ich our nursery story of cock-robin may be taken. Skelton seems to
have been fond and observant of birds. In Speke Parrot, he thus
describes

"With my beeke bent, my lyttyl wanton eye,
My fedders freshe as is the emrawde grene,
About my neck a cyrculet lyke the ryche rubye
My lyttyl leggys, my feet both fete and clene,
I am a mynyon to wayt uppon a quene;
My proper parrot my lyttyl prety foole,
With ladyes I lerne and go with them to scole."

It will be observed that the humour in the above pieces is little
separated from poetry. In Elynour Rummynge however, we have something
undoubtedly jocose, and proportionally rustic and uncouth.

Skelton adopted, as we have seen, a quick, short metre, somewhat
analogous to the "Swift Iambics," of the Greek humorists. Sometimes also
he alternated Latin with English in a conceit not very uncommon towards
the end of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century as--

"Freeres, freeres, wo ye be!
Ministri malorum,
For many a mannes soul bringe ye,
Ad poenas infernorum."

No work became more popular than the Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brandt.
It was published in Germany in 1494, and was speedily translated into
Latin and French. Alexander Barclay altered it so considerably in the
rendering as almost to make a new work, especially applicable to the
state of things existing in this country. Ersch and Grueber speak of
Brandt's fools as contemptible and loathsome, and say what he calls
follies might be better described as sins and vices. But here and there
we meet with touches of humour in the mishaps and absurd actions of
those he censures. The whole work is rather of a moral and religious
complexion, as the following heading of the poem will suggest--

"Of newe fassions and disgised garmentes. Of Avaryce and prodygalyte. Of
vnprofytable stody. Of lepynges and dauncis and Folys that pas theyr
tyme in suche vanyte. Of Pluralitees, of flatterers, and glosers. Of the
vyce of slouth. Of Usurers and okerers. Of the extorcion of knyghtis. Of
follisske, cokes, and buttelers."

Literature increased greatly in the fifteenth century, and began to take
that general form it afterwards bore. One of the satires on the fashions
of the period, which in every age seem to have afforded materials for
mirth, begins as follows--

"Ye prowd gallonttes hertlesse
With your hyghe cappis witlesse,
And youre schort gownys thriftlesse,
Have brought this londe