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All the Saxons who sought either the fame of valour, or new establishments by arms, flocked to the standard of Aella, King of Sussex, who was carrying on successful war against the Britons, and laying the foundations of a new kingdom.
If we try Aella, the longest of the poems, by this test, we shall discover strong evidence of its being modern. A certain degree of uniformity is the invariable characteristic of the earlier productions of art; but here is as much desultoriness and incoherence, as can well he possible in a work that makes any pretensions to a plan.
"O thou, or what remains of thee, Aella, thou darling of futurity. Let this, my song, bold as thy courage be, As everlasting to posterity." But, perhaps, the most convincing proof of this modern character of Rowley's verse, may be derived from the commencement of the chorus in Godwin.
At the same time exaggerated conceptions of the courtly breeding of Chaucer's and Froissart's age may very easily be formed; and it is almost amusing to contrast with Chaucer's generally liberal notions of manners, severe views of etiquette like that introduced by him at the close of the "Man of Law's Tale," where he stigmatizes as a solecism the statement of the author from whom he copied his narrative, that King Aella sent his little boy to invite the emperor to dinner.
Whereupon Walpole, in the meantime informed of the real author and his condition, paid no further attention to the papers for a while, even to the request to return them. Enraged but undaunted by this failure he continued his work, both in old and contemporary English speech, producing "Aella," "Goddwyn," "Battle of Hastings," "Consuliad," "Revenge," etc.
This decisive advantage secured the conquests of Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over Sussex and a great part of Surrey. Sax. p.14. Ann. Flor. None of the other tribes of Saxons met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and perseverance in pushing their conquests.
Chatterton pretended to have found these among the contents of an old chest in the muniment room of St. Mary Redcliff's. The Rowley poems included two tragedies, Aella and Goddwyn, two cantos of a long poem on the Battle of Hastings, and a number of ballads and minor pieces. Chatterton had no precise knowledge of early English, or even of Chaucer. His method of working was as follows.
The position of the controversialists which has been accepted amounts to this: that a child at the age of twelve years wrote the pastoral "Elinoure and Juga," which is marked by finer pathos than anything that proceeded from the passionate soul of Burns: that when a few months or so older this child wrote "Aella," which displays an energy equal, if not superior to Spencer's, and about the same time the "Tournament," which breathes the spirit of the middle ages more intensely than the Ivanhoe of Sir Walter Scott.
Traces of his influence may be found in Coleridge and Keats. The greatest charm of Chatterton's verse appears in unusual epithets and unexpected poetic turns, such, for instance, as may be noted in these lines from his best "Rowley" poem, Aella, a Tragycal Enterlude: "Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note; Quick in dance as thought can be."
There is also mention of an Abbot Tylberht, but he may be the same as Tatberht. I.e., 'Elves-how' 'the hill of fairies. Coins of Aella and other early kings have been found in the hill. Wilfrid's men' need not pay tolls when travelling on business through the realm, and on one occasion they issued to a Ripon clerk a kind of passport.
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