JOHN SKELTON
Was born of an ancient family in Cumberland, he received his education at Oxford, and entering into holy orders was made rector of Dysso in Norfolk in the reign of Henry VIII. tho' more probably he appeared first in that of Henry VII. and may be said to be the growth of that time. That he was a learned man Erasmus has confirmed, who in his letter to King Henry VIII. stileth him, Britanicarum Literarum Lumen & Decus: Tho' his stile is rambling and loose, yet he was not without invention, and his satire is strongly pointed. He lived near fourscore years after Chaucer, but seems to have made but little improvement in versification. He wrote some bitter satires against the clergy, and particularly, his keen reflections on Cardinal Wolsey drew on him such severe prosecutions, that he was obliged to fly for sanctuary to Westminster, under the protection of Islip the Abbot, where he died in the year 1529. It appears by his poem entitled, The Crown of Laurel, that his performances were numerous, and such as remain are chiefly these, Philip Sparrow, Speak Parrot, the Death of King Edward IV, a Treatise of the Scots, Ware the Hawk, the Tunning of Elianer Rumpkin. In these pieces there is a very rich vein of wit and humour, tho' much debased by the rust of the age he lived in. His satires are remarkably broad, open and ill-bred; the verse cramped by a very short measure, and encumbered with such a profusion of rhimes, as makes the poet appear almost as ridiculous as those he endeavours to expose. In his more serious pieces he is not guilty of this absurdity; and confines himself to a regular stanza, according to the then reigning mode. His Bouge of Court is a poem of some merit: it abounds with wit and imagination, and shews him well versed in human nature, and the insinuating manners of a court. The allegorical characters are finely described, and well sustained; the fabric of the whole I believe entirely his own, and not improbably may have the honour of furnishing a hint even to the inimitable Spencer. How or by whose interest he was made Laureat, or whether it was a title he assumed to himself, cannot be determined, neither is his principal patron any where named; but if his poem of the Crown Lawrel before mentioned has any covert meaning, he had the happiness of having the Ladies for his friends, and the countess of Surry, the lady Elizabeth Howard, and many others united their services in his favour. When on his death-bed he was charged with having children by a mistress he kept, he protected that in his conscience he kept her in the notion of a wife: And such was his cowardice, that he chose rather to confess adultery than own marriage, a crime at that time more subjected to punishment than the other.
The PROLOGUE to the BOUGE COURTS.
In autumne, whan the sunne in vyrgyne,
By radyante hete, enryped hath our corne,
When Luna, full of mucabylyte,
As Emperes the dyademe hath worne
Of our Pole artyke, smylynge half in scorne,
At our foly, and our unstedfastnesse,
The tyme when Mars to warre hym did dres
I, callynge to mynde the great auctoryte
Of poetes olde, whiche full craftely,
Under as couerte termes as coulde be,
Can touche a trouthe, and cloke subtylly
With fresh Utterance; full sentcyously,
Dyverse in style: some spared not vyce to wryte,
Some of mortalitie nobly dyd endyte.
His other works, as many as could be collected are chiefly these:
Meditations on St. Ann.
————on the Virgin of Kent.
Sonnets on Dame Anne,
Elyner Rummin, the famous alewife of England, often printed, the last edition 1624.
The Peregrinations of human Life.
Solitary Sonnets.
The Art of dying well.
————Speaking eloquently.
Manners of the Court.
Invective against William Lyle the Grammarian.
Epitaphs on Kings, Princes, and Nobles,
Collin Clout.
Poetical Fancies and Satires.
Verses on the Death of Arthur Prince of Wales.
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