“Monstrante fonteis vate _Laurigero_ sacros.” “It is probable,” says Granger, “that if that great and good man [Erasmus] had read and perfectly understood his [Skelton’s] ‘pithy, pleasaunt, and profitable works,’ as they were lately reprinted, he would have spoken of him in less honourable terms.” _Biog. Hist. of Engl._ i. 102. ed. 1775. The remark is sufficiently foolish: in Skelton’s works there are not a few passages which Erasmus, himself a writer of admirable wit, must have relished and admired; and it was not without reason that he and our poet have been classed together as satirists, in the following passage; “By what meanes could Skelton that laureat poet, or Erasmus that great and learned clarke, have vttered their mindes so well at large, as thorowe their clokes of mery conceytes in wryting of toyes and foolish theames: as Skelton did by _Speake parrot_, _Ware the hauke_, _the Tunning of Elynour Rumming_, _Why come ye not to the Courte?_ _Philip Sparrowe_, and such like: yet what greater sense or better matter can be, than is in this ragged ryme contayned? Or who would haue hearde his fault so playnely tolde him, if not in such gibyng sorte? Also Erasmus, vnder his _prayse of Folly_, what matters hath he touched therein?” &c. _The Golden Aphroditis_, &c. by John Grange, 1577 (I quote from _Censura Liter_. vol. i. 382. ed. 1815). [56] Then a student of Lincoln’s Inn. [57] The country-seat of Lord Mountjoy. [58] Probably Eltham. [59] _Catal. (Primus) Lucubrationum_, p. 2. prefixed to the above-cited vol. of _Erasmi Opera_.—In Turner’s _Hist. of the Reign of Henry the Eighth_, it is erroneously stated that Erasmus “had the interview which he thus describes, _at the residence of Lord Mounjoy_,” i. 11. ed. 8vo. [60] Vol. i. 410. [61] Lines prefixed to Marsh’s ed. of Skelton’s _Workes_, 1568: see Appendix I. to this Memoir. [62] p. 30,—1592, 4to. [63] According to the xivᵗʰ of the _Merie Tales of Skelton_ (see Appendix I. to the present Memoir), he was “long confined in prison at Westminster by the command of the cardinal:” but the tract is of such a nature that we must hesitate about believing a single statement which it contains. Even supposing that at some period or other Skelton was really imprisoned by Wolsey, that imprisonment could hardly have taken place so early as 1502. As far as I can gather from his writings, Skelton first offended Wolsey by glancing at him in certain passages of _Colyn Cloute_, and in those passages the cardinal is alluded to as being in the fulness of pomp and power. [64] By Writ of Privy Seal—_Auditor’s Calendar of Files from 1485 to 1522_, fol. 101 (b.), in the Public Record Office. [65] Ritson (_Bibliog. Poet._ p. 102) says that Skelton was “_chaplain_ to king Henry the eighth:” qy. on what authority?