of Ella.-The fact was, Chatterton confined his attempts at forging MSS. to fmaller pieces; but in thefe he failed. How much more would he have failed in poems of any confiderable length? The attempt was too daring even for his adventurous pen!

The Dean imagines that the literature difcovered in those Poems is decifive againft Chatterton. We are, on the contrary, fully perfuaded that the literature difplayed in them eafily fell within the compafs of Chatterton's reading, and perfectly level to an understanding like his. But, after all, what is the literature of thefe Poems? It is common, familiar, and by no means fo various or fo recondite as fome have pompously represented it, in order to prove that it was impoffible to have been the acquifition of a youth fo uneducated as Chatterton. It is a task of no great difficulty to point out fuch fources of information, as he might eafily have had recourse to, for all the learning and knowledge which thofe Poems exhibit. Common gloffaries and dictionaries furnished him with most of the obfolete terms which he hath introduced; and common hiftories, with most of the facts he hath alluded to. But of this we fhall fpeak more particularly in our review of Mr. Bryant's Obfervations.

Yet, although it was eafy for Chatterton to copy antient words, it was, however, by no means fo eafy for him to copy antient file. Here lies the main defect in the imposition; and by this, and this alone, the controverfy may, we think, be fairly decided to the fatisfaction of every perfon of taste and judgment. The old words, thickly laid on, form an antique cruft on the language, which, at firft view, impofes on the eye; but which, on examination, appears not to belong originally to it. It was put on, the better to cover the impofition; but, like most impofitions, it is overloaded with difguife, and difcovers itself by the very means which were defigned to hide it. The words are of

no uniform ftandard, either as to age or country. They were taken from general gloffaries; and they were chofen indifcriminately for their meaning, without a due care to avoid an intermixture of terms, which were peculiar to a particular period or a particular province. The words are Saxon and AngloSaxon, and Scottish and English. We have provincial terms of the North and of the South; we have Chaucer and Pope, and Skelton and Gray; and that frequently within the short compafs of a fingle verfe!

The file of these Poems is modern; the verfification is of modern date; and the general ftructure and form of the Poems, as well as a thoufand particular turns of expreffion, fentiment, and allufion, are evidently modern. It is impoffible that a poet, of the age of Edward IV., could have written in a language and manner totally unknown in that age. It was impoffible for

him

him to have adopted fuch modes of expreffion as were the effect of habits which, at that time, had no existence, and of which, perhaps, no perfon had the leaft conception. This obfervation. refers to ALL the poems ufhered into the world under the name of Rowley; and more particularly refpects thofe of the greatest confequence, fuch as the Battle of Haftings, and the Tragedy of Ella.

An expreffion here and there may, with great difficulty, be collected from antient poems, to fhow how poffible it was for the authors of them to flide into smoothness of verfification and refinement of fentiment; but for one example to illuftrate this inftance, we can produce a thousand to confront it. Aukward attempts at fomething which looks like metre and rhyme; affected conceits of expreffion; dull and trite reflections; or tedious and unadorned narratives, make up the general fum of what was called poetry in the age in which Rowley is fuppofed to have written with the fpirit of Dryden and the judgment of Pope! The Poems of Rowley are uniformly good. They are the productions not only of genius but of tafte;-a tafte which could not poffibly have been acquired on a fudden, or by any Spontaneous efforts, or by a penetration or feeling which antici pated the improvements of a polifhed age; but by an intimate acquaintance with the manners and fentiments of the prefent times, and a diligent ftudy of the best productions of our modern poets.

The above remark refpects the general caft and complexion (if we may so speak) of the Poems; and we are surprised that it fhould not be felt by every perfon that hath been converfant with the writings of the fifteenth century, whether in profe or verse. To this general pofition we may add a great variety of particular inftances by way of illuftration. We could demonftrate evident traces of plagiarifm; fuch traces as are decifive proofs of imitation in a modern author; fuch as no antient writer could poffibly have ftumbled on even by accident; but fuch as it was next to impoffible for a mere modern wholly to have avoided. Of these inftances of imitation we had made a large catalogue; but we have been anticipated by two very ingenious writers, viz. the Author of the Remarks on the Poems of Rowley, publifhed in the Gentleman's Magazine; and the Author of the Parallel Paffages in the St. James's Chronicle. The imitations are so flagrant and fo numerous, that it feems to be out of the power of prejudice itself to evade the inference which arifes from them. For it is to be observed, that the imitations are not of a general and equivocal nature; they do not belong to thofe indefinite clafles under which may be ranged thofe habits of thinking and fpeaking which are too obvious and too common to be particular or appropriate but thefe imitations are particular-they are ap

Y 3

propriate,

propriate, they poffefs that which is discriminative; a fomething which two perfons could not have hit upon without fuch a variation in the form as would have placed a boundary of diftinction between them. To give an example or two.

The Ballad of Chevy-Chace is frequently imitated (as we have already obferved) in the first part of the Battle of Haftings; and in the following lines the imitation is so palpable, that it muft ftrike the most careless eye.

Battle of Haftings. Part I.

The grey-goofe pynion that thereon was fett
Eftfoons with fmokynk crymson bloodde was wet.

Chevy-Chace.

So right his shaft he fet,

The grey-goofe awing that was thereon
In his heart's blood was wet.

The learned Commentator is indeed aware of a fimilarity be tween the two paffages; but attempts to evade the force of the objection which arifes from fo ftrong an appearance of imitation. We will grant all he fays relating to the hiftory of the grey-goofe wing;-the ufe made of it in antient battles and in antient poems. But all this is nothing to the purpose. We ftill adhere to our own pofition, that the fimilarity between the two paffages was not accidental and fortuitous; but, on the contrary, that the one was borrowed from the other: for it is not the thing expreffed (which may be common enough), but it is the peculiarity of the expreffion which clearly points out the imitation. One word may fometimes be fufficient to effect this. There may be that in its pofition and connection which will very clearly difcover the paffage which the writer thought of when he made ufe of it. The word unaknell'd, in the following line,

Their fouls from corpfes unaknell'd depart.

was evidently borrowed from a wrong reading in Warburton's edition of Shakespeare. [Vide the celebrated fpeech of the ghoft in Hamlet," Unhoufell'd, unanointed, unaknell d,"-inftead of unaneal'd.] Ouphant fairies, and the race of destiny, in the Battle of Haftings, are indebted for their name and employment to the defcription of these imaginary beings in the Merry Wives of Windfor. Vide Warburton's edition, where the old reading,

orphan airs of fixed deftiny" was firft altered to ouphen. The Dean gravely infers, from the ufe of this word in Rowley, that Warburton's emendation was right. The inference we would draw from it is, that the poet borrowed from the critic; for as the word ouphant is not to be found in the old gloffarifts, we cannot account for the use of it by a poet of the fifteenth century, but can clearly fhew how Chatterton came by it.

The

The expreffion, "feeve unravels, was evidently borrowed There is from Shakespeare," the ravell'd fleeve of care." fomething fo peculiar in this expreffion, that it ought to have great weight in determining the poem to be modern; and, by the way, it is a ftronger inftance than hath yet been brought by the defenders of the authenticity of thefe poems, to prove that Chatterton did not always understand the terms he made use of. But this inftance would have been fatal to their argument.

In the Battle of Haftings we meet with an expreffion ftill more peculiar, viz. Clouds of Carnage. This is literally taken from one of Gray's Odes; and we believe an expreffion fo very uncommon, not to say bombaft, would have fallen from no pen

but his.

Scatters night's remains from out the sky,

is a very ftriking imitation of a line in Milton, viz.
Scatters the rear of darkness thin.

The following plagiarism is really barefaced :
BATTLE of HASTINGS.

With thilk a force it did his body gore,
That in his tender guts it entered,
In verity, a full cloth-yard or more.
CHEVY-CHACE.

With fuch a force and vehement might
He did his body gore,

The fpear went thro' the other fide

A large cloth-yard and more.

The Dean's learned remarks on the cloth-yard, have just as much to do with the controverfy, refpecting the authenticity of the Poems of Rowley, as those which he had before made on the grey-goofe wing. He may be true in his premifes, but he is certainly wrong in his conclufions. Two warriors might ufe fpears and arrows of the fame length, but doth it follow, that two poets would give the fame literal defcription of their force and execu tion? By no means; unless the one should borrow from the

other.

It is fomewhat remarkable that the Dean, instead of quoting the above verse from the old ballad in which the refemblance is fo fingularly obvious at the very firft fight, produces another * in which the traces of imitation are fcarcely apparent. We confider this as an inftance of great difingenuity; and we cannot avoid thinking, that the Dean himself was confcious, that if the two paffages were viewed together, the refemblance would be too glaring to credit his hypothefis.

* Viz. “An arrow of a cloth-yard long
"Up to the head drew he,”

It would be an endless task to point out all the instances of weak and contradictory reafoning which occur in this volume; and as endless to remark on the learned Editor's want of a refined and critical tafte. As endless alfo would it be to enumerate every imitation of the moderns in those poems, and to point out the perpetual recurrence of modern epithets, language, and style, amidst the rude garb of antiquity which hath been forced

on them.

The Appendix to this voluminous Work confifts of what the Dean is pleafed to call, Additional Evidence, to corroborate the authenticity of thefe Poems. This additional evidence chiefly arifes from the teftimony of a Mr. Thiftlethwaite, who, it feems, was the intimate friend of young Chatterton. Of this Mr. Thiftlethwaite we know nothing more than may be inferred from his letter; and as fo much ftrefs is laid on it by the Dean, to whom it was addreffed, it is at least candid to produce it.

"SIR,

"IN obedience to your request, and my own promife, I fit down to give you the best account in my power of the rife, progrefs, and termination of my acquaintance with the late unfortunate Thomas Chatterton,

"In the fummer of 1763, being then in the twelfth year of my age, I contracted an intimacy with one Thomas Phillips, who was fome time ufher or affiftant-mafter of an hofpital, or charity-fchool, founded for the education and maintenance of youth at Bristol, by Edward Coliton, Efq. Phillips, notwithstanding the difadvantage of a very confined education, poffeffed a tafte for history and poetry; of the latter the magazines, and other periodicals of that time, furnished no very contemptible fpecimen.

"Towards the latter end of that year, by means of my intimacy with Phillips, I formed a connection with Chatterton, who was on the foundation of that fchool, and about fourteen months younger than myfelf. The poetical attempts of Phillips had excited a kind of literary emulation amongst the elder claffes of the scholars; the love of fame animated their bofoms, and a variety of competitors appeared to difpute the laurel with him. Their endeavours however, in general, did not meet with the fuccefs which their zeal and affiduity deferved; and Phillips ftill, to the mortification of his opponents, came off victorious and unhurt.

"In all these trifling contentions, the fruits of which are now, and have been long fince defervedly and entirely forgotten, Chatterton appeared merely as an idle fpectator, noways interested in the bufinefs of the drama, fimply contenting himself with the fports and pastimes more immediately adapted to his age; he apparently poffeffed neither inclination, nor indeed ability, for literary purfuits; nor do I believe (notwithstanding the evidence adduced to the contrary by the Author of Love and Madness) that he attempted the compoftion of a fingle couplet during the first three years of my acquaintance with him.