Alexander Barclay

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Alexander Barclay, a poet and prose-writer, of Scotch birth; bred a monk in England, which he ceased to be on the dissolution of the monasteries; wrote "The Ship of Fools," partly a translation and partly an imitation of the German "Narrerschiff" of Brandt. "It has no value," says Stopford Brooke; "but it was popular because it attacked the follies and questions of the time; and its sole interest to us is in its pictures of familiar manners and popular customs" (1475-1552).