Johannes Baptista Spagnuoli, commonly called from his native city, Mantuan, was the most popular and prolific eclogue writer of the fifteenth century, to which Barclay himself testifies:—
"As the moste famous Baptist Mantuan
The best of that sort since Poetes first began."
Barclay's Eclogues being the first attempts of the kind in English, Bale's "Ex Mantuano," therefore probably means nothing more than "on the model of Mantuan;" otherwise, if it be assumed that five were the whole number that ever appeared, it could not apply to the first three, which are expressly stated in the title to be from Æneas Sylvius, while if ten be assumed, his statement would account for nine, the "quinque eglogas" being the five now wanting, but if so, then he has omitted to mention the most popular of all the eclogues, the fifth, and has failed to attribute to Mantuan two which are undoubtedly due to him.
The loss of the "Contra Skeltonum," is a matter for regret. That there was no love lost between these two contemporaries and chief poets of their time is evident enough. Skelton's scathing sarcasm against the priesthood no doubt woke his brother satirist's ire, and the latter lets no opportunity slip of launching forth his contempt for the laureate of Oxford.
The moralist in announcing the position he assumes in opposition to the writer of popular tales, takes care to have a fling at the author of "The boke of Phyllyp Sparowe":—
"I wryte no Ieste ne tale of Robyn Hode,
Nor sawe no sparcles, ne sede of vyciousnes;
Wyse men loue vertue, wylde people wantones,
It longeth nat to my scyence nor cunnynge,