_Alexander Clark_ (Vol. vii., p. 580.).--I should feel obliged if J. O.
could find leisure to communicate to "N. & Q." some particulars relative to
Clark. He is supposed to have been the author of a curious poem: _The
Institution and Progress of the Buttery College of Slains, in the Parish of
Cruden, Aberdeenshire; with a Catalogue of the Books and MSS. in the
Library of that University_: Aberdeen, 1700. Mr. Peter Buchan thus mentions
him in his _Gleanings of Scarce Old Ballads_:
"Clark, a drunken dominie at Slains, author of a poetical dialogue
between the gardeners and tailors on the origin of their crafts, and a
most curious Latin and English poem called the 'Buttery College of
Slains,' which resembled much in language and style Drummond of
Hawthornden's 'Polemo Middino.'"
This poem is printed in Watson's _Collection of Scottish Poems_, Edin.
1711; and also noticed in the _Edinburgh Topographical and Antiquarian
Magazine_, 1848, last page. I am anxious to ascertain if the emblem writer,
and the burlesque poet, be one and the same person. The dates, I confess,
are somewhat against this conclusion; but there may have been a previous
edition of the _Emblematical Representation_ (1779). The _University_ Clark
is supposed to have been an Aberdeenshire man. Possibly J. O. may be able
to throw some light on the subject.