So full of change is of the World the Glory_.

Dr. _Fuller_ observeth, That none hath worse Poetry than Poets on their
Monuments; certainly there is no Rule without Exceptions; he himself
instancing to the contrary in his _England's Worthies_, by Mr.
_Drayton's_ Epitaph, and several others.

* * * * *




_JOHN SKELTON_.


_John Skelton_, the Poet Laureat in his Age, tho' now accounted only a
Rhymer, is supposed to have been born in _Norfolke_, there being an
ancient Family of that Name therein; and to make it the more probable,
he himself was Beneficed therein at _Dis_ in that County. That he was
Learned, we need go no further than to _Erasmus_ for a Testimony; who,
in his Letter to King _Henry_ the Eighth, stileth him, _Britanicarum
Literarum Lumen & Decus_. Indeed he had Scholarship enough, and Wit too
much: _Ejus Sermo_ (saith _Pitz._) _salsus in mordacem, risus in
opprobrium, jocus in amaritudinem_. Whoso reads him, will find he hath
a miserable, loose, rambling Style, and galloping measure of Verse: yet
were good poets so scarce in his Age, that he had the good fortune to
be chosen Poet Laureat, as he stiles himself in his Works, _The Kings
Orator, and Poet Laureat_.

His chief Works, as many as can be collected, and that out of an old