“I confess, good sir, that I thought not to end my days in such a place as this. I thought to become a bishop--nay, even an archbishop, if it might please the Lord. All to-ragged as I am”--he was indeed somewhat frayed in the matter of linen--“and poor, insomuch that, unlike these losels among whom I live, who pay to the Abbey rent and fees for protection, I depend upon the bounty of the good Abbot Islip, whom may Christ and St. Peter spede. Yet, look you, I am John Skelton. You know not all that John Skelton has done. In the ‘Garlande of Laurell’ you may find set forth at length all that I have written. Since Dan Chaucer there has been no poet like unto me. My fame hath gone forth into strange lands. _Alma parens_ was Cambridge; but at Oxford was I honoured with the laurel; yea, and the ancient and venerable University of Louvain did also grant me a like honour. Had I time, I would read, gentle sir, certain noble Latin verses written in my honour by a scholar. ‘All the world,’ he truly writes,--‘the woods, the forests, the rivers and the sea, the Loves, the Satyrs, the Nymphs, the Naiades and Oceanides,--all together sing my praise. And my fame shall be as everlasting as the stars--_fama perennis erit_.’ Thus it is that the scholars speak of poets; thus are we honoured. Why, I look around me and without: I am a Sanctuary man; no bishop am I, nor chancellor,--only a Sanctuary man; yet--_fama perennis erit_. Or would you know what Erasmus, that great light of learning, said of me? Then read in his immortal Ode ‘De Laudibus Britanniæ,’ the dedication to Prince Henry. ‘Thou hast,’ he said, ‘at home Skelton, the only light and glory of British letters, one who can not only inflame thee with ardour, but also fill thee with learning.’ Yes, I was indeed the tutor of that young Prince, of whom I may proudly say that, if he is--all men know that he is--learned beyond any prince of his ancestry, mine own handiwork it is.” [Illustration: THE HOLBEIN GATE.]