PREFATORY NOTE.
It is necessary to explain that in the present edition of the Ship of Fools, with a view to both philological and bibliographical interests, the text, even to the punctuation, has been printed exactly as it stands in the earlier impression (Pynson's), the authenticity of which Barclay himself thus vouches for in a deprecatory apology at the end of his labours (II. 330):—
"... some wordes be in my boke amys
For though that I my selfe dyd it correct
Yet with some fautis I knowe it is infect
Part by my owne ouersyght and neglygence
And part by the prynters nat perfyte in science
And other some escaped ar and past
For that the Prynters in theyr besynes
Do all theyr workes hedelynge, and in hast"