1504.[149] It must have been presented before king Henry the seventh, at the royal manor or palace, at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed. The characters are a Necromancer or conjuror, the devil, a notary public, Simonie, and Philargyria or Avarice. It is partly a satire on some abuses in the church; yet not without a due regard to decency, and an apparent respect for the dignity of the audience. The story, or plot, is the tryal of Simony and Avarice: the devil is the judge, and the notary public acts as an assessor or scribe. The prisoners, as we may suppose, are found guilty, and ordered into hell immediately. There is no sort of propriety in calling this play the Necromancer: for the only business and use of this character, is to open the subject in a long prologue, to evoke the devil, and summon the court. The devil kicks the necromancer, for waking him so soon in the morning: a proof that this drama was performed in the morning, perhaps in the chapel of the palace. A variety of measures, with shreds of Latin and French, is used: but the devil speaks in the octave stanza. One of the stage-directions is, Enter Balsebub with a Berde. To make him both frightful and ridiculous, the devil was most commonly introduced on the stage wearing a visard with an immense beard. Philargyria quotes Seneca and saint Austin: and Simony offers the devil a bribe. The devil rejects her offer with much indignation: and swears by the foule Eumenides, and the hoary beard of Charon, that she shall be well fried and roasted in the unfathomable sulphur of Cocytus, together with Mahomet, Pontius Pilate, the traitor Judas, and king Herod. The last scene is closed with a view of hell, and a dance between the devil and the necromancer. The dance ended, the devil trips up the necromancer’s heels, and disappears in fire and smoke.” Hist. of E.P. ii. 360. ed. 4to.
[149] “My lamented friend Mr. William Collins, whose Odes will be remembered while any taste for true poetry remains, shewed me this piece at Chichester, not many months before his death: and he pointed it out as a veryrare and valuable curiosity. He intended to write the HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION OF LEARNING UNDER LEO THE TENTH, and with a view to that design, had collected many scarce books. Some few of these fell into my hands at his death. The rest, among which, I suppose, was this INTERLUDE, were dispersed.”
In the Garlande of Laurell (vol. i. 408, sqq.) Skelton enumerates many of his compositions which are no longer extant.
PIECES ATTRIBUTED TO SKELTON.
Verses presented to King Henry the Seventh at the feast of St. George celebrated at Windsor in the third year of his reign—first printed by Ashmole (see vol. ii. 387 of the present work).
The Epitaffe of the moste noble and valyaunt Jaspar late Duke of Beddeforde, printed by Pynson, 4to, n. d. (see vol. ii. 388.)
Elegy on King Henry the Seventh—an imperfect broadside (see vol. ii. 399).
Merie Tales Newly Imprinted & made by Master Skelton Poet Laureat. Imprinted at London in Fleetstreat beneath the Conduit at the signe of S. John Euangelist, by Thomas Colwell, 12mo, n. d. (see the preceding Appendix.) Warton, Hist. of E.P. ii. 336 (note), gives the date 1575 to these Tales—on what authority I know not.
Other pieces might be mentioned.
MSS.
Of the death of the noble prince, Kynge Edwarde the forth. In a vol. belonging to Miss Richardson Currer, which has furnished a stanza hitherto unprinted (vol. i. 1).
Vpon the doulourus dethe and muche lamentable chaunce of the most honorable Erle of Northumberlande. MS. Reg. 18 D ii. fol. 165 (vol. i. 6).
Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale. Fairfax MS.—Add. MSS. (Brit. Mus.) 5465, fol. 109 (vol. i. 28).
Poems against Garnesche. MS. Harl. 367, fol. 101. Now for the first time printed (vol. i. 116).
“Wofully araid,” &c. Fairfax MS.—Add. MSS. 5465, fol. 76 and fol. 86 (Brit. Mus.): and MS. copy in a very old hand on the fly-leaves of Boetius de Discip. Schol. cum notabili commento, Daventrie, 1496, 4to (in the collection of the late Mr. Heber), which has supplied several stanzas hitherto unprinted (vol. i. 141).
“I, liber, et propera, regem tu pronus adora,” &c. MS. C.C.C.—No. ccccxxxii. of Nasmith’s Catal. p. 400 (vol. i. 147).
“Salve plus decies quam sunt momenta dierum,” &c. Add. MSS. (Brit. Mus.) 4787, fol. 224 (vol. i. 177).
Colyn Cloute. MS. Harl. 2252, fol. 147 (vol. i. 311).—In MS. Lansdown 762, fol. 75, is a fragment of this poem, “The profecy of Skelton” (vol. i. 329).
Garlande of Laurell. MS. Cott. Vit. E X. fol. 200; very imperfect (vol. i. 361).
Speke, Parrot. MS. Harl. 2252, fol. 133, which has supplied much now for the first time printed (vol. ii. 1).
Diodorus Siculus translated into English [by Skelton poet-laureat]. MS. C.C.C.—No. ccclvii. of Nasmith’s Catal. p. 362.
For the following account of this MS. I am indebted to Mr. Thomas Wright:—
“MS. Corp. Chr. Camb. No. 357.
At the head of the first folio—‘Interpretatio Skeltoni poetæ Laureati,’ written in a different hand from the MS. (by Nasmith said to be by Archb. Parker himself) over something which has been erased, but which seems to have been ‘Prohemye of Poggius.’
At the end of this preface is written in the same hand as MS. ‘Thus endeth the prohemye of Poggius.’ fol. 2 verso.
At fol. 3 begins ‘The prohemy of Diodorus thauctour.’ This ends at fol. 7 thus—
¶ ‘Now we wyll enforce to begynne our processe historyall. quod Skelton.
¶ Here endeth the prohemy of all the hole processe.’
The words ‘quod Skelton’ are written in rather a different hand, and with different ink, but apparently contemporary. I think it not impossible that they may have been added by the original hand at another time.
It is imperfect at the end: but on a leaf bound up with it is written in a much later hand (perhaps by Parker), ‘Hec charta de industria vacua relicta est, ut occasio daretur juveni in litteris exercitato aggrediendi translationem historiæ que hic diminuta est, ut sic humeri sui vires experiatur quid ferre valeant, quidve recusent, tum cognoscet quid hic translator prestiterit, fortassis non ita facile in hoc genere a multis superandus.’ ”
Tanner (Biblioth. p. 676. ed. 1748) mentions the following two pieces as extant in his day among the MSS. of Lincoln Cathedral Library (see Memoir, pp. xxi, xxiii.)—
Methodos Skeltonidis laureati, sc. Præcepta quædam moralia Henrico principi, postea Henr. viii, missa, Dat. apud Eltham A.D. MDI. Principium deest.
Carmen ad principem, quando
