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

Excerpt: ... to fight is gone. It is very improbable, as the same gentleman observes, that Rowley, writing in the reign of Henry VI., or Edward IV., as is now pretended, or in that of Henry IV., as was assigned by the credulous, before they had digested their system, should incidentally, in a poem on another 27 E2 subject, say, now is Richard &c. Chatterton, having stored his mind with images and customs suited to the times he meant originally for the era of his fictitious ancient, introduced them as well as he could in subsequent compositions. One other singular circumstance, which I learn from the same very respectable authority, I cannot omit mentioning. E This fraud having been detected, we hear no more of it; but in the room of it has been substituted A List of skyllde Payncterrs and Carvellers, which is now said to have been found along with the other Mss. and to be in the possession of Mr. Barret, of Bristol. Among the Mss. that Chatterton pretended to have discovered in the celebrated chest at Bristol was a painter's billE, of which, like the rest, he produced only a copy. Great was the triumph of his advocates. Here was an undoubted relick of antiquity! And so indeed it was; for it was faithfully copied from the first volume of the Anecdotes of Painting, printed some years before; and had been originally transcribed by Vertue from some old parchments in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol (a person, by the by, who was indefatigable in the pursuit of every thing that related to our ancient poets, and who certainly at the same time would have discovered some traces of the pretended Rowley, if any of his poetry had been lodged in that repository). Can there be a doubt, that he who was convicted of having forged this paper, and 28 owned that he wrote the first Battle of Hastings, and the Account of the ceremonies observed at the opening of the Old Bridge, was the authour of all the rest also? Were he charged in a court of justice...