“Nor does he hede his mastres known commands,
“Tyll, growen furiouse by his bloudie wounde,
“Erect upon his hynder feete he staundes,
“And throwes hys mastre far off to the grounde.”
Can any one for a moment doubt that these verses were all written by the same person?——The circumstance of the wounded horse’s falling on his rider, in the first of these similies, is taken directly from Dryden’s Virgil, Æn. X. v. 1283.—Chatterton’s new editor has artfully contrasted this passage of Dryden with the second simile, where that circumstance is not mentioned.
Again:—We have the positive testimony of Mr. John Ruddall, a native and inhabitant of Bristol, who was well acquainted with Chatterton, when he was a clerk to Mr. Lambert, that the Account of the ceremonies observed at the opening of the Old Bridge, published in Farley’s Journal, Oct. 1. 1768, and said to be taken from an ancient Ms., was a forgery of Chatterton’s, and acknowledged by him to be such. Mr. Ruddall’s account of this transaction is so material, that I will transcribe it from the Dean of Exeter’s new work, which perhaps many of my readers may not have seen:—“During that time, [while C. was clerk to Mr. L.] Chatterton frequently called upon him at his master’s house, and soon after he had printed the account of the bridge in the Bristol paper, told Mr. Ruddall, that he was the author of it; but it occurring to him afterwards, that he might be called upon to produce the original, he brought to him one day a piece of parchment about the size of a half-sheet of fool’s-cap paper: Mr. Ruddall does not think that any thing was written on it when produced by Chatterton, but he saw him write several words, if not lines, in a character which Mr. Ruddall did not understand, which he says was totally unlike English, and as he apprehends was meant by Chatterton to imitate or represent the original from which this account was printed. He cannot determine precisely how much Chatterton wrote in this manner, but says, that the time he spent in that visit did not exceed three quarters of an hour: the size of the parchment, however, (even supposing it to have been filled with writing) will in some measure ascertain the quantity which it contained. He says also, that when Chatterton had written on the parchment, he held it over the candle, to give it the appearance of antiquity, which changed the colour of the ink, [ S* ] See the new edition of Chatterton’s poems, quarto, p. 436, 437. and made the parchment appear black and a little contracted[S*].”
Such is the account of one of Chatterton’s intimate friends. And how is this decisive proof of his abilities to imitate ancient English handwriting, and his exercise of those abilities, evaded? Why truly, we are told, “the contraction of the parchment is no discriminating mark of antiquity; the blackness given by smoke appears upon trial to be very different from the yellow tinge which parchment acquires by age; and the ink does not change its colour, as Mr. Ruddall seems to apprehend.” So, because these arts are not always completely successfull, and would not deceive a very skilful antiquary, we are to conclude, that Chatterton did not forge a paper which he acknowledged to have forged, and did not in the presence of Mr. Ruddall cover a piece of parchment with ancient characters for the purpose of imposition, though the fact is clearly ascertained by the testimony of that gentleman!—The reverend commentator argues on this occasion much in the same manner, as a well-known versifier of the present century, the facetious Ned Ward (and he too published a quarto volume of poems). Some biographer, in an account of the lives of the English poets, had said that “he was an ingenious writer, considering his low birth and mode of life, he having for some time kept a publick house in the City.” “Never was a greater or more impudent calumny (replied the provoked rhymer); it is very well known to every body, that my publick house is not in the City, but in Moorfields.”—In the name of common sense, of what consequence is it, whether in fact all ancient parchments are shrivelled; whether smoke will give ink a yellow appearance or not. It is sufficient, that Chatterton thought this was the case; that he made the attempt in the presence of a credible witness, to whom he acknowledged the purpose for which the manœuvre was done. We are asked indeed, why he did not prepare his pretended original before he published the copy. To this another question is the best answer. Why is not fraud always uniform and consistent, and armed at all points? Happily for mankind it scarcely ever is. Perhaps (as Mr. Ruddall’s account seems to state the matter) he did not think at first that he should be called upon for the original: perhaps he was limited in a point of time, and could not fabricate it by the day that the new bridge was opened at Bristol.—But there is no end of such speculations. Facts are clear and incontrovertible. Whatever might have been the cause of his delay, it is not denied that he acknowledged this forgery to his friend Mr. Ruddall; conjuring him at the same time not to reveal the secret imparted to him. If this had been a mere frolick, what need of this earnest injunction of secrecy?—His friend scrupulously kept his word till the year 1779, when, as the Dean of Exeter informs us, “on the prospect of procuring a gratuity of ten pounds for Chatterton’s mother, from a gentleman who sought for information concerning her son’s history, he thought so material a benefit to the family would fully justify him for divulging a secret, by which no person living could be a sufferer.”
I will not stay to take notice of the impotent attempts that Chatterton’s new commentators have made to overturn the very satisfactory and conclusive reasoning of Mr. Tyrwhitt’s Appendix to the former edition of the fictitious Rowley’s Poems. That most learned and judicious critick wants not the assistance of my feeble pen: Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis——. If he should come into the field himself (as I hope he will), he will soon silence the Anglo-Saxon batteries of his opponents.
[The principal arguments] that have been urged in support of the antiquity of the poems attributed to Rowley, have now, if I mistake not, been fairly stated and examined[T*]. On a review of the whole, I trust the reader will agree with me in opinion, that there is not the smallest reason for believing a single line of them to have been written by any other person than Thomas Chatterton; and that, instead of the towering motto which has been affixed to the new and splendid edition of the works of that most ingenious youth——Renascentur quæ jam cecidere—the words of Claudian would have been more “germane to the matter:”
————tolluntur in altum,