Cursory Observations On The Poems Attributed To Thomas Rowley (1782) Part 5

NARVA AND MORED: AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

[From Chatterton's _Miscellanies_, p. 56.]

"Recyte the loves of Narva and Mored, "The preeste of Chalmas trypell ydolle sayde.

"Hie fro the grounde the youthful heretogs[a] sprunge, "Loude on the concave sh.e.l.le the launces runge: "In al the mysterke[b] maizes of the daunce "The youths of Bannies brennynge[c] sandes advaunce; "Whiles the mole[d] vyrgin brokkyng[e] lookes behinde, "And rydes uponne the penyons of the winde; "Astighes[f] the mountaines borne[g], and measures rounde "The steepie clifftes of Chalmas hallie[h] grounde."

[Text Notes: a: _Warriors_.

b: _mystick_.

c: _burning_.

d: used by Chatterton for _soft_ or _tender_.

e: _panting_.

f: _ascends_.

g: _brow_, or _summit_.

h: _holy_.]

II. _CHATTERTON Unmasked._

ECLOGUE THE FIRST.

[From Rowley's Poems, quarto, p. 391.]

"When England smoking from her deadly wound, "From her gall'd neck did twitch the chain away, "Seeing her lawful sons fall all around, "(Mighty they fell, 'twas Honour led the fray,) "Then in a dale, by eve's dark surcoat gray, "Two lonely shepherds did abruptly fly, "(The rustling leaf does their white hearts affray,) "And with the owlet trembled and did cry: "First Robert Neatherd his sore bosom struck, "Then fell upon the ground, and thus he spoke."

If however, after all, a little inferiority should be found in Chatterton's acknowledged productions, it may be easily accounted for.

Enjoin a young poet to write verses on any subject, and after he has finished his exercise, show him how Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope, have treated the same subject. Let him then write a second copy of verses, still on the same theme. This latter will probably be a _Cento_ from the works of the authours that he has just perused. The one will have the merit of originality; the other a finer polish and more glowing imagery.

This is exactly Chatterton's case. The verses that he wrote for Rowley are _perhaps_ better than his others, because they contain the thoughts of our best poets often in their own words. The versification is equally good in both. Let it be remembered too, that the former were composed at his leisure in a period of near a year and a half; the latter in about four months, and many of them to gain bread for the day that was pa.s.sing over him.

After his arrival in London, if his forgeries had met with any success, he would undoubtedly have produced ancient poetry without end; but perceiving that the gentleman in whom he expected to find at once a dupe and a patron, was too clear-sighted to be deceived by such evident fictions, and that he could earn a livelihood by his talents, without fabricating old Mss. in order to gain a few s.h.i.+llings from Mess. Barrett and Catcott, he deserted his original plan, and we hear little more of Rowley's verses.

With regard to the time in which the poems attributed to this priest were produced, which it is urged was much too short for Chatterton to have been the inventor of them, it is indeed astonis.h.i.+ng that this youth should have been able to compose, in about eighteen months, three thousand seven hundred verses, on various subjects; but it would have been still more astonis.h.i.+ng, if he had transcribed in that time the same number of lines, written on parchment, in a very ancient hand, in the close and indistinct manner, in which these poems are pretended to have been written, and defaced and obliterated in many places[Q]:-- unless he had been endued with the faculty of a celebrated solicitor, who being desired a few years ago in the House of Lords to read an old deed, excused himself by saying that it was _illegible_, informing their lords.h.i.+ps at the same time that he would make out a fair _copy_ of it against the next day. Chatterton, I believe, understood better how to make fair copies of illegible parchments, than to read any ancient ma.n.u.script whatsoever.

[Footnote Q: Let those who may be surprised at this a.s.sertion, recollect the wonderful inventive faculties of Chatterton, and the various compositions, both in prose and verse, which he produced after his arrival in London, in the short s.p.a.ce of four months; not to mention the numerous pieces, which he is known to have written in the same period, and which have not yet been collected-- Let them likewise examine any one of the defaced Mss.

of the fifteenth century, in the Cotton Library, and see in what time they can transcribe a dozen lines from it.]

It is amusing enough to observe the miserable s.h.i.+fts to which his new editor is forced to have recourse, when he is obliged to run full tilt against matters of fact. --Thus Chatterton, we find, owned that he was the authour of the first _Battle of Hastings_; but we are not to believe his declaration, says Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose doctrine on this subject the reverend commentator has adopted. "Chatterton thought himself not sufficiently rewarded by his Bristol patrons, in proportion to what his communications deserved." He pretended, therefore, "on Mr. Barrett's repeated solicitations for the original [_of the Battle of Hastings_], that he himself wrote that poem for a friend; thinking, _perhaps_, that if he parted with the original poem, he might not be properly rewarded for the loss of it,[R]" --As if there was no other way for him to avoid being deprived of a valuable ancient Ms. but by saying that it was a forgery, and that he wrote it himself! --What, however, did he do immediately afterwards? No doubt, he avoided getting into the same difficulty a second time, and subjecting himself again to the same importunity from his ungenerous Bristol patrons, by showing them no more of these rarities? Nothing less. The very same day that he acknowledged this forgery, he informed Mr. Barrett that he had another poem, the copy of an original by Rowley; and at a _considerable interval of time_ (which indeed was requisite for writing his new piece) he produced _another_ BATTLE OF HASTINGS, much longer than the former; a fair copy from an undoubted original. --He was again, without doubt, pressed by Mr. B. to show the original Ms. of this also; and, according to Mr.

Thistlethwaite's system, he ought again to have a.s.serted that _this_ poem likewise was a forgery; and so afterwards of every copy that he produced. --Can any person that considers this transaction for a moment entertain a doubt that all these poems were his own invention?

[Footnote R: Chatterton's Poems, quarto, edit. Milles, p. 458.

It was not without good reason that the editor was solicitous to disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same t.i.tle, and that every reader of any discernment must see at the first glance, that he who wrote the first _Battle of Hastings_ was the authour of all the other poems ascribed to Rowley. --It is observable that Chatterton in _the Battle of Hastings_, No. 2, frequently imitates himself, or repeats the same images a second time. Thus in the first poem with this t.i.tle we meet

----"he dying gryp'd the recer's limbe; "The recer then beganne to flynge and kicke, "And toste the erlie farr off to the grounde: "The erlie's squier then a swerde did sticke "Into his harte, a dedlie ghastlie wounde; "And downe he felle upon the crymson pleine, "Upon Chatillion's soulless corse of claie."

In the second _Battle of Hastings_ are these lines:

"But as he drewe his bowe devoid of arte, "So it came down upon Troyvillain's horse; "Deep thro hys hatchments wente the pointed floe; "Now here, now there, with rage bleedinge he rounde doth goe.

"Nor does he hede his mastres known commands, "Tyll, growen furiouse by his bloudie wounde, "Erect upon his hynder feete he staundes, "And throwes hys mastre far off to the grounde."

Can any one for a moment doubt that these verses were all written by the same person? ----The circ.u.mstance of the wounded horse's falling on his rider, in the _first_ of these similies, is taken directly from Dryden's Virgil, aen. X. v. 1283. --Chatterton's new editor has artfully contrasted this pa.s.sage of Dryden with the _second_ simile, where that circ.u.mstance is _not_ mentioned.]

Again:-- We have the positive testimony of Mr. John Ruddall, a native and inhabitant of Bristol, who was well acquainted with Chatterton, when he was a clerk to Mr. Lambert, that _the Account of the ceremonies observed at the opening of the Old Bridge_, published in Farley's Journal, Oct. 1. 1768, and said to be _taken from an ancient Ms._, was a forgery of Chatterton's, and acknowledged by him to be such. Mr.

Ruddall's account of this transaction is so material, that I will transcribe it from the Dean of Exeter's new work, which perhaps many of my readers may not have seen:-- "During that time, [while C. was clerk to Mr. L.] Chatterton frequently called upon him at his master's house, and soon after he had printed the account of the bridge in the Bristol paper, told Mr. Ruddall, that he was the author of it; but _it occurring to him afterwards_, that he might be called upon to produce the original, he brought to him one day a piece of parchment about the size of a half-sheet of fool's-cap paper: Mr. Ruddall does not think that any thing was written on it when produced by Chatterton, but he saw him write several words, if not lines, in a character which Mr. Ruddall did not understand, which he says was totally unlike English, and as he apprehends was meant by Chatterton to imitate or represent the original from which this account was printed. He cannot determine precisely how much Chatterton wrote in this manner, but says, that the time he spent in that visit did not exceed three quarters of an hour: the size of the parchment, however, (even supposing it to have been filled with writing) will in some measure ascertain the quant.i.ty which it contained. He says also, that when Chatterton had written on the parchment, he held it over the candle, to give it the appearance of antiquity, which changed the colour of the ink, and made the parchment appear black and a little contracted[S]."

[Footnote S: See the new edition of Chatterton's poems, quarto, p. 436, 437.]

Such is the account of one of Chatterton's intimate friends. And how is this decisive proof of his abilities to imitate ancient English handwriting, and his exercise of those abilities, evaded? Why truly, we are told, "the _contraction of the parchment_ is no discriminating mark of antiquity; the _blackness_ given by smoke appears upon trial to be very different from the _yellow_ tinge which parchment acquires by age; and _the ink does not change its colour_, as Mr. Ruddall seems to apprehend." So, because these arts are not always _completely successfull_, and would not deceive a very skilful antiquary, we are to conclude, that Chatterton did not forge a paper which he acknowledged to have forged, and did not in the presence of Mr. Ruddall cover a piece of parchment with ancient characters for the purpose of imposition, though the fact is clearly ascertained by the testimony of that gentleman!

--The reverend commentator argues on this occasion much in the same manner, as a well-known versifier of the present century, the facetious Ned Ward (and he too published a quarto volume of poems). Some biographer, in an account of the lives of the English poets, had said that "he was an ingenious writer, considering his low birth and mode of life, he having for some time kept a publick house in the City." "Never was a greater or more impudent calumny (replied the provoked rhymer); it is very well known to every body, that my publick house is not in the City, but in _Moorfields_." --In the name of common sense, of what consequence is it, whether in fact _all_ ancient parchments are _shrivelled_; whether smoke will give ink a _yellow_ appearance or not.

It is sufficient, that Chatterton _thought_ this was the case; that he made the _attempt_ in the presence of a credible witness, to whom he _acknowledged_ the purpose for which the manuvre was done. We are asked indeed, why he did not prepare his pretended original before he published the copy. To this another question is the best answer. Why is not fraud always uniform and consistent, and armed at all points?

Happily for mankind it scarcely ever is. Perhaps (as Mr. Ruddall's account seems to state the matter) he did not think at first that he should be called upon for the original: perhaps he was limited in a point of time, and could not fabricate it by the day that the new bridge was opened at Bristol. --But there is no end of such speculations. Facts are clear and incontrovertible. Whatever might have been the cause of his delay, it is not denied that he acknowledged this forgery to his friend Mr. Ruddall; conjuring him at the same time not to reveal the secret imparted to him. If this had been a mere frolick, what need of this earnest injunction of secrecy? --His friend scrupulously kept his word till the year 1779, when, as the Dean of Exeter informs us, "on the prospect of procuring a gratuity of ten pounds for Chatterton's mother, from a gentleman who sought for information concerning her son's history, he thought so material a benefit to the family would fully justify him for divulging a secret, by which no person living could be a sufferer."

I will not stay to take notice of the impotent attempts that Chatterton's new commentators have made to overturn the very satisfactory and conclusive reasoning of Mr. Tyrwhitt's Appendix to the former edition of the fict.i.tious Rowley's Poems. That most learned and judicious critick wants not the a.s.sistance of my feeble pen: _Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis----._ If he should come into the field himself (as I hope he will), he will soon silence the Anglo-Saxon batteries of his opponents.

The princ.i.p.al arguments that have been urged in support of the antiquity of the poems attributed to Rowley, have now, if I mistake not, been fairly stated and examined[T]. On a review of the whole, I trust the reader will agree with me in opinion, that there is not the smallest reason for believing a single line of them to have been written by any other person than Thomas Chatterton; and that, instead of the towering motto which has been affixed to the new and splendid edition of the works of that most ingenious youth---- _Renascentur quae jam cecidere_-- the words of Claudian would have been more "germane to the matter:"

--------_tolluntur in altum,_ _Ut lapsu graviore ruant._

[Footnote T: I take this opportunity of acknowledging an error into which I have fallen in a former page (13), where it is said, that no instances are found in these poems of a noun in the plural number being joined to a verb in the singular. On a more careful examination I observe that C. was aware of this mark of antiquity, and that his works exhibit a _few_ examples of this disregard to grammar. He has however sprinkled them too sparingly. Had these poems been written in the fifteenth century, Priscian's head would have been broken in almost every page, and I should not have searched for these grammatical inaccuracies in vain.]

Having, I fear, trespa.s.sed too long on the patience of my readers, in the discussion of a question that to many may appear of no great importance, I will only add the following serious and well-intended proposal. I do humbly recommend, that a committee of the friends of the reverend antiquarian, Dr. Jeremiah Milles, Dean of Exeter, and the learned mythologist, Jacob Bryant, Esq., may immediately meet; --that they may, as soon as possible, convey the said Dr. M. and Mr. B.

together with Mr. George Catcott, pewterer, and Mr. William Barrett, surgeon, of Bristol, and Dr. Glynn of Cambridge, to the room over the north porch of Redcliffe church, and that on the door of the said room _six_ padlocks may be fixed:-- that in order to wean these gentlemen by degrees from the delusion under which they labour, and to furnish them with some amus.e.m.e.nt, they may be supplied with proper instruments to measure the length, breadth, and depth, of the empty chests now in the said room, and thereby to ascertain how many thousand diminutive pieces of parchment, all eight inches and a half by four and a half, might have been contained in those chests; [according to my calculation, 1,464,578; --but I cannot pretend to be exact:] that for the sustenance of these gentlemen, a large peck loaf may be placed in a _maund_ basket in the said room, having been previously prepared and left in a damp place, so as to become mouldy, and the words and figures _Thomas Flour, Bristol_, 1769, being first impressed in common letters on the upper crust of the said loaf, and on the under side thereof, in Gothick Characters, _Thomas Wheateley_, 1464 (which Thomas Wheateley Mr.

Barrett, if he carefully examines Rowley's PURPLE ROLL[V], will find was an _auncyent_ baker, and "_did use to bake daiely for Maister Canynge twelve manchettes of chete breade, and foure douzenne of marchpanes_;"

and which custom of impressing the names of bakers upon bread, I can prove to be as ancient as the time of king Edward IV., from Doomsday-book, William de Wircestre, Shakspeare, and other good antiquarians, as also from the Green and Yellow Rolls, now in Mr. B's custody)[X]:-- that a proper quant.i.ty of water may be conveyed into the forementioned room in one of Mr. Catcott's deepest and most ancient pewter plates, together with an ewer of Wedgwood's ware, made after the oldest and most uncouth pattern that has yet been discovered at Herculaneum;-- that Dr. Glynn, if he shall be thought to be sufficiently composed (of which great doubts are entertained), be appointed to cut a certain portion of the said bread for the daily food of these gentlemen and himself; and that, in order to sooth in some measure their unhappy fancies, he may be requested, in cutting the said loaf, to use the valuable knife of Mr. s.h.i.+ercliffe (now in the custody of the said Dr. G), the history[Y] of which has so much ill.u.s.trated, and so clearly evinced the antiquity of the poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. And if in a fortnight after these gentlemen have been so confined, they shall be found to be entirely re-established in their health, and perfectly composed, I recommend that the six locks may be struck off, and that they all may be suffered to return again to their usual employments.

[Footnote V: ROWLEY's _Purple Roll_, Mr. Bryant very gravely tells us, it yet extant in ma.n.u.script in his _own hand-writing_. "It is (he adds) in _two_ parts; _one_ of the said parts written by Thomas Rowley, and _the other by Thomas Chatterton_."]

[Footnote X: A learned friend, who, by the favour of Mr. Barrett, has perused the YELLOW ROLL, informs me, that Rowley, in a treatise dated 1451, and addressed "to the dygne Maister Canynge," with the quaint t.i.tle, DE RE FRUMENTARIA, (chap. XIII.

_Concernynge Horse-hoeing Husbandrie, and the Dryll-Ploughe_) has this remarkable pa.s.sage: "Me thynketh ytt were a prettie devyce yffe this practyce of oure bakerres were extended further.

I mervaile moche, our _scriveynes_ and _amanuenses_ doe not gette lytel letters cutt in wood, or caste in yron, and thanne followynge by the eye, or with a fescue, everyche letter of the boke thei meane to copie, fix the sayde wooden or yron letters meetelie disposed in a frame or chase; thanne daube the frame over with somme atramentous stuffe, and layinge a thynne piece of moistened parchment or paper on these letters, presse it doune with somme smoothe stone or other heavie weight: by the whiche goodlye devyce a manie hundreth copies of eche boke might be wroughte off in a few daies, insteade of employing the eyen and hondes of poore clerkes for several monthes with greate attentyon and travaile."

This great man, we have already seen, had an idea of many of the useful arts of life some years before they were practised. Here he appears to have had a confused notion of that n.o.ble invention, the printing-press. To prevent misconstruction, I should add, that _boke_ in the above pa.s.sage means _ma.n.u.script_, no other books being then known; In other parts of his works, _as represented by Chatterton_, he speaks of Mss. as contradistinguished from books; but in all those places it is reasonable to suppose some interpolation by Chatterton, and _those who choose it_, may read _book_ instead of _ma.n.u.script_; by which this trivial objection to the authenticity of these pieces will be removed, and these otherwise discordant pa.s.sages rendered perfectly uniform and consistent.

This valuable relick shows with how little reason the late Mr.

Tull claimed the merit of inventing that useful instrument of husbandry, the drill-plough.

I make no apology for antic.i.p.ating Mr. Barret on this subject; as in fact these short extracts will only make the publick still more desirous to see his long-expected _History of Bristol_, which I am happy to hear is in great forwardness, and will, I am told, contain a full account of the YELLOW ROLL, and an exact inventory of _Maistre William Cannynge's_ Cabinet of coins, medals, and drawings, (among the latter of which are enumerated many, highly finished, by Apelles, Raphael, Rowley, Rembrant, and Vandyck) together with several other matters equally curious. --It is hoped that this gentleman will gratify the publick with an accurate engraving from a drawing by Rowley, representing the ancient Castle of Bristol, together with the square tower ycleped the DONGEON, which cannot fail to afford great satisfaction to the purchasers of his book, as it will exhibit a species of architecture hitherto unknown in this country; this tower (as we learn from unquestionable authority, that of the Dean of Exeter himself,) "being remarkably decorated [on paper] with images, ornaments, tracery work, and crosses within circles, _in a style net usually seen in these buildings_." --Chatterton, _as soon as ever he heard that Mr. Barrett was engaged in writing a History of Bristol_, very obligingly searched among the Rowley papers, and a few days afterwards furnished him with a neat _copy_ of this ancient drawing.]

[Footnote Y: This very curious and interesting history may be found in Mr. Bryant's _Observations_, &c. p. 512. The learned commentator seems to have had the great father of poetry in his eye, who is equally minute in his account of the sceptre of Achilles. See _Il._ ?. v. 234. He cannot, however, on this account be justly charged with plagiarism; these co-incidences frequently happening. Thus Rowley in the 15th century, and Dryden in the 17th, having each occasion to say that a man wept, use the same four identical words-- "_Tears began to flow._"]

F I N I S.

_NEW BOOKS published by J. NICHOLS, PRINTER to the SOCIETY of ANTIQUARIES, at _Cicero's Head, Red-Lion-Pa.s.sage, Fleet-Street_; and sold by ALL the Booksellers in _Great Britain_ and _Ireland_._