Pagina 15 [15]
Vill Introduction
including among the fools many whom he knew
personally. With the eye of disapproving youth
on the sporting cleric he wrote :
‘For if one can flater and bere a hawke on his
Fyst,
He shalbe made Person of Honyngton or of
Chat
When dealing with the fool ‘that nought can
and nought wyll lerne’ he bethought him of his
companions, the ‘secundaries’ in the college at
Ottery :
‘I haue eyght neyghbours, that firste shall haue
a place
Within this my shyp, for they most worthy be.
They may theyr lernynge receyue costeles and fre,
Theyr wallys abuttynge and ioynynge to the
scoles.
No thynge they can, yet nought wyll they lerne
nor se.’
As a result of Barclay?s treatment the German
element in the ‘Narrenschiff’ was effaced and the
‘Shyp of Folys’ became a British bark. His fools
are dressed in the national motley, and give
a vivid picture of Pre-Reformation England.
Side by side with Locher’s Latin, the new
translation was ‘inprentyd in the Cyte of