1Mr. Ellis has preserved it entire, with notes which make it intelligible to any modern reader.2Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” ii. 1.—“The liberty of abasing their kings and princes at pleasure, assumed by the good people of this realm, is a privilege of very long standing.”3The Political Songs of England have been recently given by Mr. Thomas Wright, to whom our literature owes many deep obligations. [In the series of volumes published by the Camden Society.]4LewedMr. Campbell interpretslow, which is not quite correct. Hearne explains the term as signifying “the laity, laymen, and the illiterate.”—Thelaymanwas always considered to beilliterate, by the devices of the monks.5It is to be regretted that Mr.Jamieson, in his “Popular Ballads,” was unavoidably prevented enlarging this class of his songs. He has given the carols of theBoatmen, theCorn-grinders, and theDairy-women.—Jamieson’s “Popular Ballads,” ii. 352. [See also “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. ii., p. 142, for an article on Songs of Trades, or Songs of the People. A volume of “Songs of the English Peasantry” was published by the Percy Society; and several others are given with the tunes in Chappell’s “Popular Music of the Olden Time.”]6Hearne’s “Preface to Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle,” xxxvii.7The curious researches of a French antiquary in this class of literature are given in the two octavo volumes entitled “Histoire des Livres Populaires, ou de la Littérature du Colportage,” (Paris, 1854,) by M. Chas. Nisard, who was appointed to the task by a Royal Commission.—Ed.8“Foreign Quarterly Review,” vol. 18. [It is reprinted in the first Volume of Thoms’ “Early English Prose Romances.”]9It has been frequently reprinted, and recently in Germany, as alivre de luxe, illustrated with admirable designs by Kaulbach.—Ed.10Weber. “Brit. Bib.,” vol. iv.—The German song of the Ladybird is beautifully versified in the preface to “German Popular Stories,” by the late Edgar Taylor.11A calamity to which wits are incident is that of having their names prefixed to collections to give them currency. I do not know whether this has not happened to our author. “The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham” are no doubt of great antiquity; they are characterised by a peculiar simplicity of silliness. “Scogin’s Jests,” of the sixty which we have, a very few tradition may have preserved, but they must have received in the course of time the addition of pointless jests, tales marred in the telling, and some things neither jest nor tale; and it is remarkable that these are always accompanied by an inane moralisation, while the more tolerable appear to be preserved in their original condition. Some future researcher may be so fortunate as to compare them with the first editions if they exist.John Scogin was a gentleman of good descent, who was invited to court by Edward the Fourth for the pleasantry of his wit; he was a caustic Democritus, and gave rise to a proverbial phrase, “What says Scogin?” If he usually said two-thirds of what is ascribed to him in this volume, he had never given rise to a proverb. “The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham” have been recently reprinted by Mr. Halliwell.12Several of these pieces are preserved in Mr. Utterson’s “Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry.” This attack on women proved not a theme less fertile among our neighbours; how briskly the skirmish was carried on the notice of a single writer will show:—“Alphabet de l’Imperfection et Malice des Femmes, par J. Olivier, licencier aux loix, et en droit-canon,” 1617; three editions of which appeared in the course of two years. This blow was repelled by “Defense des Femmes contre l’Alphabet de leur pretendue Malice,” by Vigoureux, 1617; the first author rejoined with a “Réponse aux Impertinences de l’Aposté Capitaine Vigoureux,” by Olivier, 1617. The fire was kept up by an ally of Olivier, in “Réplique à l’Anti-Malice du Sieur Vigoureux,” by De la Bruyere, 1617. At a period earlier than this conflict, the French had, as well as ourselves, many works on the subject.
1Mr. Ellis has preserved it entire, with notes which make it intelligible to any modern reader.
2Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” ii. 1.—“The liberty of abasing their kings and princes at pleasure, assumed by the good people of this realm, is a privilege of very long standing.”
3The Political Songs of England have been recently given by Mr. Thomas Wright, to whom our literature owes many deep obligations. [In the series of volumes published by the Camden Society.]
4LewedMr. Campbell interpretslow, which is not quite correct. Hearne explains the term as signifying “the laity, laymen, and the illiterate.”—Thelaymanwas always considered to beilliterate, by the devices of the monks.
5It is to be regretted that Mr.Jamieson, in his “Popular Ballads,” was unavoidably prevented enlarging this class of his songs. He has given the carols of theBoatmen, theCorn-grinders, and theDairy-women.—Jamieson’s “Popular Ballads,” ii. 352. [See also “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. ii., p. 142, for an article on Songs of Trades, or Songs of the People. A volume of “Songs of the English Peasantry” was published by the Percy Society; and several others are given with the tunes in Chappell’s “Popular Music of the Olden Time.”]
6Hearne’s “Preface to Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle,” xxxvii.
7The curious researches of a French antiquary in this class of literature are given in the two octavo volumes entitled “Histoire des Livres Populaires, ou de la Littérature du Colportage,” (Paris, 1854,) by M. Chas. Nisard, who was appointed to the task by a Royal Commission.—Ed.
8“Foreign Quarterly Review,” vol. 18. [It is reprinted in the first Volume of Thoms’ “Early English Prose Romances.”]
9It has been frequently reprinted, and recently in Germany, as alivre de luxe, illustrated with admirable designs by Kaulbach.—Ed.
10Weber. “Brit. Bib.,” vol. iv.—The German song of the Ladybird is beautifully versified in the preface to “German Popular Stories,” by the late Edgar Taylor.
11A calamity to which wits are incident is that of having their names prefixed to collections to give them currency. I do not know whether this has not happened to our author. “The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham” are no doubt of great antiquity; they are characterised by a peculiar simplicity of silliness. “Scogin’s Jests,” of the sixty which we have, a very few tradition may have preserved, but they must have received in the course of time the addition of pointless jests, tales marred in the telling, and some things neither jest nor tale; and it is remarkable that these are always accompanied by an inane moralisation, while the more tolerable appear to be preserved in their original condition. Some future researcher may be so fortunate as to compare them with the first editions if they exist.
John Scogin was a gentleman of good descent, who was invited to court by Edward the Fourth for the pleasantry of his wit; he was a caustic Democritus, and gave rise to a proverbial phrase, “What says Scogin?” If he usually said two-thirds of what is ascribed to him in this volume, he had never given rise to a proverb. “The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham” have been recently reprinted by Mr. Halliwell.
12Several of these pieces are preserved in Mr. Utterson’s “Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry.” This attack on women proved not a theme less fertile among our neighbours; how briskly the skirmish was carried on the notice of a single writer will show:—“Alphabet de l’Imperfection et Malice des Femmes, par J. Olivier, licencier aux loix, et en droit-canon,” 1617; three editions of which appeared in the course of two years. This blow was repelled by “Defense des Femmes contre l’Alphabet de leur pretendue Malice,” by Vigoureux, 1617; the first author rejoined with a “Réponse aux Impertinences de l’Aposté Capitaine Vigoureux,” by Olivier, 1617. The fire was kept up by an ally of Olivier, in “Réplique à l’Anti-Malice du Sieur Vigoureux,” by De la Bruyere, 1617. At a period earlier than this conflict, the French had, as well as ourselves, many works on the subject.
THE DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED BY A PRIMITIVE AUTHOR.
SirThomas Elyot is the first English prose writer who avowedly attempted to cultivate the language of his country. We track the prints of the first weak footsteps in this new path; and we detect the aberrations of a mind intent on a great popular design, but still vague and uncertain, often opposed by contemporaries, yet cheered by the little world of his readers.
Elyotfor us had been little more than a name, as have been many retired students, from the negligence of contemporaries, had he not been one of those interesting authors who have let us into the history of their own minds, and either prospectively have delighted to contemplate on their future enterprises, or retrospectively have exulted in their past labours.
This amiable scholar had been introduced at Court early in life; his “great friend and crony was Sir Thomas More;” so plain Anthony à Wood indicates the familiar intercourse of two great men. Elyot was a favourite with Henry the Eighth, and employed on various embassies, particularly on the confidential one to Rome to negotiate the divorce of Queen Katherine. To his public employments he alludes in his first work, “The Governor,” which “he had gathered as well of the sayings of most noble authors, Greek and Latin, as by his own experience, he being continually trained in some daily affairs of the public weal from his childhood.”
A passion for literature seems to have prevailed over the ambition of active life, and on his return from his last embassy he decided to write books “in our vulgar tongue,” on a great variety of topics, to instruct his countrymen. The diversity of his reading, and an unwearied pen, happily qualified, in this early age of the literature of a nation, a student who was impatient to diffuse that knowledge which he felt he only effectually possessed in the degree, and in the space, which he communicated it.
His first elaborate work is entitled, “The Boke of the Governor, devised by Sir Thomas Elyot,” 1531,—a work onceso popular, that it passed through seven or eight editions, and is still valued by the collectors of our ancient literature.
“The Governor” is one of those treatises which, at an early period of civilization, when general education is imperfect, becomes useful to mould the manners and to inculcate the morals which should distinguish the courtier and the statesman. Elyot takes his future “Governor” in the arms of his nurse, and places the ideal being amid all the scenes which may exercise the virtues, or the studies which he developes. The work is dedicated to Henry the Eighth. The design, the imaginary personage, the author and the patron, are equally dignified. The style is grave; and it would not be candid in a modern critic to observe that, in the progress of time, the good sense has become too obvious, and the perpetual illustrations from ancient history too familiar. The erudition in philology of that day has become a schoolboy’s learning. They had then no other volumes to recur to of any authority, but what the ancients had left.
Elyot had a notion that, for the last thousand years, the world had deteriorated, and that the human mind had not expanded through the course of ages. When he compared the writers of this long series of centuries, the babbling, though the subtle, schoolmen, who had chained us down to their artificial forms, with the great authors of antiquity, there seemed an appearance of truth in his decision. Christianity had not yet exhibited to modern Europe the refined moralities of Seneca, and the curious knowledge of Plutarch, in the homilies of Saints and Fathers; nor had its histories of man, confined to our monkish annalists, emulated the narrative charms of Livy, nor the grandeur of Tacitus. Of the poets of antiquity, Elyot declared that the English language, at the time he wrote, could convey nothing equivalent, wanting even words to express the delicacies, “the turns,” and the euphony of the Latin verse.
A curious evidence of the jejune state of the public mind at this period appears in this volume. Here a learned and grave writer solemnly sets forth several chapters on “that honest pastime of dancing,” in which he discovers a series of modern allegories. The various figures and reciprocal movements between man and woman,“holding each other by the hand,” indicate the order, concord, prudence, and other virtues so necessary for the common weal. Thesinglesandreprinsesexhibit the virtue of circumspection, which excites the writer to a panegyric of the father of the reigning sovereign. These ethics of the dance contain some curious notices, and masters in the art might hence have embellished their treatises on the philosophy of dance; for “in its wonderful figures, which the Greeks do callidea, are comprehended so many virtues and noble qualities.” It is amusing to observe how men willingly become the dupes of their fancies, by affecting to discover motives and analogies, the most unconnected imaginable with the objects themselves. Long after our polished statesman wrote, the Puritan excommunicated the sinful dancer, and detected in the graceful evolutions of “the honour,” the “brawl,” and the “single,” with all their moral movements, the artifices of Satan, and the perdition of the souls of two partners, dancing too well. It was the mode of that age thus to moralise, or allegorise, on the common acts of life, and to sanction their idlest amusements by some religious motive. At this period, in France, we find a famousVeneur, Gaston Phebus, opening his treatise on “hunting” in the spirit that Elyot had opened to us the mysteries of dancing. “By hunting, we escape from the seven mortal sins, and therefore, the more we hunt, the salvation of our souls will be the more secure. Every good hunter in this world will have joyance, glee, and solace, (joyeuseté, liesse, et deduit,) and secure himself a place in Paradise, not perhaps in the midst, but in the suburbs, because he has shunned idleness, the root of all evil.”
“The Boke of the Governor” must now be condemned to the solitary imprisonment of the antiquary’s cell, who will pick up many curious circumstances relative to the manners of the age—always an amusing subject of speculation, when we contemplate on the gradations of social life. I suspect the world owed “The Governor” to a book more famous than itself—theCortegianoof Castiglione, which appeared two years before the first edition of this work of Elyot, and to whose excellence Elyot could have been no stranger in his embassies to his holiness, and to the emperor. But of “The Governor,” and “The Cortegiano,”what can we now say, but that three centuries are fatal to the immortality of volumes, which, in the infancy of literature, seemed to have flattered themselves with a perpetuity of fame.
It was, however, a generous design, in an age of Latin, to attempt to delight our countrymen by “the vulgar tongue;” but these “first fruits,” as he calls them, gave their author a taste of the bitterness of “that tree of knowledge.”
In a subsequent work, “Of the Knowledge which maketh a Wise Man,” Elyot has recorded how he had laid himself open to “the vulgar.” In the circle of a Court there was equal peril in moralising, which was deemed to be a rebuke, as in applying rusty stories, which were considered as nothing less than disguised personalities. “The Boke” was not thankfully received. Thepersifleurs, those butterflies who carry waspish stings, accounted Sir Thomas to be of no little presumption, that “in noting other men’s vices he should correctmagnificat.” This odd neologism of “magnificat” was a mystical coinage, which circulated among these aristocratic exclusives who, as Elyot describes them, “like a galled horse abiding no plaisters, be always knapping and kicking at such examples and sentences as they do feel sharp, or do bite them.” The chapters on “The Diversity of Flatterers,” and similar subjects, had made many “a galled jade wince;” and in applying the salve, he got a kick for the cure. They wondered why the knight wrote at all! “Other much wiser men, and better learned than he, do forbear to write anything.” They inscribed modern names to his ancient portraits. The worried author exclaims—“There be Gnathos in Spain as well as in Greece; Pasquils in England as well as in Rome, &c. If men will seek for them in England which I set in other places, I cannot let (hinder) them.” But in another work—“Image of Governance,” 1540—when he detailed “the monstrous living of the Emperor Heliogabalus,” and contrasted that gross epicurean with Severus, such a bold and open execration of the vices of a luxurious Court could not avoid being obvious to the royal sensualist and his companions, however the character and the tale were removed to a bygone age.
In this early attempt to cultivate “the vulgar tongue,”some cavilled at his strange terms. It is a striking instance of the simplicity of the critics at that early period of our language, that our author formally explains the wordmaturity—“a Latin word, which I am constrained to usurp, lacking a name in English, and which, though it be strange and dark, yet may be understood as other words late comen out of Italy and France, and made denizens among us.” Augustus Cæsar, it seems, had frequently in his mouth this wordmatura—do maturely! as “if he should have said, Do neither too much nor too little—too swiftly nor too slowly.” Elyot would confine the figurative Latin term to a metaphysical designation of the acts of men in their most perfect state, “reserving,” as he says, “the word ripeness to fruit and other things, separate from affairs, as we have now in usage.” Elyot exults in having augmented the English language by the introduction of this Latin term, now made English for the first time! It has flourished as well as this other, “theredolentsavours of sweet herbs and flowers.” But his ear was not always musical, and some of his neologisms are less graceful—“an alective,” to wit; “fatigate,” to fatigue; “ostent,” to show, and to “sufficatesome disputation.” Such were the first weak steps of the fathers of our language, who, however, culled for us many a flower among their cockle.
But a murmur more prejudicial arose than the idle cavil of new and hard words; for some asserted that “the Boke seemed to be overlong.” Our primeval author considered that “knowledge of wisdom cannot be shortly declared.” Elyot had not yet attained, by sufficient practice in authorship, the secret, that the volume which he had so much pleasure in writing could be over tedious in reading. “For those,” he observes sarcastically, “who be well willing, it is soon learned—in good faith sooner than primero or gleek.” The nation must have then consisted of young readers, when a diminutive volume in twelves was deemed to be “overlong.” In this apology for his writings, he threw out an undaunted declaration of his resolution to proceed with future volumes.—“If the readers of my works, by the noble example of our most dear sovereign lord, do justly and lovingly interpret my labours, I, during the residue of my life, will now andthen set forth such fruits of my study, profitable, as I trust, unto this my country, leaving malicious readers with their incurable fury.” Such was the innocent criticism of our earliest writer—his pen was hardly tipped with gall.
As all subjects were equally seductive to the artless pen of a primitive author, who had yet no rivals to encounter in public, Elyot turned his useful studies to a topic very opposite to that of political ethics. He put forth “The Castle of Health,” a medical treatise, which passed through nearly as many honourable editions as “The Governor.” It did not, however, abate the number, though it changed the character of his cavillers, who were now the whole corporate body of the physicians!
The author has told his amusing story in the preface to a third edition, in 1541.
“Why should I be grieved with reproaches wherewith some of my country do recompense me for my labours, taken without hope of temporal reward, only for the fervent affection which I have ever borne toward the public weal of my country? ‘A worthy matter!’ saith one; ‘Sir Thomas Elyot has become a physician, and writeth on physic, which beseemeth not a knight; he might have been much better occupied.’ Truly, if they will call him a physician who is studious of the weal of his country, let men so name me.”
But there was no shame in studying this science, or setting forth any book, being—
“Thereto provoked by the noble example of my noble master King Henry VIII.; for his Highness hath not disdained to be the chief author of an introduction to grammar for the children of his subjects.
“If physicians be angry that I have written physic in English, let them remember that Greeks wrote in Greek, the Romans in Latin, and Avicenna in Arabic, which were their own proper and maternal tongues. These were paynims and Jews, but in this part of charity they far surmounted us Christians.”
Several years after, when our author reverted to his “Castle of Health,” the Castle was brightened by the beams of public favour. Its author now exulted that “It shall long preserve men, be some physicians never soangry.” The work had not been intended to depreciate medical professors, but “for their commodity, by instructing the sick, and observing a good order in diet, preventing the great causes of sickness, or by which they could the sooner be cured.” Our philosopher had attempted to draw aside that mystifying veil with which some affected to envelope the arcana of medicine, as if they were desirous “of writing in cypher that none but themselves could read.” Our author had anticipated that revolution in medical science which afterwards, at a distant period, has been productive of some of the ablest treatises in the vernacular languages of Europe.
The patriotic studies of Elyot did not terminate in these ethical and popular volumes, for he had taxed his daily diligence for his country’s weal. This appeared in “The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot, 1535,” a folio, which laid the foundation of our future lexicons, “declaring Latin by English,” as Elyot describes his own labour.
Elyot had suffered some disappointments as a courtier in the days of Wolsey, who lavished the royal favours on churchmen. In a letter to Lord Cromwell, he describes himself with a very narrow income, supporting his establishment, “equal to any knight in the country where I dwell who have much more to live on;” but a new office, involving considerable expense in its maintenance, to which he had been just appointed, he declares would be his ruin, having already discharged “five honest and tall personages.”—“I wot not by what malice of fortune I am constrained to be in that office, whereunto is, as it were, appendent loss of money and good name, all sharpness and diligence in justice now-a-days being everywhere odious.” And this was at a time when “I trusted to live quietly, and by little and little to repay my creditors, andto reconcile myself to mine old studies.”
This letter conveys a favourable impression of the real character of this learned man; but Elyot had condescended abjectly to join with the herd in the general scramble for the monastic lands; and if he feigned poverty, the degradation is not less. There are cruel epochs in a great revolution; moments of trial which too often exhibit the lofty philosopher shrinking into one of thepeople. It is probable that he succeeded in his petition, for I find his name among the commissioners appointed to make a general inquiry after lands belonging to the Church, as also to the colleges of the universities, in 1534.
But in this day of weakness Elyot sunk far lower than petitioning for suppressed lands. Elyot was suspected of inclining to Popery, and being adverse to the new order of affairs. His former close intimacy with Sir Thomas More contributed to this suspicion, and now, it is sad to relate, he renounces this ancient and honourable friendship! Peter denied his Master. “I beseech your good lordship now to lay apart the remembrance of the amity betwixt me and Sir Thomas More, which was butusque ad aras, as is the proverb, considering that I was never so much addicted unto him as I was unto truth and fidelity towards my sovereign lord.” Was the influence of such illustrious friendships to be confined to chimney-corners? Had Elyot not listened to the wisdom, and revered the immutable fortitude, of “his great friend and crony?”—he, the stern moralist, who, in his “Governor,” had written a remarkable chapter on “the constancy of friends,” and had illustrated that passion by the romantic tale of Titus and Gesippus, where the personal trials of both parties far exceed those of the Damon and Pythias of antiquity, and are so eloquently developed and so exquisitely narrated by the great Italian novelist.
The literary history of SirThomas Elyotexhibits the difficulties experienced by a primitive author in the earliest attempts to open a new path to the cultivation of a vernacular literature; and it seems to have required all the magnanimity of our author to sustain his superiority among his own circle, by disdaining their petulant criticism, and by the honest confidence he gathered as he proceeded, in the successive editions of his writings.
SKELTON.
Ata period when satire had not yet assumed any legitimate form, a singular genius appeared in Skelton. His satire is peculiar, but it is stamped by vigorous originality. The fertility of his conceptions in his satirical or his humorous vein is thrown out in a style created by himself. The Skeltonical short verse, contracted into five or six, and even four syllables, is wild and airy. In the quick-returning rhymes, the playfulness of the diction, and the pungency of new words, usually ludicrous, often expressive, and sometimes felicitous, there is a stirring spirit which will be best felt in an audible reading. The velocity of his verse has a carol of its own. The chimes ring in the ear, and the thoughts are flung about like coruscations. But the magic of the poet is confined to his spell; at his first step out of it he falls to the earth never to recover himself. Skelton is a great creator only when he writes what baffles imitation, for it is his fate, when touching more solemn strains, to betray no quality of a poet—inert in imagination and naked in diction. Whenever his muse plunges into the long measure of heroic verse, she is drowned in no Heliconian stream. Skelton seems himself aware of his miserable fate, and repeatedly, with great truth, if not with some modesty, complains of
Mine homely rudeness and dryness.
Mine homely rudeness and dryness.
But when he returns to his own manner and his own rhyme, when he riots in the wantonness of his prodigal genius, irresistible and daring, the poet was not unconscious of his faculty; and truly he tells,—
Though my rime be ragged,Tattered and jagged,Rudely rain-beaten,Rusty, moth-eaten,If ye take well therewith,It hath in it some pith.
Though my rime be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely rain-beaten,
Rusty, moth-eaten,
If ye take well therewith,
It hath in it some pith.
Whether Skelton really adopted the measures of the old tavern-minstrelsy used by harpers, who gave “a fitof mirth for a groat,” or “carols for Christmas,” or “lascivious poems for bride-ales,” as Puttenham, the arch-critic of Elizabeth’s reign, supposes; or whether in Skelton’s introduction of alternate Latin lines among his verses he caught the Macaronic caprice of the Italians, as Warton suggests; the Skeltonical style remains his own undisputed possession. He is a poet who has left his name to his own verse—a verse, airy but pungent, so admirably adapted for the popular ear that it has been frequently copied,1and has led some eminent critics into singular misconceptions. The minstrel tune of the Skeltonical rhyme is easily caught, but the invention of style and “the pith” mock these imitators. The facility of doggrel merely of itself could not have yielded the exuberance of his humour and the mordacity of his satire.
This singular writer has suffered the mischance of being too original for some of his critics; they looked on the surface, and did not always suspect the depths they glided over: the legitimate taste of others has revolted against the mixture of the ludicrous and the invective. A taste for humour is a rarer faculty than most persons imagine; where it is not indigenous, no art of man can plant it. There is no substitute for such a volatile existence, and where even it exists in a limited degree, we cannot enlarge its capacity for reception. A great master of humour, whoobserved from his experience, has solemnly told us that “it is not in the power of every one to taste humour, however he may wish it—it is the gift of God; and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.”2
Puttenham was the first critic who prized Skelton cheaply; the artificial and courtly critic of Elizabeth’s reign could not rightly estimate such a wild and irregular genius. The critic’s fastidious ear listens to nothing but the jar of rude rhymes, while the courtier’s delicacy shrinks from the nerve of appalling satire. “Such,” says this critic, “are the rhymes of Skelton, usurping the name of a Poet Laureat, being indeed but a rude rayling rhimer, and all his doings ridiculous—pleasing only the popular ear.” This affected critic never suspected “the pith” of “the ridiculous;” the grotesque humour covering the dread invective which shook a Wolsey under his canopy. Another Elizabethan critic, the obsequious Meres, re-echoes the dictum. These opinions perhaps prejudiced the historian of our poetry, who seems to have appreciated them as the echoes of the poet’s contemporaries. Yet we know how highly his contemporaries prized him, notwithstanding the host whom he provoked. One poetical brother3distinguishes him as “the Inventive Skelton,” and we find the following full-length portrait of him by another:—4
A poet for his art,Whose judgment sure was high,And had great practise of the pen,His works they will not lie;His termes to taunts did leane,His talk was as he wrate,Full quick of wit, right sharpe of wordes,And skilful of the state;*****And to the hateful minde,That did disdaine his doings still,A scorner of his kinde.
A poet for his art,
Whose judgment sure was high,
And had great practise of the pen,
His works they will not lie;
His termes to taunts did leane,
His talk was as he wrate,
Full quick of wit, right sharpe of wordes,
And skilful of the state;
*****
And to the hateful minde,
That did disdaine his doings still,
A scorner of his kinde.
When Dr. Johnson observed that “Skelton cannot be said to have attained great elegance of language,” he tried Skelton by a test of criticism at which Skelton would havelaughed, and “jangled and wrangled.” Warton has also censured him for adopting “the familiar phraseology of the common people.” The learned editor of Johnson’s “Dictionary” corrects both our critics. “If Skelton did not attain great elegance of language, he however possessed great knowledge of it.” From his works may be drawn an abundance of terms which were then in use among the vulgar as well as the learned, and which no other writer of his time so obviously (and often so wittily) illustrated. Skelton seems to have been fully aware of the condition of our vernacular idiom when he wrote, for he has thus described it:—
Our natural tongue is rude,And hard to be enneudeWith polished termes lusty;Our language is so rusty,So cankered, and so fullOf frowards, and so dull,That if I would applyTo write ordinately,I wot not where to findTerms to serve my mind.
Our natural tongue is rude,
And hard to be enneude
With polished termes lusty;
Our language is so rusty,
So cankered, and so full
Of frowards, and so dull,
That if I would apply
To write ordinately,
I wot not where to find
Terms to serve my mind.
It was obviously his design to be as great a creator of words as he was of ideas. Many of his mintage would have given strength to our idiom. Caxton, as a contemporary, is some authority that Skelton improved the language.
Let not the reader imagine that Skelton was only “a rude rayling rhimer.” Skelton was the tutor of Henry the Eighth; and one who knew him well describes him as—
Seldom out of prince’s grace.
Seldom out of prince’s grace.
Erasmus distinguished him “as the light and ornament of British letters;” and one, he addresses the royal pupil, “who can not only excite your studies, but complete them.” Warton attests his classical attainments—“Had not his propensity to the ridiculous induced him to follow the whimsies of Walter Mapes, Skelton would have appeared among the first writers of Latin poetry in England.” Skelton chose to be himself; and this is what the generality of his critics have not taken in their view.
Skelton was an ecclesiastic who was evidently amongthose who had adopted the principles of reformation before the Reformation. With equal levity and scorn he struck at the friars from his pulpit or in his ballad, he ridiculed the Romish ritual, and he took unto himself that wife who was to be called a concubine. To the same feelings we may also ascribe the declamatory invective against Cardinal Wolsey, from whose terrible arm he flew into the sanctuary of Westminster, where he remained protected by Abbot Islip until his death, which took place in 1529, but a few short months before the fall of Wolsey. It is supposed that the king did not wholly dislike the levelling of the greatness of his overgrown minister; and it is remarkable that one of the charges subsequently brought by the council in 1529 against Wolsey—his imperious carriage at the council-board—is precisely one of the accusations of our poet, only divested of rhyme; whence perhaps we may infer that Skelton was an organ of the rising party.
“Why Come you not to Court?”—that daring state-picture of an omnipotent minister—and “The Boke of Colin Clout,” where the poet pretends only to relate what the people talk about the luxurious clergy, and seems to be half the reformer, are the most original satires in the language. In the days when Skelton wrote these satires there appeared a poem known by the title of “Reade me and be not Wrothe,” a voluminous invective against the Cardinal and the Romish superstitions, which has been ascribed by some to Skelton. The writer wasWilliam Roy, a friar; the genius, though not the zeal, ofRoyandSkeltonare far apart—as far as the buoyancy of racy originality is removed from the downright earnestness of grave mediocrity. Roy had been the learned assistant of Tyndale in the first edition of the translation of the New Testament, and it was the public conflagration at London of that whole edition which aroused his indignant spirit. The satire, which had been printed abroad, was diligently suppressed by an emissary of the Cardinal purchasing up all the copies; and few were saved from the ravage;5the author, however, escaped out of the country.
In “The Crown of Lawrell” Skelton has himself furnished a catalogue of his numerous writings, the greater number of which have not come down to us. Literary productions were at that day printed on loose sheets, or in small pamphlets, which the winds seem to have scattered. We learn there of his graver labours. He composed the “Speculum Principis” for his royal pupil—
To bear in hand, therein to read,
To bear in hand, therein to read,
and he translated Diodorus Siculus—
Six volumes engrossed, it doth contain.
Six volumes engrossed, it doth contain.
To have composed a manual for the education of a prince, and to have persevered through a laborious version, are sufficient evidence that the learned Skelton had his studious days as well as his hours of caustic jocularity. He appears to have written various pieces for the court entertainment; but for us exists only an account of the interlude of the “Nigramansir,” in the pages of Warton, and a single copy of the goodly interlude of “Magnificence,”6in the Garrick collection. If we accept his abstract personations merely as the names, and not the qualities of the dramatic personages, “Magnificence” approaches to the true vein of comedy.
Skelton was, however, probably more gratified by his own Skeltonical style, moulding it with the wantonness of power on whatever theme, comic or serious. In a poem remarkable for its elegant playfulness, a very graceful maiden, whose loveliness the poet has touched with the most vivid colouring, grieving over the fate of her sparrow from its feline foe, chants a dirige, a paternoster, and an Ave Maria for its soul, and the souls of all sparrows. In this discursive poem, which glides from object to object, in the vast abundance of fancy, a general mourning of all the birds in the air, and many allusions to the old romances, “Philip Sparrow,” for its elegance, may be placed by theside of Lesbia’s Bird, and, for its playfulness, by the Vert Vert of Gresset.
But Skelton was never more vivid than in his Ale-wife, and all
The mad mummyngOf Elynour Rummyng,—
The mad mummyng
Of Elynour Rummyng,—
a piece which has been more frequently reprinted than any of his works. It remains a morsel of poignant relish for the antiquary, still enamoured of the portrait of this grisly dame of Leatherhead, where her name and her domicile still exist. Such is the immortality a poet can bestow.7“The Tunnyng of Elynoure Rummyng” is a remarkable production ofthe Grotesque, or the low burlesque; the humour as low as you please, but as strong as you can imagine. Cleland is reported, in Spence’s Anecdotes of Pope, to have said, that this “Tunnyng of Elynoure Rummyng” was taken from a poem of Lorenzo de’ Medici. There is indeed a jocose satire by that noble bard, entitled “I Beoni,” the Topers; an elegant piece of playful humour, where the characters are a company of thirsty souls hastening out of the gates of Florence to a treat of excellent wine. It was printed by the Giunti, in 1568,8and therefore this burlesque piece could never have been known to Skelton. The manners of our Alewife and her gossips are purely English, and their contrivances to obtain their potations such as the village of Leatherhead would afford.
The latest edition of Skelton was published in the days of Pope, which occasioned some strictures in conversation from the great poet. The laureated poet of Henry the Eighth is styled “beastly;” probably Pope alluded to this minute portrait of “Elynoure Rummynge” and her crowd of customers. Beastliness should have been a delicate subject for censure from Pope. But surely Popehad never read Skelton; for could that great poet have passed by the playful graces of “Philip Sparrow” only to remember the broad gossips of “Elynoure Rummyng?”
The amazing contrast of these two poems is the most certain evidence of the extent of the genius of the poet; he who with copious fondness dwelt on a picture which rivals the gracefulness of Albano, could with equal completeness give us the drunken gossipers of an Ostade. It is true that in the one we are more than delighted, and in the other we are more than disgusted; but in the impartiality of philosophical criticism, we must award that none but the most original genius could produce both. It is this which entitles our bard to be styled the “Inventive Skelton.”
But are personal satires and libels of the day deserving the attention of posterity? I answer, that for posterity there are no satires nor libels. We are concerned only with human nature. When the satirical is placed by the side of the historical character, they reflect a mutual light. We become more intimately acquainted with the great Cardinal, by laying together the satire of the mendacious Skelton with the domestic eulogy of the gentle Cavendish. The interest which posterity takes is different from that of contemporaries; our vision is more complete; they witnessed the beginnings, but we behold the ends. We are no longer deceived by hyperbolical exaggeration, or inflamed by unsparing invective; the ideal personage of the satirist is compared with the real one of the historian, and we touch only delicate truths. What Wolsey was we know, but how he was known to his own times, and to the people, we can only gather from the private satirist; corrected by the passionless arbiter of another age, the satirist becomes the useful historian of the man.
The extraordinary combination in the genius of Skelton was that of two most opposite and potent faculties—the hyperbolical ludicrous masking the invective. He acts the character of a buffoon; he talks the language of drollery; he even mints a coinage of his own, to deepen the colours of his extravagance—and all this was for the people! But his hand conceals a poniard; his rapid gestures only strike the deeper into his victim, and we find that theTragedy of the State has been acted while we were only lookers-on before a stage erected for the popular gaze.9
1George Ellis, although an elegant critic, could not relish “the Skeltonical minstrelsy.” In an extract from a manuscript poem ascribed to Skelton, “The Image of Hypocrisy,” and truly Skeltonical in every sense, he condemned it as “a piece of obscure and unintelligible ribaldry;” and so, no doubt, it has been accepted. But the truth is, the morsel is of exquisite poignancy, pointed at Sir Thomas More’s controversial writings, to which the allusions in every line might be pointed out. As these works were written after the death of Skelton, the merit entirely remains with this fortunate imitator.In the public rejoicings at the defeat of the Armada, in 1589, a ludicrous bard poured forth his patriotic effusions in what he called “A Skeltonical Salutation, or Condign Gratulation,” of the Spaniard, who, he says,———In a bravado,Spent many a crusado.In a reprint of the poem of “Elynoure Rummynge,” in 1624, which may be found in the “Harl. Miscellany,” vol. i., there is a poem prefixed which ridicules the lovers of tobacco; this anachronism betrays the imitator. At the close there are some verses from the Ghost of Skelton; but we believe it is a real ghost.2Sterne.3Henry Bradshaw. “Warton,” iii. 13.4Thomas Churchyard.5After the death of the Cardinal it was reprinted, in 1546; but the satire was weakened, being transferred from Wolsey and wholly laid on the clergy. The very rare first edition is reprinted in the “Harleian Miscellany,” by Parke, vol. ix. Tyndale has reproached his colleague with being somewhat artful and mutable in his friendships; but the wandering man proved the constancy of his principles, for as a heretic he perished at the stake in Portugal.6It has passed through a reprint by the Roxburgh Club.7A noble amateur laid on the shrine of this antiquated beauty 20l.to possess her rare portrait; and, on the republication of this portrait, Steevens wrote some sarcastic verses on the print-collectors in the “European Mag.” 1794; they show this famous commentator to have been a polished wit, though he pronounced the Sonnets of Shakspeare unreadable. These verses have been reprinted in “Dibdin’s Bibliomania.”8Roscoe’s “Lorenzo de’ Medici,” i. 290.9The first collection of some of the works of Skelton was made by Thomas Marshe, in 1568. Another edition, by an unknown editor, was in 1736; the text of which is, as Gifford justly observed, execrable. Many of his writings still remain in their manuscript state—see Harleian MSS., 367, 2252; and many printed ones have not been collected. There is no task in our literature so desperately difficult as that of offering a correct text of this anomalous poet; but we may hope to receive it from the diligent labours of Mr. Dyce, so long promised; it would form one of the richest volumes of the Camden publications. [Since this note was written, the poetical works of Skelton have been published by the Rev. A. Dyce, (2 vols. 8vo, T. Rodd, 1843,) with an abundance of elucidatory notes and bibliographical information; so that this difficult task has been performed with great success; and the volumes are among the most valuable of the many works of that conscientious editor.]
1George Ellis, although an elegant critic, could not relish “the Skeltonical minstrelsy.” In an extract from a manuscript poem ascribed to Skelton, “The Image of Hypocrisy,” and truly Skeltonical in every sense, he condemned it as “a piece of obscure and unintelligible ribaldry;” and so, no doubt, it has been accepted. But the truth is, the morsel is of exquisite poignancy, pointed at Sir Thomas More’s controversial writings, to which the allusions in every line might be pointed out. As these works were written after the death of Skelton, the merit entirely remains with this fortunate imitator.
In the public rejoicings at the defeat of the Armada, in 1589, a ludicrous bard poured forth his patriotic effusions in what he called “A Skeltonical Salutation, or Condign Gratulation,” of the Spaniard, who, he says,—
——In a bravado,Spent many a crusado.
——In a bravado,
Spent many a crusado.
In a reprint of the poem of “Elynoure Rummynge,” in 1624, which may be found in the “Harl. Miscellany,” vol. i., there is a poem prefixed which ridicules the lovers of tobacco; this anachronism betrays the imitator. At the close there are some verses from the Ghost of Skelton; but we believe it is a real ghost.
2Sterne.
3Henry Bradshaw. “Warton,” iii. 13.
4Thomas Churchyard.
5After the death of the Cardinal it was reprinted, in 1546; but the satire was weakened, being transferred from Wolsey and wholly laid on the clergy. The very rare first edition is reprinted in the “Harleian Miscellany,” by Parke, vol. ix. Tyndale has reproached his colleague with being somewhat artful and mutable in his friendships; but the wandering man proved the constancy of his principles, for as a heretic he perished at the stake in Portugal.
6It has passed through a reprint by the Roxburgh Club.
7A noble amateur laid on the shrine of this antiquated beauty 20l.to possess her rare portrait; and, on the republication of this portrait, Steevens wrote some sarcastic verses on the print-collectors in the “European Mag.” 1794; they show this famous commentator to have been a polished wit, though he pronounced the Sonnets of Shakspeare unreadable. These verses have been reprinted in “Dibdin’s Bibliomania.”
8Roscoe’s “Lorenzo de’ Medici,” i. 290.
9The first collection of some of the works of Skelton was made by Thomas Marshe, in 1568. Another edition, by an unknown editor, was in 1736; the text of which is, as Gifford justly observed, execrable. Many of his writings still remain in their manuscript state—see Harleian MSS., 367, 2252; and many printed ones have not been collected. There is no task in our literature so desperately difficult as that of offering a correct text of this anomalous poet; but we may hope to receive it from the diligent labours of Mr. Dyce, so long promised; it would form one of the richest volumes of the Camden publications. [Since this note was written, the poetical works of Skelton have been published by the Rev. A. Dyce, (2 vols. 8vo, T. Rodd, 1843,) with an abundance of elucidatory notes and bibliographical information; so that this difficult task has been performed with great success; and the volumes are among the most valuable of the many works of that conscientious editor.]