In the Prologue before mentioned we are told (Cawood's edition):—
"That fiue Egloges this whole treatise doth holde
To imitation of other Poetes olde,"
Which appears to be a correction of the printer's upon the original, as in Powell's edition:—
"That X. egloges this hole treatyse dothe holde."
Whether other five were ever published there is no record to show; it appears, however, highly improbable, that, if they had, they could have been entirely lost,—especially considering the popularity and repeated issue of the first five,—during the few years that would have elapsed between their original publication and the appearance of Cawood's edition. Possibly the original reading may be a typographical blunder, for Cawood is extremely sparing of correction, and appears to have made none which he did not consider absolutely necessary. This is one of the literary puzzles which remain for bibliography to solve. (See below, p. lxxix.)
The next of Barclay's works in point of date, and perhaps the only one actually entitled to the merit of originality, is his Introductory to write and pronounce French, compiled at the request of his great patron, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, and printed by Copland in 1521. It is thus alluded to in the first important authority on French grammar, "Lesclarissement de la langue Francoyse compose par maistre Jehan Palsgraue, Angloys, natyf de Londres," 1530: "The right vertuous and excellent prince Thomas, late Duke of Northfolke, hath commanded the studious clerke, Alexandre Barkelay, to embusy hymselfe about this exercyse." Further on he is not so complimentary as he remarks:—"Where as there is a boke, that goeth about in this realme, intitled The introductory to writte and pronounce frenche, compiled by Alexander Barcley, in which k is moche vsed, and many other thynges also by hym affirmed, contrary to my sayenges in this boke, and specially in my seconde, where I shall assaye to expresse the declinations and coniugatynges with the other congruites obserued in the frenche tonge, I suppose it sufficient to warne the lernar, that I haue red ouer that boke at length: and what myn opinion is therin, it shall well inough apere in my bokes selfe, though I make therof no ferther expresse mencion: saue that I haue sene an olde boke written in parchement, in maner in all thynkes like to his sayd Introductory: whiche, by coniecture, was not vnwritten this hundred yeres. I wot nat if he happened to fortune upon suche an other: for whan it was commaunded that the grammar maisters shulde teche the youth of Englande ioyntly latin with frenche, there were diuerse suche bokes diuysed: wherupon, as I suppose, began one great occasyon why we of England sounde the latyn tong so corruptly, whiche haue as good a tonge to sounde all maner speches parfitely as any other nacyon in Europa."—Book I. ch. xxxv. "According to this," Mr Ellis (Early English Pronunciation, 804) pertinently notes: "1º, there ought to be many old MS. treatises on French grammar; and 2º, the English pronunciation of Latin was moulded on the French."
To Barclay, as nine years before Palsgrave, belongs at least the credit, hitherto generally unrecognised, of the first published attempt at a French grammar, by either Frenchman or foreigner.
"The mirror of good manners, containing the four cardinal vertues," appeared from the press of Pynson, without date, "which boke," says the typographer, "I haue prynted at the instance and request of the ryght noble Rychard Yerle of Kent." This earl of Kent died in 1523, and as Barclay speaks of himself in the preface as advanced in age, the date of publication may be assigned to close upon that year. It is a translation, in the ballad stanza, of the Latin elegiac poem of Dominicus Mancinus, De quatuor virtutibus, first published in 1516, and, as appears from the title, was executed while Barclay was a monk of Ely, at "the desire of the righte worshipfull Syr Giles Alington, Knight." From the address to his patron it would seem that the Knight had requested the poet to abridge or modernise Gower's Confessio amantis. For declining this task he pleads, that he is too old to undertake such a light subject, and also the sacred nature of his profession. He then intimates his choice of the present more grave and serious work instead—
Which a priest may write, not hurting his estate,