Page:Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782).pdf/44

Rh a very modern, though now scarce, book, the Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, by Mr. Walpole, every one of whose works most assuredly Chatterton had read.

The names of the combatants in the Battle of Hastings, an enumeration of which takes up one third of this commentator's work, and which, he tells us, are only to be found in Doomsdaybook and other ancient records that Chatterton could not have seen, have been already shown by others to be almost all mentioned in Fox's Book of Martyrs, and the Chronicles of Holinshed and Stowe. And what difficulty is there in supposing that the names not mentioned in any printed work (if any such there are) were found in the old deeds that he undoubtedly examined, and which were more likely to furnish him with a catalogue of names than any other ancient muniment whatsoever? It is highly probable also, that in the same chest which contained these deeds, he found some old Diary of events relating to Bristol, written by a mayor or alderman of the fifteenth century, that furnished him with some account of Rowley and Cannynge, and with those circumstances which the commentators say are only to traced in William de Wircester. The practice of keeping diaries was at that time very general, and continued to be much in use to the middle of the last century. This, it must be owned, is Rh