s.

On the magnificent houshold of King Richard II,

Truly I herd Robert Irelese say,
Clark of the Green Cloth, and that to the houshold,
Came every day, forth most part alway,
Ten thousand folk by his messes told;
That followed the house, aye as they wold,
And in the kitchen, three hundred scruitours,
And in eche office many occupiours,
And ladies faire, with their gentlewomen
Chamberers also, and launderers,
Three hundred of them were occupied then;
There was great pride among the officers,
And of all men far passing their compeers,
Of rich arraye, and much more costous,
Then was before, or sith, and more precious.

* * * * *

JOHN SKELTON

Was born of an ancient family in Cumberland, he received his education
at Oxford, and entering into holy orders was made rector of Dysso in
Norfolk in the reign of Henry VIII. tho' more probably he appeared
first in that of Henry VII. and may be said to be the growth of that
time. That he was a learned man Erasmus has confirmed, who in his
letter to King Henry VIII. stileth him, Britanicarum Literarum Lumen
& Decus: Tho' his stile is rambling and loose, yet he was not without
invention, and his satire is strongly pointed. He lived near fourscore
years after Chaucer, but seems to have made but little improvement in
versification. He wrote some bitter satires against the clergy, and
particularly, his keen reflections on Cardinal Wolsey drew on him
such severe prosecutions, that he was obliged to fly for sanctuary to
Westminster, under the protection of Islip the Abbot, where he died in
the year 1529. It appears by his poem entitled, The Crown of Laurel,
that his performances were numerous, and such as remain are chiefly
these, Philip Sparrow, Speak Parrot, the Death of King Edward IV, a
Treatise of the Scots, Ware the Hawk, the Tunning of Elianer Rumpkin.
In these pieces there is a very rich vein of wit and humour, tho' much
debased by the rust of the age he lived in. His satires are remarkably
broad, open and ill-bred; the verse cramped by a very short measure,
and encumbered with such a profusion of rhimes, as makes the poet
appear almost as ridiculous as those he endeavours to expose. In his
more serious pieces he is not guilty of this absurdity; and confines
himself to a regular stanza, according to the then reigning mode.
His Bouge of Court is a poem of some merit: it abounds with wit and
imagination, and sh