Chapter 3
See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude; Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie, Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude. (_Ælla_, 872.)
and, from the _Songe bie a Manne and Womanne_,
I heare them from eche grene wode tree, Chauntynge owte so blatauntlie, Tellynge lecturnyes to mee, Myscheefe ys whanne you are nygh. (_Ælla_, 107.)
Did ever shepherd's pipe play a prettier tune? He has some fine martial sounds, as for instance: Howel ap Jevah came from Matraval (_Battle of Hastings_, I, 181.)
He rarely employs personifications, but no poet used the figure more convincingly. The third Mynstrelle's description of Autumn is a lovely thing, and one will not easily forget his Winter's frozen blue eyes--though unfortunately that is not in Rowley.
His art was essentially dramatic, and he has some fine dramatic moments, as for example when the Usurer soliloquizing miserably on his certain ultimate damnation suddenly cries out
O storthe unto mie mynde! I goe to helle. (_Gouler's Requiem_.)
The word 'storthe' is a good example of Chatterton's use of strange words. The effect of a sudden outcry which it produces would be lost in a modernized version which rendered it 'death'.
Mr. Watts-Dunton in his article on Chatterton in Ward's _English Poets_ speaks of his extraordinary metrical inventiveness and of his ultimate responsibility for such lines as these--
And Christabel saw the lady's eye And nothing else she saw thereby Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall--
the anapaestic dance of which breaks in upon the normal iambic movement of the poem with a natural dramatic propriety. He compares too _The Eve of St. Agnes_ with the _Excelente Balade of Charitie_, remarking that it was only in his latest work that Keats attained to that dramatic objectivity which was 'the very core and centre of Chatterton's genius.'
Another writer, Mr. Thomas Seccombe, speaks of his 'genuine lyric fire, a poetic energy, and above all an intensity remote from his contemporaries and suggestive (as Cimabue in his antique and primitive manner is suggestive of Giotto and Angelico) of Shelley and Keats.'
Chatterton's influence on the great body of poets of the generation succeeding his own was very considerable--Mr. Watts-Dunton indeed declares him to have been the father of the New Romantic School--and the affection with which Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth and many others regarded him was extraordinary. He was their pioneer, who had lost his life in a heroic attempt to penetrate the dull crassness of the mid-eighteenth century.
He had great originality and the gift of an intense imagination. If he is sometimes crude and immature in thought and expression--if his images sometimes weary by their monotony--it is accepted that a poet is to be judged by his highest and not his lowest; and Chatterton's best work has an inspiration, a singular and unique charm both of thought and of music that is of the first order of English poetry.
III. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
A great deal more has been written about Chatterton than it is worth anybody's while to read. To begin with, there are all the volumes and pamphlets concerning themselves with the question whether the Rowley poems were written by Chatterton or by Rowley, or by both (Chatterton adding matter of his own to existing poems written in the fifteenth century), or by neither. It may be said that these problems were not conclusively and finally solved till Professor Skeat brought out his edition of Chatterton in 1871.
Then again there are the various lives of the poet; for the most part mere random aggregations of such facts, true or imagined, as fell in the editor's way, filled out with pulpit commonplaces and easy paragraphs beginning 'But it is ever the way of Genius ...' Professor Wilson's _Chatterton: a Biographical Study_ is as final in its own way as Professor Skeat's two volumes. It is a scholarly compilation of all previous accounts, very well digested and arranged. Moreover, the Professor has for the most part left the facts to tell their own story; and thus his book is free from such absurdities as the sentimental regrets of Gregory and Professor Masson that Chatterton was led into a course of folly ending in suicide through being deprived of a father's care. Such a father as Chatterton's was!
While premising that any one who wishes to learn the facts of the boy-poet's life--his circumstances and surroundings--can find them all set forth in Professor Wilson's book: while equally if he is interested in the pseudo-Rowley's language, philologically considered, he will find this elaborately examined in Professor Skeat's second volume; it has been thought that the following bibliography of books dealing with various aspects of the poet which were read and valued in their day may be found of interest to students of literary history.
1598. Speght's edition of Chaucer, the glossary of which Chatterton used in the compilation of his Rowley Dictionary.
1708. Kersey's _Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum_, and
1737. Bailey's _Universal Etymological Dictionary_. (8th Enlarged Edition.) Bailey is largely copied from Kersey, but Chatterton certainly used both dictionaries in making his antique language.
1777. Tyrwhitt's edition of the Rowley poems. Tyrwhitt was Chatterton's first editor and in his edition many of the poems were printed for the first time. 'The only really good edition is Tyrwhitt's.' 'This exhibits a careful and, I believe, extremely accurate text ... an excellent account of the MSS. and transcripts from which it was derived. It is a fortunate circumstance that the first editor was so thoroughly competent.' (Professor Skeat, Introd. to Vol. II of his 1871 edition.)
1778. Tyrwhitt's third edition, from which the present edition is printed. With this was printed for the first time 'An appendix ... tending to prove that the Rowley poems were written not by any ancient author but entirely by Thomas Chatterton.' This edition follows the first nearly page for page; but was reset.
1780. _Love and Madness_ by Sir Herbert Croft. This strange book deserves a brief description as it is the source of almost all our knowledge of Chatterton.
A certain Captain Hackman, violently in love with a Miss Reay, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, and stung to madness by his jealousy and the hopelessness of his position, had in 1779 shot her in the Covent Garden Opera House and afterwards unsuccessfully attempted to shoot himself. Enormous public interest was excited, and Croft--baronet, parson, and literary adventurer--got hold of copies which Hackman had kept of some letters he had sent to the charming Miss Reay. These he published as a sensational topical novel in epistolary form, calling it _Love and Madness_. This is quite worth reading for its own sake, but much more so for its 49th letter, which purports to have been written by Hackman to satisfy Miss Reay's curiosity about Chatterton. As a matter of fact Croft, who had been very interested in the boy-poet and had collected from his relations and those with whom he had lodged in London all they could possibly tell him, wrote the letter himself and included it rather inartistically among the genuine Hackman-Reay correspondence. Amongst other valuable matter, this letter 49 contains a long account of her brother by Mary Chatterton.--(See _Love letters of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay_, 1775-79, introduction by Gilbert Burgess: Heinemann, 1895.) 1774-81. Warton's _History of English Poetry_, in Volume II of which there is an account of Chatterton.
1781. Jacob Bryant's _Observations upon the Poems of T. Rowley in which the authenticity of those poems is ascertained_. Bryant was a strong Pro-Rowleian and argues cleverly against the possibility of Chatterton's having written the poems. He shows that Chatterton in his notes often misses Rowley's meaning and insists that he neglected to explain obvious difficulties because he could not understand them. Bryant is the least absurd of the Pro-Rowleians.
1782. Dean Milles' edition of the Rowley poems--a splendid quarto with a running commentary attempting to vindicate Rowley's authenticity. Milles was President of the Society of Antiquaries and his commentary is characterized by Professor Skeat as 'perhaps the most surprising trash in the way of notes that was ever penned.
1782. Mathias' _Essay on the Evidence ... relating to the poems called Rowley's_--he is pro-Rowleian and criticizes Tyrwhitt's appendix.
1782. Thomas Warton's _Enquiry ... into the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley_--Anti-Rowleian.
1782. Tyrwhitt's _Vindication_ of his Appendix. Tyrwhitt had discovered Chatterton's use of Bailey's Dictionary and completely refutes Bryant, Milles, and Mathias. It may be observed in passing that though Goldsmith upheld Rowley, Dr. Johnson, the two Wartons, Steevens, Percy, Dr. Farmer, and Sir H. Croft pronounced unhesitatingly in favour of the poems having been written by Chatterton: while Malone in a mocking anti-Rowleian pamphlet shows that the similes from Homer in the _Battle of Hastings_ and elsewhere have often borrowed their rhymes from Pope!
1798. _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse_ by Edward Gardner (two volumes). At the end of Volume II there is a short account of the Rowley controversy and, what is more important, the statement that Gardner had seen Chatterton antiquate a parchment and had heard him say that a person who had studied antiquities could with the aid of certain books (among them Bailey) 'copy the style of our elder poets so exactly that the most skilful observer should not be able to detect him. "No," said he, "not Mr. Walpole himself."' But perhaps this should be taken _cum grano_.
1803. Southey and Cottle's edition in three volumes with an account of Chatterton by Dr. Gregory which had previously been published as an independent book. Southey and Cottle's edition is very compendious so far as matter goes, and contains much that is printed for the first time. Gregory's life is inaccurate but very pleasantly written.
1837. Dix's life of Chatterton, with a frontispiece portrait of Chatterton aged 12 which was for a long time believed to be authentic. No genuine portrait of Chatterton is known to be in existence; probably none was ever made. Dix's life, not a remarkable work in itself, has some interesting appendices; one of which contains a story--extraordinary enough but well supported--that Chatterton's body, which had received a pauper's burial in London, was secretly reburied in St. Mary's churchyard by his uncle the Sexton.
1842. Willcox's edition printed at Cambridge; on the whole a slovenly piece of work with a villainously written introduction.
1854. George Pryce's _Memorials of Canynges Family_; which contains some notes of the coroner's inquest on Chatterton's body, which would have been most interesting if authentic, but were in fact forged by one Gutch.
1856. _Chatterton: a biography_ by Professor Masson--published originally in a volume of collected essays; re-published and in part re-written as an independent volume in 1899. The Professor reconstructs scenes in which Chatterton played a part; but it is suggested (with diffidence) that his treatment is too sentimental, and the boy-poet is Georgy-porgied in a way that would have driven him out of his senses, if he could have foreseen it. The picture is fundamentally false.
1857. _An Essay on Chatterton_ by S.R. Maitland, D.D., F.R.S., and F.S.A. A very monument of ignorant perversity. The writer shamelessly distorts facts to show that Chatterton was an utterly profligate blackguard and declares finally that neither Rowley nor Chatterton wrote the poems.
1869. Professor D. Wilson's _Chatterton: a Biographical Study_, and
1871. Professor W.W. Skeat's _Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton_ (in modernized English) of which mention has been made above.
1898. A beautifully printed edition of the Rowley poems with decorated borders, edited by Robert Steele. (Ballantyne Press.)
1905 and 1909. The works of Chatterton, with the Rowley poems in modernized English, edited with a brief introduction by Sidney Lee.
1910. _The True Chatterton--a new study from original documents_ by John H. Ingram. (Fisher Unwin.)
Besides all these serious presentations of Chatterton there are a number of burlesques--such as _Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades_ (1782) and _An Archæological Epistle to Jeremiah Milles_ (1782), which are clever and amusing, and three plays, two in English, and one in French by Alfred de Vigny, which represents the love affair of Chatterton and an apocryphal Mme. Kitty Bell.
The whole of Chatterton's writings--Rowley, acknowledged poems, and private letters, have been translated into French prose. _Oeuvres complètes de Thomas Chatterton traduites par Javelin Pagnon, précédées d'une Vie de Chatterton par A. Callet_ (1839). Callet's treatment of Chatterton is very sympathetic and interesting.
Finally for further works on Chatterton the reader is referred to Bohn's Edition of Lowndes' _Bibliographer's Manual_--but the most important have been enumerated above.
IV. NOTE ON THE TEXT.
This edition is a reprint of Tyrwhitt's third (1778) edition, which it follows page for page (except the glossary; see note on p. 291). The reference numbers in text and glossary, which are often wrong in 1778, have been corrected; line-numbers have been corrected when wrong, and added to one or two poems which are without them in 1778, and the text has been collated throughout with that of 1777 and corrected from it in many places where the 1778 printer was at fault. These corrections have been made silently; all other corrections and additions are indicated by footnotes enclosed in square brackets.
V. NOTES.
1. _The Tournament_, lines 7-10.
Wythe straunge depyctures, Nature maie nott yeelde, &c.
'This is neither sense nor grammar as it stands' says Professor Skeat. But Chatterton is frequently ungrammatical, and the sense of the passage is quite clear if either of the two following possible meanings is attributed to _unryghte_.
(1)=to present an intelligible significance otherwise than by writing--as 'rebus'd shields' do (un-write);
or (2) = to misrepresent (un-right).
With pictures of strange beasts that have no counterpart in Nature and appear to be purely fantastic ('unseemly to all order') yet none the less make known to men good at guessing riddles ('who thyncke and have a spryte') what the strange heraldic forms express-without-use-of-written-words ('unryghte')--or (taking the second meaning of unryghte--misrepresent) present-with-a-disregard-of-truth-to-nature.
2. _Letter to the Dygne Mastre Canynge_, line 15.
Seldomm, or never, are armes vyrtues mede, (that is to say, coats of arms) Shee nillynge to take myckle aie dothe hede
i.e. 'She unwilling to take much aye doth heed'; 'which is nonsense' says Prof. Skeat. But the sentence is an example of ellipse, a figure which Chatterton affected a good deal, and fully expressed would run 'She--not willing to take much, ever doth heed not to take much', which would of course be intolerably clumsy but perfectly intelligible.
3. _Ælla_, line 467.
Certis thie wordes maie, thou motest have sayne &c.
Prof. Skeat 'can make nothing of this' and reads 'Certes thy wordes mightest thou have sayn'.
A simple emendation of _maie_ to _meynte_ would give very good sense.
4. _Ælla_, line 489.
Tyrwhitt has _sphere_--evidently a mistake in the MS. for _spere_ which he overlooked. It is not included in his errata. In the 1842 edition the meaning 'spear' is given in a footnote.
5. _Englysh Metamorphosis_.
Prof. Skeat was the first to point out that this piece is an imitation of _The Faerie Queene_, Bk. ii, Canto X, stanzas 5-19.
6. _Battle of Hastings_, II, line 578.
To the ourt arraie of the thight Saxonnes came
Prof. Skeat explains _ourt_ as 'overt' and observes that it contradicts _thight_, which he renders 'tight'. But really there is not even an antithesis. _Ourt arraie_ is what a military handbook calls 'open order' and _thight_ is 'well-built', well put together (Bailey's Dictionary). The Saxons were well-built men marching in open order.
VI. APPENDIX.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE ARGUMENTS USED IN THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY.
(Taken mainly from Gregory's _Life of Chatterton_.)
_Against Rowley_.
1. So few originals produced--not more than 124 verses.
2. Chatterton had shown (by his article on Christmas games, &c.) that he had a strong turn for antiquities. He had also written poetry. Why then should he not have written Rowley's poems?
3. His declaration that the _Battle of Hastings_ I was his own.
4. Rudhall's testimony.
5. Chatterton first exhibited the _Songe to Ælla_ in his own handwriting, then gave Barrett the parchment, which contained strange textual variations.
6. Rowley's very existence doubtful.
William of Worcester, who lived at his time and was himself of Bristol, makes no mention of him, though he frequently alludes to Canynge. Neither Bale, Leland, Pitts nor Turner mentions Rowley.
7. Improbability of there being poems in a muniment chest. 8. Style unlike other fifteenth century writings.
9. No mediæval learning or citation of authority to be found in Rowley; no references to the Round Table and stories of chivalry.
10. Stockings were not knitted in the fifteenth century (_Ælla_). MSS. are referred to as if they were rarities and printed books common.
11. Metres and imitation of Pindar absurdly modern.
12. Mistakes cited which are derived from modern dictionaries (Tyrwhitt).
13. Existence of undoubted plagiarisms from Shakespeare, Gray, &c.
_For Rowley_.
1. Chatterton's assertion that they were Rowley's, his sister having represented him as a 'lover of truth from the earliest dawn of reason.'
2. Catcott's assertion that Chatterton on their first acquaintance had mentioned by name almost all the poems which have since appeared in print (Bryant).
3. Smith had seen parchments in the possession of Chatterton, some as broad as the bottom of a large-sized chair. (Bryant.)
4. Even Mr. Clayfield and Rudhall believed Chatterton incapable of composing Rowley's poems.
5. Undoubtedly there were ancient MSS. in the 'cofre'.
6. Chatterton would never have had time to write so much. He did not neglect his work in the attorney's office and he read enormously.
7. Chatterton made many mistakes in his transcription of Rowley and in his notes to the poems. (Bryant's main contention.)
8. If Leland never mentioned Rowley it is equally true he says nothing of Canynge, Lydgate, or Occleve.
_For Rowley_.
1. The poems contain much historical allusion at once true and inaccessible to Chatterton.
2. The admitted poems are much below the standard of Rowley.
3. The old octave stanza is not far removed from the usual stanza of Rowley.
4. If Rowley's language differs from that of other fifteenth century writers, the difference lies in provincialisms natural to an inhabitant of Bristol.
5. Plagiarisms from modern authors may in some cases have been introduced by Chatterton but in others they are the commonplaces of poetry.
_Against Rowley_.
1. No writings or chest deposited in Redcliffe Church are mentioned in Canynge's Will.
2. The Bristol library was in Chatterton's time of general access, and Chatterton was introduced to it by Rev. A. Catcott (Warton).
3. Facts about Canynge may be found in his epitaph in Redcliffe Church; and the account of Redcliffe steeple--(which had been destroyed by fire before Chatterton's time) came from the bottom of an old print published in 1746.
4. The parchments were taken from the bottom of old deeds where a small blank space was usually left--hence their small size.
POEMS,
SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT BRISTOL,
BY THOMAS ROWLEY, AND OTHERS, IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
POEMS,
SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT BRISTOL, BY THOMAS ROWLEY, AND OTHERS, IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. THE THIRD EDITION; TO WHICH IS ADDED AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE LANGUAGE OF THESE POEMS; TENDING TO PROVE, THAT THEY WERE WRITTEN, NOT BY ANY ANCIENT AUTHOR, BUT ENTIRELY BY THOMAS CHATTERTON.
THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME.
The Preface Introductory Account of the Several Pieces Advertisement Eclogue the First Eclogue the Second Eclogue the Third Elinoure and Juga Verses to Lydgate Songe to Ælla Lydgate's Answer The Tournament The Dethe of Syr Charles Bawdin Epistle to Mastre Canynge on Ælla Letter to the dygne M. Canynge Entroductionne Ælla; a Tragycal Enterlude Goddwyn; a Tragedie. (A Fragment.) Englysh Metamorphosis, B.I. Balade of Charitie Battle of Hastings, No. 1. Battle of Hastings, No. 2. Onn oure Ladies Chyrche On the same Epitaph on Robert Canynge The Storie of William Canynge On Happienesse, by William Canynge Onn Johne a Dalbenie, by the same The Gouler's Requiem, by the same The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast GLOSSARY
PREFACE.
The Poems, which make the principal part of this Collection, have for some time excited much curiosity, as the supposed productions of THOMAS ROWLEY, a priest of Bristol, in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. They are here faithfully printed from the most authentic MSS that could be procured; of which a particular description is given in the _Introductory account of the several pieces contained in this volume_, subjoined to this Preface. Nothing more therefore seems necessary at present, than to inform the Reader shortly of the manner in which these Poems were first brought to light, and of the authority upon which they are ascribed to the persons whose names they bear.
This cannot be done so satisfactorily as in the words of Mr. George Catcott of Bristol, to whose very laudable zeal the Publick is indebted for the most considerable part of the following collection. His account of the matter is this: "The first discovery of certain MSS having been deposited in Redclift church, above three centuries ago, was made in the year 1768, at the time of opening the new bridge at Bristol, and was owing to a publication in _Farley's Weekly Journal_, 1 October 1768, containing an _Account of the ceremonies observed at the opening of the old bridge_, taken, as it was said, from a very antient MS. This excited the curiosity of some persons to enquire after the original. The printer, Mr. Farley, could give no account of it, or of the person who brought the copy; but after much enquiry it was discovered, that the person who brought the copy was a youth, between 15 and 16 years of age, whose name was Thomas Chatterton, and whose family had been sextons of Redclift church for near 150 years. His father, who was now dead, had also been master of the free-school in Pile-street. The young man was at first very unwilling to discover from whence he had the original; but, after many promises made to him, he was at last prevailed on to acknowledge, that he had received this, _together with many other MSS_, from his father, who had found them in a large chest in an upper room over the chapel on the north side of Redclift church."