ch was soon merged into regular tragedy and
comedy. Skelton's "Magnyfycence," which he calls "a goodly interlude and a
merie," is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks
the opening of the modern drama in England.

The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled _skeltonical_, is a sort of English
anacreontic. One example has been given; take, as another, the following
lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada:

A skeltonicall salutation
Or condigne gratulation
And just vexation
Of the Spanish nation,
That in bravado
Spent many a crusado
In setting forth an armado
England to invado.

Who but Philippus,
That seeketh to nip us,
To rob us and strip us,
And then for to whip us,
Would ever have meant
Or had intent
Or hither sent
Such strips of charge, etc., etc.

It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.

His "Merie Tales" are a series of short and generally broad stories,
suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with
the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without
moralizing upon the age which they describe. Skelton, a contemporary of
the French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great
author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but
unlike him in that he has given us no English _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_
to illustrate his age.

WYATT.--The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
begins--

What word is that that changeth not,
Though it be turned and made in twain?
It is mine ANNA, God it wot, etc.

That unfortunate queen--to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
trial on the gravest charges--which we do not think substantiated--was,
however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
attentions--indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.

Wyatt was styled by Camden "splendide doctus," but his learning, however
honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are
few, and m