....Up to this point in the discussion, there has been one characteristic common to all work, namely the lack of definite expression of the personality of the author. In spite of the Comfort of Lovers, Hawes remains a visionary figure. This condition is almost necessitated from the fact that each author wrote according to lines laid down by tradition. But such a state belongs rather to the Middle Ages than to the Renaissance. Then, if anything at all was stressed, it was individuality. What seems to the modern reader to be arrant boasting, to the man of that time appeared only the proper recognition of his own ego. In literature the time was at hand when a writer would employ the old formulae, but employ them as a medium for self-expression.

Practically such a condition is to be found in a poem of John Skelton. Of his life, beyond what may be legitimately, or illegitimately, deduced from his works, we know curiously little. Since the name Skelton, Schelton, Shelton, or Scheklton, is quite common, at once appears a prolific source of misinformation. In particular a contemporary John Skelton, afterwards knighted, adds to the confusion. Thus his life, a fascinating structure of inference and conjecture, is built around only a few definite dates. ² We know neither when nor where he was born, nor who were his parents, nor where he received his education. ³ The first notice

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shows him already with an established reputation. In 1490 Caxton in his preface to the Eneydos, after explaining his difficulties with the English language, unexpectedly addresses Skelton. ¹

But I praye mayster Iohn Skelton, late created poete laureate in the vnyuersite of oxenforde, to ouersee and correcte this sayd booke, And taddresse and expowne where as shalle be founde faulte to theym that shall requyre it. For hym, I knowe for suffycyent to expowne and englysshe euery dyffyculte that is therin / For he hath late translated the epystlys of Tulle / and the boke of dyodorus syculus, and diuerse other werkes oute of latyn in-to englysshe, not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed and ornate termes craftely, as he that hath redde vyrgyle / ouyde, tullye, and all the other noble poetes and oratours / to me vnknowen: And also he hath redde the ix. muses, and vaderstande theyr musicalle scyences, and to whom of theym eche scyence is appropred. I suppose he hath dronken of Elycons well.

This casual remark of Caxton gives the two influences that affect Skelton's work, namely his Latinity and his desire for expression in English. For his Latin we have also other evidence. The first Grace Book of the University of Cambridge gives the entry in 1493, ² Conceditur Johanni Skeltonpoete in partibus transmarinis atque oxonie laurea ornato ut aput nos eadem decoraretur." According to this entry, then, he had been honored with the academic degree of poet laureate, by Oxford, Cambridge, and a foreign university, probably Louvain. ³ Warton, followed by all subsequent writers, adds another entry, 1504-5. ⁴ "Conceditur Johi Skelton Poete Laureat, quod possit stare eodem gradu hic quo stetit Oxoniis, et quod possit uti habitu sibi concesso a Principe." ⁵ What the "same degree here that he held at Oxford" was I do not know. ⁶ The assumption that it was again the degree of poet laureate seems improbable since that had already been given him at each uni-

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versity. It may have been the D. D. as Bale suggests. However that may be, it is the poet laureateship in which Skelton delights. In his curious (and unpleasant) series of mocking attacks upon Garnesche he plumes himself upon this particular degree. ¹

Lytyll wyt in your scrybys nolle
That scrybblyd your fonde scrolle,
Vpon hym for to take,
Agennst me for to make
Lyke a doctor dawpate,
A lauryate poyete for to rate.
Yower termys ar to grose,
To far from the porpoes,
To contaminate
And to violate
The dygnyte lauryate. ²

And again:

What eylythe thé, rebawde, on me to raue?
A kyng to me myn habyte gaue:
At Oxforth, the vniversyte,
Auaunsid I was to that degre;
By hole consent of theyr senate,
I was made poete lawreate.
To cal me lorell ye ar to lewde:
Lythe and lystyn, all bechrewde!
Of the Musys nyne, Calliope
Hath pointyd me to rayle on thé.
It semyth nat thy pylld pate
Agenst a poyet lawreat
To take vpon thé for to scryue . . .
It ys for no bawdy knaue
The dignite lawreat for to haue. ²³

In the postils to two poems Skelton is signed as "Orator regius," whatever that may mean. But that he had no definite connection with the court as our modern term implies is proved by the fact that his name does not figure on the rolls. It was an academic degree conferred for proficiency in the composition of Latin verse. The fact that he was so honored in three universities, even with-

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out considering the mysterious second degree, shows that according to the educational standards of the time he was regarded as a man of great scholarly attainments.

Given a man with such scholastic antecedents, it was almost inevitable that he should experiment with a type of poem authorized by literary tradition; given a man with the renaissance craving for individualistic expression, and it was inevitable that the conventional form would be modified, even unconsciously, by his treatment. On the one side there will be careful adherence to the peculiarities of the form; on the other a complete breaking away from the typical mental attitude. So, whereas Hawes in his combination of the chivalric and erotic elements was a conscious innovator, mechanically creating a new type by a recombination of old forms, here there will be an unconscious adaptation of the old tradition to form a medium of expression for the new age. Such is the peculiarity of Skelton poem, The Bowge of Court. The poem is divided into the three conventional sections, the introduction, the poem proper, and the apologetic conclusion. In the first five stanzas, with the typical astronomical opening, the poet in the first person tells us that he wishes to write,

. . . callynge to mynde the greate auctoryte
Of poetes olde, whyche full craftely.
Under as couerte termes as coude be,
Can touche a trouth and cloke it subtylly
Wyth fresshe vtteraunce full sentencyously.

With becoming hesitation, however, he feels a lack of confidence in his ability to be sufficiently obscure. In this mood of doubt he falls asleep, and in his dream

At Harwyche Porte slumbrynge as I laye,
In myne hostes house called Powers Keye,

he sees a ship well freighted, called the Bowge of Courte. The aim of the voyagers is to obtain the jewel favor of the owner, dame Sauncepere. Shielded by silk she sits upon a throne over which is the motto Garder le fortune, que est mauelz et bone. Her chief gentlewoman, Danger, repulses him, but another, Desire, urges him on, and advises him to make friends with fortune, who controls the ship.

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Whome she loueth, of all plesyre is ryche,
Whyles she laugheth and hath luste for to playe;
Whome she hateth, she casteth in the dyche,
For whan she frouneth, she thynketh to make a fray;
She cheryssheth him, and hym she casseth awaye.

With the rest, the poet, whose name is Drede, makes his suit to Fortune. Here the prologue ends. The poem proper is an account of the voyage. On board there are seven "full subtyll" characters, Favell (Duplicity), Suspecte (Suspicion), Harvy Hafter (a cheat), Dysdayne, Ryotte, Dyssymuler, and Subtylte. Each in turn is characterized, and has an interview with Drede. There is some dramatic action suggested. After the last, fearing for his life, he leaps overboard, and awakes. The "lytyll boke" ends with an apology, . . . it is only a dream, but sometimes in dreams truths appear.

Such is in bare outline the plan of the poem. At once merely by the outline it is apparent that we have here a composition of the type of the medieval tradition. It has all the earmarks, the dream structure, the allegory, the personifications and the rimeroyal. Still more, it has the peculiarities of the Lydgate school. The formal astronomical opening, the belief in the necessity of "couert termes," the suggestion of the apostrophe to the "lytyll boke" at the end, and the inevitable apology. You even find an occasional broken-backed Lydgatian line.

That Í ne wíste whât to dô was béste

Up to this point it is a perfect example of the school so worthily represented by Hawes.

The interesting feature about the poem is, not its similarity to the type, but its unconscious divergence from it. Skelton's personality is too powerful to be confined in any common mould. Seeing life with his own eyes, and not through literary tradition, he becomes concrete. The vague medieval meadow is a definite place, Harwich Port, and a definite inn, Powers' Quai. This becomes strongly marked when he deals with the personifications. Instead of Hawes' pictured figures, here the characters are strongly individualized. The description of Harvy Hafter may serve as an example:

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Vpon his breste he bare a versynge boxe; (dicing)
His throte was clere and lustely coude fayne;
Me thoughte, his gowne was all furred wyth foxe;
And euer he sange, Sythe I am no thyng playne.
To kepe him frome pykynge it was a grete payne;
He gased on me with his gotyshe berde;
Whan I loked on hym, my purse was half aferde.

The last line is a triumph of suggestiveness. And the same brilliant characterization is shown in the speeches. For the sake of continuity Harvy is again chosen for illustration:

Syr, God you saue! why loke ye so sadde?
What thynge is that I maye do for you?
A wonder thynge that ye waxe not madde!
For, and I studye sholde as ye doo nowe,
My wytte wolde waste, I make God auowe.
Tell me your mynde: me thynke, ye make a verse;
I coude it skan, and ye wolde it reherse.

But to the poynte shortely to procede,
Where hathe your dwellynge ben, er ye cam here?
For, as I trowe, I haue sene you indede
Er this, whan that ye made me royall chere.
Holde vp the helme, loke vp, and lete God stere:
I wolde be mery, what wynde that euer blowe,
"Heue and how rombelow, row the bote, Noman rowe!"

"Prynces of yougthe" can ye synge by rote?
Or shall I sayle wyth you a felashyp assaye;
For on the booke I can not synge a note.
Wolde to God, it wolde please you some daye
A balade boke before me for to laye,
And lerne me to synge, Re, my, fa, sol!
And, whan I fayle, bobbe me on the noll.

Loo, what is to you a pleasure grete,
To haue that connyng and wayes that ye houe!
By Goddis soule, I wonder how ye gete
Soo grete pleasyre, or who to you it gaue:
Syr, pardon me, I am an homely knaue,
To be with you thus perte and thus bolde;
But ye be welcome to our housholde.

And, I dare saye, there is no man here inne
But wolde be glad of your company:

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I wyste neuer man that so soone coude wynne
The fauoure that ye haue with my lady;
I praye to God that it maye neuer dy:
It is your fortune for to haue that grace;
As I be saued, it is a wonder case.

For, as for me, I serued here many a daye,
And yet vnneth I can haue my lyuynge;
But I requyre you no worde that I saye;
For, and I knowe ony erthly thynge
That is agayne you, ye shall haue wetynge:
And ye be welcome, syr, so God me saue:
I hope here after a frende of you to haue.

Here we are miles away from the stock epithet of the Lydgate school. Harvy is musical, and sings "Row the boat, Norman, row" ¹ and "Princes of youth." But unhappily he sings by ear only. He is a homely knave and seeks to flatter by stressing the superior attainments of Drede. Yet he is completely insincere, and at another's suggestion is quite willing to throw Drede over board in a picked quarrel. The line,

Holde up the hëlme, loke up, and lete God stere,

is rather shocking coming from the mouth of such a character. Yet is it not natural for this type of rascal to throw thus the responsibility upon God? Harvy Hafter's easy-going philosophy is here suggestive, and it is worth comment that Skelton recognized that such a shifting of responsibility denotes weakness of character rather than strength. Thus each trait is carefully etched in. The result is that for the first time since Chaucer vivid characterization is placed in a framework of definitely conceived dramatic action.

With such treatment as this, naturally there is no ambiguity in the interpretation of the allegory. Bouge, from the French bouche, is merely the technical term for the table set by the king for the court. ² As such it had been used half a century before Skelton. Here it is used to typify life at the Court. The conditions there were so unlike the present that it requires an effort of the imagina-

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tion to realize them. In the sixteenth century court a large number of individuals were brought together without any regard to congeniality and without very much to do. The duties were trivial. Yet however trivial they might seem abstractly, concretely upon them depended both one's reputation and one's income. The main object of a man's life was to acquire the favor of the monarch. If for any reason good or bad, important or trivial, noble or vile, you attracted the favorable notice of the king, you were successful. Thus all things were reduced to one level; whether you were a skillful statesman, or player on the lute, or a cunning deviser of royal debauch, it was immaterial. On the other hand, failure to obtain this, in the fullest sense of the word, spelled ruin. As the Duke of Norfolk said to More, "by God's body! Mr. More, indignatio principis mors est," and More proved the truth of the statement on Tower Hill. As there was no real dignity back of the life, and as there was no independence of thought, Skelton thinks that to gain this all-important favor of the King is only a matter of chance. And equally, he that possesses it is both flattered and hated by all the rest. The Court is peopled by liars and cheats, by suspicion and disdain. Success there is worse than failure and the honest man jumps over board!

If this be the interpretation, only by form does the poem belong to the type represented by the medieval tradition. If on that side it be compared to Hawes, its content recalls Barclay in both his Eclogues and in his Ship of Fools. First there is no question that there was some relation between them. Even granting that Bale's mention of a work by Barclay Contra Skeltonum be mythical, that Barclay did not approve of Skelton is shown in the final stanzas ¹ of the Ship of Fools. There he plumes himself upon his virtuous writings, priding himself that

It longeth nat to my scyence nor cunnynge
For Phylyp the Sparowe the (Dirige) to sing.

To assume, however, that Skelton's verses good-humoredly advising those that disliked Philip Sparrow to do better themselves, ² are a reply to Barclay, is to assume that Barclay was the only critic. Likewise to construe the passage in the Fourth Eclogue

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against poet laureates as an attack particularly aimed at Skelton is to state a tempting hypothesis. Of course it may be true, but equally of course it may seem true only because of our lack of data. It is fair, however, to feel that the traditional enmity between the two poets must have had some foundation.

But if there be any truth in this tradition it is somewhat surprising to find Skelton enlisted by modern scholarship as a follower of Barclay. ¹ This is almost certainly an error, due to the inclusion among Skelton work of the Boke of Three Fooles. As this has been shown by Brie ² to be merely a part of Watson's translation of the Narrenschiffs, all connection of Skelton with Barclay Ship of Fools is reduced to the fact that they each use the allegory of a boat. But even in English this metaphor is not uncommon. ³ Nor is the employment of it the same. In Barclay the figure of the boat is a mechanism in which to put his innumerable fools; in Skelton the boat itself represents the court. If it be necessary to find an original for the ship of state, the ode of Horace comes at once to mind. ⁴ Thus, while it may be possible that Locker's version of the Narrenschiffs ( 1497) suggested the idea, Skelton's employment of it is much more artistic. Much the same may be said of the assumed influence of Barclay Eclogues, which also attack court life. Barclay's criticisms are after all criticisms of superficial detail; Skelton sensed the fundamental wrong. And this superiority of Skelton is due, in the last analysis, to his deeper perception. Barclay is merely an adapter of other men's work, a humanist by courtesy. Skelton, on the other hand, brought from his wide reading a point of view that made him a sharp and original critic of English conditions.

The importance of this argument lies in the fact that the dating of the poem is based on internal evidence. If it shows the influence of the Ship of Fools unless Skelton saw the manuscript it must have been written after 1509; if it shows the influence of the

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Eclogues, it must have been composed about 1514. ¹ But as it does not in any way show the influence of these works, there is no necessity for so late a date. In fact the cumbrous form, the careful following of the medieval tradition, point rather to very early work. Brie here makes a suggestion, entirely without any foundation, but fascinating in connection with my interpretation of the poem. We know that Skelton had been connected with the Court as tutor to Prince Henry. We know also that in 1498 he was ordained successively subdeacon, deacon, and priest. ² But in 1504 he was Rector at Diss in Norfolk. ³

It is a not unnatural assumption that he received the rectorship of Diss as a regard for his tutorial services. On the other hand there has never been a reason assigned why a man sufficiently influential to be chosen as tutor to his Prince, and with the reputation of one of the leading scholars of his country, should be willing to bury himself in an obscure country town. Norfolk today is but ninety-five miles from London, but ninety-five miles over sixteenth century roads was a long journey fraught with discomfort and danger. ⁴ Skelton's own answer perhaps is to be found in the Bowge of Court. From a court in which there was not to be found one good man, where wretches plotted against him, he indignantly sought refuge in exile. ⁵ This is mere hypothesis, but it does cover all the few facts of the case. This hypothesis also explains the acidity of the poem. The allegory of the Romaunt of the Rose and of Lydgate has been turned into satire!

This medieval form, clear and definite, has already been twice modified by the literary necessities of the Renaissance; by Hawes, who combines with it a didactic chivalric romance, and again by Skelton, who forces it into the service of satire. Still another at-

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tempt to use the old formula was made just after the middle of the sixteenth century by John Heywood.

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After dealing with anonymous writers, unknown, unsexed, it is with relief that one turns to the rugged personality of Skelton. Here at least, however much you may dislike the type of work, you are dealing with a man.

His poem, the Bouge of Court, which belongs to the formal literary tradition, has been discussed, ³ and the suggestion was there made of his relations with the court. It will be remembered that Skelton was praised for his learning by Caxton, and correctly,

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since apparently he had been given degrees by three universities. So far then as there is value in academic recognition, Skelton was quite rightly regarded as one of the learned men of his age. That the poet himself was conscious of these attainments, is equally certain. In reading his poems you are never allowed to forget that the author has enjoyed all the advantages that the quadrivium and the trivium could afford. Latin tags, Latin allusions, even Latin reminiscences occur at frequent intervals. In the Garland of Laurel he imagines himself received by the writers of all time. And a curious collection they are! Quintillian, Theocritus, Hesiod, Homer, Cicero, Sallust, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Persius, Vergil, Juvenal, Livy, Aulus Gellius, Terence, Plautus, Seneca, Boethius, Maximianus, Boccaccio, Quintus Curtius, Macrobius, Poggio, Gaguin, Plutarch, Petrarch, Lucilius, Valerius Maximus, Vincentius, Propertius, Pisander, and the three English poets, Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate. A somewhat similar, although not identical, catalogue is given in Philip Sparrow. If this may be considered as a list of reading to any degree typical of academic training it raises curious doubts in the mind of the modern. The extent of his reading is surpassed only by his entire lack of critical discrimination. Poetry, drama, and prose, Greek and Latin, ancient and modern, poets and poetasters are all piled pell mell. And the greater proportion of it is in classical Latin. Greek authors are but slightly mentioned (and these were probably read in translation), of the Italian humanists he knows but three, and there is but one Frenchman. ¹ Such was the knowledge of the past at the opening of the sixteenth century. The classics were by no means forgotten.

On the other hand, however extensive may have been Skelton's knowledge of classical literature, it was surely not intensive. The medley of authors just quoted from the Garland of Laurel by no means shows the nice discrimination of a scholar. It savors of sacrilege to mention Homer and Virgil in the same breath with Lucilius

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and Vicentius! And although Philip Sparrow is a dramatic monologue put into the mouth of a young girl, the medieval confusion of scriptural, classical, and imaginary authors and characters seems typical of Skelton himself. He belongs to the former age and is not favorable to the men of the "new learning". At least that is my interpretation of the significant omission of certain names in his list. The Garland of Laurel fortunately may be definitely dated. It is limited on one side from the fact that it was published in 1523; on the other, since Colin Clout and the Magnyfycence are both mentioned, it could not have been composed much before 1520. But by 1520 the English humanists were in full flower. Grocyn was dead, Linacre had published his Galen, Colet had founded his school, Lily had been teaching there eight years, More had published his Utopia, and Erasmus had become a world figure. Yet none of these appear. It is impossible that he should not have known them, or at least of them and their work. Linacre, for example, was a tutor to Prince Arthur certainly part of the time that Skelton held the same position with Prince Henry. And with the various academic degrees which Skelton held, it is scarcely probable that he was at no time brought into definite relation with some member of the group. But his feeling toward them was apparently the reverse of cordial. Bale records the beginning of some verses attacking Lily, Lily's response to which has been preserved. ¹ The test was apparently his attitude toward Greek. He was thoroughly out of sympathy with the contention of Colet and Erasmus that Greek should be studied for its religious value. This at once lends significance to his acclaiming himself the British Catullus, without mentioning Horace. ² He felt, truly enough, that the introduction of Greek into the schools would be the end of the old curriculum. This at least is his attitude in the passage from Speke, Parrot: ³

"Monon calon agaton, ⁴
Quod Parato
In Graeco.

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Let Parrot, I pray you, haue lyberte to prate,
For aurea lingua Graeca ought to be magnifyed,
Yf it were cond perfytely, and after the rate,
As lingua Latina, in scole matter occupyed;
But our Grekis theyr Greke so well haue applyed,
That they cannot say in Greke, rydynge by the way,
How, hosteler, fetche my hors a botell of hay!

Neyther frame a silogisme in phrisesomorum,
Formaliter et Graece, cum medio termino:
Our Grekys ye walow in the washbol Argolicorum;
For though ye can tell in Greke what is phormio,
Yet ye seeke out your Greke in Capricornio;
For they (ye?) scrape out good scripture, and set in a gall,
Ye go about to amende, and ye mare all.

Some argue secundum quid ad simpliciter,
And yet he wolde be rekenyd pro Areopagita;
And some make distinctions multipliciter,
Whether ita were before non, or non before ita,
Nether wise nor well lernid, but like hermaphrodita:
Set sophia asyde, for euery Jack Raker
And euery mad medler must now be a maker.

In Academia Parrot dare no probleme kepe;
For Graece fari so occupyeth the chayre,
That Latinum fari may fall to rest and slepe,
And Syllogisari was drowned at Sturbrydge fayre;
Tryuyals and quatryuyals so sore now they appayre,
That Parrot the popagay hath pytye to beholde
How the rest of good lernyng is roufled up and trold.

Albertus de modo significandi,
And Donatus, be dryuen out of scole;
Prisians hed broken now handy dandy,
And Inter didascolos is rekened for a fole;
Alexander, a gander of Menanders pole,
With Da Cansales, is cast out of the gate,
And Da Racionales dare not shew his pate.

Plauti in his comedies a chyld shall now reherse,
And medyll with Quintylyan in his Declamacyons,
And Pety Caton can scantly construe a verse,
With Aveto in Graceco, and such solempne salutacyons,
Can skantly the tensis of his coniugacyons;
Settynge theyr myndys so moche of eloquens,
That of theyr scole maters lost is the hole sentens."

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This passage is interesting as defining exactly Skelton's position. He is partly jealous of Greek as affecting the study of Latin and partly he is afraid of it as an instrument of scriptural reform. He is thus necessarily an opponent of the group of English humanists.

This is one, then, of the peculiarities of Skelton's position. Although he can, and occasionally does, write humanistic Latin, he is far from being a humanist. ¹ The same is true as to his place in the English tradition. His Bouge of Court is an interesting individual modification of the conventional type of court allegory. ² Consequently we find him echoing the conventional criticism in regard to the conventional trilogy of English authors. Gower "first garnished our Englysshe rude," then Chaucer polished it, and Lydgate added the finishing touches. ³ Owing to its early date, Gower's English is useless as a model, however excellent may be the content of his poems; Chaucer, on the contrary, is still available.

His termes were not darke,
But pleasaunt, easy, and playne;
No worde he wrote in vayne. ⁴

Lydgate "wryteth after an hyer rate" since it is difficult to understand his precise meaning. This is the stock criticism of the early sixteenth century. With a man uttering such views, it is natural to expect the use of the rime-royal as a stanza form. Actually he uses it not only in the longer poems, such as the Bouge of Court and the Garland of Laurel, but also for satire, as in the poems against Garnesche and in Speke, Parrot, for love pieces and poems on meditation. Not so normal are his experiments, where in one poem, The Auncient Acquaintance, he preserves the rime-scheme, although using lines with six accents, or with four accents as in the attack upon Mistress Anne. In this latter form is the dramatic song My darlyng dere, where the short lines lend themselves to vivid compression and swift narrative. Here, from the dramatic opening to the brutal ending, Skelton's own eulogy of

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Chaucer may be applied to himself,--no word he wrote in vain. And this is the more worthy of comment as such work is not in accordance with the usual conception of Skelton's manner. One more characteristic of this division of his poems may be added. Skelton is curiously affected by the old English love for alliteration. In the poems against Garnishe,

Garnyshe, gargone, gastly, gryme,

it may perhaps be used merely for the comic affect. That certainly cannot explain its appearance,

I wayle, I wepe, I sobbe, I sigh ful sore,

in the elegy on the death of the Earl of Northumberland, nor its employment in the attack upon Mistress Anne.

Womanhod, wanton, ye want;
Youre medelyng, mastres, is manerles;
Plente of yll, of goodnes skant,
Ye rayll at ryot, recheles:
To prayse your porte it is nedeles;
For all your draffe yet and youre dreggys,
As well borne as ye full oft tyme beggys.

While of course it is not the old alliterative measure, such a line as

What dremyst thou, drunchard, drousy pate

would need little changing to make it conform to the old measure. It is allowable, I think, to infer that Skelton both knew and was affected by the earlier poetry.

Actually it is neither the humanistic Latin nor the poetry of the English tradition that is associated with the name of Skelton. His fiery genius found its expression in poems formed on quite other models. What those models were is easily inferred from his biography. A man very learned, yet born too early for the full tide of humanism to have reached northern Europe, would naturally be learned in the literature of Medieval Latin. When it is added that such a man was enrolled in the ranks of the Church, every indication points to a certain direction. Consequently it is not

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surprising to find that he, like the others, ambidextrously, mixes Latin with his English. ¹

What though ye can cownter Custodi nos?
As well it becomyth yow, a parysh towne clarke,
To syng Sospitati dedit œgros. . .

Another example is in Ware the Hawk, ²

Dir Dominus vobiscum,
Per aucupium
Ye made your hawke to cum
Desuper candelabrum
Christi crucifixi
To fede 'pon your fisty:
Dic, inimice crucis Christi,
Ubi didicisti
Facere hoc,
Domine Dawcocke?

Here the Latin is used interchangeably with the English.

With this use of Latin one would expect Skelton to show his knowledge of the aureate language. He himself, in a Lydgatian mood, regrets that ³

My wordes vnpullysht be, nakide and playne,
Of aureat poems they want ellumynynge.

But the reader feels he is unjust to himself. Such a stanza as the following shows that he is quite comparable even to Hawes. ⁴

Allectuary arrectyd to redres
These feuerous axys, the dedely wo and payne
Of thoughtfull hertys plungyd in dystress;
Refresshyng myndys the Aprell shoure of rayne;
Condute of comforte, and well most souerayne;
Herber enverduryd, contynuall fressh and grene;
Of lusty somer the passyng goodly quene. . .

He then compares the lady's features to the topaz, ruby, sapphire, pearl, diamond, emerald, and

Relucent smaragd, obiecte incomperable.

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This is all rather quaint, artificial, and affected, unless one realizes that he was writing according to the dictates of his age. In the same way he uses repeticio, as in the Magnyfycence, where eight successive lines begin with the word counterfet. ¹ And occasionally he uses actual cryptograms as where he substitutes numbers for letters or makes a jargon by transposing Latin syllables. In general it may be said that his knowledge both of the humanistic writers and the older English poets saved him from the excessive puerility of the worst of the school. Or perhaps there is so much more virility in his work than in that of the others, that the modern reader is more charitable and the puerility passes by unnoticed.

In the scansion of the line, to follow the former order, Skelton uses the free procedure noticed before. This is easily seen in his most regular poem, the Bouge of Courte. Here as he is writing the iambic pentameter, theoretically each line should have but ten syllables. This is usually the case.

In autumpne, whan the sonne in Virgine
By radyante hete enryped hath our corne;
Whan Luna, full of mutabylyte,
As emperes the dyademe hath worne
Of our pole artyke, smylynge halfe in scorne
At our foly and our vnstedfastnesse;
The tyme whan Mars to werre hym dyde dres . .

With the exception of the second line, where radyante was probably a trisyllable, every line has exactly ten syllables. That is not true of the next

I, callynge to mynde the greate auctorytè,

nor of

His hede maye be harde, but feble is his brayne . . . ²

This might be illustrated ad libitum. Obviously he writes by ear and provided that the accents fall correctly, he is little troubled by an extra syllable. The fact that the modern reader also is not troubled, shows how completely the old theory has been assimilated.

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In stanza forms there is the abundance of short riming lines, characteristic of the Medieval Latin.

Calliope,
As ye may see,
Regent is she
Of poetes al,
Whiche gaue to me
The high degre
Laureat to be
Of fame royall, ¹

This is iambic diameter, trimembris, with riming iambic diameter.

So many pointed caps
Lased with double flaps,
And so gay felted hats,
Sawe I never:
So many good lessôns,
So many good sermons,
And so few devocions,
Sawe I never. ²

This is iambic trimeter, trimembris, with differentia repeated. The addresses to the various ladies in the Garland are attractive studies in the Medieval Latin meters. ³ These are obviously "lyrics" in the sense only that they are short emotional poems. Quite otherwise is it with at least some of the others; they are lyrics in that they were intended to be sung. Certainly that is the inference to be made from the title of the tract in which they are preserved. "Here folowythe dyuers Balettys and Dyties solacyous, deuysed by Master Skelton, Laureat." The poem My darling dere is headed by two lines obviously used as a chorus. But the question passes out of the bounds of inference with the poem Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale, since the music, written by Cornysshe, has been preserved for this. ⁴ From the music we

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see that it was a three part counterpuntal madrigal. As the second voice supports alternately either the first or third, the poem is a dialogue on seduction, all voices mingling in the refrain. When transposed into modern notation, the music is really very attractive, with a distinct swing in the refrain. ¹ The peculiar feature is that to such music should be set a poem dealing so brutally with such a subject. Again, although the treatises explicitly limit the number of single rimes to four, the stanza form here consists of five riming lines and a couplet. As actually, however, medieval Latin songs of the tavern had five or more lines riming together, the presumption is strong that then, as now, popular song-writers overrode academic restraint, and that this, therefore, is a studentenlied rather than a lyric. Although Cornysshe was a member of the Chapel Royal, it seems unlikely that such a song could be sung before a mixed audience, even in the Court of Henry VII. Rather, it must be regarded as a rare example of the popular song of the day.

But not only does the music help us to a correct distribution of the parts in the dialogue, it is of still greater importance as indicating the pronunciation and the scansion. For necessarily the text must be substantially correct. In that case it can be stated positively that the final e was in no instance pronounced. So far as the number of syllables is concerned, the words were read nearly as they are today. In modern spelling the lines in the third verse would read

By Chríst, you sháll not, nó hardlý I wíll not bé japed + ́ bodilý.

They are clearly iambic tetrameter, the last accent falling upon the y rime. But they illustrate, also, the freedom used by the sixteenth century author in the number of his syllables, because, musically, the two short syllables in bodily are equalized with the one long syllable in hardly. The same condition is illustrated, in the extreme, by the fifth line of the first stanza,

Túlly valy stráwe, let bé I sáy.

Here the music shows the poet not only begins his line with four short syllables, but he throws his accent. He substitutes a num-

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ber of short syllables for the anticipated iambus. And in this, with its musical setting, the modern reader need feel no surprise. Exactly the same thing is done in such a university song as

Ány kind of mán can make Alpha Delta Phí
Ány kind of mán makes Pśi U, etc.

But this triple movement is a far cry from the "regularity" of the eighteenth century.

Such poetic forms of Skelton as we have been discussing, however interesting in themselves, are not those by which he is best known. Skeltonical verse, or Skeltoniads as Drayton terms them, may be illustrated by the beginning of Colin Clout.

What can it auayle
To dryue forth a snayle,
Or to make a sayle
Of an herynges tayle;
To ryme or to rayle,
To wryte or to indyte,
Eyther for delyte
Or elles for despyte;
Or bokes to compyle
Of dyuers maner style,
Vyce to reuyle
And synne to exyle;
To teche or to preche,
As reason wyll reche?
Say this, and say that,
His hed is so fat,
He wotteth neuer what
Nor whereof he speketh;
He cryeth and he creketh,
He pryeth and he peketh,
He chydes and he chatters,
He prates and he patters,
He clytters and he clatters.
He medles and he smatters,
He gloses and he flatters;
Or yf he speake playne,
Than he lacketh brayne,
He is but a fole;
Let hym go to scole,
On a thre foted stole
That he may downe syt,

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For he lacketh wyt;
And yf that he hyt
The nayle on the hede,
It standeth in no stede;
The deuyll, they say, is dede,
The deuell is dede.

The form consists obviously of riming trimeter lines forming a verse-paragraph closed by one diameter line. The origin of so marked a form seems to have puzzled scholars. And the puzzle merely increases when it is found both in French literature, as the fratrasie, and in Italian, as the frottola. Unless the hypotheses be adopted that either it originated independently in three countries, or that, originating in one, it was borrowed by the other two, a common source must be sought. Clearly this common source is to be found in the Medieval Latin. Still more, in the Renaissance such a form was regarded by the humanists as being characteristic of Medieval Latin. Consequently in the Epistolae Obscurorm Virorum the tetrameter variety was elaborately parodied. M. Petrus Negelinus writes pathetically. . .

Quamvis valde timeo esse ita audax, quod debeo vobis ostendere unum dictamen a me compositum, qua vos valde artificialis in compositione metrorum et dictaminorum; . . . Namque ego nondum habeo bonum fundamentum, et non sum perfecte instructus in arte pœtria et Rhetorica . . . Quapropter mitto vobis hic unum poema per me compilatum in lauden sancti Petri, et unis componista qui est bonus musicus in cantu chorali et figuralik composuit mihi quattuor voces super illud. Et ego feci magnam diligentiam quod potui its rigmizare, sicut est rigmizatum . . .

Sancte Petre domine
nobis miserere,
Quia tibi dominus
dedit cum istis clavibus
Potestatem maximam,
necnon specialem gratiam
Super omnes sanctos:
quia tu es privilegiatus,
Quod solvis est solutum,
in terris et per caelum,
Et quicquid hic ligaveris,
ligatum est in caelis . . . etc.

Here this form of writing is obviously bound together with poor latinity. Again and again the authors return to the attack. The

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"Obscure Men" write verse letters, satires, lyrics,--and usually in this rimed form. The conclusion is unavoidable that the ecclesiastical party normally wrote in this way, since otherwise the satire would have lacked point.

Fortunately the whole development of this type, the original Latin, the translation into English of the fourteenth century, the modification of the translation into the English of the fifteenth century, may be illustrated by a single poem. In the middle of the fourteenth century in his Polychronicon Higden inserted a rimed description of Wales. A few of the opening verses will show the type. ¹

Libtri finis nunc Cambriam
Prius tangit quam Angliam;
Sic propero ad Walliam.
Ad Priami prosapiam;
Ad magni Jovis sanguinem,
Ad Dardani progeniem.
Sub titulis his quatuor
Terrae statum exordior;
Primo de causa nominis;
Secundo de praeconiis;
Tandem de gentis ritibus;
Quarto de mirabilibus.
Haec terra, quae nunc Wallia,
Quondam est dicta Cambria,
A Cambro Bruti filio,
Qui rexit hanc dominio: etc.

But in 1387 John Trevesa, at the request of Thomas,Lord Berkeley, translated the whole into English, priding himself upon the exactness of the translation.

"In somme place I shall sette word for worde, and actyf for actyf, and passyf for passif arowe right as it stondeth withoute chaungynge of the ordre of wordes; but in somme place I must chaunge the ordre of wordes and sette actyf for passyf and ayenward; and in somme place I muste sette a reson for a worde, and telle what it meneth; but for al such chaungyng the menyng shal stande and not be chaunged. . . ." ²

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With the duty of a translator so plainly stated, the relation between the Latin and the English is no longer in doubt.

How þe book takeþ in honde
Wales to fore Engelonde;
So I take my tales
And wende forþ in to Wales,
To that noble brood
Of Priamus his blood,
Knoweleche for to wynne
Of greet Iubiter his kynne,
For to haue in mynde
Dardanus his kynde.
In þis foure titles I fonde
To telle þe state of þat londe.
Cause of þe name I schall telle,
And þan preise þe lond I welle.
Than I schal write wiþ my pen
Alle þe maneres of þe men.
Then I schal fonde
To telle mervailes of þe longe.
Wales hatte now Wallis,
And somtyme highte Cambria,
For Camber, Brutes sone,
Was kyng, and þere dede won; etc.

But in 1482, nearly a hundred years later, Caxton brought out the Polychronicon itself with Trevesa's translation. In respect to this last, in his preface he says:

"I, William Caxton, a symple person, haue endeuoyred me to wryte fyrst ouer all the sayd book of proloconycon, and comewhat haue chaunged the rude and old Englyssh, that is to wete certayn wordes which in these days be neither vsyd ne vnderstanden, and furthermore haue put it in emprynte to thende that it maye be had and the maters therein comprised to be knowen." ¹

In other words, Caxton has modernized the book so that it accords with the standards of his time. ²

Now this book taketh on honde
Wales after Englond,
So take I my tales,
And wende into Wales,
To that noble brood
Of Priamus blood,

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Knoleche for to wynne
Of grete Jupiters kynne,
For to have in mynde
Dardanus kynde.
In thise foure titles I fonde
To alle the state of that londe;
Cause of the nam I shall telle;
And then preyse the lond and welle;
Then I shall write with my penne
Alle the maners of the menne;
Thenne I shall fonde
To telle mervailles of the londe.

Of the name, how it is named Walis.

Wales now is called Wallia,
And somtyme it heet Cambria.
For Camber Brutes sone
Was prince, and there dyde wone, etc.

But this English of the end of the fifteenth century is very like the "doggerel" of Skelton, the French of the fratrasie, or the Italian of the frottola.

If the reasoning be right, it goes far to explain the contemptuous attitude toward Skelton on the part of his contemporaries. In the vulgar tongue Skelton was reproducing forms and points of view that were associated in the mind of his age with lack of dignity and restraint. Thus Barclay writing the full-sailed rime-royal,--a measure sustained by the great literary tradition, goes out of his way to sneer at Skelton's performance:

It longeth nat to my scyence nor cunnynge
For Phylyp the Sparowe the (Dirige) to synge.

This might easily be interpreted as a personal fling at the author by Barclay; yet Skelton himself witnesses that this was a sufficiently ordinary attitude.

Of Phillip Sparow the lamentable fate,
The dolefull deteny, and the carefull chaunce,
Dyuysed by Skelton after the funerall rate;
Yet sum there be therewith that take greuaunce,
And grudge thereat with frownyng countenaunce;
But what of that? hard it is to please all men;
Who list amende it, let hym set to his penne. . . .

Garland of Laurel, ll. 1254- 1260.

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Yet Philip Sparrow is a perfectly inoffensive poem, and written before the great satires. This disdain must have been due, then, not to the poem itself, but to the type to which it belonged, a type associated with the unruly side of university life. It is noticeable that the Garland of Laurel, Skeltonapologia pro vita sua, is itself composed in rime-royal. But as if in defiance of his critics, immediately after the passage quoted follow one hundred and fifteen lines in defense of Philip Sparrow in the Skeltonical measure! And that passage is itself broken by a conscious parade of four Latin hexameters. Here Skelton shows that he appreciates the force of the criticism, that he has the necessary learning to write in the manner of the age, and that he does not care to do so.

With an author of so dominant a personality as that of Skelton, the poems would differ also in content from conventional work. Before realism was invented he would look out on life with an eye, shrewd, perhaps jaundiced. With a courage such as his, he would speak out plainly. At all events that is clearly what Skelton did! The result is a long series of attacks and refutations. Nor is the sympathy of the modern reader always on the side of the author. Thus, one need not hold a brief for the Court of Henry VII without refusing to believe that it was peopled exclusively by such characters as those of the Bouge of Court. More did not find it so with Archbishop Morton. Nor did Skelton agree better with the scholars. He quarreled with Lily, with Barclay, with Gaguin (one of whose pieces Barclay translated). ¹ None of these have survived, and from the list in the Garland, avowedly incomplete, we learn of others besides those that have come down to us. His attack seems to have been both general and particular, both national and individual, both jovial and bitter. As his poems against Garnesche are endorsed "By the kynges most noble commaundment", that was apparently a jesting match; and his epitaphs on John Clarke and John Jayberd, in however poor taste, were still intended to cause a smile. Quite otherwise is his exultation over the Scotch for the defeat at Flodden Field. In an entirely different vein is his Ware the Hawke, where, like a hawk, he pounces upon a parson for the truly objectionable practice of bringing his falcon

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into the church at Diss. ¹ What he apparently considered his chief work, the poem beginning,

" Apollo that whirllid vp his chare," ²

has been lost. This was so bitter that Skelton himself wished to suppress it, as when Occupacyoun mentions it, the poet comments:

"With that I stode vp, half sodenly afrayd;
Suppleyng to Fame, I besought her grace,
And that it wolde please her, full tenderly I prayd,
Owt of her bokis Apollo to rase.
Nay, sir, she sayd, what so in this place
Of our noble courte is ones spoken owte,
It must nedes after rin all the worlde aboute.

God wrote, theis wordes made me full sad;
And when that I sawe it wolde no better be,
But that my peticyon wolde not be had,
What shulde I do but take it in gre?
For, by Juppiter and his high mageste,
I did what I cowde to scrape out the scrollis,
Apollo to rase out of her ragman rollis."

Although the poem be lost, it is possible, to guess its contents. A side note reads: Factum est cum Apollo esset Corinthi: Actus Apostolorum." The Vulgate gives the reference. ³ Apollo was a certain Jew, eloquent, mighty in the scriptures, and fervent in the spirit. Presumably Skelton, taking him as an exemplar, spoke his mind freely on the condition of the Church in

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England. According to his own account the effect of his remarks was pronounced:

"That made sum to snurre and snuf in the wynde;
It made them to skip, to stampe, and to stare,
Whiche, if they be happy, haue cause to beware
In ryming and raylyng with hym for to mell,
For drede that he lerne them there A, B, C, to spell." ¹

And the last lines certainly suggest that the poem was inspired by eloquence other than that of St. Paul teaching the doctrine of the Christ. ²

It must be confessed that such is his mental attitude, at least in the poems we have. Skelton is much more interested in smiting the enemy hip and thigh than he is in preaching the doctrine of heavenly love. He is a mighty warrior before the Lord. His Latin reading had not only given him a point of view from which to criticise English conditions, it had also furnished him models for exceedingly plain speaking.

"The famous poettes saturicall,
As Percius and Iuuynall,
Horace and noble Marciall," ³

at least with the exception of Horace, were not restrained. Martial's satires certainly are characterized by keen merciless dissection of conditions, extreme expression of his results, and a complete disregard of the consequence to himself. ⁴ Of course to the modern reader the poems pay the penalty of all satire, namely that they are unintelligible without notes. A realization of the questions at issue, whether the poem be Absalom and Achitophel, or

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the Dunciad, or British Bards and Scotch Reviewers, is first essential before the reader can appreciate the brilliancy of the attack. Immediate success, gained by allusion to contemporaneous persons and events, is succeeded by increasing oblivion, as those persons and events recede into the past. Byron's bitterness toward Scott is still comprehended by the general reader, because the general reader still knows Scott, but who now cares for Pope's dunces? To a very large degree, Shadwell and Settle survive only because Dryden attacked them, and his scathing lines on Buckingham and Shaftesbury are most read in books of familiar quotations. To this general law of satire, in Skelton's case is added the particular disqualification that there is no general agreement in regard to the facts and that feeling still runs high. The literary value is consequently ignored in the heated controversy as to the truth of his accusations. On one side he is regarded as a coarse buffoon blaspheming in doggerel verse; on the other as an author who bears witness to the truth. Neither of these views concern us here. The only questions are, how far he believed what he said and to what extent he was able to give expression to his own convictions. And whatever opinion may be held as to the dignity of his manner, or the justification of his procedure, at least he must be credited with having produced work that by any criterion of literary criticism cannot be ignored.

Of this type of political poem there are five, thus listed in the edition of Dyce: A replycacion agaynst certayne yong scolers abiured of late, &c.; Colyn Clout; Speke, Parrot; Why come ye nat to Courte; and Howe the douty Duke of Albany, &c. The most salient characteristic of these poems taken as a group is the obscurity. For this there are three reasons. The first is that to some extent this obscurity was intentional. As has been seen in the Bouge of Court, Skelton on one side belongs to the school representing the medieval tradition, one of whose critical tenets was that the use of "covert terms" acted as a stimulant to the reader. But whereas a conventional poet, such as Hawes, merely resorts to allegory, Skelton refines the theory into cryptogram.

Loke on this tabull,
Whether thou art abull
To rede or to spell
What these verses tell.

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Sicculo lutueris est colo būraarā Nixphedras uisarum caniuter tuntantes. ¹

Henry Bradley, by recombining chosen syllables, has resolved ² the lines into

Sic velut est Arabum phenix avis unica tantum.

Another illustration may be found in the Garland, where the letters in the name of his adversary are indicated by their numerical position in the alphabet. With a mind inclined naturally to such ingenuity, the temptation to deal in riddles must have been overpowering in those cases where the actions of powerful men were criticised. Such a method would be both profound and safe. On the other hand, in inverse proportion to the profundity of the poem would be its effect. Consequently Skelton is torn between two desires, first the natural wish to escape the consequences of too obvious expression of opinion, and secondly, the impulse to cast the weight of his influence on the side of the right. When one remembers both the power of Wolsey and his elaborate system of espionage, it is hard to restrain a thrill of admiration for this literary David. The end was of course inevitable. Goliath fell, it is true, but Skelton did not live to see the catastrophe he had helped to produce. In the sanctuary of St. Margaret at Westminister he dies beaten, his last words a confession of failure as he surrenders to the enemy dedicating with fulsome superlatives his last work to the Cardinal. ³

Another reason for the present difficulty in understanding the poems in their entirety arises from the first, and yet is distinct from it. As we do not know the exact date at which any poem was composed, or even published, we are never sure to what political event reference is made. With the exception of a copy of the Garland of Laurel, 1523, all of the early copies of the single poems are undated. As the first edition with a date, that of Thomas Marshe , 1568, is long posterior to the composition of the poems, there is very little external evidence. It is a happy chance that the one poem preserved in a dated issue is the Garland of Laurel,

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Inpryntyd by me Rycharde faukes . . . The yere of our lorde god. M. CCCCC. XXIII. The. iii. day of October. In this long poem to justify the poetic laurel awarded him by the Countess of Surrey, is enumerated "sum parte of Skeltons bokes and baladis with ditis of pleasure, in as moche as it were to longe a proces to reherse all by name that he hath compylyd." Here, then, we have a list of poems, although admittedly not exhaustive, that is authentic and the poems of which must have been composed before October 3rd, 1523. Yet, of the five poems grouped above, two only are mentioned. There is little external evidence to guide us.

There is yet another reason that invalidates the dating from the mention of the poems in the Garland, namely Skelton's manner of composition. It is inferentially probable that at least three of the poems are composites, formed from fragments written at different times. Consequently, while there is a certain unity in tone throughout any poem, the references to persons and events seem confused. An illustration of this difficulty is Speke, Parrot, a poem usually regarded as unintelligible. A cursory glance shows that, instead of a single poem, there is a group of short poems, several of which seem to be dated. Thus one section ends with the line "Penultimo die Octobris, 33°;" another, "In diebus Novembris, 34;" another, "15 kalendis Decembris, 34," etc. That these figures may refer to the year of the century is impossible, because Skelton died in 1529; that they may refer to the year of the reign of Henry VII is equally impossible, because he was on the throne but twenty-three years. Yet, since for years Skelton had been an official of the Court of Henry VII, and as such must have dated all his official papers from the accession of the King, it seems probable that for sentimental reasons or for the purpose of concealment he continued the reckoning. "Penultimo die Octobris, 33°" becomes merely October 30th, 1517. If this be true, Speke, Parrot forms a running commentary on the events in the years 1517 and 1518. Naturally at the time when they were written they were perfectly comprehensible to the court, for whom they were intended. So much was this the case that, in order to protect himself against a charge of treason, he uses nomenclature borrowed from the Book of Judges,--with the result that to the modern reader unable to date the poems accurately, the whole

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seems a farago of nonsense. ¹ Likewise it seems probable that Colin Clout also was composed at different times, and that upon a poem, written on general conditions, he grafted later additions attacking Cardinal Wolsey. The chronological order of the five satires probably is Speke, Parrot, 1517- 1518; Why Come Ye not to Court, 1521-23; The Duke of Albany, 1523; Colin Clout,-- 1525; and the Replycacion, 1527. ²

With these approximate dates for the composition of the poems, it is possible to show Skelton's conceptions developing through the ten years. First, his position must be remembered. In the Skelton of the apocryphal Merie Tales we have lost the real Skelton, chosen to be tutor to a prince of the blood royal, praised by Erasmus for his learning, and patronized by the great house of Howard. ³ A priori such a man would naturally be conscious of the existence of evil conditions and yet conservative in applying a cure. Naturally also he is intensely loyal to his former pupil, the King.

Cryst saue Kyng Henry the viii, our royall kyng,
The red rose in honour to florysh and sprynge!

With Kateryne incomparable, our ryall quene also,
That pereles pomegarnet, Chryst saue her noble grace!

Speke, Parrot, ll. 36-39

Six years later his loyalty is as intense and more voluble.

But nowe will I expounde
What noblenesse dothe abounde,
And what honour is founde,
And what vertues be resydent
In our royall regent,
Our perelesse president,
Our kyng most excellent:
In merciall prowes
Lyke unto Hercules;
In prudence and wysdom
Lyke vnto Salamon;

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In his goodly person
Lyke vnto Absolon;
In loyalte and foy
Lyke to Ector of Troy;
And his glory to incres,
Lyke to Scipiades;
In royal mageste
Lyke vnto Ptholome,
Lyke to Duke Iosue,
And the valiaunt Machube,
That if I wolde reporte
All the roiall sorte
Of his nobilyte,
His magnanymyte,
His animosite,
His frugalite,
His lyberalite,
His affabilite,
His humanyte,
His stabilite,
His humilite,
His benignite,
His royal dignyte,
My lernying is to small
For to recount them all.

Duke of Albany, II., 423-458.

This appreciation of the royal virtues does not err on the side of understatement.

But this enthusiasm for the King does not extend to conditions in the kingdom. In an age of change he is unable to adjust himself to the new ideas. This feeling of protest finds expression--if so cryptic an utterance may be called expression,--in the group of poems, Speke, Parrot. The first part of it was obviously written in the medieval manner. The verse-form is the rime-royal; he triumphantly announces that it is an allegory.

But that metaphora, allegoria with all, Shall be his protectyon, his pauys, and his wall. ¹

Here, as we have seen, he objects to the study of Greek on the ground that it is both useless and dangerous. Yet he does not stop at this point. He passes on to the really dangerous topic of

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state affairs. Thus whatever appearance of unity there is is due to the device of putting widely different subject matters, written at different times, into the mouth of a parrot,--which occasionally makes confusion worse confounded by talking nonsense. The value of this device is at once clear; it enabled the author to string together whatever he chose, and also to shirk the responsibility for the interpretation of any part. The reader sees dangerous discussion of high polity; the author grins that he sees too much, that it is only a parrot speaking. The conclusion is inevitable that the events on which these poems form a commentary and the personalities alluded to under scriptural names, were so wellknown to the public that the poet feared to be more open. The key precedes the cypher. Speke, Parrot, then, marks a farther step than the Bouge of Court away from the medieval type. ¹

It must be confessed that the resemblance between such work as Speke, Parrot, and this type of medieval poetry has become exceedingly tenuous. The complete severance is made in the next poem, Colin Clout. Here the dream-structure is abandoned in favor of a single dramatic ego; personification and allegory change to direct statement; and the rime-royal is abandoned in favor of the Skeltonical verse. The scheme of the poem is very simple. Under the name of Colin Clout, the author purports merely to repeat what is being said:

"Thus I, Colyn Cloute,
As I go about,
And wandrynge as I walke,
I here the people talke." ²

Consequently he does not guarantee the truth of what he hears:

"And eyther ye be to bad,
Or else they ar mad
Of this to reporte. . ." ³

And he is filled with indignation that they are so loose-tongued:

"But, under your supporte,
Tyll my dyenge day
I shall both wryte and say,

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And ye shall do the same,
Howe they are to blame
You thus to dyffame:
For it maketh me sad
Howe that the people are glad
The Churche to depraue. . ." ¹

Nor should he be blamed because his motives are the best:

"Make ye no murmuracyon,
Though I wryte after this facion;
Though I, Colyn Cloute,
Among the hole route
Of you that clerkes be,
Take nowe vpon me
Thus copyously to wryte,
I do it for no despyte.
Wherefore take no dysdayne
At my style rude and playne;
For I rebuke no man
That vertuous is: why than
Wreke ye your anger on me?" ²

It would be difficult to conceive a framework at once more flexible and more irritating than this. He is the friend that brings you unpleasant rumors about yourself, because he feels that you should know what is being said. And, as we have all found to our sorrow, there is no reply possible. One cannot argue--he does not say that he believes what he says--nor can you object to him--he tells you with the kindest of motives. You gnash your teeth in silent fury while he exhorts you to patience. Even in the conception of the mechanism of his poem Skelton is clever.

Not only is the mechanism irritating, it is also flexible. As he pretends only to report, he is enabled to discuss matters in any order. In an incoherent way he takes up the condition of the whole Church. To any thoughtful observer the situation during the second decade of the sixteenth century seemed full of danger. The pretensions of the Church, as voiced by the Pope, to supremacy in non-ecclesiastical affairs, however logical from medieval precedent, ran counter to the growth of national feeling that tended to exalt the monarchical idea. This was not peculiar to England.

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Previously the conflict between Louis XII of France with the papacy indicated the same condition; but a few more years were to pass until Rome itself was to be given to be sacked by the troups of the Spanish Charles. Skelton is an acute diagnostician in selecting this as the root of the trouble.

"For, as farre as I can se,
It is wronge with eche degre:
For the temporalte
Accuseth the spiritualte;
The spirituall agayne
Dothe grudge and complayne
Vpon the temporall men:
Thus eche of other blother
The tone agayng the tother:
Alas, they make me shoder!
For in hoder moder
The Church is put in faute. . . ." ¹

And it is the Church for which Skelton, as a member of the Church, is loyally fighting.

In the conflict between these two parties, the Church and the State, Skelton counsels that the Church should give way. It is here that, like Erasmus, he shows his humanistic bias. His learning gives him sufficient perspective to perceive that while both are in the wrong, the onus lies more heavily upon the Church. And with steady scalpel he exposes the corruptions. The first criticism of the Church is that it has become parasitic.

"Laye men say indede
How they take no hede
Theyr sely shepe to fede,
But plucke away and pull
The fleces of theyr wull. . .
All to haue promocyon,
There is theyr hole deuocyon,
With money, if it wyll hap,
To catche the forked cap (mitre) . . ." ²

"And surely thus they say,
Bysshoppes, if they may,
Small houses wolde kepe,
Theyr soules lene and dull,

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But slumbre forth and slepe,
And assay to crepe
Within the noble walles
Of the kynges halles,
To fat theyr bodyes full,
Theyr soules lene and dull,
And haue full lytell care
How euyll theyr shepe fare. ¹

Thus moved by an ambition, little spiritual, they are cowardly false to their trust,

How be it they are good men,
Moche herted lyke an hen. . . ²

And they have forgotten the lessons St. Thomas á Becket gave them! They sell the grace of the Holy Ghost! The result is the total disorganization of the Church.

And howe whan ye gyue orders
In your prouinciall borders,
As at Sitientes,
Some are insufficientes,
Some parum spaientes,
Some nihil intelligentes,
Some valde negligentes,
Some nullum sensum habentes,
But bestiall and vntaught;
But whan thei haue ones caught
Dominus vobiscum by the hede,
Than renne they in euery stede,
God wot, with dronken nolles;
Yet take they cure of soules,
And woteth neuer what thei rede,
Paternoster, Ave, nor Crede;
Construe not worth a whystle
Nether Gospel nor Pystle;
Theyr mattyns madly sayde,
Nothynge deuoutly prayd;
theyr lernynge is so small,
Theyr prymes and houres fall
And lepe out of theyr lyppes
Lyke sawdust or drye chyppes.
I speke not nowe of all,
But the moost parte in generall. ³

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And the ignorance of the clergy is both wide-spread and appalling, due primarily to the fact that the candidates are not selected with care.

In you the faute is supposed,
For that they are not apposed
By just examinacyon
In connyng and conuersacyon;
They haue none instructyon
To make a true constructyon:
A preest without a letter,
Without his vertue be gretter,
Doubtlesse were moche better
Vpon hym for to take
A mattocke or a rake.
Alas, for very shame!
Some can not declyne their name;
Some can not scarsly rede,
And yet he wyll not drede
For to kepe a cure,
And in nothyng is sure;
This Dominus vobiscum,
As wyse as Tom a thrum,
A chaplayne of trust
Layth all in the dust. ¹

On account of this demoralization the laity feel that the clergy cannot be trusted. Here Skelton does not hesitate to put into words accusations that we are told today originated with the Reformers:

Of prebendaries and deanes,
Howe some of them gleanes
And gathereth vp the store
For to catche more and more;
Of persons and vycaryes
They make many outcryes;
They cannot kepe theyr wyues
From them for theyr lyues;
And thus the loselles stryues,
And lewedly sayes by Christ
Agaynst the sely preest. ²

The inevitable result is the Reformation.

And some haue a smacke
Of Luthers sacke,

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And a brennyng sparke
Of Luthers warke,
And are somewhat suspecte
In Luthers secte;
And some of them barke,
Clatter and carpe
Of that heresy arte
Called Wicleuista,
And deuelysshe dogmatista;
And some be Hussyans,
And some be Arryans,
And some be Pollegians,
And make moche varyans
Bytwene the clergye
And the temporaltye . . . ¹

In this passage Skelton is a loyal son of the Church. That it is possible for men to be seduced by the truth of the hideous heresies of Luther and Wycliff never enters his mind. The sole reason that he can conceive for such backsliding is that the evil lives of the clergy have rendered their Church contemptible.

And the responsibility for this wretched condition rests upon the bishops. Through pride, vain-glory and hypocrisy they have ceased to be "lanterns of light." They are of the world, worldly, forgetting the lessons of their Master.

Chryst by cruelte
Was nayled vpon a tre;
He payed a bytter pencyon
For mannes redemcyon,
He dranke eysell and gall
To redeme vs withall;
But swete ypocras ye drynke,
With, Let the cat wynke! ²

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Let them come forth at large, preach so simply that they may be understood, and all will be well. Thus Skelton is at one with Erasmus. He feels no need for reformation outside of the Church; it is reformation within the Church that is needed imperatively and rapidly. Therefore is he writing, not against the Church, but in behalf of the Church, and as a lover of the Church he cries out against those that defile Her sacraments. This attitude expl