Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782).

by Edmond Malone.

INTRODUCTION

Edmond Malone's _Cursory Observations_ was the most timely publication in the Rowley controversy. His work appeared just as the debate over the authenticity of the poems attributed to a fifteenth-century priest was, after twelve years, entering its most crucial phase.[1] These curious poems had come to the attention of the reading public in 1769, when Thomas Chatterton sent several fragments to the _Town and Country Magazine_. The suicide of the young poet in 1770 made his story of discovering ancient ma.n.u.scripts all the more intriguing. When Thomas Tyrwhitt published the first collected edition in March of 1777,[2]

speculation about whether the poems were the work of Rowley or Chatterton began in earnest. Malone arrived in London two months later to take up permanent residence, and very likely he soon became in private "a professed anti-Rowleian."[3] But during the late 1770's, although anonymous writers filled the periodicals with p.r.o.nouncements on both sides of the question, there was no urgent need to demonstrate that the poems were spurious. The essay which Tyrwhitt appended to the third edition of Rowley poems in 1778[4] and Thomas Warton's chapter in his _History of English Poetry_[5] seemed to show with sufficient authority that the poems could not have been written in the fifteenth century. The Rowleians, however, were diligently preparing their arguments,[6] and late in 1781 they at last came forward with ma.s.sive scholarly support for the Rowley story.

On the first of December, Jacob Bryant published his voluminous _Observations upon the Poems of Thomas Rowley: in which the authenticity of those poems is ascertained_.[7] Some ten days later, Jeremiah Milles, Dean of Exeter and President of the Society of Antiquaries, brought out his own "edition" of the poems, with a commentary providing extensive historical proof of what Bryant "ascertained."[8] The remarks of Warton and Tyrwhitt suddenly seemed hasty and superficial. Warton had clearly outlined his reasons for skepticism, but he offered to show "the greatest deference to decisions of much higher authority."[9] Tyrwhitt had also hesitated to be dogmatic. He saw fit to suggest that, since Chatterton had always been equivocal, the authenticity of the poems could be judged only on internal grounds. Merely to show what might be gleaned from the poems themselves, he examined "_part_ of the internal evidence," the language, and specifically "a _part_ only of this _part_, viz. ... _words_, considered with respect to their _significations_ and _inflexions_."[10] Thus, when the apparently exhaustive work of Bryant and Milles was published, the Rowleians could well feel that the burden of proof now rested with the other side. Tyrwhitt and Warton had command of the proof they needed, and eventually they won over all but the fanatics.[11] But for the moment any answers they could make to Bryant and Milles would seem to be merely defensive. At this hour, the position which they represented needed new support from someone who could bring a fresh perspective into the debate and, if possible, throw the confident Rowleians into confusion. Edmond Malone's observations served precisely these ends.

Malone must have set to work as soon as the books of Bryant and Milles appeared.[12] At any rate, he rushed his essay into print. His friend John Nichols published it, over the signature "Misopiclerus," in the December issue and yearly Supplement of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, which went into circulation early in January.[13] To appear in these numbers, Malone's essay had to be in Nichols' hands not long after the middle of December, for copy was already going to press by then.[14]

Doubtless he now put to use many ideas which had occurred to him as the controversy developed. But the origin of the essay was clearly his response, not simply to the poems and the controversy surrounding them, but specifically to what Milles and Bryant had written. His questioning of their competence to settle literary questions is his most basic justification of his own a.n.a.lysis. His refutations of their arguments give substance to every stage of his reasoning. And even though in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ the essay is divided into two installments, its continuity and stylistic cohesiveness indicate that Malone wrote it purposefully at a time when his thoughts were unified by a clear provocation.

A letter which Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont in Ireland on 8 January 1782 reveals something of the seriousness with which, beneath their merriment, Malone and others regarded the Rowleian manifesto:

The Rowley controversy, about which you enquire, is going on ding-dong. Dr. Milles's quarto and Mr. Bryant's octavos are on my table, ready to be packed in your parcel. They have said everything that could be said on their side of the question, and have staggered some. Warton is preparing an answer, which will be out soon; only a shilling pamphlet. The cautious Tyrwhitt is slower in his operations. He means, I belive, to enter deeply into the business, and it will therefore be some time before we shall see his vindication. I am, you know, a professed anti-Rowleian, and have just sent a little brat into the world to seek his fortune. As I did not choose to sign my name, I preferred, for the sake of a more general perusal, to give my cursory remarks to a magazine, in consequence of which they appear rather awkwardly, one half in that for December and the other in the supplement, which is to be published in a few days. When I can get a perfect copy, I will send it to you, for I flatter myself your partiality to me will incline you to run your eye over it, notwithstanding your leaning to the other side of the question. Tyrwhitt wants me still to make a pamphlet of it, in order to bind up with all the other pieces which that most wonderful youth, Chatterton, has given occasion to.[15]

While his little brat was diverting the wide audience of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, Malone was busy arranging for it to make a more damaging sally. Tyrwhitt may have asked for a more convenient text; what Malone gave him was a better essay. He seems to have spent the entire month revising his work, for the pamphlet was not ready until early in February. As late as 7 February, writers commenting on the essay referred to and even quoted from the _Gentleman's Magazine_.[16] On 4 February, Horace Walpole, writing to thank Malone for sending him a copy of _Cursory Observations_, said that he had been "earnestly wishing"

for such a present because Malone's remarks were "far too good to be committed only to the few hours of life of a newspaper."[17]

The pamphlet was first advertised in the _St. James's Chronicle_, in which developments in the Rowley controversy were usually announced promptly, until No. 3266 (9-12 Feb.). This and all other advertis.e.m.e.nts of the pamphlet were for the version of Malone's essay which the author sent to Walpole some days earlier: "the second edition, revised and augmented."[18] This phrase on the t.i.tle-page has led scholars to miss the significance which Malone himself found in the pamphlet. The phrase does not indicate, as bibliographies have heretofore stated, that the pamphlet achieved a second printing. It emphasizes that in the pamphlet Malone revised and expanded considerably the essay which made its first appearance in the _Gentleman's Magazine_.

Every page in the pamphlet bears evidence of Malone's revision.[19] It was necessary, of course, to re-orient the essay, which after the formula of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was addressed to Mr. Urban. At least one pa.s.sage, which carried a slur upon publishers, may have been changed to suit Mr. Nichols.[20] But more indicative of his carefulness are his revisions of words and phrases. "The whole fabrick" of Chatterton's poems became "the beautiful fabrick" (p. 12). The "practice of knitting," which Malone wished to show had not developed as early as the fifteenth century, he now called "the art of knitting" (p. 24). When he found that he had not questioned emphatically enough "the antiquity of these MSS," he added the phrase "not of one, but of all" (p. 31).

Malone attended to the more general stylistic aspects of his essay as well as to minute details. If he paused to recompute the number of parchments which could fit into the famous Bristol chests (p. 59), he also changed the simple declarative "I shall" to the more forceful "I will" throughout the essay. Although his verbal revisions cannot be called drastic, they are numerous and are frequently strategic.

Malone's expansion of his essay, however, was in itself ample reason to call the pamphlet a "new edition." The reviewer for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ might a.s.sure readers that "great part of this pamphlet" had already appeared there,[21] but there were also "great" additions. What Malone came to consider Bryant's "most plausible argument" ("that every author must know his own meaning--that Chatterton did not know the meaning of many words and lines in his book, and therefore was not the author"), he answered in an entirely new pa.s.sage (pp. 41-45). He observed later that "almost every writer on the subject" subsequently "adopted" this reb.u.t.tal.[22] Another crucial section (pp. 45-49), in which Malone compares a modernized pa.s.sage from "Rowley" with a pa.s.sage from Chatterton's acknowledged poetry translated into Rowleian verse, was also new. This critical technique, which Malone perfected, became a standard one thereafter.[23] Malone added six other pa.s.sages, none of which is less than half a page in length, as well as five footnotes doc.u.menting or elaborating points which he had made in the magazine.[24]

The most heavily augmented part of the essay is that containing miscellaneous proofs, but Malone bolstered his initial arguments as well. In his comparison of "Rowley's" smooth versification with the work of authentic late-medieval poets--the pa.s.sage which, as we shall see, Tyrwhitt thought so effective--Malone introduced two further quotations and subst.i.tuted the first lines from Bradshaw's _Holy Life_ for those he had quoted in the magazine.[25] Malone's additions to his essay, which taken together amount to some twenty pages (in a pamphlet of sixty-two pages), represent a careful effort to support with an irresistable battery of arguments the main line of attack which he had thrown against the Rowleians.

As his second paragraph and his appeals to "poetical readers" indicate, Malone's fundamental message was that the Rowley poems must be judged as literature and not as historical doc.u.ments. The poems had, of course, found many appreciative readers. A correspondent in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1777 (XLVII, 361-365), for instance, discussed with frank admiration the imagery, pathetic sentiment, accommodation of sound to sense and other aspects of the poems. It was Malone, however, who got to the heart of the matter in showing that poetry inevitably bears the hallmark of the era in which it is written. Even to appreciate the importance of this fact, he insisted, one must have read the early English poets with perception and taste. In establishing this criterion, Malone delivered his most devastating blow against the Rowleians: all their learned arguments were irrelevant.

Malone's essay helped to awaken some very witty attacks on the Rowleians. Malone himself made use of wit in occasional pa.s.sages, such as his abuse of Milles for relying on Shakespeare's historical accuracy (pp. 22-24). The cure for Rowleiomania which he prescribed in the concluding pa.s.sage aroused a good deal of comment. Not all readers were happy that he chose to ridicule respectable scholars,[26] and the effectiveness of his humor did not go unquestioned. Burnaby Greene, whose _Strictures_ were the only major attempt to discredit Malone, was anxious to show that, although Malone seemed to promise humor, he did not prove to be "a writer abounding in exertions of the risible muscles."[27] Among the replies to Greene were some jovial verses in the _St. James's Chronicle_ very likely contributed by Malone:

Says Bryant to Burnaby, what do you mean?

The Cause of old Rowley you've ruin'd quite clean.

I had taught Folk to think, by my learned _Farrago_, That Drydens and Popes wrote three Centuries ago; Though they stared at my Comments, and sometimes might slumber, Yet the Truth they might fancy beneath all my Lumber: But _your_ stupid Jargon is seen through _instanter_, And your Works give the Wits new Subjects for Banter.

Such _cler_-obscure Aid may I meet again never!

For now Milles and I will be laugh'd at for ever.[28]

Greene's criticisms are frequently absurd, but probably even Malone was ready to acknowledge that humor was not the outstanding feature of the _Cursory Observations_. His purpose was not to satirize but to refute.

Other writers in 1782, however, exerted their risible muscles much more vigorously than Malone did. William Julius Mickle wrote _The Prophecy of Queen Emma; An Ancient Ballad lately discovered, written by Johannes Turgotus, Prior of Durham, in the Reign of William Rufus_, to which he added a long satirical postscript about the discovery of the poem.

George Hardinge's _Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades_ brilliantly depicts various scenes in the other world after news of the Rowley controversy is carried there. The most hilarious performance of the year--indeed, of the entire controversy--was the _Archaeological Epistle to Dean Milles_, published by John Nichols at the end of March,[29]

which turned the language of the Rowley poems ingeniously against the two fumbling historians. Such pieces would have appeared whether or not Malone had written the _Cursory Observations_. The general reader was likely to find ridiculous the sober effort to doc.u.ment Rowley's existence. As a contributor to the _St. James's Chronicle_ said, "To mistake the Apprentice of a modern Attorney for an ancient Priest, too nearly resembles an Incident in the new Pantomime at Covent-Garden, where a Bailiff, intent on arresting an old Beau, is imposed on by a Monkey dressed in his Clothes, and employed in an awkward Imitation of his Manners."[30] But ridicule could hurt the Rowleians only if their confidence had been penetrated already. Malone delivered his strokes two months before any of the others, and the strength of his diversified attack made it possible for the wits to strike home.

Throughout 1782, the _Cursory Observations_ remained at the forefront of the reaction to Milles and Bryant. In March, William Mason wrote Walpole that he understood "a Mr. Malone" was "the proto-antagonist" of the Rowleians.[31] As late as the August issue of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ appeared an "Ode, Addressed to Edmond Malone, Esq. on his presuming to examine the learned and unanswerable Arguments urged by Jacob Bryant, Esq. and the Rev. Dr. Milles...."[32] Perhaps the fairest contemporary appraisal of Malone's work was given in the June issue of the _Critical Review_. Although the reviewer felt that some of Malone's proofs, such as the anachronism of "knitting white hosen,"[33] were as elusive as those of the antiquaries, he found the method of comparing "Rowley"

and other poets illuminating, and the "miscellaneous observations" he considered "frequently important, and often decisive." On the whole, the reviewer said, "Mr. Malone deserves much praise for his very clear and comprehensive view" of the controversy.[34]

In their replies to Bryant and Milles, both Warton and Tyrwhitt referred appreciatively to the _Cursory Observations_. Warton found that he had duplicated Malone's method of rewriting Chatterton's acknowledged poetry. In a footnote, he said: "The ingenious author of _Cursory Observations on the Poems of Rowley_, has been beforehand with me in this sort of tryal. But mine was made, before I had seen his very sensible and conclusive performance."[35] Tyrwhitt went so far as to let Malone speak for him: "From the _Language_, I might go on to examine the _Versification_ of these Poems; but I think it sufficient to refer the reader, who may have any doubts upon this point, to the specimens of really ancient poetry, with which the verses of the pretended _Rowley_ have lately been very judiciously contrasted. Whoever reads those specimens, if he has an ear, must be convinced, that the authors of them and of the Poems did not live within the same period."[36] A century after Tyrwhitt, in a re-examination of the Rowley poems which is in many ways the final word on the subject, W. W. Skeat recommended Tyrwhitt's _Vindication_, the chapter in Warton's _History_, and the _Cursory Observations_ as the three contemporary a.n.a.lyses of the poems which a reader should consult.[37] The pamphlet is now offered to twentieth-century readers as an ill.u.s.tration of the mature and versatile critical powers of one of the eighteenth-century's great scholars.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. A good general account of the controversy can be found in E. H. W. Meyerstein's _A Life of Thomas Chatterton_ (London, 1930).

I wish to thank the University of Western Ontario for the grant enabling me to work at the British Museum and Bodleian Library. I am indebted to my colleague Herbert Berry for his useful suggestions.

2. _Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley and Others, in the Fifteenth Century; the greatest part now first published from the most authentic copies, with an engraved specimen of one of the MSS...._ The earliest advertis.e.m.e.nt that I have seen for this edition is in the _London Chronicle_, No. 3158 (1-4 March 1777).

3. Until Professor James M. Osborn's biography of Malone is ready, Sir James Prior's _Life_ (London, 1860) remains standard. Concerning Malone's private opinions about Rowley, see his letter to Charlemont quoted below.

4. A convenient reprinting of this edition is _The Rowley Poems by Thomas Chatterton_, ed. M. E. Hare (Oxford, 1911).

5. II (London, 1778), 139-164--perhaps more accessible in Richard Price's edition of the _History_, II (London, 1840), 338-360.

6. Letters from Francis Woodward to Lord Charlemont on 21 July 1778 and 8 April 1779 give brief accounts of the progress of Milles'

research. See the Twelfth Report of the Historical MSS Commission, Appendix X: _The Ma.n.u.scripts and Correspondence of James, First Earl of Charlemont_ (London, 1891), I, 340-341 and 345.

7. An advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _St. James's Chronicle_, No. 3233 (24-27 Nov.) says that the _Observations_ will be published "Sat.u.r.day next." An advertis.e.m.e.nt in No. 3235 (29 Nov.-1 Dec.) says that the _Observations_ "this day were published." The latter phrase was often used in consecutive advertis.e.m.e.nts of a work during this period, but in view of the announcement in No. 3233, it would seem that Bryant's work did appear on 1 Dec.

8. Milles reprinted Tyrwhitt's edition (except for the "Appendix,"

Tyrwhitt's essay against the authenticity of the poems), correcting the errata and adding a few new pieces. His commentary includes a long answer to Tyrwhitt, a "Preliminary Dissertation," introductions to various poems, and footnotes throughout the text. Since 1782 is the year imprinted on the t.i.tle-page, bibliographies have always given this as the year of publication. But No. 3239 of the _St.

James's Chronicle_ (8-11 Dec. 1781) advertises the work as published. A MS note by Joseph Haslewood in a pamphlet at the British Museum (shelf-mark C.39.f.16) mentions his having seen a copy of Milles' work which Richard Gough obtained on 12 Dec. 1781.

9. _History_, ed. Price, II, 340.

10. _Rowley Poems_, ed. Hare, p. 311.

11. See Meyerstein, _Life_, pp. 472-474. Warton's reply, advertised in the _St. James's Chronicle_ in No. 3280 (14-16 March 1782) to be published "in a few Days," was _An Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. In which the arguments of the Dean of Exeter, and Mr. Bryant are examined_. Tyrwhitt's reply, first advertised in the _St. James_ in No. 3342 (6-8 Aug. 1782), was _A Vindication of the Appendix to the Poems, called Rowley's...._

12. The only earlier replies were obscure squibs in the newspapers.

See the _St. James's Chronicle_, Nos. 3238 (6-8 Dec., against Bryant), 3240 (11-13 Dec., against Bryant), and 3245 (22-25 Dec., against both).

13. LI (1781), 555-559, 609-615. On its publishing schedule during the 18th century, see the _Gentleman's Magazine_, N.S., I (July-Dec., 1856), 9. Neither the magazine nor the pamphlet mentioned Malone's authorship, but his hand in "the new Pamphlet,"

at least, was soon recognized (see the _St. James's Chronicle_, No.

3268, 14-16 Feb. 1782). One can only speculate whether Malone and Nichols were fellow plotters from the beginning. They seem to have taken interest in each other's work as early as 1779, when Nichols printed for Malone special copies of some early a.n.a.logues to Shakespeare's plays. See Albert H. Smith, "John Nichols, Printer and Publisher," _The Library_, 5th Ser., XVIII (1963), 182-183. And evidently Nichols had an eye out for anti-Rowleian materials. At his solicitation, Horace Walpole allowed the _Letter to the Editor of the [Chatterton] Miscellanies_ (Strawberry Hill, 1779) to be reprinted in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1782 (LII, 189-195, 247-250, 300, and 347-348).

14. Nichols' printing operations are described in a pamphlet by David Bond, _Friendship Strikingly exhibited in a New Light_ (London, 1781).

15. Charlemont Correspondence, I, 393-394. I wish to thank Professor Osborn for calling my attention to this letter.

16. See the _Gentleman's Magazine_, LII (1782), 14-15, and the _St.

James's Chronicle_, Nos. 3257 (19-22 Jan.) and 3264 (5-7 Feb.).

17. _The Letters of Horace Walpole_, ed. Paget Toynbee, XII (Oxford, 1904), 152.