Hee thoughte ytt proper for to cheese a wyfe,
And use the sexes for the purpose gevene.
(_Storie of William Canynge_)

has an absurd affectation of straightforward good sense divested of
sentiment which could not appeal to any one on a higher plane of
civilization than a medical student.

And this is easily explicable if only it is borne in mind that the
Rowley poems were written by a boy, and that such lovely things as
the Dirge in _Ælla_ suggest a maturity that Chatterton did not by any
means perfectly possess. In some respects he was as childish (to use
the word in no contemptuous sense) as in others he was precocious. And
it is a thousand pities that the difficulties of Chatterton's language
and the peculiar charm and invention of his metrical technique cannot
be appreciated till the boyish love of adventure, delight in imagined
bloodshed, and ignorance of sentimental love, have generally been left
behind. Nothing--to give an example--could be more frigid than the
description of Kennewalcha--

White as the chaulkie clyffes of Brittaines isle,
Red as the highest colour'd Gallic wine

(an unthinkable study in burgundy and whitewash, _Battle of Hastings_,
II, 401); nothing, on the other hand, more vivid, more obviously
written with a pen that shook with excitement, than

The Sarasen lokes _owte_: he doethe feere, &c.
(_Eclogue the Second_, 23.)