THOMAS CHATTERTON.

THOMAS CHATTERTON, the posthumous son of a impostures, which commenced about this time, a schoolmaster in Bristol, was born there on the 20th short sketch will be necessary of the circumstances of November, 1752. At the age of five years, he which gave rise to them. It was well known at was placed at the school which his father had su- Bristol, that in the church of St. Mary, Redcliffe, perintended; but he showed such little capacity an old chest had been opened, about 1727, for the for learning, that he was sent back to his mother purpose of searching for some title deeds, and that as a dull boy, incapable of improvement. Mrs. since that time, a number of other manuscripts, Chatterton, says Dr. Gregory, in his life of the sub- being left exposed to casual depredation, had, at ject of our memoir, was rendered extremely un- various times, been taken away. The uncle of happy by the apparently tardy understanding of Chatterton's father being sexton to the church, enher son, till he fell in love," as she expressed her- abled his nephew to enter it freely; and, upon self, with the illuminated capitals of an old musical these occasions, he removed baskets full of parchmanuscript, in French, which enabled her, by ments, of which, however, he made no other use taking advantage of the momentary passion, to ini- than to cover books. A thread-paper belonging to tiate him in the alphabet. She afterwards taught his mother, which had been formed out of one of him to read out of a black-letter Bible; and this these parchments, attracted the notice of young circumstance, in conjunction with the former, is Chatterton, soon after the commencement of his supposed to have inspired him with that fondness clerkship; and his curiosity was so excited, that for antiquities which he subsequently displayed. he obtained a remaining hoard of them yet unused, At eight years of age, he was removed to Colston's and ultimately acquired possession of all that recharity-school, where he remained for some time mained in the old chest, and in his mother's house. undistinguished, except by a pensive gravity of His answer to inquiries on the subject was, "that demeanour, and a thirst for pre-eminence over his he had a treasure, and was so glad nothing could playmates. This he exhibited, says his sister, even be like it." The parchments, he said, consisted before he was five years old; and not long after- of poetical and other compositions, by Mr. Canyngo ward, her brother being asked what device he and Thomas Rowley, whom our author, at first, would have painted on a small present of earthen-called a monk, and afterward a secular priest of ware about to be made to him, "Paint me," he is said to have replied, "an angel, with wings, and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world."

the fifteenth century.

Thus prepared for carrying on his system of literary imposture, he, on the opening of the new bridge at Bristol, in October, 1768, drew up a paper, entitled, A Description of the Fryars first passing over the Old Bridge, taken from an ancient manuscript. It was inserted in Farley's Bristol Journal, and the authorship was traced to Chatterton; who, being questioned in an authoritative tone, haughtily re. fused to give any account. Milder usage at length induced him to enter into an explanation; and, after some prevarication, he asserted that he had

It was not, however, until his tenth year, that he acquired a taste for reading; for which he suddenly imbibed such a relish, that he devoted his little pocket-money to the hire of books from a library, and borrowed others as he had opportunity. Before he was twelve he had gone through about seventy volumes in this manner, consisting chiefly of history and divinity; and, about the same time, he appears to have filled with poetry a pocket-book, which had been presented to him by his sister as a new-received the paper in question from his father, who year's gift. Among these verses, were probably those entitled Apostate Will, a satire upon his instructers and school-fellows. In 1765, he was confirmed by the bishop; and his sister relates, that he made very sensible and serious remarks on the awfulness of the ceremony, and on his own feelings preparatory to it. In July, 1767, at which time he possessed a knowledge of drawing and music, in addition to his other acquirements, he was articled to Mr. Lambert, an attorney at Bristol, where the only fault his master had to find with him, for the first year, was the sending an abusive anonymous letter to his late schoolmaster, of which he was discovered to be the author, from his inability to disguise his own handwriting so successfully as he did afterward.

had found it, with several others, in Redcliffe Church. The report that he was in possession of the poetry of Canynge and Rowley was now spread about; and coming to the ears of Mr. Catcott, an inhabitant of Bristol, of an inquiring turn, he procured an introduction to Chatterton, who furnished him, gratuitously, with various poetical pieces under the name of Rowley. These were communicated to Mr. Barrett, a surgeon, then employed in writing a history of Bristol, into which he introduced several of the above fragments, by the permission of our author, who was, in return, occasionally sup. plied with money, and introduced into company He also studied surgery, for a short time, under Mr Barrett, and would talk, says Mr. Thistlethwayte, "of Galen, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus, with all As a preface to the history of Chatterton's literary the confidence and familiarity of a modern empi

ric." His favourite studies, however, were herald- of ministry at Bristol, not excepting Mr. Catcott, and y and English antiquities; and one of his chief other of his friends and patrons. His character, occupations was in making a collection of old also, in other respects, began to develope itself in English words from the glossaries of Chaucer and an unfavourable light; but the assertion that he others. During these pursuits, he employed his pen plunged into profligacy at this period, is contrain writing satirical essays, in prose and verse; and, dicted by unexceptionable testimony. The most about the same period, gave way to fits of poetical prominent feature in his conduct was his continued enthusiasm, by wandering about Redcliffe mea- and open avowal of infidelity, and of his intention dows, talking of the productions of Rowley, and to commit suicide as soon as life should become sitting up at night to compose poems at the full burdensome to him. He had also grown thoroughof the moon. He was always," says Mr. Smith, |ly disgusted with his profession; and purposely, it "extremely fond of walking in the fields; and is supposed, leaving upon his desk a paper, entitled would sometimes say to me, 'Come, you and I will his Last Will, in which he avowed his determinatake a walk in the meadow. I have got the clever- tion to destroy himself on Easter Sunday, he gladly est thing for you imaginable. It is worth half-a-received his dismissal from Mr. Lambert, into crown merely to have a sight of it, and to hear whose hands the document had fallen. He now me read it to you.'" This he would generally determined to repair to London; and on being do in one particular spot, within view of the questioned by Mr. Thistlethwayte concerning his church, before which he would sometimes lie plan of life, returned this remarkable answer: "My down, keeping his eyes fixed upon it in a kind first attempt," said he, "shall be in the literary of trance. way; the promises I have received are sufficient to dispel doubt; but should I, contrary to expectation, find myself deceived, I will, in that case, turn Methodist preacher. Credulity is as potent a deity as ever, and a new sect may easily be devised. But if that, too, should fail me, my last and final resource is a pistol." Such was the language of one not much beyond seventeen years of age; certainly, as Dr. Aikin observes, not that of a simple, ingenuous youth, "smit with the love of sacred song," a Beattie's minstrel, as some of Chatterton's

In 1769, he contributed several papers to the Town and Country Magazine, among which were some extracts from the pretended Rowley, entitled Saxon poems, written in the style of Ossian, and subscribed with Chatterton's usual signature of Dunkelmus Bristoliensis. But his most celebrated attempt at imposture, in this year, was an offer to furnish Horace Walpole with some accounts of a series of eminent painters who had flourished at Bristol, at the same time enclosing two small specimens of the Rowley poems. Mr. Walpole re-admirers have chosen to paint him. turned a very polite reply, requesting further information; and, in answer, was informed of the circumstances of Chatterton, who hinted a wish that the former would free him from an irksome profession, and place him in a situation where he might pursue the natural bias of his genius. In the mean time, however, Gray and Mason having pronounced the poems sent to Walpole to be forgeries, the latter, who, nevertheless, could not, as he himself confesses, help admiring the spirit of poetry displayed in them, wrote a cold monitory letter to our author, advising him to apply himself to his profession. Incensed at this, he demanded the immediate return of his manuscripts, which Walpole enclosed in a blank cover, after his return from a visit to Paris, when he found another letter from Chatterton, peremptorily requiring the papers, and telling Walpole " that he would not have dared to use him so, had he not been acquainted with the narrowness of his circumstances." Here their correspondence ended, and on these circumstances alone is the charge founded against Mr. Walpole of barbarously neglecting, and finally causing the death of, Chatterton. Mr. Walpole, observes Dr. Gregory, afterward regretted that he had not seen this extraordinary youth, and that he did not pay a more favourable attention to his correspondence; but to ascribe to Mr. Walpole's neglect the dreadful catastrophe which happened at the distance of nearly two years after, would be the highest degree of injustice and absurdity.

Our author now entered into politics; and, in March, 1770, composed a satirical poem of one thousand three hundred lines, entitled Kew Gardens, in which he abused the Princess-dowager of Wales and Lord Bute, together with the partisans

At the end of April, he arrived in the metropo lis; and, on the 6th of May, writes to his mother that he is in such a settlement as he could desire. I get," he adds, "four guineas a month by one magazine; shall engage to write a history of Eng land, and other pieces, which will more than double that sum. Occasional essays for the daily papers would more than support me. What a glo rious prospect!" His engagements, in fact, appear to have been numerous and profitable; but we are cautioned, by Dr. Gregory, against giving implicit credence to every part of Chatterton's letters, written at this time, relative to his literary and political friends in the metropolis. It seems, however, that he had been introduced to Mr. Beckford, then lord mayor, and had formed high expectations of patronage from the opposition party, which he at first espoused; but the death of Beckford, at which he is said to have gone almost frantic, and the scarcity of money which he found on the opposition side, altered his intentions. He observed to a friend, that " he was a poor author, who could write on both sides;" and it appears that he actually did so, as two essays were found after his death, one eulogizing, and the other abusing, the administration, for rejecting the city remonstrance. On the latter, addressed to Mr. Beckford, is the indorsement :

Accepted by Bingley-set for, and thrown out of the
North Britain, 21st of June, on account of the
lord mayor's death.

Lost by his death on this essay...
Gained in elegies...

in essays...

Am glad he is dead by...

£1 11 6

...£2 2 .......3 3

5 50

£3 13 6

lyric and heroic poems, pastorals, epistles, ballads, &c. Sublimity and beauty pervade many of them; and they display wonderful powers of imagination and facility of composition; yet, says Dr. Aikin, there is also much of the commonplace flatness and extravagance, that might be expected from a juvenile writer, whose fertility was greater than his judgment, and who had fed his mind upon stores collected with more avidity than choice The haste and ardour, with which he pursued his various literary designs, was in accordance with his favourite maxim, “that God had sent his creatures into the world with arms long enough to reach any thing, if they would be at the trouble of extending them."

His hopes of obtaining eminence as a political writer now became extravagantly sanguine, and he already seems to have considered himself a man of considerable public importance. "My company," he says, in a letter to his sister, "is courted everywhere; and could I humble myself to go into a compter, could have had twenty places before now; but I must be among the great; state matters suit me better than commercial." These bright prospects, about July, appear to have been suddenly clouded; and, after a short career of dissipation, which kept pace with his hopes, he found that he had nothing to expect from the patronage of the great; and, to escape the scene of ́his mortification, made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the post of surgeon's-mate to the coast of Africa. It is less certain to what extent he was now employed by the booksellers, than that he felt the idea of dependence upon them insupportable, and soon fell into such a state of indigence as to be reduced to the want of necessary food. Such was his pride, however, that when, after 2 fast of three days, his landlady invited him to dinner, he refused the invitation as an insult, assuring her he was not hungry. This is the last act recorded of his life; a few hours afterward, he swallowed a dose of arsenic, and was found dead the next morning, August the 25th, 1770, surrounded by fragments of numerous manuscripts, which he appeared to have destroyed. His suicide took place in Brook-street, Holborn, and he was interred, in a shell, in the burying-ground of Shoe lane workhouse. This melancholy ca-sian, or a Saxon monk, or Gray, or Smollett. or tastrophe is heightened by the fact, that Dr. Fry, head of St. John's College, Oxford, had just gone to Bristol, for the purpose of assisting Chatterton, when he was there informed of his death.

In 1778, a miscellaneous volume of the avowed writings of Chatterton was published; and, in 1803, an edition of his works appeared, in three volumes, octavo, with an account of his life, by Dr. Gregory, from whom we have before quoted. The general character of his productions has been well appreciated by Lord Orford, who, after expatiating upon his quick intuition, his humour, his vein of satire the rapidity with which he seized all the topics of conversation, whether of politics, literature, or fashion, remarks, "Nothing in Chatterton can be separated from Chatterton. His noblest flight, his sweetest strain, his grossest ribaldry, and his most commonplace imitations of the productions of magazines, were all the effervescences of the same ungovernable impulse, which, cameleon-like, imbibed the colours of all it looked on. It was Os

Junius; and if it failed most in what it most affect ed to be, a poet of the fifteenth century, it was because it could not imitate what had not existed." In person, Chatterton is said to have been, like his genius, premature; he had, says his biographer, a manliness and dignity beyond his years, and there was a something about him uncommonly prepossessing. His most remarkable feature was his eyes, which, though gray, were uncommonly piercing; when he was warmed in argument, or otherwise, they sparkled with fire; and one eye, it is said, was still more remarkable than the other.

The controversy respecting the authenticity of the poems attributed to Rowley is now at an end; though there are still a few, perhaps, who may side with Dean Milles and others, against the host of writers, including Gibbon, Johnson, and the two Wartons, who ascribe the entire authorship to Chatterton. The latter have, perhaps, come to a conclusion, which is not likely to be again disputed, viz. that however extraordinary it was for The character of Chatterton has been sufficiently Chatterton to produce them in the eighteenth cen- developed in the course of the preceding memoir; tury, it was impossible that Rowley could have his ruling passion, we have seen, was literary fame; written them in the fifteenth. But, whether and it is doubtful whether his death was not Chatterton was or was not the author of the poems rather occasioned through fear of losing the reputa ascribed to Rowley, his transcendent genius must tion he had already acquired, than despair of being ever be the subject of wonder and admiration. able to obtain a future subsistence. This is renThe eulogy of his friends, and the opinions of the dered at least plausible, by the fact of his having controversialists respecting him, are certainly too received pecuniary assistance from Mr. Hamilton, extravagant. Dean Milles prefers Rowley to Ho- senior, the proprietor of the Critical Review, not mer, Virgil, Spencer, and Shakspeare; Mr. Ma- long before his death, with a promise of more; that lone "believes Chatterton to have been the great- he was employed by his literary friends, almost to est genius that England has produced since the the last hour of his existence; and that he was days of Shakspeare ;" and Mr. Croft, the author aware of the suspicions existing that himself and of Love and Madness, asserts, that "no such hu- Rowley were the same. Though he neither conman being, at any period of life, has ever been fessed nor denied this, it was evident that his conknown, or possibly ever will be known." This duct was influenced by some mystery, known only enthusiastic praise is not confined to the critical to himself; he grew wild, abstracted, and incohewriters; the British muse has paid some of her rent, and a settled gloominess at length took posmost beautiful tributes to the genius and memory session of his countenance, which was a presage of Chatterton. The poems of Rowley, as published of his fatal resolution. He has been accused of by Dean Milles, consist of pieces of all the prin- libertinism, but there are no proofs of this during cipal classes of poetical composition: tragedies, his residence either at London or Bristol: though

many of his productions show a laxity of principle
which might justify the supposition. The best
qualities in his character were the negative ones
of temperance and affection for his family, to whom
he sent small presents out of his first gains, and
always spoke of their welfare as one of the princi-
pal ends of his exertions. But what deeper afflic-
tion could he have brought upon them than thatterton.

"Speke boldlie, manne," sayd brave Syr Charles, Christ's vicarr only knowes ne synne,