The Ship of Fools, Volume 1-2, Sebastian Brant [good books to read TXT] 📗

political or religious.

 

“Knowledge of trouth, prudence, and iust symplicite

Hath vs clene left; For we set of them no store.

Our Fayth is defyled loue, goodnes, and Pyte:

Honest maners nowe ar reputed of: no more.

Lawyers ar lordes; but Justice is rent and tore.

Or closed lyke a Monster within dores thre.

For without mede: or money no man can hyr se.

 

Al is disordered: Vertue hath no rewarde.

Alas, compassion; and mercy bothe ar slayne.

Alas, the stony hartys of pepyl ar so harde

That nought can constrayne theyr folyes to refrayne.”

 

His ships are full laden but carry not all who should be on board.

 

“We are full lade and yet forsoth I thynke

A thousand are behynde, whom we may not receyue

For if we do, our nauy clene shall synke

He oft all lesys that coueytes all to haue

From London Rockes Almyghty God vs saue

For if we there anker, outher bote or barge

There be so many that they vs wyll ouercharge.”

 

The national tone and aim of the English “Ship” are maintained throughout

with the greatest emphasis, exhibiting an independence of spirit which few

ecclesiastics of the time would have dared to own. Barclay seems to have

been first an Englishman, then an ecclesiastic. Everywhere throughout his

great work the voice of the people is heard to rise and ring through the

long exposure of abuse and injustice, and had the authorship been unknown

it would most certainly have been ascribed to a Langlande of the period.

Everywhere he takes what we would call the popular side, the side of the

people as against those in office. Everywhere he stands up boldly in behalf

of the oppressed, and spares not the oppressor, even if he be of his own

class. He applies the cudgel as vigorously to the priest’s pate as to the

Lolardes back. But he disliked modern innovation as much as ancient abuse,

in this also faithfully reflecting the mind of the people, and he is as

emphatic in his censure of the one as in his condemnation of the other.

 

Barclay’s “Ship of Fools,” however, is not only important as a picture of

the English life and popular feeling of his time, it is, both in style and

vocabulary, a most valuable and remarkable monument of the English

language. Written midway between Chaucer and Spenser, it is infinitely more

easy to read than either. Page after page, even in the antique spelling of

Pynson’s edition, may be read by the ordinary reader of to-day without

reference to a dictionary, and when reference is required it will be found

in nine cases out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all

the more remarkable, that it occurs in the case of a priest translating

mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with reference

to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type, and to his

evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all classes, but

especially to the mass of the people, for amendment of their follies. In

evidence of this it may be noticed that in the didactic passages, and

especially in the L’envois, which are additions of his own, wherever, in

fact, he appears in his own character of “preacher,” his language is most

simple, and his vocabulary of the most Saxon description.

 

In his prologue “excusynge the rudenes of his translacion,” he professes to

have purposely used the most “comon speche”:—

 

“My speche is rude my termes comon and rural

And I for rude peple moche more conuenient

Than for estates, lerned men, or eloquent.”

 

He afterwards humorously supplements this in “the prologe,” by:—

 

“But if I halt in meter or erre in eloquence

Or be to large in langage I pray you blame not me

For my mater is so bad it wyll none other be.”

 

So much the better for all who are interested in studying the development

of our language and literature. For thus we have a volume, confessedly

written in the commonest language of the common people, from which the

philologist may at once see the stage at which they had arrived in the

development of a simple English speech, and how far, in this respect, the

spoken language had advanced a-head of the written; and from which also he

can judge to what extent the popularity of a book depends, when the

language is in a state of transition, upon the unusual simplicity of its

style both in structure and vocabulary, and how far it may, by reason of

its popularity, be influential in modifying and improving the language in

both these respects. In the long barren tract between Chaucer and Spenser,

the Ship of Fools stands all but alone as a popular poem, and the

continuance of this popularity for a century and more is no doubt to be

attributed as much to the use of the language of the “coming time” as to

the popularity of the subject.

 

In more recent times however, Barclay has, probably in part, from

accidental circumstances, come to be relegated to a position among the

English classics, those authors whom every one speaks of but few read. That

modern editions of at least his principal performance have not appeared,

can only be accounted for by the great expense attendant upon the

reproduction of so uniquely illustrated a work, an interesting proof of

which, given in the evidence before the Select Committee of the House of

Commons on the Copyright act in 1818, is worth quoting. Amongst new

editions of standard but costly works, of which the tax then imposed by the

act upon publishers of giving eleven copies of all their publications free

to certain libraries prevented the publication, is mentioned, Barclay’s

“Ship of Fools;” regarding which Harding, the well known bookseller, is

reported to have said, “We have declined republishing the ‘Ship of Fools,’

a folio volume of great rarity and high price. Our probable demand would

not have been more than for a hundred copies, at the price of 12 guineas

each. The delivery of eleven copies to the public libraries decided us

against entering into the speculation.”

 

A wider and more eager interest is now being manifested in our early

literature, and especially in our early popular poetry, to the satisfaction

of which, it is believed, a new edition of this book will be regarded as a

most valuable contribution. Indeed, as a graphic and comprehensive picture

of the social condition of pre-Reformation England; as an important

influence in the formation of our modern English tongue; and as a rich and

unique exhibition of early art, to all of which subjects special attention

is being at present directed, this mediæval picture-poem is of unrivalled

interest.

 

*

NOTICE OF THE

Life and Writings of Alexander Barclay,

 

THE TRANSLATOR OF BRANDT’S SHIP OF FOOLS.

 

*

 

ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

 

Whether this distinguished poet was an Englishman or a Scotchman has long

been a quæstio vexata affording the literary antiquary a suitable field

for the display of his characteristic amenity. Bale, the oldest authority,

simply says that some contend he was a Scot, others an Englishman, (Script.

Illust. Majoris Britt. Catalogus, 1559). Pits (De Illust. Angliæ Script.,)

asserts that though to some he appears to have been a Scot, he was really

an Englishman, and probably a native of Devonshire, (“nam ibi ad S.

Mariam de Otery, Presbyter primum fuit”). Wood again, (Athen. Oxon.), by

the reasoning which finds a likeness between Macedon and Monmouth, because

there is a river in each, arrives at “Alexander de Barklay, seems to have

been born at or near a town so called in Somersetshire;” upon which Ritson

pertinently observes, “there is no such place in Somersetshire, the onely

Berkeley known is in Gloucestershire.” Warton, coming to the question

double-shotted, observes that “he was most probably of Devonshire or

Gloucestershire,” in the one case following Pits, and in the other

anticipating Ritson’s observation.

 

On the other hand Bale, in an earlier work than the Catalogus, the

Summarium Ill. Maj. Britt. Script., published in 1548, during Barclay’s

life time, adorns him with the epithets “Scotus, rhetor ac poeta insignis.”

Dempster (Hist. ecclesiastica), styles him “Scotus, ut retulit ipse Joannes

Pitsæus.” Holinshed also styles him “Scot”! Sibbald gives him a place in

his (MS.) Catalogues of Scottish poets, as does also Wodrow in his

Catalogues of Scots writers. Mackenzie (Lives of the Scots writers) begins,

“The Barklies, from whom this gentleman is descended, are of a very ancient

standing in Scotland.” Ritson (Bib. Poetica), after a caustic review of the

controversy, observes “both his name of baptism and the orthography of his

surname seem to prove that he was of Scottish extraction.” Bliss (Additions

to Wood) is of opinion that he “undoubtedly was not a native of England,”

and Dr Irving (Hist. of Scot. Poetry) adheres to the opinion of Ritson.

 

Such contention, whatever may be the weight of the evidence on either side,

is at any rate a sufficient proof of the eminence of the individual who is

the subject of it; to be his birthplace being considered an honour of so

much value to the country able to prove its claim to the distinction as to

occasion a literary warfare of several centuries’ duration.

 

We cannot profess to have brought such reinforcements to either side as to

obtain for it a complete and decisive victory, but their number and

character are such as will probably induce one of the combatants quietly to

retire from the field. In the first place, a more explicit and

unimpeachable piece of evidence than any contained in the authors mentioned

above has been found, strangely enough, in a medical treatise, published

about twenty years after Barclay’s death, by a physician and botanist of

great eminence in the middle of the sixteenth century, who was a native of

the isle of Ely, at the Monastery of which Barclay was for some time a

monk.

 

It is entitled “A dialogue both pleasaunt and pietifull, wherein is a

godlie regiment against the Fever Pestilence, with a consolation and

comforte against death.—Newlie corrected by William Bullein, the author

thereof.—Imprinted at London by Ihon Kingston. Julij, 1573.” [8vo., B.L.,

111 leaves.] “There was an earlier impression of this work in 1564, but the

edition of 1573 was ‘corrected by the author,’ the last work on which he

probably was engaged, as he died in 1576. It is of no value at this time of

day as a medical treatise, though the author was very eminent; but we

advert to it because Bullein, for the sake of variety and amusement,

introduces notices of Chaucer, Gower, Lidgate, Skelton, and Barclay, which,

coming from a man who was contemporary with two of them, may be accepted as

generally accurate representations…. Alexander Barclay, Dr Bullein calls

Bartlet, in the irregular spelling of those times; and, asserting that he

was ‘born beyond the cold river of Tweed,’ we see no sufficient reason for

disbelieving that he was a native of Scotland. Barclay, after writing his

pastorals, &c., did not die until 1552, so that Bullein was his

contemporary, and most likely knew him and the fact. He observes:—‘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 of 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.” (Collier’s