that appeared, on that subject, produced numerous specimens of really ancient poetry, which when contrasted with the verses of the pseudo-bard of the fifteenth century proved, with irresistible force, that the authors of those specimens, and of the pretended ancient reliques, could not have lived within the same period. By what he called a Double Transformation, that is, by devesting several of Rowley’s verses of the disguise of ancient spelling, and cloathing some of Chatterton’s undoubted poetry in old language, he also shewed that they might change places very commodiously, and that the one was just as ancient or just as modern as the other.[1] And though the author of the Strictures alluded to, and the late Mr. Warton, who a few months afterwards followed him with more ability in the same inquiry, and Mr. Tyrwhitt in his admirable Vindication of his Appendix, produced many additional and
- ↑ The former of these methods obtained the approbation of Mr. Tyrwhitt; (Vindication of the Appendix to the Poems called Rowley's, &c. p. 82.) and to the propriety of the latter test Mr. Warton bore testimony. An Enquiry into the authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, &c. p. 93.
