That in a bravado Spent many a crusado, In setting forth the armado But I must not here forget, that Dunbar, a Scotch poet of Skelton's own age, already mentioned, wrote in this way. His TESTAMENT OF MAISTER ANDRO KENNEDY, which represents the character of an idle dissolute scholar, and ridicules the funeral ceremonies of the Romish communion, has almost every alternate line composed of the formularies of a Latin Will, and shreds of the breviary, mixed with what the French call Latin de cuisine". There is some humour, arising from these burlesque applications, in the following stanzas." In die meæ sepulturæ, I will have nane but our awin gango, I Printed at Oxford by Joseph Barnes, 1589. 4to. See also a doggrel piece of this kind, in imitation of Skelton, introduced into Browne's SHEPHERD'S PIPE, Lond. 1614. 8vo. Perhaps this way of writing is ridiculed by Shakespeare, MERRY WIVES OF WINDS. A. ii. Sc. i. Where Falstaffe says, "I will not say, Pity me, 'tis not a soldier's phrase, but I say love me: by me Thine own true knight, by day or night, See also the Interlude of Pyramus and by lord Nottingham's players, and print- Another bade shave halfe my berde, ADDITIONS.] Drinkand and playand cap out, even Singand and greitand with the stevin, I will no priestis for me sing, Dies ille, dies iræ ; Nar yet no bellis for me ring But a bag-pyp to play a spring, Quatuor lagenas cervisiæ, Within the graif to sett, fit thing, In modum crucis juxta me, To fle the feyndis, then hardly sing We must, however, acknowledge, that Skelton, notwithstanding his scurrility, was a classical scholar; and in that capacity he was tutor to prince Henry, afterwards king Henry the Eighth at whose accession to the throne, he was appointed the royal orator. He is styled by Erasmus, "Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen "." His Latin elegiacs are pure, and curse for the miller's eeles that were All you that stolen the miller's eeles, See a poem on Becket's martyrdom, in Lond. 1722. 4to. Hither we must re- often unmixed with the monastic phraseology; and they prove, that if his natural propensity to the ridiculous had not more frequently seduced him to follow the whimsies of Walter Mapes and Golias", than to copy the elegancies of Ovid, he would have appeared among the first writers of Latin poetry in England at the general restoration of literature. Skelton could not avoid acting as a buffoon in any language, or any character. I cannot quit Skelton, of whom I yet fear too much has been already said, without restoring to the public notice a play, or MORALITY, written by him, not recited in any catalogue of his works, or annals of English typography; and, I believe, at present totally unknown to the antiquarians in this sort of literature. It is, The NIGRAMANSIR, a morall ENTERLUDE and a pithie written by Maister SKELTON laureate, and plaid before the king and other estatys at Woodstoke on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkin de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504*. It must have been presented before king Henry the Seventh, at the royal manor or palace, at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed. The characters are a Necromancer, or conjurer, the devil, a notary public, Simonie, and These two writers are often confounded. See the Second DISSERTATION. James says, that Golias was not a name adopted by Mapes: but that there was a real writer of that name, a collection of whose works he had seen. See MSS. [Bibl. Bodl.] JAMES, i. p. 320. Golias and Mapes appear to have been cotemporaries, and of a similar genius. The curious reader will find many extracts from their poetry, which has very great merit in its way, among James's manuscript collections. The facility of these old Latin rhymers is amazing: and they have a degree of humour and elegance far exceeding their age. X My lamented friend Mr. William Collins, whose ODEs will be remembered while any taste for true poetry remains, shewed me this piece at Chichester, not many months before his death: and he pointed it out as a very rare and valuable curiosity. He intended to write the HISTORY OF THE REStoration of LeabnING UNDER LEO THE TENTH, and with a view In the Mystery of MARIE MAGDALENE, written in 1512, a Heathen is introduced celebrating the service of Mahound, who is called Saracenorum fortissimus; in the midst of which he reads a Lesson from the Alcoran, consisting of gibberish, much in the metre and manner of Skelton. MSS. Digb. 183. Y Simony is introduced as a person in SIR PENNY, an old Scotch poem, written in 1527, by Stewart of Lorne. See ANTIENT SCOTTISH POEMS. Edinb. 1770. 8vo. p. 154. So wily can syr Peter wink, And als sir SYMONY his servand, Philargyria, or Avarice. It is partly a satire on some abuses in the church; yet not without a due regard to decency, and an apparent respect for the dignity of the audience. The story, or plot, is the tryal of SIMONY and AVARICE: the devil is the judge, and the notary public acts as an assessor or scribe. The prisoners, as we may suppose, are found guilty, and ordered into hell immediately. There is no sort of propriety in calling this play the Necromancer: for the only business and use of this character is to open the subject in a long prologue, to evoke the devil, and summon the court. The devil kicks the necromancer, for waking him so soon in the morning: a proof, that this drama was performed in the morning, perhaps in the chapel of the palace. A variety of measures, with shreds of Latin and French, is used: but the devil speaks in the octave stanza. One of the stage-directions is, Enter Balsebub with a Berde. To make him both frightful and ridiculous, the devil was most commonly introduced on the stage, wearing a visard with an immense beard. Philargyria quotes Seneca and saint Scotch poem, ibid. p. 253. At a feast, And twa lerit men thairby, "Some That is, sir Usury and sir Simony. Si- Bodl. 48. 2 Robert Crowley, a great reformer, of whom more hereafter, wrote "The Fable of PHILARGYRIA, the great gigant of Great Britain, what houses were builded, and lands appointed, for his provision," &c. 1551. 4to. aThus in Turpin's HISTORY OF CHARLEMAGNE, the Saracens appear, "Habentes LARVAS BARBATAS, Cornutas, DæMONIBUS Consimiles." c. xviii. And in LEWIS THE EIGHTH, an old French romance of Philip Mouskes. Jot apries lui une barboire, There was a species of masquerade ce- Austin and Simony offers the devil a bribe. The devil rejects her offer with much indignation: and swears by the foule Eumenides, and the hoary beard of Charon, that she shall be well fried and roasted in the unfathomable sulphur of Cocytus, together with Mahomet, Pontius Pilate, the traitor Judas, and king Herod. The last scene is closed with a view of hell, and a dance between the devil and the necromancer. The dance ended, the devil trips up the necromancer's heels, and disappears in fire and smoke". Great must have been the edification and entertainment which king Henry the Seventh and his Where, by Barbatores, we are not to understand Barbers, but mimics, or buffoons, disguised in huge bearded masks. In Don Quixote, the barber who personates the squire of the princess Micomicona, wears one of these masks, "una gran barba," &c. Part. prim. c. xxvi. I. 3. And the countess of Trifaldi's squire has "la mas larga, la mas horrida," &c. Part. sec. c. xxxvi. 1. 8. See OBSERVAT. ON SPENSER, vol. i. SEC TION II. About the eleventh century, and long before, beards were looked upon by the clergy as a secular vanity; and accordingly were worn by the laity only. Yet in England this distinction seems to have been more rigidly observed than in France. Malmesbury says, that king Harold, at the Norman invasion, sent spies into Duke William's camp; who reported, that most of the French army were priests, because their faces were shaved. HIST. lib. iii. p.56. b. edit. Savil. 1596. The regulation remained among the English clergy at least till the reign of Henry the Eighth for Longland bishop of Lincoln, at a Visitation of Oriel college, Oxford, in 1531, orders one of the fellows, a priest, to abstain, under pain of expulsion, from wearing a beard, and pinked shoes, like a laic; and not to take the liberty, for the future, of insulting and ridiculing the governor and fellows of the society. ORDINAT. Coll. Oriel. Oxon. APPEND. ad Joh. TROKELOWE, p. 339. See Edicts of king John, in Prynne, LIBERTAT. ECCLES. : ANGL. tom. iii. p. 23. But among the religious, the Templars were permitted to wear long beards. In the year 1311, king Edward the Second granted letters of safe conduct to his valet Peter Auger, who had made a vow not to shave his beard; and who having resolved to visit some of the holy places abroad as a pilgrim, feared, on account of the length of his beard, that he might be mistaken for a knight-templar, and insulted. Pat. iv. Edw. H. In Dugdale's WARWICKSHIRE, p. 704. Many orders about Beards occur in the registers of Lincoln's-inn, cited by Dugdale. In the year 1542, it was ordered, that no member, wearing a BEARD, should presume to dine in the hall. In 1553, says Dugdale, "such as had beards should pay twelve-pence for every meal they continued them; and every man to be shaven, upon pain of being put out of commons. ORIG. JURID. c. 64. p. 244. In 1559, no member is permitted to wear any beard above a fortnight's growth; under pain of expulsion for the third transgression. But the fashion of wearing beards beginning to spread, in 1560 it was agreed at a council, that "all orders before that time made, touching BEARDS, should be void and repealed.' Dugd. ibid. p. 245. In the Mystery of MARY MAGDALENE, just mentioned, one of the stage directions is, "Here enters the prynse of the devylls in a stage, with hell onderneth the stage." MSS. DIGB. 133. |