Erasmus wrote an ode in honour of Henry VII. and his children, and in it he recommends him to keep with him Skelton, "the one light and ornament of British literature." He says that no doubt the advice is unnecessary, as he hears the King is most anxious to retain his services. He was tutor to the young prince--afterwards Henry VIII. Skelton was born about 1460. Many of his humorous writings are lost, such as "The Balade of the Mustarde Tarte." He became a "poet laureate," at that time a degree in grammar, rhetoric and versification, on taking which, the graduate was presented with a laurel crown. Having taken orders in 1498, he was afterwards suspended for living with a lady whom he had secretly married. This suspension was much owing to his having incurred the anger of the Dominican Friars, whom he had attacked in his writings. We are told that he was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pulpit. The humour of Skelton consists principally of severe personal vituperation. In "Colyn Cloute" he assailed the clergy generally, but he wrote personal attacks on Garnesche (a courtier), and on Wolsey. The Cardinal had been his patron at one time, and Skelton had dedicated poems to him, among them "A Replycacion" against the followers of Wickliffe and Luther--of which pious effusion the following lines will give a specimen:-- "To the honour of our blessed lady And her most blesed baby, I purpose for to reply Agaynst this horryble heresy Of these young heretics that Stynke unbrent. "I say, thou madde marche hare, I wondre how ye dare Open your ianglyng iawes, To preche in any clawes Lyke pratynge poppyng dawes. "I say, ye braynless beestes, Why iangle you such iestes. In your diuynite Of Luther's affynite To the people of lay fee Raylying in your rages To worshyppe none ymages Nor do pylgrymages." The cause of his quarrel with Wolsey is not known, but he afterwards wrote a severe personal attack upon him entitled, "Why come ye not to Courte?" The tone of this effusion may be gathered from such expressions as:-- "God save his noble grace And grant him a place Endlesse to dwell, With the deuyll of hell, For and he were there We nede neuer feere, Of the fendys blake; For I vndertake He wolde so brag and crake, That he wolde then make The deuyls to quake, To shudder and to shake." Owing to such attacks, he was obliged to flee and take sanctuary at Westminster, where he died. His most entertaining pieces are "Speke Parrot," "Phyllyt Sparrowe," and "Elynour Rummynge." In the first a fair lady laments the death of her bird, killed by "those vylanous false cattes." She sings a "requiescat" for the soul of her dear bird, and recounts all his pretty ways--