ple he accoumpted moste happie and
sure." (Collier's "Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature,"
Vol. 1., P. 97).

"The certainty with which Bulleyn here speaks of Barclay, as born beyond
the Tweed, is not a little strengthened by the accuracy with which even in
allegory he delineates his peculiar characteristics. 'He lodged upon a bed
of sweet camomile.' What figure could have been more descriptive of that
agreeable bitterness, that pleasant irony, which distinguishes the author
of the 'Ship of Fools?' 'About him many shepherds and sheep with pleasant
pipes, greatly abhorring the life of courtiers.' What could have been a
plainer paraphrase of the title of Barclay's 'Eclogues,' or 'Miseries of
Courtiers and Courtes, and of all Princes in General.' As a minor feature,
'the five knots upon his girdle after Francis's tricks' may also be
noticed. Hitherto, the fact of Barclay having been a member of the
Franciscan order has been always repeated as a matter of some doubt; 'he
was a monk of the order of St Benedict, and afterwards, as some say, a
Franciscan. Bulleyn knows, and mentions, with certainty, what others only
speak of as the merest conjecture. In short, everything tends to shew a
degree of familiar acquaintance with the man, his habits, and his
productions, which entitles the testimony of Bulleyn to the highest
credit.'" (Lives of the Scottish Poets, Vol. I., pt. ii., p. 77).

But there are other proofs pointing as decidedly to the determination of
this long-continued controversy in favour of Scotland, as the soil from
which this vagrant child of the muses sprung. No evidence seems to have
been hitherto sought from the most obvious source, his writings. The writer
of the memoir in the Biographia Brittanica, (who certainly dealt a
well-aimed, though by no means decisive, blow, in observing, "It is pretty
extraordinary that Barclay himself, in his several addresses to his patrons
should never take notice of his being a stranger, which would have made
their kindness to him the more remarkable [it was very customary for the
writers of that age to make mention in their works of the countries to
which they belonged, especially if they wrote out of their own];[1] whereas
the reader will quickly see, that in his address to the young gentlemen of
England in the 'Mirror of Good Manners,' he treats them as his
countrymen,") has remarked, "It seems a little strange that in those days a
Scot should obtain so great re