If our author did not invent the metre which he uses in the greater portion of his writings, and which is now known by the name _Skeltonical_, he was certainly the first who adopted it in poems of any length; and he employed it with a skill, which, after he had rendered it popular, was beyond the reach of his numerous imitators.[134] “The Skeltonical short verse,” observes Mr. D’Israeli, speaking of Skelton’s own productions, “contracted into five or six, and even four syllables, is wild and airy. In the quick-returning rhymes, the playfulness of the diction, and the pungency of new words, usually ludicrous, often expressive, and sometimes felicitous, there is a stirring spirit which will be best felt in an audible reading. The velocity of his verse has a carol of its own. The chimes ring in the ear, and the thoughts are flung about like coruscations.”[135] Skelton has been frequently termed a Macaronic poet, but it may be doubted if with strict propriety; for the passages in which he introduces snatches of Latin and French are thinly scattered through his works. “This anomalous and motley mode of versification,” says Warton, “is, I believe, supposed to be peculiar to our author. I am not, however, quite certain that it originated with Skelton.”[136] He ought to have been “quite certain” that it did _not_.[137] [15] Sometimes written _Schelton_: and Blomefield says, “That his Name was _Shelton_ or Skelton, appears from his Successor’s Institution, viz. ‘1529, 17 July, Thomas Clerk, instituted on the Death of John _Shelton_, last Rector [Lib. Inst. No. 18].’” _Hist. of Norfolk_, i. 20. ed. 1739.