“Ah decus, ah patriæ specie pulcherrima dudum!
Urbs Norvicensis,” &c.
Does “patriæ” mean his native county?
[17] “Having been educated in this university, as Joh. Baleus attests.” Wood’s Ath. Oxon. i. 50. ed. Bliss. Wood’s reference in the note is “In lib. De Scriptoribus Anglicis, MS. inter cod. MSS. Selden, in bib. Bodl. p. 69 b.” The printed copy of Bale’s work contains no mention of the place of Skelton’s education. Part of Bale’s information concerning Skelton, as appears from the still extant MS. collections for his Script. Illust. Brit., was received “Ex Guilhelmo Horman,” the author of the Vulgaria.—See also Tanner’s Biblioth. p. 675. ed. 1748.—Warton says that Skelton “studied in both our universities.” Hist. of E. P. ii. 336. ed. 4to.
[18] A Replycacion, &c. vol. i. 207.
[19] “Wood reckons him of Ox. on the author. of Bale in a MS. in the Bodleian Libr., but with much better reason he may be called ours; for I find one Scheklton M.A. in the year 1484, at which time allowing him to be 24 years of age, he must be at his death A.D. 1529, 68 or 69 years old, which ’tis probable he might be. v. Bale 653.” Cole’s Collections,—Add. MSS. (Brit. Mus.) 5880, p. 199.
[20] I suspect that, during Skelton’s lifetime, two of his most celebrated pieces, Colyn Cloute (see v. 1239, vol. i. 359), and Why come ye nat to Courte, were not committed to the press, but wandered about in manuscript among hundreds of eager readers. A portion of Speke, Parrot, and the Poems Against Garnesche, are now for the first time printed.
[21] Vol. i. 408 sqq. No poetical antiquary can read the titles of some of the lighter pieces mentioned in that catalogue,—such as The Balade of the Mustarde Tarte, The Murnyng of the mapely rote (see Notes, vol. ii. 330), &c.—without regretting their loss. “Many of the songs or popular ballads of this time,” observes Sir John Hawkins, “appear to have been written by Skelton.” Hist. of Music, iii. 39.
I take the present opportunity of giving from a MS. in my possession a much fuller copy than has hitherto appeared of the celebrated song which opens the second act of Gammer Gurtons Nedle, and which Warton calls “the first chanson à boire or drinking-ballad, of any merit, in our language.” Hist. of E. P. iii. 206. ed. 4to. The comedy was first printed in 1575: the manuscript copy of the song, as follows, is certainly of an earlier date:
“backe & syde goo bare goo bare