From ‘A Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence’ by William Bullein (d. 1576), printed by John Kingston in 1564 (STC 4036), Bvir−v. Bullein was a physician who wrote a number of medical tracts and who also had, as will be apparent, distinctive and idiosyncratic views on literature. The work from which this extract comes also includes observations on such poets as Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate and Barclay.
Skelton satte in the corner of a Piller, with a Frostie bitten face, frownyng, and is scant yet cleane cooled of the hotte burnyng Cholour, kindeled against the cankered Cardinall Wolsey; wrytyng many sharpe Disticons, with bloudie penne against him, and sent them by the infernall riuers Styx, Flegiton, and Acheron by the Feriman of hell called Charon, to the saied Cardinall.