The following is an extract from the extended view of the question
between Rowley and Chatterton, which appeared in my "Malvern Hills," &c.
(Vol. 1. p. 273.)
"... Whoever examines the conduct of Chatterton, will find that he was
pre-eminently influenced by one particular disposition of mind, which
was, through an excess of ingenuity, to impose on the credulity of
others. This predominant quality elucidates his character, and is
deserving of minute regard by all who wish to form a correct estimate of
the Rowleian controversy. A few instances of it are here recapitulated.
1st. The Rev. Mr. Catcott once noticed to Chatterton the inclined
position of Temple church, in the city of Bristol. A few days after, the
blue-coat boy brought him an old poem, transcribed, as he declared, from
Rowley, who had noticed the same peculiarity in his day, and had moreover
written a few stanzas on the very subject.
2ndly. A new bridge is just completed over the river Avon, at Bristol,
when Chatterton sends to the printer a genuine description, in antiquated
language, of the passing over the old bridge, for the first time, in the
thirteenth century, on which occasion two songs are chanted, by two
saints, of whom nothing was known, and expressed in language precisely
the same as Rowley's, though he lived two hundred years after this event.
3rdly. Mr. Burgham, the pewterer, is credulous, and, from some whimsical
caprice in his nature, is attached to heraldic honours. Chatterton, who
approaches every man on his blind side, presents him with his pedigree,
consecutively traced from the time of William the Conqueror, and coolly
allies him to some of the noblest houses in the kingdom!
4thly. Mr. Burgham, with little less than intuitive discernment, is one
of the first persons who expresses a firm opinion of the authenticity and
excellence of Rowley's Poems. Chatterton, pleased with this first blossom
of success, and from which he presaged an abundant harvest, with an
elated and grateful heart, presents him (together with other
testimonials,) with the 'Romaunte of the Cnyghte,' a poem written by John
De Burgham, one of his own illustrious ancestors, who was the great
ornament of a period, four hundred and fifty years antecedent; and the
more effectually to exclude suspicion, he accompanies it with the same
poem, modernized by himself!
5thly. Chatterton wishes to obtain the good opinion of his relation, Mr.
Stephens, leather-breeches maker of Salisbury, and, from some quality,
which it is possible his keen observation had noticed in this Mr.
Stephens, he deems it the most effectual way, to flatter his vanity, and
accordingly tells him, with great gravity, that he traces his descent
from Fitz-Stephen, son of Stephen, Earl of Ammerle, who was son of Od,
Earl of Bloys, and Lord of Holderness, who flourished about A.D. 1095!
6thly. The late Mr. George Catcott, (to whom the public are so much
indebted for the preservation of Rowley,) is a very worthy and religious
man, when Chatterton, who has implements for all work, and commodities
for all customers, like a skilful engineer, adapts the style of his
attack to the nature of the fortress, and presents him with the fragment
of a sermon, on the divinity of the Holy Spirit, as 'wroten by Thomas
Rowley.'
7thly. Mr. Barrett is zealous to establish the antiquity of Bristol. As a
demonstrable evidence, Chatterton presents him with an escutcheon (on the
authority of the same Thomas Rowley) borne by a Saxon, of the name of
Ailward, who resided in Bristow, A.D. 718!
8thly. Mr. Barrett is also writing a comprehensive History of Bristol,
and is solicitous to obtain every scrap of information relating to so
important a subject. In the ear of Chatterton he expressed his anxiety,
and suggested to him the propriety of his examining all Rowley's
multifarious manuscripts with great care for an object of such weight.
Soon after this, the blue-coat boy came breathless to Mr. Barrett,
uttering, like one of old, 'I have found it!' He now presented the
historian with two or three notices, (in _his own hand-writing_, copied,
as _he declared_, faithfully from the originals,) of some of the ancient
Bristol churches; of course, wholly above suspicion, for they were in the
true old English style. These communications were regarded as of
inestimable value, and the lucky finder promised to increase his
vigilance, in ransacking the whole mass of antique documents for fresh
disclosures. It was not long before other important scraps were
discovered, conveying just the kind of information which Mr. Barrett
wanted, till, ultimately, Chatterton furnished him with many curious
particulars concerning the castle, and every church and chapel in the
city of Bristol! and these are some of the choicest materials of Mr.
Barrett's otherwise, valuable history!
9thly. Public curiosity and general admiration are excited by poems,
affirmed to be from the Erse of Ossian. Chatterton, with characteristic
promptitude, instantly publishes, not imitations, but a succession of
genuine translations from the Saxon and Welsh, with precisely the same
language and imagery, though the Saxon and Welsh were derived from
different origins, the Teutonic and Celtic; (which bishop Percy has most
satisfactorily shown in his able and elaborate preface to 'Mallet's
Northern Antiquities,') and whose poetry, of all their writings, was the
most dissimilar; as will instantly appear to all who compare Taliessin,
and the other Welsh bards, with the Scandinavian Edda of Saemond.
10thly. Mr. Walpole is writing the history of British painters;
Chatterton, (who, to a confidential friend, had expressed an opinion that
it was possible, by dexterous management, to deceive even this master in
antiquities,) with full confidence of success, transmits to him 'An
Account of eminent Carvellers and Peyncters who flourished in Bristol,
and other parts of England, three hundred years ago, collected for Master
Canynge, by Thomas Rowley!'
Chatterton's communication furnishes an amusing specimen of the quaint
language with which this beardless boy deceived the old antiquarian. It
commences thus:
'Peyncteynge ynn Englande, haveth of ould tyme bin in use; for sayeth the
Roman wryters, the Brytonnes dyd depycte themselves yn soundry wyse, of
the fourmes of the sonne and moone, wythe the hearbe woade: albeytte I
doubt theie were no skylled carvellers,' &c. &c.
Mr. Walpole was so completely imposed upon, that, in his reply, without
entertaining the slightest suspicion of the authenticity of the document,
he reasons upon it as valid, and says, 'You do not point out the exact
time when Rowley lived, which I wish to know, as I suppose it was long
before John al Ectry's discovery of oil painting; if so, it confirms what
I have guessed, and have hinted in my anecdotes, that oil painting was
known here much earlier than that discovery, or revival.'
Another important argument, may be adduced from the following reflection:
all the poets who thus owe their existence to Chatterton, write in the
same harmonious style, and display the same tact and superiority of
genius. Other poets living in the same, or different ages, exhibit a wide
diversity in judgment, fancy, and the higher creative faculty of
imagination, so that a discriminating mind can distinguish an individual
character in almost every separate writer; but here are persons living in
different ages; moving in different stations; exposed to different
circumstances; and expressing different sentiments; yet all of whom
betray the same peculiar habits, with the same talents and facilities of
composition. This is evidenced, whether it be--
The Abbatte John, living in the year - - 1186
Seyncte Baldwin - - - - - - 1247
Seyncte Warburgie - - - - - - 1247
John De Burgham - - - - - - 1320
The Rawfe Cheddar Chappmanne - - - - 1356
Syr Thybbot Gorges - - - - - - 1440
Syr Wm. Canynge - - - - - - 1469
Thomas Rowley - - - - - - 1479
Carpenter, Bishoppe of Worcester
Ecca, Bishoppe of Hereforde
Elmar, Bishoppe of Selseie
John Ladgate, or,
Mayster John à Iscam.
And the whole of these poets, with the exception of Ladgate, completely
unknown to the world, till called from their dormitory by Chatterton!
Such a fact would be a phenomenon unspeakably more inexplicable than that
of ascribing Rowley to a youth of less than sixteen, who had made
'Antique Lore' his peculiar study, and who was endued with precocious,
and almost unlimited genius.
Those who are aware of the transitions and fluctuation, which our
language experienced in the intermediate space comprised between Chaucer
and Sir Thomas More; and still greater between Robert of Gloucester,
1278, and John Trevisa, or his contemporary Wickliffe, who died 1384,
know, to a certainty, that the writers enumerated by Chatterton, without
surmounting a physical impossibility, could not have written in the same
undeviating style.
Perhaps it may be affirmed that numerous old parchments were obtained
from the Muniment Room or elsewhere. This fact is undeniable; but they
are understood to consist of ancient ecclesiastical deeds, as unconnected
with poetry, as they were with galvanism.
Let the dispassionate enquirer ask himself, whether he thinks it possible
for men, living in distant ages, when our language was unformed, and
therefore its variations the greater, to write in the same style? Whether
it was possible for the Abbatte John, composing in the year 1186, when
the amalgamation of the Saxon and the Norman formed an almost
inexplicable jargon, to write in a manner, as to its construction,
intimately resembling that now in vogue. On the contrary, how easy is the
solution, when we admit that the person who wrote the first part of the
"Battle of Hastings," and the death of "Syr Charles Bawdin," wrote also
the rest.
Does it not appear marvellous, that the learned advocates of Rowley
should not have regarded the ground on which they stood as somewhat
unstable, when they found Chatterton readily avow that he wrote the first
part of the "Battle of Hastings," and discovered the second, as composed
three hundred years before, by Thomas Rowley? This was indeed an
unparalleled coincidence. A boy writes the commencement of a narrative
poem, and then finds in the Muniment-Room, the second part, or a
continuation, by an old secular priest, with the same, characters,
written in the same style, and even in the same metre!
Another extraordinary feature in the question, is the following; there
are preserved in the British Museum, numerous deeds and proclamations, by
Thomas Rowley, in Chatterton's writing, relating to the antiquities of
Bristol, all in modern English, designed no doubt, by the young bard, for
his friend Mr. Barrett; but the chrysalis had not yet advanced to its
winged state.
One of the proclamations begins thus:
"To all Christian people to whom this indented writing shall come,
William Canynge, of Bristol, merchant, and Thomas Rowley, priest, send
greeting: Whereas certain disputes have arisen between," &c., &c.
Who does not perceive that these were the first rough sketches of genuine
old documents that _were to be?_
In an account of "St. Marie Magdalene's Chapele, by Thomas Rowley,"
deposited also in the British Museum, there is the following sentence,
which implies much: "Aelle, the founder thereof, was a manne myckle
stronge yn vanquysheynge the Danes, as yee maie see ynne mie unwordie
Entyrlude of Ella!"
It is Rome or Carthage. It is Rowley or Chatterton: and a hope is
cherished that the public, from this moment, will concur in averring that
there is neither internal nor external evidence, to authorize the belief
that a single line of either the prose or the verse, attributed to
Rowley, or the rest of his apocryphal characters, was written by any
other than that prodigy of the eighteenth century, Thomas Chatterton.
The opinion entertained by many, that Chatterton found part of Rowley,
and invented the rest, is attended with insurmountable objections, and is
never advanced but in the deficiency of better argument; for in the first
place, those who favor this supposition, have never supported it by the
shadow of proof, or the semblance even of fair inferential reasoning; and
in the second place, he who wrote half, could have written the whole; and
in the third, and principal place, there are no inequalities in the
poems; no dissimilar and incongruous parts, but all is regular and
consistent, and without, in the strict sense of the word, bearing any
resemblance to the writers of the period when Rowley is stated to have
lived.
Whoever examines the beautiful tragedy of Ella, will find an accurate
adjustment of plan, which precludes the possibility of its having been
conjointly written by different persons, at the distance of centuries.
With respect, also, to the structure of the language, it is
incontrovertibly modern, as well as uniform with itself, and exhibits the
most perfect specimens of harmony; which cannot be interrupted by slight
orthographical redundancies, nor by the sprinkling of a few uncouth and
antiquated words.
The structure of Rowley's verse is so unequivocally modern, that by
substituting the present orthography for the past, and changing two or
three of the old words, the fact must become obvious, even to those who
are wholly unacquainted with the barbarisms of the "olden time." As a
corroboration of this remark, the first verse of the song to Aella may be
adduced.
"O thou, or what remains of thee,
Aella, thou darling of futurity.
Let this, my song, bold as thy courage be,
As everlasting--to posterity."
But, perhaps, the most convincing proof of this modern character of
Rowley's verse, may be derived from the commencement of the chorus in
Godwin.
"When Freedom, dress'd in blood-stain'd vest,
To every knight her war-song sung,
Upon her head wild weeds were spread,
A gory anlace by her hung.
She danced on the heath;
She heard the voice of death;
Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue,
In vain essay'd his bosom to acale, [freeze]
She heard, enflamed, the shivering voice of woe,
And sadness in the owlet shake the dale.
She shook the pointed spear;
On high she raised her shield;
Her foemen all appear,
And fly along the field.
Power, with his head exalted to the skies,
His spear a sun-beam, and his shield a star,
Round, like two flaming meteors, rolls his eyes,
Stamps with his iron foot, and sounds to war:
She sits upon a rock,
She bends before his spear;
She rises from the shock,
Wielding her own in air.
Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on,
And, closely mantled, guides it to his crown,
His long sharp spear, his spreading shield, is gone;
He falls, and falling, rolleth thousands down."
Every reader must be struck with the modern character of these extracts,
nor can he fail to have noticed the lyrical measure, so eminently
felicitous, with which the preceding ode commences; together with the
bold image of freedom triumphing over power. If the merits of the
Rowleian Controversy rented solely on this one piece, it would be
decisive; for no man, in the least degree familiar with our earlier
metrical compositions, and especially if he were a poet, could hesitate a
moment in assigning this chorus to a recent period.
It is impossible not to believe that the whole of Rowley was written at
first in modern English, and then the orthographical metamorphose
commenced; and to one who had prepared himself, like Chatterton, with a
dictionary, alternately modern and old, and old and modern, the task of
transformation was not difficult, even to an ordinary mind. It should be
remembered also, that Chatterton furnished a complete glossary to the
whole of Rowley. Had he assumed ignorance, it might have checked, without
removing suspicion, but at present it appears inexplicable, that our sage
predecessors should not have been convinced that one who could write, in
his own person, with such superiority as Chatterton indisputably did,
would be quite competent to give words to another, the meaning of which
he so well understood himself.
But the thought will naturally arise, what could have prompted
Chatterton, endued as he was, with so much original talent, to renounce
his own personal aggrandizement, and to transfer the credit of his
opulence to another. It is admitted to be an improvident expenditure of
reputation, but no inference advantageous to Rowley can be deduced from
this circumstance. The eccentricities and aberrations of genius, have
rarely been restricted by line and plummet, and the present is a
memorable example of perverted talent; but all this may be conceded,
without shaking the argument here contended for.
There is a process in all our pursuits, and the nice inspector of
associations can almost uniformly trace his predilections to some
definite cause. This, doubtless, was the case with Chatterton. He found
old parchments early in life. In the first instance, it became an object
of ambition to decipher the obscure. One difficulty surmounted,
strengthened the capacity for conquering others; perseverance gave
facility, till at length his vigorous attention was effectually directed
to what he called "antique lore:" and this confirmed bias of his mind,
connected as it was, with his inveterate proneness to impose on others,
and supported by talents which have scarcely been equalled, reduces the
magnified wonder of Rowley, to a plain, comprehensible question.
Dean Milles, in his admiration of Rowley, appeared to derive pleasure
from depreciating Chatterton, who had avowed himself the writer of that
inimitable poem, "The Death of Syr Charles Bawdin," but well knowing the
consequences which would follow on this admission, he laboured hard to
impeach the veracity of our bard, and represented him as one who, from
vanity, assumed to himself the writing of another! Dean Milles affirms,
that of this "Death of Syr Charles Bawdin," "A greater variety of
internal proofs may be produced, for its authenticity, than for that of
any other piece in the whole collection!" This virtually, was abandoning
the question; for since we know that Chatterton did write "The Death of
Syr Charles Bawdin," we know that he wrote that which had stronger proofs
of the authenticity of Rowley than all the other pieces in the
collection!
The numerous proofs adduced of Chatterton's passion for fictitious
statements; of his intimate acquaintance with antiquated language; of the
almost preternatural maturity of his mind; of the dissimilitude of
Rowley's language to contemporaneous writers; and of the obviously modern
structure of all the compositions which the young bard produced, as the
writings of Rowley and others, form, it is presumed, a mass of
Anti-Rowleian evidence, which proves that Chatterton possessed that
peculiar disposition, as well as those pre-eminent talents, the union of
which was both necessary and equal to the great production of Rowley...."