good ale & stronge makethe me amonge full joconde & full lyte that ofte I slepe & take no kepe frome mornynge vntyll nyte then starte I vppe & fle to the cuppe the ryte waye on I holde my thurste to staunche I fyll my paynche with joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. and kytte my wyfe that as her lyfe lovethe well good ale to seke full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye se the tears ronne downe her cheke then dothe she troule to me the bolle as a goode malte worme sholde & saye swete harte I have take my parte of joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. They that do dryncke tyll they nodde & wyncke even as good fellowes shulde do they shall notte mysse to have the blysse that good ale hathe browghte them to & all poore soules that skowre blacke bolles & them hathe lustely trowlde god save the lyves Of them & ther wyves wether they be yonge or olde. backe & syde,” &c. [22] Vol. i. 1. [23] Vol. i. 6: see Notes, vol. ii. 89. [24] He was only eleven years old at his father’s death. See more concerning the fifth earl in Percy’s Preface to _The Northumberland Household Book_, 1770, in Warton’s _Hist. of E. P._ ii. 338. ed. 4to, and in Collins’s _Peerage_, ii. 304. ed. Brydges.—Warton says that the Earl “encouraged Skelton to write this Elegy,” an assertion grounded, I suppose, on the Latin lines prefixed to it. [25] A splendid MS. volume, consisting of poems (chiefly by Lydgate), finely written on vellum, and richly illuminated, which formerly belonged to the fifth earl, is still preserved in the British Museum, _MS. Reg. 18. D ii._: at fol. 165 is Skelton’s Elegy on the earl’s father. [26] For a notice of Skelton’s laureation at Oxford, the Rev. Dr. Bliss obligingly searched the archives of that university, but without success: “no records,” he informs me, “remain between 1463 and 1498 that will give a correct list of degrees.” [27] This work (a thin folio), translated by Caxton from the French, is a prose romance founded on the _Æneid_. It consists of 65 chapters, the first entitled “How the ryght puyssant kynge pryamus edyfyed the grete Cyte of Troye,” the last, “How Ascanyus helde the royalme of Ytalye after the dethe of Eneas hys fader.” Gawin Douglas, in the Preface to his translation of Virgil’s poem, makes a long and elaborate attack on Caxton’s performance; “Wylliame Caxtoun had no compatioun Of Virgill in that buk he preȳt in prois, Clepand it Virgill in Eneados, Quhilk that he sayis of Frensche he did translate; It has na thing ado therwith, God wate, Nor _na mare like than the Deuil and sanct Austin_,” &c. Sig. B iii. ed. 1553. [28] A work probably never printed, and now lost: it is mentioned by Skelton in the _Garlande of Laurell_; “Of _Tullis Familiars_ the translacyoun.” vol. i. 409. [29] A work mentioned in the same poem;