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 ‘De fide orthodoxa.’ 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 ‘Narrenschiff’ of Sebastian Brant was published at Basel in 1494, and its immediate popularity is attested by the appearance of three unauthorised reprints in the course of the same year. A Low-German translation was published probably as early as 1497, and in the same year Jacob Locher produced his celebrated Latin version, the ‘Stultifera Navis.’ On this Barclay's translation was founded. He professes, indeed, to have ‘ouersene the fyrst inuention in Doche, and after that the two translations in Laten and Frenche’ (see the Prologe of James Locher in, i. 9; the French translation was probably that of Pierre Rivière of Poitiers, whose original was Locher, and whom, in 1498, Jehan Droyn paraphrased into prose). But at the conclusion of the argument (, i. 18) Barclay directly refers to certain verses by Locher as those of his ‘Actour,’ or original; and the order of the sections, as well as the additions made to the original German text, generally correspond to those in Locher's Latin version of 1497. Even the preliminary stanzas, headed ‘Alexander Barclay excusynge the rudenes of his translacion,’ correspond to the ‘Excusatio Jacobi Locher,’ whereas Brant's ‘Entschuldigung’ occurs near the end of the German book. Curiously enough, however, the poem of Robert Gaguin, of which Barclay inserted a version near the end of his work, had made its appearance, not in Locher's Latin translation, but in that of Jodocus Badius Ascensius (1505). On the other hand, the woodcuts of Barclay's translation are copied from the original Basel edition, for which it has been supposed that these illustrations, that contributed not a little to the popularity of the satire, were invented by Sebastian Brant himself (see, 234 seq.)

Barclay's ‘additions’ are mostly of a personal or patriotic nature; but he also indulges in an outburst against French fashions in dress (sec. ‘Of newe fassions and disgised garmentes’), indites a prolonged lament, the refrain of which suggests a French origin, on the vanity of human greatness (sec. ‘Of the ende of worldly honour and power,’ &c.), and makes a noteworthy onslaught upon the false religious (this is the substance of his ‘brefe addicion of the syngularite of some newe Folys’). The ballad in honour of the Blessed Virgin, which concludes his work, seems also to be his own. As to his general execution of his task, he on the whole manages his seven-line stanza not unskilfully, and thus invests his translation with a degree of dignity wanting to the original. Like Brant, he never forgets his character as a plain moral teacher. He is loyal and orthodox, and follows his original in lamenting both the decay of the holy faith catholic and the diminution of the empire, and in denouncing the Bohemian heretics, together with the Jews and the Turks. 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.

Barclay's ‘Eclogues’ (or ‘Egloges,’ as they were first called in deference to a ridiculous etymology) were the first poetical efforts of the kind that appeared in English proper; in Scotland, as Sibbald points out, they had been preceded by Henryson's charming ‘Robene and Makyne’ (dated about 1406 by H. Morley). The earliest modern bucolics were Petrarch's, composed about 1350, but these are in Latin. Barclay's more immediate predecessor, and one of his chief models, was Baptist Mantuan, whose eclogues appeared about 1400; and before the close of the century the ‘Bucolics’ of Virgil had been translated into Italian by several poets. The first three of Barclay's ‘Eclogues’ are, however, adaptations from the very popular ‘Miseriæ Curialium’ of Æneas Sylvius (Piccolomini, 1405–64). The theme was one familiar enough to the Renascence age, and its echoes are still heard in our own literature in the poetry of Spenser. Though Barclay's execution is as rude as his manner is prosy, his very realistic complaints furnish a very lively picture of contemporary manners: thus, Ecl. iii., which was probably known to Spenser, and perhaps to Milton, introduces an excellent description of an inn; but a more famous passage in this ‘pastoral’ is the eulogy of Bishop Alcock. Eclogues iv. and v. are imitations of the fifth and sixth of Mantuan. Into Ecl. iv., which treats of the neglect of poets by rich men, is introduced the allegory already mentioned in honour of Sir Edward Howard; the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and King Henry VIII appear among the inhabitants of the Tower of Virtue and Honour. The effort is as well sustained as any that remains from Barclay's hand. The whole poem has a touch of bitterness resem-