To have composed a manual for the education of a prince, and to have persevered through a laborious version, are sufficient evidence that the learned Skelton had his studious days as well as his hours of caustic jocularity. He appears to have written various pieces for the court entertainment; but for us exists only an account of the interlude of the "Nigramansir," in the pages of Warton, and a single copy of the goodly interlude of "Magnificence,"[6] in the Garrick collection. If we accept his abstract personations merely as the names, and not the qualities of the dramatic personages, "Magnificence" approaches to the true vein of comedy. Skelton was, however, probably more gratified by his own Skeltonical style, moulding it with the wantonness of power on whatever theme, comic or serious. In a poem remarkable for its elegant playfulness, a very graceful maiden, whose loveliness the poet has touched with the most vivid colouring, grieving over the fate of her sparrow from its feline foe, chants a dirige, a paternoster, and an Ave Maria for its soul, and the souls of all sparrows. In this discursive poem, which glides from object to object, in the vast abundance of fancy, a general mourning of all the birds in the air, and many allusions to the old romances, "Philip Sparrow," for its elegance, may be placed by the side of Lesbia's Bird, and, for its playfulness, by the Vert Vert of Gresset. But Skelton was never more vivid than in his Ale-wife, and all The mad mummyng Of Elynour Rummyng,-- a piece which has been more frequently reprinted than any of his works. It remains a morsel of poignant relish for the antiquary, still enamoured of the portrait of this grisly dame of Leatherhead, where her name and her domicile still exist. Such is the immortality a poet can bestow.[7] "The Tunnyng of Elynoure Rummyng" is a remarkable production of THE GROTESQUE, or the low burlesque; the humour as low as you please, but as strong as you can imagine. Cleland is reported, in Spence's Anecdotes of Pope, to have said, that this "Tunnyng of Elynoure Rummyng" was taken from a poem of Lorenzo de' Medici. There is indeed a jocose satire by that noble bard, entitled "I Beoni," the Topers; an elegant piece of playful humour, where the characters are a company of thirsty souls hastening out of the gates of Florence to a treat of excellent wine. It was printed by the Giunti, in 1568,[8] and therefore this burlesque piece could never have been known to Skelton. The manners of our Alewife and her gossips are purely English, and their contrivances to obtain their potations such as the village of Leatherhead would afford.