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BARCLAY, JOHN, son
of William Barclay, was born at Pontamousson in France, January 28, 1582,
and was educated under the care of Jesuits. When only nineteen years old,
he published notes on the Thebais of Statius. He was, as above stated, the
innocent cause of a quarrel between his father and the Jesuits, in
consequence of which the family removed to England, in 1603. At the
beginning of 1604, young Barclay presented a poetical panegyric to the
king, under the title of Kalendae Januariae. To this monarch he
soon after dedicated the first part of his celebrated Latin satire
entitled, Euphormion. John Barclay, like many young men of genius, was
anxious for distinction, quocunque modo, and, having an abundant
conceit of his own abilities, and looking upon all other men as only fit
to furnish him with matter of ridicule, he launched at the very first into
the dangerous field of general satire. He confesses in the apology which
he afterwards published for his Euphormion, that, "as soon as he left
school, a juvenile desire of fame incited him to attack the whole
world, rather with a view of promoting his own reputation, than of
dishonouring individuals." We must confess that this grievous early
fault of Barclay was only the transgression of a very spirited character.
He says, in his dedication of Euphormion to King James, written when he
was two-and-twenty, that he was ready, in the service of his Majesty, to
convert his pen into a sword, or his sword into a pen.
His prospects at this court
were unfortunately blighted, like those of his father, by the religious
contests of the time; and in 1604 the family returned to France. John,
however, appears to have spent the next year chiefly in England, probably
upon some renewal of his prospects at the court of King James. In 1606,
after the death of his father, he returned to France, and at Paris married
Louisa Debonnaire, with whom he soon after settled at London. Here he
published the second part of his Euphormion, dedicating it to the
Earl of Salisbury, a minister in whom he could find no fault but his excess
of virtue. Lord Hailes remarks, as a surprising circumstance, that the
writer who could discover no faults in Salisbury, aimed the shafts of
ridicule at Sully; but nothing can be less surprising in such a person as
Barclay. A man who satirized only for the sake of personal eclat, would
as easily flatter in gratitude for the least notice. It should also be
recollected, that many minds do not, till the approach of middle life,
acquire the power of judging accurately regarding virtue and vice, or
merit and demerit: all principles, in such minds, are jumbled like the
elements of the earth in chaos, and are only at length reduced to order by
the overmastering influence of the understanding. In the disposition which
seems to have characterised Barclay, for flattering those who patronised
him, he endeavoured to please King James, in the second part of the
Euphormion, by satirizing tobacco and the puritans. In this year he also
published an account of the gun-powder plot, a work remarked to be
singularly impartial, considering the religion of the writer. During the
course of three years’ residence in England, Barclay received no token
of the royal liberality. Sunk in indigence, with an increasing family
calling for support, he only wished to be indemnified for his English
journeys, and to have his charges defrayed into France.
At length he was relieved
from his distresses by his patron Salisbury. Of these circumstances, so
familiar and so discouraging to men of letters, we are informed by some
allegorical and obscure verses written by Barclay at that sad season.
Having removed to France in 1609, he next year published his Apology for
the Euphormion. This denotes that he came to see the folly of a
general contempt for mankind at the age of twenty-eight. How he supported
himself at this time, does not appear; but he is found, in 1614,
publishing his Icon Animarum, which is declared by a competent
critic to be the best, though not the most celebrated of his works. It is
a delineation of the genius and manners of the European nations, with
remarks, moral and philosophical, on the various tempers of men. It is
pleasant to observe that in this work he does justice to the Scottish
people. In 1615, Barclay is said to have been invited by Pope Paul
V. to Rome. He had previously lashed the holy court in no measured terms;
but so marked a homage from this quarter to his distinction in letters, as
usual, softened his feelings, and he now accordingly shifted his family
thither, and lived the rest of his life under the protection of the
pontiff. In 1617, he published at Rome his "Paraenesis ad Sectarios,
Libri Duo;" a work in which he seems to have aimed at atoning
for his former sarcasms at the Pope, by attacking those whom his holiness
called heretics. Barclay seems to have been honoured with many
marks of kindness, not only from the Pope, but also from Cardinal
Barberini; yet it does not appear that he obtained much emolument.
Incumbered with a wife and family, and having a spirit above his fortune,
he was left at full leisure to pursue his studies. It was at that time
that he composed his Latin romance called Argenis. He employed his
vacant hours in cultivating a flower garden; and Rossi relates, in his
turgid Italian style, that Barclay cared not for those bulbous roots which
produce flowers of a sweet scent, but cultivated such as produced flowers
void of smell, but having variety of colours. Hence we may conclude that
he was among the first of those who were infected with that strange
disease, a passion for tulips, which soon after overspread Europe, and is
commemorated under the name of the Tulipo-mania. Barclay might
truly have said with Virgil, ‘Tantus amor flotum" He had two
mastiffs placed as sentinels to protect his garden; and rather than
abandon his favourite flowers, chose to continue his residence in an
ill-aired and unwholesome situation.
This extraordinary genius, who seems to
have combined the perfervidum inqueium of his father’s country,
with the mercurial vivacity of his mother’s, died at Rome on the 12th of
August, 1621, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He left a wife, who had
tormented him much with jealousy, (through the ardour of her affection, as
he explained it), besides three children, of whom two were boys. He also
left, in the hands of the printer, his celebrated Argenis, and also
an unpublished history of the conquest of Jerusalem, and some fragments of
a general history of Europe. He was buried in the church of St Onuphrius,
and his widow erected a monument to him, with his bust in marble, at the
church of St Lawrence, on the road to Tivoli. A strange circumstance
caused the destruction of this trophy. Cardinal Barberini chanced to erect
a monument, exactly similar, at the same place, to his preceptor, Bernardus
Gulienus a monte Sancti Sabini. When the widow of Barclay heard of
this, she said, "My husband was a man of birth, and famous in the
literary world; I will not suffer him to remain on a level with a base and
obscure pedagogue." She therefore caused the bust to be removed, and
the inscription to be obliterated. The account given of the Argenis, by
Lord Hailes, who wrote a life of John Barclay as a specimen of a Biographia
Scotica, [Printed in 4to, in 1782, and the ground-work of the present
sketch.] is as follows: "Argenis is generally supposed
to be a history under feigned names, and not a romance. Barclay himself
contributed to establish this opinion, by introducing some real characters
into the work. But that was merely to compliment certain dignitaries of
the church, whose good offices he courted, or whose power he dreaded. The
key prefixed to Argenis has perpetuated the error. There are, no
doubt, many incidents in it that allude to the state of France during the
civil wars in the seventeenth century; but it requires a strong
imagination indeed to discover Queen Elizabeth in Hyanisbe, or Henry III.
of France in Meleander." On the whole, Argenis appears to be a
poetical fable, replete with moral and political reflections. Of this work
three English translations have appeared, the last in 1772; but it now
only enjoys the reflective reputation of a work that was once in high
repute. We may quote, however, the opinion which Cowper was pleased to
express regarding this singular production. "It is," says the
poet of Olney, "the most amusing romance that ever was written. It is
the only one, indeed, of an old date, that I had ever the patience to go
through with. It is interesting in a high degree, richer in incident than
can be imagined, full of surprises, which the reader never forestalls, and
yet free from entanglement and confusion. The style too, appears to me to
be such as would not dishonour Tacitus himself."
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