their ample leisure which they devoted to study, spell 'flourishes' as
'Florryschethe'. But if any one still anxious for literal truth should
insist--'Is not the impression as false as the medium that conveys
it? Were the middle ages really like that? Is it not a fact that the
average baron stayed at home in his castle devising abominable schemes
to wring money or its equivalent from miserable and half-starved
peasants?'--such a one can only be answered with another question: 'Is
Pierrot like a man, and has it been put beyond question that
Pontius Pilate was hanged for beating his wife?' The Rowley writings
are--properly considered--entirely fanciful and unreal. They have
many faults, but are seen at their worst when Chatterton is trying
to exhibit some eternal truth. There is a horrible (but perfectly
natural) didacticism--the inevitable priggishness of a clever
boy--which occasionally intrudes itself on his best work. Thus that
charming fanciful fragment which begins--

As onn a hylle one eve fittynge
At oure Ladie's Chyrche mouche wonderynge

embodies this truism fit for a bread-platter--or to be the 'Posy of a
ring'--'Do your best.'

Canynges and Gaunts culde doe ne moe.

And the poet's boyishness demands still further consideration. He
has a crude violence of expression which is apt to shock the mature
person--some of the descriptions of wounds in the two Battles of
Hastings would sicken a butcher; while in another vein such a phrase
as