but always vivacious. He was the rector of Diss, in Norfolk, but his
profane and scurrilous wit seems rather out of keeping with his
clerical character. His _Tunnyng of Elynoure Rummyng_ is a study of very
low life, reminding one slightly of Burns's _Jolly Beggars_. His
_Phyllyp Sparrowe_ is a sportive, pretty, fantastic elegy on the death
of a pet bird belonging to Mistress Joanna Scroupe, of Carowe, and has
been compared to the Latin poet Catullus's elegy on Lesbia's sparrow. In
_Spake, Parrot_, and _Why Come ye not to Courte?_ he assailed the
powerful Cardinal Wolsey with the most ferocious satire, and was, in
consequence, obliged to take sanctuary at Westminster, where he died in
1529. Skelton was a classical scholar, and at one time tutor to Henry
VIII. The great humanist, Erasmus, spoke of him as the "one light and
ornament of British letters." Caxton asserts that he had read Vergil,
Ovid, and Tully, and quaintly adds, "I suppose he hath dronken of
Elycon's well."

In refreshing contrast with the artificial court poetry of the 15th and
first three quarters of the 16th century, was the folk poetry, the
popular ballad literature which was handed down by oral tradition. The
English and Scotch ballads were narrative songs, written in a variety of
meters, but chiefly in what is known as the ballad stanza.

In somer, when the shawes[14] be shene,[15]
And leves be large and longe,
Hit is full merry in feyre forést,
To here the foulys song.

To se the dere draw to the dale,
And leve the hillës hee,[16]
And shadow them in the levës grene,