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Farewell, swete harte, farewell, farewel, farewel,
Adieu, adieu, I wouldne I were you by;
God geue me grace with you sone to dwell
Like as I did for to se you dayly;
Your lowly cheare and gentle company
Reioysed my hart with fode most delicate,
Mine eyen to se you were insaciate.

THE CHARACTER OF A TRUE KNIGHT.

[From Canto xxviii.]

For knyghthode is not in the feates of warre
As for to fight in quarrell ryght or wrong,
But in a cause which trouthe can not defarre.
He ought himselfe for to make sure and strong
Justice to kepe, myxt with mercy among,
And no quarell a knyght ought to take
But for a trouthe, or for a womman's sake.

For first good hope his legge harneyes shoulde be, His habergion, of perfect ryghteousnes

Gyrde fast wyth the girdle of chastitie.

His riche placarde shoulde be good busines
Brodred with almes so full of larges;

The helmet, mekenes, and the shelde, good fayeth,
His swerde God's word, as Saynt Paule sayeth.

Also true wydowes he ought to restore
Unto their ryght, for to attayne their dower;
And to vpholde, and mayntayne euermore
The wealth of maydens, wyth his myhty power,
And to his souerayne at euery maner hower

To be ready, true, and eke obeysaunt,
In stable loue fyxte, and not variaunt.

DESCRIPTION OF LA BELLE PUCEL.

[From Canto xxx.]

I sawe to me appeare

The flower of comfort, the starre of vertue cleare,
Whose beauty bryght into my hart did passe,
Like as fayre Phebus dothe shyne in the glasse.

So was my harte by the stroke of loue
With sorowe persed and with mortall payne,
That vnneth I myght from the place remoue
Where as I stode, I was so take certayne.
Yet vp I loked to se her agayne,

And at aduenture, with a sory mode

Up then I went, where as her person stode.

And first of all, my harte gan to learne
Right well to regester in remembraunce
Howe that her beauty I might then decerne
From toppe to tooe endued with pleasaunce,
Whiche I shall shewe withouten variaunce;
Her shining heere so properly she dresses
Aloft her forheade with fayre golden tresses.
Her forheade stepe, with fayre browes ybent,
Her eyen gray, her nose straight and fayre.
In her white chekes the faire bloude it went
As among the wite the redde to repayre;

Her mouthe right small, her breathe swete of ayre;
Her lippes soft and ruddy as a rose;

No hart alive but it woulde him appose.

With a little pitte in her well fauoured chynne,

Her necke long, as white as any lillye,

With vaynes blewe in which the bloude ranne in,
Her pappes rounde, and therto right pretye;
Her armes slender, and of goodly bodye,
Her fingers small and therto right long,

White as the milke, with blewe vaynes among.

Her fete proper, she gartred well her hose:
I neuer sawe so fayre a creature ;

Nothing she lacketh, as I do suppose,
That is longyng to faire dame Nature.
Yet more ouer her countenaunce so pure,
So swete, so louely, woulde any hart enspire
With feruent loue to attayne his desire.

But what for her maners passeth all,
She is bothe gentle, good, and vertuous.
Alas, what fortune did me to her call
Without that she be to me pitifull?
With her so fettred, in paynes dolorous.
Alas, shall pitie be from her exiled,
Whiche all vertus hath so vndefiled?

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[THE date of Skelton's birth is not known; it probably took place somewhere about 1460. He began his career as a sober scholar; he ended it as a ribald priest. In his first capacity he was tutor to Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII), the Laureate of three Universities, and the friend of Caxton and Erasmus, who has described him as litterarum Anglicarum lumen et decus. In his second capacity he was rector of Diss in Norfolk and a hanger-on about the Court of Henry VIII. He died at Westminster, where he had taken sanctuary to escape the wrath of Wolsey, in 1529. Some of his poems are said to have been printed in London in 1512; a completer collection of them appeared in 1568, but it was not until Dyce's admirable collection in 1843 that they were published in their integrity.]

Skelton's claims to notice lie not so much in the intrinsic excellence of his work as in the complete originality of his style, in the variety of his powers, in the peculiar character of his satire, and in the ductility of his expression when ductility of expression was unique. His writings, which are somewhat voluminous, may be divided into two great classes-those which are written in his own peculiar measure, and which are all more or less of the same character, and those which are written in other measures and in a different tone. To this latter class belong his serious poems, and his serious poems are now deservedly forgotten. Two of them, however, The Bowge of Court, a sort of allegorical satire on the court of Henry VIII, and the morality of Magnificence, which gives him a creditable place among the fathers of our drama, contain some vigorous and picturesque passages which have not been thrown away on his successors. As a lyrical poet Skelton also deserves mention. His ballads are easy and natural, and though pitched as a rule in the lowest key, evince touches of real poetical feeling. When in the other poems his capricious muse breaks out into lyrical singing, as she sometimes does, the note is clear, the music wild and airy. The Garlande of Laurell for example contains amid all its absurdities some really exquisite fragments.

But it is as the author of The Boke of Colin Clout, Why come ye nat to Court, Ware the Hawke, The Boke of Philipp Sparowe, and The Tunnyng of Elinore Rummyng, that Skelton is chiefly interesting. These poems are all written in that headlong voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through quickrecurring rhymes, through centos of French and Latin, and through every extravagant caprice of expression, has taken from the name of its author the title of Skeltonical verse. The three first poems are satires. Colin Clout is a general attack on the ignorance and sensuality of the clergy. The second is a fierce invective against Cardinal Wolsey, and the third is directed against a brother clergyman who was, it appears, in the habit of flying his hawks in Skelton's church. These three poems are all in the same strain, as in the same measure-grotesque, rough, intemperate, but though gibbering and scurrilous, often caustic and pithy, and sometimes rising to a moral earnestness which contrasts strangely with their uncouth and ludicrous apparel.

'Though my rime be ragged,
Tatter'd and jagged,
Rudely raine-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten;
If ye take wel therewith,
It hath in it some pith.'

And the attentive student of Skelton will soon discover this. Indeed he reminds us more of Rabelais than any author in our language. In The Boke of Philipp Sparowe he pours out a long lament for the death of a favourite sparrow which belonged to a fair lay nun. This poem was probably suggested by Catullus' Dirge on a similar occasion. In Skelton, however, the whole tone is burlesque and extravagant, though the poem is now and then relieved by pretty fancies and by graceful touches of a sort of humorous pathos. In The Tunnyng of Elinore Rummynge his powers of pure description and his skill in the lower walks of comedy are seen in their highest perfection. In this sordid and disgusting delineation of humble life he may fairly challenge the supremacy of Swift and Hogarth. But Skelton is, with all his faults, one of the most versatile and one of the most essentially original of all our poets. He touches Swift on one side, and he touches Sackville on the other

J. CHURTON COLLINS.

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