240
of Caricature
HZFW
Grotefgue
and
for yourlaboure. I am contented, sayde Skelton. Syt downe then, sayde the Welsh-
man, and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. The Welshman sayde wryte
dryncke. Nowe, sayde the Welshman,write more drymke. What now? sayde Skelton.
Wryte nowe, a great deale of dryncke. Nowe, sayd the Welshman, putte to all thys
dryncke a line]! crome afbrende, and a great deal: of drynke to it, and reade once agayne.
Slcclton dyd reade, Dryncke, more dryncke, and a great deale qf dryncke, and a lyric creme qf
bmzde, and a great deals ofdryncke to it. Than the Welshman sayde, Put oute I112 lirle
creme qfbreade, and sette in,ai1dryncke and no breade, And if I myght have thys sygned
of the kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more, as longe as I dooe lyve.
Well then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys signed of the kyng, then wyll I
labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth your drynke and I with the bread
may fare well, and seeke our livinge with bngge and staH"e.'"
Thefe two tales are rather favourable fpecimens of the collenition
publilhed under the name of Skelton, which, as far as we know, was tirll
printed about the middle of the Iixteenth century. The colleetion of the
jefts of Scogan, or, as he was popularly called, Scogin, which is ihid to
have been compiled by Andrew Borde, was probably given to the world
a few years before, but no copies of the earlier editions are now known
to exill. Scogan, the hero of thefe jeiis, is defcribed as occupying at the
court of Henry VII. a pofition not much different from that of an ordinary
court-fool. Good old Holinihed the chronicler fays of him, perhaps a
little too gently, that he was "a learned gentleman and ftudent for a
time in Oxford, of a pleafant wit, and bent to merrie devices, in refpeet
whereof he was called into the court, where, giving himfelfe to his na-
turall inclination of mirth and pleafant paflime, he plaied manie fporting
parts, although not in fuch uncivil manner as hath beene of him reported."
This alluiion refers molt probably to the jefls, which reprefent him as lead-
ing a life of low and coarfe buffoonery, in the courfe of which he difplayed
a confiderable {hare of the difhoneft and mifchievous qualities of the lefs
real Eulenfpiegel. He is even reprefented as perfonally infulting the king
and queen, and as being confequently banifhed over the Channel, to {how
no more refpeet to the majefly of the king of France. Scogin's jefts, like
Skelt0n's, confift in a great meafure of thofe practical jokes which appear
in all former ages to have been the delight of the Teutonic race. Many
of them are direeted againft the ignorance and Worldlinefs of the clergy.
Scogin is defcribed as being at one time himfelf a teacher in the univernty,
and