Note 27 — SOME ACCOUNT OF SKELTON AND HIS WRITINGS.
Reading edition
This work (a thin folio), translated by Caxton from the French, is a prose romance founded on the Æneid. It consists of 65 chapters, the first entitled “How the ryght puyssant kynge pryamus edyfyed the grete Cyte of Troye,” the last, “How Ascanyus helde the royalme of Ytalye after the dethe of Eneas hys fader.” Gawin Douglas, in the Preface to his translation of Virgil’s poem, makes a long and elaborate attack on Caxton’s performance;
“Wylliame Caxtoun had no compatioun Of Virgill in that buk he preȳt in prois, Clepand it Virgill in Eneados, Quhilk that he sayis of Frensche he did translate; It has na thing ado therwith, God wate, Nor na mare like than the Deuil and sanct Austin,” &c. Sig. B iii. ed. 1553.