pen by skill doth passe,
And featly nyps the worldes abuse,
And shoes vs in a glasse
The vertu and the vice
Of eury wyght alyue:
The hony combe that bee doth make
Is not so sweete in hyue
As are the golden leues
That drops from poets head,
Which doth surmount our common talke
As farre as dros doth lead:
The flowre is sifted cleane,
The bran is cast aside,
And so good corne is knowen from chaffe,
And each fine graine is spide.
Peers Plowman was full plaine,
And Chausers spreet was great;
Earle Surry had a goodly vayne;
Lord Vaus the marke did beat,
And Phaer did hit the pricke
In thinges he did translate,
And Edwards had a special gift;
And diuers men of late
Hath helpt our Englishe toung,
That first was baes and brute:—
Ohe, shall I leaue out Skeltons name,
The blossome of my frute,
The tree wheron indeed
My branchis all might groe?
Nay, Skelton wore the lawrell wreath,
And past in schoels, ye knoe;
A poet for his arte,
Whoes iudgment suer was hie,
And had great practies of the pen,
His works they will not lie;
His terms to taunts did lean,
His talke was as he wraet,
Full quick of witte, right sharp of words,
And skilfull of the staet;
Of reason riep and good,
And to the haetfull mynd,
That did disdain his doings still,
A skornar of his kynd;
Most pleasant euery way,
As poets ought to be,
And seldom out of princis grace,
And great with eche degre.
Thus haue you heard at full
What Skelton was indeed;
A further knowledge shall you haue,
If you his bookes do reed.
I haue of meer good will
Theas verses written heer,
To honour vertue as I ought,
And make his fame apeer,
That whan the garland gay
Of lawrel leaues but laet:
Small is my pain, great is his prayes,
That thus sutch honour gaet.
Finis quod Churchyarde.”
[146] slouth] Old ed. “sloulth.”
[147] fraes] i.e. phrase.—In the Muses Library, 1737, p. 138, this word is altered to “bayes.”
From Johannis Parkhvrsti Ludicra siue Epigrammata Juuenilia. 1573, 4to.
“De Skeltono vate & sacerdote.
Skeltonus grauidam reddebat forte puellam,
Insigni forma quæ peperit puerum.
Illico multorum fama hæc pervenit ad aures,
Esse patrem nato sacrificum puero.
Skeltonum facti non pœnitet aut pudet; ædes
Ad sacras festo sed venit ipse die:
Pulpita conscendit facturus verba popello;
Inque hæc prorupit dicta vir ille bonus;
Quid vos, O scurræ, capit admiratio tanta?
Non sunt eunuchi, credite, sacrifici:
O stolidi, vitulum num me genuisse putatis?
Non genui vitulum, sed lepidum puerum;
Sique meis verbis non creditis, en puer, inquit;
Atque e suggesto protulit, ac abiit.”
p. 103.
From A Treatise Against Jvdicial Astrologie. Dedicated to the Right Honorable Sir Thomas Egerton Knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seale, and one of her Maiesties most honorable priuie Councell. Written by John Chamber, one of the Prebendaries of her Maiesties free Chappell of Windsor, and Fellow of Eaton College. 1601. 4to.
“Not much vnlike to merrie Skelton, who thrust his wife out at the doore, and receiued her in againe at the window. The storie is well known how the bishop had charged him to thrust his wife out of the doore: but that which was but a meriment in Skelton,” &c. p. 99.
“So that the leape yeare, for any thing I see, might well vse the defence of merie Skelton, who being a priest, and hauing a child by his wife, euerie one cryed out, Oh, Skelton hath a child, fie on him, &c. Their mouthes at that time he could not stop: but on a holy day, in a mery mood, he brought the child to church with him, and in the pulpit stript it naked, and held it out, saying, See this child: is it not a pretie child, as other children be, euen as any of yours? hath it not legs, armes, head, feet, limbes, proportioned euery way as it shuld be? If Skelton had begot a monster, as a calfe, or such like, what a life should poore Skelton haue had then?
