John Skelton, poet-laureat of his time, appears to have been known in the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. quite as much in the character of a jester as in that of a poet. Poet-laureat was then a title or degree given in the university of Oxford. His "Merye Tales" are all personal of himself, and we should be inclined to say that his jests and his poetry are equally bad. The former picture him as holding a place somewhere between Eulenspiegel and the ordinary court-fool. We may give as a sample of the best of them the tale No. 1.-- "_How Skelton came home late to Oxford from Abington._ "Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was educated and broughte up in Oxfoorde, and there was he made a poete lauriat. 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 the Tabere, whyche is now the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, and went to bed. About midnight he was so thyrstie or drye that he was constrained to call to the tapster for drynke, and the tapster harde him not. Then hee cryed to hys oste and hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke, and no man would 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! When Skelton hard every man bustle hymselfe upward, and some of them were naked, and some were halfe asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye, Fier, fier! styll, that everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, and the oste and ostis, and the tapster, with the ostler, dyd runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, saying, Where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said Skelton, and poynted hys fynger to hys mouth, saying, Fetch me some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in my mouthe. And so they dyd." Another of these "Merye Tales" of Skelton contains a satire upon the practice which prevailed in the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries of obtaining letters-patent of monopoly from the crown, and also on the bibulous propensities of Welshmen-- "_How the Welshman dyd desyre Skelton to ayde hym in hys sute to the kynge for a patent to sell drynke._