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

“Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature,”

Vol. 1., P. 97).

 

“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 five 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, everything 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.’” (Lives of the Scottish Poets, Vol. I., pt. ii., p. 77).

 

But there are other proofs pointing as decidedly to the determination of

this long-continued controversy in favour of Scotland, as the soil from

which this vagrant child of the muses sprung. No evidence seems to have

been hitherto sought from the most obvious source, his writings. The writer

of the memoir in the Biographia Brittanica, (who certainly dealt a

well-aimed, though by no means decisive, blow, in observing, “It is pretty

extraordinary that Barclay himself, in his several addresses to his patrons

should never take notice of his being a stranger, which would have made

their kindness to him the more remarkable [it was very customary for the

writers of that age to make mention in their works of the countries to

which they belonged, especially if they wrote out of their own];[1] whereas

the reader will quickly see, that in his address to the young gentlemen of

England in the ‘Mirror of Good Manners,’ he treats them as his

countrymen,”) has remarked, “It seems a little strange that in those days a

Scot should obtain so great reputation in England, especially if it be

considered from whence our author’s rose, viz., from his enriching and

improving the English tongue. Had he written in Latin or on the sciences,

the thing had been probable enough, but in the light in which it now

stands, I think it very far from likely.” From which it is evident that the

biographer understood not the versatile nature of the Scot and his ability,

especially when caught young, in “doing in Rome as the Romans do.”

Barclay’s English education and foreign travel, together extending over the

most impressionable years of his youth, could not have failed to rub off

any obvious national peculiarities of speech acquired in early boyhood, had

the difference between the English and Scottish speech then been wider than

it was. But the language of Barbour and Chaucer was really one and the

same. It will then not be wondered at that but few Scotch words are found

in Barclay’s writings. Still, these few are not without their importance in

strengthening the argument as to nationality. The following from “The Ship

of Fools,” indicate at once the clime to which they are native, “gree,”

“kest,” “rawky,” “ryue,” “yate,” “bokest,” “bydeth,” “thekt,” and “or,” in

its peculiar Scottish use.[2] That any Englishman, especially a South or

West of England Englishman, should use words such as those, particularly at

a time of hostility and of little intercourse between the nations, will

surely be admitted to be a far more unlikely thing than that a Scotchman

born, though not bred, should become, after the effects of an English

education and residence had efficiently done their work upon him, a great

improver and enricher of the English tongue.

 

But perhaps the strongest and most decisive argument of all in this

much-vexed controversy is to be found in the panegyric of James the Fourth

contained in the “Ship of Fools,” an eulogy so highly pitched and

extravagant that no Englishman of that time would ever have dreamed of it

or dared to pen it. Nothing could well be more conclusive. Barclay precedes

it by a long and high-flown tribute to Henry, but when he comes to “Jamys

of Scotlonde,” he, so to speak, out-Herods Herod. Ordinary verse suffices

not for the greatness of his subject, which he must needs honour with an

acrostic,—

 

“I n prudence pereles is this moste comely kynge

A nd as for his strength and magnanymyte

C oncernynge his noble dedes in euery thynge

O ne founde or grounde lyke to hym can not be

B y byrth borne to boldnes and audacyte

V nder the bolde planet of Mars the champyon

S urely to subdue his ennemyes echone.”

 

There, we are convinced, speaks not the prejudiced, Scot-hating English

critic, but the heart beating true to its fatherland and loyal to its

native Sovereign.

 

That “he was born beyonde the cold river of Twede,” about the year 1476, as

shall be shown anon, is however all the length we can go. His training was

without doubt mainly, if not entirely English. He must have crossed the

border very early in life, probably for the purpose of pursuing his

education at one of the Universities, or, even earlier than the period of

his University career, with parents or guardians to reside in the

neighbourhood of Croydon, to which he frequently refers. Croydon is

mentioned in the following passages in Eclogue I.:

 

“While I in youth in Croidon towne did dwell.”

 

“He hath no felowe betwene this and Croidon,

Save the proude plowman Gnatho of Chorlington.”

 

“And as in Croidon I heard the Collier preache”

 

“Such maner riches the Collier tell thee can”

 

“As the riche Shepheard that woned in Mortlake.”

 

It seems to have become a second home to him, for there, we find, in 1552,

he died and was buried.

 

At which University he studied, whether Oxford or Cambridge, is also a

matter of doubt and controversy. Wood claims him for Oxford and Oriel,

apparently on no other ground than that he dedicates the “Ship of Fools” to

Thomas Cornish, the Suffragan bishop of Tyne, in the Diocese of Bath and

Wells, who was provost of Oriel College from 1493 to 1507. That the Bishop

was the first to give him an appointment in the Church is certainly a

circumstance of considerable weight in favour of the claim of Oxford to be

his alma mater, and of Cornish to be his intellectual father; and if the

appointment proceeded from the Provost’s good opinion of the young

Scotchman, then it says much for the ability and talents displayed by him

during his College career. Oxford however appears to be nowhere mentioned

in his various writings, while Cambridge is introduced thus in Eclogue

I.:—

 

“And once in Cambridge I heard a scoller say.”

 

From which it seems equally, if not more, probable that he was a student at

that university. “There is reason to believe that both the universities

were frequented by Scotish students; many particular names are to be traced

in their annals; nor is it altogether irrelevant to mention that Chaucer’s

young clerks of Cambridge who played such tricks to the miller of

Trompington, are described as coming from the north, and as speaking the

Scotish language:—

 

‘John highte that on, and Alein highte that other,

Of o toun were they born that highte Strother,

Fer in the North, I cannot tellen where.’

 

“It may be considered as highly probable that Barclay completed his studies

in one of those universities, and that the connections which he thus had an

opportunity of forming, induced him to fix his residence in the South; and

when we suppose him to have enjoyed the benefit of an English education it

need not appear peculiarly ‘strange, that in those days, a Scot should

obtain so great reputation in England.’” (Irving, Hist. of Scot. Poetry).

 

In the “Ship” there is a chapter “Of unprofytable Stody” in which he makes

allusion to his student life in such a way as to imply that it had not been

a model of regularity and propriety:

 

“The great foly, the pryde, and the enormyte

Of our studentis, and theyr obstynate errour

Causeth me to wryte two sentences or thre

More than I fynde wrytyn in myne actoure

The tyme hath ben whan I was conductoure

Of moche foly, whiche nowe my mynde doth greue

Wherfor of this shyp syns I am gouernoure

I dare be bolde myne owne vyce to repreue.”

 

If these lines are meant to be accepted literally, which such confessions

seldom are, it may be that he was advised to put a year or two’s foreign

travel between his University career, and his entrance into the Church. At

any rate, for whatever reason, on leaving the University, where, as is

indicated by the title of “Syr” prefixed to his name in his translation of

Sallust, he had obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he travelled

abroad, whether at his own charges, or in the company of a son of one of

his patrons is not recorded, principally in Germany, Italy, and France,

where he applied himself, with an unusual assiduity and success, to the

acquirement of the languages spoken in those countries and to the study of

their best authors. In the chapter “Of unprofytable Stody,” above

mentioned, which contains proof how well he at least had profited by study,

he cites certain continental seats of university learning at each of which,

there is indeed no improbability in supposing he may have remained for some

time, as was the custom in those days:

 

“One rennyth to Almayne another vnto France

To Parys, Padway, Lumbardy or Spayne

Another to Bonony, Rome, or Orleanse

To Cayne, to Tolows, Athenys, or Colayne.”

 

Another reference to his travels and mode of travelling is found in the

Eclogues. Whether he made himself acquainted with the English towns he

enumerates before or after his continental travels it is impossible to

determine:

 

CORNIX.

 

“As if diuers wayes laye vnto Islington,

To Stow on the Wold, Quaueneth or Trompington,

To Douer, Durham, to Barwike or Exeter,

To Grantham, Totnes, Bristow or good Manchester,

To Roan, Paris, to Lions or Floraunce.

 

CORIDON.

 

(What ho man abide, what already in Fraunce,

Lo, a fayre iourney and shortly ended to,

With all these townes what thing haue we to do?

 

CORNIX.

 

By Gad man knowe thou that I haue had to do

In all these townes and yet in many mo,

To see the worlde in youth me thought was best,

And after in age to geue my selfe to rest.

 

CORIDON.

 

Thou might haue brought one and set by our village.

 

CORNIX.

 

What man I might not for lacke of cariage.

To cary mine owne selfe was all that euer I might,

And sometime for ease my sachell made I light.”

ECLOGUE I.

 

Returning to England, after some years of residence abroad, with his mind

broadened and strengthened by foreign travel, and by the study of the best

authors, modern as well as ancient, Barclay entered the church, the only

career then open to a man of his training. With intellect, accomplishments,

and energy possessed by few, his progress to distinction and power ought to

have been easy and rapid, but it turned out quite otherwise. The road to

eminence lay by the “backstairs,” the atmosphere of which he