"Who entreth the court in yong and teder age
Are lightly blinded with foly and outrage:
But suche as enter with witte and grauitie,
Bow not so sone to such enormitie,
But ere thei enter if thei haue lerned nought
Afterwardes Vertue the least of theyr thought."
Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence.
In another passage of the same Dialogue[[4]] the picture of the honourable and deserving but neglected churchman is touched with so much strength and feeling that, though no indication is given, one cannot but believe that the painter was drawing from the life, the life of his friend. The likeness, whether intentional or not, is a most faithful one: "The third [picture] is, one whiche sheweth the state of learned men, labouring long time in studie and diuine vertue, whiche are wrapped in pouertie, wantyng the golden rake or gapyng mouth. This man hath verie fewe to preferre hym to that promotion, he smiteth himselfe upo the breast, he wepeth and lamenteth, that vice should thus be exalted, ignoraunce rewarded with glorie, coueteous men spoilyng the Churche, by the names of patrones and geuers, whiche extorcioners and tellers, they care not to whom, so that it be raked with the golden racke. Wel, wel, God of his mercie, amed this euill market."
In one of the many humorous sallies which lighten up this old-fashioned antidote to the pestilence, Barclay again appears, dressed in the metaphorical colour of the poet or minstrel—green, which has probably here a double significance, referring no doubt to his popularity as the English eclogue writer as well as to his fame as a poet and satirist. In introducing "Bartlet, grene breche" as the antithesis to "Boner wepyng," allusion was also probably intended to the honourable position occupied by Barclay amongst the promoters of the Reformation, compared with the reapostacy, the career of brutal cruelty, and the deserved fate of the Jefferies of the Episcopal bench.
Thus discourse Civis et Uxor.—