“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,