From Thomas Campbell's ‘Specimens of the British Poets’ (1819), I, pp. 101–3. Campbell (1777–1844) is best known as a poet. The original footnotes have been deleted.
John Skelton, who was the rival and contemporary of Barklay, was laureate to the University of Oxford, and tutor to the prince, afterwards Henry VIII. Erasmus must have been a bad judge of English poetry, or must have alluded only to the learning of Skelton, when in one of his letters he pronounces him ‘Britannicarum literarum lumen et decus.’ There is certainly a vehemence and vivacity in Skelton which was worthy of being guided by a better taste; and the objects of his satire bespeak some degree of public spirit. But his eccentricity in attempts at humour is at once vulgar and flippant; and his style is almost a texture of slang phrases, patched with shreds of French and Latin. We are told, indeed, in a periodical work of the present day, (1) that his manner is to be excused, because it was assumed for ‘the nonce,’ and was suited to the taste of his contemporaries. But it is surely a poor apology for the satirist of any age to say that he stooped to humour its vilest taste, and could not ridicule vice and folly without degrading himself to buffoonery.
1 A reference to Southey's ‘Quarterly Review’ article — see No. 32 above.