It is not without some slight reluctance that I notice anonymous
communications, but shall endeavour to repress such feelings with regard
to the modest students who may choose to announce their desiderata
through the convenient channel of the "NOTES AND QUERIES." A _hearty
well wisher_ to so commendable an enterprise, shall have my first
responsive scrap.
The inquiry affords no scope for ingenuity of conjecture! The _foolish
rime_ to which bishop Aylmer refers, is undoubtedly the pamphlet thus
entitled:--
"A Skeltonicall salutation,
Or condigne gratulation,
And iust vexation
Of the Spanish nation,
That in a bravado
Spent many a crusado,
In setting forth an armado
England to invado."
Oxford, Joseph Barnes, 1589. 4to.
"A Skeltonicall salutation," &c.
Imprinted at London for Toby Cook, 1589. 4to.
The Oxford edition is recorded by Ames, and there is a copy of the
London edition in the British Museum. Strype, in his account of bishop
Aylmer, gives the substance of the letter as his _own_ narrative, almost
_verbatim_--but fails to identify the pamphlet in question. Park briefly
describes it in _Censura Literaria_, 1815, ii. 18.; and there is a
specimen of it in _The Poetical Works of John Skelton_, as edited by the
Reverend Alexander Dyce, 1843.
While _queries_ evince a sharp mental appetite, _answers_ help to
satisfy it; and so, by their united influence, a brisk circulation of
ideas may be produced--which, as master Burton assures us, wards off
melancholy.