“Old Skelton’s ‘Philip Sparrow,’ an exquisite and original poem.” Coleridge’s Remains, ii. 163.
Page 51. v. 1. Pla ce bo, &c.] Skelton is not the only writer that has taken liberties with the Romish service-book. In Chaucer’s Court of Loue, parts of it are sung by various birds; Domine, labia by the nightingale, Venite by the eagle, &c., Workes, fol. 333. ed. 1602: in a short poem by Lydgate “dyuerse foules” are introduced singing different hymns. MS. Harl. 2251. fol. 37: and see too a poem (attributed, without any authority, to Skelton) called Armony of Byrdes, n. d., reprinted (inaccurately) in Typog. Antiq. iv. 380. ed. Dibdin; and Sir D. Lyndsay’s Complaynt of the Papingo, Works, i. 325. ed. Chalmers. In Reynard the Fox we are told that at the burial of “coppe, chanteklers doughter,”—“Tho begonne they placebo domino, with the verses that to longen,” &c. Sig. a 8. ed. 1481. Compare also the mock Requiem printed (somewhat incorrectly) from MS. Cott. Vesp. B. 16. in Ritson’s Antient Songs, i. 118. ed. 1829; Dunbar’s Dirige to the King at Stirling, Poems, i. 86. ed. Laing; and the following lines of a rare tract entitled A Commemoration or Dirige of Boner, &c., by Lemeke Auale, 1569,—
“Placebo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo.
Heu me, beware the bugge, out quod Boner alas,
De profundis clamaui, how is this matter come to passe.
Lævaui oculos meos from a darke depe place,” &c.
sig. A viii.
Other pieces of the kind might be pointed out.
v. 6. Wherfore and why, why?] So in the Enterlude of Kyng Daryus, 1565;
“Thys is the cause wherfore and why.”