he owed to the favour of Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, one of the founders of Brasenose. He was likewise made the royal historiographer, and tutor in grammar to Prince Arthur.
In his character as laureate, he wrote an address to Henry VIII. for the most auspicious beginning of the tenth year of his reign, an "Epithalamium on the Marriage of Francis, the Dauphin of France, with the King's daughter," "A New Year's Gift, 1515;" and verses wishing prosperity to his Majesty's thirteenth year. All these were of course in Latin. As royal historiographer, he wrote a "Chronicle of the Life of Henry VIII.," and "Commentaries" upon his reign. He composed likewise some Latin hymns, and was living in 1522.
John Skelton was poet-laureate to King Henry VIII. He was the last who bore the title in its primary signification as a University degree, the last whose qualification for the office was skill in Latin versification.
The little we know of this singular writer only serves to provoke our curiosity. A jesting priest, with coarse humour, his rough laugh tingled rudely in the ear of Wolsey, and cowled monks waxed wroth at his strange and caustic satire. Unconsciously, like Chaucer and others our greatest thinkers, while entertaining a profound reverence for the Romish Church, he was steadily preparing the English mind for the great Reformation. Those men were ever foremost to brand with ignominy the foul corruptions of the papal system; but while abhorring heretics, and justifying persecution, they little dreamed that they themselves were efficient instruments in securing the triumph of the opinions they denounced. So essential are institutions for the preservation of truth, so fondly does human weakness cling to any system that has obtained the sanction of time, that the boldest would
