Thomas Skelton

“ No matter now about all his thoughts, all his speculations; in one moment he would know more than all the world could teach him about those vast mysteries that subtle men try to fathom. Skelton was too sincere a man and too fearless to change wholly within the few awful moments of suspension between two worlds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I saye, that you bee a sorte of knaues, yea, and a man might saye worse then knaues; and why, I shall shew you. You haue complayned of mee to the bysop that I doo keepe a fayre wench in my house: I dooe tell you, if you had any fayre wiues, it were some what to helpe me at neede; I am a man as you be: you haue foule wyues, and I haue a faire wenche, of the whyche I haue begotten a fayre boye, as I doe thinke, and as you all shall see. Thou wyfe, sayde Skelton, that hast my childe, be not afraid ”

“ Skelton was the last man on earth to submit easily to any restrictions, but those laid upon him by the jealous fondness of the dead woman sometimes made him grind his teeth when he thought of them. Often he would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and walk the floor for hours, tormented with the sense of having been robbed of his personal liberty and of being a slave in the midst of all his power. ”

“ Some men like horse racing, and some like to accumulate money, and some like to squander it; but your dissipation is in mental processes of all sorts. You like to read for reading’s sake, and write for writing’s sake, and your mind has got to that stage, like Michael Scott’s devil, it has got to be employed or it will rend you. I never saw such an inveterate appetite for ideas as you have. But will it ever come to anything? Will you ever write that book?”
Skelton turned a little pale. The fierce ambition within him, the pride, the licensed egotism, all made him fear defeat ”

“ And one wil haue a wife, and that hee marke his to be demaunded in maryage, they will enquyre of his ryches and conninge. And on the other syde he wyl demaunde great goodes with her, to norysshe her with: for and her father and mother and frendes haue no greate ryches, he wyll not of her; but and she be ryche, hee demaundeth none other thynge. It is written, that one were better haue his house in deserte, whereas no mencion shoulde be of hym, thenne to bide with suche wyues, for they be replete with all cursednes. And the pore foole breketh his hearte ”

“ 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. ”

“ They were separated from the house by great clumps of crape myrtle, then in its first pink glory. Some invisible bond seemed to unite all three. Skelton felt with the keenest delight the delicious emotions of youth—he was too true a philosopher not to [229] rejoice that he could still feel—and he had always feared and dreaded that chilling of his sensibilities which is the beginning of old age. How bewitching was Sylvia Shapleigh to him then, and if ever they should be married how kind she would be to Lewis! when suddenly came a piercing sense of chagrin and chafing rebellion. ”

“ Why, what wold you haue me do? sayde the miller; you haue set your own man to watche mee. Well, then, sayd Skelton, if thou doest not tell me whych waye thou hast played the theefe wyth mee, thou shalt be hanged. I praye you be good master vnto me, & I wyll tell you the trutthe: your seruaunt wold not from my myll, & when I sawe none other remedye, I caused my wyfe to put one of my chyldren into the water, & to crie that it was drowned; and whiles wee were helpyng of the chylde out, one of my boyes dyd steale your corne. ”

“ Then old Tom would begin to laugh—it was so comical—and the next time he met the boy there would be that same haughty reserve [20] on Skelton’s part, at which his guardian did not know whether to be most angry or amused. He was philosophic under it, though, and would say:
“Look at the tutors I’ve got for him, begad! and every man-jack of them has been under the hack of that determined little beggar from the start. And when a man, woman, or child can get the upper hand of one who lives in daily, hourly contact, why, you might just as well let ’em go their own gait. ”

“ Soo he departed there he wolde be come.
I dare not speke, I promysed to be dome:
But, as I stode musynge in my mynde, 230
Haruy Hafter [283] came lepynge, lyghte as lynde.
Vpon his breste he bare a versynge boxe;
His throte was clere, and lustely coude fayne;
Me [284] thoughte, his gowne was all furred wyth foxe;
And euer he sange, Sythe I am no thynge playne.
To kepe him frome pykynge it was a grete payne:
He gased on me with his gotyshe berde;
Whan I loked on hym, my [285] purse was half aferde.
HARUY HAFTER. [286]
Syr, God you saue! ”

“ And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named ye Tabere whyche is now the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, & went to bed. About midnight he was so thyrstie or drye that hee was constrained to call to the tapster for drynke, & the tapster harde him not. Then hee cryed to hys oste & hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke; and no man wold here hym: alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe for lacke of drynke! what reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out and sayd, Fyer, fyer, fyer! ”

“ If Skelton ever tries to prove that Lewis is his son, mark my words, the boy will fight against it—he will fight against it. I can’t make out what he really thinks now, but he clings so hard to his Pryor parentage, he speaks of it so often, he treasures up every little thing that he inherited from the Pryors, that sometimes I fancy he has doubts. He is always anxious to disclaim any authority Skelton asserts over him. [205] The Pryors and Skelton in the beginning, supposing I knew nothing about the boy, agreed in making me the boy’s guardian. ”

“ But dyuysyon, dyssencyon, dyrysyon, these thre 710
And I am counterfet of one mynde and thought,
By the menys of myschyef to bryng all thynges to nought.
And though I be so odyous a geste,
And euery man gladly my company wolde refuse,
In faythe yet am I occupyed with the best;
Full fewe that can themselfe of me excuse.
Whan other men laughe, than study I and muse,
Deuysynge the meanes and wayes that I can,
Howe I may hurte and hynder euery man:
Two faces in a hode couertly I bere, 720
Water in the one hande, and fyre in the other;
I can fede forth a fole, and lede hym by the eyre ”

“ Well, sayde Skelton, withoute thou dooe it, thou knowest the daunger. The myller went hys way, beyng very heauy, & studyed whiche waye he myght doo thys deede. He hauynge a little boy, whyche knewe all the corners of Skeltons house & where hee lay, vpon a night when they were all busie, the boie crepte in vnder his bed, wyth a potte of yeste; and when Skelton & hys wyfe were fast aslepe, hee all to noynted the sheetes with yeste, as farre as hee coulde reache. At last Skelton awaked, & felt the sheetes all wete; waked his wife, and sayd, What, hast thou beshitten the bed? ”

“ And if I myght have thys sygned of the kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more as long as I lyve. Well, then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys sygned of the kynge then will I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth your dryncke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our livinge with bagge and staffe.
Here Begynneth Certayne Merye Tales of Skelton, Poet Lauriat
HOW SKELTON CAME LATE HOME TO OXFORD FROM ABINGTON Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was educated & broughte up in Oxfoorde: and there was he made a poete lauriat. ”

“ None excuse may be there for Everyman."
BOOKS TO READ Everyman: A Morality (Everyman's Library) .
Chapter XXXV HOW A POET COMFORTED A GIRL PERHAPS the best Morality of which we know the author's name is Magnificence, by John Skelton. But, especially after Everyman, it is dull reading for little people, and it is not in order to speak of this play that I write about Skelton.
John Skelton lived in the stormy times of Henry VIII, and he is called sometimes our first poet-laureate. But he was not poet- laureate as we now understand it, he was not the King's poet. ”

“ SKELTON. John Skelton is the name of the next poet. He flourished in the earlier part of the reign of Henry VIII. Having studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, and been laureated at the former university in 1489, he was promoted to the rectory of Diss or Dysse, in Norfolk. ”

“ It seemed as if by some psychic influence he followed the very train of thought then going through Skelton’s mind.
“The women all like Lewis. I tell you, that’s a very dangerous gift for a man—worse, even, than genius.” ”

“ I perceyuynge thys that he was proude, what then dyd I? shortly to conclude, I dyd make of hym a payre of breches to my hose, to brynge hym lowe. And when that I dyd see, knowe, or perceyue that he was in that case, and allmoste worne cleane oute, what dyd I then to extoll hym vppe agayne? you all may see that this my cap was made of it that was my breches. Therefore, sayde Skelton, vos estis, therfore you bee, as I dyd saye before: if that you exalte yourselfe, and cannot be contented that I haue my wenche still, some of you shall weare hornes; and therfore vos estis: and so farewell. ”

“ It is a worlde, I saye, to [326] here of some: [48]
I hate this faynynge, fye vpon it, fye!
A man can not wote where to be come:
I wys I coude tell, [327] —but humlery, home;
I dare not speke, we be so layde awayte,
For all our courte is full of dysceyte.
Now, by saynte Fraunceys, that holy man and frere, 470
I hate these [328] wayes agayne you that they take:
Were I as you, I wolde ryde them full nere;
And, by my trouthe, but yf an ende they make,
Yet wyll I saye some wordes for your sake,
That shall them angre, I holde thereon a grote;
For some shall wene be hanged by the throte. ”

“ As men dare speke it hugger mugger;
A lorde a negarde, it is a shame,
But largesse may amende your name.
Magn. In faythe, Largesse, welcome to me.
Fan. I pray you, syr, I may so be,
And of my seruyce you shall not mysse.
Magn. Togyder we wyll talke more of this:
Let vs departe from hens home to my place.
Fan. I folow euen after your noble grace. 400
Hic discedat Magnificens cum Fansy, et intrat [789] Counterfet Countenaunce.
C. Count. What, I say, herke a worde.
Fan. Do away, I say, the deuylles torde!
C. Count. Ye, but how longe shall I here awayte? ”

“ Quaint, almost eccentric, in treatment, Skelton's essays were always popular with men of letters, and his style won the admiration of authors so different as Carlyle, Thackeray, Huxley, and Rossetti. He is always happy in descriptions of scenery, in which he was aided by his skill as a sketcher and his intimacy with artists. ”

“ Say on, thou hore head, sayd the cardynall to Skelton. I pray your grace to let me lye doune and wallow, for I can kneele no longer.
¶ Howe the vinteners wife put water into Skeltons wine. Tale xv.
Skelton did loue wel a cup of good wyne. And on a daye he dyd make merye in a tauerne in London: and the morow after hee sent to the same place againe for a quart of ye same wine he drunke of before; the whiche was clene chaunged & brued again. Skelton perceiuing this, he went to the tauerne, & dyd sytte down in a chaire, & dyd sygh very sore, and made great lamentacion. ”

“ Elynour swered, Nay,
Ye shall not beare away
My [496] ale for nought,
By hym that me bought!
With, Hey, dogge, hay,
Haue these hogges [497] away!
With, Get me a staffe, 170
The swyne eate my draffe!
Stryke the hogges with a clubbe,
They haue dronke vp my swyllynge tubbe!
For, be there neuer so much prese,
These swyne go to the hye dese, [101]
The sowe with her pygges;
The bore his tayle wrygges,
His rumpe [498] also he frygges
Agaynst [499] the hye benche!
With, Fo, ther is a stenche! 180
Gather vp, thou wenche;
Seest thou not what is fall? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the poem which keeps most interest for us is one which perhaps at the time it was written was thought least important. It is called The Book of Philip Sparrow. And this poem shows us that Skelton was not always bitter and biting. For it is neither bitter nor coarse, but is a dainty and tender lament written for a schoolgirl whose sparrow had been killed by a cat. It is written in the same short lines as Colin Cloute and others of Skelton's poems—"Breathless rhymes"* they have been called. These short lines remind us somewhat of the old Anglo-Saxon short half-lines, except that they rime. ”

“ Skelton was a right good sort, but he was not the man with whom to share loneliness, and Bobby, who had plenty of money of his own, was thinking how jolly this winter cruise would have been if he had only taken it on board a passenger liner, with girls and deck quoits and cards in the evening, instead of Skelton. ”