The Rowley Poems by Thomas Chatterton (inspirational books to read .txt) 📖

was his own.

 

Rudhall's testimony.

 

Chatterton first exhibited the _Songe to Ælla_ in his own

handwriting, then gave Barrett the parchment, which contained strange

textual variations.

 

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.

 

Improbability of there being poems in a muniment chest. 8. Style

unlike other fifteenth century writings.

 

No mediæval learning or citation of authority to be found in

Rowley; no references to the Round Table and stories of chivalry.

 

Stockings were not knitted in the fifteenth century (_Ælla_). MSS.

are referred to as if they were rarities and printed books common.

 

Metres and imitation of Pindar absurdly modern.

 

Mistakes cited which are derived from modern dictionaries

(Tyrwhitt).

 

Existence of undoubted plagiarisms from Shakespeare, Gray, &c.

 

 

_For Rowley_.

 

Chatterton's assertion that they were Rowley's, his sister having

represented him as a 'lover of truth from the earliest dawn of

reason.'

 

Catcott's assertion that Chatterton on their first acquaintance had

mentioned by name almost all the poems which have since appeared in

print (Bryant).

 

Smith had seen parchments in the possession of Chatterton, some as

broad as the bottom of a large-sized chair. (Bryant.)

 

Even Mr. Clayfield and Rudhall believed Chatterton incapable of

composing Rowley's poems.

 

Undoubtedly there were ancient MSS. in the 'cofre'.

 

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.

 

Chatterton made many mistakes in his transcription of Rowley and in

his notes to the poems. (Bryant's main contention.)

 

If Leland never mentioned Rowley it is equally true he says nothing

of Canynge, Lydgate, or Occleve.

 

 

_For Rowley_.

 

The poems contain much historical allusion at once true and

inaccessible to Chatterton.

 

The admitted poems are much below the standard of Rowley.

 

The old octave stanza is not far removed from the usual stanza of

Rowley.

 

If Rowley's language differs from that of other fifteenth

century writers, the difference lies in provincialisms natural to an

inhabitant of Bristol.

 

Plagiarisms from modern authors may in some cases have been

introduced by Chatterton but in others they are the commonplaces of

poetry.

 

 

_Against Rowley_.

 

No writings or chest deposited in Redcliffe Church are mentioned in

Canynge's Will.

 

The Bristol library was in Chatterton's time of general access, and

Chatterton was introduced to it by Rev. A. Catcott (Warton).

 

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.

 

The parchments were taken from the bottom of old deeds where a

small blank space was usually left--hence their small size.

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."

 

Soon after this Mr. Catcott commenced his acquaintance with young

Chatterton[1], and, partly as presents partly as purchases, procured

from him copies of many of his MSS. in in prose and verse. Other

copies were disposed of, in the same way, to Mr. William Barrett, an

eminent surgeon at Bristol, who has long been engaged in writing

the history of that city. Mr. Barrett also procured from him several

fragments, some of a considerable length, written upon vellum[2],

which he asserted to be part of his original MSS. In short, in the

space of about eighteen months, from October 1768 to April 1770,

besides the Poems now published, he produced as many compositions,

in prose and verse, under the names of Rowley, Canynge, &c. as would

nearly fill such another volume.

 

In April 1770 Chatterton went to London, and died there in the August

following; so that the whole history of this very extraordinary

transaction cannot now probably be known with any certainty. Whatever

may have been his part in it; whether he was the author, or only

the copier (as he constantly asserted) of all these productions; he

appears to have kept the secret entirely to himself, and not to have

put it in the power of any other person, to bear certain testimony

either to his fraud or to his veracity.

 

The question therefore concerning the authenticity of these Poems must

now be decided by an examination of the fragments upon vellum, which

Mr. Barrett received from Chatterton as part of his original MSS.,

and by the internal evidence which the several pieces afford. If the

Fragments shall be judged to be genuine, it will still remain to be

determined, how far their genuineness should serve to authenticate the

rest of the collection, of which no copies, older than those made by

Chatterton, have ever been produced. On the other hand, if the writing

of the Fragments shall be judged to be counterfeit and forged by

Chatterton, it will not of necessity follow, that the matter of

them was also forged by him, and still less, that all the other

compositions, which he professed to have copied from antient MSS.,

were merely inventions of his own. In either case, the decision must

finally depend upon the internal evidence.

 

It may be expected perhaps, that the Editor should give an opinion

upon this important question; but he rather chooses, for many reasons,

to leave it to the determination of the unprejudiced and intelligent

Reader. He had long been desirous that these Poems should be printed;

and therefore readily undertook the charge of superintending the

edition. This he has executed in the manner, which seemed to him best

suited to such a publication; and here he means that his task should

end. Whether the Poems be really antient, or modern; the compositions

of Rowley, or the forgeries of Chatterton; they must always be

considered as a most singular literary curiosity.

 

[Footnote 1: The history of this youth is so intimately connected with

that of the poems now published, that the Reader cannot be too early

apprized of the principal circumstances of his short life. He was born

on the 20th of November 1752, and educated at a charity-school on St.

Augustin's Back, where nothing more was taught than reading, writing,

and accounts. At the age of fourteen, he was articled clerk to an

attorney, with whom he continued till he left Bristol in April 1770.

 

Though his education was thus confined, he discovered an early turn

towards poetry and English antiquities, particularly heraldry. How

soon he began to be an author is not known. In the _Town and Country

Magazine_ for March 1769, are two letters, probably, from him, as they

are dated at Bristol, and subscribed with his usual signature, D.B.

The first contains short extracts from two MSS., "_written three

hundred years ago by one Rowley, a Monk_" concerning dress in the age

of Henry II; the other, "ETHELGAR, _a Saxon poem_" in bombast prose.

In the same Magazine for May 1769, are three communications from

Bristol, with the same signature, D.B. _viz_. CERDICK, _translated

from the Saxon_ (in the same style with ETHELGAR), p.

233.--_Observations upon Saxon heraldry_, with drawings of _Saxon

atchievements_, &c. p. 245.--ELINOURE and JUGA, _written three hundred

years ago by_ T. ROWLEY, _a secular priest_, p. 273. This last poem is

reprinted in this volume, p. 19. In the subsequent months of 1769 and

1770 there are several other pieces in the same Magazine, which are

undoubtedly of his composition.

 

In April 1770, he left Bristol and came to London, in hopes of

advancing his fortune by his talents for writing, of which, by this

time, he had conceived a very high opinion. In the prosecution of this

scheme, he appears to have almost entirely depended upon the patronage

of a set of gentlemen, whom an eminent author long ago pointed out, as

_not the very worst judges or rewarders of merit_, the booksellers of

this great city. At his first arrival indeed he was so unlucky as to

find two of his expected Mæcenases, the one in the King's Bench, and

the other in Newgate. But this little disappointment was alleviated

by the encouragement which he received from other quarters; and on the

14th of May he writes to his mother, in high spirits upon the change

in his situation, with the following sarcastic reflection upon his

former patrons at Bristol. "_As to Mr.----, Mr.----, Mr.----, &c. &c.

they rate literary lumber so low, that I believe an author, in their

estimation, must be poor indeed! But here matters are otherwise. Had_

Rowley _been a_ Londoner _instead of a_ Bristowyan, _I could have

lived by_ copying _his works_."

 

In a letter