Many of the poems and prose works attributed to Rowley, exhibit anachronisms similar to that now mentioned. Bristol is called a city, though it was not one till long after the death of king Edward IV. Cannynge is spoken of as possessing a _Cabinet_ of coins and other curiosities[D], a century at least before any Englishman ever thought of forming such a collection. _Drawings_, in the modern and technical sense of delineations on paper or vellum, with chalks or Indian ink, are mentioned a hundred and fifty years before the word was ever used with that signification. _Manuscripts_ are noticed as rarities, with the idea at present annexed to them; and eagerly sought after and purchased by Rowley, at a time when printed books were not known, and when all the literature of the times was to be found in manuscripts alone. All these anachronisms _decisively_ prove the spuriousness of these compositions. Other anachronisms may be traced in the poems before us, but they are of less weight, being more properly poetical deviations from _costume_. However I will briefly mention them. Tilts and tournaments are mentioned at a period when they were unknown. _God and my Right_ is the word used by duke William in _the Battle of Hastings_, though it was first used by king Richard I. after the victory at Grizors; and hatchments and armorial bearings, which were first seen at the time of the Croisades, are introduced in other places with equal impropriety.
[Footnote D: Chatterton in his description of Cannynge’s love of the arts, &c. seems often to have had Mr. Walpole in his eye; which was very natural, that gentleman being probably the first person who was at once a man of literature and rank, of whose character he had any knowledge. --Thus, Mr. W. having a very curious collection of pictures, prints, &c. Cannynge too must be furnished with a cabinet of coins and other rarities; and there being a private printing-press at Strawberry-Hill, (the only one perhaps in England,) the Bristol Mayor must likewise have one. It is in one of his letters that has not yet been printed, that Chatterton mentions his having read an account in the Rowley Mss. of Cannynge’s intention to set up a _printing-press_ at Westbury! This merchant died in 1474; during the greater part of his life printing was unknown; and even at the time of his death there was but one printing-press in this kingdom, namely, that set up by Caxton, in the Almonry of Westminster Abbey, about the year 1471.]