תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

in many parts of erudition; and ftill maintains his reputation as a learned chemift of the lower ages. He was a canon regular of the monaftery of Bridlington in Yorkshire, a great traveller', and ftudied both in France and Italy. At his return from abroad, pope Innocent the eighth abfolved him from the obfervance of the rules of his order, that he might profecute his ftudies with more convenience and freedom. But his convent not concurring with this very liberal indulgence, he turned Carmelite at faint Botolph's in Lincolnshire, and died an anachorite in that fraternity in the year 1490. His chemical poems are nothing more than the doctrines of alchemy cloathed in plain language, and a very rugged verfification. The capital performance is THE COMPOUND OF ALCHEMIE, written in the year 1471'. It is in the octave metre, and dedicated to Edward the fourth. Ripley has left a few other compofitions on his favourite science, printed by Afhmole, who was an enthusiast in this abufed fpecies of philofophy. One of them,

P Afhmole fays, that Ripley, during his long ftay at Rhodes, gave the knights of Malta 100,000l. annually, towards maintaining the war against the Turks. Ubi fupr. p. 458. Afhmole could not have made this incredible affertion, without fuppofing a circumftance equally incredible, that Ripley was in actual poffeffion of the Philofopher's Stone.

Afhmol. p. 455. feq. Bale, viii. 49. Pitf. p. 677.

Afhmol. THEATR. CHEM. p. 193. It was first printed in 1591. 4to. Reprinted by Afhmole, THEATR. CHEM. ut fupr. p. 107. It has been thrice tranflated into Latin, Afhm. ut fupr. p. 465. See Ibid. p. 108. 110. 122. Most of Ripley's Latin works were printed by Lud. Combachius, Caffel. 1619. 12mo.

[ocr errors]

He mentions the abbey church at Weftminster as unfinished. Pag. 154. ft. 27. P. 156. and ft. 34:

Afhmole conjectures, that an English chemical piece in the octave stanza, which he has printed, called HERMES'S BIRD, no unpoetical fiction, was translated from Raymond Lully, by Cremer, abbot of Vol. II.

T

The

Weftminster, a great chemift: and adds,
that Cremer brought Lully into England,
and introduced him to the notice of Ed-
ward the third, about the year 1334.
Afhmol. ubi fupr. p. 213. 467.
writer of HERMES'S BIRD, however, ap-
pears by the verfification and language, to
have lived at leaft an hundred years after
that period. He informs us, that he made
the tranflation "owte of the Frenfche."
Ibid. p. 214. Afhmole mentions a curious
picture of the GRAND MYSTERIES OF
THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, which abbot
Cremer ordered to be painted in Westmin-
fter abbey, upon an arch where the waxen
kings and queens are placed: but that it
was obliterated with a plaifterer's brush by
the puritans in Oliver's time. He alio
mentions a large and beautiful window,
behind the pulpit in the neighbouring church
of faint Margaret, painted with the fame
fubject, and deftroyed by the fame ignorant
zealots, who mistook these innocent hiero-
glyphics for fome story in a popish legend.
Afhmol. ibid. 211. 466. 467. Compare
Widmore's Hift. WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.
p. 174. feq. edit. 1751. 4to.

the

the MEDULLA, written in 1476, is dedicated to archbishop Nevil". These pieces have no other merit, than that of ferving to develope the hiftory of chemistry in England. They certainly contributed nothing to the state of our poetry"..

Afhm. p. 389. See alfo p. 374. feq. w It will be fufficient to throw fome of the obfcurer rhymers of this period into the Notes. Ofbern Bokenham wrote or tranflated metrical lives of the faints, about 1445. See fupr. vol. i. p. 14. Notes. Gilbert Banefter wrote in English verse the Miracle of faint Thomas, in the year 1467. CCCC. MSS. Q. viii. See fupr. vol. i. p. 75. Notes. And Lel. COLLECTAN. tom. i. (p. ii.) pag. 510. edit. 1770. Wydville earl of Rivers, already mentioned, tranflated into English diftichs, The morale Proverbes of Cryftyne of Pyfe, printed by Caxton, 1477. They confift of two sheets in folio. This is a couplet;

Little vailleth good example to fee

For him that wole not the contrarie flee.

This nobleman's only original piece is a Balet of four ftanzas, preferved by Roufe, a cotemporary historian, Rofs. Hift. p. 213. edit. Hearn. apud Leland. Itin. tom. x. edit. Oxon. 1745. I refer alfo the NorBROWNE MAYDE to this period. See Capel's PROLUSIONS, p. 23. feq. edit. 1760. And Percy's ANC. BALL. vol. ii,

P. 26. feq. edit. 1767. Of the fame date is perhaps the DELECTABLE HISTORIE of king Edward the fourth and the Tanner of Tamworth, &c. &c. See Percy, ubi fupr. p. 81. Hearne affirms, that in this piece there are some "romantic affertions: "-otherwife 'tis a book of value, and "more authority is to be given to it than "is given to poetical books of LATE "YEARS." Hearne's Leland, ut fupr. vol. ii, p. 103.

SECT

:

[ocr errors]

SE C T. VIII.

UT a want of genius will be no longer imputed to this period of our poetical history, if the poems lately discovered at Bristol, and said to have been written by Thomas Rowlie, a fecular prieft of that place, about the year one thousand four hundred and seventy, are genuine.

It must be acknowledged, that there are fome circumstances which incline us to fufpect these pieces to be a modern forgery. On the other hand, as there is fome degree of plausibility in the hiftory of their discovery, as they poffefs confiderable merit, and are held to be the real productions of Rowlie by many respectable critics; it is my duty to give them a place in this series of our poetry, if it was for no other reason than that the world might be furnished with an opportunity of examining their authenticity. By exhibiting therefore the most specious evidences, which I have been able to collect, concerning the manner in which they were brought to light, and by producing fuch specimens, as in another respect cannot be deemed unacceptable; I will endeavour, not only to gratify the curiofity of the public on a subject that has long engaged the general attention, and has never yet been fairly or fully stated, but to supply the more inquifitive reader with every argument, both external and internal, for determining the merits of this interesting controversy. I shall take the liberty to add my own opinion, on a point at leaft doubtful: but with the greatest deference to decifions of much higher authority.

About the year 1470, William Cannynge, an opulent merchant and an alderman of Briftol, afterwards an ecclefiaftic,

■ I acknowledge myself greatly indebt

ed to the ingenious doctor Harrington of fubject.

T

2

Bath, for facilitating my enquiries on this and

and dean of Westbury college, erected the magnificent church of Saint Mary of Redcliffe, or Radcliff, near Bristol'. In a muniment-room over the northern portico of the church, the founder placed an iron cheft, fecured by fix different locks; which seems to have been principally intended to receive instruments relating to his new structure, and perhaps to his other charities, inventories of vestments and ornaments, accompts of church-wardens, and other parochial evidences. He is faid to have directed, that this venerable chest should be annually vifited and opened by the mayor and other chief magiftrates of Bristol, attended by the vicar and church-wardens of the parish: and that a feast should be celebrated every year, on the day of vifitation. But this order, that part at least which relates to the infpection of the cheft, was foon neglected.

In the year 1768, when the present new bridge at Bristol was finished and opened for paffengers, an account of the ceremonies obferved on occafion of opening the old bridge, appeared in one of the Bristol Journals; taken, as it was declared, from an antient manufcript'. Curiosity was naturally raised to know from whence it came. At length, after much enquiry concerning the perfon who fent this fingular memoir to the news-paper, it was discovered that he

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

f The old bridge was built about the year 1248. HISTORY of BRISTOL, MS. Archiv. Bodl. C. iii. By Abel Wantner.

Archdeacon Furney, in the year 1755, left by will to the Bodleian library, large collections, by various hands, relating to the hiftory and antiquities of the city, church, and county of Gloucefter, which are now preserved there, Archiv. C. ut fupr. At the end of N. iii. is the manufcript HISTORY juft mentioned, fuppofed to have been compiled by Abel Wantner, of Minchin - Hampton in Glocestershire, who published propofals and fpecimens for a hiftory of that county, in 1683.

was

was a youth about feventeen years old, whofe name was Chatterton; and whofe father had been fexton of Radcliffe church for many years, and alfo master of a writing-school in that parish, of which the church-wardens were trustees. The father however was now dead: and the fon was at first unwilling to acknowledge, from whom, or by what means, he had procured fo valuable an original. But after many promises, and some threats, he confeffed that he received a manuscript on parchment containing the narrative abovementioned, together with many other manufcripts on parchment, from his father; who had found them in an iron cheft, the fame that I have mentioned, placed in a room fituated over the northern entrance of the church.

It appears that the father became poffeffed of these manuscripts in the year 1748. For in that year, he was permitted, by the church-wardens of Radcliffe-church, to take from this cheft feveral written pieces of parchment, fupposed to be illegible and useless, for the purpose of converting them into covers for the writing-books of his scholars. It is impoffible to ascertain, what, or how many, writings were destroyed, in confequence of this abfurd and unwarrantable indulgence. Our school-mafter, however, whofe accomplishments were much above his station, and who was not totally deftitute of a tafte for poetry, found, as it is faid, in this immenfe heap of obfolete manufcripts, many poems written by Thomas Rowlie abovementioned, priest of Saint John's church in Bristol, and the confeffor of alderman Cannynge, which he carefully preferved. These at his death, of course fell into the hands of his fon.

Of the extraordinary talents of this young man more will be faid hereafter. It will be fufficient to observe at prefent, that he faw the merit and value of thefe poems, which he diligently transcribed. In the year 1770, he went to London, carrying with him these transcripts, and many originals, in hopes of turning fo ineftimable a treasure to his great

advantage.

« הקודםהמשך »