Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

She heard the voice of death.

"Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue,
In vain essay'd her bosom to congeal:
She heard inflamed the shrieking voice of Woe,
And cry of owls along the sadden'd vale.
She shook the pointed spear,
On high she raised her shield;
Her foemen all appear,
And fly along the field.

"Power, with his head uplifted to the skies,
His spear a sunbeam and his shield a star,
Like two bright-burning meteors rolls his eyes,
Stamps with his iron feet, and sounds to war.
She sits upon a rock,
She bends before his spear,
She rises from the shock,
Wielding her own in air.

"Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on;
Keen wit, cross muffled, guides it to his crown;
His long sharp spear, his spreading shield are goe;
He falls, and falling rolleth thousands down."

A short prologue by Master William Canning, informs us that this tragedy of Godwin was designed to vindicate the Kentish earl's memory from prejudices raised against him by monkish writers, who had mistaken his character, and accused him of ungodliness "for that he gifted not the church." There are but three scenes in the play. In the first, Godwin and Harold confer together on the distressed state of the nation, and the weakness of the king, whose court is overrun with Norman favourites to the exclusion of the English knights, and the great oppression of the people. Harold, young and impetuous, is for instant rebellion; but the father tries to moderate his rage, recommending patience and calm preparation.

"Godwin.—

What tidings from the king?

Harold.—

His Normans know.

Godwin.—

What tidings of the people?

Harold.—

Still murmuring at their fate, still to the king
They roll their troubles like a surging sea.
Has England, then, a tongue but not a sting?
Do all complain, yet will none righted be?

Godwin.—

Await the time when God will send us aid.

Harold.—

Must we, then, drowse away the weary hours?
I'll free my country, or I'll die in fight.

Godwin.—

But let us wait until some season fit.
My Kentishmen, thy Somertons shall rise,
Their prowess warmer for the cloak of wit,
Again the argent horse shall prance in skies."

An allusion, says Chatterton, to the arms of Kent, a horse salient, argent. As to the cloak of wit, it may possibly be preserved in Somersetshire; but the mantle certainly was not tied as an indefeasible heirloom over the broad shoulders of the county of Kent. No ancient Saxons, or even Britons, ever displayed prowess so stolid as those brave wild-wood savages of Boughton Blean, near Canterbury, who recently fell in battle with her Majesty's 45th regiment, opposing sticks to balls and bayonets, under their doughty leader Sir William Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, Knight of Malta, King of Jerusalem, and much more. And there were other blockheads, substantial dunces, of respectable station in East Kent, among this ignorant and ambitious madman's supporters; men who had been at school to little purpose. Such an insurrection of satyrs, and such a Pan, in the middle of the nineteenth century, within earshot of the bells of Christchurch! But this by the bye.

The next poem is styled English Metamorphosis, by T. Rowley. It consists of eleven stanzas of ten lines each, all fluent and spirited, and some of very superior merit. It is the fable of Sabrina, Milton's "daughter of Locrine," transliquefied to the river Severn, while her mother, Elstrida, was changed to the ridge of stones that rises on either side of it, Vincent's rocks at Clifton, and their enemy, the giant, was transformed to the mountain Snowdon. This giant was a very Enceladus.

"He tore a ragged mountain from the ground;
Hurried up nodding forests to the sky:
Then with a fury that might earth astound,
To middle air he let the mountain fly,
The flying wolves sent forth a yelling cry."

In illustration of Elstrida's beauty,—

"The morning tinge, the rose, the lily flower,
In ever-running race on her did paint their power."

The most vulgar and outworn simile is refreshed with a grace by the touch of Chatterton.

Of the next poem—An excellent ballad of Charity, by the good priest, Thomas Rowley, 1454—it is clear that the young author thought highly, by a note that he transmitted with it to the printer of the "Town and Country Magazine," July 4, 1770, the month preceding that of his death. Unlike too many bearers of sounding appellations, it has certainly something more than its title to recommend it.

The octosyllabic lines—twenty only—on Redcliff Church, by T.R., show what nice feeling Chatterton had for the delicacies of that florid architecture:—

"The cunning handiwork so fine,
Had wellnigh dazzled mine eyne.
Quoth I, some artful fairy hand
Uprear'd this chapel in this land.
Full well I know so fine a sight,
Was never raised by mortal wight."

Of its majesty he speaks in another measure:—

"Stay, curious traveller, and pass not by
Until this festive pile astound thine eye.
Whole rocks on rocks, with iron join'd, survey;
And oaks with oaks that interfitted lie;
This mighty pile that keeps the winds at bay,
And doth the lightning and the storm defy,
That shoots aloft into the realms of day,
Shall be the record of the builder's fame for aye.