The Art of dying well.

--------Speaking eloquently.

Manners of the Court.

Invective against William Lyle the Grammarian.

Epitaphs on Kings, Princes, and Nobles,

Collin Clout.

Poetical Fancies and Satires.

Verses on the Death of Arthur Prince of Wales.

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ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

He was an author of some eminence and merit, tho’ there are few things preserved concerning him, and he has been neglected by almost all the biographers of the poets.  That excellent writer Mrs. Cooper seems to have a pretty high opinion of his abilities; it is certain that he very considerably refined the language, and his verses are much smoother than those of Harding, who wrote but a few years before him.  He stiles himself Priest, and Chaplain in the College of St. Mary, Otory, in the county of Devon, and afterwards Monk of Ely.  His principal work is a translation of a satirical piece, written originally in high Dutch, and entitled the Ship of Fools:  It exposes the characters, vices, and follies of all degrees of men, and tho’ much inferior in its execution to the Canterbury Tales, has yet considerable merit, especially when it is considered how barren and unpolite the age was in which he flourished.  In the prologue to this he makes an apology for his youth, and it appears that the whole was finished Anno Dom.-1508, which was about the close of the reign of Henry vii.  In elegancy of manners he has the advantage of all his predecessors, as is particularly remarkable in his address to Sir Giles Alington, his patron.  The poet was now grown old, and the knight desiring him to abridge and improve Gower’s Confessio Amantis, he declines it in the politest manner, on account of his age, profession, and infirmities; ‘but tho’ love is an improper subject, ’says he, I am still an admirer of the sex, and shall ’introduce to the honour of your acquaintance, ’four of the finest ladies that nature ever framed, ‘Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Magnanimity;’ the whole of the address is exceeding courtly, and from this I shall quote a few lines, which will both illustrate his politeness and versification

To you these accorde; these unto you are due, Of you late proceeding as of their head fountayne; Your life as example in writing I ensue, For, more then my writing within it can contayne:  Your manners performeth and doth there attayne:  So touching these vertues, ye have in your living More than this my meter conteyneth in writing.  My dities indited may counsell many one, But not you, your maners surmounteth my doctrine Wherefore, I regard you, and your maners all one, After whose living my processes, I combine:  So other men instrusting, I must to you encline Conforming my process, as much as I am able, To your sad behaviour and maners commendable.

He was author of the following pieces.