nt appears to have been in the shape of a chaplainship in
the sanctuary for piety and learning founded at Saint Mary Otery in the
County of Devon, by Grandison, Bishop of Exeter; and to have come from
Thomas Cornish, Suffragan Bishop of Bath and Wells under the title of the
Bishop of Tyne, "meorum primitias laborum qui in lucem eruperunt," to whom,
doubtless out of gratitude for his first appointment, he dedicated "The
Ship of Fools." Cornish, amongst the many other good things he enjoyed,
held, according to Dugdale, from 1490 to 1511, the post of warden of the
College of S. Mary Otery, where Barclay no doubt had formed that regard and
respect for him which is so strongly expressed in the dedication.

A very eulogistic notice of "My Mayster Kyrkham," in the chapter "Of the
extorcion of Knyghtis," (Ship of Fools,) has misled biographers, who were
ignorant of Cornish's connection with S. Mary Otery, to imagine that
Barclay's use of "Capellanus humilimus" in his dedication was merely a
polite expression, and that Kyrkham, of whom he styles himself, "His true
seruytour his chaplayne and bedeman" was his actual ecclesiastical
superior. The following is the whole passage:--

"Good offycers ar good and commendable
And manly knyghtes that lyue in rightwysenes
But they that do nat ar worthy of a bable
Syns by theyr pryde pore people they oppres
My mayster Kyrkhan for his perfyte mekenes
And supportacion of men in pouertye
Out of my shyp shall worthely be fre

I flater nat I am his true seruytour
His chaplayne and his bede man whyle my lyfe shall endure
Requyrynge God to exalt hym to honour
And of his Prynces fauour to be sure
For as I haue sayd I knowe no creature
More manly rightwyse wyse discrete and sad
But thoughe he be good, yet other ar als bad."

That this Kyrkham was a knight and not an ecclesiastic is so plainly
apparent as to need no argument. An investigation into Devonshire history
affords the interesting information that among the ancient families of that
county there was one of this name, of great antiquity and repute, now no
longer existent, of which the most eminent member was a certain Sir John
Kirkham, whose popularity is evinced by his having been twice created High
Sheriff of the County, in the years 1507 and 1523. (Prince, Worthies of
Devon; Izacke, Antiquities of Exeter.)

That this was the Kirkham above alluded to, there can be no reasonable
doubt, and in view of the expr