Chapter 2

13. LI (1781), 555-559, 609-615. On its publishing schedule during the 18th century, see the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, N.S., I (July-Dec., 1856), 9. Neither the magazine nor the pamphlet mentioned Malone’s authorship, but his hand in “the new Pamphlet,” at least, was soon recognized (see the _St. James’s Chronicle_, No. 3268, 14-16 Feb. 1782). One can only speculate whether Malone and Nichols were fellow plotters from the beginning. They seem to have taken interest in each other’s work as early as 1779, when Nichols printed for Malone special copies of some early analogues to Shakespeare’s plays. See Albert H. Smith, “John Nichols, Printer and Publisher,” _The Library_, 5th Ser., XVIII (1963), 182-183. And evidently Nichols had an eye out for anti-Rowleian materials. At his solicitation, Horace Walpole allowed the _Letter to the Editor of the [Chatterton] Miscellanies_ (Strawberry Hill, 1779) to be reprinted in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in 1782 (LII, 189-195, 247-250, 300, and 347-348).

14. Nichols’ printing operations are described in a pamphlet by David Bond, _Friendship Strikingly exhibited in a New Light_ (London, 1781).

15. Charlemont Correspondence, I, 393-394. I wish to thank Professor Osborn for calling my attention to this letter.

16. See the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, LII (1782), 14-15, and the _St. James’s Chronicle_, Nos. 3257 (19-22 Jan.) and 3264 (5-7 Feb.).

17. _The Letters of Horace Walpole_, ed. Paget Toynbee, XII (Oxford, 1904), 152.

18. Concerning Walpole’s copy, see _Horace Walpole’s Correspondence_, Yale Ed., ed. W. S. Lewis _et al._, XVI (New Haven, 1952), 363. I have found no trace of any other version of the pamphlet, and it is doubtful that there was time for one to be published between 8 Jan., when Malone wrote to Charlemont, and 31 Jan., the date of the “Advertisement” printed in the “revised and augmented” edition. We may presume that as editor of the magazine Nichols would not be anxious for another printing of the essay during Jan. to compete with two numbers in which the essay was a principal feature. All copies of the pamphlet which I have been able to locate specify “the second edition, revised and augmented.” In my examination of six copies (at the Library of Congress, the Bodleian, and the British Museum), I found variation only in the catchword on p. 32. Although the first word on p. 33 is “comprise” in all copies, the catchword in three copies (Bodleian, and British Museum shelf-marks 687.g.33 and 78.i.9) is “contain,” the word Malone used in the magazine. Since the copies are otherwise identical, repeating distinctive flaws and errors (note, for instance, “written,” p. 19), I judge that this discrepancy was seen and corrected at press, and that all copies are of one printing.

[[In this edition, the catchword is “comprise”.]] [[P. 19: “undoubtedly writtten [_sic_] by one person”.]]

19. Besides the added paragraphs and footnotes, I have noted 235 separate textual changes. Undoubtedly some deviations in spelling and punctuation were the printer’s work. But the number of changes in quoted passages (see especially pp. 16 and 60) and the regularity of changes (like those noted above) which evidently serve a stylistic purpose suggest the author’s meticulous revision.

[[Page 16: “My love is dead...” and following.]] [[Page 60: Footnote X.]]

20. In reference to Bryant’s _Observations_ (advertised at 8s.), Malone had said, “by an unwarrentable artifice of the bookseller, it is divided into two, to furnish a pretence for demanding an uncommon price.” Compare with this the statement on p. 2.

[[P. 2: “Many persons, no doubt, will be deterred by the size of these works...”]]

21. LII (1782), 128.

22. See Malone’s letter of 19 Nov. 1782 in _Charlemont Correspondence_, I, 422.

23. See Meyerstein, _Life_, p. 474, and Warton’s comment (n. 35).

24. The other passages are on pp. 19-22, 23, 25, 49-50, 51-57, and 57-58. The new footnotes are on pp. 10, 24-25, 29, 33, and 50.

[[Footnotes A, D, F, G, Q.]]

25. That he had quoted out of Warton’s _History_ the passages from Hoccleve and Bradshaw, not having other texts readily at hand, indicates Malone’s haste to publish the essay originally. He retained the Hoccleve passage (p. 6); his point about Warton’s basis of selection is effective. But, perhaps feeling that two such citations weakened the point, he took the trouble to bring the quotation from Bradshaw into conformity with the other examples.

[[“Aristotle, most famous philosofre...”]]

26. The reviewer for the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ commented that Malone’s “levity” and his ridicule of “respectable characters” could “only reflect on himself”--LII (1782), 128. According to Joseph Haslewood (see n. 8), the magazine’s reviewer at this time was Richard Gough, who devoted much of his life to antiquarian studies. For the opposite reaction to Malone’s “cure,” see the _St. James’s Chronicle_, No. 3289 (4-6 April 1782), and the _Critical Review_, LIII (1782), 418.

27. _Strictures Upon a Pamphlet entitled, Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Rowley, A Priest of the Fifteenth Century_ (London, 1782), p. 3.

28. No. 3311 (25-28 May). In a vol. of clippings at the British Museum relating to the controversy (shelf-mark C.39.h.20), Joseph Haslewood wrote “E. Malone” beneath this poem. Haslewood attributed certain other items in the _St. James_ at this time to “G. Steevens” and appears to have been reporting first-hand information.

29. Today scholars attribute the _Epistle_ to William Mason, whose letters to Walpole certainly imply that he wrote it but was zealous to conceal the fact. See _Walpole’s Correspondence_, ed. W. S. Lewis, XXIX (New Haven, 1955), 168-169, 175, 182, 189-190, 199-200; and Philip Gaskell, _The First Editions of William Mason_ (Cambridge, 1951), p. 26. The man who published the _Epistle_, however, says confidently, “this admirable Poem, very generally ascribed at the time to Mr. Mason, was written by John Baynes, Esq. and handed to the press by his intimate friend John Watson Reed, Esq.” Mason’s furtiveness may, of course, have fooled even the publisher. The periodicals of the day bear out at least Nichols’ word (contrary to what Gaskell says) that the work was immediately received as Mason’s. Besides this pamphlet and Malone’s, Nichols printed Tyrwhitt’s _Vindication_ (for the publishers T. Payne and Son). In a letter to Nichols on 18 March 1782, George Steevens commented, “Your house seems to be the forge from which Anti-Rowleian thunders of every kind are to be issued.” For all of the above information, see Nichols’ _Literary Anecdotes_, VIII (London, 1815), 113.

30. No. 3257 (19-22 Jan. 1782).

31. _Walpole’s Correspondence_, ed. Lewis, XXIX, 195.

32. LII (1782), 379-381.

33. A series of articles on this very topic in Malone’s article illustrates how elusive such proofs were. See the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, LI (1781), 609; LII (1782), 76, 168, 229, 434, 471; LIII (1783), 38-39, 127.

34. _Critical Review_, LIII (1782), 418-419.

35. _Enquiry_, pp. 92-93.

36. _Vindication_, p. 82. A footnote refers the reader to the _Cursory Observations_.

37. _The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton_, II (London, 1890), xlv.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Edmond Malone’s _Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley_ is reproduced from a copy at the Beinecke Library of Yale University.

CURSORY OBSERVATIONS

On The

P O E M S

Attributed To

THOMAS ROWLEY,

A PRIEST of the Fifteenth Century:

with

SOME REMARKS

On the COMMENTARIES on those Poems, by the Rev. Dr. JEREMIAH MILLES, Dean of Exeter, and JACOB BRYANT, Esq;

and

A SALUTARY PROPOSAL

Addressed to the Friends of those Gentlemen.

The Second Edition, Revised And Augmented.

---- _Ridentem dicere verum Quid vetat?_ HOR.

L O N D O N

Printed for J. NICHOLS, and sold by J. WALTER, Charing Cross; R. FAULDER, New Bond street; J. SEWELL, Cornhill; and E. NEWBERY, Ludgate street.

M.DCC.LXXXII.

[Price One Shilling and Six-Pence]

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Observations having met with a more favourable reception than so hasty an Essay had any title to claim, I have endeavoured to render them less imperfect by a revisal, and by adding such new remarks as a more attentive examination of a very copious subject has suggested.

In the discussion of any other question, I should have treated the gentlemen whose arguments I have endeavoured to confute, with that ceremonious respect to which Literature is entitled from all her sons. “A commentator (as the most judicious critick of the present age has observed) should be grave;” but the cause of Rowley, and the mode in which it has been supported, are “too risible for any common power of face.”

_January 31, 1782._

CURSORY OBSERVATIONS on the P O E M S attributed to THOMAS ROWLEY.

Never surely was the course marked out by our great Satirist-- _And write about it, Goddess, and about it_-- more strictly followed, than in the compositions which the present _Rowleiomania_ has produced. Mercy upon us! Two octavo volumes and a huge quarto, to prove the forgeries of an attorney’s clerk at Bristol in 1769, the productions of a priest in the fifteenth century! ----Fortunate Chatterton! What the warmest wishes of the admirers of the greatest Genius that England ever produced have not yet effected, a magnificent and accurate edition of his works, with notes and engravings, the product of thy fertile brain has now obtained. --It is almost needless to say, that I allude to two new publications by Mr. Bryant, and the Dean of Exeter; in the _modest_ title of one of which, _the authenticity_ of the poems attributed to Thomas Rowley is said to be _ascertained_; the other gentleman indeed does not go so far-- he only _considers and defends their antiquity_. --Many persons, no doubt, will be deterred by the size of these works from reading them. It is not, however, so great as they may imagine; for Mr. Bryant’s book is in fact only a moderate octavo, though by dextrous management it has been divided into two volumes, to furnish an excuse (as it should seem) for demanding an uncommon price. Bulky, however, as these works are, I have just perused them, and entreat the indulgence of those who think the discussion of a much controverted literary point worth attention, while I lay before them some observations on this inexhaustible subject.

And, first, I beg leave to lay it down as a fixed principle, that the authenticity or spuriousness of the poems attributed to Rowley cannot be decided by any person who has not a _taste_ for English poetry, and a moderate, at least, if not a critical, knowledge of the compositions of most of our poets from the time of Chaucer to that of Pope. Such a one alone is, in my opinion, a competent judge of this matter; and were a jury of twelve such persons empaneled to try the question, I have not the smallest doubt what would be their almost instantaneous decision. Without this critical knowledge and taste, all the Saxon literature that can be employed on this subject (though these learned gentlemen should pour out waggon instead of cart-loads of it,) will only puzzle and perplex, instead of illustrating, the point in dispute. Whether they are furnished with any portion of this critical taste, I shall now examine. But that I may not bewilder either my readers or myself, I will confine my observation to these four points. 1. The verification of the poems attributed to Rowley. 2. The imitations of modern authours that are found in them. 3. The anachronisms with which they abound. 4. The hand-writing of the Mss.-- the parchments, &c.

I. It is very obvious, that the first and principal objection to the antiquity of these poems is the smoothness of the versification. A series of more than three thousand lines, however disfigured by old spelling, flowing for the most part as smoothly as any of Pope’s-- is a difficult matter to be got over. Accordingly the learned Mythologist, Mr. Bryant, has laboured hard to prove, either, that other poets of the fifteenth century have written as smoothly, or, if you will not allow him this, that Rowley was a prodigy, and wrote better than all his contemporaries; and that this is not at all incredible, it happening very frequently. And how, think you, gentle reader, he proves his first point? He produces some verses from Spenser, written about the year 1571; some from Sir John Cheke, written in 1553; and others from Sir H. Lea, master of the Armoury to queen Elizabeth. These having not the smallest relation to the present question, I shall take no notice of them. He then cites some verses of blind Harry, (who knows not blind Harry?) written in the time of King Edward IV.; and some from _the Pilgrimage of the Soul_, printed by Caxton in 1483. I will not encumber my page by transcribing them; and will only observe, that they do not at all prove the point for which they are adduced, being by no means harmonious. But were these few verses ever so smooth, they would not serve to decide the matter in controversy. The question is not, whether in Chaucer, or any other ancient English poet, we can find a _dozen_ lines as smooth as

“Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt, “Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt--”

but whether we can find _three thousand_ lines as smooth as these; containing the same rythm, the very collocation and combination of words used in the eighteenth century.

Let us bring this matter to a very fair test. Any quotation from particular parts of old poetry is liable to suspicion, and may be thought to be selected by the advocates on one side as remarkably harmonious, or by those on the other as uncommonly rugged and uncouth. I will therefore transcribe the first four lines of as many ancient poems as are now lying before me; and I request that they may be compared with the opening of _the Battle of Hastings_, No. 1, the piece which happens to stand first in the new quarto edition of Chatterton’s works.

Divested of its old spelling, which is only calculated to mislead the reader, and to assist the intended imposition, it begins thus:

“O Christ, it is a grief for me to tell “How many a noble earl and val’rous knight “In fighting for king Harold nobly fell, “All slain in Hastings’ field, in bloody fight.”

Or, as Chatterton himself acknowledged this to be a forgery, perhaps it will be more proper to quote the beginning of _the Battle of Hastings_, No. 2, which he asserted to be a genuine, ancient composition:

“O Truth! immortal daughter of the skies, “Too little known to writers of these days, “Teach me, fair saint, thy passing worth to prize, “To blame a friend, and give a foeman praise.”

The first four lines of _the Vision of Pierce Plowman_, by William (or Robert) Langland, who flourished about the year 1350, are as follows: [I quote from the edition printed in 1561.]

“In a summer season, when set was the sunne, “I shope me into shroubs, as I a shepe were, “In habit as an hermet, unholye of werkes, “Went wide in the werlde, wonders to here.”

Chaucer, who died in 1400, opens thus: [Tyrwhitt’s edit. 1775.]

“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 goddes on hie “And people infernall ben obedient, “And al mortal folke serven busely, “Of the goddesse 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 god armipotent, “That with the shininge 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, entitled _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 Ireliffeè say, “Clarke of the Greené 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, shinynge 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 nobleman’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, entitled _the Passetyme 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, “Shinyng 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 orbicular----.”

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 shift their ground, and plead, that any particular exceptionable word or passage 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.