"Another thing yet is greatly more damnable: Of rascolde poetes yet is a shamfull rable, Which voyde of wisedome presumeth to indite, Though they haue scantly the cunning of a snite; And to what vices that princes moste intende, Those dare these fooles solemnize and commende Then is he decked as Poete laureate, When stinking Thais made him her graduate; When Muses rested, she did her season note, And she with Bacchus her camous did promote. Such rascolde drames, promoted by Thais, Bacchus, Licoris, or yet by Testalis, Or by suche other newe forged Muses nine, Thinke in their mindes for to haue wit diuine; They laude their verses, they boast, they vaunt and iet, Though all their cunning be scantly worth a pet: If they haue smelled the artes triuiall, They count them Poetes hye and heroicall. Such is their foly, so foolishly they dote, Thinking that none can their playne errour note; Yet be they foolishe, auoyde of honestie, Nothing seasoned with spice of grauitie, Auoyde of pleasure, auoyde of eloquence, With many wordes, and fruitlesse of sentence; Unapt to learne, disdayning to be taught, Their priuate pleasure in snare hath them so caught; And worst yet of all, they count them excellent, Though they be fruitlesse, rashe and improuident. To such ambages who doth their minde incline, They count all other as priuate of doctrine, And that the faultes which be in them alone, And be common in other men eche one. Thus bide good poetes oft time rebuke and blame, Because of other which haue despised name. And thus for the bad the good be cleane abject. Their art and poeme counted of none effect, Who wanteth reason good to discerne from ill Doth worthy writers interprete at his will: So both the laudes of good and not laudable For lacke of knowledge become vituperable." It has not hitherto been pointed out that Skelton did not disdain to borrow a leaf from the enemy's book and try his hand at paraphrasing the Ship of Fools also. "The Boke of three fooles, M. Skelton, poete laureate, gaue to my lord Cardynall," is a paraphrase in prose, with introductory verses, of three chapters of Brandt, corresponding to Barclay's chapters headed, Of yonge folys that take olde wyme to theyr wyues nat for loue but for ryches (I. 247); Of enuyous folys (I. 252); Of bodely lust or corporall voluptuosyte (I. 239). Skelton's three fools, are, "The man that doth wed a wyfe for her goodes and her rychesse;" "Of Enuye, the seconde foole"; and, "Of the Voluptuousnes corporall, the third foole;" and his versions are dashed off with his usual racy vigour. He probably, however, did not think it worth while to compete with the established favourite. If he had we would certainly have got a very different book from Barclay's.