736

"Though Conscience and Wisdom me to keep
Be cunning both, I shall them well beguile;
For truely, when they are gone to sleep,
I shall be here within a bonny while;
My solace shall I slyly thus o'ersyle.12
Right shall not rest 13 me alway with his rule;
Though I be whilom buxom 14 as a waile,15
I shall be crooked while I make [him fule]." 16
Dame Plesaunce: "My friendis now are fled;
The lusty folk that ye forth with you brought.
Methink these carlis are not courtly clad!
What joy have I of them? I count them nought.
Youth-head, and Fresh Delight, might they be brought;
For with their service I am right well kend.
Fain would I that ye send men and them sought,
Although it were unto the worldis end."

744

He cryit on Strength, "Come out man! Be my guide;
I cannot ride out o'er this water wood." 6
Dame Plesaunce heard, and on her way she yeid?
Right to the King, and bade him Strength arrest;
"I would not, sir, for mickle worldly good,
Want Strength an hour whene'er we go to feast.

The Queen wourde 17 wrath; the King was sore adred, For her disdain he could not goodly bear.

696

"In all disport he may us greatly 'vail;
Give him no leave, but hold him while ye may."
The King full well had heard Dame Plesaunce' tale,
And Strength he has arrestit by the way.
"Abide!" he said: "We shall another day
Seek Worship at our will and us advance.
I dread me sore, Sir Strength, of that delay;
For armes has both happy time and chance."

They suppit soon, and syne 18 they bownit 19 to bed;
Sadness came in and rownit 20 in his ear!
Dame Plesaunce has perceivit her new fere; 21
And early, afore the sun, she gan to rise
Out of the bed, and trussed up all her gear.
The King was sound asleep, and still he lies.
Horses and harness hint 22 she has in haste;
With all [her] folk she gan her wayis fare.
By this it was full near mid-day almaist,
Then came Disease 23 in riding with a rair : 24

752

704

792

Reason came:
"Sir King, I rede ye rise,
There is a great part of this fair day run.

The sun was at the height, and downward hies.
Where is the treasure now that ye have won ?
This drink was sweet ye found in Venus' tun!
Soon after this it shall be stale and sour;
Therefore of it I rede no more ye cun: 1
Let it lie still an please your paramour.”

Then Wisdom says, 66 Shape for some governance,
Sen 2 fair Dame Plesaunce on her ways is went.
In your last days ye may yourself advance,
If that ye wourde of the same indigent.
Go to your place, and you therein present;
The castle yet is strong enough to hold."
Then Sadness said, "Sir King, ye must assent;
What have ye now ado in this waste fold?"

The King has heard their counsel at the last,
And halélie assentit to their saw.
"Make ready soon," he says, "and speed you fast."
Full suddenly they gan the clarion blaw;
On horse they leapt, and rode them all on raw1
To his own castle, therein he was bred.
Langour the watch out o'er the kirnal 5 flaw; 6
And Heaviness to the great dungeon fled.

He cryit, "Sir King, welcome to thy own place!
I have it keepit truely sen thou past.
But I have mickle marvel of thy face,
That changit is like with a winter blast."
"Yea, Heaviness," the King said at the last,
"Now have I this with far more harmis hint,7
Which grievis me, when I my comptis cast,
How I fresh Youth-head and his fellows tint." s

Strength was as then fast fadit of his flowers But still yet with the King he can abide; While at the last in the hochis he cowers, Then privily out at the gate can slide.

"For, do ye not, ye may not well eft heave." 24 "What is your name?" "Wisdom, forsooth I hight." "All wrong, God wot! Oft-times, sir, by your leave, Mine aventúre will shape out of your sight: But ne'ertheless may fall that ye have right. Ruth have I none, out-take 25 fortúne and chance,

He stole away and went on wayis wide,

12 Barmekin, the outermost fortification. Various etymologies are suggested, but probably it is only a corruption of "barbican," an outer defence attached to the gate, as may be seen still in one of the old gates of York, Walmgate Bar.

13 Headwork, Hoast, and Parlasy, Headache, Cough (German "husten"), and Palsy (paralysis).

14 Pay, beating or drubbing. Cymric "pwy," a blow or knock; Greek naiw (paio), I strike.

15 Boot, help, remedy. Defence did not help them.

16 Tyte, soon.

Pertly, briskly.

18 Bargain, battle strife. The wrangling once incident to sale and purchase gave rise to the modern sense of the word "bargain."

19 Forfoughten, exhausted with fighting.

20 Drest, beaten.

21 Wourde, became.

22 Dule, distress.

23 Deid, Death.

Youth-head, because that thou my barne-head 31 kend,
To Wantonness aye will I that thou bow.
To Gluttony, that oft made me o'er fow,
This mickle womb,32 this rotten liver als,33
See that ye bear, and that command I you;
And smartly hang them both abone his hals.34

"To Rere-supper,35 be he among that rout,
Ye me commend; he is a fellow fine!
This rotten stomach that I bear about,
Ye rug 36 it out, and reach it to him syne:
For he has hindered me of many dine,37
And many time the mess has gart 38 me sleep;
Mine wittis has he wasted oft with wine,
And made my stomach with hot lustis leap.

904

912

920

32 Mickle womb, large belly. 34 Abone his hals, over his neck. 36 Rug, pluck.

35 Rere-supper, second supper. 37 Dine, a dinner. 38 Gart, made.

39 Deliverness, freedom of limb, agility. The Squire, in Chaucer's Prologue, was "worderly deliver and great of strength."

Be thou vexit, and at undir,
Your freinds will fre1 and on you wondir.
Thairfoir bewar with our hie lands,
Sic slags may fall, suppois a hundir
War you to help thai have no hands.3

Dreid this danger, gud freind and brudir,
And tak example befoir of uther.

Knaw courtis and wynd has oftsys vareit.4 Keip weill your cours, and rewle your rudir; And think with kingis ye are not mareit. QUOD QUYNTENE SCHAW,

CHAPTER VIII.

JOHN SKELTON AND SIR DAVID LINDSAY, WITH OTHERS.-A. D. 1500 TO A.D. 1550.

AT the beginning of the sixteenth century allegorical poetry abounded. An allegory of human life, much larger than "King Heart," was finished in 1506 in England by Stephen Hawes, Groom of the Chamber to King Henry VII. It was "The History of Graund Amoure and La Bel Pucell, called The Pastime of Pleasure, conteyning the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences, and the Course of Man's Life in this Worlde." While there was in the North William Dunbar writing such allegories as the "Thistle and the Rose," "The Golden Terge," in the South there was John Skelton, who set forth the corruptions of court life in "The Bowge of Court." Bowge (from the French bouche, mouth) was the word for a courtier's right of eating at the king's expense, and "Bowge of Court" in the poem was the name of an allegorical ship with Court vices on board.

But we

care most for John Skelton, as Spenser cared for him, because he was a poet who, in Henry VIII's time, expressed some of those energetic feelings which were hastening a reformation in the English Church. He was rector of Diss, in Norfolk. The date of his institution to that office is not on record; but he was holding it in 1504, when he witnessed as rector the will of one of his parishioners, and he retained it until his death in 1529, for in July of that year Thomas Clerk was instituted as Skelton's successor. By opposition to corruptions of the Romish Church, and by marrying, although a priest, Skelton made the Dominicans his enemies. His scholarship was honoured by Erasmus, and Henry VII. chose him to be tutor to the royal children. Henry VIII. retained good will for his old master, and Skelton was much at his court. Bu outspoken denunciations of the spiritual pride and pomp of the higher clergy, and their neglect of spiritual duties, advanced in Skelton to a courageous attack on Wolsey when he was at the height of his power. Wolsey, when only a rising scholar, had been his friend; but as a prelate who seemed to have become the impersona

tion of that worldliness in spiritual chiefs against which the best men in England were protesting, Skelton joined in attack on him. In a verse of his own called after him, Skeltonical-that was like the First English in its short lines of varying accentuation, and had occasional alliteration, but to which he added rhymes that danced forward in little shifting torrents-a rustic verse, as he called it, that served admirably to express either a rush of wrath, or the light freaks of playfulness-the scholar poet, whom his enemies called a buffoon, spoke home truths for his countrymen. His fearless speech obliged him to take refuge from the power of Wolsey by claiming the right of sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, and he died sheltered by Abbot Islip in June, 1529. In the following October Wolsey was deprived of the Great Seal, and he survived his fall little more than a year, dying in November, 1530.

66

CARDINAL WOLSEY. (From Holbein's Portrait.)

Skelton's most direct and bitterest attacks on Wolsey are in his two poems called "Speak, Parrot," and Why come ye not to Court?" In the latter part of "Colin Clout" Wolsey is pointed at again and again, but there is less in this poem of the mere bitterness of the conflict, although not less of religious earnestness in its delicate blending of the voice of the people with touches of irony. What Skelton battled for in the days of Henry VIII., Spenser sought under Elizabeth, and Milton under the Stuarts. Spenser, indeed, in his first published book was so full of the same zeal that appears in Skelton's "Colin Clout," that he adopted from that poem the name by which he always spoke of himself in his verses.

Under the name of "Colin Clout" John Skelton in the following poem represented the appeal made to grandees of the Church by a poor Englishman. It seems to have been current in manuscript and on the lips of men for some years before it was suffered After the to be printed (see lines 1230-32).