng countenaunce;

But what of that? harde it is to please all men;

Who list amende it, let hym set to his penne.”

 

The following onslaught in Barclay’s Fourth Eclogue, is evidently levelled

at the abominable Skelton:

 

“Another thing yet is greatly more damnable:

Of rascolde poetes yet is a shamfull rable,

Which voyde of wisedome presumeth to indite,

Though they haue scantly the cunning of a snite;

And to what vices that princes moste intende,

Those dare these fooles solemnize and commende

Then is he decked as Poete laureate,

When stinking Thais made him her graduate;

When Muses rested, she did her season note,

And she with Bacchus her camous did promote.

Such rascolde drames, promoted by Thais,

Bacchus, Licoris, or yet by Testalis,

Or by suche other newe forged Muses nine,

Thinke in their mindes for to haue wit diuine;

They laude their verses, they boast, they vaunt and iet,

Though all their cunning be scantly worth a pet:

If they haue smelled the artes triuiall,

They count them Poetes hye and heroicall.

Such is their foly, so foolishly they dote,

Thinking that none can their playne errour note;

Yet be they foolishe, auoyde of honestie,

Nothing seasoned with spice of grauitie,

Auoyde of pleasure, auoyde of eloquence,

With many wordes, and fruitlesse of sentence;

Unapt to learne, disdayning to be taught,

Their priuate pleasure in snare hath them so caught;

And worst yet of all, they count them excellent,

Though they be fruitlesse, rashe and improuident.

To such ambages who doth their minde incline,

They count all other as priuate of doctrine,

And that the faultes which be in them alone,

And be common in other men eche one.

Thus bide good poetes oft time rebuke and blame,

Because of other which haue despised name.

And thus for the bad the good be cleane abject.

Their art and poeme counted of none effect,

Who wanteth reason good to discerne from ill

Doth worthy writers interprete at his will:

So both the laudes of good and not laudable

For lacke of knowledge become vituperable.”

 

It has not hitherto been pointed out that Skelton did not disdain to borrow

a leaf from the enemy’s book and try his hand at paraphrasing the Ship of

Fools also. “The Boke of three fooles, M. Skelton, poete laureate, gaue to

my lord Cardynall,” is a paraphrase in prose, with introductory verses, of

three chapters of Brandt, corresponding to Barclay’s chapters headed, Of

yonge folys that take olde wyme to theyr wyues nat for loue but for ryches

(I. 247); Of enuyous folys (I. 252); Of bodely lust or corporall

voluptuosyte (I. 239). Skelton’s three fools, are, “The man that doth wed a

wyfe for her goodes and her rychesse;” “Of Enuye, the seconde foole”; and,

“Of the Voluptuousnes corporall, the third foole;” and his versions are

dashed off with his usual racy vigour. He probably, however, did not think

it worth while to compete with the established favourite. If he had we

would certainly have got a very different book from Barclay’s.

 

Notwithstanding his popularity and industry, Barclay’s name appears to be

but seldom mentioned by contemporary or later authors. As early as 1521

however, we find him placed in the most honourable company by Henry

Bradshaw, “Lyfe of Saynt Werburghe,” (1521, Pynson, 4to). But the

compliment would probably lose half its sweetness from his being bracketed

with the detested Skelton:—

 

To all auncient poetes, litell boke, submytte the,

Whilom flouryng in eloquence facundious,

And to all other whiche present nowe be;

Fyrst to maister Chaucer and Ludgate sentencious,

Also to preignaunt Barkley nowe beying religious,

To inuentiue Skelton and poet laureate;

Praye them all of pardon both erly and late.

 

Bulleyn’s repeated allusions to Barclay (see above, pp. xxvii., liv.),

apart from the probability that, as contemporaries resident in the same

provincial town, Ely, they were well acquainted with each other, leave

little doubt that the two were personal friends. Bulleyn’s figurative

description of the poet, quoted at p. xxvii., is scarcely complete without

the following verses, which are appended to it by way of summary of his

teachings (similar verses are appended to the descriptions of Chaucer,

Gower, &c.):—[Barclay appears] saying

 

“Who entreth the court in yong and teder age

Are lightly blinded with foly and outrage:

But suche as enter with witte and grauitie,

Bow not so sone to such enormitie,

But ere thei enter if thei haue lerned nought

Afterwardes Vertue the least of theyr thought.”

Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence.

 

In another passage of the same Dialogue[4] the picture of the honourable

and deserving but neglected churchman is touched with so much strength and

feeling that, though no indication is given, one cannot but believe that

the painter was drawing from the life, the life of his friend. The

likeness, whether intentional or not, is a most faithful one: “The third

[picture] is, one whiche sheweth the state of learned men, labouring long

time in studie and diuine vertue, whiche are wrapped in pouertie, wantyng

the golden rake or gapyng mouth. This man hath verie fewe to preferre hym

to that promotion, he smiteth himselfe upo the breast, he wepeth and

lamenteth, that vice should thus be exalted, ignoraunce rewarded with

glorie, coueteous men spoilyng the Churche, by the names of patrones and

geuers, whiche extorcioners and tellers, they care not to whom, so that it

be raked with the golden racke. Wel, wel, God of his mercie, amed this

euill market.”

 

In one of the many humorous sallies which lighten up this old-fashioned

antidote to the pestilence, Barclay again appears, dressed in the

metaphorical colour of the poet or minstrel—green, which has probably here

a double significance, referring no doubt to his popularity as the English

eclogue writer as well as to his fame as a poet and satirist. In

introducing “Bartlet, grene breche” as the antithesis to “Boner wepyng,”

allusion was also probably intended to the honourable position occupied by

Barclay amongst the promoters of the Reformation, compared with the

reapostacy, the career of brutal cruelty, and the deserved fate of the

Jefferies of the Episcopal bench.

 

Thus discourse Civis et Uxor.—

 

“Uxor. What are all these two and two in a table. Oh it is trim. Civis.

These are old frendes, it is well handled and workemanly. Willyam Boswell

in Pater noster rowe, painted them. Here is Christ, and Sathan, Sainct

Peter, and Symon Magus, Paule, and Alexader the Coppersmith, Trace, and

Becket, Martin Luther, and the Pope … bishop Cramer, and bishop Gardiner.

Boner wepyng, Bartlet, grene breche … Salomon, and Will Sommer. The cocke

and the lyon, the wolfe and the lambe.” This passage also necessarily

implies that Barclay’s fame at that time was second to none in England.

Alas! for fame:

 

“What is the end of fame? ‘Tis but to fill

A certain portion of uncertain paper.”

 

In the seventeenth century Barclay still held a place in the first rank of

satirists, if we accept the evidence of the learned Catholic poet of that

time, Sir Aston Cokaine. He thus alludes to him in an address “To my

learned friend, Mr Thomas Bancroft, upon his Book of Satires. By Sir Aston

Cokayne.”

 

“After a many works of divers kinds

Your muse to tread th’ Aruncan path designs:

‘Tis hard to write but Satires in these days,

And yet to write good Satires merits praise:

… …

So old Petronius Arbiter appli’d

Corsives unto the age he did deride:

So Horace, Persius, Juvenal, (among

Those ancient Romans) scourg’d the impious throng;

So Ariosto (in these later times)

Reprov’d his Italy for many crimes;

So learned Barclay let his lashes fall

Heavy on some to bring a cure to all.”

 

In