Cursory Observations On The Poems Attributed To Thomas Rowley (1782) Part 2

"Whanne that April with his shoures sote "The droughte of March hath perced to the rote, "And bathed every veine in swiche licour, "Of whiche vertue engendred is the flour--."

The _Confessio Amantis_ of Gower, who died in 1402, begins thus: [Berthelette's edit. 1532.]

"I maye not stretche uppe to the heven "Myn honde, ne set al in even "This worlde, whiche ever is in balaunce, "It stant not in my suffisaunce----."

Of Occleve's translation of Egidius _de Regimine principum_, not having it before me, I cannot transcribe the first lines. But here are the first that Mr. Warton has quoted from that poet, and he probably did not choose the worst. I should add, that Occleve wrote in the reign of King Henry V., about the year 1420:

"Aristotle, most famous philosofre, "His epistles to Alisaunder sent, "Whos sentence is wel bet then golde in cofre, "And more holsum, grounded in trewe entent----."

The following is the first stanza of _the Letter of Cupide_, written by the same authour, and printed in Thynne's edition of Chaucer, 1561:

"Cupide, unto whose commaundement "The gentill kinrede of G.o.ddes on hie "And people infernall ben obedient, "And al mortal folke serven busely, "Of the G.o.ddesse sonne Cythera onely, "To al tho that to our deite "Ben subjectes, hertely greting sende we."

Of John Lydgate's _Historie of Troye_, which was finished about the year 1420, this is the beginning: [edit. 1555.]

"O myghty Mars, that with thy sterne lyght "In armys hast the power and the myght, "And named arte from easte tyl occident "The myghty lorde, the G.o.d armipotent, "That with the s.h.i.+ninge of thy stremes rede "By influence dost the brydell lede "Of chivalrie, as soveraygne and patron--."

_The Hystorie of King Boccus and Sydracke_, &c. printed in 1510, and written by Hugh Campeden in the reign of Henry VI. i.e. some time between the year 1423 and 1461, begins thus:

"Men may finde in olde bookes, "Who soo yat in them lookes, "That men may mooche here, "And yerefore yff yat yee wolle lere----."

Of Thomas Chestre's poems, ent.i.tled _Sir Launfale_, written about the same time, these are the first lines:

"Le douzty Artours dawes "That held Engelond in good lawe, "Ther fell a wondyr cas "Of a ley that was ysette----."

The first lines that I have met with of Hardynge's _Chronicle of England unto the reigne of king Edward the Fourth, in verse_, [composed about the year 1470, and printed in 1543, 4to] are as follows:

"Truly I heard Robert Ireliffee say, "Clarke of the Greene Cloth, and that to the houshold "Came every daye, forth most part alway, "Ten thousand folke, by his messes told--."

The following is the only specimen that I have seen of _The Ordinal_, a poem written by Thomas Norton, a native of Bristol, in the reign of King Edward IV.

"Wherefore he would set up in higth "That bridge, for a wonderful sight, "With pinnacles guilt, s.h.i.+nynge as goulde, "A glorious thing for men to behoulde."

The poem on _Hawking, Hunting, and Armoury_, written by Julian Barnes in the reign of the same monarch, (about 1481,) begins thus:

"My dere sones, where ye fare, by frith, or by fell, "Take good hede in this tyme, how Tristram woll tell, "How many maner bestes of venery there were, "Listenes now to our dame, and ye shullen here."

The only extract that I have met with from William of Naffyngton's _Treatise on the Trinitie_, translated from John of Waldenby, about the year 1480, runs thus:

"I warne you first at the begynnynge, "That I will make no vaine carpynge, "Of dedes of armes, ne of amours, "As does Mynstrellis and Gestours----."

I cannot adhere to the method that I have in general observed, by quoting the first lines of _the Moral Proverbes of Christyne_ of Pyse, translated in metre by earl Rivers, and printed by Caxton in the seventeenth year of Edward IV. (1478), not having a copy of that scarce book. However, as this is the era of the pretended Rowley, I cannot forbear to transcribe the last stanza of that poem, as I find it cited in an account of this accomplished n.o.bleman's works:

"Of these sayynges Christyne was the aucturesse, "Which in makyn had such intelligence, "That thereof she was mireur and maistresse; "Her werkes testifie thexperience; "In Frensh languaige was written this sentence; "And thus englished doth hit reherse "Antoin Widevylle therle Ryvers."

The first stanza of _the Holy Lyfe of Saynt Werburge_, written by Henry Bradshaw, about the year 1500, and printed in 1521, is this:

"When Phebus had ronne his cours in sagittari, "And Capricorne entred a sygne retrograt, "Amyddes Decembre, the ayre colde and frosty, "And pale Lucyna the erthe dyd illuminat, "I rose up shortly fro my cubycle preparat, "Aboute mydnyght, and cast in myne intent "How I myght spende the tyme convenyent."

Stephen Hawes's celebrated poem, ent.i.tled _the Pa.s.setyme of pleasure, or the Historie of Graunde Amour and La bell Pucell_, &c. (written about the year 1506, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1517,) being now before me, I am enabled to transcribe the first lines:

"When Phebus entred was in Geminy, "s.h.i.+nyng above, in his fayre golden sphere, "And horned Dyane, then but one degre "In the crabbe had entred, fayre and cleare----."

Of the _Example of Virtue_[A], written by the same authour, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1530, this is the first stanza:

"In September, in fallynge of the lefe, "Whan Phebus made his inclynacyon, "And all the whete gadred was in the shefe, "By radyaunt hete and operacyon, "When the vyrgyn had full dominacyon, "And Dyane entred was one degre "Into the sygne of Gemyne----"

[Footnote A: This very rare poem escaped the researches of the learned and ingenious Mr. Warton, who doubted whether it had ever been printed. See his _Hist. of Eng. Poetry_, vol. II. p. 211.]

The first piece of Skelton, most of whose poems were written between 1509 and 1529, begins thus:

"Arrestynge my sight towarde the zodiake "The signes xii for to beholde a farre, "When Mars retrogaunt reversed his backe, "Lorde of the yere in his...o...b..cular----."

The reader has now before him specimens of ancient poetry, during a period of near two hundred years; that is, for a century before the pretended Thomas Rowley is said to have written, and for near a century afterwards. They are for the most part taken from the commencement of the works of the several authours; so that there can be no suspicion of their having been selected, on account of their uncouthness, to prove a particular point. I know not whether I flatter myself; but by making these short extracts, I imagine that I have thrown more light upon the subject now under consideration, than if I had transcribed twenty pages of Junius, and as many of Skinner's _Etymologicon_, or Doomsday-book.

Poetical readers may now decide the question for themselves; and I believe they will very speedily determine, that the lines which have been quoted from Chatterton's poems were not written at any one of the eras abovementioned, and will be clearly of opinion with Mr. Walpole, (whose unpublished pamphlet on this subject, printed at Strawberry Hill, shows him to be as amiable as he is lively and ingenious,) that this wonderful youth has indeed "copied ancient language, but ancient style he has never been able to imitate:" not for want of genius, for he was perhaps the second poetical genius that England has produced, but because he attempted something too arduous for human abilities to perform. My objection is not to single words, to lines or half-lines of these compositions (for here the advocates for their authenticity always s.h.i.+ft their ground, and plead, that any particular exceptionable word or pa.s.sage was the interpolation of Chatterton); but it is to their whole structure, style, and rythm. Many of the stones which this ingenious boy employed in his building, it must be acknowledged, are as old as those at Stone-henge; but the beautiful fabrick that he has raised is tied together by modern cement, and is covered with a stucco of no older date than that of Mess. Wyat and Adams.

To be more particular: In what poet of the time of Edward IV., or for a century afterwards, will the Dean of Exeter find what we frequently meet with in the _Battle of Hastings_, No. 1, and No. 2, at the conclusion of speeches-- "_Thus he_;"-- "_Thus Leofwine_;"-- "_He said_; and as," &c?

In none I am confident. This latter is a form of expression in heroick poetry, that Pope has frequently made use of in his Homer (from whence Chatterton undoubtedly copied it), and was sometimes employed by Dryden and Cowley; but I believe it will not be easy to trace it to Harrington or Spenser; most a.s.suredly it cannot be traced up to the fifteenth century. ----In what English poem of that age will he find similies dressed in the modern garb with which Chatterton has clothed them throughout these pieces?-- "_As when_ a flight of cranes, &c.-- _So_ p.r.o.ne," &c.-- "_As when_ a drove of wolves, &c. _So_ fought," &c. &c.-- If the reverend Antiquarian can find this kind of phraseology in any one poet of the time of King Edward IV., or even for fifty years afterwards, I will acknowledge the antiquity of every line contained in his quarto volume. Most a.s.suredly neither he nor his colleague can produce any such instance. Even in the latter end of the _sixteenth_ century, (a large bound from 1460,) poetical comparisons, of the kind here alluded to, were _generally_ expressed either thus-- "_Look how_ the crown that Ariadne wore, &c. _So_," &c. "_Look how_ a comet at the first appearing, &c. _So_ did the blazing of my blush," &c. "_Look how_ the world's poor people are amazed, &c. _So_," &c.-- Or thus: "_Even as_ an empty eagle sharpe by fast, &c.-- _Even so_," &c.-- "_Like as_ a taper burning in the darke, &c. _So_," &c.-- Such is the general style of the latter end of the sixteenth century; though sometimes (but very rarely) the form that Chatterton has used was also employed by Spenser and others. In the preceding century, if I am not much mistaken, it was wholly unknown.

But I have perhaps dwelled too long on this point. Every poetical reader 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sertions with which the pa.s.sage 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 ill.u.s.trations.

Indeed when the fraud is so manifest as not to be concealed, the pa.s.sage 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_: