Ut lapsu graviore ruant.
Having, I fear, trespassed too long on the patience of my readers, in the discussion of a question that to many may appear of no great importance, I will only add the following serious and well-intended proposal. I do humbly recommend, that a committee of the friends of the reverend antiquarian, Dr. Jeremiah Milles, Dean of Exeter, and the learned mythologist, Jacob Bryant, Esq., may immediately meet;—that they may, as soon as possible, convey the said Dr. M. and Mr. B. together with Mr. George Catcott, pewterer, and Mr. William Barrett, surgeon, of Bristol, and Dr. Glynn of Cambridge, to the room over the north porch of Redcliffe church, and that on the door of the said room six padlocks may be fixed:—that in order to wean these gentlemen by degrees from the delusion under which they labour, and to furnish them with some amusement, they may be supplied with proper instruments to measure the length, breadth, and depth, of the empty chests now in the said room, and thereby to ascertain how many thousand diminutive pieces of parchment, all eight inches and a half by four and a half, might have been contained in those chests; [according to my calculation, 1,464,578;—but I cannot pretend to be exact:] that for the sustenance of these gentlemen, a large peck loaf may be placed in a maund basket in the said room, having been previously prepared and left in a damp place, so as to become mouldy, and the words and figures Thomas Flour, Bristol, 1769, being first impressed in common letters on the upper crust of the said loaf, and on the under side thereof, in Gothick Characters, Thomas Wheateley, 1464 [ V* ] Rowley’s Purple Roll, Mr. Bryant very gravely tells us, it yet extant in manuscript in his own hand-writing. “It is (he adds) in two parts; one of the said parts written by Thomas Rowley, and the other by Thomas Chatterton.” (which Thomas Wheateley Mr. Barrett, if he carefully examines Rowley’s Purple Roll[V*], will find was an auncyent baker, and “did use to bake daiely for Maister Canynge twelve manchettes of chete breade, and foure douzenne of marchpanes;” and which custom of impressing the names of bakers upon bread, I can prove to be as ancient as the time of king Edward IV., from Doomsday-book, William de Wircestre, Shakspeare, and other good antiquarians, as also from the Green and Yellow Rolls, now in Mr. B’s custody)[X†]:—that a proper quantity of water may be conveyed into the forementioned room in one of Mr. Catcott’s deepest and most ancient pewter plates, together with an ewer of Wedgwood’s ware, made after the oldest and most uncouth pattern that has yet been discovered at Herculaneum;—that Dr. Glynn, if he shall be thought to be sufficiently composed (of which great doubts are entertained), be appointed to cut a certain portion of the said bread for the daily food of these gentlemen and himself; and that, in order to sooth in some measure their unhappy fancies, he may be requested, in cutting the said loaf, to use the valuable knife of Mr. Shiercliffe (now in the custody of the said Dr. G), the history[Y‡] of which has so much illustrated, and so clearly evinced the antiquity of the poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. And if in a fortnight after these gentlemen have been so confined, they shall be found to be entirely re-established in their health, and perfectly composed, I recommend that the six locks may be struck off, and that they all may be suffered to return again to their usual employments.
[ X† ] A learned friend, who, by the favour of Mr. Barrett, has perused the Yellow Roll, informs me, that Rowley, in a treatise dated 1451, and addressed “to the dygne Maister Canynge,” with the quaint title, De re frumentaria, (chap. XIII. Concernynge Horse-hoeing Husbandrie, and the Dryll-Ploughe) has this remarkable passage: “Me thynketh ytt were a prettie devyce yffe this practyce of oure bakerres were extended further. I mervaile moche, our scriveynes and amanuenses doe not gette lytel letters cutt in wood, or caste in yron, and thanne followynge by the eye, or with a fescue, everyche letter of the boke thei meane to copie, fix the sayde wooden or yron letters meetelie disposed in a frame or chase; thanne daube the frame over with somme atramentous stuffe, and layinge a thynne piece of moistened parchment or paper on these letters, presse it doune with somme smoothe stone or other heavie weight: by the whiche goodlye devyce a manie hundreth copies of eche boke might be wroughte off in a few daies, insteade of employing the eyen and hondes of poore clerkes for several monthes with greate attentyon and travaile.” [Introduction, Note 19.]
This great man, we have already seen, had an idea of many of the useful arts of life some years before they were practised. Here he appears to have had a confused notion of that noble invention, the printing-press. To prevent misconstruction, I should add, that boke in the above passage means manuscript, no other books being then known; In other parts of his works, as represented by Chatterton, he speaks of Mss. as contradistinguished from books; but in all those places it is reasonable to suppose some interpolation by Chatterton, and those who choose it, may read book instead of manuscript; by which this trivial objection to the authenticity of these pieces will be removed, and these otherwise discordant passages rendered perfectly uniform and consistent.
This valuable relick shows with how little reason the late Mr. Tull claimed the merit of inventing that useful instrument of husbandry, the drill-plough.
I make no apology for anticipating Mr. Barret on this subject; as in fact these short extracts will only make the publick still more desirous to see his long-expected History of Bristol, which I am happy to hear is in great forwardness, and will, I am told, contain a full account of the Yellow Roll, and an exact inventory of Maistre William Cannynge’s Cabinet of coins, medals, and drawings, (among the latter of which are enumerated many, highly finished, by Apelles, Raphael, Rowley, Rembrant, and Vandyck) together with several other matters equally curious.—It is hoped that this gentleman will gratify the publick with an accurate engraving from a drawing by Rowley, representing the ancient Castle of Bristol, together with the square tower ycleped the Dongeon, which cannot fail to afford great satisfaction to the purchasers of his book, as it will exhibit a species of architecture hitherto unknown in this country; this tower (as we learn from unquestionable authority, that of the Dean of Exeter himself,) “being remarkably decorated [on paper] with images, ornaments, tracery work, and crosses within circles, in a style net usually seen in these buildings.”—Chatterton, as soon as ever he heard that Mr. Barrett was engaged in writing a History of Bristol, very obligingly searched among the Rowley papers, and a few days afterwards furnished him with a neat copy of this ancient drawing.
[ Y‡ ] This very curious and interesting history may be found in Mr. Bryant’s Observations, &c. p. 512. The learned commentator seems to have had the great father of poetry in his eye, who is equally minute in his account of the sceptre of Achilles. See Il. Α. v. 234. He cannot, however, on this account be justly charged with plagiarism; these co-incidences frequently happening. Thus Rowley in the 15th century, and Dryden in the 17th, having each occasion to say that a man wept, use the same four identical words—“Tears began to flow.”