but his eclogues were, like his Italian models, also satires on social evils. The shepherds are rustics of the Colin Clout type, and discuss the follies and corruptions around them. Barclay had, however, no sympathy with the anti-clerical diatribes of John Skelton, whom he more than once attacks. Bale mentions an Anti-Skeltonum which is lost. His other works are:—The Castell of Laboure (Wynkyn de Worde, 1506), from the French of Pierre Gringoire; the Introductory to write and to pronounce Frenche (Robert Copland, 1521); The Myrrour of Good Maners (Richard Pynson, not dated), a translation of the De quatuor virtutibus of Dominicus Mancinus; Cronycle compyled in Latyn by the renowned Sallust (Richard Pynson, no date), a translation of the Bellum Jugurthinum, The Lyfe of the glorious Martyr Saynt George (R. Pynson, c. 1530). The Lyfe of Saynte Thomas, and Haython’s Cronycle, both printed by Pynson, are also attributed to Barclay, but on very doubtful grounds.
See T. H. Jamieson’s edition of the Ship of Fools (Edinburgh, 1874), which contains an account of the author and a bibliography of his works; and J. W. Fairholt’s edition of The Cytezen and Uplondyshman (Percy Soc. 1847), which includes large extracts from the other eclogues; also Zarncke’s edition of Brant (Leipzig, 1854); and Dr Fedor Fraustadt, Über das Verhältnis von Barclays Ship of Fools zu den lateinischen, französischen und deutschen Quellen (1894). A prose version of Locher’s Stultifera Navis, by Henry Watson, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1518.
BARCLAY, JOHN (1582–1621), Scottish satirist and Latin poet, was born, on the 28th of January 1582, at Pont-à-Mousson, where his father William Barclay held the chair of civil law. His mother was a Frenchwoman of good family. His early education was obtained at the Jesuit College. While there, at the age of nineteen, he wrote a commentary on the Thebaid of Statius. In 1603 he crossed with his father to London. Barclay had persistently maintained his Scottish nationality in his French surroundings, and probably found in James’s accession an opportunity which he would not let slip. He did not remain long in England, where he is supposed to have published the first part of his Satyricon, for in 1605 when a second edition of that book appeared in Paris, he was there, having already spent some time in Angers, and being now the husband of a French girl, Louise Debonaire. He returned to London with his wife in 1606, and there published his Sylvae, a collection of Latin poems. In the following year the second part of the Satyricon appeared in Paris. Barclay remained on in London till 1616. In 1609 he edited the De Potestate Papae, an anti-papal treatise by his father, who had died in the preceding year, and in 1611 he issued an Apologia or “third part” of the Satyricon, in answer to the attacks of the Jesuits and others who were probably embittered by the tone of the earlier parts of the satire. A so-called “fourth part,” with the title of Icon Animorum, appeared in 1614. James I. is said to have been attracted by his scholarship, but particulars of this, or of his life in London generally, are not available. In 1616 he went to Rome, for some reason unexplained, and there resided till his death on the 15th of August 1621. He appears to have been on better terms with the Church and notably with Bellarmine; for in 1617 he issued, from a press at Cologne, a Paraenesis ad Sectarios, an attack on the position of Protestantism. The literary effort of his closing years was his best-known work the Argenis, completed about a fortnight before his death, which has been said to have been hastened by poison. The romance was printed in Paris in the same year.
Barclay’s contemporary reputation as a writer was of the highest; by his strict scholarship and graceful style he has deserved the praise of modern students. The Satyricon, a severe satire on the Jesuits, is modelled on Petronius and catches his lightness of touch, though it shows little or nothing of the tone of its model, or of the unhesitating severity and coarseness of the humanistic satire of Barclay’s age. The Argenis is a long romance, with a monitory purpose on the dangers of political intrigue, probably suggested to him by his experiences of the league in France, and by the catholic plot in England after James’s accession. The work has been praised by all parties; and it enjoyed for more than a century after his death a remarkable popularity. Most of the innumerable editions are supplied with a key to the characters and names of the story. Thus Aneroëtus is Clement VIII; Arx non eversa is the Tower of London; Hippophilus and Radirobanes are the names of the king of Spain; Hyanisbe is Queen Elizabeth; Mergania, by an easy anagram, is Germany; Usinulca, by another, is Calvin. The book is of historical importance in the development of 17th century romance, including especially Fénelon’s Télémaque. Ben Jonson appears, from an entry at Stationers’ Hall on the 2nd of October 1623, to have intended to make a translation. Barclay’s shorter poems, in two books, were printed in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (Amsterdam, 1637, i. pp. 76–136). In the dedication, to Prince Charles of England, he refers to his earlier publication, the Sylvae.
The best account of Barclay is the preface by Jules Dukas in his bibliography of the Satyricon (Paris, 1889). This supersedes the life in Bayle’s Dictionary, which had been the sole authority. A “fifth part” of the Satyricon appears in most of the editions, by Alethophilus (Claude Morisot). For the Argenis, see the dissertations by Léon Boucher (Paris, 1874), and Dupond (Paris, 1875). The Icon Animorum was Englished by Thomas May in 1631 (The Mirrour of Mindes, or Barclay’s Icon Animorum). Barclay’s works have never been collected.
BARCLAY, JOHN (1734–1798), Scottish divine, was born in Perthshire and died at Edinburgh. He graduated at St Andrews, and after being licensed became assistant to the parish minister of Errol in Perthshire. Owing to differences with the minister, he left in 1763 and was appointed assistant to Antony Dow of Fettercairn, Kincardine. In this parish he became very popular, but his opinions failed to give satisfaction to his presbytery. In 1772 he was rejected as successor to Dow, and was even refused by the presbytery the testimonials requisite in order to obtain another living. The refusal of the presbytery was sustained by the General Assembly, and Barclay thereupon left the Scottish church and founded congregations at Sauchyburn, Edinburgh and London. His followers were sometimes called Bereans, because they regulated their conduct by a diligent study of the Scriptures (Acts xvii. 11). They hold a modified form of Calvinism.
His works, which include many hymns and paraphrases of the psalms, and a book called Without Faith, without God, were edited by J. Thomson and D. Macmillan, with a memoir (1852).
BARCLAY, ROBERT (1648–1690), one of the most eminent writers belonging to the Society of Friends, or Quakers, was born in 1648 at Gordonstown in Morayshire. His father had served under Gustavus Adolphus, and pursued a somewhat tortuous course through the troubles of the civil war. Robert was sent to finish his education in Paris, and it appears he was at one time inclined to accept the Roman Catholic faith. In 1667, however, he followed the example of his father, and joined the recently-formed Society of Friends. In 1670 he married a Quaker lady, Christian Mollison of Aberdeen. He was an ardent theological student, a man of warm feelings and considerable mental powers, and he soon came prominently forward as the leading apologist of the new doctrine, winning his spurs in a controversy with one William Mitchell. The publication of fifteen Theses Theologiae (1676) led to a public discussion in Aberdeen, each side claiming a victory. The most prominent of the Theses was that bearing on immediate revelation, in which the superiority of this inner light to reason or scripture is sharply stated. His greatest work, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, was published in Latin at Amsterdam in 1676, and was an elaborate statement of the grounds for holding certain fundamental positions laid down in the Theses. It was translated by its author into English in 1678, and is “one of the most impressive theological writings of the century.” It breathes a large tolerance and is still perhaps the most important manifesto of the Quaker Society. Barclay experienced to some extent the persecutions inflicted on the new society, and was several times thrown into prison. He travelled extensively in Europe (once with Penn and George Fox), and had several interviews with Elizabeth, princess palatine. In later years he had much influence with James II., who as duke of York had given to twelve members of the society a patent of the province of East New Jersey, Barclay being made governor (1682–88). He is said to have visited James with a view to making terms of accommodation with William of Orange,
