invasions. The hero is the warden of
Bristol Castle.[21] While he is absent on a victorious campaign against
the Danes, his bride, Bertha, is decoyed from home by his treacherous
lieutenant, Celmond, who is about to ravish her in the forest, when he is
surprised and killed by a band of marauders. Meanwhile Aella has
returned home, and finding that his wife has fled, stabs himself
mortally. Bertha arrives in time to hear his dying speech and make the
necessary explanations, and then dies herself on the body of her lord.
It will be seen that the plot is sufficiently melodramatic; the
sentiments and dialogue are entirely modern, when translated out of
Rowleian into English. The verse is a modified form of the Spenserian, a
ten-line stanza which Mr. Skeat says is an invention of Chatterton and a
striking instance of his originality.[22] It answers very well in
descriptive passages and soliloquies; not so well in the "discoorseynge"
parts. As this is Chatterton's favorite stanza, in which "The Battle of
Hastings," "Goddwyn," "English Metamorphosis" and others of the Rowley
series are written, an example of it may be cited here, from "Aella."

_Scene_, Bristol. Celmond, _alone_.
The world is dark with night; the winds are still,
Faintly the moon her pallid light makes gleam;
The risen sprites the silent churchyard fill,
With elfin fairies joining in the dream;
The forest shineth with the silver leme;
Now may my love be sated in its treat;
Upon the brink of some swift running stream,
At the sweet banquet I will sweetly eat.
This is the house; quickly, ye hinds, appear.

_Enter_ a servant.

_Cel._ Go tell to Bertha straight, a stranger waiteth here.

The Rowley poems include, among other things, a number of dramatic or
quasi-dramatic pieces, "Goddwyn," "The Tournament," "The Parliament of
Sprites"; the narrative poem of "The Battle of Hastings," and a
collection of "eclogues." These are all in long-stanza forms, mostly in
the ten-lined stanza. "English Metamorphosis" is an imitation of a
passage in "The Faerie Queene," (book ii. canto x. stanzas 5-19). "The
Parliament of Sprites" is an interlude played by Carmelite friars at
William Canynge's house on the occasion of the dedication of St. Mary
Redcliffe's. One after another the _antichi spiriti dolenti_ rise up and
salute the new edifice: Nimrod and the Assyrians, Anglo-Saxon ealdormen
and Norman knights