The Rowley Poems

by Thomas Chatterton

1778. Tyrwhitt's third edition, from which the present edition is printed. With this was printed for the first time 'An appendix … tending to prove that the Rowley poems were written not by any ancient author but entirely by Thomas Chatterton.' This edition follows the first nearly page for page; but was reset.

1780. Love and Madness by Sir Herbert Croft. This strange book deserves a brief description as it is the source of almost all our knowledge of Chatterton.

A certain Captain Hackman, violently in love with a Miss Reay, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, and stung to madness by his jealousy and the hopelessness of his position, had in 1779 shot her in the Covent Garden Opera House and afterwards unsuccessfully attempted to shoot himself. Enormous public interest was excited, and Croft—baronet, parson, and literary adventurer—got hold of copies which Hackman had kept of some letters he had sent to the charming Miss Reay. These he published as a sensational topical novel in epistolary form, calling it Love and Madness. This is quite worth reading for its own sake, but much more so for its 49th letter, which purports to have been written by Hackman to satisfy Miss Reay's curiosity about Chatterton. As a matter of fact Croft, who had been very interested in the boy-poet and had collected from his relations and those with whom he had lodged in London all they could possibly tell him, wrote the letter himself and included it rather inartistically among the genuine Hackman-Reay correspondence. Amongst other valuable matter, this letter 49 contains a long account of her brother by Mary Chatterton.—(See Love letters of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay, 1775-79, introduction by Gilbert Burgess: Heinemann, 1895.) 1774-81. Warton's History of English Poetry, in Volume II of which there is an account of Chatterton.

1781. Jacob Bryant's Observations upon the Poems of T. Rowley in which the authenticity of those poems is ascertained. Bryant was a strong Pro-Rowleian and argues cleverly against the possibility of Chatterton's having written the poems. He shows that Chatterton in his notes often misses Rowley's meaning and insists that he neglected to explain obvious difficulties because he could not understand them. Bryant is the least absurd of the Pro-Rowleians.

1782. Dean Milles' edition of the Rowley poems—a splendid quarto with a running commentary attempting to vindicate Rowley's authenticity. Milles was President of the Society of Antiquaries and his commentary is characterized by Professor Skeat as 'perhaps the most surprising trash in the way of notes that was ever penned.

1782. Mathias' Essay on the Evidence … relating to the poems called Rowley's—he is pro-Rowleian and criticizes Tyrwhitt's appendix.

1782. Thomas Warton's Enquiry … into the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley—Anti-Rowleian.

1782. Tyrwhitt's Vindication of his Appendix. Tyrwhitt had discovered Chatterton's use of Bailey's Dictionary and completely refutes Bryant, Milles, and Mathias. It may be observed in passing that though Goldsmith upheld Rowley, Dr. Johnson, the two Wartons, Steevens, Percy, Dr. Farmer, and Sir H. Croft pronounced unhesitatingly in favour of the poems having been written by Chatterton: while Malone in a mocking anti-Rowleian pamphlet shows that the similes from Homer in the Battle of Hastings and elsewhere have often borrowed their rhymes from Pope!

1798. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by Edward Gardner (two volumes). At the end of Volume II there is a short account of the Rowley controversy and, what is more important, the statement that Gardner had seen Chatterton antiquate a parchment and had heard him say that a person who had studied antiquities could with the aid of certain books (among them Bailey) 'copy the style of our elder poets so exactly that the most skilful observer should not be able to detect him. "No," said he, "not Mr. Walpole himself."' But perhaps this should be taken cum grano.

1803. Southey and Cottle's edition in three volumes with an account of Chatterton by Dr. Gregory which had previously been published as an independent book. Southey and Cottle's edition is very compendious so far as matter goes, and contains much that is printed for the first time. Gregory's life is inaccurate but very pleasantly written.