Of his personal character diametrically different accounts have been given. Bale, a Protestant, treats Barclay's memory with indignity, and charges him with having lived a scandalous life; while Pitts, a Roman Catholic, assures us that the poet directed his studies to the service of religion, and employed his time in composition, in his religious duties, and in reading the lives of the saints.

Barclay was the author of a large number of works, original and translated, and he is entitled to grateful commemoration as having done more for the improvement of English literature than any of his contemporaries. His principal poetical production, entitled "The Shyp of Fooles," is an extremely curious and once widely popular satire, which, under the allegory of a ship freighted with fools of all kinds, held the mirror up to the prevailing vices and follies of every rank and profession at that important and suggestive period of history immediately preceding the Reformation. Barclay's metrical version in the balade or octave stanza, adapted from a German poem by Sebastian Brandt, called "Navis Stultifera," printed by Pynson in 1509, contains large additions satirizing the follies and vices | of his own countrymen. Of this work Warton writes: "All ancient satirical writings, even those of an inferior cast, have their merit, and deserve attention, as they transmit pictures of familiar manners and preserve popular customs. In this light at least Barclay's 'Ship of Fools,' which is a general satire on the times, will be found entertaining. Nor must it be denied that his language is more

cultivated than that of many of his contemporaries, and that he has contributed his share to the improvement of the English phraseology. His author, Sebastian Brandt, appears to have been a man of universal erudition, and his work for the most part is a tissue of citations from the ancient poets and historians." A beautiful edition of this work, with a glossary and biographical notices by T. J. Jamieson, keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, was published in 1874. Copies of the Pynson edition are very rare, and are valued at upwards of one hundred pounds.

Among Barclay's other works are his "Eclogues," translations freely made from Mantuanus and Eneas Silvius, and which are the earliest specimens of pastoral poetry in the English language; The Castle of Labour," an allegorical poem; and a translation of Sallust's History of the Jugurthine War, published five years after the poet's death. It is one of the earliest specimens of English translation from the classics, and on the title-page may be read, "translated into Englishe by Syr Alexder Barklaye, prieste: nowe perused and corrected by Thomas Paynell." Of the "Eclogues," Warton, in his History of English Poetry, says, “They are, like Petrarch's and Mantuan's, of the moral and satirical kind, and contain but few touches of rural description and bucolic imagery." Barclay's abilities, it may be added, gained him very great distinction as a writer even during his lifetime. He was admired for his wit and eloquence, and for a fluency of style not common in that age.

Who that reputyth hym selfe iust and fawtles,
Of maners gode, and of lyuynge commendable,
And iugeth other (parchaunce that ar gyltles)
To be of a condicion reprouable,
Hymselfe nat notynge, thoughe that he were
culpable,

He is a fole, and onys shall haue a fall,
Syns he wyll other iuge, hym selfe yet worst of all.

Many fallyth in great peryll and damage,

And greuous deth by the vyce of folysshnes, Perseuerantly bydynge in theyr outrage,

Theyr soule infect with synne and viciousnes;

And though that deth hym alway to them addres,

Yet hope they in longe lyfe and prosperyte, And neuer asswageth theyr blynde iniquyte. The tyme passeth as water in a ryuere,

No mortall man can it reuoke agayne; Dethe with his dartis vnwarely doth apere, It is the ende of euery man certayne,

The last of all ferys and ende of worldly payne: But thoughe we knowe that we all must haue an ende,

We slepe in synne disdaynynge vs to amende.

Some thynke them gode, iust and excellent, Myghty stronge and worthy of permynence: Charitable, chast, constant and innocent,

Nat doutynge deth nor other inconuenyence: But yet ar they wrappyd sore in synne and offence,

And in a vayne hope, contynue in suche wyse That all the worlde (saue them selfe) they dispyse.

Percyuynge his foly made hym and his to fall
From heuen to hell, to paynes violent
In horryble shape: before so excellent
Shynynge in heuen before the aungels all,
Thus had his folysshe pryde a greuous fall.

thought;

And where no sygne is sene playne and euydent They iuge a man, saynge his lyfe is nought. And if deth one hath vnto his last ende brought, (As mad) they mende nat theyr mysgouernaunce, Nat thynkynge that they ensue must the same daunce.

OF ELEVATED PRIDE AND BOASTING.

That lawde is vyle the whiche doth procede From manuys owne mouth vttred in wordes vayne;

Of suche foly no wyse man taketh hede,

But by discression doth hym selfe refrayne; But pompe and pryde whiche doth all men disdayne

Engendreth folys: whiche thynkynge to exell
All other in erth, at last fall downe to hell.

Besyde our folys rehersyd here before

In dyuers barges almost innumerable, Yet stately pryde makyth the nomber more, Whiche is a vyce so moche abhomynable, That it surmountyth without any fable All other vyces in furour and vylenes, And of all synne is it rote and maystres.

The noblest hertis by this vyce ar acloyed,
It is confounder mekenes and vertue;
So by the same is many one destroyed

In soule and body whiche them to it subdue. Wherfore let the wyse his statelynes eschewe, For it hath be sene, is sene, and euer shall, That first or last foule pryde wyll haue a fall.

The first inuentour of this vnhappy vyce,
As doth the scripture playne expres and tell,
Was Lucyfer, whiche to hym dyd attyce

A crusyd nomber both stately and cruell,
In mynde intendynge his Maker to excell;
Or els if he coude come to his intent
For to be egall with God omnypotent.

Thus of all synnes pryde was the first of all, Bygon by Lucifer; but God omnypotent

LAWYERS.

Mount, his paternal estate. The exact date of his death is not known, but it occurred between January and April, 1555. As a poet Lindsay does not rank with Dunbar and Douglas. Warton, who was the first in modern times to revive the recollection of Lindsay as a poet, does not venture farther than to discover in some of his poems "many nervous, terse, and polished lines." The lord lyon king-atarms was, however, one of the trio of great Scottish singers of the sixteenth century, and his place and power as a poet has been described with much exactness in "Marmion :"

"In the glances of his eye,

A penetrating, keen and sly
Expression found its home;
The flash of that satiric rage
Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age,

And broke the keys of Rome."

All of Lindsay's poems are in his "ain braif tongue," for the use of which, amidst all the rage for Latin writing, he takes occasion in the first book of "The Monarchie," to give an abundance of very excellent reasons. Neither Aristotle nor Plato, he says, wrote in Dutch; neither Virgil "the prince of poetry," nor Cicero "the flower of oratory," wrote in Arabie; but each in his own mother tongue. Lindsay's satirical powers and broad humour long rendered him an especial favourite with the common people of Scotland, with whom many of his moral sayings passed into proverbs. So much was this the case, that in days past when they heard a proposition stated of a doubtful character, they would observe "There is na sic a word in a' Davie Lindsay." The century which saw his death saw no fewer than fifteen editions of his works, in whole or part, issued from the presses of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, London, and Paris; and successive editions appearing during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, kept his

name and fame more prominently before his countrymen than was the case with any of the early poets. Perhaps the most valuable and accurate of the numerous editions of Lindsay was that published in 1806 by Chalmers, till the appearance in 1871 of David Laing's carefully revised edition, and that of the Early English Text Society.

Of the bold herald-poet so beautifully introduced in "Marmion"

"Still is thy name in high account, And still thy muse has charms, Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Lord Lyon King-at-arms!"—

Though inferior to

Hallam, in his Literary History of Europe, writes: "In the earlier part of this period (1520-50) we can find very little English poetry. Sir David Lindsay, an accomplished gentleman and scholar of Scotland, excels his contemporary Skelton in such qualities, if not in fertility of genius. Dunbar in richness of imagination and in elegance of language, he shows a more reflecting and philosophical mind; and certainly his satire upon James V. and his court is more piquant than the other's panegyric upon the thistle. But in the ordinary style of his versification he seems not to rise much above the prosaic and tedious rhymers of the fifteenth century. His descriptions are as circumstantial without selection as theirs; and his language, partaking of a ruder dialect, is still more removed from our own. . . . Lindsay's poetry is said to have contributed to the Reformation in Scotland,-in which, however, he is but like many poets of his own and preceding times. The clergy were an inexhaustible theme of bitter reproof." Pinkerton, who estimated his satirical poetry more highly, remarks, "Lindsay had prepared the ground, and John Knox only sowed the seed."

Schir, I beseik thy excellence, Heir my complaynt with patience; My dolent hart dois me constraine Of my infortune to complaine;

Albeit I stand in greit doutance, Quhome I sall wyte of my mischance,

Quhidder Saturnus crueltie,

Regnand in my nativitie,