"Why were ye, Calliope, embroider'd with letters of gold?
Skelton Laureate, orator regius, maketh this answer:
"Calliope,
As ye may see,
Regent is she
Of poets all,
Which gave to me
The high degree
Laureate to be
Of fame royal;
Whose name enrolled,
With silk and gold,
I dare be bold
Thus for to wear
Of her I hold
And her household;
Though I was old
And somewhat sere.
Yet is she fain,
Void of disdain,
Me to retain
Her servitor,
With her certain
I will remain
As my sovereign
Most of pleasure.
Malgré tous malheurs."
Our author became famous as a scholar and a satirist; and was almost the only popular poet that appeared during the reign of Henry VII. But though a favourite with the lower orders, his talents were equally recognised by the learned, and fostered by the noble. Erasmus styled him the light and the glory of English literature; and Caxton, in his preface to a work published in 1490, pays him the following compliment: "But I pray Master Skelton, late created poet-laureate in the University of Oxford, to oversee and correct this said book, and to address and expound where, as shall be found fault, to them that shall require it. For him I know sufficient to expound and English every difficulty that is therein. For he hath late translated the epistles of Tully, and the
