Born about 1475; died in Croydon, June 1552. The best authorities call him a Scotchman, and suppose him to have been educated at either Cambridge or Oxford, or possibly at both those universities. He traveled extensively, spoke many languages, and was long a priest in the college of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire. Afterward he was a priest and monk of Ely, and joined the Franciscans at Canterbury. His “Eclogues,” undated but written at Ely, are the first in the English language. Of more value is his translation (1509) of Sebastian Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” which had appeared in Basel in 1494. It had great influence on English literature.
Then Bartlet, with an hoopyng russet long coate, with a pretie hoode in his necke, and five knottes upon his girdle, after Francis tricks. He was borne beyonde the cold river of Twede. He lodged upon a swete bed Chamomill, under the Sinamum tree: about hym many Shepherdes and shepe, with pleasaunte pipes; greatly abhorring the life of Courtiers, Citizens, Usurers and Banckruptes &c. whose olde daies are miserable. And the estate of Shepherdes and countrie people he accoumpted moste happie and sure.
An Author of great Eminence, and Merit; tho’ not so much as mention’d in any Undertaking of this Nature before.
Our author’s stanza is verbose, prosaic, and tedious: and for many pages together, his poetry is little better than a trite homily in verse. The title promises much character and pleasantry: but we shall be disappointed, if we expect to find the foibles of the crew of our ship touched by the hand of the author of the “Canterbury Tales,” or exposed in the rough yet strong satire of Pierce Plowman…. Nor must it be denied, that his language is more cultivated than that of many of his cotemporaries, and that he contributed his share to the improvement of the English phraseology…. Our author’s “Egloges,” I believe, are the first that appeared in the English language.
His poetical merit seems to have been a good deal overrated.
His “Ship of Fools” has been as often quoted as most obsolete English poems; but if it were not obsolete it would not be quoted. He also wrote Eclogues, which are curious as the earliest pieces of that kind in our language…. Barklay, indeed, though he has some stanzas which might be quoted for their strength of thought and felicity of expression, is, upon the whole, the least ambitious of all writers to adorn his conceptions of familiar life with either dignity or beauty.
Barclay has a natural construction of style still retaining a vernacular vigor. He is noticed by Warton for having contributed his share in the improvement of English phraseology; and, indeed, we are often surprised to discover many felicities of our native idiom; and the work, though it should be repulsive to some for its black-letter, is perfectly intelligible to a modern reader. The verse, being prosaic, preserves its colloquial ease, though with more gravity than suits sportive subjects: we sometimes feel the tediousness of the good sense of the priest of St. Mary Ottery.
Barclay wrote at a period when the standard of English poetry was extremely low; and, as excellence is always comparative, this circumstance may partly enable us to account for the high reputation which he enjoyed among his contemporaries. If not entitled to the name of a poet, he is at least a copious versifier.
Is regarded as one of the improvers of the English tongue, and to him it is chiefly owing that a true Emblem-book was made popular in England.
Barclay applies the cudgel as vigorously to the priest’s pate as to the Lollard’s back. But he disliked modern innovation as much as ancient abuses, in this also faithfully reflecting the mind of the people.
His literary fame rests on his “Ship of Fools,” and in a less degree on his “Eclogues.” The former of these works remains essentially a translation, though Barclay truly states himself to have added and given an English colouring to his work. It is in any case the most noteworthy translation into a living tongue of a production of very high literary significance…. The English “Ship of Fools” exercised an important direct influence upon our literature, pre-eminently helping to bury mediæval allegory in the grave which had long yawned before it, and to direct English authorship into the drama, essay, and novel of character.
His merit rests chiefly upon the fact that he brought several important works of his day, and one from a not far-distant past, within reach of his countrymen, by correctly understanding what they specially required.
Barclay was a dull and clumsy versifier.
Barclay seems really to deserve the place of first Eclogue-writer in English, if any one cares for this fortuitous and rather futile variety of eminence. His Eclogues, moreover, are not merely more original, but, so far as they are accessible, seem to be less jejune than the “Ship.” This latter owes its fame partly to its rarity before the reprint of five and twenty years ago, partly to the famous and really admirable woodcuts which it contains. The first “fole”—the possessor of unprofitable books—has a certain savour of promise which is unluckily but seldom fulfilled afterwards. Still, mainly thanks to the illustrations and to the general sympathy with Puck in seeing and saying, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” it is possible to make one’s way through the long catalogue which fills from two thousand to two thousand five hundred stanzas of rhyme-royal. The individual line is rather an interesting one, showing a sort of intermediate stage between the would-be rigid decasyllable of Lydgate and Occleve and the long rambling twelves or fourteeners of the mid-sixteenth century poets. Sometimes Barclay permits himself a full Alexandrine; oftener (in fact, in the majority of cases) he lengthens out his line with trisyllabic feet, so arranged as sometimes to take very little keep of the iambic basis.
