"Micene and Morton be dead and gone certayne."
The "Dean of Powles" (Colet), with whom Barclay seems to have been
personally acquainted, and to whom the reference alludes as to one still
living (his death occurred in 1519), is celebrated as a preacher in the
same Eclogue:--
"For this I learned of the Dean of Powles
I tell thee, Codrus this man hath won some soules."
as is "the olde friar that wonned in Greenwich" in Eclogue V.
The first three Eclogues are paraphrases or adaptations from the Miseriæ
Curialium, the most popular of the works of one of the most successful
literary adventurers of the middle ages, Æneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II., who
died in 1464). It appears to have been written with the view of relieving
his feelings of disappointment and disgust at his reception at the court of
the Emperor, whither he had repaired, in the hope of political advancement.
The tone and nature of the work may be gathered from this candid exposure
of the adventurer's morale: "Many things there are which compel us to
persevere, but nothing more powerfully than ambition which, rivalling
charity, truly beareth all things however grievous, that it may attain to
the honours of this world and the praise of men. If we were humble and
laboured to gain our own souls rather than hunt after vain glory, few of
us, indeed, would endure such annoyances." He details, with querulous
humour, all the grievances of his position, from the ingratitude of the
prince to the sordour of the table-cloths, and the hardness of the black
bread. But hardest of all to bear is the contempt shown towards literature.
"In the courts of princes literary knowledge is held a crime; and great is
the grief of men of letters when they find themselves universally despised,
and see the most important matters managed, not to say mismanaged, by
blockheads, who cannot tell the number of their fingers and toes."
Barclay's adaptation is so thoroughly Englished, and contains such large
additions from the stores of his own bitter experience, as to make it even
more truly his own than any other of his translations.
The fourth and fifth eclogues are imitations,--though no notice that they
are so is conveyed in the title, as in the case of the first three,--of the
fifth and sixth of the popular eclogue writer of the time, Jo. Baptist
Mantuan, which may have helped to give rise to the generally received
statement noticed below, that all the eclogues are imitations of that
author. The fourth is entitled "Codrus and Minalcas, treating of the
behauour of Riche men agaynst Poetes," and it may be judged how far it is
Barclay's from the fact that it numbers about twelve hundred lines,
including the elegy of the Noble Howard, while the original, entitled, "De
consuetudine Divitum erga Poetas," contains only about two hundred. The
fifth is entitled "Amintas and Faustus, of the disputation of citizens and
men of the countrey." It contains over a thousand lines, and the original,
"De disceptatione rusticorum et civium," like the fifth, extends to little
more than two hundred.