In their replies to Bryant and Milles, both Warton and Tyrwhitt referred appreciatively to the _Cursory Observations_. Warton found that he had duplicated Malone’s method of rewriting Chatterton’s acknowledged poetry. In a footnote, he said: “The ingenious author of _Cursory Observations on the Poems of Rowley_, has been beforehand with me in this sort of tryal. But mine was made, before I had seen his very sensible and conclusive performance.”[35] Tyrwhitt went so far as to let Malone speak for him: “From the _Language_, I might go on to examine the _Versification_ of these Poems; but I think it sufficient to refer the reader, who may have any doubts upon this point, to the specimens of really ancient poetry, with which the verses of the pretended _Rowley_ have lately been very judiciously contrasted. Whoever reads those specimens, if he has an ear, must be convinced, that the authors of them and of the Poems did not live within the same period.”[36] A century after Tyrwhitt, in a re-examination of the Rowley poems which is in many ways the final word on the subject, W. W. Skeat recommended Tyrwhitt’s _Vindication_, the chapter in Warton’s _History_, and the _Cursory Observations_ as the three contemporary analyses of the poems which a reader should consult.[37] The pamphlet is now offered to twentieth-century readers as an illustration of the mature and versatile critical powers of one of the eighteenth-century’s great scholars.
1. A good general account of the controversy can be found in E. H. W. Meyerstein’s _A Life of Thomas Chatterton_ (London, 1930). I wish to thank the University of Western Ontario for the grant enabling me to work at the British Museum and Bodleian Library. I am indebted to my colleague Herbert Berry for his useful suggestions.
2. _Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley and Others, in the Fifteenth Century; the greatest part now first published from the most authentic copies, with an engraved specimen of one of the MSS...._ The earliest advertisement that I have seen for this edition is in the _London Chronicle_, No. 3158 (1-4 March 1777).
3. Until Professor James M. Osborn’s biography of Malone is ready, Sir James Prior’s _Life_ (London, 1860) remains standard. Concerning Malone’s private opinions about Rowley, see his letter to Charlemont quoted below.