will find instances of modern phraseology in almost every page of these
spurious productions. I will only add, before I quit the subject of
style, that it is observable, that throughout these poems we never find
a noun in the plural number joined with a verb in the singular; an
offence against grammar which every ancient poet, from the time of
Chaucer to that of Shakespeare, has frequently committed, and from which
Rowley, if such a poet had existed, would certainly not have been
exempted.
With respect to the stanza that Chatterton has employed in his two poems
on the _Battle of Hastings_, Mr. Bryant and the Dean of Exeter seem to
think that they stand on sure ground, and confidently quote Gascoigne,
to prove that such a stanza was known to our old English poets. "The
greatest part of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (says the latter gentleman,
p. 30), and his Legend of Good Women, are in the decasyllabick couplet;
but _in general_ Lidgate's, Occleve's, _Rowley's_, Spenser's, and a
great part of Chaucer's poetry, is written in stanzas of _seven_,
_eight_, or _nine_ decasyllabick lines; _to which Rowley _generally_
adds a tenth, and closes it with an Alexandrine_. All these may be
ranked under the title of RITHME ROYAL; of which Gascoigne, in his
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENGLISH VERSE, has given the following description:
"Rithme Royal is a verse of ten syllables, and _seven_ such verses make
a staffe, whereof the first and third do answer acrosse in the
terminations and rime; the second, fourth, and fifth, do likewise answer
eche other in terminations; and the two last combine and shut up the
sentence: this hath been called Rithme Royal, and surely it is a royal
kind of verse, serving best for grave discourses." I leave it to the
reverend Antiquarian to reconcile the contradictory assertions with
which the passage I have now quoted sets out; and shall only observe,
that we have here a great parade of authority, but nothing like a proof
of the existence of such a stanza as Chatterton has used, in the time of
K. Edward IV.; and at last the Commentator is obliged to have recourse
to this flimzy kind of reasoning: "The different number of lines
contained in the stanza makes no material alteration in the structure of
this verse, the stanza always concluding with a couplet: in that of six
lines, the four first rime alternately; in that of nine, wherein Spenser
has composed his Fairy Queen, the sixth line rimes to the final couplet,
and the seventh to the fifth: _Rowley having added another line to the
stanza, the eighth rimes with the sixth._" --The upshot of the whole is,
that Rowley himself, or rather Chatterton, is at last the only authority
to show that such a stanza was employed at the time mentioned. And it is
just with this kind of circular proof that we are amused, when any very
singular fact is mentioned in Chatterton's verses: "This fact, say the
learned Commentators, is also minutely described by Rowley in the YELLOW
ROLL, which wonderfully confirms the authenticity of these poems;"
i.e. one forgery of Chatterton in prose, wonderfully supports and
authenticates another forgery of his in rhyme. --To prevent the Dean
from giving himself any farther trouble in searching for authorities to
prove that the stanza of the _Battle of Hastings_ (consisting of two
quatrains rhyming alternately, and a couplet,) was known to our early
writers, I beg leave to inform him, that it was not used till near three
centuries after the time of the supposed Rowley; having been, if I
remember right, first employed by Prior, who considered it as an
improvement on that of Spenser.
II. The second point that I proposed to consider is, the imitations of
Pope's Homer, Shakspeare, Dryden, Rowe, &c. with which these pieces
abound. And here the cautious conduct of Chatterton's new commentator is
very remarkable. All the similies that poor Chatterton borrowed from
Pope's or Chapman's Homer, to embellish his _Battle of Hastings_,
are exhibited boldly; but then "they were all clearly copied from the
original of the Grecian Bard," in whom we are taught, that Rowley was
better read than any other man, during the preceding or subsequent
century: but in the tragedy of _Ella_, and other pieces, where we in
almost every page meet with lines and half-lines of Shakspeare, Dryden,
&c. the reverend Antiquarian is less liberal of his illustrations.
Indeed when the fraud is so manifest as not to be concealed, the passage
is produced. Thus in _Ella_ we meet
"My love is dead,
"Gone to her death-bed,
"All under the willow tree----"
and here we are told, "the burthen of this roundelay very much resembles
that in Hamlet:"
"And will he not come again?
"And will he not come again?
"No, no, he is dead;
"Go to thy death-bed,
"He never will come again."
But when we meet-- "Why thou art all that pointelle can bewreen"--
evidently from Rowe-- "Is she not more than painting can express?"--
the editor is very prudently silent.
So also in the _Battle of Hastings_ we find
"In agonies and pain he then did lie,
"While life and death strove for the mastery----"
clearly from Shakspeare:
"That Death and Nature do contend about them,
"Whether they live or die."
So also in _Ella_:
"Fen-vapours blast thy every manly power!"
taken from the same author:
"As wicked _dew_ as e'er my mother brushed
"With raven's feather from unwholesome _fen_,
"Light on you both!" [_Tempest._]
"Ye _fen-suck'd fogs_, drawn by the powerful sun,
"To fall and _blast_ &c." [_King Lear._]
Thus again in _Ella_:
"O thou, whate'er thy name, or Zabalus or Queede,
"Come steel my sable spright, for fremde and doleful deed--"
from the _Dunciad_:
"O thou, whatever title please thine ear,
"Dean, Drapier, &c."
But in all these, and twenty other places, not a word is said by the
editor. --I am ashamed of taking up the time of my readers in discussing
such points as these. Such plain and direct imitations as Chatterton's,
could scarcely impose on a boy of fifteen at Westminster School.
In the _Battle of Hastings_ we meet
"His noble soul came rushing from the wound--"
from Dryden's Virgil--
"And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound--[B]"
and in Sir Charles Bawdin,
"And tears began to flow;"
Dryden's very words in _Alexander's Feast_. But it was hardly possible,
says the learned Commentator, for these thoughts to be expressed in any
other words. Indeed! I suppose five or six different modes of expressing
the latter thought will occur to every reader.
[Footnote B: It is observable, that this is the last line of the
translation of the Æneid.]
Can it be believed, that every one of the lines I have now quoted, this
gentleman maintains to have been written by a poet of the fifteenth
century (for all that Chatterton ever did, according to his system, was
supplying lacunæ, if there were any in the Mss., or modernizing a few
antiquated phrases)? He argues indeed very rightly, that the _whole_ of
these poems must have been written by _one_ person. "Two poets,
(he observes, p. 81,) so distant in their æra [as Rowley and
Chatterton], so different from each other in their age and disposition,
could not have united their labours [he _means_, their labours could not
unite or coalesce] in the same poem to any effect, without such apparent
difference in their style, language, and sentiments, as would have
defeated Chatterton's intent of imposing his works on the public, as the
original and entire composition of Rowley." --Most readers, I suppose,
will more readily agree with his premises than his conclusion. Every
part of these poems was undoubtedly written by one person; but that
person was not Rowley, but Chatterton.
What reason have we to doubt, that he who imitated all the English poets
with whom he was acquainted, likewise borrowed his Homerick images from
the versions of Chapman and Pope; in the latter of which he found these
allusions dressed out in all the splendid ornaments of the eighteenth
century?
In the new commentary, indeed, on the _Battle of Hastings_, we are told
again and again, that many of the similies which the poet has copied
from Homer, contain circumstances that are found in the Greek, but
omitted in Mr. Pope's translation. "Here therefore we have a certain
proof that the authour of these poems could read Homer in the
original[C]." But the youngest gownsman at Oxford or Cambridge will
inform the reverend critick, that this is a _non sequitur_; for the poet
might have had the assistance of _other_ translations, besides those of
Pope; the English prose version from that of Madame Dacier, the
translations by Chapman and by Hobbes. Nor yet will it follow from his
having _occasionally_ consulted _these_ versions, that he was _not at
all indebted to Pope_; as this gentleman endeavours to persuade us in
p. 82. and 106. He availed himself, without doubt, of them all. Whenever
the Commentator can show a single thought in these imitations of the
Grecian Bard, that is found in the original, and not in _any_ of those
translations, I will readily acknowledge that _the Battle of Hastings_,
and all the other pieces contained in his quarto volume, were written by
Rowley, or Turgot, or Alfred the Great, or Merlin, or whatever other
existent or non-existent ancient he or Mr. Bryant shall choose to
ascribe them to. Most assuredly no such instance can be pointed out.
[Footnote C: To show how very weak and inconclusive the arguments
of Chatterton's new Editor are on this head, I shall cite but one
passage, from which the reader may form a judgment of all the
other illustrations with which he has decorated the _Battle of
Hastings_:
----"Siere de Broque an arrowe longe lett _flie_,
Intending Herewaldus to have sleyne;
It _miss'd_, but hytte Edardus on the eye,
And at his pole came out with horrid payne."
So Homer (says the Commentator):
+----oïston apo neurêphin iallen
Hektoros antikru, baleein de he hieto thumos;
Kai tou men rh' aphamarth' ho d' amumona Gorguthiôna
Huion eün Priamoio, kata stêthos balen iô.+
Il. VIII. v. 300.
"He said, and twang'd the string, the weapon _flies_
"At _Hector_'s breast, and sings along the skies;
"He _miss'd_ the mark, but pierc'd Gorgythio's heart."
POPE, B. viii. v. 365.
"The imitation here seems to be very apparent, but it is the
imitation of Homer, and not of Pope; both Homer and Rowley express
the intention of the archer, which is dropped by the translator of
the Greek poet." Chatterton's _Poems_, quarto, p. 83. Edit.
Milles.
To my apprehension, the intention of the archer is very clearly
expressed in Pope's lines; but it is unnecessary to contest that
point, for lo! thus has old Chapman translated the same passage:
"This said, another arrow forth from his stiffe string he sent
"At Hector, _whom he long'd to wound_; but still amisse it went;
"His shaft smit faire Gorgythion."
Of such reasoning is the new Commentary on Chatterton's poems
composed.]
I do not however rest the matter here. What are we to conclude, if in
Chatterton's imitations of Homer, we discover some circumstances that
exist in Pope's translation, of which but very faint traces appear in
the original Greek? Such, I believe, may be found. It is observable,
that in all the similies we meet with many of the very rhymes that Pope
has used. Will this Commentator contend, that the learned Rowley not
only understood Homer, at a time when his contemporaries had scarcely
heard of his name, but also foresaw in the reign of Edward IV. those
additional graces with which Mr. Pope would embellish him three hundred
years afterwards?
III. The Anachronisms come next under our consideration. Of these also
the modern-antique compositions which we are now examining, afford a
very plentiful supply; and not a little has been the labour of the
reverend Commentator to do away their force. The first that I have
happened to light upon is in the tragedy of _Ella_, p. 212:
"She said, as her white hands white hosen were knitting.
"What pleasure it is to be married!"
It is certain that the art of knitting stockings was unknown in the time
of king Edward IV., the era of the pretended Rowley. This difficulty,
therefore, was by all means to be gotten over. And whom of all men,
think you, courteous reader, this sagacious editor has chosen as an
authority to ascertain the high antiquity of this practice? No other
than our great poet Shakspeare; who was born in 1564, and died in 1616.
Poor Shakspeare, who gave to all the countries in the world, and to all
preceding eras, the customs of his own age and country, he is the
authour that is chosen for this purpose! "If this Scotch art (says the
Commentator) was so far advanced in a foreign country in the beginning
of the sixteenth century, can there be a doubt of its being known in
England half a century earlier? At least the art of knitting, and
weaving bone-lace, was _more ancient_ than queen Elizabeth's time;
for Shakspeare speaks of _old_ and _antick_ songs, which
"The spinsters and the _knitters_ in the sun,
"And the free maids that _weave their thread with bone_,
"Did use to chaunt."
_Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 4.
It might be sufficient to observe, that the old songs which were
chaunted by the spinsters and knitters of Shakspeare's days, do not very
clearly ascertain the antiquity of the _operation_ on which they were
employed; for I apprehend, though the art of knitting had not been
invented till 1564, when the poet was born, the practisers of it might
yet the very next day after it was known, sing ballads that were written
a hundred years before. --In order, however, to give some colour to the
forced inference that the commentator has endeavoured to extract from
this passage, he has misquoted it; for Shakspeare does not say, as he
has been represented, that the spinsters of old time _did_ use to chaunt
these songs: his words are,
"O fellow, come, the song we had last night;
"Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain:
"The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
"And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
"_Do_ use to chaunt it."
These lines, it must be acknowledged, prove that the art was _as_ old as
the time of Shakspeare, but not one hour _more_ ancient; nor would they
answer the Commentator's purpose, even if they had been uttered by
Portia in _Julius Cæsar_, by the Egyptian queen in _Antony and
Cleopatra_, or by Nestor in _Troilus_ and _Cressida_; for, as I have
already observed, our great poet gave to all preceding times the customs
of his own age. --If the learned editor should hereafter have occasion
to prove, that _Dick_ and _Hob_ were common names at Rome, and that it
was an usual practice of the populace there, two thousand years ago, to
throw up their caps in the air, when they were merry, or wished to do
honour to their leaders, I recommend the play of _Coriolanus_ to his
notice, where he will find proofs to this purpose, all equally
satisfactory with that which he has produced from _Twelfth Night_,
to show the antiquity of the art of knitting stockings in England.
Many of the poems and prose works attributed to Rowley, exhibit
anachronisms similar to that now mentioned. Bristol is called a city,
though it was not one till long after the death of king Edward IV.
Cannynge is spoken of as possessing a _Cabinet_ of coins and other
curiosities[D], a century at least before any Englishman ever thought of
forming such a collection. _Drawings_, in the modern and technical sense
of delineations on paper or vellum, with chalks or Indian ink, are
mentioned a hundred and fifty years before the word was ever used with
that signification. _Manuscripts_ are noticed as rarities, with the idea
at present annexed to them; and eagerly sought after and purchased by
Rowley, at a time when printed books were not known, and when all the
literature of the times was to be found in manuscripts alone. All these
anachronisms _decisively_ prove the spuriousness of these compositions.
Other anachronisms may be traced in the poems before us, but they are of
less weight, being more properly poetical deviations from _costume_.
However I will briefly mention them. Tilts and tournaments are mentioned
at a period when they were unknown. _God and my Right_ is the word used
by duke William in _the Battle of Hastings_, though it was first used by
king Richard I. after the victory at Grizors; and hatchments and
armorial bearings, which were first seen at the time of the Croisades,
are introduced in other places with equal impropriety.
[Footnote D: Chatterton in his description of Cannynge's love of
the arts, &c. seems often to have had Mr. Walpole in his eye;
which was very natural, that gentleman being probably the first
person who was at once a man of literature and rank, of whose
character he had any knowledge. --Thus, Mr. W. having a very
curious collection of pictures, prints, &c. Cannynge too must be
furnished with a cabinet of coins and other rarities; and there
being a private printing-press at Strawberry-Hill, (the only one
perhaps in England,) the Bristol Mayor must likewise have one.
It is in one of his letters that has not yet been printed, that
Chatterton mentions his having read an account in the Rowley Mss.
of Cannynge's intention to set up a _printing-press_ at Westbury!
This merchant died in 1474; during the greater part of his life
printing was unknown; and even at the time of his death there was
but one printing-press in this kingdom, namely, that set up by
Caxton, in the Almonry of Westminster Abbey, about the year 1471.]
One of Chatterton's earliest fictions was an ode or short poem of two or
three stanzas in _alternate rhyme_, on the death of that monarch, which
he sent to Mr. Walpole, informing him at the same time, that it had been
found at Bristol with many other ancient poems. This, however, either C.
or his friends thought proper afterwards to suppress. It is not,
I believe, generally known, that this is the era which was originally
fixed upon by this wonderful youth for his forgeries, though afterwards,
as appears from Mr. Walpole's pamphlet already mentioned, having been
informed that no such metres as he exhibited as ancient, were known in
the age of Richard I., he thought proper to shift the era of his
productions. It is remarkable, that one line yet remains in these poems,
evidently written on the first idea:
"Richard of lion's heart to fight _is_ gone."
"It is very improbable, as the same gentleman observes, that Rowley,
writing in the reign of Henry VI., or Edward IV., as is now pretended,
or in that of Henry IV., as was assigned by the credulous, before they
had digested their system, should incidentally, in a poem on another
subject, say, _now_ is Richard &c." Chatterton, having stored his mind
with images and customs suited to the times he meant originally for the
era of his fictitious ancient, introduced them as well as he could in
subsequent compositions. One other singular circumstance, which I learn
from the same very respectable authority, I cannot omit mentioning.
Among the Mss. that Chatterton pretended to have discovered in the
celebrated chest at Bristol was a painter's bill[E], of which, like the
rest, he produced only a copy. Great was the triumph of his advocates.
Here was an undoubted relick of antiquity! And so indeed it was; for it
was faithfully copied from the first volume of the _Anecdotes of
Painting_, printed some years before; and had been originally
transcribed by Vertue from some old parchments in the church of St. Mary
Redcliffe at Bristol (a person, by the by, who was indefatigable in the
pursuit of every thing that related to our ancient poets, and who
certainly at the same time would have discovered some traces of the
pretended Rowley, if any of his poetry had been lodged in that
repository). Can there be a doubt, that he who was convicted of having
forged this paper, and owned that he wrote the first _Battle of
Hastings_, and the _Account of the ceremonies observed at the opening of
the Old Bridge_, was the authour of all the rest also? Were he charged
in a court of justice with having forged various notes, and clear
evidence given of the fact, corroborated by the additional testimony of
his having on a former occasion fabricated a Will of a very ancient
date, would a jury hesitate to find him guilty, because two purblind old
women should be brought into court, and swear that the Will urged
against him had such an ancient appearance, the hand-writing and
language by which the bequests were made was so old, and the parchment
so yellow, that they could not but believe it to be a genuine deed of a
preceding century? --But I have insensibly wandered from the subject of
Anachronisms. So much, however, has been already said by others on this
point, that I will now hasten to the last matter which I meant to
consider, _viz._ the Mss. themselves, which are said to have contained
these wonderful curiosities.
[Footnote E: This fraud having been detected, we hear no more of
it; but in the room of it has been substituted _A List of skyllde
Payncterrs and Carvellers_, which is now said to have been found
along with the other Mss. and to be in the possession of Mr.
Barret, of Bristol.]
IV. And on this head we are told by Mr. B. that the hand-writing,
indeed, is not that of any particular age, but that it is very difficult
to know precisely the era of a Ms., especially when of great antiquity;
that our kings wrote very different hands, and many of them such, that
it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and that the
diminutive size of the parchments on which these poems were written,
(of which, I think, the largest that these Commentators talk of is eight
inches and a half long, and four and a half broad[F],) was owing to the
great scarcity of parchment in former times, on which account the lines
often appear in continuation, without regard to the termination of the
verse.
[Footnote F: At the bottom of each sheet of old deeds (of which
there were many in the Bristol chest) there is usually a blank
space of about four or five inches in breadth. C. therefore found
these slips of discoloured parchment at hand.]