lief. To a
life and character so well known as are those of Wolsey, and
upon which Dr. Fiddes has published a huge folio of many
hundred pages, the reader will not here expect any
additional matter which may convey much novelty or interest.
The following, however, may be worth submitting to his
consideration. The Cardinal had poetical, as well as
political, enemies. Skelton and Roy, who did not fail to
gall him with their sharp lampoons, have shewn us, by their
compositions which have survived, that they were no
despicable assailants. In the former's "_Why come ye not to
Court?_" we have this caustic passage:

He is set so high
In his hierarchy
Of frantic _frenesy_
And foolish fantasy,
That in chamber of stars
All matters there he mars,
Clapping his rod on the _borde_
No man dare speake a word;
For he hath all the saying
Without any _renaying_:
He rolleth in his records
He saith: "How say ye my lords?
Is not my reason good?"
Good!--even good--Robin-hood?
Borne upon every side
_With pomp and with pride, &c._
To drink and for to eat
Sweet _ypocras_, and sweet meat,
To keep his flesh chaste
In Lent, for his repast
He eateth capons stew'd
Pheasant and partidge mewed.

WARTON'S _Hist. Engl. Poetry_, vol. ii., 345.

Steevens has also quoted freely from this poem of Skelton;
see the editions of _Shakspeare_, 1793, and 1803, in the
play of "King Henry VIII." Skelton's satire against Wolsey
is noticed by our chronicler Hall: "In this season, the
cardinal, by his power legantine, dissolved the convocation
at Paul's, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and
called him and all the clergy to his convocation to
Westminster, which was never seen before in England; whereof
Master Skelton, a merry poet, wrote:

Gentle Paul lay down thy _sweard_
For Peter of Westminster hath shaven thy beard."

_Chronicle_, p. 637, edit. 1809.

In Mr. G. Ellis's _Specimens of the Early English Poets_,
vol. ii., pp. 7, 8, there is a curious extract from the same
poet's "_Image of Ypocrycye_"--relating to Sir Thomas
More--which is printed for the first time from