The first effort of the modern drama was the _miracle play_; then came the _morality_; after that the _interlude_, which was soon merged into regular tragedy and comedy.

Skelton's "Magnyfycence," which he calls "a goodly interlude and a merie," is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks the opening of the modern drama in England.
The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled _skeltonical_, is a sort of English anacreontic.

One example has been given; take, as another, the following lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada: A skeltonicall salutation Or condigne gratulation And just vexation Of the Spanish nation, That in bravado Spent many a crusado In setting forth an armado England to invado.
Who but Philippus, That seeketh to nip us, To rob us and strip us, And then for to whip us, Would ever have meant Or had intent Or hither sent Such strips of charge, etc., etc.
It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.
His "Merie Tales" are a series of short and generally broad stories, suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without moralizing upon the age which they describe.

Skelton, a contemporary of the French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but unlike him in that he has given us no English _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ to illustrate his age.
WYATT .-- The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the son of Sir Henry Wyatt.

He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn, conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
Several of his poems were inspired by her charms.