gs. We are
told that he was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pulpit. The
humour of Skelton consists principally of severe personal vituperation.
In "Colyn Cloute" he assailed the clergy generally, but he wrote
personal attacks on Garnesche (a courtier), and on Wolsey. The Cardinal
had been his patron at one time, and Skelton had dedicated poems to him,
among them "A Replycacion" against the followers of Wickliffe and
Luther--of which pious effusion the following lines will give a
specimen:--

"To the honour of our blessed lady
And her most blesed baby,
I purpose for to reply
Agaynst this horryble heresy
Of these young heretics that
Stynke unbrent.

"I say, thou madde marche hare,
I wondre how ye dare
Open your ianglyng iawes,
To preche in any clawes
Lyke pratynge poppyng dawes.

"I say, ye braynless beestes,
Why iangle you such iestes.
In your diuynite
Of Luther's affynite
To the people of lay fee
Raylying in your rages
To worshyppe none ymages
Nor do pylgrymages."

The cause of his quarrel with Wolsey is not known, but he afterwards
wrote a severe personal attack upon him entitled, "Why come ye not to
Courte?" The tone of this effusion may be gathered from such expressions
as:--

"God save his noble grace
And grant him a place
Endlesse to dwell,
With the deuyll of hell,
For and he were there
We nede neuer feere,
Of the fendys blake;
For I vndertake
He wolde so brag and crake,
That he wolde then make
The deuyls to quake,
To shudder and to shake."

Owing to such attacks, he was obliged to flee and take sanctuary at
Westminster, where he died. His most entertaining pieces are "Speke
Parrot," "Phyllyt Sparrowe," and "Elynour Rummynge." In the first a fair
lady laments the death of her bird, killed by "those vylanous false
cattes." She sings a "requiescat" for the soul of her dear bird, and
recounts all his pretty ways--

"Sometyme he wolde gaspe
When he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat
He wolde flye at that;
And prytely he wold pant
When he saw an ant;
Lord, how he wolde pry
After the butterfly!
Lord, how he wolde hop
After the gressop,
And whan I said Phypp, Phypp,
Than he wolde lepe and skyp,
And take ane by the lyp.
Alas it will me slo
That Phillyp is gone we fro!"

She gives a long list of birds, who are to attend at his funeral, from
wh