irrelevant to mention that Chaucer's
young clerks of Cambridge who played such tricks to the miller of
Trompington, are described as coming from the north, and as speaking the
Scotish language:--

'John highte that on, and Alein highte that other,
Of o toun were they born that highte Strother,
Fer in the North, I cannot tellen where.'

"It may be considered as highly probable that Barclay completed his studies
in one of those universities, and that the connections which he thus had an
opportunity of forming, induced him to fix his residence in the South; and
when we suppose him to have enjoyed the benefit of an English education it
need not appear peculiarly 'strange, that in those days, a Scot should
obtain so great reputation in England.'" (Irving, Hist. of Scot. Poetry).

In the "Ship" there is a chapter "Of unprofytable Stody" in which he makes
allusion to his student life in such a way as to imply that it had not been
a model of regularity and propriety:

"The great foly, the pryde, and the enormyte
Of our studentis, and theyr obstynate errour
Causeth me to wryte two sentences or thre
More than I fynde wrytyn in myne actoure
The tyme hath ben whan I was conductoure
Of moche foly, whiche nowe my mynde doth greue
Wherfor of this shyp syns I am gouernoure
I dare be bolde myne owne vyce to repreue."

If these lines are meant to be accepted literally, which such confessions
seldom are, it may be that he was advised to put a year or two's foreign
travel between his University career, and his entrance into the Church. At
any rate, for whatever reason, on leaving the University, where, as is
indicated by the title of "Syr" prefixed to his name in his translation of
Sallust, he had obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he travelled
abroad, whether at his own charges, or in the company of a son of one of
his patrons is not recorded, principally in Germany, Italy, and France,
where he applied himself, with an unusual assiduity and success, to the
acquirement of the languages spoken in those countries and to the study of
their best authors. In the chapter "Of unprofytable Stody," above
mentioned, which contains proof how well he at least had profited by study,
he cites certain continental seats of university learning at each of which,
there is indeed no improbability in supposing he may have remained for some
time, as was the custom in those days:

"One rennyth to Almayne another vnto France