66 COLIN CLOUT. What can it avail To drive forth a snail, Or to make a sail Or books to compile Of divers manner style, Vice to revile And sin to exile, To teach and to preach As reason will reach? 10 20 1 Skelton proceeds to illustrate some courtesies of critics towards a book intended earnestly to do true service in its day. With such comments before the writer, what avails it, he says, that he should ask speed of the snail, or hope to reach the desired port when the common censures of men hoist for him no better sail than a herring's tail to help his good ship on her way. Two contemporaries of Skelton were the German Sebastian Brandt-who died in 1520, and who led the way in sixteenth century satire with his "Navis Stultifera," or "Narrenschiff," in Latin and German-and Alexander Barclay, who made of it a Ship of Fools" in English verse. The first fool in Brandt's collection is the sort of reader from whom narrow criticism comes, whom Pope called "the bookful blockhead ignorantly read," and whom I reproduce above as figured in Brandt's book. Such illustrations of the text as are drawn from "The Ship of Fools" are copied direct from the original Nuremberg edition of 1494. The illustrations to. Barclay are weak copies of them. Another of Skelton's contemporaries was the great scholar Erasmus, who, indeed, knew Skelton personally, and spoke of him as a light and ornament of British literature. Erasmus, when in England in 1509, wrote, not without some suggestion from Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a "Moria Encomium"-a Praise of Folly-with like purpose of help to society through satire. Hans Holbein, delighted with this book, adorned the margin of one copy of it with pen-and-ink sketches in illustration of passages that caught his fancy. He enriched the volume with eighty-three such sketches in ten days. The volume is now in the library at Basle. Where any of these sketches are used to illustrate the text they are taken from the best reproductions of them, those in C. Patin's edition of the "Moria Encomium," published at Basle in 1676. 3 Hag. First English "hæ'g-steald," a bachelor, youth, soldier, and prince; "hæghed," bachelorhood. So in the other passages where Skelton uses the word, not meaning what we now understand by it. "Ye cast all your courage upon such courtly hags;" and "Thou canst not but brag Like a Scottish hag." Mr. Dyce, in his admirable edition of Skelton's "Poetical Works," published in 1843, gives the word up. Thus each of other blother1 The church is put in faute;2 Of wool amongst their flock; A glomming and a mumming, They gasp and they gape There is their whole devotion, With money, if it will hap, 70 50 In their provincial cure And sol-fa so a-la-mi-re,9 That the premunire Is like to be set a-fire In their jurisdictions Through temporal afflictions; Men say they have prescriptions Against spiritual contradictions, Accounting them as fictions. And while the heads do this, Both great and small. I wot never how they wark, Within the noble walls To fat their bodies full, 110 120 130 140 Thomas puts forth his hand to what is strong, he contemns losses, contemns insults; no wrong causes Thomas to break down. 5 Keke, kick. To seck, wanting. So in Milton's "Comus: " "I do not think my sister so to seek, 7 As far as Mount Seir (named in Joshua xv. 10, as on the borders of Judah, "From Baalah westward unto Mount Seir "). 8Ye cannot appeire (French "pire," Latin "pejor "), become worse than you are. This is Mr. Dyce's reading of the lines "For usque ad montem Sare Ye cannot appare." "GO YE ALSO INTO THE VINEYARD." (Holbein.) And how when ye give orders In your provincial borders, Some are insufficientes, 16 Some parum sapientes,16 Some nihil intelligentes,17 220 9 The hobby was a small hawk (only the merlin smaller), and was used in catching larks, because, through fear of it, they would not rise while the net was being drawn over them. 10"He that meddleth with all things may shoe the gosling." (Heywood.) 11 Simony. 12 Pranes, prawns. 13 Werynge, restriction, covenant. First English "we'ran " and "werian," to defend, check; "we'r," a caution, compact, pledge, covenant. 14 The crop of a hawk was called the gorge, and Dame Juliana Berners, in the "Book of St. Alban's" (quoted by Mr. Dyce), says "she enduyth when her meate in her bowelles falle to dygestyon." 15 Sitientes, ye who thirst. First word of the Introit of the mass for Passion Sunday. Sitientes Saturday was here, and is still abroad, the name for the day before Passion Sunday. (Dyce.) 16 Little wise. 17 Understanding nothing. 8 Ale stake. The old sign for an alehouse was a stake with a garland or bush of twigs at the end of it. Hence our saying that good wine needs no bush, because all take care to remember where they found it; and "hanging out the broom," which is a stake with twigs at the end of it, also has become a phrase for turning one's house into a place of public entertainment. 9 Hake and make, loiterer and mate or comrade. Hake, perhaps allied to the Dutch "hachelyk," German "häkelig," difficult, troublesome, against one's will. From the root "hage," which is hooked or crooked. In Scottish dialect "hashy" means slovenly, and "hash" or "hachal," a sloven. For a Simoniac Is but a Hermoniac, And no more ye make Of Simony, men say, But a child's play. Over this the foresaid lay Report how the Pope may Out of the stony wall To keep so hard a rule, To ride upon a mule With gold all betrapped In purple and pall belapped; 10 Peaks, simpletons. 11 Apposed, questioned. 300 Farly fit, strange song. First English "fæ'rlic," sudden, surprising. So in the opening of the vision of "Piers Plowman :' "Me befel a ferly, of fairy methought." 5 Old St. Paul's, of which various parts were in building during 224 years before its completion in 1312, had a tower and spire 534 feet high, with a ball on the top that could contain ten bushels of grain, and over the ball a cross that was fifteen feet high. In 1444 this spire was fired by lightning, and the damage thus caused was not fully repaired till 1462. The refitted spire was then surmounted with "a stately eagle weathercock of gilt copper," which the mocker from below, missing the ball and cross, could liken to a bright butterfly settled upon it. 6 Aquilonis, on the sides of the north. "Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north." (Isaiah xiv. 13.) 7 Prestes, forced payments of ready money in advance, and loans. In 1522 Wolsey levied a loan of a tenth on lay subjects, and a fourth on the clergy. In 1523 he got a subsidy from the clergy of half their year's revenue, and asked four shillings in the pound of the laity, getting half that sum. 8 Tayde, tied. And the selfsame game Begun is now with shame Dame Sybil our abbess, Dame Dorothy and Lady Bess, Dame Sare our prioress, Out of their cloister and With an heavy cheer, quere 13 Must cast up their black veils And set up their fore sails To catch wind with their ventales 66 What, Colin, there thou shales!" 14 Yet thus with ill hails The lay people rails. And all the fault they lay On you, prelates, and say You do them wrong and no right To put them thus to flight; No matins at midnight, Book and chalice gone quite: 400 It is used 9 Tenure by socage was on condition of fixed services. here for the play on words with service of sottage or folly. 10 Thomas Littleton, of a good Worcestershire family, became serjeant-at-law in 1455, a Justice of Common Pleas in 1466, a Knight of the Bath a few years later, died in 1481, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. He compiled, perhaps when judge of Common Pleas, the famous book on Tenures, which was afterwards the subject of a commentary by Sir Edward Coke, who looked upon Littleton's "Tenures" as "the most perfect and absolute book that was ever written in any science." 11 Vagabondize through the market-place. 12 Against the rule of manners, or discipline, either of the bla monks or, &c. &c. 13 Quere, choir. 14 "I shayle as a man or horse dothe that gothe croked with his legges: Je vas eschays. A shayle with y knees togyther and tar (Palsgrave, 1530, quoted by Dyce.) fete outwarde: A eschays." |