act ii. sc. 2.

—— _male_] i. e. bag, wallet, pouch.

v. 391. _burde_] i. e. board.

v. 393. _the dosen browne_] Is used sometimes to signify thirteen; as in a rare piece entitled _A Brown Dozen of Drunkards_, &c., 1648. 4to., who are _thirteen_ in number. But in our text “the dosen browne” seems merely to mean the full dozen: so in a tract (_Letter from a Spy at Oxford_) cited by Grey in his notes on _Hudibras_, vol. ii. 375; “and this was the twelfth Conquest, which made up the Conqueror’s _brown Dozen_ in Number, compared to the twelve Labours of Hercules.”

v. 394. _pas_] Seems here to be equivalent to—stake; but I have not found _pass_ used with that meaning in any works on gaming. See _The Compleat Gamester_, p. 119. ed. 1680.

v. 397. _in my pouche a buckell I haue founde_] So in our author’s _Magnyfycence_, after Foly and Fansy have exchanged purses, the latter says

“Here is nothynge but _the bockyll of a sho_, And in my purse was twenty marke.”

v. 1120. vol. i. 261.

Page 45. v. 398. _The armes of Calyce_] In our author’s _Magnyfycence_ is the same exclamation;

“By _the armes of Calys_, well conceyued!”

V. 685. vol. i. 247.

Whether Calais in France, or Cales (Cadiz) be alluded to, I know not.

—— _crosse_] See note on v. 363. p. 116.

v. 399. _renne_] i. e. run.

v. 401. _To wete yf Malkyn, my lemman, haue gete oughte_] i. e. To know if Malkin, my mistress, has got aught:—whether _Malkin_ is the diminutive of _Mal_ (Mary) has been disputed.

v. 406. _Bordews_] i. e. Bordeaux.

v. 408. _auenture_] i. e. adventure.

v. 411. _curtel_] i. e. curtal.

v. 412. _lege_] i. e. allege.

v. 413. _haue here is myne hat to plege_] Marshe’s ed., as I have noticed _ad loc._, omits “is:” but compare our author’s _Elynour Rummyng_;

“_Haue here is_ for me, A cloute of London pynnes.”

v. 563. vol. i. 113.

“_Haue._ i. take the this torne or thredebare garment.” Palsgrave’s _Acolastus_, 1540. sig. U ii.

Page 46. v. 414. _rybaude_] i. e. ribald.

v. 418. _kyste_] i. e. cast.

v. 420. _sadde_] i. e. serious, earnest.

v. 423. _stede_] i. e. place.

v. 425. _Me passynge sore myne herte than gan agryse_] For the reading of all the eds. “aryse,” I have ventured to substitute “agryse,” i. e. cause to shudder. Compare;

“_Sore_ might _hir agrise_.”

_Arthour and Merlin_, p. 34. ed. Abbotsf.

“Of his sweuen _sore him agros_.”

_Marie Maudelein_, p. 226,—Turnbull’s _Legendæ Catholicæ_ (from the Auchinleck MS.).

“The kinges _herte_ of pitee _gan agrise_.”

Chaucer’s _Man of Lawes Tale_, v. 5034. ed. Tyr.

“Swiche peines, that your _hertes_ might _agrise_.”

Chaucer’s _Freres Tale_, v. 7231. ed. Tyr.

v. 426. _I dempte and drede_] i. e. I deemed and dreaded.

v. 428. _Than in his hode, &c._]—_hode_, i. e. hood.—This passage is quoted by Warton, who observes, “There is also merit in the delineation of DISSIMULATION ... and it is not unlike Ariosto’s manner in imagining these allegorical personages.” _Hist. of E. P._ ii. 349. ed. 4to.

Page 46. v. 431. _coost_] i. e. coast, approach.

v. 433. _I sawe a knyfe hyd in his one sleue_]—_sleue_, i. e. sleeve.—This picture somewhat resembles that of False Semblant;

“But _in his sleue he gan to thring_ _A rasour sharpe_.”

Chaucer’s _Rom. of the Rose_,—_Workes_, fol. 141. ed. 1602.

v. 434. _Myscheue_] i. e. Mischief.

v. 436. _spone_] i. e. spoon.

v. 437. _to preue a dawe_] i. e. to prove, try a simpleton: see note on v. 301. p. 113.—Warton, who gives the other reading, “_to preye_ a dawe,” explains it—to catch a silly bird. Note on _Hist. of E. P._ ii. 349. ed. 4to.

v. 438. _wrete_] i. e. writ.

Page 47. v. 440. _His hode was syde, his cope was roset graye_] i. e. His hood was long (or full), his cope was russet grey.

v. 445. _a connynge man ne dwelle maye_] i. e. a wise, a learned man may not dwell.

v. 448. _that nought can_] i. e. that knows nothing.

v. 454. _clerke_] i. e. scholar.

v. 455. _in the deuylles date_] See note on v. 375. p. 116.

v. 456. _longe_] i. e. belong.

v. 457. _lewde_] i. e. wicked.

v. 460. _herte brennynge_] i. e. heart-burning.

v. 464. _It is a worlde_] Equivalent to—It is a matter of wonder.

Page 48. v. 466. _A man can not wote where to be come_] i. e. A man cannot know whither to go: compare v. 228.

v. 467. _I wys_] i. e. truly, certainly (_i-wis_, adv.).

—— _home_] i. e. hum.

v. 470. _frere_] i. e. friar.

v. 471. _agayne_] i. e. against.

v. 476. _shall wene be hanged by the throte_] i. e. (I suppose) shall think themselves hanged, &c.

v. 477. _a stoppynge oyster_] Compare Heywood;

“Herewithall his wife to make vp my mouth, Not onely her husbands taunting tale auouth, But thereto deuiseth to cast in my teeth Checks and _choking oysters_.”

_Dialogue_, sig. E,—_Workes_, ed. 1598.

v. 477. _poke_] i. e. pouch.

v. 484. _teder_] i. e. toder, t’other.

v. 486. _dreuyll_] See note on v. 337, p. 113.

Page 48. v. 488. _on flote_] i. e. flowing, full.

v. 490. _hode_] i. e. hood.

v. 491. _but what this is ynowe_] i. e. but that this is enough.

Page 49. v. 502. _Sterte_] i. e. Started.

v. 504. _nobles_] i. e. the gold coins so called.

v. 508. _His hode all pounsed and garded_]—_hode_, i. e. hood: _pounsed_, i. e. perforated, having small holes stamped or worked in it, by way of ornament—_garded_, i. e. adorned with _gards_, facings.

v. 510. _quod_] i. e. quoth.

v. 513. _rounde_] i. e. whisper,—or, rather, mutter, for Skelton (_Garlande of Laurell_, v. 250. vol. i. 372) and other poets make a distinction between _whisper_ and _round_:

“Me lyste not now. whysper _nether rowne_.”

Lydgate’s _Storye of Thebes, Pars Prima_, sig. b vii. ed. 4to. n. d.

“Whisper _and rounde_ thinges ymagined falsly.”

Barclay’s _Ship of Fooles_, fol. 208. ed. 1570.

“They’re here with me already, whispering, _rounding_.”

Shakespeare’s _Winter’s Tale_, act i. sc. 2.

v. 521. _hafte_] See note on v. 138. p. 108.

v. 522. _payne_] i. e. difficulty.

Page 50. v. 525. _shrewes_] i. e. wicked, worthless fellows.

v. 527. _confetryd_] i. e. confederated.

v. 528. _lewde_] i. e. vile, rascally.

v. 529. _slee_] i. e. slay.

v. 530. _hente_] i. e. seized.

v. 536. _Syth_] i. e. Since.

PHYLLYP SPAROWE

Must have been written before the end of 1508; for it is mentioned with contempt in the concluding lines of Barclay’s _Ship of Fooles_, which was finished in that year: see _Account of Skelton and his Writings_.

The _Luctus in morte Passeris_ of Catullus no doubt suggested the present production to Skelton, who, when he calls on “all maner of byrdes” (v. 387) to join in lamenting Philip Sparow, seems also to have had an eye to Ovid’s elegy _In mortem Psittaci, Amor_. ii. 6. Another piece of the kind is extant among the compositions of antiquity,—the _Psittacus Atedii Melioris_ of Statius, _Silv_. ii. 4. In the _Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Joco-seriæ_, &c., of Dornavius, i. 460 sqq. may be found various Latin poems on the deaths, &c. of sparrows by writers posterior to the time of Skelton. See too Herrick’s lines _Upon the death of his Sparrow, an Elegie, Hesperides_, 1648. p. 117; and the verses entitled _Phyllis on the death of her Sparrow_, attributed to Drummond, _Works_, 1711. p. 50.

“Old Skelton’s ‘Philip Sparrow,’ an exquisite and original poem.” Coleridge’s _Remains_, ii. 163.

Page 51. v. 1. _Pla ce bo, &c._] Skelton is not the only writer that has taken liberties with the Romish service-book. In Chaucer’s _Court of Loue_, parts of it are sung by various birds; _Domine, labia_ by the nightingale, _Venite_ by the eagle, &c., _Workes_, fol. 333. ed. 1602: in a short poem by Lydgate “dyuerse foules” are introduced singing different hymns. _MS. Harl._ 2251. fol. 37: and see too a poem (attributed, without any authority, to Skelton) called _Armony of Byrdes_, n. d., reprinted (inaccurately) in _Typog. Antiq._ iv. 380. ed. Dibdin; and Sir D. Lyndsay’s _Complaynt of the Papingo, Works_, i. 325. ed. Chalmers. In _Reynard the Fox_ we are told that at the burial of “coppe, chanteklers doughter,”—“Tho begonne they _placebo domino_, with the verses that to longen,” &c. Sig. a 8. ed. 1481. Compare also the mock _Requiem_ printed (somewhat incorrectly) from _MS. Cott. Vesp._ B. 16. in Ritson’s _Antient Songs_, i. 118. ed. 1829; Dunbar’s _Dirige to the King at Stirling, Poems_, i. 86. ed. Laing; and the following lines of a rare tract entitled _A Commemoration or Dirige of Boner_, &c., by Lemeke Auale, 1569,—

“_Placebo_. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. _Heu me_, beware the bugge, out quod Boner alas, _De profundis clamaui_, how is this matter come to passe. _Lævaui oculos meos_ from a darke depe place,” &c.

sig. A viii.

Other pieces of the kind might be pointed out.

v. 6. _Wherfore and why, why?_] So in the _Enterlude of Kyng Daryus_, 1565;

“Thys is the cause _wherfore and why_.”

sig. G ii.

v. 7. _Philip Sparowe_] _Philip_, or _Phip_, was a familiar name given to a sparrow from its note being supposed to resemble that sound.

v. 8. _Carowe_] Was a nunnery in the suburbs of Norwich. “Here [at Norwich],” says Tanner, “was an ancient hospital or nunnery dedicated to St. Mary and St. John; to which K. Stephen having given lands and meadows without the south gate, Seyna and Leftelina two of the sisters, A.D. 1146, began the foundation of a new monastery called Kairo, Carow, or Carhou, which was dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, and consisted of a prioress and nine Benedictine nuns.” _Not. Mon._ p. 347. ed. 1744. In 1273, Pope Gregory the Tenth inhibited the Prioress and convent from receiving more nuns than their income would maintain, upon their representation that the English nobility, whom they could not resist, had obliged them to take in so many sisters that they were unable to support them. At the Dissolution the number of nuns was twelve. The site of the nunnery, within the walls, contained about ten acres. It was granted, with its chief revenues, in the 30th Henry viii. to Sir John Shelton, knight, who fitted up the parlour and hall, which were noble rooms, when he came to reside there, not long after the Dissolution. It continued in the Shelton family for several generations.

This nunnery was during many ages a place of education for the young ladies of the chief families in the diocese of Norwich, who boarded with and were taught by the nuns. The fair Jane or Johanna Scroupe of the present poem was, perhaps, a boarder at Carow.

See more concerning Carow in Dugdale’s _Monast._ (new ed.) iv. 68 sqq., and Blomefield’s _Hist. of Norfolk_, ii. 862 sqq. ed. fol.

Page 51. v. 9. _Nones Blake_] i. e. Black Nuns,—Benedictines.

v. 12. _bederolles_] i. e. lists of those to be prayed for.

Page 52. v. 24. _The tearys downe hayled_] So Hawes;

“That euermore the salte _teres downe hayled_.”

_The Pastime of pleasure_, sig. Q viii. ed. 1555.

v. 27. _Gyb our cat_] _Gib_, a contraction of _Gilbert_, was a name formerly given to a male cat:

“_Gibbe our Cat_, That awaiteth Mice and Rattes to killen.”

_Romaunt of the Rose_,—Chaucer’s _Workes_, fol. 136. ed. 1602.

In _Gammer Gurtons Nedle_, 1575, “_Gib our cat_” is a person of consequence. Shakespeare (_Henry iv. Part First_, act i. sc. 2.) has the expression “gib cat;” and how his commentators have written “about it and about it” most readers are probably aware.

v. 29. _Worrowyd her on that_] So Dunbar;

“He that dois _on_ dry breid _wirry_.”

_Poems_, i. 108. ed. Laing.

v. 34. _stounde_] i. e. moment, time.

v. 35. _sounde_] i. e. swoon.

v. 37. _Vnneth I kest myne eyes_] i. e. Scarcely, not without difficulty, I cast, &c.

v. 42. _Haue rewed_] i. e. Have had compassion.

Page 52. v. 46. _senaws_] i. e. sinews.

Page 53. v. 58. _frete_] i. e. eat, gnaw.

v. 69. _marees_] i. e. waters.

v. 70. _Acherontes well_] i. e. Acheron’s well. So,—after the fashion of our early poets,—Skelton writes _Zenophontes_ for _Xenophon_, _Eneidos_ for _Eneis_, _Achilliedos_ for _Achilleis_, &c.

v. 75. _blo_] i. e. livid: see note, p. 103. v. 3.

v. 76. _mare_] i. e. hag.—“_Mare_ or witche.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499.

v. 77. _fende_] i. e. fiend.

v. 78. _edders_] i. e. adders.

v. 82. _sowre_] In Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530, is “_Sower_ of smellyng,” fol. xcvi. (Table of Adiect.),—a sense of the word which Skelton has elsewhere (third poem _Against Garnesche_, v. 146. vol. i. 124), and which therefore probably applies to the present passage. But qy. does “sowre” signify here—foul? “_Sowre_ filthe. Fimus. Cenum. Lutum.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499. “_Sowry_ or defiled in _soure_ or filth,” &c. _Id._

“The riuer cler withouten _sour_.”

_Arthour and Merlin_, p. 320. ed. Abbotsf.

v. 87. _outraye_] “I _Outray_ a persone (Lydgate) I do some outrage or extreme hurt to hym. _Ie oultrage_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. cccxi. (Table of Verbes).

“The childe playes hym at the balle, That salle _owttraye_ zow alle.”

_The Awntyrs of Arthurs_, p. 110. (_Syr Gawayne, &c._)

where Sir F. Madden explains it “injure, destroy.”—In our text, “outraye” is equivalent to—vanquish, overcome; and so in the following passages;

“The cause why Demostenes so famously is brutid, Onely procedid for that he did _outray_ Eschines, whiche was not shamefully confutid But of that famous oratour, I say, Whiche passid all other; wherfore I may Among my recordes suffer hym namyd, For though he were _venquesshid_, yet was he not shamyd.”

Skelton’s _Garlande of Laurell_, v. 155. vol. i. 368.

(Richardson, in his valuable _Dictionary_, v. _Out-rage_, &c., says that, in the stanza just cited, _outray_ “is evidently—to exceed, to excel;” but the last line of the stanza, together with the present passage of _Phyllyp Sparowe_, and the annexed quotations from Lydgate, shew that he is mistaken.)

“Whom Hercules most strong and coragious, Sumtime _outraid_, and slewe hym with his hand.”

Lydgate’s _Fall of Prynces_, B. i. leaf xxvii. ed. Wayland.

“Al be that Cresus faught long in hys defence, He finally by Cyrus was _outrayed_, And depriued by knyghtly vyolence, Take in the felde,” &c.

_Id._ B. ii. leaf lviii.

“But it may fall, a dwerye [i. e. dwarf] in his right, To _outray_ a gyaunt for all his gret might.”

_Id._ B. iii. leaf lxvii.

Page 54. v. 98. _Zenophontes_] i. e. Xenophon: see note on v. 70, preceding page.

v. 107. _thought_] See notes, p. 101. v. 10. p. 104. last line.

v. 114. _go_] i. e. gone.

v. 115. _fole_] i. e. fool.

v. 116. _stole_] i. e. stool.

v. 117. _scole_] i. e. school, instruction.

v. 118.

_For to kepe his cut,_ _With, Phyllyp, kepe your cut!_]

Compare Gascoigne in a little poem entitled _The praise of Philip Sparrow_;

“As if you say but _fend cut_ phip, Lord how the peat will turne and skip.”

_Workes_ (_Weedes_), p. 285. ed. 1587.

Sir Philip Sidney in a sonnet;

“Good brother Philip, I haue borne you long, I was content you should in fauour creepe, While craftily you seem’d your _cut to keepe_, As though that faire soft hand did you great wrong.”

_Astrophel and Stella_, p. 548. ed. 1613.

Brome in _The Northern Lasse_, 1632;

“A bonny bonny Bird I had A bird that was my Marroe: A bird whose pastime made me glad, And Phillip twas my Sparrow. A pretty Play-fere: Chirp it would, And hop, and fly to fist, _Keepe cut_, as ’twere a Vsurers Gold, And bill me when I list.”