rates is spoken of as quite recent, while the
elegy itself bears every appearance of having been introduced into the
eclogue at the last moment. We feel quite satisfied therefore that Warton
hit quite correctly upon the year 1514 as that in which these poems first
saw the light, though the ground (the allusion to the Henries) upon which
he went was insufficient, and his identification of the hero of the elegy
contradicted his supposition. Had he been aware of the importance of fixing
the date correctly, he would probably have taken more care than to fall
into the blunder of confounding the father with the son, and adorning the
former with the dearly earned laurels of the latter.

It may be added that, fixing 1514 as the date at which Barclay had arrived
at the age of 38, agrees perfectly with all else we know of his years, with
the assumed date of his academical education, and of his travels abroad,
with the suppositions formed as to his age from his various published works
having dates attached to them, and finally, with the traditional "great
age" at which he died, which would thus be six years beyond the allotted
span.

After the Ship of Fools the Eclogues rank second in importance in a
consideration of Barclay's writings. Not only as the first of their kind in
English, do they crown their author with the honour of introducing this
kind of poetry to English literature, but they are in themselves most
interesting and valuable as faithful and graphic pictures of the court,
citizen, and country life of the period. Nowhere else in so accessible a
form do there exist descriptions at once so full and so accurate of the
whole condition of the people. Their daily life and habits, customs,
manners, sports, and pastimes, are all placed on the canvas before us with
a ready, vigorous, unflinching hand. Witness for instance the following
sketch, which might be entitled, "Life, temp. 1514":--

"Some men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knightes in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie souldiers in bright harnes and male.
. . . . . . . .
Some glad is to see these Ladies beauteous,
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise:
In costly clothing after the newest gise,
Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce:
To see fayre houses and curious picture(s),
Or pleasaunt hanging, or sumpt