v. 522. payne] i. e. difficulty.
Page 50. v. 525. shrewes] i. e. wicked, worthless fellows.
v. 527. confetryd] i. e. confederated.
v. 528. lewde] i. e. vile, rascally.
v. 529. slee] i. e. slay.
v. 530. hente] i. e. seized.
v. 536. Syth] i. e. Since.
PHYLLYP SPAROWE
Must have been written before the end of 1508; for it is mentioned with contempt in the concluding lines of Barclay’s Ship of Fooles, which was finished in that year: see Account of Skelton and his Writings.
The Luctus in morte Passeris of Catullus no doubt suggested the present production to Skelton, who, when he calls on “all maner of byrdes” (v. 387) to join in lamenting Philip Sparow, seems also to have had an eye to Ovid’s elegy In mortem Psittaci, Amor. ii. 6. Another piece of the kind is extant among the compositions of antiquity,—the Psittacus Atedii Melioris of Statius, Silv. ii. 4. In the Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Joco-seriæ, &c., of Dornavius, i. 460 sqq. may be found various Latin poems on the deaths, &c. of sparrows by writers posterior to the time of Skelton. See too Herrick’s lines Upon the death of his Sparrow, an Elegie, Hesperides, 1648. p. 117; and the verses entitled Phyllis on the death of her Sparrow, attributed to Drummond, Works, 1711. p. 50.