had a much better chance of being carried to a fuccefsful issue, had the author been lefs enamoured of his own ideas. Sagacity he has in plenty, coolnefs of judgment feems allotted to him in a very scanty proportion. The difcovery for which the world will really be obliged to him is perhaps only this, that vowels are of lefs importance in etymology than they have ufually been thought. But, on the influence of certain combination of confonants, he must be heard with great caution, and under many more reftrictions than he himself has placed. We cannot, however, quit the book without fome notice of the author's opinion, always dogmatically, and fometimes infolently, announced concerning the genuinenefs of the poems which Chatterton afcribed to Rowley. Thefe Mr. Whiter frenuously maintains to be genuine ancient poems: ftrenuoufly, but in truth with little foundness of judgment. A ftronger proof cannot poffibly exit than appears in his explanation of the word Barganet. This Chatterton has interpreted a fong or ballad; but, Mr. W. having found a derivation of it to fuit one paffage, contends that Chatterton did not understand the word, and confequently could not be the author of the poems and this he has the audacity to fay in a moft peremptory manner, though in one paffage out of two where it is found, he is obliged to own that Chatterton's interpretation conveys its real meaning. In the other place alfo, we boldly fay, it means the fame. Mr. Whiter indeed contends that i: fignifies "a petty boggling-haggling queftion." But that queftion, be it what it may, is afked in a little ballad, and therefore Chatter on knew better than the prefent critic its real meaning. The ballad is this. "All-a-boon, Syr Prieft, all-a-boon, Bye yer preeftfchype now faye unto mee, Syr Gaufryd the Knyghte, who lyvethe harde bie, Bee more greate, Inne. honnoure, knyghtehood and eflate?" P. 364. ballad is How Chatterton found Barganet in the fenfe of perfectly plain. It ftands fo in one of the gloffaries to Chaucer, and there he had it, as he had many other things. But Mr. Whiter will have it mean fomething elfe; and to the palpable abfurdity of its fignifying in one paflage a fong, and in the other a captions queftion, he is totally blind: blinded, as ufal, by the glare of his own imagi- ation. On this worthy fubject obferve, reader, how modeffly he triumphs! "Thofe, who are ardent in the fearch of Truth, will, I truft, be inftructed and gratified by this endeavour to elucidate a controverted queftion; and I fhall gladly leave the fupporters of an oppofite principle to the quiet enjoyment of their own hypothefis. Still however I might might venture to obferve, for the benefit of that race of difputants, who form or rather maintain opinions on fubjects like thefe; that the bufinefs of Criticism was once confidered as an ART, which must be learnt, before it can be practifed; and that our decifions on the Barganette. {(R (Rowley.) A capti- Song. meaning of ancient words might Whoever reads this paffage will certainly not think the writer of it severely treated in being anfwered without ceremony. His other digreffions on Rowley amount only to the fame thing. He fancies he can interpret a word, by his mode of derivation, better than Chatterton ;-ergo-Chatterton did not write the poems, but Rowley. Without going into a particular examination of any more paffages, we fhall endeavour to fhow Mr. W. that criticism, as an art, has been better learned by fome perfons unknown than by himself, and that therefore they have, by his own conceffion, a better right to practife it. Let us remark then, without entering into verbal questions of any kind (which have been fully and triumphantly difcuffed by Meffrs. Tyrwhitt, T. Warton, and others) that the belief in the authenticity of the poems attributed to Rowley, as productions of the 15th century, can reft only upon the groffelt and most deplorable ignorance of the nature and progrefs of verfification. Whoever has attended to this progrefs, with refpect to English verfe, from the time of Chaucer to that of Pope, must be fenfible how very gradual the improvement was; with refpect to our couplet verfe more particularly, but in a great degree as to all our rhymed measures. Blank verfe, of more fimple conftruction as to measure (though more difficult to fupport with poetic vigour) more speedily received its perfection. But the heroic couplet (which Mr. Southey calls the Jews harp twing-twang*) the most difficult to fuftain with dignity and variety through a long compofition, never received the perfection of its refinement and harmony till it came into the hands of Pope. Waller laboured at it, Denham made great efforts, the mighty powers of Dryden ftruggled at the task, and formed, in fact, the full preparation for the higher polish of Pope; but the complete and molt perfect style and cadence of our heroic verfe, and confequently of ftanzas of fimilar lines, never was given before the compofitions, and those the later and more finished compofitions, of that poet appeared. His Art of Criticifm has many of the afperities of the See Brit. Crit. for September, p. 309. older older Time. All our poets, from the first to the laft, wrote occafionally good and harmonious verfes,-lines of the very. best construction, but the whole texture was never fo finished; and twenty lines together of any poet fifty years older, no more refemble or are comparable to twenty lines from Pope's best writings, than an Egyptian idol to a flatue of Praxiteles. Roughneffes and licences intervene, which fhock the cultivated ear; and the poet, evidently contented to furpass his predeceffors, comes into no degree of competition with thofe who followed him. The fame has been the cafe in moft languages, except the Greek; and probably there alfo, but the ruder attempts of Greek writers not being extant, we have nothing but what is finished to perufe. But, in the Latin language, Ennius, though he produces occafionally fine and fonorous verfes, has nothing in the general management of them comparable to the art, polish, and delicacy of Virgil: and the early French poets, La FrefnaieVauquelin and others,bear exactly a fimilar proportion to Boileau. It is, in fact, in the nature of things, that a difficult, and very artificial verfification, is no more to be perfected by the efforts of one or two individuals, than the complete civilization of a ftate is to be achieved by the fuperior genius or understanding of a single barbarian. But what are the pretended poems of Rowley? Moft manifeftly the compofitions of a man whose ear had been formed by the beft verfification of the eighteenth century, and habituated to it; lines uniformly of the best conftruction, and moft harmonious cadence; and, removing the flight disguise of obfolete words, in all refpects refembling the corref ponding measures of the latest and most polifhed poets. Mr. Whiter, therefore, who, from his high temples of learning looks down upon the reft of the world," may say what he pleases, and may pretend to prove what he thinks proper, by his etymological fancies; but the thing is clearly and abfolutely impoffible; and they who have at all studied criticism as an art, must know and feel it to be fo. Not to difmifs this queftion entirely without an example, let us take any twenty lines of the Pleudo-Rowley, and putting modern words in the place of the antiquated (which is almost always practicable*) It has been thought, not unreafonably, from this fact, that the practice of Chatterton was to write his verfes in modern language, and afterwards feek out old words of equivalent cadence to fill their place. When practice had given him a ftore of obfolete words at command, he might do otherwife. His imitation confifts generally more in words than in ftyle, though a very little of the latter is now and then caught by him. His fructuous entendement, in the first Battle of Haftings, 1. 6, is a phrafe borrowed from older writers, and feems to have been originally interwoven with his verse. to to remove the deception they occafion, let us enquire what poet could ever have produced fuch a paffage, in point of conftruction and verfification, till Pope and others had taught the art. The ftanza of heroic lines, in rhyme, which Chatterton generally employs in the character of Rowley, requires all the artifice of construction practised in the heroic couplet, and could not be made perfect till that was firft completed*. We take the opening of the fecond battle of IIaftings as our example. O Truth, immortal daughter of the skies, She fees king Harold ftand, fair England's curfe and praife. All night to the great God, for fuccour ask'd and pray'd. On thefe lines we fhall make no comment. To those who have ears they fpeak for themfelves, and fpeak directly in contradiction of Mr. Whiter's pretended proofs. Let us then, at length, take leave of his work; fubjoining only this obfervation. To fome it may appear, and perhaps to the author himself, that occafionally we have spoken with a severity which denotes particular hoftility. This we pofitively deny. The author is fcarcely known to us by fight, and certainly neither liked nor difliked as a private individual. To his work we have ftudioufly endeavoured to give the most candid confideration, and we firmly believe that we have fucceeded in that * Spenfer and Fairfax, the great improvers of the heroic ftanza, have never any thing of that general polifh which pervades the stanzas of the Pfeudo-Rowley. It would be quite as probable that Rowley could write the language of the prefent day, as the ftyle and verfification; fo that Chatterton did lefs than half his work, in copying the words of early writers, endeavour, endeavour. But there is a degree of infolence in writing, which the more candid a man is the lefs he can bear to fee. What liberal man ever read fome parts of Warburton's writings without flrong indignation? Or could have oppofed them without fome afperity? Of the fpirit of Warburton this writer poffeffes much;-of his talents, perhaps fome, but undoubtedly an inferior portion: and the world may be affured, and he alfo, fhould he condefcend to trouble himself about it, that if he had fhown lefs haughty confidence in himself, and lefs arrogance towards others, we fhould have oppofed his opinions with a more fcrupulous delicacy, and with lefs, or rather without any, difpofition to reprove. ART. VI. Facts and Obfervations, tending to fhow the Practicability and Advantage, to the Individual and the Nation, of producing in the British Isles Clothing-Wool equal to that of Spain: together with fame Hints towards the Management of fine-wcolled Sheep.. By Caleb Hillier Parry, M. D. F. R. S. Member of the Royal College of Phyficians of London, and of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh; One of the Phyfi cians of the Bath General Hofpital, and Phyfician to the Cafualty Hofpital and Puerperal Charity in that City. 410. 93 PP. 45. Cadell and Davies. 1800. THE account here given by Dr. P. deferves great attention from all well-withers to the profperity of our country. He propofed to investigate, by experiment, the practicability of producing, in Great Britain, wool as proper for the manufacture of fuperfine cloths, of different defcriptions, as that of Spain; and what benefits may probably arife to the farmer, and the nation in general, from the cultivation of a fine-woolled breed of theep. (p. 2.) The first of thefe points was fuggefted by his Majesty's patriotic attempt (which foon after happily fucceeded) to introduce into this country the fineft woolled Spanish breed. The breed of English sheep, chofen as the basis of an attempt to improve British wool by an admixture of Spanish blood, was the Ryeland, a particular fort of Herefordshire fheep. In 1792, four ewes were fent "to the Spanish ram belonging to the Agricultural Society at Bath, at the Earl of Ailefbury's, and two to that of the late Earl Bathurst; both given by the King. One of thefe ewes was ftolen while with lamb, fo that there were only five left as the basis of this experiment. |