Abstract
In their comprehensive catalogue of 1967 John Skelton: Canon and Census, Robert S. Kinsman and Theodore Yonge categorize the poem ‘On Time’ among the ‘doubtful pieces’ (D 52). They quote scholars who reject the poem on the grounds of style and on the grounds of the lateness of its attributions to Skelton: in different forms it appears in Richard Lant’s Certayne Bokes of c. 1545 (STC 22598), in the Bannantyne MS (National Library of Scotland MS I. i. 6) dated 1568, and in London British Library MS Egerton 2642, dated c. 1600. 1 In 2012 A.S.G. Edwards challenged this view, basing his arguments on a clear attribution of the poem to...