spired against Chatterton for the previous attack upon Milton, by Lauder, there is a harshness in the judgment of Chatterton very difficult to reconcile with the degree of probability in his favour. To the improbability that Chatterton could have been the author of these poems, improbabilities still greater have been opposed. It seems as if it had been first assumed that he was not the author, and that then every effort had been exerted to prove an assumption, the consequences whereof were not foreseen. I say it seems, because I should be sorry to say it was so; and in going thus far, they who have insisted on a charge of imposture, have justified me in their own example. The arguments in evidence, that the Poems are a forgery of Chatterton's, may be comprised in three words. It is probable; but it must be said, that, in the greatest part of the evidence, the proper words would be it is not pro bable. Of the arguments styled probable, it will be sufficient to consider a few of the strongest. The ground of Mr. Tyrwhitt's argument is, that writers of the same age do not differ much in terms or style. To this I will object, that it begs the question; and if the poems can be proved to be Rowley's, the position is overturned by the exception to a position generally true, these may be that exception; or, to retort the argument,-if a boy of seventeen could invent a language, and a style, was it absolutely impossible for a man of forty or fifty, and a man of learning, to do so? Happily Mr. T. has supplied the argument. He has proved that most of the words contested are found in Skinner, which Chatterton could not read; and in Kersey, which, as it does not appear that he ever had, is so far equally or rather more against, than for the argument. Those quoted are in reality old words, and therefore not invented. The position of Mr. T. then, however probable in an age of general learning, becomes less so as it is traced back. Invention, to a very uncommon degree, must have been the natural power of the author, whoever he was; so far the position is indifferent; the question is only as to the inventor. The arguments I mean to offer, in order to maintain that this inventor was not Chatterton, are different from any that have fallen under my observation. They are two in these poems there are found many words, which being derived from originals unknown to Chatterton, are used by the author in the true sense, and are translated by Chatterton in a sense made out from the constructian; plausible, but yet different from the true The second is, that passages are evidently interpolated, but that the interpolations, even when consistent with the context, bear evidently the marks of an interpolator, who was not familiar with one. the style of the original. Instances of the mistakes, upon which the first argument is founded, occur in a sufficient number to shew that the mistake arose not from design, but real ignorance. The first I shall notice occurs in the beautiful tragedy of Ella, line 34.- "Hear from mie groted heart the lover and the friend." Here Chatterton interprets the word groted by the context alone. He knows that the heart is often said to swell with grief, and knew no more; and, therefore, explains the word groted by swelling. It is true the latter word gives a meaning which would suit the passage, and was naturally enough chosen by one, who did not under stand the original, and yet wished to appear to do so. The word groted is, in line 347, agroted. Here it appears to be originally ægrotate, from ægrotatum, sickened, a derivation which Chatterton's knowledge could not furnish him with; and yet such as must have occurred to any one, who knew the original word, as it did to the original writer, who has used it with great propriety again in Eclogue III. line 49.-- "An answere to thy burganotte here see.” As a song had preceded, Chatterton translates the word burganotte by a simple reference to that, a song. The song, however, contains a query, and the word is a diminutive of the French Baragouin, Gibberish; any thing hard to be understood, and hence alludes justly to the puzzling question. It is used with some humour by the author, which is entirely done away by the interpretation.- “Like a battently low mie sworde shall brende" Here Chatterton interprets battently, loud roaring, instead of pawing, from the French battant. "The behylte blessings of a future year.” Ella, 143. The precise meaning of the word behylte it was not easy to hit upon. However, it was not ill-guessed at to interpret it by promised. The true meaning is covered, or not yet in view, from the German behülte. "I would dequace her comely semelykene" "To dequace," says Chatterton, "is to mangle ;"-" and semely kene, beauty." In the latter, even Kersey, Mr. Tyrwhitt's great resource, fails him entirely. The word is not even in Kersey. Dequace is simply from dequatio, to shake off; a signification of which Chatterton evidently was ignorant. In the latter word there is some resemblance to seemly ken; there was, therefore, no need of Kersey for the explanation given. The word seems here to denote some ornamental part of dress for the head; and if Mr. Tyrwhitt's diligence and ingenuity could not meet with it, where could Chatterton find it. Epistle to Canynge. Line 30. "At merry yaped fage somme hard-drayned water brynge." Yuped means laughable, according to Chatterton's conjecture. Such a meaning has the double fault of causing tautology, and being erroneous in itself. The word comes from yaper, to yelp; and is properly used by the author to signify a merry noisy tale. Tournament, line 57.— "The lordynge toad ynn all hys passes bides.” Lordynge is explained by Chatterton to mean standing on their hind legs. It is acknowledged by Mr. T. that the word is lourdain, sluggish; but to evade the force of the inference he alledges that Chatterton was justified in his idea by the Glossary on Spenser ; the Glossarist having observed, "Lordynge, spoken after the manner of paddocks and frogs sitting; which is, indeed, lordly, not moving or looking once aside unless they are stirred." Had Chatterton really seen the observation, would he not, instead of changing the attitude from sitting to standing on his hind legs, of which the animal is, I rather believe, incapable, chosen the apt sense of not moving, which was ready to his hand. Surely, one must be very hard pressed to make use of such an argument. The author is here again strictly proper in the use of the word, and Chatterton wrong. Ibid. Line 34. "His valorous acts woulde maynte of menne astounde." The expression "maynte of men," is decisively taken from the old French, mainte d'hommes.-A multitude of men. Here, however, Chatterton translates maynte, by most, that is most men; as nearly as he could guess. In Eclogue II. line 66. — "And beereth maynte of Turkes onto the greene," The context absolutely pointed out the true sense many, great numbers. Yet here he has given it one more familiar to his own ideas, and destroyed the force and beauty of the expression; because that no English term gives it exactly; and the nearest which he gave in the second instance did not appear so probable as the one given, to one ignorant of the original term. M-VOL. XVIII. Having given so many instances, in all of which the author of the poems was most assuredly certain of the strict and proper meaning of the words, and Chatterton has given a sense by too probable conjectures to admit a supposition that he did not endeavour to give the true one, the inference is evidently that Chatterton was not the author. That Chatterton has frequently interpolated the poems, I willingly admit. Two very remarkable instances I will adduce, both of which are in the Battle of Hastings. The first is in these lines 175, 180. "So have I seen a rocke o'er others hange, That he the sleeve unravels all their fate, And broken on the beech this lesson speak "The stronge and firm should not defame the weak." Here the word sleeve appears to have called to his mind the ravelled sleeve of care in Shakspeare, and the word "state" required a rhime, and a line of nonsense is made out, which does rhime, and that is all. Had Chatterton known that the word slieve is a common name of a mountain, in Ireland; as Slieve-Donald and SlieveCrooble; his "sleeve of fate" would hardly have found so unhappy a place. Perhaps he would have written at least more in unison with the context: "That he the slieve bespreageth with his weight." The second instance is in line 407. "Before his optics daunced a shade of nyghte." The word optics is a vulgarism for eyes, of late use; and, accordingly, in a poem of his own, Chatterton uses it, though with less impropriety, as the poem is a kind of doggerel satire. "A darkling shaking light his optics view, Circled with livid tinges red and blue." That the author of these lines would so interpolate a poem I very willingly admit; and that he has done so in many places where the MSS. were illegible; but that he was not the author, is, to me, evident, both from the mistakes already pointed out, and from the interpolations. But it is said he confessed that he was the author of part of one poem. Allowing that he said so when he shewed the specimen, the saying so when very young, at its first production, moved, perhaps, by a childish vanity, and yet denying it ever after most solemnly, is not a confession. Even to his death he denied it, which such a confession would, perhaps, have prevented. But it is objected that his pride prevented it. Let me, then, ask-wherein is the test of truth to be found? I fear, if this be admitted, it will not be easy to decide. To his own testimony that of those who knew him agrees; and that of those who did NOT know him is opposed. A degree of attainments that bears down credibility is attributed to him. A boy of seventeen, vain, and wild in his imagination, is supposed to have studied books which it cannot be proved that he ever saw; to have made not only the terms to an amazing number, and a peculiar style familiar; but to have been well versed in history, in the theory and practice of composition of the most various and difficult kind; to have written a poem in which the distinguishing excellencies are, an extensive knowledge of human nature and character; a considerable share of learning; a style correct, affecting, and sublime; evidently that of a superior genius, which could convert all the freedom of unsettled language to its purpose, and a fluency of expression which long habit only could give. Whatever may be supposed of the powers of imagination and memory, judgment is the fruit of slow growth and long cultivation; and it seems to me physically impossible that he could have had either the ideas or the judgment of the author of these poems. His own bear little resemblance to them. The style is sometimes turgid, sometimes debased, and interlarded with borrowed ideas. In a letter to his mother he says, "had Rowley been a Londoner, instead of a Bristowyan, I could have lived by copying his works." By copying them? Was he, then, the author? Had he been so, he might have lived by writing such plays as Ella, and such poems as the Battle of Hastings and Godwin. The confession would have made him friends; his genius would have given him bread. That he could not confess it made him enemies, and that he could not write such poems his untimely death vouches but too forcibly. Of those who have derogated from his veracity it may be said, that having asserted one absurdity, they were involved in many more. Should what has been recited tend to rescue it from the injury, in any degree, it will have answered the intention. CRITO. |