The Ship of Fools Part 3

Of money:

"Coyne more than cunning exalteth every man."

Of clothing:

"It is not clothing can make a man be good Better is in ragges pure liuing innocent Than a soule defiled in sumptuous garment."

It is as the graphic delineator of the life and condition of the country in his period that the chief interest of Barclay's writings, and especially of the "Ship of Fools," now lies. Nowhere so accessibly, so fully, and so truthfully will be found the state of Henry the Eighth's England set forth.

Every line bears the character of truthfulness, written as it evidently is, in all the soberness of sadness, by one who had no occasion to exaggerate, whose only object and desire was, by ma.s.sing together and describing faithfully the follies and abuses which were evident to all, to shame every cla.s.s into some degree of moral reformation, and, in particular, to effect some amelioration of circ.u.mstances to the suffering poor.

And a sad picture it is which we thus obtain of merrie England in the good old times of bluff King Hal, wanting altogether in the _couleur de rose_ with which it is tinted by its latest historian Mr Froude, who is ably taken to task on this subject by a recent writer in the Westminster Review, whose conclusions, formed upon other evidence than Barclay's, express so fairly the impression left by a perusal of the "Ship of Fools," and the Eclogues, that we quote them here. "Mr Froude remarks: 'Looking therefore, at the state of England as a whole, I cannot doubt that under Henry the body of the people were prosperous, well-fed, loyal, and contented. In all points of material comfort, they were as well off as ever they had been before; better off than they have ever been in later times.' In this estimate we cannot agree. Rather we should say that during, and for long after, this reign, the people were in the most deplorable condition of poverty and misery of every kind. That they were ill-fed, that loyalty was at its lowest ebb, that discontent was rife throughout the land. 'In all points of material comfort,' we think they were worse off than they had ever been before, and infinitely worse off than they have ever been since the close of the sixteenth century,--a century in which the cup of England's woes was surely fuller than it has ever been since, or will, we trust, ever be again. It was the century in which this country and its people pa.s.sed through a baptism of blood as well as 'a baptism of fire,'

and out of which they came holier and better. The epitaph which should be inscribed over the century is contained in a sentence written by the famous Acham in 1547:--'Nam vita, quae nunc vivitur a plurimis, non vita sed miseria est.'" So, Bradford (Sermon on Repentance, 1533) sums up contemporary opinion in a single weighty sentence: "All men may see if they will that the wh.o.r.edom pride, unmercifulness, and tyranny of England far surpa.s.ses any age that ever was before." Every page of Barclay corroborates these accounts of tyranny, injustice, immorality, wretchedness, poverty, and general discontent.

Not only in fact and feeling are Barclay's Ship of Fools and Eclogues thoroughly expressive of the unhappy, discontented, poverty-stricken, priest-ridden, and court-ridden condition and life, the bitter sorrows and the humble wishes of the people, their very texture, as Barclay himself tells us, consists of the commonest language of the day, and in it are interwoven many of the current popular proverbs and expressions. Almost all of these are still "household words" though few ever imagine the garb of their "daily wisdom" to be of such venerable antiquity. Every page of the "Eclogues" abounds with them; in the "Ship" they are less common, but still by no means infrequent. We have for instance:--

"Better is a frende in courte than a peny in purse"--(I. 70.) "Whan the stede is stolyn to shyt the stable dore"--(I. 76.) "It goeth through as water through a syue."--(I. 245.) "And he that alway thretenyth for to fyght Oft at the prose is skantly worth a hen For greattest crakers ar nat ay boldest men."--(I. 198.) "I fynde foure thynges whiche by no meanes can Be kept close, in secrete, or longe in preuetee The firste is the counsell of a wytles man The seconde is a cyte whiche byldyd is a hye Upon a montayne the thyrde we often se That to hyde his dedes a louer hath no skyll The fourth is strawe or fethers on a wyndy hyll."--(I. 199.) "A crowe to pull."--(II. 8.) "For it is a prouerbe, and an olde sayd sawe That in euery place lyke to lyke wyll drawe."--(II. 35.) "Better haue one birde sure within thy wall Or fast in a cage than twenty score without"--(II. 74) "Gapynge as it were dogges for a bone."--(II. 93.) "Pryde sholde haue a fall."--(II. 161).

"For wyse men sayth ...

One myshap fortuneth neuer alone."

"Clawe where it itchyth."--(II. 256.) [The use of this, it occurs again in the Eclogues, might be regarded by some of our Southern friends, as itself a sufficient proof of the author's Northern origin.]

The following are selected from the Eclogues as the most remarkable:

"Each man for himself, and the fende for us all."

"They robbe Saint Peter therwith to clothe Saint Powle."

"For might of water will not our leasure bide."

"Once out of sight and shortly out of minde."

"For children brent still after drede the fire."

"Together they cleave more fast than do burres."

"Tho' thy teeth water."

"I aske of the foxe no farther than the skin."

"To touche soft pitche and not his fingers file."

"From post unto piller tost shall thou be."

"Over head and eares."

"Go to the ant."

"A man may contende, G.o.d geueth victory."

"Of two evils chose the least."

These are but the more striking specimens. An examination of the "Ship,"

and especially of the "Eclogues," for the purpose of extracting their whole proverbial lore, would be well worth the while, if it be not the duty, of the next collector in this branch of popular literature. These writings introduce many of our common sayings for the first time to English literature, no writer prior to Barclay having thought it dignified or worth while to profit by the popular wisdom to any perceptible extent. The first collection of proverbs, Heywood's, did not appear until 1546, so that in Barclay we possess the earliest known English form of such proverbs as he introduces. It need scarcely be said that that form is, in the majority of instances, more full of meaning and point than its modern representatives.

Barclay's adoption of the language of the people naturally elevated him in popular estimation to a position far above that of his contemporaries in the matter of style, so much so that he has been traditionally recorded as one of the greatest improvers of the language, that is, one of those who helped greatly to bring the written language to be more nearly in accordance with the spoken. Both a scholar and a man of the world, his phraseology bears token of the greater cultivation and wider knowledge he possessed over his contemporaries. He certainly aimed at clearness of expression, and simplicity of vocabulary, and in these respects was so far in advance of his time that his works can even now be read with ease, without the help of dictionary or glossary. In spite of his church training and his residence abroad, his works are surprisingly free from Latin or French forms of speech; on the contrary, they are, in the main, characterised by a strong Saxon directness of expression which must have tended greatly to the continuance of their popularity, and have exercised a strong and advantageous influence both in regulating the use of the common spoken language, and in leading the way which it was necessary for the literary language to follow. Philologists and dictionary makers appear, however, to have hitherto overlooked Barclay's works, doubtless owing to their rarity, but their intrinsic value as well as their position in relation to the history of the language demand specific recognition at their hands.

Barclay evidently delighted in his pen. From the time of his return from the Continent, it was seldom out of his hand. Idleness was distasteful to him. He pet.i.tions his critics if they be "wyse men and cunnynge," that:--

"They shall my youth pardone, and vnchraftynes Whiche onely translate, to eschewe ydelnes."

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, "Englishing" 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 Ship of Fools, nor the Eclogues retain perceptible traces of a foreign source, and were it not that they honestly bear their authorship 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 "Ship 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 Ship 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 ship is that with so many owers, and straunge tacle; it is a greate vessell. _Ciuis_.--This is the ship 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 ship 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 Ship 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."