[Footnote 2: Urry, in his Ed. of Chaucer, says that the Canterbury Tales were exempt from the prohibition of the Act of 34 Henry VIII. “For the advancement of true religion.” I find no notice of this in the Act in the “Statutes at large,” 1763. He also refers to Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, which is also merely negative on the subject.] The notice of that other sturdy reformer, John Skelton (p. 7) is also very interesting, and gives us a hint of the existence of a “protesting” feeling in the Court of Henry VIII. before there was any reason for attributing it to mere private or political motives. From the way in which it is mentioned here, I suspect that the more general satire “Colin Clout” preceded the more directly personal one of “Why come ye nat to court?” which lashes Wolsey himself with a heartily outspoken virulence which would hardly have been tolerated by him when in the zenith of his power. It was not improbably written whilst its author was safe in sanctuary under Bishop Islip. William Thynne, court favourite though he was, could never have kept Skelton’s head on his shoulders after so terrible a provocation. Wherever he may be placed, John Skelton stands alone amongst satirists, there is no one like him: possibly from a feeling that he was writing on the winning side, and sure of sympathy and protection, he scorns to hide his pearls under a dunghill like Rabelais, and utters fearlessly and openly what he has to say. Even in our own time, “Though his rime be ragged Tattered and iagged Rudely rain-beaten Rusty and moth-eaten _If ye talke well therewyth Yt hath in it some pith_.” Thynne’s note on the family of Gower (p. 14) is of value as agreeing with later theories, which deny that Gower the poet was of the Gowers of Stittenham, the ancestors of the present houses of Sutherland and Ellesmere. The question is not, however, finally decided, and we have reason to believe that all the Gowers of Great Britain are descended from the same family of Guers still flourishing in Brittany. Early coat-armours are not much to be depended on, and Thynne as a Herald may lean a little too much towards them. The question is, however, in good hands, and I hope that before long some fresh light may be thrown upon it.