Chatterton has caught hold of Nuda, which in Skinner is the exposition of Bare, as if it belonged to Blake.
HANCELLED. G. 49. Cut off, destroyed. Chatterton. Hancelled from erthe these Normanne hyndes shalle bee.
Skinner has the same word, which he thus explains. "Hanceled, exp. Cut off, credo dici proprie, vel primario faltem, tantum de prima portione feu segmento quod ad tentandam feu explorandam rem abscindimus, ut ubi dicimus, to Hansell a pasty or a gammon of bacon." Chatterton, who had neither inclination nor perhaps ability to make himself master of so long a piece of Latin, appears to have looked no further than the two English words at the beginning of this explanation; and understanding Cut off to mean Destroyed, he has used Hancelled in the same sense.
SHAP. Æ. 34. G. 18. Fate. Chatterton. SHAP-SCURGED. Æ. 603. Fate-scourged. Chatterton.
Shap haveth nowe ymade hys woes for to emmate. Stylle mormorynge atte yer shap.——There ys ne house athrow thys shap-scurged isle.
I never was able to conceive how Shap should have been used in the English language to signifie Fate, till I observed the following article in Skinner, "Shap, now is my Shap, nunc mihi Fato præstitutum est (i.e.) now is it shapen to me, ab AS. Sceapan, &c." I suppose that the word Fato, in the Latin, led Chatterton to understand now is my shap to mean now is my fate.
The passage, to which Skinner refers, is in the Knight's tale of
Chaucer, ver. 1227.
Now is me shape eternally to dwelle
Not only in purgatorie but in helle.
But in the Edit. of 1602, which Skinner appears to have made use of, it is written Now is me shap. The putting of my for me was probably a mistake of the Printer, as Skinner's explanation shews that he read me. I fancy the generality of readers will be satisfied by the foregoing quotations, that the Author of these poems had not only read Skinner, but has also misapprehended and misapplied what he found in him. If more instances should be wanted, a comparison of the words explained by Chatterton with the same or similar words as explained by Skinner, will furnish them in abundance[6]. I shall therefore conclude this Appendix with a short view of the preceding argument. It has been proved, that the poems attributed to Rowley were not written in the XV Century; and it follows of course, that they were written, at a subsequent period, by some impostor, who endeavoured to counterfeit an author of that century.
It has been proved, that this impostor lived since Skinner, and that the same person wrote the interpretations of words by way of Glossary, which are subjoined to most of the poems.