THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OE CALIEORNIA
RIVERSIDE
^
CHATTEP/rON:
A .STORY OF THE YEAH 1770.
CHATTEBTON:
A /STUJiV OF THE YEAH 1770.
BY
DAVIJ) MASSON. M.A., LL.D.,
Prnfessor of RMoric and Englinh Lileraiurc in the University of Edinhurah
M A M 1 I. l.A \ AN D (JO.
KS74.
Till Rigid of TranslaUon and Rcprodiichmi is Jicserved.
LONDON :
U. OLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PiUNTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The Story is reprinted from the Author's Essays
BiogrcqjTiical and Critical: chiefly on English Poets,
published in 1856. In several pages of Part II.
there has been a correction of the facts. Tlie reasons
are explained in footnotes at pages 161 and 250.
Edinburgh :
September 1874.
CONTENTS.
PAIIT I.— BRISTOL.
CHAPTER I.
I'ACE
WILKES AND LIBERTY ... 3
CHAPTER II.
THE attorney's APPRENTICE OF BRIST(n 11
CHAPTER III.
BOUND FOR I.ONOiiy 85
rART II.—LOXDOX
CHAPTER I.
SHORKDITCH 103
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
PAGK
TOWX-TAI.K LOXG AGO 125
CHAPTER III.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIUF, 142
CHAPTER IV.
BUOOKE .STREET, HOLBOKN 206
CHAPTER V.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTEPaTY 258
PAUT I.
BRISTOL.
C. B
CHATTEETON:
A STORY OF THE YEAR 1770
CHArraii I.
WILKES AND LIBERTY.
Was there ever a time that did not think higlily of
its own importance ? Was there ever a time when the
world did not believe itself to be going to pieces, and
when alarming pamphlets on " the present crisis " did
not lie unbought on the counters of the booksellers ?
Poor mortals that we are, how we do make the
most of our own little portion in tlie general drama
of history ! Nor are we quite wrong, after all. There
is nothing really to laugh at in our laborious anxieties
about this same "present crisis," which is always hap-
pening, and never over, " We live in earnest times : "
what is there in the incessant repetition of this stereo-
B 2
CHATTERTON.
typed phrase, but an explicit assertion by each gene-
ration for itself that the great sense of life, transmitted
already tlirough so many generations, is now, in turn,
passing through it ? The time when we ourselves are
alive, the time when our eyes behold the light, and
wlien the breath is strong in our nostrils, that is the
crisis for us ; and, although it belongs to a higher than
we to determine the worth of what we do, yet that
we should do everything with a certain amount of
vehemence and bustle seems but the necessary noise
of the shuttle as we weave forth our allotted portion
of the general web of existence.
Well, many years ago, there was " a crisis " in Eng-
land. It was the time, reader, when our great-great-
grandfathers, intent on bringing about your existence
and mine, were, for that purpose, paying court to
our reluctant great-great -gi-andmothers. George III.
an obese young sovereign of thirty-three, had been
then ten years on the throne. Newspapers were
not so numerous as now ; Parliament was not open
to reporters ; and, had gentlemen of the Liberal
press been alive, with their present political opinions,
every soul of them would have been hanged. Never-
theless, people got on very well ; and there was enough
for a nation of seven millions to take interest in and
talk about, when they were in an inquisitive humour.
Lord North, an ungainly country gentleman, with
WILKES AND LIBERTY.
goggle eyes and big cheeks, had just succeeded the
Duke of Grafton as the head of a Tory ministry ;
Lord Chatliam, throwing off his gout for the occasion,
had, at the age of sixty-two, resumed his place as the
tliundering Jove of the Opposition ; Bute and other
Scotchmen were still said to be sucking the blood oi"
the nation ; and Edmund Burke, then in the prime of
his strength and intellect, was publishing masterly
pamphlets, and trying to construct, under the auspices
of the Marquis of Eockingham, a new Whig party.
Among the notabilities out of Parliament were — Dr.
Samuel Johnson, then past his sixty-first year, and a
most obstinate old Tory ; his friend Sir Joshua Bey-
nolds, fourteen years younger ; Goldy, several years
younger still ; and Garrick, fifty-four years of age,
but as sprightly as ever. In another circle, but not
less prominently before the town, were Parson Home
and Mrs. Macaulay; and all England was ringing
with the terrible letters of the invisible Junius. But
the man of the hour, the hero of the self-dubbed crisis,
was John "Wilkes.
Arrested in 1763, on account of the publication of
No. 45 of the North Briton, in which one of the King's
speeches had been severely commented on; discharged
a few days afterwards in consequence of his privilege
as a Member of Parliament ; lifted instantaneously by
this accident into an unoxam]ilcd blaze of popular
CHATTERTON.
favour; persecuted all the more on this account by the
Court party ; at last, in January 1764, expelled from
his seat in the House of Commons by a vote declaring
him to be a seditious libeller ; put on his trial there-
after before the Court of Queen's Bench, and escaping
sentence only by a voluntary flight to France : — this
squint-eyed personage, known up to that time only
as a profligate wit about town, who lived on his wife's
money, and fascinated other women in spite of his
ugliness, had now been for six years the idol and
glory of England. For six years "Wilkes and Forty-
five " had been chalked on the walls, " Wilkes and
Liberty" had been the cry of the mobs, and portraits
of Wilkes had hung in the windows of the print-shops.
Kemembering that he was the champion of liberal
opinions, even pious Dissenters had forgotten his
atheism and his profligacy. They distinguished, they
said, between the man and the cause which he re-
presented.
For a year or two the patriot had been content with
the mere echo of this applause as it was wafted to
him in Paris. But, cash failing him there, and the
parliament from which he had been ejected having
been dissolved, he had returned to England early in
17G8, had offered himself as a candidate for the City
of London, had lost that election, but had almost
instantly afterwards been returned for the county of
WILKES AND LIBERTY.
Middlesex. Hereupon he had ventured to surrender
himself to the process of the law ; and the result had
been his condemnation, in June, 17(i8, to pay a fine
of 1,00U/., and undergo an imprisonment of twenty-
two months. Nor had this been all. No sooner had
Parliament met than it had proceeded to expel the
member for Middlesex. Then had begun the tug of
war between Parliament and the People. Thirteen
days after his expulsion, the exasperated electors of
Middlesex had again returned Wilkes as their repre-
sentative, no one having dared to oppose him. Again
the House had expelled him, and again the electors
had returned him. Not till after the fourth farce of
election had the contest ceased. On that occasion
three other candidates had presented themselves; and
one of them. Colonel Luttrell, having polled 296 votes,
had been declared by the House to be duly elected,
notwithstanding that the votes for Wilkes had been
four times as numerous. Tremendous then had been
the outcry of popular indignation. During the whole
of the years 17G8 and 1769 " the violation of the
right of election by parliamentary despotism" had
been the great topic of the country; and in the be-
ginning of 1770 this was still the question of the hour,
the question forced by the people into all other dis-
cussions, and regarding which all candidates for popular
favour, from Chatham himself down to the parish
CBATTERTON.
beadle, were obliged distinctly to declare them-
selves.
jMeanwliile, Wilkes was in the King's Bench, South-
wark. His consolations, we may suppose, were that
by all tliis his popularity had been but increased, that
Parson Home and the Society for the Protection of
the BiU of Eights had organised a subscription in his
favour, which would more than pay his fine, and that
the whole country was waiting to do him honour on
the day when he should step out of prison.
It came at last: Tuesday, the 17th of April, 1770.
There was a considerable show of excitement all day
in the vicinity of the prison; and it was with some
difficulty that the patriot, getting into a hackney-coach
late in the afternoon, made his way, past the cordial
clutches of the mob, into the country. That evening
and the next there were huzzas and illuminations in
his honour ; the house of Beckford, the Lord Mayor,
in the then aristocratic region of Soho Square, was
conspicuously decorated with the word " Liberty ; "
and public dinners to celebrate the release of the
patriot were held in various parts of the city.
The rejoicings were not confined to London. In
many other towns in England there were demonstra-
tions in honour of Wilkes. A list of the chief places
may still be culled from the newspapers of the day.
From these newspapers we learn, what indeed might
WILKES AND LIBERTY. 9
have been indepeiidently surmised, that not the least
eager among the towns of England, in this emulous
show of regard for Wilkes, was the ancient mercantile
city of Bristol. Tlie following appeared in the ruhlic
Advertiser of London, as from a Bristol correspondent,
on the very day of Wilkes's release: —
" Bristol, April 14:fh. — We hear that on Wednesday
next, being the day of Mr. Wilkes's enlargement,
forty-five persons are to dine at the ' Crown,' in the
passage leading from Broad Street to Tower I>ane. The
entertainment is to consist of two rounds of beef, of
45 lbs. each ; two legs of veal, weighing 45 lbs. ; two
ditto of pork, 45 lbs. ; a pig, roasted, 45 lbs. ; two
puddings of 45 lbs. ; 45 loaves ; and, to drink, 45
tankards of ale. After dinner, they are to smoke 45
pipes of tobacco, and to drink 45 bowls of punch.
Among others, the following toasts are to be given : —
1. Long live the Iving; 2. Long live the supporters
of British Liberty ; 2. The Magistrates of Bristol. And
the dinner to be on the table exactly 45 minutes after
two o'clock."
AVhether the precise dinner thus announced by the
Bristol correspondent of the Puhlic Advertiser was held
or not must, we fear, remain a mystery ; but that
there were several dinners in Bristol on the occasion
is quite certain. On Thursday, the 19th, in particular,
a public entertainment (possibly the above, with the
day altered) was given in honour of the patriot by
10 CHATTERTON.
"an eniiuent citizen," and attended by many of the
most influential men in the place.
Ah ! the poetry of coincidences ! On that same
Thursday evening, while the assembled guests in the
" Crown " were clattering their glasses in the hot room,
pnffing their tobacco-smoke, and making the roof ring
with their tipsy uproar, there was walking moodily
through the streets of Bristol a young attorney's ap-
prentice, who, four days before, had been discharged
from his employment because he had alarmed his mas-
ter by threatening to commit suicide. This attorney's
apprentice was Thomas Chatterton.
CHAPTER 11,
THE ATTORNEY'S AFF RENT ICE OF BRISTOL.
It was in the month of August 1760 that a poor
widow, who supported herself and two children by
dressmaking, and by keeping a small day-school in
one of the back streets of Bristol, gained admission
for her younger child, a boy of seven years and nine
months old, into Colston's School, a charitable founda-
tion similar in some respects to Christ's Hospital in
London. The husband of this widow, a rough, drunken
fellow, who had been a singer, or sub-chaunter, in the
cathedral choir of Bristol, as well as the master of a
kind of free school for boys, had died a month or two
before his son's birth. An old grandmother, how-
ever — either the widow's own mother or her husband's
— was still alive, dependent, in some degree, on the
family.
For nearly seven years, or from August 17G0 to
July 1707, the boy remained an inmate of Colston's
12 CHATTERTON.
School, wearing, as the Christ's Hospital hoys in
London still do, a hlue coat and yellow stockings,
and receiving, according to the custom of the institu-
tion, such a plain education as might fit him for an
ordinary mercantile or mechanical occupation. But,
from the very first, the hoy was singular. For one
thing, he w^as a prodigious reader. The Bible, theolo-
gical treatises, scraps of history, old magazines, poetry,
whatever in the shape of a printed volume came in
his way — all were eagerly pounced upon and devoured ;
and it was not long before his reputation in this respect
enabled him to lay one or two circulating libraries
under friendly contribution. Then, again, his temper,
people remarked, had something in it quite unusual
in one so young. Generally very sullen and silent,
he was liable to sudden and unaccountable fits of
weeping, as well as to violent fits of rage. He was
also extremely secretive, and fond of being alone ; and
on Saturday and other holiday afternoons, when he
was at liberty to go home from school, it was a subject
of speculation with his mother, Mrs. Chatterton, and
her acquaintances, what the boy could be doing, sitting
alone, for hours, as was his habit, in a garret full of all
kinds of out-of-the-way lumber.
When he was about ten years of age, it became
known to some of his seniors that the little Bluecoat
was in the habit of writing verses. It is supposed that
THE ATTORNEY 'a APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 13
a taste for that exercise had been roused in him, as
well as in other boys in Colston's Scliool, by the usher or
under-master of the school, a Mr. Thomas I'liillips,
who himself dabbled in literature, and contributed to
periodicals. If so, however, the little pupil does not
seem to have taken even the usher into his confidence
originally, but to have proceeded on his own account.
His first known attempt in verse had been a pious
little achievement, entitled " On the Last Epiphany ;
•or, Christ's coming to Judgment ; " and so proud had
he been of this performance, and so ambitious of seeing
it in print, that he boldly dropped it, one Saturday
afternoon, into the letter-box of Felix Farley's Bristol
Journal, a weekly newspaper in high local repute. It
appeared in the columns of that newspaper on the 8 th
of January, 1763. From that day Chatterton was a
sworn poet. Piece after piece was dropped by him
during a period of three years into the letter-box of
the accommodating Journal. Only one of these, how-
ever, is it necessary to mention particularly — a little
lampoon, printed the 7th of January, 1764, and entitled
" The Churchwarden and the Apparition ; a Fable."
A Mr. Joseph Thomas, a brickmaker by trade, chancing
in that year to hold the office of churchwarden for the
parish of St. ]Mary lledclifte, had greatly scandalized
the public mind by causing the old churchyard to be
levelled, and the surplus earth and clay to be carted
14 CRATTERTON.
away, as people said, for his own professional uses.
For this outrage on decorum he was much attacked
by the local press, and nowhere more severely than
in the above-mentioned verses of the little Bluecoat;
in whom, by-the-bye, there must have been a kind of
hereditary resentment of such a piece of sacrilege, as
his ancestors, the Chattertons, had been sextons of the
church of St. Mary Eedcliffe for a period of one hundred
and fifty years continuously. The ofSce had, in fact,
only passed out of the family on the death of an older
brother of his father, named John Chatterton.
The date does not seem quite certain, but it was
probably nearly three years after this occurrence, and
when Chatterton was above fourteen years of age, and
one of the senior boys in the Bluecoat School, that he
stepped, one afternoon, into the shop of a Mr. Burgum,
partner of a Mr. Catcott in the pewter trade,
" I have found out a secret about you, Mr. Burgum,"
he said, going up to the pewterer at his desk.
" Indeed : what is it ? " said Mr. BurQ;um.
" That you are descended from one of the noblest
families in England."
" I did not know it," said the victim,
" It is true though," said Chatterton ; " and, to prove
it, I will bring you your pedigree written out, as I
have traced it by the help of books of the peerage and
old parchments."
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 15
Accordingly, a few days afterwards, he again called,
and presented the astonished pewterer with a manu-
script copybook, headed in large text as follows:
"Account of the Family of the De Berghams, from
the Norman Conquest to this Time ; collected from
original Records, Tournament EoUs, and the Heralds
of March and Garter Records, by T, Chatterton." In
this document the Burgum pedigree was elaborately
traced up, through no end of great names and illus-
trious intermarriages, to one " Simon de Seyncts Lyze,
alias Senliz," who had come into England with the
Conqueror, married a daughter of the Saxon chief
Waltheof, become possessed of Burgham Castle in
Northumberland, and other properties, and been even-
tually created Earl of Northampton.
Pleased with the honours thus unexpectedly thrust
upon him, the pewterer gave the Bluecoat five shillings
for his trouble. To show his gratitude, Chatterton
soon returned with "A Continuation of the Account
of the Family of the De Berghams, from the Norman
Conquest to this time." In the original pedigree the
young genealogist had judiciously stopped short at the
sixteenth century. In the supplement, however, he
ventures as far down as the reign of Charles II., back
to which point the pewterer is left to supply the links
for himself. But the chief feature in the pedigree,
as elaborated in the second document, is that, in addi-
16^ CHA TTERTON.
tion to other great names, it contains a poet. This
poet, whose name was John de Bergham, was a monk
of the Cistercian order, in Bristol; he had been edu-
cated at Oxford, and was "one of the greatest orna-
ments of the age in which he lived." He wrote several
books, and translated some part of the Iliad, under
the title of " Eomance of Troy." To give Mr, Burgum
some idea of the poetic style of this distinguished man,
his ancestor, there was inserted a short poem of his in
the ancient dialect, entitled, " The Eomaunte of the
Cnychte;" and, to render the meaning of the poem
more intelligible, there was appended a modern metri-
cal paraphrase of it by Chatterton himself.
By the eclat of this wonderful piece of genealogical
and heraldic ingenuity done for Mr. Burgum, as well
as by the occasional exercise in a more or less public
manner of his talent for verse-making, Chatterton,
already recognised as the first for attainments among
all the lads in Colston's School, appears to have won
a kind of reputation with a few persons of the pew-
terer's stamp out of doors — honest people, with small
pretensions to literature themselves, but willing to
encourage a clever boy whose mother was in poor
circumstances.
It was probably through the influence of such
persons that, after having been seven years at the
school, he was removed from it, in July, 1767, to be
TffE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 17
apprenticed to Mr. Jolin Lambert, a Bristol attorney.
The trustees of Colston's School paid to Lambert, on
the occasion, a premium of ten pounds ; and the
arrangement was that Chatterton should be bound
to him for seven years, during which period he was
to board and lodge in j\Ir. Lambert's house, his mother
undertaking to wash and mend for him. There was
no salary; but, as happens in such cases, there were
probably means in Bristol by which a lad writing, as
Chatterton did, a neat clerk's hand, could hope to earn,
now and then, a few stray shillings. At any rate, he
had the prospect of finding himself, at the end of seven
years, in a fair way to be a Bristol attorney.
Lambert's office-hours were from eight in the morn-
ing till eight in the evening, with an interval for
dinner. From eight till ten in the evening the appren-
tice was at liberty ; but he was required to be home
at his master's house, which was at some distance from
the office, punctually by ten. An indignity which he
felt very much, aud more than once complained of,
was that, by the household arrangements, which were
under the control of an old lady, his master's mother,
he was sent to take his meals in the kitchen, and made
to sleep with the footboy. To set against this, liow-
ever, there was the advantage of plenty of spare time ;
for, as Lambert's business was not very extensive, the
apprentice was often left alone in the office with nothing
c. c
18 CHATTERTON.
special to do, and at liberty to amuse himself as he liked.
From copying letters and precedents, he could turn
to Camden's Britannia, an edition of which lay on the
office- shelves, to Holinshed's Chronicles, to SpegMs
Chaucer, to Geoffrey of Monmouth, or to any other book
that he could borrow from a library, and smuggle in
for his private recreation. Sometimes, also, the tradition
goes, his master, entering the office unexpectedly, would
catch him writing verses, and would lecture him on
the subject. Once the offence was still more serious.
An anonymous abusive letter had been sent to Mr.
Warner, the head-master of Colston's School ; and, by
the texture of the paper and other evidences, this letter
was traced to the ex-Bluecoat of Mr. Lambert's office,
whose reasons for sending it had probably been personal
On this occasion his master was so exasperated as to
strike him.
A young attorney's apprentice, of proud and sullen
temper, discontented with his situation, ambitious, con-
scious of genius, yet treated as a boy and menial ser-
vant : such was Chatterton during the two years that
followed his removal from the Bluecoat School. To
this add tlie want of pocket-money ; for, busy as he was
with his master's work and his own secret exercises
in the way of literature, it is still authentically known
that he found time of an evening not only to drop in
pretty regularly at his mother's house, but also to do
TH,E ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. H)
as other attorneys' apprentices did, and i)rosecute little
amusements, such as all apprentices like to lind prac-
ticable. Altogether, the best glimpse we have of
Chatterton in his commoner aspect as an attorney's
apprentice in Bristol is that which we get from a
letter written by him, during his first year with Mr.
Lambert, to a youth named Baker, who had been his
chum at Colston's School, and had emigrated to
America. Baker had written to him from South Caro-
lina, informing him, amongst other things, that he had
fallen in love with an American belle, of the name of
Hoy land, whose charms had obscured his memory of
the Bristol fair ones, and begging him, it would also
appear, to woo the ]Muses in his favour, and transmit
him across the Atlantic a poem or two, to be presented
to Miss Hoyland. Chatterton complies, and sends a
long letter, beginning with a few amatory effusions to
Miss Hoyland, such as Baker wanted, and concluding
thus : —
"March 6th, 1768.
"Dear Friend, — T must now close my poetical
labours, my master being returned from London. You
write in a very entertaining style ; though I am afraid
mine will be to the contrary. Your celebrated JSIiss
Eumsey is going to be married to JNIr. Fowler, as he
himself informs me. Pretty children! about to enter
into the comfortable yoke of matrimony, to be at their
liberty ; just d propos to the old saw, ' But out of the
c 2
20 CHATTERTON.
frying-pan into the fire.' For a luver, heavens mend
him ! but for a liusband, oh, excellent ! What a female
Machiavel this Miss Rumsey is ! A very good mistress
of nature, to discover a demon in the habit of a parson ;
to find a spirit so well adapted to the humour of an
English wife; that is, one who takes off his hat to
every person he chances to meet, to show his staring
horns ! . . . mirahih, what will human nature de-
generate into ? Fowler aforesaid declares he makes a
scruple of conscience of being too free with Miss
Eumsey before marriage. There's a gallant for you !
Why, a girl with anything of the woman would despise
him for it. But no more of this. I am glad you
approve of the ladies in Charlestown, and am obliged
to you for the compliment of including me in your
happiness. My friendship is as firm as the white rock
when the black waves war around it, and the waters
burst on its hoary top ; when the driving wind ploughs
the sable sea, and the rising waves aspire to the clouds,
turning with the rattling hail. So much for heroics ;
to speak plain English, I am, and ever will be, your
unalterable friend. 1 did not give your love to Miss
Rumsey, having not seen her in private ; and in public
she will not speak to me, because of her great love to
Fowler, and on another occasion. I have been violently
in love these three-and-twenty times since your depar-
ture, and not a few times came off victorious. I am
obliged to you for your curiosity, and shall esteem it
very much, not on account of itself, but as coming from
you. The poems, &c., on Miss Hoyland, I wish better,
for her sake and yours. The ' Tournament ' I have only
one canto of, which I send herewith ; the remainder is
entirely lost. I am, with the greatest regret, going to
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 21
subscribe myself your faithful and constant friend till
death do us part.
" Thomas Ciiatteetox.
"To Mk. Bakeu. Charlestown, South Carolina."
When Chatterton wrote .this letter he was fifteen
years and four months old. To its tone, as illustrative
of certain parts of his character, we shall have yet to
refer ; meanwhile let us attend to the mention made
in it of the Tournament, one canto of which is said to
be sent along with it. The poem here meant is doubt-
less the antique dramatic fragment published among
Chatterton's writings in the assumed guise of an ori-
ginal poem of the fifteenth century, descriptive of a-
tournament held at Bristol in the reign of Edward I.
From the manner of the allusion it is clear that as
early as this period of Chatterton's life — that is, before
the close of the first year of his apprenticeship — he
was in the habit of showing about to some of his
private friends poems in an antique style, which he
represented as genuine antiques, copied from old
parchments in his possession. It was not, how-
ever, till about si.x months after the date of the
foregoing epistle that he made his debut in the
professed character of an antiquarian and proprietor
of ancient manuscripts before the good folks of Bristol
generally.
In September, 1708, a new bridge was opened at
22 CHATTEBTON.
Bristol witli much civic pomp and ceremony. While
the excitement was still fresh, the antiquaries of the
town were startled by the appearance, in Felix Farley s
Journal, of a very interesting account of the cere-
monies that had attended the similar opening, several
centuries hefore, of the old bridge, which had just been
superseded. This account, communicated by an anony-
mous correspondent, signing himself " Dunhelmus Bris-
toliensis," purported to be taken from an old manuscript,
contemporary with the occurrence. It described how
tlie opening of the old bridge luul taken place on a
" Fridaie " ; how, on that " Fridaie ", the ceremonies
had begun by one " Master Greggorie Dalbenye ",
who went " aboute the tollynge of tlie tenth clock ",
to inform " Master ]\Iayor all thyngs were prepared " ;
how the procession to tlie bridge had consisted, first,
of " two Beadils streying fresh stre ", then of a man
dressed as " a Saxon Elderman ", then of " a mickle
strong manne in armour carrying a huge anlace ('i.e.
sword) ", then of " six claryons and minstrels ", then of
" Master Mayor " on a white horse, then of " the
Eldermen and Cittie Brothers" on sable horses, and,
finally, of " the preests, parish, mendicant, and seculor,
some synging Saincte Warburgh's song, others sound-
ing claryons thereto, and others some citrialles " ; how,
when the procession had reached the bridge, the
" manne with the anlace " took his station on a mound
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 23
reared in the middle of it ; liow the rest gathered round
him, " the preestes and freers, all in white albs, making
a most goodlie shewe", and singing "the song of
Saiucte Baldwyn " ; how, when this was done, " the
nianne on the top threwe with greet myght his anlace
into tlie see, and the claryons sounded an auntiant
cliarge and forloyn " ; how then there was more sing-
ing, and, at the town-cross, a Latin sermon " preeched
by lialph de Blundeville " ; and how the day was
ended by festivities, tlie performance of the play of
" The Knyghtes of Bristowe " by the friars of St,
Augustine, and the lighting of a great bonfire on
Kynwulph Hill.
The antiquaries of the town were eager to know
the anonymous "Dunhelmus Bristoliensis " who had
contributed this perfectly novel document to the
archives of Bristol ; and they succeeded in identifying
him with Mr. Lambert's singular apprentice, — the dis-
coverer, as they would now learn, of a similar piece
of antiquity in the shape of a pedigree for Mr. Burgum,
the pewterer. Examined, coaxed, and threatened, on
the subject of his authority, Chatterton prevaricated,
but at last adhered to the assertion that the manuscript
in question was one of a collection which had belonged
to his father, who had obtained them from the laige
chest or coffer in the nnininicnt-room of the church of
St. Mary Eedcliffe. And here, whether owing to his
24 CHATTERTON.
obstinacy or the stupidity of the inquisitors, the matter
was allowed to rest.
The general impression that followed the discovery
of the author of the communication relative to the
opening of the old bridge was that Mr. Lambert's
apprentice was really a very extraordinary lad, who,
besides being a poet in a small way, was also a dabbler
in antiquities, and had somehow or other become
possessed, as he said himself, of valuable materials
respecting the history of Bristol. Accordingly he be-
came, in some sense, a local celebrity. Among the
persons who now took him by the hand, if they
had not been already acquainted with him, at least
three were of some name and importance in Bristol —
Mr. George Catcott, the partner of Mr. Burgum ; his
brother, the Eev. Alexander Catcott, vicar of one of the
Bristol parish-churches ; and Mr. Barrett, a surgeon in
good practice. Two of these had a reputation as
literary men. ]\Ir. William Barrett, the surgeon, was
not only a sedate and jjrosperous professional man, but
of repute as an antiquarian, and was known to be en-
gaged in writing a History of Bristol. The Eev. Mr.
Catcott had written a book in support of the Noachian
view of the Deluge, and was, besides, according to
Chatterton's delineations of him, a kind of oracle on
scientific points at Bristol tea-parties, where, " shewing
wondering cits his fossil store," he would expound his
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 25
orthodox theory of spring's, rocks, mountains, and
strata. "What the clerical Catcott was at refined tea-
parties his coarser brother, the pewterer, was at taverns.
Chattertou thus hits him off: —
" So at Llewellyn's your great brother sits,
The laughter of his tributary wits,
liuling the noisy multitude with ease, —
Empties his pint, and sputters his decrees,"
Besides the two Catcotts, Barrett, and Burgum (with
whom may be associated,, in a vague way, the Rev.
My. Broughton, vicar of St. Mary Eedcliffe), the follow-
ing are more or less heard of as among the acquaint-
ances of Chatterton in Bristol during his apprenticeship
in Mr. Bambert's office — Mr. Thomas Phillii)8, the usher
or under-master of Colston's School, already mentioned ;
Mr. Matthew ]\Iease, a vintner; Messrs. Allen and
Broderip, two musicians and church-organists of the
town; Mr. Clayfield, a distiller, "a worthy, generous
man;" Mr. Alcock, a miniature-painter; T. Gary, a
pipe-maker ; H. Kator, a sugar-baker ; William Smith,
a player ; J. Piudhall, an apothecary's apprentice ; and
James Thistlethwaite, who had been a Colston's charity-
boy with Chatterton, and had been apprenticed to a
Bristol stationer. There are references also to some
acquaintances of the other sex : Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Carty,
Miss Webb, Miss Sandford, Miss Bush, Miss Thatcher,
Miss Hill, and others ; the most conspicuous of all, and
26 CHATTERTON.
the only one between whom and Chatterton one is able
to surmise a sentimental relation, being that " female
Machiavel, Miss Paimsey," so spitefully described in
the letter to the transatlantic Mr. Baker. On the whole,
however, the Catcotts, Barrett, and Burgum, come most
into notice. On the Rev. Mr. Catcott, Chatterton, we
are to suppose, drops in occasionally, to listen to a pre-
lection on fossils and the Deluge ; Burgum and the
other Catcott he may sometimes meet at Matthew
Mease's, where Catcott acts the chairman ; and from
Barrett, on w"hom he calls at his surgery once a week
or so, he receives sensible advices as to the propriety
of making poetry subordinate to his profession, as
well as (what he greatly prefers) tlie loan of medical
and uncommon books.
It was amid this little public of heterogeneous in-
dividuals — clergymen, surgeons, tradesmen, vintners, and
young apprentices like himself — that Chatterton pro-
duced his Eowley Poems and other antique writings.
As early as the date of the Burgum pedigree, we have
seen, he had ventured to bring out one antique
piece, the Romaunte of the CnycJde by the so-called
John de Bergham. To this had been added, as early
as the commencement of 1768, the " Tournament,"
mentioned in tlie letter to Baker, and perhaps other
pieces. Farther, in the account of the opening of the
old bridge (September, 1768), references are introduced
THE ATTORNEY'S APPBENTICE OF BLISTOL. 27
to the " Songe of Saincte WarLurgli," and the " Soiige
of Saincte Baldwyn," showing that those antiques must
liave been tlien extant. In short, there is evidence
that, before the conclusion of liis sixteenth year, Chat-
terton had produced at least a portion of his alleged
antiques. But the year that followed, or from the close
of 17G8 to the close of 1709, seems to have been his
most prolific period in this respect. In or about the
winter of 1 708-9 — that is, when he had just completed
his sixteenth year— he produced, in the circle of his
friends above mentioned, his ballad of The Bristowe
Tragedie; his "tragical interlude" of yElla, in itself
a large poem ; his Elinoure and Jnga, a fine pastoral
poem of the Wars of the Roses; and numerous other
pieces of all forms and lengths, in the same antique
spelling. Then, also, did he first distinctly give the
account of those pieces to which he ever afterwards
adhered : to wit, that they were, for the greater part,
the compositions of Thomas Eowley, a priest of Bristol
of the fifteenth century, many of whose manuscripts,
preserved in the muniment-room of the church of
St. Mary, had come into his hands.
The Catcotts were the persons most interested in the
recovered manuscripts ; and, whenever Chatterton had
a new poem of Rowley's on his hands, it was usually
to Mr. George Catcott that he first gave a copy of it.
To Mr. Barrett, on the other hand, he usually imparted
28 CHATTERTON.
such scraps of ancient records, deeds, accounts of old
churches, &c., as were likely to be of use to that
gentleman in preparing his History of Bristol. So
extensive, in fact, were the surgeon's obligations to the
young man that he seems to have thought it impossible
to requite them otherwise tlian by a pecuniary recom-
pense. Accordingly, there is evidence of an occasisonal
guinea or half-guinea having been transferred from the
pocket of Mr. Barrett to that of Chatterton on the score
of literary assistance rendered to Barrett in the progress
of his work. From the Catcotts, too, Chatterton seems,
on similar grounds, to have now and then obtained
something. That they were not so liberal as they
might have been, however, the following bill in Chat-
terton's handwriting will show : —
" Mr. G. Catcott
To the Executors of T. Rowley.
To pleasure reed, in readg. his Historic works . .£550
his Poetic works ... 5 5
£10 10 0"
Whether the above was splenetically sent to Catcott,
or whether it was only drawn up by Chatterton in a
cashless moment by way of frolic, is not certain ; the
probability, however, is, that, if it was sent, the pew-
terer did not think it necessary to discharge it. Yet
he was not such a hard subject as his partner, Burgum,
TffE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 29
whom Chatterton (no doubt after suiricient trial) repre-
sents as stinginess itself.
But it was not only as a young man of extensive
antiquarian knowledge and of decided literary talent
that Chatterton was known in Bristol. As the tran-
scriber of the Eowley Poems, and the editor of curious
pieces of information, derived from ancient manuscripts
which he was understood to have in his possession, the
Catcotts, Barrett, and the rest, had no lault to find
with him ; but there were other phases in which he
appeared, by no means so likely to recommend him to
their favour, or to the favour of such other influential
persons in the community as might have been disposed
to patronise modesty in combination with youth and
literature.
In a town of 70,000 inhabitants (which was about
the population of Bristol at that time) it must be
remembered that all the public characters are marked
men. The mayor, the various aldermen and common-
councilmen, the city clergymen, the chief grocers,
bankers, and tradesmen, the teachers of the public
schools, kc, are all recognised as they pass along the
streets; and their peculiarities, physical and moral,
such as the red nose of Alderman Such-an-one, the
wheezy voice of the Kev. Sucli-another, and the blus-
teriTig self-importance of citizen Such-a- third, are per-
fectly familiar to the civic imagination. Now, it is the
CHATTERTON.
most natural of all things for a young man in such a
town, just arrived at a tolerable conceit of himself, and
determined to have a place some day in Mr. Craik's
" Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," to be seized
with a tremendous disrespect for everything locally
sacred, and to delight in avowing the same. What
nonsense tliey do talk in the town-council ; what a
miserable set of mercantile rogues are the wealthy
citizens; what an absence of liberality and higli general
intelligence there is in the whole procedure of the com-
munity : these are the common-places (often, it must be
confessed, true enough) through which the high-spirited
young native of a middle-class British town must
almost necessarily pass, on his way to a higher appre-
ciation of men and things. Through the sorrows of
Lichfield, the Lichfield youth realizes how it is that all
creation groaneth and travaileth ; and, pinched by the
inconveniences of Dundee, the aspirant who is there
nursed into manhood turns down his collar at all
things, and takes a Byronic view of the entire universe.
Chatterton was specially liable to this discontent
with all around him. Of a dogged, sullen, and pas-
sionate disposition, not without a considerable spice of
malice; treated as a boy, yet with a brain believing
itself the most powerful in Bristol ; sadly in want
of pocket-money for purposes more or less question-
able, and having hardly any means of procuring it —
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 31
he took liis revenge out in satire against all that was
respectable in Bristol. If Mr. Thomas Ilarri.s, then
the Itight Worshipful Mayor of the city, passed him
on the pavement, either ignorant what a youth of
genius he was pushing aside, or looking down some-
what askance, as a mayor will do at an attorney's
apprentice that will not take off his hat when he is
expected, the thought that probably arose in his breast
was, "You are a purse-proud fool, Mr. Mayor, and I
have more sense in my little finger than you have in
your whole body." If there was a civic dinner, and
Chatterton was told of it, he would remark what
feeding there would be among the aldermen and city
brothers, what guzzling of claret, and what after-dinner
speeches by fellows that could not pronounce their h's
and hardly knew how to read. If he chanced to sit in
church, hearing the Eev. Dr. Cutts Barton, then Dean
of Bristol, preach, what would pass in his mind would
be, " You are a drowsy old rogue, Cutts, and have no
more religion in you than a sausage." Even when Dr.
Newton, the Bishop of the diocese, editor of Milton
and distinguished prelate as he was, made his appear-
ance in the pulpit, he would not be safe from the
excoriations of this young critic in the distant pew.
Chatterton's own friends and acquaintances, too, came
in for their share of his sarcasms. Lambert, we believe,
he hated; and we have seen how he could wreak a
32 CHATTERTON.
personal grudge on an old teacher. The Eev. Mr.
Catcott, not a bad fellow in the main, he soon set
down, in his own private opinion, as a narrow-minded
parson, with no force or philosophy, conceited with his
reputation at tea-parties, and a dreadful bore with his
fossils and his theory of the Deluge. His brother, the
unclerical Catcott, again, had probably more wit and
vigour, but dogmatised insufferably over his beer;
Burgum was a vain, stingy, ungrammatical goose ; and
Mr. Barrett, witli all his good intentions, was too fond
of giving common-place advices. In short, Bristol was
a vile place, where originality or genius, or even ordi-
nary culture and intelligence, had no chance of being
appreciated ; and to spend one's existence there would
be but a life-long attempt to teach a certain class of
animals the value and the beauty of pearls !
Poor unhappy youth ! how, through the mist and din
of many years past and gone since then, I recognise
thee walking, in the winter evenings of 1769-70,
through the dai'k streets of Bristol, or out into its
dark environs, ruminating such evil thoughts as these !
And what, constituting myself for the moment the
mouthpiece of all that society has since pronounced
on thy case, should I, leaping back over the long years
to place myself at thy side, whisper to thee by way of
counsel or reproach ? —
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 33
" Persist ; be content ; be more modest ; think less of
forbidden indulgences ; give up telling lies ; attend to
your master's business ; and, if you ivill cherish the fire
of genius, and become a poet and a man of name, like
the Johnsons, the Goldsmiths, the Churchills, and others
whom you think yourself born to equal or surpass, at
least study patience, have faith in honourable courses,
and realize, above all, that wealth and fame are vanity,
and that whether you succeed or fail it will be all the
same a hundred years after this."
" Easily said," thou wouldst answer ; " cheaply ad-
vised ! I also could speak as you do ; if your soul
were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against
you, and shake mine head at you. That the present
will pass, and that a hundred years hence all the
tragedy or all the farce will have been done and over
— true; I know it. Nevertheless I know also that,
minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, the
present must be moved through and exhausted ! ' A
hundred years after this ! ' Did not Manlius the
Eoman know it ; and yet was there not a moment in
the history of the world — a moment to be fully felt and
gone through by Manlius — when, flung from the Tar-
peian rock, he, yet living, hung halfway between his
gaping executioners above and his ruddy death among
the stones below ? ' A hundred years after this 1 '
Pompeius, the Koman, knew it ; and yet was there not
C. D
34 GHATTERTON.
a moment in the history of the world — a moment fully
to be endured by Pompeius — when, reading in the
treacherous boat, he sat halfway between the ship that
bore his destinies and his funeral pile on the Libyan
shore ? Centuries back in the past those moments now
lie engulphed ; but what is that to me ? It is my turn
now ; here I am, wretched in this beastly Bristol,
where Savage was allowed to starve in prison ; and,
by the very fact that I live, I have a right to my
solicitude ! "
Obstinate boy ! is there then aught that can still,
with some show of sense, be advised to you ? Seek
a friend. Leave the Catcotts, lay and clerical, the
Burgums, the Barretts, the Matthew Meases, and the rest
of them, and seek some one true friend, such as surely
even Bristol can supply, of about the same age as your-
self, or, what were better, somewhat older. See him
daily, walk with him, smoke with him, laugh with him,
discuss religion with him, hear his experiences, show your
poetry to him, and, above all, make a clean breast to him
of your various delinquencies. Or, more efficient per-
haps still, fall really in love. Avoid the Miss Eumseys,
and find out some beauty of a better kind, to whom,
with or without hope, you can vow the future of your
noblest heart. Find her ; walk beneath her window ;
catch glimpses of her ; dream of her ; if fortune favours,
woo her, and (true you are but seventeen !) win her.
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 3r.
Bristol will then be a paradise ; its sky will be light-
some, its streets beautiful, its mayor tolerable, its
clergy respectable, and all its warehouses palaces!
Is this also nonsense? Well, then, my acquaint-
ance with general biography enables me to tell you
of one particular family at this moment living in
Bristol, with which it might be well for you to get
acquainted. Mr. Barrett might be able to introduce
you. The family I mean is that of the Mores, five
sisters, who keep a boarding-school for young ladies
in Park-street, " the most flourishing establishment of
its kind in the west of England." The Miss Mores, as
you know, are praised by all the mothers in Bristol as
extremely clever and accomplished young women ; and
one of them, Miss Hannah, is, like yourself, a writer
of verses, and, like yourself, destined to literary cele-
brity. Now T do not wish to be mischievous; but,
seeing that posterity will wish that you two, living
as you did in the same town, should at least have met
and spoken with each other, might I suggest a notion
to you ? Coidd you not elope with Hannah More ?
True, she is seven years your senior, extremely sedate,
and the very last person in the world to be guilty of
any nonsense with an attorney's apprentice. Never-
theless, try. Just think of the train of conseqiiences —
the whole boarding-school in a flutter; all Bristol
scandalised ; paragraphs in Fdic Farley s Journal ;
D 2
3G CHATTERTON.
and posterity effectually cheated of two things — the
tragic termination of your life, and the admirable
old maidenhood of hers !
Chatterton did not conceal his contempt from the
very persons it was most likely to offend. Known
not only as a transcriber of ancient English poetry^
but also as a poet in his own person, he began to
support his reputation in the latter character by pro-
ducing from time to time, along with his Eowley
poems, certain compositions of his own in a modern
satirical vein. In these compositions, which were
written after the manner of Churchill, there was the
strangest possible jumble of crude Whig politics and
personal scurrility against local notabilities. What
effect they were likely to have on Chatterton's posi-
tion in his native town may be inferred from a
specimen or two. How would Broderip, the organist,
like this ? —
" While Broderip's humdrum symphonies of flats
Eival the harmony of midnight cats."
Or the lay Catcott this allusion to a professional feat
of his in laying the topstone of a spire? —
" Catcott is very fond of talk and fame —
His wish a perpetuity of name ;
Which to procure, a pewter altar's made
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 37
To bear his name and signify his trade,
In pomp burlesqued the rising spire to head,
To tell futurity a pewterer's dead."
And how would the clerical Catcott like this reference
to his orthodoxy ? —
" Mi<rht we not, Catcott, then infer from hence
Your zeal for Scripture hatli devoured your sense ? "
Or what would the mayor say to this ? —
" Let Harris wear his self-sufficient air,
Nor dare remark, for Harris is a mayor."
Or the civic dignity of Bristol generally to this ? —
" 'Tis doubtful if her aldermen can read :
This of a certainty the muse may tell,
None of her common-couucilmen can spell."
Clearly enough an attorney's apprentice that was in
the habit of showing about such verses was not in the
way to procure patronage and goodwill. If, however,
any of his friends remonstrated with him, his answer
was ready : —
" Damn'd narrow notions, tending to disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race !
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still ;
But know, my saving friends, 1 never will.
The couiposition of my soul is made
Too great for servile, avaricious trade.
When, raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch the pen, and publish what I think."
38 CHA TTEETON.
Accordingly Chatterton continued to support, in the
eyes of the portion of the community of Bristol that
knew liim, a twofold cliaracter — that on the one hand
of an enthusiastic youth with much antiquarian know-
ledge, the possessor of many antique manuscripts,
chiefly poetry of the fifteenth century ; and that on the
other of an ill-conditioned boy of spiteful temper, the
writer of somewhat clever but very scurrilous verses.
Nay, more, it was observable that the latter character
was growing upon him, apparently at the expense of the
former; for while, up to his seventeenth year (1768-9),
his chief recreation seemed to be in his antiques and
Eowley MSS., after that date he seemed to throw his
antiques aside, and devote all his time to imitations
of the satires of Churchill, under such names as The
Consuliad, Kew Gardens, &c. And here the reader
must permit me a little Essay or Disquisitional Inter-
leaf on the Character and Writings of Chatterton.
All thinking persons have now agreed to abandon
that summary method of dealing with human character
according to which unusual and eccentric courses of
action are attributed to mere caprices on the part of
the individuals concerned, mere obstinate determina-
tions to go out of the common route.
" Tlie dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man,"
TflE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 3!)
is a maxim less in repute than it once was. In such
cases as that of Chatterton, it is now believed, deeper
causes are always operating than the mere wish to
deceive people and make a figure.
Now, in the case of Chatterton, it appears, we must
first of all take for granted an extraordinary natural
precocity or prematurity of the faculties. We are
aware that there is a prejudice against the use of this
hypothesis. But why should it be so ? How other-
wise can we represent to ourselves the cause of that
diversity which we see in men than by going deeper
than all that we know of pedigree, and conceiving the
birth of every new soul to be, as it were, a distinct
creative act of the unseen Spirit ? That now, in some
Warwickshire village, the birth should be a Shake-
speare, and that, again, in the poor posthumous child
of a dissipated Bristol choir-singer the tiny body
should be shaken by the surcharge of soul within it,
are not miracles in themselves, but only variations in
the ereat standing miracle that there should be birth
at all. Nor with the idea of precocity is it necessary to
associate that either of disease or of insanity. There was
nothing in Chatterton to argue disease in the ordinary
sense, or to indicate that, had he lived, he might not,
like Pope or Tasso, who were also precocious, have gone
on steadily increasing in ability till the attainment of
a good old age. And, though it seems certain that
40 CHA TTEBTON.
there was a tendency to madness in the Chatterton
blood — Chatterton's sister, j\Irs. Newton, having after-
wards had an attack of insanity — the use of this fact
by Southey and others to explain the tenor of Chat-
terton's life has been much too hasty and inconsiderate,
A medical friend of ours avers that he never knew a
man of genius who had not some aunt or other in a
lunatic asylum, or at least fit for one ; and, so long as
we can account for Chatterton's singularities in any
other way, we see no reason, any more than in the
similar instance of Charles Lamb, why we should attri-
bute them to what was at the utmost only a dormant
taint of madness in his constitution.
Assuming, then, that Chatterton, without being either
a mere lusus naturce or insane, was simply a child of
very extraordinary endowments, we would point out,
as the predominant feature in his character, his re-
markable veneration for the antique. In the boyhood
even of Sir Walter Scott, born as he was in the very
midst of ballads and traditions, we see no manifesta-
tion of a love of the past and the historic nearly so
strong as that which possessed Chatterton from his
infancy. The earliest form in which this constitutional
peculiarity appeared in him seems to have been a fond-
ness for the ecclesiastical antiquities of his native city,
and, above all, an attachment to the old Gothic Church
of St. Mary Eedcliffe.
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 41
Some time ago we saw in a provincial Scottish news-
paper an obituary notice of a poor idiot named John
M'Bey, who had been for about sixty years a pro-
minent character in the village of Huntly, Aberdeen-
shire. Where the poor creature had been born, no one
knew ; he had been found, when apparently about ten
years old, wandering among the Gartly Hills, and had
been brought by some country people into the village.
Here, " supported by the kindness of several families,
at whose kitchen-tables he regularly took his place at
one or other of the meals of the day," he continued to
reside ever after, a conspicuous figure in the schoolboy
recollections of all the inhabitants for more than half a
century. The " shaggy carroty head, the vacant stare, the
idle trots and aimless walks of ' Jock,' could yet," said
the notice, " be recalled in a moment" by all that knew
him. "At an early period of his history," proceeded
the notice, " he had formed a strong affection for the
bell in the old ruined church of Iluthven, in the parish
of Cairnie ; and many were the visits he paid to that
object of, to liini, surpassing interest. Having dubbed
it with the name of ' Wow' he embraced every oppor-
tunity at funerals to get a pull of the rope, interpreting
the double peals, in his own significant language, to
mean, ' Come hame, come hame.' Every funeral going
to that cliurchyard was known to him ; and, till his
old age, he was generally the first person that appeared
42 CEATTERTON.
on the ground. The emblems of his favourite bell, in
bright yellow, were sewed on his garments ; and woe
to the schoolboy that should utter a word in depre-
ciation of his favourite. When near his end, he was
asked how he felt. He said ' he was ga'in awa' to the
wow, nae to come back again.' After his death, he was
laid in his favourite burying-place, within sound of
his cherished bell."
Do not despise this little story, reader. To our
mind it illustrates much. As this poor idiot, debarred
from all the general concerns of life, and untaught in
other people's tenets, had invented a religion for him-
self, setting up as a central object in his own narrow
circle of images and fancies an old ruined belfry,
which had somehow (who knows through what horror
of maternity ?) caught his sense of mystery, clinging
to this object with the whole tenacity of his affections,
and even devising symbols by which it might be ever
present to him : so, with more complex and less rude
accompaniments, does the precocious boy of Bristol
seem to have related himself to the Gothic fabric near
which he first saw the light. This church was his
fetich, his " wow." It was through it, as through a
metaphorical gateway, that his imagination worked itself
back into the great field of the past, so as to expatiate
on the ancient condition of his native " Brystowe "
and the whole olden time of England.
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 43
This is no fancy of ours. " Chatterton," says one of
his earliest acquaintances, tlie Mr. William Smith above
mentioned, " was fond of walking in the iields, parti-
"cularly in Eedcliffe meadows, and of talking of liis
" manuscripts, and sometimes reading them there. There
" was one spot in particular, full in view of the church,
" in which he seemed to take peculiar delight. He
" would frequently lay himself down, fix his eyes upon
" the church, and seem as if he were in a kind of
" trance ; then, on a sudden, he would tell me, ' That
"steeple. was burnt down by lightning; that was the
" place where they formerly acted plays.' " To the same
effect, also, many allusions to the church in the liowley
poems ; thus : —
" Thou seest this maestrie of a human hand,
The pride of Bristowe and the western land."
And here we may remind the reader of a circumstance
mentioned above : namely, that the ancestors of Chat-
terton had, for a hundred and fifty years, been sextons
of this same Church of St. Mary Eedcliffe, and that
the office had only passed out of the family on the
death of his father's elder brother, John. Chatterton's
father, too, it should be remembered, was a choir-singer
in the church ; and Chatterton himself, while a child,
had, in virtue of old family right and proximity of
residence, had the run of its aisles and galleries. Can
44 CHATTEETON.
it be, we would ask the physiological philosophers, that
a veneration for the edifice of St. Mary Eedcliffe, and
for all connected with it, had thus come down in the
Chatterton blood ; that the defunct old Chattertons,
Johns and Thomases in their series, who had, in times
gone by, paced along the inteiior of the churcli, jangling
its ponderous keys, brushing away its cobwebs, and
talking with its stony effigies of knights and saints
buried below, had thus acquired, in gradually-increasing
mass, a store of antique associations, to be transmitted,
as a fatal heritage, to the unhappy youtli in whom
their line was to become extinct and immortal ? One
can suppose that, in part, this was the case.
But Chatterton's disposition towards the antique did
not remain a mere fetichistic instinct of veneration for
the relic his ancestors had guarded. From his very
boyhood he entered with all the zeal of a reader and
intelligent inquirer into the service of his hereditary
feeling. It would not be long, for example, before,
passing from the edifice to its history, as recorded in
the annals of Bristol, he would learn to pronounce,
with undefinable reverence, the name of its founder,
William Canynge, the Bristol merchant of the fifteenth
century. AVhatever particulars were to he gleaned from
books regarding the life of this notable personage must
have been familiar to Chatterton long before he ceased
to be a Bluecoat scholar. How Canynge had been such
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 4.-)
a wealthy man that, according to William ol" Worcester,
he was owner of ten vessels, and gave employment to
one hundred mariners, as well as to one hundred arti-
ficers on shore; how lie had been as munificent as
he was wealthy ; how he had been mayor of Bristol in
1431, and four separate times afterwards; how he and
the town had become involved in the Wars of the
Eoses, and how, on the accession of Edward IV., he
had made the peace of the town by paying a fine to that
monarch ; how, finally, he had become a priest in his
old age, and devoted a large part of his fortune to the
erection, or rather reconstruction, of the Church of
St. Mary Redcliffe: all this knowledge, easily acces-
sible to an inquiring Bristol boy, Chatterton would
collect and ponder.
Chatterton, however, was not merely an inquisitive
lad; he was a young poet, full of enthusiasm and
constructive talent. Hence, not satisfied with a meagre
outline of the story of Canynge, as it could be derived
from the chronicles of Bristol, he set himself to fill up
the outline by conjectures and synchronisms, so as to
malv-e clear for himself " Canynge's Life and Times " as
a luminoTis little spot in the general darkness of the
English past. And here comes in the story of tlie
old parchments.
Over the north porch of St. Mary's Eedcliffe was a
room known as "the muniment-room." Here, at the
46 CHATTERTON.
begiiiDing of the eighteenth century, there lay six or
seven locked chests, which were understood to contain
old deeds and other writings. One of the chests was
traditionally known as " Mr. Canynge's Coffer." The
keys of this chest had been long lost; and when, in
the year 1727, it was deemed expedient to secure some
title-deeds that were believed to be contained in it,
a locksmith was employed to break it open. Such
documents as were thought of importance were then
removed, and the rest were left in the open chest as
of no value. The other chests were similarly treated.
Accordingly, parcels of the remaining contents were
subsequently, from time to time, carried off by various
persons ; and, in particular, it was remembered that,
when John Chatterton was sexton, his brother, the
choir-singer and teacher of Pyle Street school, had
carried off a quantity of them to be used as book-
covers and for suchlike purposes. A bundle of these
parchments remained in the possession of Mrs. Chat-
terton after her husband's death, and such of them as
had not been previously snipped into thread-papers
came into Chatterton's hands.
What these old documents really contained we have
no means of knowing. That some of them may have
been papers of historical value is not improbable. It
is certain, at least, that they interested Chatterton, that
the possession of them nourished his sense of the
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BlilHTOL. 47
antique, and that he learnt to deciplier parts of them,
catching out old hits of Latin phraseology, and the
like, which he mis-wrote in copying. We may even
go farther, and surmise that out of those papers he may
liave derived hints that were of iise to him in his
attempt to represent the circumstances of Canynge's
life. They may have helped him, for example, to
appropriate names for some of those fictitious or
semi-fictitious personages whom he thought proper
to group around Canynge in that tableau or his-
torical romance of " Bristol in the Fifteenth Cen-
tury" with the construction of which he regaled
himself.
Of these secondary dramatis ;personce, grouped in his
imagination around Canynge, the most important was
a supposed priest called Thomas Rowley, or more fully,
"Thomas Eowlie, parish-preeste of St. John's in the
city of Bristol." The relations between Canynge and
Rowley, as bodied forth in Chatterton's conception, were
as follows : — Rowley, who had been at school in Bristol
with Canynge, became chaplain to Canynge's father.
On that old gentleman's death, Canynge, then a rising
young merchant, continued the family patronage to his
schoolmate, and employed him, amongst other things,
in collecting manuscripts and drawings for him. About
the time of Canynge's first mayoralty, in 1431, Rowley
was settled as parish-priest of St. John's ; and from
48 CRATTERTON.
that time forward, for a period of thirty or forty years,
the two men continued on terms of the most friendly
and cordial intimacy — Canynge, the wealthiest man
in the west of England, and the civic soul of Bristol,
living as a liberal merchant-prince in a noble residence,
and Eowley, the man of books and literature, in a
modest priest's habitation, made comfortable by his
patron's munificence. These two men, with a few
others of minor activity — Carpenter, Bishop of Bristol ;
Sir Tibbot Gorges, a country gentleman of the neigh-
bourhood ; Sir Charles Baldwin, a brave knight of the
Lancastrian faction ; Iscam, another priest of Bristol ;
'Ladgate, a monk of London, &c. &c. — constituted, in
fact, an enlightened little club in Chatterton's ideal
Bristol of 1430-60, enlivening that city by their
amateur theatricals and other relaxations from more
severe business, and rendering it more distinguished
for culture than any other town in England, except
Oxford and London. The fine old merchant himself
occasionally uses his pen to some purpose ; as in his
epigram on the imaginary John k Dalbenie, a hot
politician of the town —
" John makes a jar 'bout Lancaster and York.
Be still, good man, and learn to mind thy work ! "
Generally, however, he abstains from literature himself,
and prefers reading or hearing the productions of his
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 49
friends Iscain and Rowley, but especially those of
Itowley, who is his poet-laureate.
Had Chatterton put forth this coinage of his brain
in the shape of a professed historical romance, all
would have been well. But, from working so lovingly
in the matter of antiquity, he had contracted also a
preference for the antique in fo7'm. As Scott, in the
very process of realizing the Queutiu Durwards, the
Mause Headriggs, and the Jedediah Cleishbothams of
his fictions, acquired in his own person an antique way
of thinking, and a mastery over the antique glossary,
if not a positive affection for it, so it became natural
to Chatterton, revelling as he did in conceptions
of the antique, to draw on an ancient-fashioned suit of
thought, and make use of antique forms of language.
Hence, when, prompted by his literary impulse, he
sought to embody in verse any of those traditions or
fictions relative to the past time of England Mhich
his enthusiasm for the antique had led him to fix
upon — as, for example, the story of the Danish in-
vasions of England, the story of the Battle of Hast-
ings, or the story of a tournament in the reign of
Edw^ard I. — he found himself obliged by a kind of
artistic necessity to impart a quaintness to his style
by the use of old vocables and idioms. Persisted
in for the mere pleasure of the exercise, the habit
M'ould become exaggerated, till at last it would
c. s
50 CBATTERTON.
amount to an ungovernable disposition to riot in the
obsolete.
Even so far, however, there was nothing blame-
worthy. In thus selecting a style artificially antique
for the conveyance of his historic fancies, Chatterton,
it might be affirmed, had but obeyed the proper
instinct of his genius, and chosen that element in
which he found he could work best. Every man has
his mode, or set of intellectual conditions, most favour-
able for the production and development of what is
best in him ; and in Chatterton's case this mode, this
set of conditions, consisted in an affectation of the
antique. For let anyone compare the Eowley Poems
of Chatterton with his own acknowledged productions,
and the conclusion will be inevitable that his forte was
the antique, and that here alone lay any preternatural
power he possessed. There are, indeed, in his acknow-
ledged poems, felicities of expression and gleams of
genius, showing that even as a modern poet he would
certainly in time have taken a high rank ; but, to do
justice to his astonishing abilities, one must read his
antique compositions. In the element of the antique
Chatterton rules like a master ; in his modern effusions
he is but a clever boy beginning to handle with some
effect the language of Pope and Dryden. Moreover,
there is a perceptible moral difference between the two
classes of his performances. In his antique poems
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. r>l
there is freshness, enthusiasm, and a fine sense of the
becoming ; throughout the modern ones we are offended
hy irreverence, malevolence, and a kind of vicious,
boyish pruriency. And, conscious as Chatterton must
have been of this difference, aware as he must have
been that it was when he wrote in his artificially-
antique style that his invention worked most power-
fully, his heart beat most nobly, and the poetic shiver
ran most keenly through his veins, we cannot wonder
that he should have given himself up to this kind of
literary recreation rather than to any other.
Unfortunately, however, meaner causes were all this
while at work. There was maliciousness towards
individuals ; there was craving for notoriety ; there
was delight in misleading people ; and, above all, there
was want of money. Moreover, for this unhappy com-
bination of moral states and dispositions it so happened
that the Grandfather of Lies had a very suitable
temptation ready, in the shape of that most successful
literary deceit, the Ossian Poems, then in the first
blush of their contested celebrity. Yielding to the
temptation, Chatterton resolved to turn what was best
and most original in his genius, his enthusiasm for the
antique, into the service of his worst propensities. In
other words, he resolved to adopt, with certain varia-
tions and adaptations to his own case, the trick of
Macpherson. That this was the act of one express and
E 2
52 CHATTERTON.
distinct determination of his will — a solemn and secret
compact with himself, made at_ a very early period
indeed, probably before the conclusion of his fifteenth
year — there can be no doubt. The elaboration of his
scheme of imposture, however, was gradual. The first
exhibition of it, and probably that which suggested
much that followed, was the Burgum Hoax, with its
after-thought of the old English poet, John de Bergham.
Of this original trick the Eowley device was but a
gigantic expansion. To invent a poet of the past, on
whom to father all his own compositions in the antique
style, and to give this poet a probable and fixed foot-
ing in history, was the essential form of the scheme.
That the poet thus invented should be a native of
Bristol, and that his date should be in the times of the
merchant Canynge, were special accidents determined by
Chatterton's position and peculiar opportunities. And
thus the two processes of invention, the legitimate and
the illegitimate, worked into each other's hands, — Chat-
terton's previous conceptions of the life and times of
Canynge providing him with a proper chronological
and topographical environment for his required poet ;
and his device of the poet giving richness and interest
to his romance of Canynge. And, once begun, there
were powerful reasons why the deceit should be
persevered in. There was the pleasure of the jest itself ;
there was the secret sense of superiority it gave him ;
THE ATTORNEY'S APPBENTICE OF BRISTOL. 53
there was its advantage as a means of hooking half-
crowns out of people's pockets; and last, though not
least, there was the impossibility of retracting, without
being knocked down by Barrett for damaging his
history, or kicked by the Catcotts for having made fools
of them. Hence, by little and little, the whole organiza-
tion of the imposture, from the first rumour of old
manuscripts, uj) to the use of ochre, black lead, and
smoke, in preparing specimens of them.
But Chatterton, as we have already hinted, was not
a literary monomaniac, a creature of one faculty. His
enthusiasm for the antique, although the most remark-
able part of him, was not the whole of him. The
Eowley habit of thought and expression, though he
liked to put it on, was also a thing that he could at
pleasure throw off. Though an antiquarian, and a
midnight reader of Speght's Chaucer and other black
letter volumes, he was also an attorney's apprentice,
accustomed to small flirtations, accustomed to debate
and have brawls with other attorneys' apprentices, to
read the newspapers and magazines, to be present
at street mobs and public meetings, and in every
other way to take an apprentice's interest in the on-
goings of the day. In short, besides being an anti-
quarian, and a creative genius in the element of the
English antique, Chatterton was also, in the year
17G9-70, a complete and very characteristic specimen
54 CHATTERTON.
of that long-extiuct phenomenon, a thinking young
Englishman of the early part of the reign of George III,
In other words, reader, besides being, by the special
charter of his genius, a poet in the Kowley vein, he was
also, by the- more general right of his life at that time,
very much such a young fellow as your own unmarried
great-wreat -grandfather was.
And what was that ? Wliy, reader, your unmarried
great-great-grandfather, besides wearing a wig (which
Chatterton did not), a coat with lapels and flaps,
knee-breeches, buckles, and a cocked hat, was also,
probably, a wild young dog of a free-thinker, fond of
Churchill and Wilkes's "Essay on Woman," addicted
to horrible slang against Bute and the whole Scottish
nation, and raving mad about a thing he called Liberty.
He read and repeated Junius, made jokes against
parsons, and talked Deism and very improper doctrine
on the subject of the sexes. Now Chatterton, to his
capacities as a youth of seventeen, was all this. He
repudiated orthodoxy, refused to be called a Christian,
and held the whole clerical profession in unbounded
contempt. He drew up articles of faith on a slip
of paper (still to be seen in the British Museum)
which he carried in his pocket ; which articles of
faith were very much what Pope believed before
him, and what Burns, Byron, and others have be-
lieved since. In short, he was recognised in Bristol
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 5rj
circles as an avowed free-thinker. His politics were
to correspond. He sneered at Samuel Johnson, and
thought him an old Tory bigot, who had got a
pension for political partizanship ; he delighted in
the scandal about Bute and the King's mother; he
thought the King himself an obstinate dolt ; he
denounced Grafton and the ministry to small Bristol
audiences ; and he desired the nation to rally round
Wilkes.
One remark more, and we end our Interleaf. As
Chatterton was this dual phenomenon that we have
described — as he was composed of two parts, a mania
for the antique, and that general assemblage of more
ordinary qualities and prejudices which constituted the
able young Englishman of his era, — so, it appears to us,
the latter part of his character began, about his seven-
teenth year, to gain upon him. Abandoning the
antique vein, wherein he had, as it were, a native gift,
ready fashioned from the first, and all but independent
of culture, he began to court his more general faculties
of thought and observation, and to give himself more
willingly up to that species of literature in which,
equally with other able young men, he could hope to
attain ease and perfection only by the ordinary processes
of assiduity and culture. Had he lived, there was an
amount of general vigour and acquisition in him that
would have secured him eminence even in tliis field
56 CHATTERTON.
and liave made him one of the conspicuous writers
of the eighteenth century; but, dying as he did so
early, the only bequest of real value he has left to the
world is that more specific and unaccountable product
of his genius, the Eowley antiques.
To a provincial attorney's apprentice, full of literary
aspirations, disgusted with his position in life, yet with
no immediate prospect of a better, there was but one
outlook of any reasonable hope or promise. It was the
chance of being able, in the meantime, to form some
connexion with London periodicals or publishers.
Accordingly, this was the scheme which Chatterton,
whose highest printed venture hitherto had been in
the columns of Felix Farley s Bristol Journal, set him-
self to realize.
His first attempt was upon Dodsley, the publisher
of Pall Mall, the brother and successor in business of
the more celebrated Eobert Dodsley, the author of the
" Muse in Livery," and other trifles of some note in
their day, and the projector, along with Burke, of the
Annual Register. The Dodsleys, it should be men-
tioned, had published a standard collection of ancient
and modern English poetry, to which, it was under-
stood, additions would be made in subsequent volumes.
This fact; the notoriety of the Annual Fi,cgister, then
in the tenth year of its existence ; probably, also, the
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 57
circumstance, not likely to be overlooked by a young
litterateur, that in that periodical there was a depart-
ment for literary contributions and poetry : all pointed
Dodsley out to Chatterton as a likely person for
his purpose. Accordingly, one morning towards the
Christmas of 1768, the worthy publisher, entering his
shop in Pall JNIall, finds among his letters one from
Bristol, addressed in a neat small hand, and worded
as follows : —
"BRiSTOh, Decc7nler21sf,l76S. '
" Sir, — I take this method to acquaint you that I can
procure copies of several ancient poems, and an inter-
lude, perhaps the oldest dramatic piece extant, wrote by
one Eowley, a priest of Bristol, who lived in the reigns
of Henry VI. and Edward lY. If these pieces will be
of service to you, at your command copies shall be sent
to you by your most obedient servant,
"D. B.
" Please to direct to D. B., to be left with ]\Ir. Thomas
Chatterton, Kedcliffe Hill, Bristol."
In reply to this, Dodsley probably sent an intimation
to the effect that he would be glad to see the poems
in question, particularly the interlude ; for the follow-
ing letter, turned up long afterwards, witli the fore-
going, among the loose papers in Dodsley's counting-
house, looks as if Chatterton had at least received a
reply to his note : —
5S CUATTERTON.
"Bristol, Feb. 15, 1769.
" SiK, — Having iutelligence that the tragedy of JElla
was in being, after a long and laborious search I was so
happy as to attain a sight of it. I endeavoured to
obtain a copy of it to send you ; but the present
possessor absolutely denies to give me one, unless I give
him one guinea for a consideration. As I am unable
to procure such a sum, I made a search for anotlier
coj)y, but unsuccessfully. Unwilling such a beauteous
piece should be lost, I have made bold to apply to you.
Several gentlemen of learning who have seen it join
with me in praising it. I am far from having any mer-
cenary views for myself in the affair; and, was I able,
would print it at my own risk. It is a perfect tragedy
— the plot clear ; the language spirited ; and the songs
(interspersed in it) flowing, poetical, and elegantly
simple; the similes judiciously applied, and, though
wrote in the age of Henry VI., not inferior to many
of the present age. If I can procure a copy, with or
without the gratification, it shall be immediately sent
to you. The motive that actuates me to do this is to
convince the world that the monks (of whom some
have so despicable an opinion) were not such block-
heads as generally thought, and that good poetry might
be wrote in the dark days of superstition, as well as
in these more enlightened ages. An immediate answer
will oblige. I shall not receive your favour as for
myself, but as your agent.
" I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
"Thomas Chatterton.
"P.S. — My reason for concealing my name was lest
my master (who is now out of town) should see my
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 59
letters, iiml think I neglected his business. Direct for
me on Ivedcliffe Hill.
[Here followed an extract from the tragedy, as a
specimen of the style.]
" The whole contains about one thousand lines. If it
should not suit you, I should be obliged to you if you
would calculate the expenses of printing it, as I will
endeavour to publish it l)y subscription on my own
account.
•' To- Mil. James Dodsley, Bookseller, Fall Moll, London."
This clumsy attempt to extract a guinea from the
publisher (Chatterton had probably just finished his
own manuscript of u^lla, and did not like the notion
of copying out so long a poem on mere chance) very
naturally failed. Mr. Dodsley did nut think the
speculation worth risking a guinea on ; and " jElla, a
Tragycal Enteiiude, or Discoorseynge Tragedie, wrottcn
ly Thomas Bowllie ; plaiedd before Piastre Canynge, atte
hys Hawse, ncmpte the Rodde Lodge" remained useless
among Chatterton's papers.
Chatterton was not daunted. Among the notabilities
of the time with whose names his own excursions in
the field of literature necessarily made him acquainted
there was one towards whom, for many reasons, he felt
specially attracted — the ingenious Horace Walpole, then
a gentleman of fifty-two, leading his life of luxuri-
ous gossip and literary ease between his town house
in Arlington Street, Piccadilly, and his country seat at
60 CEATTERTON.
Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. Known in the M'orld
of letters by his Castle of Otranto, his tragedy of The
Mysterious Mother, his Catalogue of Royal and NoUe
Authors, and other various productions, Walpole was at
that time busy in collecting additional materials for his
Anecdotes of Painting in England, the publication of
which he had begun in 1761. It is on this circum-
stance that Chatterton fastens. One evening in March,
1769, Mr. Walpole, sitting, we will suppose, by his
librar}^ fire in Arlington Street, has a packet brought
him by his bookseller, Mr. Bathoe, of the Strand (the
first man, by-the-bye, that kept a circulating library
in London). Opening the packet, he finds, first of all,
the followins note : —
^o
" SiPt, — Being versed a little in antiquities, I have
met with several curious manuscripts, among which
the following may be of service to you in any future
edition of your truly entertaining Anecdotes of Paint-
ing. In correcting the mistakes (if any) in the notes,
you will greatly oblige your most humble servant,
" Thqmas Chatterton.
"Bristol, March 2b; Corn Street."
Appended to this short note were several pages of
antique writing, entitled " The Ryse of Peyncteyne in
Englande, v^roten hy T. Rowlie, 1409, for Mastre
Canynge," and commencing as follows : — " Peynctynge
ynn England haveth of ould tyme bin yn use ; for,
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. CI
saieth the Rumaii wryters, the Brytoniies dyd depycte
themselves, yn soundrie wyse, of the fuuniies of the
Sonne and moone, wyth the heerbe woade : albeytte I
doubte theie were no skylled carvellers." After whicli
introduction, the document went on to give biograplii-
cal notices of certain distinguished painters that
flourished in England during Saxon times and in the
early Norman reigns. Attached to the document were
explanatory notes in Chatterton's own name. One of
these notes informed Walpole who Eowley, the reputed
author of the jNIS., was : — " His merit as a biographer
and historiographer is great ; as a poet still gi-eater :
some of his pieces would do honour to Pope ; and the
person under whose patronage they may appear to the
world will lay the Englishman, the antiquary, and the
poet, under eternal obligation." Another note per-
formed the like biographical office for Canynge, that
" jNIajcenas of his time ; " and a third conveyed the
information tliat one John, the second Abbot of Saint
Austni's, in Bristol, mentioned in the text as " the
fyrste Englyshe paynstere in oyles," was also the
greatest poet of his age (a.d. 118G), and gave, as a
specimen of his poetry, three stanzas on Eichard I.
Finally, Chatterton offered to put AValpole in posses-
sion of still other particulars from the same source.
Whether from the suddenness and naivete of the
attack, or from the stupefying effects of the warm air
62 CHATTERTON.
of his library on a March evening, Walpole was com-
pletely taken in. He can hardly have glanced over
the whole letter, when, really interested by its con-
tents, he takes his pen and writes the following
reply :—
"Arlington St., March 28, 1769.
" Sir, — I cannot but think myself singularly obliged
by a gentleman with whom I have not the pleasure of
being acquainted, when I read your very curious and
kind letter, wliich I have this minute received. T give
you a thousand thanks for it, and for the very obliging
offer you make of communicating your manuscript to me.
What you have already sent me is valuable, and full
of information ; but, instead of correcting you, Sir, you
are far more able to correct me. I have not the happi-
ness of understanding the Saxon language, and, without
your learned notes, should not have been able to com-
prehend Eowley's text.
" As a second edition of my Anecdotes was published
last year, I must not flatter myself that a third will be
wanted soon ; but I shall be happy to lay up any
notices you will be so good as to extract for me, and
send me at your leisure ; for, as it is uncertain when I
may use them, I would by no means borrow or detain
your MSS.
" Give me leave to ask you where Eowley's poems
are to be found. I should not be sorry to print them,
or at least a specimen of them, if they have never been
printed.
" The Abbot John's verses that you have given me
are wonderful for their harmony and spirit, though
there are some words that I do not understand. You
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 03
do not point out exactly the time when he lived, which
I wish to know, as I suppose it was long before Jolm
van Eyck's discovery of oil-painting ; if so, it confirms
what I have guessed, and hinted in my Anecdotes, that
oil-painting was known here much earlier than tliat
discovery or revival.
" I will not trouble you with more questions now.
Sir; but ilatter myself, from the urbanity and polite-
ness you have already shown me, that you will give
me leave to consult you. I hope, too, you will forgive
the simplicity of my direction, as you have favoured
me with none other.
" I am, Sir, your much obliged and obedient servant,
" HoitACE Walpole.
"P.S. — Be so good as to direct to Mr. Walpole,
Arlington Street."
Chatterton was highly elated. lie had received a
letter from the great Horace Walpole, written as from
an equal to an equal ! How differently men of that
stamp treated one from the Catcotts, the Barretts, and
other local persons ! Tu liaste to acknowledge such
politeness, he sends off a supplementary "Historic of
Feyncters yn England, lie T. Rowlic;" containing also
sketches of two new poets — Ecca, a Saxon bishop of
the year 557, and Elman, a Saxon bishop of the same
epoch — with specimens of their verses, translated from
the original Saxon by Eowley. He adds some more
verses of the Abbot John's, and promises a complete
transcript of Ifowley's works as soon as he shall have
G4 CEATTERTON.
had time to make one. At the same time he gives
AValpole a confidential account of himself and his
prospects. This part of the letter is lost ; but Walpole
thus states his recollections of its tenor : — " He in-
" formed nie that he was the son of a poor widow,
" who supported him with great difficulty ; that he was
" a clerk or apprentice to an attorney, hut had a taste
" and turn fot more elegant studies ; and hinted a wish
" that I would assist him with my interest in emerging
" out of so dull a profession, by procuring him some
" place in which he could pursue his natural bent."
Clearly Chatterton was never so near telling the
whole truth as when, touched by Walpole's politeness,
he thus addressed him as his only available friend.
One is sorry that he did not try the effect of a full
confession. Had Walpole received a letter from his
unknown correspondent, conveying, in addition to the
foregoing particulars, this farther acknowledgment, that
what he (Chatterton) had sent to him (Walpole) was
not a real extract from a MS., but a forgery ; that, for
more than a year, he had been palming off similar
forgeries on various persons in Bristol, but that now
he was heartily tired of the cheat and would fain be
out of it ; and that, if he (Walpole), with such speci-
mens before him of his (Chatterton's) powers as those
pretended antiques afforded, should be disposed to add
the kindness of his practical assistance to that of his
THE A TTORNETS APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. Of,
forgiveness for tlie trick attempted on liim, he would
thereby earn the waiter's lasting gratitude, and save
a life not wholly irretrievable : — one wonders greatly
what, in such circumstances, Horace Walpole would
have done. Would the reflection in the library in
Arlington Street have been "The impudent young
scoundrel ! I will write to his master ; " or would it
have been " Poor young fellow ! he throws himself
upon me, and I must do something for him " ?
Unfortunately, Chatterton did not put it in AVal-
pole's option whether he would be thus generous. He
left the virtuoso to discover the fact of the imposture
for himself. Nor was it difficult to do so. On the
very second reading of the communication, to which,
in a moment of credulity, he had returned so polite
» a reply, Walpole, sufficiently alive, one would think,
to the possibility of a literaiy trick (his own Castle of
Otranto had been published as a pretended translation
from a black-letter book printed at Naples in 1529, and
he had but recently been implicated in the Ossian
business), must have begun to suspect that all was not
right. A series of Anglo-Saxon painters till then un-
heard of ; a new poet of the twelfth century writing a
poem on Eichard I, in perfectly modern metre ; and a
new poet of the fifteenth, advertised as having left
numerous poems and other writings still extant in
Bristol : all this in one letter was too much ; and little
C. P
66 CHATTERTON.
wonder if, as he afterwards said, his reflection was that
"somebody, having met. his Anecdotes of Painting, had
a mind to laugh at him." But, when the second letter
came, bringing with it a batch of new painters, and
specimens of two Saxon poets of the sixth century, and
when in this letter the writer explained that he was a
poor widow's son with a turn for literature, there could
be no longer any doubt in the matter. His friends,
Gray and Mason, to whom he showed the documents,
concurred with him in thinking them forgeries, and
"recommended the returning them without farther
notice." But Walpole, with an amount of good-
nature for which he does not get credit, did not
act so summarily. He took the trouble, he says, to
write to a relation of his, an old lady residing at Bath,
desiring her to make inquiries about Chatterton. The
reply was a confirmation of Chatterton's story about
himself, but "nothing was returned about his charac-
ter." In these circumstances, Walpole discharges the
whole matter from his mind thus : —
" Being satisfied with my intelligence about Chat-
terton, I wrote him a letter with as much kindness
and tenderness as if I had been his guardian ; for,
though I had no doubt of his impositions, such a spirit
of poetry breathed in his coinage as interested me for
him ; nor was it a grave crime in a young bard to have
forged false notes of hand that were to pass current ,
only in the parish of Parnassus. I undeceived him
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 07
about my being a person of any interest, and urged
to him that, in duty and gratitude to his motlier, who
had straitened herself to breed him up to a profession,
he ought to labour in it, that in her old age he might
absolve his filial debt ; and I told him that, when he
should have made his fortune, he might unbend himself
with the studies consonant to his inclinations. I told
him also that I had communicated his transcripts to
much better judges, and that they were by no means
satisfied with tlie authenticity of his supposed MSS."
In fancying the impatient " Bah, old gentleman !
don't I know all that myself ? " with which the dis-
appointed boy, reading this letter, must have received
its advice, the question is apt to recur to us, how is it
that, with such evidence of the uselessness of advice
before their eyes, people are so stupid as to persist in
"ivincc it. But the remark of an eminent living statis-
tician comes to mind. " Advice," said he, " probably
saves a percentage." And certainly this puts the matter
on its right basis.
Chatterton sent two letters in reply to that of Wal-
pole. In the first, the tone of which is somewhat
downcast, he professes himself imable to dispute with
a person of such literary distinction respecting the
age of a MS., thanks him for his advice, and expresses
his resolution to follow it. " Though I am but sixteen
years old," he says, " I have lived long enough to see
that poverty attends literature." The second letter,
F 2
68 CUATTERTON.
wliicli is dated April 14th, is more abrupt. Here he
expresses his conviction that the papers of Eowley
are genuine, and requests Walpole, unless he should
be inclined to publish the transcripts, to return them,
as he -wished to give them to "Mr. Barrett, an able
antiquary, now writing the History of Bristol," and
had no other copy.
"When this second note reached Arlington Street,
"Walpole was on the eve of a journey to Paris ; and, in
the hurry, the request to return the MSS. was not at-
tended to. Again Chatterton wrote ; but, as the virtuoso
was absent, he received no answer. It was not till after
six weeks that Walpole returned to London ; and then
so insignificant a matter was not likely to be re-
membered. Towards the close of July, however, and
when he had been again in town five or six weeks, he
was reminded of his Bristol correspondent by the receipt
of what he thought " a singularly impertinent note" : —
" Sir, — I cannot reconcile your behaviour to me with
the notions I once entertained of you. I think myself
injured, Sir ; and, did you not know my circumstances,
you would not dare to treat me thus. I have sent twice
for a copy of the MSS.; no answer from you. An
explanation or excuse for your silence would oblige
" Thomas Chatterton.
"July 24."
Walpole's conduct, on the receipt of this note, we will
let himself relate : —
TEE ATTORNEY'S ArFTiENTICE OF BRISTOL. (J9
" jNIy heart did not accuse me of insolence to him. I
wrote uu answer, expostulating with him on his in-
justice, and renewing good advice ; but, upon second
thouglits, reflecting that so wrong-headed a young man,
of whom I knew nothing, and whom I had never seen,
might be absurd enough to print my letter, I flung it
into the fire ; and, snapping up both his poems and
letters, without taking a copy of either (for which I am
now sorry), I returned both to him, and thought no
more of him or them."
Thus ended the correspondence between Walpole and
Chatterton, Walpole soon forgetting the whole affair,
and Chatterton persisting in his belief that, had he not
committed the blunder of letting his aristocratic corre-
spondent know that he was " a poor widow's son," he
would have fared better at his hands. Xo doubt there
was something in this. But, of all the unreasonable
things ever done by a misjudging public, certainly that
of condemning Wulpule to infamy for his conduct in
this affair, and charging on him ail the tragic sequel of
Chatterton's life, is one of the most unreasonable. Why,
the probability is that Walpole behaved better than
most people would have done in the circumstances !
Let anyone in the present day fancy how lie would act
if some one utterly unknown to him were to try to im-
pose on him, in a similar way, through the post-office.
Would the mere cleverness of the cheat take away the
instinctive frown of resentment, and change it into
70 CHATTERTON.
admiring enthusiasm ? That there may possibly have
been in London at that time persons of rare goodness,
of overflowing tolerance and compassion, that would
have acted differently from the virtuoso of Arlington
Street — persons who, saying to themselves, " Here is a
poor young man of abilities in a bad way," would have
immediately called for their carpet-bags, and set off for
Bristol by coach, to dig out the culprit, and lecture him
soundly, and make a man of him — we will not deny.
If that time was like the present, however, such men,
we fear, must have been very thinly scattered, and very
hard to find. Looking back now, we must, of course,
feel that it was a pity the correspondence did not lead
to a better issue ; and Walpole himself lived to know
this. But, as Burke has said, " Men are wise with little
reflection, and good with little self-denial, in the busi-
ness of all times except their own." Let, therefore,
such as are disposed to blame Walpole in this affair lay
the whole story to heart in the form of a maxim for
their own guidance.
AVhile the correspondence with Walpole had been
going on, Chatterton had not been idle. In the month
of January, 17G9, there appeared in London the first
number of a new periodical, called the Tovju and
Country Magazine, somewhat on the model of the
Gentleman's Magazine, and those other curious monthly
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 71
coUectious of scraps with which our ancestors, strangers
to tlie more ehiborate entertainment of modern peri-
odicals, used to regale their leisure. Here was an
opportunity for the young litterateur of Bristol. Ac-
cordingly, in the February number (magazines were
then published retrospectively, i.e., at the close of the
month whose name they bore), there appeared two
contriliutions from the pen of Chatterton : one a prose
account of the costume of Saxon heralds, signed " D. B." ;
the other a little complimentary poem addressed to
" Mr. Alcock, the miniature painter of Bristol," and
signed " Asaphides." Under these signatures he con-
tinued to contribute to the magazine ; and effusions of
his, chiefly Ossianic prose-poems, purporting to be from
the Saxon or ancient British, appeared in all the sub-
sequent numbers for the year 1769, except those of
June, September, and October. In the number for ]\Iay
appeared one of the finest of his minor Kowley poems.
In short, at the publishing office of the Toum and
Country, in London, the handwriting of "D. B.," of
Bristol, must have been recognised, in 1769, as that of
one of the established correspondents of the magazine ;
and in Bristol it must have been a fact known and
enviously commented on among the Carys, the Smiths,
the Kators, and other young men of Chatterton's
acquaintance, that he could have his pieces printed as
often as he liked in a London periodical. Chatterton
72 CHATTEBTON.
felt the immensity of the honour ; and there is extant
a somewhat unveracious letter of his to a distant rela-
tive, " a breeches-maker in Salisbury," in which he brags
of it. He tells the breeches-maker, at the same time, of
his correspondence with Walpole. " It ended," he says,
" as most such do. I differed from him in the age of
" a MS, ; he insists upon his superior talents, which is
" no proof of that superiority. We possibly may engage
" publicly in some one of the periodical publications,
" though I know not who will give the onset."
The Toum and Country Magazine seems to have been
the only metropolitan print to which Chatterton was a
contributor during the year 1769. But in the beginning
of 1770 he succeeded in another venture, and became the
correspondent also of a London newspaper.
The newspapers of that day were by no means such
as we now see. The largest of them consisted of but a
single sheet, corresponding in size with our small even-
ing papers. Their contents, too, were neither so various
nor so elaborately prepared as those of our present
newspapers. Advertisements, paragraphs of political
gossip picked up outside the Houses of Parliament, and
scraps of miscellaneous town, country, and foreign news,
constituted nearly all that the newspaper then offered
to its readers. Wliat we now call " leading articles "
were hardly known. Tt was enough for even a metro-
politan journal to have one editorial hand to assist the
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 73
piiLlisher; mid the notion of employing a staff of
educated men to write comments on the proceedings
of tlie day was but in its infancy. The pkxce, how-
ever, of leading articles by paid attaches of the news-
paper was in part supplied by the voluntary letters
of numerous anonymous correspondents, interested in
politics, and glad to see their lucubrations in print.
Men of political note sometimes took this mode of
serving the ends of their party; but the majority of
the correspondents of newspapers were literary clients
of official men, or private individuals scattered up and
down the country. Chief of these unpaid journalists,
king among the numberless Brutuses, Publicolas, and
Catos, that told the nation its grievances through the
columns of the newspapers, was the terrible Junius
of the Puhlic Advertiser. The boldest of his letters
was perhaps that containing his "Address to the
King," which was published on the 19th December,
1769. The excitement that followed this letter, and
above all the report that the publisher, Mr. H. J.
Woodfall, was to be brought to account for it before
the public tribunals, produced a crisis — some called
it a panic, some a jubilee — in the newspaper world.
The other newspapers were, of course, anxious to
obtain a share of the renown which the threatened
prosecution conferred on the Puhlic Advertiser. Ac-
cordingly, to re-assure its correspondents, and to
74 CHATTERTON.
convince its subscribers of its unHincliin;? liberalism
in the midst of danger, the Middlesex Journal, a bi-
M'eekly newspaper of the day, not far behind the
Advertiser in credit, hastened to put forth the follow-
ing manifesto : —
"William George Edmnnds, of Shoe Lane, in the
parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, Gent., maketh oath
and saith, that he will not at any time declare the
name of any person or persons who shall send any
papers to the Middlesex Journal or Chronicle of
Liberty, or any other publication in which he shall
be concerned, without the express consent and direc-
tion of the author of such paper ; and that he will not
make any discovery by which any of his authors can
be found out ; and that he will give to the public, in
the fairest and fullest manner, all such essays, dis-
sertations, and other writings, without any alteration,
so far as he can or ought, consistently with the duty of
an honest man, a good member of society, a friend to
his country, and a loyal subject. — W. G. Edmunds.
" Sworn at the Mansion House, Loudon, January 1st,
1770, before me,
" W. Beckfoed, Mayor."
" N.B. — Mr. E. makes it a general rule to destroy all
MSS. as soon as they are composed for the press. If
any gentleman, however, is desirous of having his MSS.
returned to him, Mr. E. begs that the words 'to be
returned,' may be in large letters at the end of the
originals. In that case they shall be preserved and
delivered up to any person 'who shall bring an order
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 7i
for tliat purpose in the so.me handwriting as the
original."
This manifesto of ]\Ir. Edmunds, copied by ns from
the Middlesex Journal for February 6th, 1770, and
which was repeated in succeeding numbers, probably
caught Chatterton's eye in Bristol, and determined his
already cherished intention of trying his hand at a
newspaper article. Accordingly, he plunges at once
in medias res. There had just been a change of
Ministry. The Duke of Grafton, the favourite victim
of Junius, had resigned, and given place, for some
secret Court reason, to the goggle-eyed Lord Xorth.
Chatterton, hearing much talk about this affair, thinks
it a good tojuc for his purpose, and, stealing a forenoon
from his office-work, pens, in a style mimicked after
that of Junius, a " Letter to the Duke of G n,"
in which he informs that illustrious personage that
his resignation has " caused more speculation than any
harlequinade he has already acted," and tells him that,
as he had been all along the tool of Bute, to whom
he was at first recommended by his " happy vacuity
of invention," so now it is Bute's influence that
has dismissed him. This missive he dates " Bristol,
February 16," and signs "Decimus." INIr. Edmunds,
receiving it in his sanctum in Shoe Lane, glances over
it, thinks it tolerably smart, and prints it. AVhether
the Duke of Grafton ever saw it, poor man, we do
CHATTEETON.
not know. If he did, " One \vasp more " would be his
very natural reflection ; and he would go on sipping
his chocolate.
Chatterton's next contribution to the Middlesex
Journcd, or at least the next that Mr. Edmunds
thought proper to print, was one with the same
signature, dated "Bristol, April 10, 1770," and ad-
dressed to that nnich-abused lady, the Princess
Dowager of Wales, the mother, and, as people said,
manager of the king. Here is a specimen — Junius,
it will be observed, to the A-ery cadence : —
" By you men of no principles were thrust into
ofhces they did not know how to discharge, and
honoured with trusts they accepted only to violate ;
being made more conspicuously mean by communi-
cating error and often vice to the character of the
person who promoted them. None but a sovereign
power can make little villains dangerous; the nobly
vicious, the daringly ambitious, only rise from them-
selves, AVithout the influence of ministerial authority,
Mansfield had been a pettifogging attorney, and War-
burton a bustling country curate. The first had not
lived to bury the substance of our laws in the shadows
of his explanations; nor would the latter have con-
founded religion with deism, and proved of no use to
either. . . . The state of affairs very much resembles
the eve of the troubles' of Charles I. Unhappy
monarch, thou hast a claim, a dear-bought claim, to
our pity ; nothing but thy death could purchase it.
Hadst thou died quietly and in peace, thou hadst
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 77
died infamous ; tliy misfortunes were tlie only happy
means of saving thee from the book of shame. What a
parallel could the freedom of an English pen strike out I"
This letter was written on a Tuesday. On the
Saturday, or, more probably, on the ]\[onday follow-
ing, a tremendous denouement occurred.
Chatterton, among his other eccentricities, had often
been heard to talk familiarly of suicide. One evening,
for example, pulling out a pistol in the presence of
some of his companions, he had placed it to his
forehead, saying, " Now, if one had but courage to
draw the trigger ! " Nor was this mere juvenile
affectation. Hateful from the first, Chatterton's posi-
tion in Bristol had by this time become unendurable
to him. All his literary honours, as contributor to
a London magazine and a coiTespondent of a London
newspaper, were as nothing when put in the balance
against his present servitude. If there were seasons
when, sanguine in his hopes of a better future, he
was able to keep liis disgust within bounds, there
were others when it rose to a perfect frenzy.
Such a season seems to have been the week in which
the foregoinfj letter was written for the Middlesex
Journal. By some circumstance or other Chatterton was
that week reduced to the necessity of asking Burgum
for a loan of money ; which Burgum, at the last moment,
refused. Chatterton has thus perpetuated the ftict : —
78 , CHATTERTON.
" When wildly squandering everything I got,
On books and learning, and the Lord knows what,
Could Burguni then — my critic, patron, friend —
"Without security attempt to lend ?
No, that would be imprudent in the man :
Accuse him of imprudence if you can ! "
This disappointment throws him into a humour border-
ing on the suicidal ; and, left alone in his master's
office on the Saturday forenoon following, he displays
it by penning a kind of satirical will or suicide's fare-
well to the world. This extraordinary document,
which is still extant, is headed thus: "All this wrote
between 11 and 2 o'clock, Saturday, in the utmost dis-
tress of mind, April 14, 1 770 ; " and, after some fifty
lines of verse addressed to Burgum, the Eev. Mr.
Catcott, and Barrett, it proceeds as follows : —
" This is the last will and testament of me, Thomas
Chatterton, of the city Bristol ; being sound in body,
or it is the fault of my last surgeon : the soundness
of my mind the coroner and jury are to be judges of —
desiring them to take notice that the most perfect
masters of human nature in Bristol distinguish me by
the title of ' the mad genius ' ; therefore, if I do a mad
action, it is conformable to every action of my life,
which all savoured of insanity.
"Item. — If, after my death, which will happen to-
morrow night before eight o'clock, being the Feast of
the Eesurrection, the coroner and jviry bring it in
lunacy, I will and direct that Paul Farr, Esq., and Mr.
THE ATTORNEY'S APrRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 79
John Flower, at their joint expense, cause my body to
be interred iii the tomb of my fatliers, and raise the
monument over my body to the height of four feet five
inches, placing the present flat stone on the top, and
adding six tablets.
[" Here follow directions for certain engravings
to be placed on the six tablets : viz., on two of them,
fronting each other, certain heraldic achievements ; on
another, an inscription, in old English characters, to his
ancestor, Guatevine Chatterton, A.D. 1210; on another,
an inscription, in the same character, to another ances-
tor, Alanus Chatterton, A.D. 1415 ; on another, an
inscription, in lioman letters, to the memory of his
father; and on the remaining one this epitaph to
himself : —
"TO THE MEMORY OF
" THOMAS CHATTEIITON.
"Reader, judge not. If thou art a Christian, believe
that he shall be judged by a supreme power : to that
power alone is he now answerable."]
" And I will and direct that, if the coroner's inquest
bring it in felo dc se, the said monument shall be, not-
withstanding, erected. Aud, if the said Paul Farr and
John Flower have souls so Bristolish as to refuse this
my request, they will transmit a copy of my will to the
Society for supporting the liill of Rights, whom I
hereby empower to build the said monument accord-
ing to the aforesaid directions. And, if they, the said
Paul Farr and John Flower, should build the said
monument, I will and direct that the second edition of
my Kao Gardens shall be dedicated to them in the
80 CHATTERTON.
follo\ring dedication : ' To Paul Farr and John Flower,
Esqrs., tliis book is most humbly dedicated by the
Author's Ghost.'
"Item. — I give all my vigour and fire of youth to
Mr. George Catcott, being sensible he is most in
want of it.
"Item. — From the same charitable motive, I give
and bequeath unto the Eev. Mr. Camplin, sen., all
my humility. To Mr. Burgum all my prosody and
grammar, likewise one moiety of my modesty ; the
other moiety to any young lady who can prove,
without blushing, that she wants that valuable com-
modity. To Bristol all my spirit and disinterestedness,
parcels of goods unknown on her quays since the days
of Canning and Rowley. ('Tis true, a charitable gentle-
man, one Mr. Colston, smuggled a considerable quantity
of it; but, it being proved that he was a Papist, the
worshipful society of aldermen endeavoured to throttle
him with the oath of allegiance.) I leave also my religion
to Dr. Cutts Barton, Dean of Bristol, hereby empower-
ing the sub-sacrist to strike him on the head when he
goes to sleep in church. My powers of utterance I give
to the Eev. Mr. Broughton, hoping he will employ them
to a better purpose than reading lectures on the immor-
tality of the soul. I leave the Rev. Mr. Catcott some
little of my free-thinking, that he may put on spectacles
of reason, and see how vilely he is duped in believing
the Scriptures literally. (I wish he and his brother
George would know how far I am their real enemy :
but I have an unlucky way of raillery ; and, when the
strong fit of satire is upon me, I spare neither friend
nor foe. This is my excuse for what I have said of
them elsewhere.) I leave Mr. Clayfield the sincerest
THE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 81
thanks my gratitude can give ; and I will and direct
that, whatever any person may think the pleasure of
reading my works worth, they immediately pay their
own valuation to liim, since it is then become a lawful
debt to me, and to him as my executor in this case.
" I leave my moderation to the politicians on both
sides of the question. I leave my generosity to our
present right worshipful mayor, Thomas Harris, Esq.
I give my abstinence to the company at the Sheriff's
annual feast in general, more particularly the aldermen.
"Item. — I give and bequeath to Mr. jMatthew INIease
a mourning ring with this motto, 'Alas, poor Cliat-
terton ! ' provided he pays' for it himself. Item. — I
leave the young ladies all the letters they have had
from me, assuring them that they need be under no
apprehensions from the appearance of my ghost, for
I die for none of them. Item. — I leave all my debts,
the whole not live pounds, to the payment of the
charitable and generous Chamber of Bristol, on penalty,
if refused, to hinder every member from a good dinner
by appearing in the form of a bailiff. If, in defiance of
this terrible spectre, they obstinately persist in refusing
to discharge my debts, let my two creditors apply to
the supporters of the Bill of Bights. Item. — I leave
my mother and sister to the protection of my friends,
if I have any.
" Executed, in the presence of Omniscience, this 14th
of April, 1770.
" Thomas Ciiattekton."
Whether this dreadful document got immediately
abroad among Chatterton's friends does not appear.
Another document, however, written at the same time
c. a
82 CEATTERTON.
and in the same mad mood, was sufficiently alai'miug
to produce a catastrophe. The jNIr. Clayfield men-
tioned with such peculiar respect in the preceding paper,
a distiller of means and respectability, and a friend
of ]Mr. Lambert's, seems to have been a person of more
1 iian usual consideration in the eyes of Islw Lambert's
apprentice. To him, accordingly, rather than to any
other person in Bristol, he chose to indite a letter
conveying his rash intention of suicide. This letter —
not actually sent to Mr. Clayfield by Chatterton, but
inadvertently left about, it would appear, with that
gentleman's address upon it— was prematurely deli-
vered to him. Startled by its contents, he lost no time
in communicating them to j\Ir. Lambert. There was
an immediate consultation amomr Chatterton's friends,
and Mr. Barrett undertook to see the insane lad, and
reason with him on the folly and crindnality of his
conduct. Accordingly, a long conversation took place
between them, in which, to use his own words, he took
Chatterton to task for the " bad company and prin-
ciples he had adopted," and lectured him seriously
" on the horrible crime of self-murder, however glossed
over by present libertines." Chatterton was affected,
and shed tears. The next day, however, he sent Mr.
Barrett the following letter, the original of which may
be seen in the British Museum : —
" Sii!, — Upon recollection I don't know how Mr.
TIJE ATTORNEY'S APPRENTICE OF BRISTOL. 83
Clayfield could come by his letter, as I intended to give
him a letter, but did not. In regard to my motives for
the supposed rashness, I shall observe tliat 1 keep no
worse company than myself : I never drink to excess,
and have, without vanity, too much sense to be attached
to the mercenary retailers of iniquity. No, it is my
PRIDE, my damn'd native unconquerable pride, that
plunges me into distraction. You must know that
nineteen-twentieths of my composition is pride. I
must either live a slave, a servant, to have no will of
my own, which I may freely declare as such, or die.
Perplexing alternative ! but it distracts me to think of
it ! I will endeavour to learn humility, but it cannot
be here, "\^'hat it may cost me in the trial Heaven
knows.
" I am your much obliged unhappy humble servant,
" Thursday Evening." " T. C.
Before this letter had been written by Chatterton,
one thing had been fully determined with regard to liim.
Mr. Lambert was no longer to keep him in his service.
Even had the lawyer himself been willing to make the
attempt, his mother, who kept house for him — an cild
lady between whom and Chatterton there had never,
we have reason to think, been any kind of cordiality —
would certainly not have listened to such a thincr.
AYhat ! sleep under the same roof with a violent
young fellow that had threatened to make away with
himself? Find the garret in a welter some n;ornin2:
with the young rascal's blood, and have a coroner's
G 2
84 CHATTERTON.
inquest in the house ? Better at once give hiui up
his indentures, and be rid of him ! With this
advice of the old lady even the calmer deliberations
of Chatterton's own friends, Barrett, Catcott, and the
rest, could not but agree. So, on or about Monday, the
16th of April, 1770, it was intimated to Chatterton that
he was no longer in the employment of J\lr. Lambert.
Tuesday, the 17th, it will be remembered, was the
day of Wilkes's release from prison; and on Thursday,
the 19th — the very day, as we guess, on which the
forejcoino; letter to Mr. Barrett was written — there took
place in Bristol that dinner, in honour of the patriot,
at which, according to the announcement in the Public
Advertiser, the more prominent Liberals of the town
were to assemble at "the Crown, in the passage from
Broad Street to Tower Lane," to eat their forty-five
pounds of meat, drink their forty-five tankards of ale
and their forty-five bowls of punch, and smoke their
forty-five pipes of tobacco. Were we wrong in fancy-
ing that, while those Bristol Wilkesites were making
merry in the tavern, Chatterton may have been moodily
perambulating the adjacent streets ? Shall we be wrong
if we fancy, farther, that the story of Mr. Lambert's
apprentice and his intended suicide may have been
talked over by the happy gentlemen, when, having
finished their toasts, they sat down at leisure to their
pipes and their remaining punch?
CHArTER III.
BOUND FOR LONDON.
Cast out of all chance of a livelihood in his native
town, there was hut one course open to Chatterton:
to bid farewell to Bristol and attorneyship, and try
what he could do in the ureat literary mart of London.
Sanguine as were his hopes of success, it can have cost
him but little thought to make up his mind to this
course, if indeed he did not secretly congratulate him-
self that his recent escapade had ended so agreeably.
Probably there was but one thing that stood in the
way of an immediate declaration by himself, after the
fracas was over, that this was the resolution he had
come to — the want, namely, of a little money to serve
as outfit. No sooner, therefore, was this obstacle re-
moved by the charitable determination of his friends,
Mr. Barrett, Mr. Clayfield, the Catcotts, &c., to make a
little subscription for him, so as to present him with
the parting gift of a few pounds, than the tide of
86 CHA TTEETON.
feeling was turned, and from a state of despondency
Chatterton gave way to raptures of unbounded joy.
London ! London ! A few days, and he should have
left the dingy quays of abominable Bristol, and should
be treading, in the very footsteps of Goldsmith, Garrick,
and Johnson, the liberal London streets !
Chatterton remained exactly a week in Bristol after
his dismissal from Mr. Lambert's; i.e. from the 16th to
the 24th of April. A busy week we may suppose that
to have been for Mrs. Chatterton and her daughter:
stitching and sewing to be got through, so that all
Thomas's wardrobe might be properly in order against
his departure. Poor fellow! notwithstanding all that
idle people say of him, ilicy know better : he has a
proud spirit, but a good heart, and he will make his
way yet Avith the best of them ! And so, in their
humble apartments, the widow and her daughter ply
their needles, talking of Thomas and his prospects as
only a mother and a sister can.
The subject of their conversation, meanwhile, is
generally out, going from street to street, and taking
leave of his friends. Barrett, the two Catcotts, Mr.
Alcock, ]Mr. Clayfield, Burgum, Matthew Mease, and
his younger friends, the Carys, Smiths, and Kators
■ — lie makes the round of them all, receiving their
good wishes, and making arrangements to correspond
with them. To less intimate acquaintances, too, met
ROUND FOR LONDON. 87
aocidentally in tlie streets, he has to bid a frioiully
good-bye. jNIoreover, there are his numerous female
fi-iends— the Miss WebV)s, tlie Miss Thatchers, the Miss
Hills, &c., not to omit the " female Machiavel," Miss
Rumsey — who have all licard, with more or less con-
cern, that they are about to lose their poet, and are,
of course, anxious to see him before he goes. Of some
acquaintances of this class, probably the more humble
of them, he appears to have taken a kind of col-
lective farewell. Long afterwards, at least, a ]Mrs.
Stephens, the wife of a cabinet-maker in Bristol, used
to tell that she remembered, as an incident of her
girlhood, Chatterton's "taking leave of her and some
others, on the steps of Redcliffe Church, very cheer-
fully," before his going to London. "At parting, he
said he would give them some gingerbread, and went
over the way to Mr. Freeling's, to buy some." In con-
nexion with which little anecdote we have a mysterious
little scrap of document to produce.
A great deal of nonsense has been written on the
question of Chatterton's moral character. Was he a
libertine, as some have represented — a precocious young
blackguard, indebted for his bad end to his own habits
of profligacy ; or was he at least no worse in this respect
than his neighbours ? Naturally resenting the harsh
way in which Chalmers and other earlier biographers
88 CHATTERTON.
of Cliatterton handled his memory, the writers of more
recent notices have certainly made out, in favour of
" the marvellous boy/' a certificate of good behaviour
to M'hich he was not entitled, and for which he would
not have thanked them. The evidence on which they
have laid most stress in connexion with this point is
that of Chatterton's sister, as given by her in her
letter to the Rev. Sir Herbert Croft, eight years after
Chatterton's death, and published by that gentleman
in his singular book. Love and Madness. The following
is a passage from that touching and simple epistle,
spelt as in the original : —
" He wrote one letter to Sir Horace Warlpool ; and,
except his corrispondence with Miss Eumsey, the girl
I have mentioned, I know of no other. He would
frequently walk the Colledge green with the young
girls that statedly paraded there to shew their finery.
But I realy beleive he was no debauchee (tlio some
have reported it), the dear unhappy boy had faults
enough I saw with concern, he was proud and ex-
ceedingly iinpetious, but that of venality " [poor Mrs.
N. thinks this a fine word for licentiousness'] " he could
not be justly accused with. Mrs, Lambert informed
me not 2 months before he left Bristol, be had never
been once found out of the office in the stated hours,
as they frequently sent the footman and other servants
to see Nor but once stayed out till^ll o'clock; then he
had leave, as we entertained some friends at our house
at Christmas."
BOUND FOR LONDON. 89
This very distinct piece of evidence in favour of
Chatterton's punctual conduct as an apprentice has
been strained into a testimony to his moral reproach-
lessness. A fruitless attempt, we fear ! The worth
of a sister's assurance that her deceased brother could
not be justly accused of " venality " it is not difficult
to estimate ; besides that it is accompanied with the
information that the common report was to the con-
trary, and with the allusion to the habit of " walking
with the girls on the College-green," whatever that
may mean. Then, again, we have the fact that Mr.
Barrett, in his remonstrance with him respecting his
alarming letter to Mr. Clayfield, attributed his bad
state of mind to liis keeping immoral company. His
own allusions, too, scattered through his writings, are
quite decisive, even were we not to take into account
the almost constant tone which runs throuuh all that
part of his writings that is not antique — evidently the
productions as those modern pieces are of a clever
boy too conscious of forbidden things, and eager (as
boys are till some real experience of the heart has
made them earnest and silent) to assert his manhood
among his compeers by constant and irreverent talk
ou certain topics. And, after all, have we not the
native probabilities of the case itself? Are young
men in general, and attorneys' apprentices in parti-
cular, so immaculately moral that it becomes necessary
90 CHATTEETON.
to argue out something like a perfectly virtuous cha-
racter for Cliatterton before venturiiifr to introduce- him
to the admirers of genius and literature? Should we
fail in doing this for liiui, will Byron, Burns, and the
rest, 7'efuse to shake hands with him? It is a pity,
certainly, that we should have to say so. Young men
of genius may take warning. A convenient theory
of " wild oats " has been provided and put in cir-
culation for their use by the thoim-htless and the
interested ; Ijut better for themselves in the end if
they decidedly reject it. Were Byron and Burns, or
were Chatterton himself, to speak now, they would
say so. Happiest is he who, needing no benefit from
the theory, yet can weigh it, and know how to be
charitable !
And now for our document. If the reader were to
go to the reading-room of the British Museum, and
ask for the Chatterton MSS. (a considerable portion
of all the surviving MSS. of Chatterton is in the
Museum, the remainder being in Bristol and else-
where), he would have three volumes brought to him,
containing papers and parchments of various shapes and
sizes, some stained, smoked, and written like antiques,
others undisguisedly modern. If, aftc-r overcoming the
strange feeling that here in his hands are the very
sheets over which so many years ago Chatterton bent,
tracing with nimble fingers the black characters over
BOUND FOR LONDON. 01
tlie wliite pages, the reader should examine tlie papers
successively and individually, ho would come upon
one that would puzzle liiiu much. It is a dingy piece
of letter-paper, once folded as a letter, and containing
a very ugly scrawl in ;iii \ineducated female hand.
Here it is, printed for the first time : —
" Sir, I send my Love to you and Tell you This if
you prove Constant I not miss but if you frown and
Torn away 1 can make oart of battered Hay pray excep
of me Love Hartley an send me word Cartingley. Tell
me How maney ouncs of Green Gingerbread Can Sho
the baker of Honiste.
" My House is not belt with Stavis. I not be Coarted
by Boys nor navis. I Halve a man and a man Shall
Halve me, if I whaint a fool I Send for Thee.
" H" you are going to the D I wish you a good
Gouery."
What in all the woi'ld have we here ? Exercising
our utmost ingenuity for the purpose of determining,
if possible, what petty, and perhaps not very reput-
able Bristol occurrence of the year 1770, this mystic
piece of ill-written doggrel (the reader will observe that
part of the letter is in a kind of cripple rhyme) has
come down to us to perpetuate and represent, we can
honestly arrive but at one conclusion — that it is the
spiteful epistle of some obscure female, avenging her-
self, with all the energy of feminine malice, for the
sjrretce injuria formcv or some other fancied wrong.
92 CHATTERTON.
Did we dare to copy the version of the letter, or
rather jocular answer to it, written in Chatterton's
own hand on the back of the sheet, in the shape of
a few extremely impolite and not at all quoteable
Hudibrastic lines, the hypothesis would appear inevit'
able. In short, we explain the matter thus : — Among
the various acquaintances of Chatterton interested in
the news of his approaching departure is some one of
the other sex, labouring under the provocation of some
injury, or fancied injury, not now ascertainable. This
Bristol Juno sees, with pangs incredible, her faithless
Jove dispensing the gingerbread he has bought at
" ]\Ir. Freeling's over the way " among the nymphs
waiting for it on the steps of Eedcliffe Church ; she
goes home, and discharges all her malevolence in one
fell epistle, into which, with vast literary effort, she
contrives to introduce an allusion to the gingerbread;
this epistle, intended to pierce her Jove's heart like
a poisoned arrow, she sends to him anonymously ;
and he, reading it, and recognising the hand of the
distempered donor, enjoys the joke amazingly, and
expresses his opinion of it and her by scribbling his
wicked answer on the other side. Strange bit of
defunct real life thus to be dug up again into the
light ! The departure of poor Chatterton for London
from his native place was not, it would tlius appear,
an event which all Bristol viewed with indifference.
BOUXD FOR LONDON. 93
Whether the Clayfields, the Barretts, and the Catcotts
of his acquaintance cared much about the matter or
not, whether Miss liumsey slied tears or not, we can-
not say; hut here, at least, was one skittish denizen
of some mean Bristol street in whose breast Chatterton
left a rankling sense of wrong or jealousy, and who
was powerfully enough excited by the news of his
departure to immortalise her concern therein by pen-
ning a spiteful letter, in which slie told him he was
reported to be " going to the D ," and wished him
a good journey.
Chatterton was not going to the D directly : he
was only going to London, to follow the professional
walk of literature. Persons going on that journey from
the provinces now-a-days (and it must have been the
same in Chatterton's time) usually carry three things
with them, in addition to the mere essentials of luggage
— a little money, a small bundle of MSS., and a few
letters of introduction. How was Chatterton furnished
in these several respects?
As regards money, the most essential of the three,
but very poorly, we fear. It would throw more light
than a hundred disquisitions on the real truth of
Chatterton's London career were we al)lc to calculate
to the precise shilling the sum of money which lie
took with him from Bristol. Unfortunately, there are
94 CHATTEBTON.
no data for such a calculation. All that remains in the
shape of information on this point is a vague tradition,
the exact worth of which we. do not know, that the
understood arrangement among the charitable persons
who had agreed to get up a little subscription for
him against his departure was that they should sub-
scribe a guinea each. Subjecting this tradition to a
strict act of judgment, directed by a knowledge of the
laws of human nature in general, and the circumstances
of Chatterton's Bristol position in particular, we should
say that the entire sum that could possibly be in
Chatterton's purse in the week before he left Bristol
did not (any contrilmtion his motlier could make in-
cluded) exceed ten guineas. Take a more probable
estimate still, and deduct the expenses of the out lit
and journey, and we may say Chatterton was elated
with the prospect of invading London with a pecuniary
force of exactly five guineas.
But he had plenty of manuscripts. In one bundle
he had the whole of the Eowley Poems and other
antiques — ^lla, The Bristoiue Tragedie, Goddwyn, The
Tournament, The Battle of Hastings, The Parliamente
of Sxjrytes, &c. &c. : all written and finished at least
twelve months before, and forming matter enough to
fill, if printed, one considerable volume. These, if he
could either dispose of them in the mass or sell them
individually, would form a sufficient stock to begin
BOUND FOR LONDON. 95
with. On jElla^ in particular, 1il' luilurally set great
value. It was his masterpiece : worth a great deal of
money, even as an imitation of the antique; and
worth ten times more if he could succeed in getting
it accepted as a genuine English poem of the fifteenth
century. If he should not be able to part with it
advantageously under either guise, he would at any
rate have it by him, to be printed some day or other
at his own expense, and to make his fame as a poet
and antiquarian ! Then, in another bundle, he had his
miscellaneous modern pieces in prose and verse — his Kew
Gardens, his Consuliad, and other such satires after the
manner of Pope and Churchill ; numerous songs, elegies,
and ulhcr poetical trifles ; and an assortment of odds
and ends bearing on English antiquities. For these he
cared far less himself than for his Eowley poems ; but
he had already ascertained that they were more dis-
posable as literary ware, and accordingly he had of late
almost abandoned the antique vein in their favour.
They might be of use to liini in his dealings with the
magazines and newspapers ; and, if they should turn
out not to be exactly suitable, he had a ready pen, and
a head full of all kinds of historical knowledge, and
should find no difficulty — especially after his sister had
forwarded to him his little collection of books — in
throwing off such papers by the dozen !
Lastly, as regards the matter of introductions. It
96 CHATTERTON.
may seem strange to such as are accustomed to think
such things essential to a young man migrating from
his native place, but we positively cannot find that
Chatterton took one letter of introduction from Bristol
with him. That Matthew Mease may have told him
of some vintner of his acquaintance, living somewhere
in Whitechapel, that would be glad to see him if he
told him he knew ]\Iat Mease of Bristol ; that Mr. Clay-
field, or Mr. Barrett, or even .his master, Mr. Lambert,
may have recommended him to call, at his leisure, on
certain well-to-do Smiths or Robinsons they had dealings
wdth ; that his younger friends, the Mr. Carys and Mr.
Eudhalls, the Miss Eumseys and Miss Webbs, may have
given him commissions and instructions destined to
bring him into connexion with metropolitan aunts
living in Camden Town, and long-forgotten cousins
that had situations in the Custom House ; nay, that
Mrs. Chatterton herself, taxing, with the grandmother's
help, her genealogical memory, may have excogitated
for the occasion a stray relative or two in London, that
it might be well to visit : all this is, of course, ex-
tremely probable. But (and the reason, in all like-
lihood, was that his whole circle of acquaintance could
not muster such a thing) not a single letter to a literary
notability did this " Mad Genius " of Bristol, going on
his expedition to set the Thames on fire, take in his
portmanteau to be of use to him. Two things only
BOUND FOR LONDON.
seem to have been decided : first, tliat, on arriving in
London, lie should go to lodge at the house of a IMr.
"SViilmsley, a plasterer, in Shoreditch, where a Mrs.
Ballance, a distant relative of his mother's, and who
had already been written to on the subject, resided ; and,
secondly, that his care on his arrival should be to seek
out Mr. Edmunds, at the Middlesex Joicrnal office in
Shoe Lane, and beat up the editorial quarters of tlie
Toim and Country Magazine. These were to be his
foci in London ; and thence, by the force of his genius,
he was to weave out new acquaintanceships, and spread
himself in all directions ! Nor, on the whole, was this
plan perhaps the worst. Young authors coming to
London to set the Thames on fire are by no means
always welcome visitors to those more elderly prac-
titioners of the same craft who, having become con-
vinced by experience of the incombustibility of the
river, have settled down on its banks with chastened
hopes and more practical intentions; and it is better,
in the long run, for young authors themselves tu
purchase every inch of way they make into people's
good graces by some equivalent addition of new work
done and tendered. And yet who will say that intro-
ductions are of no use ? The kind word of encourage-
ment spoken now and then by the veteran litUratenr
to his younger brother, the business note written now
and then in his service when anything in the shape
of work turns up, the friendly invitation now and
C. H
98 GHATTERTON.
then when a few of the same craft are to meet :
these courtesies, which it is in the power of intro-
ductions, in the proportion perhaps of one effective to
ten given, to procure, how much wear and tear of heart
may they not save, how many paths through poverty
to a rank London churchyard may they not make
smoother ! These, a little extended and adjusted, would
of themselves constitute in these days, and while more
systematic promises are in abeyance, a very good
organization of literature. Nor, thank God, are these
wanting. That hard, austere man of letters, young
poet, who receives you so grimly, is so severe on your
fallacies and commonplaces, says not a word to flatter
you, and would almost drive you from literature to
making shoes, let but an opportunity really to serve
you present itself, and you shall find that man as true
as steel and as kind as a woman ! That other man of
letters, with the flashing wit and the impetuosity that
stuns and blasts you, I could tell you of generous
actions done by him ! And him, again, the broad,
sagacious man of abundant humour and encyclopaedic
lore, or him on whose silver hairs the honours of a loner
celebrity sit so gracefully — what debts of gratitude, were
they reckoned up, would be found owing by contem-
jwraries to them ! Such men there are in London in
Mur own days, each cordial and assisting after his own
method and in his own sphere ; nor was London want-
ing in such in the days of Chatterton. TJemembering
BOUND FOR LONDON. !,<j
this, and tliinking which special man out of the 700.000
and odd souls then inhabiting London it miglit have
been best for Chatterton to have come into connexion
witli, one cainiot but speculate what might have been
the result had Chatterton taken with him from Biistol
but one letter of introduction, addressed to Oliver Gold-
smith. " To Dr. Goldsmith, at No. 2, Brick Court, :Middle
Temple, favoured by Mr. Chatterton" — one lingers in
fancy over the probable consequences of a letter bear-
ing that superscription. But it did not so happen.
It was on Tuesday, the 24th of April, and, as near
as we can guess, between eight and nine in the evening,
that Chatterton, who had probably never been a single
whole day out of Bristol before, took his final farewell
of it. By the help of the Gentleman's Magaziiie for
April, 1771, which contains a register of the weather
for the same month in the previous year, we are able
to tell pretty exactly the state of the weather at the
time. Monday, the 23rd, had been " a cloudy day, very
cold, with some little hail and a strong north-west
wind ; " and on Tuesday, the 24th, though the wind
had veered round to the south-west, it was still " cold
and cloudy." On the evening of that cloudy day, when
it is already almost dark, and the streets are damp witli
approaching rain, three figures stand at an inn-duor iu
Bristol, waiting for the starting of the London coacii..
H 2
100 CHATTERTON.
They are — Cliattertou, wrapped up for his journey, a
tight, well-built youth, of middle size; his sister, a
grown young woman, two years older than himself;
and his mother, a sad-looking elderly person, in a
cloak. Eound about the coach, and greatly in the way
of the porters who are putting on the luggage, are one
or two young men that have gone there to bid Chat-
terton once more good-bye. They stand and talk for a
few minutes in the midst of the bustle, while the
passengers are hurrying backwards and forwards be-
tween the coach and the lighted passage of the inn.
At last all is ready; the luggage is put up, and the
other passengers have taken their seats. " Good-bye,
Tom ; God bless you ; and mind to write as soon as
you get to London," falters the widow for the last time.
Tom hears her ; bids her good-bye, his sister good-bye^
the rest good-bye ; and springs into his place in what
was then called "the basket" of the coach, i.e., an
exterior accommodation slung low down to the body.
" All right," cries the guard, and blows his horn ; the
coachman cracks his whip, the horses' hoofs clatter;
and away along the iU-lit streets goes the clumsy
vehicle, out towards the suburbs of Bristol, Chatterton
slung in the basket. The widow stands at the inn-
door watching it till it disappears ; then, taking her
daughter's arm, and gathering her cloak around her,
walks home with a heavy heart through the drizzle.
PAET II.
LONDON
CHAPTER I.
SHOREDITCa.
Header, were you ever in Shoreditch ? If you are
an inhabitant of London, you may know all about it ;
if not, get a map of London, and you will see that the
locality named Shoreditch forms part of one of the
great highways leading northwards from the centre
of the city towards the suburbs. The part of this
highway nearest the city, including about half a mile
of houses on both sides, is called Bishopsgate Street,
from the fact that here stood one of the ancient gates
of the city, erected by a Saxon bishop of some early
century ; beyond that, for about a quarter of a mile,
the thoroughfare is called Norton Folgate, or, as it was
originally pronounced, the Northern Foldgate ; after
which, extending for another quarter of a mile, and
terminating in Hackney, is Shoreditch proper, the
principal street of a populous parish of the same name.
Tradition ascribes the origin of the name to the
104 CHATTERTON.
circumstance that Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward
IV., ended her life here,
" Within a ditch of loathsome scent,
Which carrion dogs did much frequent,"
as the ballad says: but old Stow settles that matter
by saying, he could prove by record that as early as
four hundred years before his time the place had been
called Soersditch. However this may be, the place
deserves its name. There is, indeed, no vestige of a
ditch now perceptible to one passing through the
locality, whatever a more strict investigation might
disclose; but the neighbourhood has not a very pleasant
or wholesome look. The aspect which Shoreditch
I)roper now presents is that of a broad, bustling street
of old-fronted houses, full of heterogeneous shops,
some of them exhibiting considerable displays of cheap
hats, haberdashery, shoes, ready-made clothes, groceries,
and the like ; but others belonging rather to the coster-
monger species. Narrower streets, of more mean
appearance, branch out from it on both sides. Alto-
gether, Shoreditch is not the part of London where
a literary man of the present day would voluntarily
seek lodgings ; and the case was probably much the
same in Chatterton's time. Indeed, long before that,
Shoreditch, partly perhaps on account of the peculiar
suggestiveness of its name, had obtained an unenviable
reputation as a low neighbourhood. " To die in
SHOREDITCn. 105
Shoreditch " was synonymous, in tlie writings of the
wits of Dryden's time, with dying like a profligate
and having hags for one's nurses.
It was here, however, that Chatterton lodged when
he first came to London. We have already mentioned
that the only definite arrangement he seems to have
made for his sojourn in London, before leaving Bristol,
consisted in his having written to Mrs. Ballance, a
distant relative of his mother, who lived in the house
of a Mr. Walmsley, a plasterer, in Shoreditch, asking
her to secm^e a lodging for him against his arrival.
Mrs. Ballance, whom we picture as an elderly female,
the widow of some seafaring man, living in London
in a meagre, eleemosynary way, appears to have replied
to this letter by writing to Mrs. Chatterton that
Thomas had better come at once to Mr. Walmsley's,
where he coidd be accommodated in the meantime at
least, and where she would do her best to make him
comfortable.
Accordingly, it was to Mr. Walmsley's, in Shoreditch,
that Chatterton, on his arrival in London, on the
evening of Wednesday, the 25th of April, 1770, con-
trived to make his way. Where the Bristol coach
of that day stopped we do not know, though even that
might be ascertained if we were very anxious about it ;
but, as it must have been in the yard of some inn near
the heart of the city, Chatterton had not far to go
106 CEATTERTON.
before introducing himself to' Mrs. Ballauce, if, indeed,
the good woman did not make her appearance at
the coach to meet her young relative. It shows the
impatience and the spirit of the young stranger, thus
deposited in the streets of London, that, late as it
was when he arrived at Mr. Walmsley's (it must have
been between five and six o'clock in the evening),
and tired as he must have been with his twenty
hours' journey, he did not remain within doors any
time, but, having seen his boxes safe, and escaped
the assiduities of Mrs. Ballance, sallied out for a
ramble, and to make calls on the persons through
whose patronage he hoped to gain a footing in literary
circles. So much, at least, we infer from the follow-
ing letter to his mother, written on the morning of
the 26th, after he had slept his first night at Mr.
Walmsley's, and giving an account of his journey and
his first proceedings in London : —
" London, April 26th, 1770.
"Dear Mother, — Here I am, safe and in high
spirits. To give you a journal of my tour would not
be unnecessary. After riding in the basket to Brisling-
ton, I mounted the top of the coach, and rid easy,
and was agreeably entertained with the conversation
of a Quaker in dress, but little so in personals and
behaviour. This laughing Friend, who is a carver,
lamented his having sent his tools to Worcester, as
otherwise he would have accompanied me to London.
SnOREDITCH. 107
1 left him at Bath ; when, finding it rained pretty
fast, I entered an inside passenger to Speenhamland,
the half-way stage, paying seven shillings. 'Twas
lucky I did so, for it snowed all night, and on Marl-
liorough Downs the snow was near a foot high.
" At seven in the morning I breakfasted at Speen-
hamland, and then mounted the coach-box for the
remainder of the day, which was a remarkable fine
one. Honest Gee-ho complimented me with assuring
me that I sat bolder and tighter than any person who
ever rid with him. Dined at Stroud most luxuriously
with a young gentleman, who had slept all the pre-
ceding night in the machine, and an old mercantile
genius, whose school-boy son had a great deal of wit,
as the father thought, in remarking that Windsor was
as old as 02ir Saviour's time.
" Got into London about five o'clock in the evening.
Called upon Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Fell, Mr. Hamilton,
and Mr. Dodsley. Great encouragement from them ;
all a])proved of my design. Shall soon be settled.
Call upon Mr. Lambert ; show him this ; or tell him,
if I deserve a recommendation, he would oblige me to
give me one: if I do not, it will be beneath him to
take notice of me. Seen all aunts, cousins — all well —
and I am welcome. Mr. T. Wensley is alive, and com-
ing home. Sister, grandmother, &c. &c. &c., remember.
" I remain your dutiful son,
" T. ClIATTEKTON."
It is a curious corroboration of Chatterton's account
of the weather during his journey that, in the meteoro-
logical registers of the Gentl&man's Magazine, Wednes-
108 GHATTERTON.
day, the 25tli of April, 1770 — the day on which
Chatterton sat beside the driver of the Bristol coach
all the way from Speenhamlaud to London — is entered
as a day of " smart frost, very bright and very cold,"
snow having fallen in some parts of the country during
the previous night. It was on the evening of this
bright, cold day, therefore (or, notwithstanding the word-
ing of his letter, was it not rather next morniDg ?), that
Chatterton, setting out from Mr. Walmsley's, contrived,
by inquiring his way of people he met, to pilot himself
along Shoreditch, Norton Folgate, and Bishopsgate
Street, towards the city, bent as he was on calling
without delay on the four gentlemen mentioned in his
letter — Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Fell, Mr. Hamilton, and
Mr. Dodsley. Let us see if we can make out anything
respecting those gentlemen. They were the first persons
Chatterton visited in London, and some of them had
not a little to do with his subsequent fate.
Mr. Edmunds has been already introduced to the
reader. He was the proprietor, editor, and publisher of
the Middlesex Journal, a bi-weekly newspaper, to which,
we have seen, Chatterton had sent several communi-
cations from BristoL His ofl&ces were in Shoe Lane,
Holborn. Of Mr. Hamilton we learn something
from that interesting collection of scraps, " Nichols's
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century." He
was the printer and proprietor of The Town and
SnOREDITCn. 109
CovMry Magazine ; in which capacity Chatterton had,
as we know, for some time corresponded with him.
He was the son of one Archibald Hamilton, a Scotch-
man ; who, having been obliged to quit Edinburgh in
1736 for ha\'ing been actively concerned in the
Porteous Eiot, had settled in London as a printer, and
had made a considerable fortune there. The son
Archibald, enjoying the benefit of his father's con-
nexion, had also set up as a printer. He had, says
Nichols, two printing-offices, one "in the country, on
the road between Highgate and Finchley," the other
in town, " near St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell ; " and
it was probably in allusion to this circumstance that,
when he started a new magazine, in the beginning of
1769, he named it TJic Toicn and Country Magazine.
The magazine, Nichols informs us, had " a prodigious
sale." Nichols also gives us some particulars respect-
ing Dodsley, in addition to those already communicated
to the reader. Having succeeded his brother Robert,
whose junior he was by twenty-two years, in the year
1759, James Dodsley had carried on the bookselling
business in Pall Mall so profitably as to be already a
wealthy man, AVhen he died in 1797, he left a fortune
of 70,000/. ; and a good part of this sum must have
been accumulated before 1770, when he was forty-five
years of age. " By a habit of excluding himself from
the world," says Nichols, " ]\Ir. James Dodsley, who
110 CHATTERTON.
certainly possessed a liberal heart and a strong under-
standing, had acquired many peculiarities." One of
these is mentioned as specially characteristic. " He
kept a carriage many years, but studiously wished his
friends should not know it ; nor did he ever use it
on the eastern side of Temple Bar." The inscription
on the tablet erected to the memory of the bookseller
in St. James's Church, Westminster, where he was
buried, is to the same effect. " He was a man," says
the epitaph, " of a retired and contemplative turn of
mind, though engaged in a very extensive line of public
business ; he was upright and liberal in his dealings,
a friend to the afflicted in general, and to the poor
of this parish in particular," — in fact, an eccentric, shy,
good sort of man. Finally, what of Mr, Fell? From
what Chatterton says of him, we learn that he was
printer,' publisher, and editor of the Freeliolder's Maga-
zine, a periodical conducted in the interest of Wilkes,
and to which, as well as to the Tovm and Country,
Chatterton had recently sent articles for insertion. We
imagine him, on some shadow of authority, to have
been a needy, nondescript kind of publisher, with a
place of business in Paternoster Eow, and not nearly
so respectable as either Edmunds or Hamilton, not to
speak of Dodsley.
Such were the four persons upon whom we are to
imagine the impetuous young fellow who had just
SnOREDITCE. Ill'
come off the Bristol coach dropping in unexpectedly
long, long ago. His hopes from Edmunds were, of
course, chiefly in connexion with the Middlesex Journal,
for which he could furnish poems and paragraphs.
Through Fell he might obtain a footing in the Free-
Iwlders Magazine, and whatever else of a literary
kind might be going on under the auspices of Wilkes.
From Hamilton he looked for some definite and paying
engagement on the Toivn and Country. From Dodsley
his expectations were probably still higher. Besides
being the publisher of the Annual Register, and the
friend of Burke and other notable political men,
Dodsley was a bookseller on a large scale, and a
publisher of poetry ; it was to him that Chatterton
had applied by letter sixteen months before as a likely
person to publish his ^//a/ one or two letters had
probably passed between them since ; and, in resolving
to introduce himself personally to this magnate of
books, Chatterton had, doubtless, dreams not only of
the opening of the Annual Register to liis lucubrations,
but also of the appearance of his Eowley performances
some day or other in the form of one or more well-
printed volumes, the wonder of all the critics. It
was witli these views on the persons severally con-
cerned, that Chatterton made his four rapid calls.
The enterprise was certainly less Quixotic tlian if a
young literary provincial, uow-a-days, were, on the
112 CHATTEBTON.
first day of his being in London, to resolve at once
to call on Murray or Longman, then to beat up the
office of the Daily News in search of the editor,
after that to knock at Mr. Parker's door to seek an
engagement on Fraser, and finally to go and See what
could be done on Dickens s Household Words. Still,
with all allowance for the difference between that
day and this, the idea of achieving interviews with
four different editors and publishers in one ramble
was somewhat bold. As regards mere time and dis-
tance, to compass calls, in such circumstances, on four
different individuals — one of them living in Shoe Lane,
another at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, a third in
Pall Mall, and the fourth somewhere else — can have
been no easy task. Put Chatterton was a resolute
youth, with plenty of the faculty of self-assertion, and
capable, as we imagine, not only of making four calls
in one walk, but also of going through each without
any unnecessary degree of bashfulness. We have no
doubt that he saw Hamilton, Pell, Edmunds, and
Dodsley himself, with the most perfect self-assurance ;
that he explained his case to them, and stated what
he wanted from them, very distinctly ; and that, with
the advantage he had in having corresponded with
all of them before, he came off from the interviews
in a very satisfactory manner. As to how they received
him, and what they said to him, we have but his own
SnOREDITCIL 113
words to his mother : " Great encouragement from
them ; all approved of my design." The meaning of
this is somewhat problematical. Dodsley, we imagine,
nervous and shy person as he was, may have been
a little discomposed by the talk of the impetuous
young visitor who had so unceremoniously burst in
upon him, and, while listening with tolerable courtesy
to what he said, may have been mentally resolving
to have nothing more to do with that odd Bristol lad, if
once he could get him out. Hamilton and Edmunds,
we fancy, were civil and general, with perhaps an
intention to let the lad write for them, if he chose
to do so. Fell, as a needier man, and more ready to
catch at a promising literary recruit, was probably the
most cordial of all.
And so, tired and yet happy, the young stranger bent
his steps homewards in the direction of Shoreditch.
Ah ! one wonders whether, in passing along Shoe Lane
after his interview with Edmunds, brushing with his
shoulder the ugly black wall of that workhouse bury-
ing-ground on the site of which Farringdon jNlarket
now stands, any presentiment occurred to him of a
spectacle which, four short months afterwards, that
very spot was to witness — those young limbs of his,
now so full of life, then closed up stark and unclaimed
in a workhouse shell, and borne carelesslv and irre-
verently by one or two men along that very wall to '
c. I
114 CHATTERTON.
a pauper's hasty grave ! No, he paces all unwittingly,
poor young heart, that spot of his London doom,
where even now, remembering him, one shudders as
one walks .God, in his mercy, hangs the veil.
In what precise part of Shoreditch that house of
Mr. Walmsley was where Chatterton lodged when he
first came to London, and to which, on that memorable
day, he returned through many dark and strange
streets, we do not know. London Directories of the
year 1770 are not things easy to be found ; and,
could we find one, we should not be very certain to
find Mr. Walmsley's name in it. In these circum-
stances, the literary antiquary, as he walks along Shore-
ditch, may be allowed to single out, as the object of
his curiosity, any old-looking house he pleases along
the whole length of the thoroughfare on either side,
it being stipulated only that the house so selected shall
be conceivable as having once been the abode of a
plasterer. For our part, we have an incommunicable
impression as if the house were to fee sought in the
close vicinity of the present terminus of the Eastern
Counties Eailway, or where Shoreditch passes into
Norton Folgate. Let that fancy stand, therefore, in
lieu of a better.
Here, then, Chatterton slept his first night in
London. Here, on the following morning, he break-
SUOREDITCH. 115
fasted ia the company of his relative, Airs. Ballauce,
giving her the news of Bristol, and receiving from her
such bits of news in return as she had to communi-
cate, including the intelligence that Mr. T. Wensley —
a seaman or petty officer, as we learn from a subse-
quent allusion, on board a King's ship, but a native
of Bristol, and on that account known to Mrs. Chat-
terton and his sister — was alive, and on his way home.
Hence also he sets out to visit those aunts and cousins
mentioned in the letter as being all well and glad to
see him, and who, it is to be hoped, did not live far
from Shoreditch. Here, some time or other in the
course of the day — Thursday, the 26th, his first real
day in London, and "a very coarse, wet, cold day"
it was, says the Gentleman's Magazine — he writes his
letter home, so as to send it by that day's post. And
here, during the remaining days of that month, —
Friday, the 27th, " a very coarse wet day, but not
so cold ; " Saturday, the 28th, " a heavy morning
bright afternoon, cold wind ; " Sunday the 29th, "
very bright day, hot sun, cold wind;" and Monday
the 30th, " chieily bright, flying clouds, no rain
and warm;" — he soon finds himself faiiiy domi-
ciled, becoming more familiar with the Walmsleys
and Mrs. Ballancc, whom he sees iu the mornings,
and starting oil every forenoon for a wulk along
Noilon Folgate and Bishopsgate Street, towards those
I 2
IIG CHATTERTON.
quarters of the metropolis where the chief attrac-
tions lay.
Chattertou lived in Mr, Walmsley's house in Shore-
ditch about six weeks in all, or from the 24th of April
to the beginning of June. We are fortunately able
to give a somewhat particular account of the economj
of Mr. "Walmsley's family, and of the kind of accom-
modation which Chatterton had there, and the impres-
sion he produced on the various members of it during
his stay. The Kev. Sir Herbert Croft, already men-
tioned as one who took much jDains — more pains, in
fact, than anybody else from that time to this — to
inform himself of the real particulars of Chatterton's
life, hunted out the AValmsley family in Shoreditch
while the memory of Chatterton was still fresh, and
ascertained all he could from them regarding the habits
of the singular being whose brief stay among them had
been an event of such consequence in the history of
their humble household. The following is an extract
from Sir Herbert's Love and Madness, embodying all he
could gather about Chatterton from this source : —
" The man and woman where he first lodged are still
(1780) living in the same house. He is a plasterer.
They, and their nephew and niece (the latter about as
old as Chatterton would be now, the former three years
younger), and Mrs. Ballance — who lodged in the house
and desired them to let Chatterton, her relation, live
HHOllEDITCH. 1 1 7
there also — have been seen. The little collected from
them you shall have in their own words . . .
" Mrs. Ballance says he was as proud as Lucifer.
He very soon quarrelled with her for calling him
' Cousin Tommy,' and asked her if she ever heard of a
poet's being called Tommy ; but she assured him that
she knew nothing of poets, and only wished he would
not set up for a gentleman. Upon her recommending
it to him to get into some office, when he had been in
town two or three weeks, he stormed about the room
like a madman, and frightened her not a little by tell-
ing her that he hoped, with the blessing of God, very
soon to be sent prisoner to the Tower, which would
make his fortune. He would often look steadfastly in
a person's face, without speaking, or seeming to see the
person, for a quarter of an hour or more, till it was
quite frightful ; during all which time (she supposes
from what she has since heard) his thoughts were gone
about something else. ... He frequently declared that
he should settle the nation before he had done : but
how could she think that her poor cousin Tommy was
so great a man as she now finds he was ? His mother
should have written word of his greatness, and then,
to be sure, she would have humoured the gentleman
accordingly.
" Mr. Walmsley observed little in him, but that there
was something manly and pleasing about him, and that
he did not dislike the wenches.
" Mrs. Wabnsley's account is, that she never saw any
harm of him — that he never' mislisted her, but was
always very civil whenever they met in the house by
accident; that he would never suffer the room in which
118 CRATTERTON.
lie used to read and write to be swept, because, he said,
poets bated brooms ; tbat she told him she did not
know anything poet-folks w^ere good for, but to sit in a
dirty cap and gown in a garret, and at last to be
starved ; that, during the nine (?) weeks he was at her
house, he never stayed out after the family hours except
once, when he did not come home all night, and had
been, she heard, pocting a song about the streets. (This
night, Mrs. Ballance says, she knows he lodged at a
relation's, because Mr. Walmsley's house was shut up
when he came home.)
" The Niece says, for her part, she always took him
more for a mad boy than anything else, he would have
such flights and vagaries ; that, but for his face, and her
knowledge of his age, she should never have thought
him a boy, he was so manly, and so much himself; that
no women came after him, nor did she know of any
connexion — but still that he was a sad rake, and terribly
fond of women, and would sometimes be saucy to her ;
that he ate what he chose to have, with his relation
Mrs. Ballance, who lodged in the house; but that he
never touched meat, and drank only water, and seemed
to live on the air. , . . The Niece adds that he was
good-tempered, and agreeable, and obliging, but sadly
proud and haughty : nothing was too good for him ;
nor was anything to be too good for his grandmother,
mother, and sister, hereafter. . , . That he used to sit
up almost all night, reading and writing ; and that her
brother said he was afraid to lie with him — for, to be
sure, he w^as a spirit, and never slept; for he never
came to bed till it was morning, and then, for what he
saw, never closed his eyes.
SHOREDITCn. 119
" The Nephew (Chatterton's bed-fellow during tlie
first six weeks he lodged there) says that, notwithstand-
ing his pride and haughtiness, it was impossible to help
liking him; that he lived chielly upon a bit of bread, or
a tart, and some water — but he once or twice saw him
take a sheep's tongue out of his pocket ; that Chatterton,
to his knowledge, never slept while they lay together ;
that he never came to bed till very late, sometimes three
or four o'clock, and was always awake when he (the
nephew) waked, and got up at the same time, about
five or six; that almost every morning the floor was
covered with pieces of paper not so big as sixpences,
into which he had torn what he had been writing
before he came to bed."
Bating some spitefulness in the recollection of Chat-
terton's haughty airs, apparent in the evidence of Mrs.
Ballance and the niece, and a sKght tendency to the
marvellous apparent in that of the nephew (who was
but a boy of fourteen when Chatterton shared the room
with him), the above presents, we believe, a picture of
Chatterton, as he appeared in the narrow Walmsley
circle, as accurate as it is vivid. Walmsley himself
one rather likes. One fancies him an easy sort of
fellow, not troubling himself much about domestic
matters, going out to his work in the morning, an(i
leaving his lodger to the care of the women-folks
After he is gone, we are to suppose, Chatterton spends the
morning in reading and writing, while ]\Irs. "Walmsley
120 CHATTERTON.
Mrs. Ballance, and the niece are slatterning about the
house; and generally, as the forenoon advances, he goes out
for his walk towards the places of London resort. Along
Xorton Folgate and Bishopsgate Street, passing crowds
of people and hackney-coaches, and glancing, with the
eye of an antiquarian and a connoisseur in architecture,
at such buildings of antique aspect as were and are
conspicuous in that thoroughfare — the old church of
St. Helen's, the old church of St. Ethelburga, and that
much-adniu'ed remnant of the civic architecture of the
fifteenth century, Crosby Hall, or Crosby Place, men-
tioned in Shakespeare's Pdchard III. : so the metro-
politan reader, if he desires to be exact, may follow
Chatterton in his daily walks from Mr, Walmsley's in
Shoreditch. For the rest, his wanderings may be
various ; frequently, of course, along the main line of
Cornhill, past the Bank, as it then was, and the then
new Mansion House, into Cheapside; thence slowly
along the purlieus of St. Paul's, with a peculiar lin-
gering among the book-shops of Paternoster Ptow;
and further, down Ludgate Hill, and up Fleet Street,
towards Temple Bar and the Strand. Visits of busi-
ness were, we may be sure, not neglected; and, in
achieving his transits from one place to another, Chat-
terton, like the rest of us, may have been guilty of the
folly of attempting short cuts, and so have bewildered
himself in mazes of mean streets, proving their popu-
SnOliEDITCH. 121
lousness by swarms of cliildren, yet never to be seen by
him, or by anybody else, more than once.
Oil ! the weariness of those aimless walks of a
young literary adventurer, without a purse or a friend,
in the streets of London ! The perpetual and anxious
thought within, which scarcely any street-distraction
can amuse ; the listlessness with which, on coming to
the parting 'of two ways, one suffers the least accident
to determine wliich way one will take, both being in-
different ; the vain castle-building in sanguine moments,
when thousands of pounds seem possible and near;
the litter prostration of spirit at other moments, when
one inspects the shivering beggar that passes with new
interest as but another form of one's self, and when
every glimpse of a damp, grassless churchyard through
a railing acts as a horrible premonition of what may
be the end ; the curious and habitual examination of
physiognomies met as one goes along ; the occasional
magic of a bright eye, or a lovely form, shooting a
X)ang through the heart, and calling up, it may be,
the image of a peerless one, distant, denied, but im-
forgotten, till the soul melts in very tenderness, and
all the past is around one again; the sudden start
from such a mood, the flush, the clenched hand, the
set teeth, the resolve, the manly hope, the dream of a
home quiet and blest after all with one sweet presence ;
and then, after that, the more composed gait, and
122 CHATTERTON.
the saunter towards the spots one prefers, till the
waning day, or the need to work and eat, brings one
back fatigued to the lonely room ! And so from day
to day a repetition of the same process. Ah, London,
London ! thou perpetual home of a shifting multitude,
how many a soul there is within thee at this hour,
who, listening to that peculiar roar of thine, which
shows the concourse of myriads in thee, and yet feeling
excluded, like an unclaimed atom, from the midst of
thy bustle, might cry aloud to thee, " I, too, am strong ;
I am young ; I am willing ; I can do something ; leave
me not out ; attend to me; make room for me; devise
the means of absorbing me, and such as me, within thy
just activity; and defer not tiU I and they make
thee hearken with our shrieks ! " But London rolls on;
and men, young and old, do demand impossible things.
If it is impossible to make the medium without con-
form, some power is at least left to shape and rule the
spirit within.
Chatterton, we believe, came to London with as prac-
tical and resolute a spirit as any literary adventurer
before or since. His excitement with his change of
position, his confidence in being able to make his way,
and his activity in availing himself of every means of
doing so, seem to have been really prodigious. Hence,
probably, his first walks in London were as little listless
as was possible in the circumstances. Instead of idle
SnOREDITCn. 123
and aimless saunterings, such as we have described,
many of liis London walks during the first week or
two of his stay at Slioreditch must have been direct
visits from spot to spot, and from person to person. By
no means diffident or bashful, and, so far as we can see,
perfectly heart-whole in respect of all the Bristol beauties
he had left, he probably wasted less time than many
others with less genius would have wasted in useless
regrets and pointless reveries. Compared with his life
at Bristol, where he had been the miserable drudge of a
lawyer's office, his present life, now that he was a rover
in London, appeared to him, doubtless, all but para-
disaic. To work in the morning in his lodging in
Slioreditch, with sometimes a saucy word for his land-
lady's niece ; then to go out to make calls, and see sights
in various quarters, buymg a tart at a pastrycook's
for his dinner, spending a shilling or two in other
little indulgences, and quite alive always to the distrac-
tion of a pretty face wherever he chanced to be ; then
to come home again at an earlier or a later hour, and
to sit up half the night writing and tearing papers,
greatly to the bewilderment and alarm of that very
iU-used boy. Master Walmsley : — here was happiness,
here was liberty, here was a set of conditions in which
to begin the process of setting fire to the Thames !
So, at least, it seemed to Chatterton himself during
his first fortnight in London ; for, when Mrs. Ballance,
124 CHATTEETON.
at the end of that period, ventured to suggest that he
should try to get into some office, we have seen what
thanks the poor woman got. To be sure, had Mrs.
Chatterton sent her word beforehand what a great man
Cousin Tommy was, she would have humoured the
gentleman accordingly ! But how was she to know ?
Ah ! how indeed ?
CHAPTEPt IL
TOWN TALK LONG AGO.
In coming to London, Cliatterton, of course, came
into tlic midst of all tlie politics and current talk of
the day. Bristol, indeed, as a bustling and mercantile
place, had had its share of interest in the general
on-goings of the nation ; and regularly, as the coach
had brought down the last new materials of gossip
from London, the politicians of Bristol had gone
through the budget, and given the Bristol imprimatur,
or the reverse, to the opinions pronounced by the
metropolitan authorities. Sometimes, too, Bristol, from
its western position and its extensive shipping con-
nexions, might have the start even of London in a bit
of American news. On tlie whole, however, going
from Bristol to London was like going fix)ni darkness
into light, from the suburbs to the centre, from the
shilling gallery to the pit-stalls. Let us see what were
the pieces (small enough they seem now) in course of
126 CHATTEETON.
performance on the stage of British life when Chatterton
had thus just shifted his place in the theatre — in other
•words, what were the topics which afforded matter of
talk to that insatiable gossip, the Town, towards the end
of April and during the whole of May, 1770,
First, monopolising nearly the whole ground of the
domestic politics of the time, was the everlasting case
of Wilkes and Liberty, begun seven years before, when
Chatterton was a boy at Colston's school, but still
apparently far from a conclusion. There had been a
change, however, in the relative situations of the
parties.
Among the most earnest defenders of Wilkes and
advocates of the right of free election were the authori-
ties of the Corporation of the City of London, then
under the mayoralty of the celebrated Beckford. With
other corporations and public bodies, they had sent in
^^etitions to the King on the subject. These petitions
having been ungraciously received, Beckford and his
colleagues had had the boldness to wait on the Kinsr
(March 14th) and address a personal remonstrance to
him. The King's reply was as follows : —
" I shall always be ready to receive the requests and
to listen to the complaints of my subjects ; but it gives
me great concern to find that any of them should have
been so far misled as to offer me an address and re-
TOWN TALK LONG AGO. 127
monstrance the contents of wliich I cannot but consider
as disrespectful to me, injurious to my parliament, and
in-econcilable to the principles of the constitution."
Having read this speech, the King gave the Lord
Mayor and others of the deputation his hand to kiss ;
after which, as they were withdrawing, he turned
round to his courtiers and laughed. " Nero fiddled
whilst Eome was burning " was the grandiloquent
remark of Parson Home on the occasion ; and, thoucrh
this was a little too strong, it is certain that tlie City
people were very angry. So, out of revenge, and
partly as a compensation to Wilkes for his exclusion
from the House of Commons, they made Wilkes an
alderman. The patriot had hardly been out of prison
a week when, on 24th of April — the day on which
Chatterton left Bristol — he was sworn in as alderman
for the ward of Farringdon Without and received a
magnificent banquet on the occasion. This accession of
Wilkes to the Corporation of the City of London was
not only a defiance to the Court and the ruling party ;
it was also intended to increase the power of the City
to annoy these enemies in future. With such a man
as Beckford for mayor, and with such men as Wilkes,
Sawbridge, fTownshend, and Crosby, on the bench
of aldermen — all popular men and of strong liberal
opinions — what might the Corporation not do ?
The same part which was being acted in the City
128 CHATTERTON.
by the Lord Mayor Beckford and his colleagues was
acted, within the more important sphere of Parliament,
by the Opposition in both Houses. The ParKament
of that session had been opened on the 9th of January,
and it was to be prorogued on the 19tli of May.
The case of Wilkes had been before it from first to
last, so that it had discussed little else. Uniting in
this case, and making it the ground of a common
antagonism to the Court and the Ministry, the various
elements of the Opposition had constituted themselves
into a powerful phalanx, the leaders of which, in the
one House, were Lord Chatham, the Marquis of Eock-
ingham, the Dukes of Eichmond, Portland, and Devon-
shire, and Lords Shelburne and Temple, and, in the
other House, Edmund Burke, Colonel Barre, George
Grenville, and others. It was " Wilkes, Wilkes," with
those men every day of the session; whenever, in
short, they wished to have a wrestling-match with the
ministers. Thus, on the very first day of the session,
Chatham had made a motion on the subject in the
House of Lords ; on which occasion, to the surprise of
everybody, the Lord Chancellor Camden seceded from
his colleagues, and expressed his disapprobation of
their policy. He was forthwith deprived of the seals^
and the Lord Chancellorship went a-begging. Then
followed, as we know, the resignation of tlie premier-
ship by the Duke of Grafton, and the formation of a
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. 129
second edition of the same cabinet under Lord North.
It was in this unpopular North administration of 1770
that young Cliarles Fox, then tlie greatest rake and
gambler about town, first took office as a junior lord
of the Admiralty ; and the earliest parliamentary dis-
plays of this future chief of the Whigs "were in the
cause of that very policy to the denunciation and
destruction of which he afterwards devoted his life.
Many were the gibes against this young orator of the
North party, whose abilities were already recognised,
and whose swarthy complexion and premature corpu-
lence (he was only twenty-one when the wits nicknamed
him Niger Fox the Fat) made him a good butt for
personal attacks ; and a caricature of the day is still
extant, with the title of "The Death of the Foxes,"
in which Lord Holland, as the old fox, and his son
Charles, as the young one, are represented hanging
from a gallows, while Farmer Bull and his wife are
rejoicing over their emancipated poultry. Fox was, of
course, no friend to Wilkes ; and, in the lower house,
it devolved on him to resist the motions of Burke and
Barre in Wilkes's case. It was in the House of Lords,
however, that the agitation on that case was chiefly
kept up. Among the most decisive measures of the
Opposition was a renewed motion of Chatham's in
that house on the 1st of May — that is, some days
after Wilkes's release and promotion to the dignity of
c. K
130 CHATTERTON.
alderman — " to repeal and rescind the resolutions of
the House of Commons in regard to the expulsion and
incapacitation of Mr. Wilkes." There was a stormy-
debate, in which the principal speakers were, on the
one side, the Duke of llichmond, Lord Chatham, Lord
Lyttelton, Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, and Lord
Stanhope, and, on the other, the Duke of Grafton,
Lord Denbigh, Lord ]\Iansfield, Lord Egmont, Lord
Pomfret, Lord "Weymouth, and Lord Gower. The
motion was lost by a majority of eighty-nine against
forty-three votes. If one may judge from the following
paragraph in the London Evening Neivs of May the
8th, the excitement in town, in the week following
this motion, must have been even greater than
usual : —
" Tuesday, May Sth. — Yesterday a great number of
people assembled in the lobby of the House of Commons
and the avenues adjoining, in consequence of a report
which had been spread that Mr. Alderman Wilkes
intended to go thither that day to claim a seat. The
crowd was so great that members were hindered from
passing and repassing ; whereupon the gallery was
ordered to be locked and the lobby to be cleared. But
Mr. Wilkes did not go to the House."
As Parliament was prorogued on the 19th of jMay,
there was an end, for that season, to all parliamentary
discussion of the case of W^ilkes. Members, to use
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. 131
tlie words of Junius, " retired into summer quarters to
rest from the disgraceful labours of tlie campaign " ;
and "Wilkes had to be content with sitting on the
bench as an alderman, and organizing, with Beckford,
Sawbridge, and the rest of the City-folk, a new
deputation to gall the King. One of the most lUnious
incidents of the time was the interview of this depu-
tation with the King on the 23d of May, an interview
which was not procured without difficulty. The
deputation having been introduced into the royal
presence, the Lord IMayor, Beckford, read a " humble
remonstrance" to his Majesty — with as much spice in
it, however, as the form of such documents allowed —
on tiie decisive terms in which he had been pleased
to characterize their address and petition of the 14tli
of March. The King was implored to " break through
all the secret and visible machinations to which the
City of London had owed its late severe repulse," and
to " disclaim the malignant and pernicious advice "
which had induced him to meet the former deputation
with so sharp an answer : " an advice of most dan-
gerous tendency, inasmuch as thereby the exercise of
the clearest rights of the subject — namely, to petition
the King for redress of grievances, to complain of the
violation of the freedom of election, to pray dissolu-
tion of parliament, to point out malpractices in ad-
ministration, and to urge the removal of evil ministers
K 2
132 ClIATTERTON.
— hath, by the generality of one compendious word,
been indiscriminately checked with reprimand." No
sooner had the King heard this than, facing Beckford
in a way to show his natural obstinacy, he read the
following answer: —
" I should have been wanting to the public, as well
as to myself, if I had not expressed my dissatisfaction
at the late address. My sentiments on that subject
continue the same; and I should ill deserve to be
considered as the Father of my people if I should
suffer myself to be prevailed upon to make such an
use of my prerogative as I cannot but think incon-
sistent with the interest, and dangerous to the con-
stitution, of the kingdom."
Whereupon Beckford, excited beyond all regard for the
usual formalities of royal audiences, is said to have
burst forth in an extempore speech: —
" iSIost gracious Sovereign, will your Majesty be
pleased so far to condescend as to permit the mayor
of your loyal City of London to declare in your royal
presence, on behalf of his fellow-citizens, how much
the bare apprehension of your Majesty's displeasure
would at all times affect their minds. The declaration
of that displeasure has already filled them with in-
expressible anxiety, and with the deepest affliction.
Permit me, sire, to assure your Majesty, that your
Majesty has not, in all your dominions, any subjects
more faithful, more dutiful, or more affectionate to your
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. 133
Majesty's person and family, or more ready to sacrifice
their lives and fortunes in the maintenance of the true
honour and dignity of your crown.
" We do, tlierefore, with the greatest humility and
submission, most earnestly supplicate your Majesty
that you will not dismiss us from your presence
without expressing a more favourable opinion of your
faithful citizens, and without some comfort, without
some prospect at least of redress.
" Permit me, sire, furthei- to observe, that whoever
has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour, by false
insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty's
affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from
the City of London in particular, and to withdraw your
confidence in and regard for your people, is an enemy
to your Majesty's person and family, a violator of the
public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution
as it was established at the glorious llevolution."
This bold harangue, so contrary to all rules of etiquette,
caused a consternation among the courtiers ; the King,
who had been trapped into hearing it by the surprise
of the moment, resented it as an insult; and the
deputation retired with the consciousness that the
breach between the City of London and the King had
been made wider than ever. Beckford, however, gained
great credit by his conduct ; the speech that he had
made to the King (or the above improved edition of it)
was in everybody's lips ; and, for the time, he rose to
as high a popularity as Wilkes.
134 CHATTEBTON.
While the case of Wilkes, with tlie numerous
questions that had grown out of it, thus formed the
chief matter of controversy in the politics of the day,
there was another question — fraught, as the issue
proved, with still more remarkable consequences —
which, after having been a topic of occasional discussion
for several years, began, about the time of Chatterton's
arrival in London, to assume a more pressing and
public aspect. This was the question of the disaffec-
tion of the American Colonies.
In the year 1764-5, as all readers of History know,
the Parliament of Great Britain gave the first deadly
shock to the allegiance of the American Colonies to
the British crown by decreeing the imposition on these
Colonies of a general stamp tax. The Colonies, severally
and conjointly, had protested and j^etitioned against
this act of authority; and in 1767 the stamp tax had
been exchanged for a duty on j)aper, glass, painters'
colours, and teas. This, however, had not satisfied the
Americans. From year to year the topic had been
brought up in Parliament, along with that of Wilkes
— the politicians and writers who took the side of
Wilkes generally also sympathising with the resistance
of the American colonists to the Home Government,
while tlie Court party, who opposed Wilkes, were also
eager for maintaining the prerogative of Britain over the
Colonies. Things had come to such a pass that many
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. \:ir>
shrewd persons foresaw a war with the Colonies, and
prophesied their separation from tlie niotlier-country.
It was the fear of this result that prompted the
administration of Lord Xorth, in the beginning of
1770, to repeal so much of the Act of 17G7 as imposed
duties on glass, paper, and painters' colours, retaining
only the duty on tea. As, by such an arrangement,
tlie obnoxious principle, to which the Americans were
repugnant, was still maintained and asserted, there was
little doubt that it would prove of no avail. But,
before news could arrive of the manner in which tlie
Americans had received it, a piece of intelligence
crossed the Atlantic which increased the bitterness of
the ministerial feeling against the intractable folk on
the other side of the water. On the l^iith uf April,
Chattertun's lirat day in Loudon, there appeared in the
London evening papers paragraphs conveying the news
of a serious riot which had occurred in the streets of
Boston on the 13th of March. The riot had oi'iginated
in a quarrel between some of the soldiers who had
been quartered in the town, greatly against the wishes
of the inhabitants, and the men at a rope-manufactory,
belonging to a Mr. Gray. The people of Boston,
highly incensed against the military, both on account
of their insolent behaviour, and because they had been
sent among them to enforce the odious Tax Act, took
part with the rojie-makers. There was a violciit dis-
136 CHATTERTON.
turbance of the peace ; the troops fired on the people,
and some unoffending persons were killed ; the whole
town rose; and, to prevent still worse results, the
military commander had to withdraw the soldiers to
some distance. " Had they not been withdrawn," said
a private letter from Boston, which appeared in the
London Morning Post, " tlie Bostonians would have set
fire to their beacon, a tar-barrel stuck on tlie top of a
mast on a high hill, and raised the country for eighty
miles round."
Such was the news which the American post brought
to London on the day when Chatterton l^egan his
residence in Shorediteh. For a week, or more, the
town was full of it, the Wilkes party rejoicing over it
as a new embarrassment to Ministers, and the Ministers
themselves not knowing very well what to say or
think about it. From that time a war with the
Colonies seemed a probable event.
In addition to the protracted Wilkes controversy,
and to this matter of the Boston riot and its connexion
with colonial policy, there were, of course, a variety
of minor incidents, of more or less interest, affording
materials for gossip to the town during the first five
or six weeks of Chatterton's sojourn in it. At that
time, as in this, there were balls, horse-races, theatrical
performances, murders, robberies, marriages in high life.
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. ]:i
fires, &c. &c., all duly announced in the puMic papers,
and all excellent 2^(^^ubim for the conversation of the
idle and tlie curious. By way of sample, and that our
readers may the more easily fill out the picture for
tliemselves, we shall string together a few of those
defunct minuticc, as we gather them quite miscel-
laneously from tlie columns of the contemporary news-
papers : —
Wednesday, April 25 (day of Cliatterton's arrival in
Loudon). — " Eanelagh House will be opened this even-
ing with the usual entertainments. Admittance, 2s. 6d.
each person ; colTee and tea included. The house will
continue to be open on IMondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays till farther notice. N.B. — There will be an
armed guard on horseback to patrol the roads." —
Advertisement in Public Advertiser of that day.
Same evening. — At Drury-laue, the following per-
formances : — The Clandestine Marriage. Lord Ogleby,
by Mr. Dibdin ; Miss Sterling, by Miss Pope. After
which, Tlie Padlock, a musical piece. Benefit of
Mr. Dibdin.
Same day. — A levee at St, James's.
Thursday, Ajn-il 26 (Chatterton's first day in London,
and day of the arrival of the news of the Boston riot). —
A masquerade at the Opera House, given by the club
at Arthur's: present more than 1,200 nobility, am-
bassadors, &c.
Sai7ie day. — A bill of indictment found at Hicks's
Hall against the author or editor of the Whisperer, one
138 CHA TTERTON.
of the fiercest of the anti-ministerial periodicals.
"Warrant for his apprehension issued on the 28th.
Same evening, — At Drury-lane, The Beggar's Opera,
with The Minor. Mr. Bannister's benefit.
Monday, April 30 (fifth day of Chatterton in
London). — At Co vent-garden, Addison's tragedy of Cato
revived, with The Rape of Proserpine,
Wednesday, May 2 (Chatterton a weelv in London).
— At Drury-lane, Hamlet — the part of Hamlet by
Garrick ; after which. Queen Mah. Benefit night of
Signer Grimaldi, Mr. Messenk, and Signer Gioroi.
Monday, May 7 (the day on which, as above stated,
a crowd gathered at the door of the House of Commons
on the false idea that Wilkes was to go to the House
and claim his seat). — " Eumour that a lady of high
quality would appear that evening at the Soho Mas-
querade in the character of an Indian princess, most
superbly dressed, and with pearls and diamonds to the
price of 100,000/. ; her train to be supported by three
black young female slaves, and a canopy to be held over
her head by two black^male slaves. To be a fine sight."
Wednesday, May 16. — "Thirteen convicts executed
together at Tyburn, conveyed in five carts ; mostly
boys, the eldest not being more than twenty-two years
of age. Some of them were greatly affected, others
appeared hardened."
Saturday, May 19. — Parliament prorogued, as stated
above.
Wednesday, May 2.3. — The famous interview of the
City deputation with the King, at which Beckford
made the speech quoted above.
Saturday, May 26. — Drury-laue season closed.
TOWN-TALK LONG AGO. V.V.)
Monday, May 28. — Covent-g.arden Theatre closed for
the season.
Same day. — " At two o'clocl-:, A.M., a fire at the house
of IVIessrs. AVebb and Iny, paper-stainers, Holborn-liill,
near the end of Shoe-lane : four persons burnt to deatli."
Same day. — One of " Junius's " letters in the FuUic
Advertiser, containing a view of the state of the
country, and a cutting criticism of the conduct of
Ministers during the session just closed. Only two
acknowledged letters of " Junius " appeared during the
period of Chatterton's residence in London, and this
was one of them.
Wednesday, May 30. — "News arrived that a Frencli
East Indian ship had reached Toulon, bringing word
of a dreadful earthquake at St. Helena, which had
entirely sunk the island in the sea." — Gentlemans
Mayazine.
Thursday, May 31. — Foundation-stone of XeM'gate
prison laid by the Lord Mayor Beckford.
A U April and May. — Advertisements of goods, sales,
quack medicines, and new books, in the newspapers ;
also paragraphs innumerable on the case of ]\latthew
and Patrick Kennedy, two brothers, tried and con-
demned to death for the murder of John Bigby, a
M'atchman, but who had obtained a free pardon through
the influence of their sister Miss Kennedy, a celebrated
woman of the town, in intimate relations with several
high men at Court. An appeal was laid against this
settlement of the matter, and a new trial appointed,
much to the gratification of the anti-Court party; but,
Bigby's widow having got 380^. to keep out of the way,
the trial fell to the ground, and the brothers escaped.
140 CHATTERTON.
It was into the midst of such incidents as these,
episodic as they were to the two great topics of Wilkes
and the Constitution and the growing disaffection of
the American Colonies, that Chatterton transferred
himself by his removal from Bristol to London. "With
some of the little incidents mentioned he may even
have come into direct personal contact. If he did not
go to see Addison's tragedy of Cato at Covent Garden
on the 30th of April, it is not likely that he missed
the opportunity of seeing Garrick in Hamlet at Drury
Lane on the 2d of May. If the " fine sight " of the lady
of high quality with the hundred thousand pounds'
worth of jewels about her, and the three young negresses
supporting her train, did not tempt him to the vicinity
of the Soho Masquerade on the evening of the 7th of
May, it is not at all improbable that he formed one of
the crowd that gathered round the door of the House
of Commons that evening on the false expectation of
seeing Wilkes come to make a scene and get himself
committed to custody by the Speaker. Even at the
distance of Shoreditch the rumour of the thirteen boys
hanged at Tyburn on the morning of the 16th of May
must have reached him ; for, common as hangings were
then, such an occurrence was sufficiently unusual to
make some commotion through all London. The pro-
rogation of Parliament on the 19th of the same month
would be a matter to interest him: much more the
TO WN-TA LK LONG AGO. ill
royal audience given to the City deputation on tlie
23d, and Beckford's famous speecli. Shoe Lane being
one of his haunts, the charred ruins of the premises of
a^^ess^s. Webb and Fry may very possibly have at-
tracted his notice on the 28th or 29th of May as he
passed along Holborn ; and, a daily frequenter as he
was of the coffee-houses where the newspapers were
to be seen, he is sure to have been one of the earliest
and niost eager readers of the Public Advertiser con-
taining Junius's powerful letter of IMay the 28th,
Nor is all this mere conjecture. Not only do we
know it as a fact that it was part of Chatterton's
ambition in coming to London to work himself into
connexion with the prominent men and interests of the
day, and, above all, with the notable personages of tlie
Wilkes party ; we also know it as a fact that, to some
small extent at least, he succeeded in doing so. The
evidence of tliis we shall produce in the next chapter.
CHAPTER III.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE.
Chatteeton's London life forms the subject of a brief
French romance from the pen of Alfred de Vigny,
In that writer's iDleasing volume of fiction entitled
" Stello " Chatterton is introduced as the real hero in
the story of the so-called Kitty Bell. Kitty Bell is a
young married woman who keeps a pastrycook's shop
in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament.
Her cakes and confections are celebrated far and wide ;
and, partly from this cause, partly from Kitty's own
attractiveness, her shop has become a habitual lounge
of the legislators of Great Britain as they pass to and
from their duties in St. Stephen's. Kitty, however, is
as virtuous as she is pretty ; and, though her husband
is a sulky brute, and the young lords and members of
Parliament are very assiduous in buying cakes from
her fair fingers, nothing amiss can be said of her.
There is one figure, indeed, occasionally seen hovering
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 143
about the shop, the apparition of which invariahly
discomposes her, especially when her husband is near.
This turns out to be Chatterton, who, having come to
London to push his fortune, has, in order to be near
the Houses of Parliament, taken a lodging in Kitty
Bell's house. Kitty, with her womanly tact, has con-
trived to dive into her mysterious lodger's secret. She
has ascertained that lie is a young man of genius,
engaged in the hopeless task of establishing a con-
nexion with the public men of the day by means of
literary service, and in the meantime without a penny
in his pocket. She does all, in the circumstances, that
fear of her brute of a husband will permit. She sup-
plies her lodger furtively \vith tarts ; she screens from
her husbantl the fact that he is unable to pay his rent
for the garret he occupies ; and, in short, through pity
and interest, she falls most foolishly in love with him.
Sustained by her kindness and encouragement, Chat-
terton perseveres in his enterprise ; he gets acquainted
with the Lord Mayor Beckford, and is led to conceive
great hopes from promise of his patronage. Beckford,
accordingly, calls one day at Kitty Bell's shop, and, by
way of fulfilling his promise, offers to make Chatterton
his — footman ! Then comes the catastrophe. Chat-
terton, in despair, commits suicide ; and poor Kitty Bell
is left to serve out cakes and comfits to the British
Legislature with a heart no more.
144 CHATTERTON.
A very pretty story this ; with, unfortunately, but
one objection to it — that it is not true ! The true story
of Chatterton's London life, one would suppose, is to be
preferred to a false one ; and, as the materials for the
true story were accessible to Alfred de Vigny in Chat-
terton's own letters, it is a pity that he was so fond of
fiction as not to pay attention to them. Instead of
going to lodge at Kitty Bell's, or at any other con-
ceivable pastrycook's in Westminster, Chatterton, as we
know, had gone to lodge at a plasterer's in Shoreditch ;
and, if Providence was so kind as to supply him with
a fair consoler living under the same roof, this, as we
also know, can possibly, in the first stage of his London
career, have been no otlier than the motherly Mrs. Bal-
lance, or, at best, that hussy, the landlady's niece, to
whom he " used sometimes to be saucy." And so with
the rest of the facts. The real progress of Chatterton's
endeavours to make liimself known — the real extent
of his success in working himself, from his centre in
Shoreditch, into connexion with the metropolitan men
and interests of the day, as they have been summarily
described in the last chapter — are to be gathered, so
far as they can be gathered at all, from his own
letters.
Chatterton's second letter to his mother was written
on the 6th of May, or after he had been exactly
ten days in London. It is as follows : —
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 145
" SiioREDiTcii, LoNDO.v, May G, 1770.
" Dear jMotheu, — I am surprised that no letter has
heen sent in answer to my last. I am settled, and in
such a settlement as I would desire. I get four guineas
a month by one magazine ; shall engage to write a His-
tory of England and other pieces, which will more than
double that sum. Occasional essays for the daily papers
would more tlian support me. Wliat a glorious pros-
pect ; Mr. AVilkes knew me by my writings since I
first corresponded with the booksellers here. I shall
visit him next w eek, and by his interest will ensure Mrs.
Ballance the Trinity House. He affirmed that what
Mr. Fell had of mine could not be the writings of a
youth, and expressed a desire to know the author. By
the means of another bookseller, I shall be introduced
to Townshend and Sawbridge. I am quite familiar at
the Chapter Coffee-house, and know all the geniuses
there. A character is now unnecessary ; an author
carries his character in his pen. My sister will im-
prove herself in drawing. ]\Iy grandmother is, I hope,
well. Bristol's mercenary walls were never destined to
hold rae ; there I was out of my element; now I am in
it. London ! — good God ! how superior is London to
that despicable place Bristol ! Here is none of your
little meannesses, none of your mercenary securities,
which disgrace that miserable hamlet. Dress, which is
in Bristol an eternal fund of scandal, is here only in-
troduced as a subject of praise : if a man dresses well,
he has taste ; if careless, he has his own reasons for
so doing, and is prudent. Need I remind you of the
contrast ? The poverty of authors is a common observa-
tion, but not always a true one. No author can be
poor who understands the arts of booksellers : without
c. L
14(5 CHATTERTON.
tins necessary knowledge the greatest genius may starve,
and with it the greatest dunce live in splendour. This
knowledge I have pretty well dipped into. — The Le-
vant man-of-war, in which T. Wensley went out, is at
Portsmoutli ; hut no news of him yet. I lodge in one
of Mr. Walmsley's best rooms. Let Mr. Gary copy the
letters on the other side, and give them to the persons
for whom they are designed, if not too much labour
for him.
" I remain yours, &c.
" T. Chatterton.
" P.S. — I have some trifling presents for my mother,
sister, Thorne, &c."
[Here follow the letters to various Bristol acquaint-
ances, which Mr, Cary was to copy out and give
them] : —
" Mr. T. Cary. — I have sent you a task — I hope no
unpleasing one. Tell all your acquaintances for the
future to read the Freeholder >i Magazine. When you
have anything for publication, send it to me, and it
shall most certainly appear in some periodical com-
pilation. Yonr last piece was, l)y the ignorance of a
corrector, jumbled under the 'considerations' in the
acknowledgements ; but I rescued it, and insisted on
its appearance. Your friend,
" T. C.
" Direct for me, to be left at the Chapter Coffee-
house, Paternoster-row."
" Mr. Henry Kator. — If you have not forgot Lady
Betty, any complaint, rebus, or enigma, on the dear
charmer, directed for me, to be left at the Chapter
SETTING TfTE THAMES ON FIHE. 147
Coffee-house, Paternoster-row, shall find a place in
some magazine or other, as I am engaged in many.
Your friend,
" T. ClIATTERTOX."
" Mr. Wm. Smith. — When you have any poetry for
publication, send it to me, to be left at the Chapter
Coffee-house, Paternoster-row, and it sliall most cer-
tainly appear. Your friend,
'•T. C."
" Mrs. Baker. — The sooner I see you the better. Send
me, as soon as possible, Eymsdyk's address. (Mv. Cary
will leave this at ]\Ir. Flower's, Small-street.)"
"Mr. Mason. — (Jive nie a short prose description of
the situation of Nash ; and the poetic addition shall
appear in some magazine. Send me also whatever you
would have published, and direct for me, to be left
at the Chapter Coffee-house, Paternoster-row. Your
friend,
" T. ClIATTEETOX."
" Mr. Matthew Mease. — Begging Mr. INIease's pardon
for making public use of his name lately, I hope he
Avill remember me, and tell all his acquaintances to read
the Freeholder's Magazine for the future.
" T. ClIATTERTON."
"Tell Mr. Thaire, Mr. Gaster, Mr. A. Broughton, :\Ir.
J. Broughton, ^Ir. "Williams, 31 r. Pudhall, ]\Ir. Thomas,
Mr. Carty, Mr. Hanmor, Mr, Vaiighan, Mr. Ward, INIr.
Kalo, j\Ir. Smith, &c. &c., to read the Freeholders
Magaziney
L 2
148 CRATTERTON.
Tliis is certainly pretty well after only ten days in
London. We fear, indeed, that there is a good deal
of bragging in the letter, intended to convey to his
Bristol acquaintances a more favourable impression of
the progress he had already made in the great metro-
polis than the facts, as known to himself, exactly
warranted. Still it is evident that Chatterton, when
he wrote the letter, was in high spirits. Eeducing the
expressions of the letter to the real substance of fact
on which they may have been founded, we should be
inclined to say that the information here given respect-
ing the extent of Chatterton's success in introducing
liimself to notice during his first ten days in London
amounts to something like this : —
Being a young fellow of prepossessing appearance
and address, and having, as we know, a sufficiently
good opinion of himself to prevent any of that awk-
wardness in meeting strangers which arises from
excessive modestv, he had made the best use he
could of the slight hold he had on Fell, Hamilton,
Edmunds, and Dodsley. He had gone to their places
of business, perhaps oftener than they cared to see
him; he had talked with them, made proposals of
literary assistance to them, compelled them into saying
sometliing that could be construed as encouragement ;
he had got from them hints as to other quarters in
which he could apply; he had, probably by their
SETTING THE THAMES OiV FIRE. 149
advice, turned his hopes towards the great book-mart
of Paternoster Row, where all sorts of speculations lie
mi<dit help in were going on ; and he had thus at last
found himself referred to that celebrated place of
resort for the booksellers of the day and their literary
workmen, the Chapter Coffee-house. Mr. Peter Cun-
ningham, in his Handbook of London, has provided us
with an extract relating to this once famous rendez-
vous, which will serve to give us a more distinct idea
of it as it was in Chatterton's time.
" And here my publisher would not forgive me, was
I to leave the neighbourhood without taking notice of
the Chapter Coffee-house, which is frequented by those
encouragers of literature and (as they are styled by an
eminent critic) 'not the worst judges of merit,' the
booksellers. The conversation here naturally turns
upon the newest publications ; but their criticisms are
somewhat singular. When they say a good book, they
do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the
quick and extensive sale of it. That book is best which
sells must ; and, if the demand for Quarles should be
greater than for Pope, he would have the highest
place on the rubric-post." — The Connoisscicr, No. 1,
Jan, 31st, 1754.
Here, then, among the talking groups of booksellers we
are to fancy Chatterton a daily visitor during the first
week or two of his stay in town — reading the news-
paj)ers, listening to the conversation, getting acquainted
150 CHATTEETON.
with " the geniuses " of tlie place, and giving very
small orders to the waiters. The Chapter Coffee-house
was evidently a great place in his eyes, and every
shilling spent in it he probably regarded as a good
investment. All his Bristol friends were to address their
letters to him there, and not to Shoreditch,
More particularly, however, Chatterton's hopes at the
period of his first settlement in London seem to have
rested on the intimacy he had struck up with Mr. Fell.
We have already given our impression of this personage,
as a gentleman in pecuniary difficulties, connected in
some way with Wilkes, and employing his own broken
energies, and the capital of other people, in the publica-
tion of the Freeholder s Magazine. His reception of
Chatterton, we said, appears to have been, and probably
from the state of his own circumstances, more frank
and cordial than that of any other of the booksellers
Chatterton called upon. A kind of understanding
seems, indeed, to have been at once established between
them. On the one hand, Chatterton was to have the
pages of the Freeholder's Magazine thrown open to him ;
on the other hand, Fell, to whom the service of a clever
contributor on any other terms than those of hard cash
was probably a convenience, was willing to remunerate
his young friend with plenty of promises, and in the
meantime with the benefits of his advice and counte-
nance, and as much praise as he liked. Tlie prospect of
SETTI^'d THE THAMES ON FIRE. \:>[
beiuir introduced to Wilkes was the most attractive bait
that could be held out to Chatterton ; and we greatly
fear Fell made the most of the fact. " I assure you,
Mr. Chatterton, INlr. Wilkes has a high opinion of you ;
lie has more than once asked me about wiitings of
yours ; and, when I told him that you were not eighteen,
' Upon my soul I don't believe it, Mr. Fell,' said he ; 'so
young a man could not write like that : ' these were
his very words." Such, as we infer from Chatterton's
own account, was the substance of much of his conver-
sation with Fell.
How much of sincerity there was in Fell's farther
promise, that he would introduce Chatterton to AVilkes,
we can hardly say. There is, certainly, some bragging
in the manner in which Chatterton announces the
promised introduction to his mother : " I shall visit
him (Wilkes) next week, and, by his interest, will
ensure Mrs. Jjallance the Trinity House " (i.e. the
charitable allowance granted out of the funds of this
foundation to the widows of deserving seamen). Chat-
terton had shrewdness enough, with all his inexperience
and his good opinion of himself, to know that he was
putting a little strain on the truth here. So also, prob-
ably, in the matter of the other proposed introduction
to the two popular aldermen, Townshend and Sawbridge.
Still, it is evident that he had some trust in FA\. To
read the Freeholder s Magazine, and to address letters to
152 CHATTERTON.
liini at the Chapter Coffee-house in Paternoster liow,
were his two injunctions to his friends at home after he
had been ten days in London.
What came of the connexion so rapidly formed with
Fell and the Freeholder s Magazine will he seen fnan
Chatterton's next letter. It is to his mother : —
"King's Bench, for the present, Mmj 14, 1770.
" Deae Madam, — Don't be surprised at the name of
the place. I am not here as a prisoner. Matters go on
swimmingly. Mr. Fell having offended certain persons,
they have set his creditors upon him, and he is safe in
the King's Bench. I have been bettered by this
accident : his successors in the Freeholders Magazine,
knowing nothing of the matter, will be glad to engage
me on my own terms. Mr. Edmunds has been tried
before the House of Lords, sentenced to pay a fine, and
thrown into Newgate. His misfortunes will be to me
of no little service. Last week, being in the pit of
Drury Lane Theatre [it might have been to see Garrick
again], I contracted an immediate acquaintance (which
you know is no hard task to me) with a young gentleman
in Cheapside, partner in a music-shop, the greatest in
the city. Hearing I could write, he desired me to
write a few songs for him : this I did the same night,
and conveyed them to him the next morning. These
he showed to a Doctor in music, and I am invited to
treat with the Doctor, on the footing of a composer for
Eanelagh and the gardens. ' Bravo, hey hoys, ^q) we go!'
Besides the advantage of visiting these expensive and
polite places gratis, my vanity will be fed with the
sight of my name in copper-plate, and my sister will
SETTING THE THAMES OX FIRE. 153
receive a bundle of printed songs, the words hy her
brother. These are not all my acquisitions. A gentle-
man who knows me at the 'Chapter' as an author
would have introduced me as a companion to the young
Duke of Northumberland in his intended general tour.
But alas ! I speak no tongue but my own. But to
return once more to a place I am sickened to write of,
Bristol. [Here follow some references to Mr. Lambert
and a 'clearance 'from the apprenticeship to be obtained
from him.] I will get some patterns worth your accept-
ance, and wish you and my sister would improve
yourselves in drawing, as it is here a valuable and
never-failing acquisition. My box shall be attended to ;
I hope my books are in it. If not, Send them, and par-
ticularly Catcott's llutchinsonian jargon on the Deluge,
and the MS. glossary, composed of one small book
annexed to a larger. My sister will remember me to
Miss Sandfoi-d. I have not quite forgot her ; though
there are so many pretty milliners, &c., that 1 have
almost forgot myself.
[There are similar remembrances and messages to
IVlr. Gary ; to Miss Eumsey, who seems to be intending
a journey to London, and is requested to send Chattertou
her address, if she does come, as ' Loudon is not Bristol,'
and they 'may patrol the town for a day without
raising one whisper or nod of scandal ; ' to Miss Baker,
Miss Porter, Miss Singer, ]\Iiss Webb, and Miss
Thatcher, who is assured that, ' if he is not in love ^^■ilh
her, he is in love with nobody else ; ' to ^Miss Love, on
whose name he is going to write a song ; to jMiss
Cotton, ' begging her pardon for whatever has happened
to offend her, and telling her he did not give her this
assurance when in Bristol lest it should seem like an
154 CBATTEBTON.
attempt to avoid the anger of her furious iDrother ; '
finally, to Miss Watkins, assuring her ' that the letter
slie has made herself ridiculous by was never intended
for her, but for another young lady in the same neigh-
bourhood, of the same name.' Chatterton also asks
his sister to send him 'a journal of all the trans-
actions of the females within the circle of their ac-
quaintance.']
" I promised, before my departure, to w^rite to some
hundreds, I believe ; but, what with writing for publica-
tions and going to places of public diversion, which is
as absolutely necessary to me as food, I find but little
time to WTite to you. As to Mr. Barrett, Mr. Catcott,
]\Ir. Burgum, &c. &c., they rate literary lumber so low
that I believe an author in their estimation must
be poor indeed. But here matters are otherwise : had
Eowley been a Londoner, instead of a Bristowyan, I could
have lived by copying his works. . . . My youthful
acquaintances will not take in dudgeon that I do not
write oftener to them ; but, as I had the happy art of
pleasing in conversation, my company was often liked
where I did not like; and to continue a correspondence
under such circumstances would be ridiculous. Let my
sister improve in copying music, drawing, and everything
which requires genius : in Bristol's mercantile style
those things may be useless, if not a detriment to her ;
but here they are highly profitable.
[A few additional messages to Bristol friends follow,
together witli a hope that his grandmother ' enjoys the
state of health he left her in,' and an intimation, ap-
parently in connexion witli IVIrs. Ballance's business,
that he had 'intended waiting on the Duke of Bedford
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. ir,:,
relative to the Trinity House, but liis (Jrace is dan-
gerously ill.']
" Thomas Ciiatteuton.
" Monday evening.
" Direct to me at Mr. Walrasley's, at Slioreditch —
onli/."
To this letter succeeds one written to his sister, dated
May the 30th, from Tom's Coffee-house — a house in
Devereux Court, Strand, and hardlv inferior to the
Chapter Coffee-house as a place of resort for wits and
men of letters.
" Tom's Coffke-iiouse, Loxdon, May 30, 1770.
" Dear Sister, — There is such a noise of business
and politics in the room that any inaccuracy in writ-
ing here is highly excusable. ]\Iy present profession
obliges me to frequent places of the best resort. To
begin with what every female conversation begins
with — dress : I employ my money now in fitting myself
fashionably, and getting into good company. This
last article always brings me in interest. 15ut I have
engaged to live with a gentleman, the brother of a
lord (a Scotch one, indeed), who is going to advance
pretty deeply into the bookselling branches. I shall
have board and lodging, genteel and elegant, gratis :
this article, in the quarter of the town he lives, with
worse accommodations, would be 50/. per annum. I shall
have likewise no inconsiderable premium; and assure
yourself every month shall end to your advantage. I
will send you two silks this summer ; and expect, in
answer to tliis, what colours you prefer. }ify mother
156 CHATTERTON.
shall not be forgotten. My employment will be
writing a voluminous History of London, to appear
in numbers, the beginning of next winter. As this
will not, like writing political essays, oblige me to go
to the Coffee-house, I sliall be able to serve you the
more by it ; but it will necessitate me to go to Oxford,
Cambridge, Lincoln, Coventry, and every collegiate
church near — not at all disagreeable journeys, and not
to me expensive. The manuscript glossary 1 mentioned
in my last must not be omitted. If money flowed
as fast upon me as honours, I would give you a
portion of 5,000Z. You have, doubtless, heard of the
Lord Mayor's remonstrating and addressing the King;
but it will be a piece of news to inform you that
/ have been with the Lord Mayor on the occasion.
Having addressed an essay to his Lordship, it was very
well received — perhaps better than it deserved ; and I
waited on his Lordship to have his approbation to
address a second letter to him, on the subject of tlie
remonstrance and its reception. His Lordship received
me as politely as a citizen could, and warmly invited me
to call on him again. The rest is a secret. But the
Devil of the matter is, there is no money to be got on
this side of the question. Interest is on the other side.
But he is a poor author who cannot write on both sides.
I believe I may be introduced (and, if I am not, I'll
introduce myself) to a ruling power in the Court party.
I miiiht have a reconnnendation to Sir Georsfe Colebrook,
an East India Director, as qualified for an office no-ways
despicable ; but I shall not take a step to the sea whilst
I can continue on land. I went yesterday to Woolwich
to see Mr. Wensley : he is paid to-day. The artillery
is no unpleasant sight, if we bar reflection, and do not
SETTING THE THAMES OX FIRE. 157
consider how much mischief it may do. Greenwich
Hospital and St. Paul's Cathedral are the only structures
which could reconcile me to anything out of the Ckjthic.
[Here are some messages to Mr. Carty about ]\Irs. Carty,
Avho is ill, advising him to ' leecli her temples plenti-
fully, and keep her very low in diet, and as much in
the dark as possible ; ' also to Miss Sandford, to Miss
Thatcher, and to Miss Eumsey, whom he ' th'anks for
her complimentary expression ' iu reply to his last
message ; though, as she does not say whether she is
coming to London or not, he thinks it ' unsatisfactory.']
Essay-writing has this advantage — you are sure of
constant pay ; and, when you have once wrote a piece
which makes the author inquired after, you may bring
the booksellers to your own terms. Essays on the
patriotic side fetch no more than what the copy is sold
for. As the patriots themselves are searching for a
place, they have no gratuities to spare. So says one of
the beggars in a temporary alteration of mine in the
Jovial Crew: —
' A patriot was my occupation ;
It got me a name, but no pelf ;
Till, starved for the good of the nation,
I begg'd for the good of myself.
Fal, lal, &c.
' I told them, if 'twas not for me,
Their freedoms would all go to pot ;
I promised to set them all free.
But never a farthing I got.
Fal, lal, &c.
On the other hand, unpopular essays will not even be
158 CEATTERTON.
accepted, and you must pay to have them printed ; but
tlien you seldom lose by it. Courtiers are so sensible
of their deficienc}'' in merit that they generally reward
all who know how to daub them with the appearance of
it. To return to private affairs : Friend Slude may
depend upon my endeavouring to find the publications
you mention. They publish the Gospd Magazine, here.
For a whim, I write for it. I believe there are not any
sent to Bristol ; they are hardly worth the carriage —
methodistical and unmeaning. "With the usual cere-
monies to my mother and grandmother, and sincerely,
without ceremony, wishing them both happy — when it
is in my power to make them so, it shall be so — and
^vith my kind remembrance to jNIiss Webb and Miss
Thorne, I remain, as I ever was,
"Yours, &c., to the end of the chapter,
" Thomas Chatterton.
" P.S. — I am this moment pierced through the heart
by the black eye of a young lady, driving along in a
hackney-coach. I am quite in love ; if my love lasts
till that time, you skull hear of it in my next."
After this letter there is a blank in the corre-
spondence, so fur as it has been preserved, for three
weeks. During those three weeks, we are now able
to say, an event of some importance in Chatterton's
London life took place — to wit, a change of lodging.
From the very first, it may be imagined, he regarded
Mr. Walmsley's as only a temporary residence, con-
venient until he found a better. The economy of
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 159
Mr. Walmsley's house was probably by no means to
bis taste. To have to share a bediodiu witli Master
"Walnisley, and to be continually in contact with the
various inmates of the plasterer's house, more es-
pecially with 'Slvs. Ballance, who would persist in
calling him " Cousin Tommy," must have been dis-
agreeable to him on more accounts than one. Besides,
had there been no other reason for a change, the
distance of Shoreditch from tlu; publishing-offices
where he had to make his call.'^, and from the coffee-
houses and other places of resort which he believed
himiself bound to frequent, would have been a sufficient
one. Accordingly, as soon as he began to see his way
clear to future employment, he determined to seek
another lodging. During the first week of June we
may fancy him going about on the search through all
the likely streets that take his fancy within a moderate
range from Paternoster Row. At last, some afternoon,
going up Holborn towards the West End, after calling
at the office of the Middlesex in Shoe Lane, he is caught
by the appearance of Brooke Street, a tidy, quiet-
looking street, striking off from Holborn on the right,
a little on the City-side of Gray's Inn Lane. He turns
aside from Holborn into this street ; sees perhaps various
tickets of " Rooms to let " hung up in the windows ;
but, on the whole, likes best one particular house so
distinguished. The tenant is one Frederick Angell,
^C'O CHATTERTON.
of uncertain occupation ; but, if there is any name on
the door, it is not his, but his wife's, thus : " Mrs.
Angell, Sack-maker." (The term " sack-maker," from
" sack " or " sac " — the older naturalized French name of
a portion of feminine attire which we now render by
a later — was then equivalent, or nearly so, to our term
" dress-maker.") At the door of this house, after
sufficient inspection of it from the outside, he knocks
rather loudly. The knock is answered, probably by
Mrs. Angell herself — a pleasant-looking person, we
fancy, of between forty and fifty years of age. He
states his object ; is shown various rooms of which he
may have his choice ; and in the end bargains for one,
which is both bed-room and sitting-room, almost at the
top of the house, but with the window to the front.
Thither, either the same day or within a day or two,
he removes his things, alleging no reason either to
]\rrs. Walmsley or to Mrs. Ballance, as they afterwards
told Sir Herbert Croft, for his leaving them so suddenly.
On cleaning up the room he had occupied, after he
was gone, they found the floor " covered with little
pieces of paper, the remains of his poetings." It
seems, however, that he did not all at once cease
his visits at AValmsley's house, but for some time
at least continued to call there in. the course of the
day.
T'he house in Brooke Street, Holborn, where Mrs.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. lOl
Aiigell lived, and where, after tlie iirst week of June,
1770, Chattcrtun liad his lodging, still exists. It is
that now numbered 39 in the street, on the west side,
i.e. the left-hand side as you go into the street from
Holborn. In an upper or garret room in that old
house, which any Londoner may see who cares to take
the trouble, and which is visible without trouble to
the outside passengers of every omnibus going down
Holborn to the City, or returning up Holborn from
the City, Chatterton had his abode. And a far mure
cheerful abode, in external respects, it must have been
than the one he had left at Shoreditch — high up
indeed, with only the airy heaven al)ove, and a pros-
pect of roofs and chimneys round, and yet, if he chose
ti) .str(>tch a little over the window, a sight of Brooke
Street below and the thoroucrhfare of Holborn to the
right. The street was respectable itself, with good
enough shops in it; and only at the inner end— where
it widened into a little irregular space, and bent olf
into alleys, affording room for a small shabby market
for meat, vegetables, and the like, known in the neigh-
liourhood as Brooke Market — did it lead into shabby
[lurlieus.^
^ There is a correction in this paragraph of an error in the first
edition of this story of Chatterton's life. Tnisting to general tradition,
and especially to the excellent anthoritj- of the late Jlr. Peter Cunning-
luuii in his Handbook of London, I there identified the house in Brooke
Street in which Chatterton lodgoil with that afterwards nunihered 4 in
C. M
]62 CHATTERTON.
We should not perhaps have been so particular in
describing the place, but that in Chatterton's very next
letter there is a description of the street in one of its
nocturnal aspects, which might not otherwise be so
intelligible. This letter, which is dated the 19th of
June, has hitherto been necessarily supposed to have
been written at Shoreditch ; but it is in itself, if
well attended to by those who know the topography
of London, an additional proof that he had already
quitted that neighbourhood. It was written, we cal-
culate, a week or ten days after he had gone to
lodge at Mrs. Angell's.
the street, situated on the east side, or right-hand side of the street as
you go from Holborn — which No. 4. at the time I wrote, had been
absorbed into one large block of premises at the Holborn end of the
street, occupied by a furniture-dealer, whose main door was in Holborn.
The mistake was rectified by Mr. W. Moy Thomas, in a letter pub-
lished in the Athenceum of Dec. 5, 1857 ; and I hardly know a neater
piece of historical incpiiry than that by A\hich this gentleman enabled
himself to make the rectification. He found the books for the
collection of the poor-rates in 1772 from that part of Brooke Street
(nearly the whole) which is in the " Upper Liberty of the parish of St.
Andrew's, Holborn ; " he found there the name of " Frederick Angell"
as one of the ratepayers ; and, by an ingenious observation of the
exact place in which this name occurred in the list of the ratepayers
of tlie street upon whom the collector had to call in the order of their
liouses, aided by a reference to Holden's Directory of 1802, in which
two of these ratepayers appeared as still alive and tenanting houses
then definitely numbered, he arrived at the conclusion (all but abso-
lutely incontrovertible, I think) that the house of Frederick Angell
was the No. 39 of the west side described in the text, and not any
house on the opposite side of the street. At the time when Mr.
Thomas wrote, the house was occupied by a plumber ; now (1874)
the lower part is occupied by a cook-shop, j
f^ETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 103
''June 19, 1770.
" Dear Sister. — I liave an horrid cold. The re-
lation of the manner of my catching it may give you
more pleasure than the circumstance itself. As I
wrote very late Sunday night (or, rather, very early
Monday morning), I thought to have gone to bed pretty
soon last night ; when, being half undressed, I heard
a very doleful voice singing Miss Hill's favourite Bed-
lamite song. The humdrum of the voice so struck me-
that, though I was obliged to listen a long while before
I could hear the words, I found the similitude in the
sound. After hearing her, with pleasure, drawl for
about half-an-hour, she jumped into a brisker tune,
and hol)bled out the ever-famous song in which poor
Jack Towler was to have been satirized. ' I jnU my
liand into a hiish,' ' 1 23ricked Jiiy finger to the hone,'
'I savj a ship sailing along ^ 'I thought the sweetest
fioioers to find' and other pretty flowery expressions,
were twanged with no inharmonious bray. I now ran
to the window, and threw up the sash, resolved to be
satisfied whether or no it was the identical Miss Kill
in2'>roprid persona. But alas ! it was a person whose
twang is very well known when she is awake, but who
had drunk so much royal-bob (the gingerbread-baker
for that, you know !) that she was now singing herself
asleep. This somnifying liquor had made her voice
so like the sweet echo of Miss Hill's that, if I had not
imagined that she coidd not see her way up to London,
I should absolutely have imagined it hers. [Here, for
some lines, the letter is hardly legible ; but ChaLterton
seems to say that in the street under his window he
saw, besides the singer, a fellow loitering about in bad
M 2
1(54 CHATTERTON.
female company ; wliicli fellow lie had again, that very
morning, on his return from ' JMarybone Gardens,' seen
in custody ' at the watch-house in the parish of St.
Giles.' He then describes a third figure who completed
the picturesque street-group, as follows :] A drunken
fisherman, who sells soused mackerel and other de-
licious dainties, to the eternal detriment of all two-
penny ordinaries — as his best commodity, his salmon,
goes off' at three halfpence the piece — this itinerant
merchant, this moveable fish-stall, having likewise had
his dose of bob-royal, stood still for a while, and then
joined chorus in a tone which would hav^e laid half-
a-dozen lawyers, pleading for their fees, fast asleep.
This naturally reminded me of Mr. Haythorne's
song of
' Says Plato, who-oy-oy-oy should man be vain ?'
However, my entertainment, though sweet enough in
itself, has a dish of sour sauce served up in it; for 1
have a most horrible wdieezing in the throat. But I
don't repent that I have this cold ; for there are so
many nostrums here that 'tis worth a man's while to
get a distemper, he can be cured so cheap."
Chatterton does not despatch this letter immediately,
but keeps it by him for ten days, when he adds a
postscript as follows : —
"June 29fh, 1770. — My cold is over and gone.
If the above did not recall to your mind some
sense of laughter, you have lost your ideas of risi-
bility."
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. HJr)
The letter may have made his sister laugh, as was
intended ; but on us, at this distance of time, the im-
pression is very difl'erent. AVe remember a passage in
J'epT/ss Diarij which struck us perhaps more than any-
thing else in that entertaining boolc. It was a passagt^.
describing an excursion ^vhich I'epys and some com-
panions belonging to the Xavy-office made down the
river Thames. They returned at night, wdien it was
pitch dark, making their May slowly and Avith mucli
trepidation along the middle of the river as near as
they could guess, and hailing the moored craft that they
passed, in order to ascertain their whereabouts. Not a
soul seemed to be awake on the whole river, to answer
their cries ; and the only sound they could hear was
that of a dog incessantly barking somewhere, either on
the south side of the river, or on board of some vessel
left to his charge. The barking of that dog has been in
our ears ever since ; intimating with a kind of ghastly
vividness, which none of all Pepys's other commemo-
rations, though they are vivid enough, can match, that
those old days of Pepys really and authentically were,
that the black river flowed then at night, and that
a world of now defunct life alternately roared and
reposed on its banks. And so with this last-quoted
letter of Chatterton. As we read it we are in Brooke
Street, Holborn, on a summer night more than a
hundred years ago. And what do we see ? A wretched,
166 CHATTERTON.
drunken woman passing from side to side in the faint
light, and disturbing the deserted street with snatches
of song ; after a while, a male costermonger, also drunk,
reeling out from some neighbouring obscurity, and,
caught by the mnsic, joining it on his own account with
a stentorian bass ; and meantime, standing at a corner,
indifferently looking on, a hulking figure of " the dan-
gerous class," who completes the trio. And is this all ?
Hist ! An upper window in one of the houses, in
which the light has not yet been put out, is thrown up,
and the head and face of a young man emerge — a
wonderful head and face, if we could see them ; the face
pale, under dark clustering hair, and the eye a bold
and burning grey. He leans out, surveys the street
group far below, seems interested ; and, with his face
resting on his two hands, and his elbows resting on the
window-sill, he remains gazing out half-an-hour or
more. month of June, 1770 ! and is this the kind
of educating circumstance you provide for Chatterton,
solitary in his London lodging, and alert in his solitude
for objects to occupy his eyes, and incite him to new
trains of thought ? A poor sleeping street, and a
serenade of two drunkards ! No, as he gazes, the
drunkards reel out of view into other streets, their
voices growing fainter as they go ; the hulking fellow
at the corner also moves off, destiny guiding him along
Holborn to St. Giles's watch-house; the street then,
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 107
though still the same narrow and poor one, is swept at
least of its human degradation ; the mood of the gazer
changes also ; and, though he remains still gazing, it
is not at the street any longer, but at the soft summer
stars r
One letter more closes the series of those sent by
Chatterton to Bristol during his first two months in
London. It is addressed to his friend T. Gary, and
bears no date. From some allusions in the letter
however, we are able to say with tolerable certainty that
it was written on June 29th or 30th, the day before
the June magazine-day. A considerable part of the
letter is taken up with an answer to some objections
which Gary had made to a panegyric of Ghattertou's
on Mr. Allen, the organist of Bristol, at the expense ot
his brother organist Mr. Broderip. The panegyric is
undoubtedly that contained in the long poem called
Keio Gardens, written before Ghatterton had left Bristol,
and then unpublished, but which Gary had, it seems,
just been reading in manuscript : —
" "What charms has music when great Broderip sweats
To torture sound to what his brother sets !
With scraps of ballad-tunes, and (juclc Scotch sangs,
AVhich god-like liamsay to his bagpipe twangs,
AVith tatter'd fragments of forgotten plays,
With riayford's melody to Steruliold's lays,
This pipe of science, mighty Broderip, comes.
And a strange, unconnected jumble thrums.
168 CHATTERTON.
Eoiised to devotion in a sprightly air,
Danced into piety, and jigg'd to prayer,
A modern hornpipe's murder greets our ears.
The heavenly music of domestic spheres ;
The flying band in swift transition hops
Through all the tortured, vile burlesque of stops.
Sacred to sleep, in superstition's key.
Dull, doleful diapasons die away ;
Sleep spreads his silken wings, and, lull'd by sound,
The vicar slumbers, and the snore goes round.
Whilst Broderip at his passive organ groans
Through all his slow variety of tones.
How unlike Allen! Allen is divine.
His touch is sentimental, tender, fine ;
No little affectations e'er disgraced
His more refined, his sentimental taste ;
He keeps the passions with the sound in play,
And the soul trenibles with the trembling key."
Gary, probably in a letter sent after Chatterton to
London, had objected to this as too partial to Allen,
and as unfair to Broderip. Chatterton, premising that
he believes " there are very few in Bristol who know
what music is," defends his comparative estimate of
the two organists, and reiterates his praise of Allen in
strong terms, and his contempt for his rival. " I am
afraid, my dear friend," he says, " you do not understand
the merit of a full piece ; if you did, you would
confess to me that Allen is the only organist you
have in Bristok" He then continues : —
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 1G9
" A song of mine is a great favonrite witli tlie town,
on account of the fulness of the music. It has mucli
of Mr. Allen's manner in the aii-. You will see that
and twenty more in print after the season is over. I
yesterday heard several airs of my Burletta sung to the
harpsichord, horns, bassoons, hautboys, violins, &c., and
will venture to pronounce, from the excellence of the
music, that it will take with the town. Observe, I
write in all the magazines. I am surprised you took
no notice of the last London. In that and the magazine
coming out to-morrow are the only two pieces I have
the vanity to call poetry. Alind the Folitical Ber/ister.
I am very intimately acquainted with the editor, who
is also editor of another publication. You will find not
a little of mine in the London Museum, and Town and
Country. The printers of the daily publications are
all frightened out of their patriotism, and will take
nothing unless 'tis moderate or ministerial. I have not
had five patriotic essays this fortnight. All must be
ministerial or entertaining. I remain yours, &c.
" T. CllATTERTON."
We have presented the last four letters in their
series, with no other remarks than were necessary to
make their meaning clear.^ It is obvious, howevei-,
that, if we are to ascertain the real coherent story of
(.'hatterton's London life during the two months they
include — i.e., during the six or seven weeks of his
1 All the letters of Chatterton contained in this chapter, with tlie
exception of that to Cary, were first collected and printed hv Sir
Herbert Croft in his Love and Madness ; from the second edition of
which, published in 17b(J, I have takeji them.
170 CHATTERTON.
residence at Slioreditcli, and the first two or three of
his residence in Brooke Street — we must go over the
ground for ourselves, weaving the facts together, with
others independently known, and allowing for his
exaggerations.
In the first place, then, we repeat, there is abundant
evidence that Chatterton's activity during his first two
months in London, his perseverance in introducing
himself and trying to form connexions, was something
unparalleled. Very few young men of his age could
have gone through this preliminary part of the business
with half the courage and self-assurance which he
showed. He seems to have been capable of ringing
any number of bells, and sending in his card, known or
unknown, to any number of persons, in the course of a
forenoon; and one wonders at how many of all the
doors in London he did actually present himself during
his stay there. Fell, Edmunds, Hamilton, and Dodsley
were the persons he had begun witli ; but he soon
added others, and still othere, to the circle of those
whom he favoured with his calls. That he miyht
the more easily carry out his plan of getting acquainted
with people likely to be of use to him, he went daily to
the Chapter Coffee-house, Toms' Coffee-house, and the
like places of resort ; entering, we doubt not, into con-
versation with many who gave liim short answers, and
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 171
wondered who the he was. If we consider how
those places were frequented, we can easily suppose
tliat there were men of note at that time in London
who had, in this way, seen CLatterton without knowing
it. " I am quite familiar," he says in his letter of the
Gth of May, " at the Chapter Coffee-house, and know
all the geniuses there." One observes, however, that in
his postscript to his next letter, of J\lay 14th, he
retracts the direction he had given to his mother and
his friends to address to him at the Chapter, and bids
them address him '' at Mr. Walmsley's, Shoreditch,
only." Had he received any rebuff at the Chapter,
which made him discontinue the house ? If so, there
were other coffee-houses, besides Toms'. The theatres,
too, and other places of amusement, served his purpose.
By the 28th of May, indeed, as we have seen, both
Drury Lane and Covent Garden w^ere closed for the
season ; but during the preceding month he had no
doubt visited both several times, at once enjoying the
play and, as on the occasion he mentions in his letter
of the 14th, picking up friends in the pit. After the
great theatres were closed, there were still some minor
ones, as well as lianelagh Gardens and Marylebone
Gardens, furnishing music and other entertainment;
and lliere, too, Chatterton occasionally paid his half-
crown, flattering himself it was an investment.
So much for the effort made. "What as to the success ?
172 CHATTERTON.
Making every allowance for liis own exaggerations, we
believe it to have been by no means inconsiderable.
Evidently, his great object, after his first arrival in
London, was to distinguish himself as a political writer
on the " jDatriotic " or Opposition side. This was to be
his short cut to fame and wealth. To write such letters
for tlie Middlesex Journal, the Frccliolders Magazine,
and other Opposition papers, as should rival those of
Junius, and make him be inquired after by the heads
of the party, and so put forward and provided for : this
was the immediate form of his ambition. Fell and
Edmunds were here his chief reliance ; but, above all,
he desired to be introduced to Wilkes. Could that be
done, his fortune would be made ! And Fell, as we
have seen, was to manage it for him. Unfortunately,
when the promised time came. Fell was not in a
position to keep his promise, having been laid up in the
King's Bench for debt, where Chatterton visited him.
Edmunds, too, was put out of reach about the same
time, having been made an example of by the Govern-
ment, and thrown into Newgate, by way of warning to
" patriotic " publishers. The incarceration of these
two friends of Chatterton at the very time when he
was expecting so much from them must, one would
think, have been a misfortune. But he represents it
otherwise. The Freeliolder had only gone into otlier
hands ; and he should be able to write for it still, and.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 173
on better terms than if Fell liad remained editor ! The
Middlesex Journal, too, was still to go on (Hamilton of
the Tonm and Coiintrj/ Magazine had come to the
rescue, and taken it up) ; so that here also he should be
no worse off than before ! Xor were these anticipations
falsified. For the Freeholder, indeed, he does not appear
to have written much after this date ; the only subse-
quent contribution to its pages that can with tolerable
certainty be traced to him being a letter, in the Junius
style, to the Premier, Lord North, which was not
published till the August number. But for the
Middlesex, under Hamilton, he continued to write
busily. At least five letters have been disinterred
from the columns of this old newspaper, all printed in
the month of May, 1770, which there is good reason
to believe were Chatterton's.^ They are all signed
" Decimus." Tlie first, published May 10th, is addressed
to the Earl of H h (Hillsborough, ]\Iinister for the
American colonies) ; the second, published May loth,
is to the P I) of AV {i.e. the Princess
Dowager of Wales) ; the thirrl, published May 22nd, is
to the Prime Minister himself; the fourth, published
May 26th, is not a letter, but a kind of squib, proposing
a series of sultjects fur an exhibitidu of sign-board
paintings ; and the last is a letter " To the Freeholders
' These lotters were first rrpriiited from the Middlesex Jownal, hy
Mr. Dix, in liis Life of Chatti-rtoii.
174 CHATTERTON.
of the City of Bristol," bidding them shake off their
lethargy, and imitate the glorious example of London.
We may quote a sample or two of these effusions : —
From the Letter to tlic Earl of Hillsborough, May 10. —
" My Lord, — If a constant exercise of tyranny and
cruelty has not steeled your heart against all sensations
of compunction and remorse, permit me to remind you
of the recent massacre in Boston. It is an infamous
attribute of the ministry of the Thane, that what his
tools begin in secret fraud and oppression ends in
murder and avowed assassination. Not contented to
deprive us of our liberty, they rob us of our lives ;
knowing, from a sad experience, that the one without
the other is an insupportable burden. Your Lordship
has bravely distinguished yourself among the ministers
of the present reign. Whilst North and the instruments
of his royal mistress settled the plan of operation, it
was your part to execute ; you were the assassin whose
knife was ever ready to finish the crime. If every
feeling of humanity is not extinct in you, reflect, for a
moment reflect, on the horrid task you undertook and
perpetrated. Think of the injury you have done to
your country, which nothing but the dissolution of a
Parliament not representing the people can erase. . . .
Think of the recent murders at Boston. my Lord !
however you may force a smile into your countenance,
however you may trifle in the train of dissipation, your
conscience must raise a hell within," &c. &c.
From the Letter to the Princess Dowager of Wales,
May 15. — "I could wish your E H would
know how to act worthy your situation in life, and not
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 175
debase yourself by mingling with a group of ministers
the most detestable that ever embroiled a kingdom in
discord and commotion. Your consequence in the
Council can arise only from your power over his
M y ; and tliat power you possess but by the
courtesy of an unaccountable infatuation. Filial duty
has nothing to do with the question : a king has no
mother, no wife, no friend, considered as a king : his
country, his subjects, are the only objects of his public
concern." ....
From the Letter to the Premier, May 22. — " Fly to
the Council, Avith your face whitened with fear ; tell
them that justice is at the door, and the axe will do
its ofhce ; tell them that, whilst the spirit of English
freedom exists, vengeance has also an existence ; and,
when Britons are denied justice from the powers who
have the trust of their rights, the Constitution hath
given them a power to do themselves justice."
From the Squib describing cm Exhibition of Sign-paint-
ings, May 26. — "No. 3. ' TJte Union:' An Englishman
sleeping and a Scotchman picking his pocket. — ' The
K ;' a sign for a button-maker. The painter, who
has not fixed his design to this performance, is cer-
tainly a very loyal subject. His ]\I has that inno-
cent vacancy of countenance which distinguishes the
representation of angels and cherubims ; without guilt,
without meaning, without everything but an undesign-
ing simplicity." . . ,
From the Letter to the Freeholders of Bristol, May 26. —
" Gentlemen, — As a fellow-citizen, I presume to address
you on a subject which I hoped would have ani-
mated an abler pen. At this critical situation, when
17G CHATTERTON.
the fate of the Constitution depends upon the exertion
of an English spirit, I confess my astonishment at find-
ing you silent. The second city in England should not
be ashamed to copy the first in any laudable measure.
. . . Eemember the speech of the glorious Canynge, in
whose repeated mayoralties honour and virtue were not
unknown in the corporation. When the unhappy dis-
sensions first broke out between the houses of Lancaster
and York, he immediately declared himself for the
latter. His lady, fearful of the consequences, begged
him to desist and not ruin himself and family. ' My
family,' replied the brave citizen, 'is dear to me —
Heaven can M'itness how dear ! But, when discord and
oppressions begin to distract the realm, my country is
my family ; and that it is my duty to protect.' "
These few samples will show how well Chatterton
had caught the trick of the Opposition politics of the
day, and how expertly he could dress up the popular
commonplaces. That his contributions, such as they
were, were thought of some value bv the conductors
of the Middlesex Journal is proved by the fact that
there was one of them in at least every alternate number
during the whole month of May, and that two or three
of these were printed in what was considered the chief
place in the paper.
But Chatterton was not content with writing only
for the Middlesex. He probably tried others of the
Opposition newspapers, including even the great Pid>lic
Advertiser itself, which Junius had made illustrious.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 177
Then, as we sliall see, there were various Magazines
or Monthlies, besides the Freeholder, to which he sent
more elaborate contributions in the same political
strain for publication at the end of the month, or
whenever else they appeared. Of these one was the
Political Register. " Mind the Political Register" he
says to his friend Gary in the end of June : " I am
very intimately acquainted with the editor, wbo is also
editor of another publication." The acquaintance had
probably commenced before the end of May ; and it is
with the circumstance of his writing for this periodical
that we are disposed to connect the story of his intro-
duction to Beckford, as related by himself to his sister
in his letter of the oOtli of that month. The facts
seem to be as follows: —
Anxious from the first to get as near the centre of
affairs as he could, and disappointed, by Fell's mishap,
of his expected introduction to Wilkes, he had con-
ceived the idea of making a bold stroke to bring him-
self into direct relations with the man who, for the
time, was even more of a popular hero than Wilkes —
the Lord Mayor Beckford. His plan was to write a
letter to his Lordship on affairs in general, and more
particularly in praise of his Lordship's conduct as
the champion of the City in their struggle with the
Government. Such a letter he did write. Here is a
specimen of what it said : —
C. N
178 CHATTERTON.
" My Lord, — The steps you have hitherto taken in
the service of your country demand the warmest
thanks the {^ratitude of an Eiifrlishman can give.
That you will persevere in the glorious task is the
wish of every one who is a friend to the constitution
of this country. Your integrity ensures you from
falling into the infamy of apostacy; and your under-
standing is a sufficient guard against the secret mea-
sures of the Ministry', who are vile enough to stick
at no villainy to complete their detestable purposes.
Nor can your British heart stoop to fear the con-
temptible threatenings of a set of hireling wretches
who have no power but what they derive from a person
who engrosses every power and every vice. ... If
the massacre of the Bostonians was not concerted by
the Ministry, they were to be enslaved in consequence
of a settled plan ; and, as the one was the result of the
other, our worthy Ministers were the assassins. Alas !
the unhappy town had not a Beckford ! He would
have checked the audacious insolence of the army, and
dared, as an Englishman, to make use of his freedom.
. . . His INIajesty's behaviour, when he received the
complaints of his people (not to redress them indeed,
but to get rid of them an easier way) was something
particular : it was set, formal, and studied. Should you
address him again, my Lord, it would not be amiss to
tell his Majesty that you expect his answer, and not
the answer of his Mother or Ministers. . . . Your
Lordship has proved the goodness of your heart, the
soundness of your principles, and the merit of the
cause in which you are engaged, by the rectitude of
your conduct. Scandal maddens at your name, because
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 179
she finds nothing to reproach you with ; and the venal
hirelings of the Ministry despair of meriting their pay
by blackening your character. Illiberal abuse and
gross inconsistencies and absurdities recoil upon their
author, and only bear testimony of the weakness of his
head or the badness of his heart. That man whose
enemies can find nothing to lay to his charge may well
dispense with the incoherent Billingsgate of a minis-
terial writer."
Tliis letter he intended for the Political Register. But,
either before getting it accepted there, or while it was
still only in type, he sent a copy of it direct to Beck-
ford. He gave his Lordship a day or so to read it,
and then ventured on that personal call to which he
makes allusion in his letter to his sister of IMay the
30th. His Lordship, according to Chatterton's own
account, — and we see no reason to doubt it, — received
him very politely, and not only expressed approbation
of what he had already written, but consented to have
a second letter, on the subject of the City Eemon-
strance and its reception by the King, publicly
addressed to him. This call on Beckford probably
took place about the 26th of May, or three days after
the great affair of the Eemonstrance, and when the
town was still ringing with it. At all events, a letter
bearing that date, and addressed to the Lord Mayor,
was found in manuscript among Chatterton's papers
after his death. This letter, beginning "When the
N 2
180 CHATTERTON.
endeavours of a spirited people to tree themselves from
an insupportable slavery," &c., was almost certainly
the letter he had asked leave to address to Beckford ;
and it shows how completely he had succeeded in his
object that he was able to make arrangements for its
appearing in no less important a periodical than the
North Briton.
The North Brito7i of this date was a resuscitation of
Wilkes's celebrated periodical of the same name, which
had been stopped in its 4Gth number; and it differed
(Xjnsiderably from the ordinary newspapers of the day.
It was of small folio size ; and each number usually
consisted of one careful essay, and no more, occupying
aljout six pages of clear and elegant type, and sold for
twopence halfpenny. The editor and proprietor was a
person named William Bingley, a ])rinter, whose case
was then much before the public. In 1768 he had
resumed the publication of the North Briton, after it
had been discontinued for some years. In that year,
however, having been summoned as a witness in one
of the trials between Wilkes and the Government, he
had given a singular proof of his obstinacy by making
oath in Court that he would answer no interrogatories
whatever unless he should be put to the torture. (See
Junius, Letter VII.) Committed for contempt to the
King's Bench, he had remained there, utterly immove-
able either by threats or by promises, for a period of two
SETTING THE THAMES OJV FIliE. 181
years, publishing his North Briton all the same, and
dating it from his prison; till, at last, in the first week
of June 1770, Government thought it best to let him
out. As soon as he was released, he had started a .
second weekly newspaper, called liinglcys Journal, or
Hie Universal Gazetteer, of the regular newspaper size
and form, the first number of which appeared on the
9th of June. The new paper, however, was not to
interfere with the North Briton. Both were to be issued
every Saturday, at the same price, from Bingley's new
premises at the Britannia, No. 31, Xewgate Street.
A connexion with Bingley must have been thought
of some importance by Chatterton ; and it is another
proof of his energy that, before Bingley was out of
prison a fortnight, he had contrived to obtain such a
connexion. Above all, to have his letter to Beckford
brought out in large fine type in the North Briton,
forming by itself one entire number of that paper,
must have seemed to Chatterton a decided step of
literary promotion.
The elation which Chatterton felt at the idea of the
publication simultaneously of two letters of his to the
Lord Mayor in such important places as the Political
Register and the North Briton, and at the prospects of
farther recognition which would thus be opened up to
him, was doomed to a bitter disappointment. After May
he seems to have written next to nothing of a political
182 CHATTERTON.
character I'ur tlie Middlesex, but to have waited for the
appearance of his letters and the ^clat he anticipated
from them. One of them did appear — that written
first, and sent to the Political Register. It was pub-
lished in that periodical in the course of June, and
bore the signature of " Probus." But, before the other
could appear, an event happened which made it im-
possible that it should appear at all. On the 21st of
June, 1770, Beckford died. His death was sudden,
the consequence of a cold, which an imprudent journey
of 100 miles had aggravated into rheumatic fever.
The town was thunderstruck, and for some days
nothing else was talked of. Only a month before
had been that crowning moment of his life, the pre-
sentation of the City Eemonstrance to the King: the
applauses of that act were still loud ; and London and
all England had been expecting no end of similar
manifestations of spirit from the bold Lord Mayor.
Little wonder that there was excitement over his
death.
Soon the excitement died away. Beckford's only
legitimate son, then a boy of nine years, afterwards to
be known far and wide as the author of "Vathek,"
stepped into the inheritance of his father's vast fortune,
the wife being amply provided for by her settlement ;
several illegitimate children at the same time received
5,000Z. each ; and the City people began to think
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 183
which of the popular aldermen they should elect for
the vacant term of the INIayoralty. ?>ut what of poor
Chatterton, to whom, with his two letters, and the
liopes he had built upon them, an insurance on Beck-
ford's life was more necessary than to all the City
besides ? " When Beckford died," Mrs. Ballance told
Sir Herbert Croft, " he (Chatterton) was perfectly
frantic and out of his mind, and said that he was
ruined." This is probably coiTect ; and yet there is an
authentic little record from which it appears that, after
his first frantic regret was over, he tried to console
himself ironically in a rather singular fashion. On the
back of the identical letter mentioned above as having
been sent to the Nurtli Briton, but which, as it could
not now appear there, Chatterton had recovered and
sent in manuscript to his friend Cary, there is an
endorsement in Chatterton's hand, evidently for Cary's
information, as follows : —
"Accepted by Bin<,'ley,— Set for, and thrown out of, tlie North
Briton, 21st June, on account of Lord Mayor's death :
£ s. d.
Lost by his death on this Essay 1116
Gained in Elegies £2 2
in Essays £3 3
5 5
Am glad he is dead by £3 13 6 "
So far as we are aware, this is the first time that grief
was openly estimated in pounds, shillings and pence.
184 CHATTERTON.
The method, however, has some merits, and might, with-:
out much injury to truth, come into general use.
Beckford's death seems to have had one not unim-
portant effect on Chatterton's literary exertions. Even
before his interview with Beckford. as his letter to his
sister of the 30th of May sliows us, he had begun to have
doubts as to the advantages of mere political writing —
at any rate, of political writing on the Opposition side
and for the newspapers. For essays of this kind, he
says, one was sure of pay ; but the benefit ended there.
The " patriots " being all in search of place for them-
selves, there was little chance of any farther remunera-
tion for articles on their side than the publisher's pay-
ment for the copy ! On the other hand, if one wrote for
the Ministerial side, no publisher would take the articles,
and one must pay to have them printed ; but then, if
one could make a hit, the Ministerial men would be
glad of such a recruit, and could easOy make it worth
his while to serve them ! And then follow\s the maxim,
so characteristic of the miserable boy, " He is a poor
author who cannot write on both sides," with the state-
ment that, if necessary, he will put this maxim in
practice by transferring himself to the Court-party.
There is evidence that he actually made an attempt to
carry the intention into effect. On that very 26th of
May on which he penned the letter that was to appear
in the North Briton, lauding Beckford and the patriots
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 185
for their opposition to Ministers, he penned also another
letter — afterwards found among his papers — addressed
to Lord North, and signed " jVIoderator," in which,
according to Walpole, he passes " an encomium on
Ministers for rejecting the City Remonstrance." It was
probably, therefore, the consciousness of having written
these two letters on the same day that caused him to
write to his sister so coolly about taking either side ;
and what he says about the difficulty of getting Minis-
terial essays published may have been but the result of
his own experience Avith regard to the " ^Moderator "
letter. Evidently, however, after his introduction of
himself to Beckford, he had resolved to wait the issue
of that experiment before taking any farther steps
towards the Ministerial side. But, when Beckford died,
and all his hopes from that acquaintance were over, his
conviction of the uselessness of mere political writing
in newspapers, especially if on the patriotic side, came
back with fresh force.
There was independent reason why it should be so.
Since the end of ]\Iay there had been a perfect panic
among the newspaper-proprietors. As early as the
beginning of that month, we have seen, Edmunds of the
Middlesex Journal had been prosecuted by Ministers and
committed to Newgate. And this was but the beginning
of a series of similar prosecutions. After the City
Eemonstrauce of the 23rd of May, and Junius's terrible
186 CHATTEIITON.
letter in the Fuhlic Advertiser of the 28th, ripping up
the conduct of tlie I'arliament just prorogued, and
lashing Ministers for all their recent misdemeanours,
including the massacre at Boston, the insult to the City,
and the escape of the murderer Kennedy, Ministers
seem to have made up their minds for a crusade against
the Opposition press. On the 1st of June Mr. Almon
of the London Museum, the friend of Wilkes, was tried
in Westminster Hall, before Lord Mansfield, for circulat-
ing a letter of Junius's in that publication ; on the 13th,
the greater culprit, Woodfall of the PuUic Advertiser,
was tried at the King's Bench on a similar charge ; and
on the 13th of July Mr. Miller, of the London Evening
Post, was tried for copying a letter by Junius into his
columns. All this had some effect. The proprietors of
newspapers began to be chary of printing articles which
might be their ruin. Thus, during the month of June,
Chattertou seems to have found it impossible to get such
articles into the Middlesex Journal as they had willingly
taken from him in May. " The printers of daily publi-
cations," he writes to Gary on the 29 th of June, " are
all frightened out of their patriotism, and will take
nothing unless 'tis moderate or Ministerial. I have not
had five patriotic essays this fortnight: all must be
Ministerial or entertaining." Accordingly, still keeping
in reserve the possibility of becoming " Ministerial " if
he should see occasion for it, he in the meantime falls
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 187
back on the " entertaining " : that is, on miscellaneous
non-political literature. And this leads us to a separate
question. What were Chatterton's literary exertions out
of the field of politics during his first two months in
London ?
From the very first he had l)y no means depended
exclusively on political writhig. In his letter to his
mother of the Gth of May he says " I get four guineas a
month by one magazine, and shall engage to write a
History of England and other pieces, which will more
than double that sum ;" and he clearly distinguishes,
in the same letter, between employment of this kind
and " occasional essays for the daily papers." Again, in
his letter to his sister of May 30th, he speaks of an
engagement with a speculative bookseller, the brother of
a Scotch Lord, who was to give him board and lodging
for writing a History of London, to appear in numbers.
How much of these statements about engagements to
write large historical compilations for the booksellers
was actual fact, founded on proposals which passed
between the eager youth and the bibliopolic powers of
Paternoster Row and its purlieus, and how much of it
was mere hallucination, we cannot now say. Of schemes
of this sort, at all events, we hear nothing more ; and
whatever chances of literary work, as distinct from ordi-
nary newspaper-writing, Chatterton did have in London
were limited to his connexion with various magazines.
1 88 CHA TTER TON.
We are able to enumerate all the magazines with
which, during the months of May and June, Chatterton
is known to have had dealings. First, and by far the
most hopeful, as regarded receipts for his exchequer,
was the Town and Coimtry, to which he had been a
pretty constant contributor since its second number in
February 1769. This magazine, which had a very large
sale, was published on the last day of every month, at
the price of one shilling ; and, though the editor and
proprietor, Hamilton, must have been rather surprised
when his well-known Bristol correspondent presented
himself at his office, at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, to
find him so young, he appears to have behaved civilly,
and to have allowed Chatterton to regard the magazine
as one of his surest resources, now that he had settled in
town. Next there was the Frccliolders Magazine, some-
what more political in its character, and also published
on the last day of each month, price sixpence. With
this also Chatterton had had some acquaintance before
leaving Bristol ; and we have seen that, during his first
ten days in London, he was disposed to regard it and its
editor, Mr. Fell, as his mainstay. After Fell's imprison-
ment, however, when the magazine went into other
hands — the hands, as we find from an advertisement of
the ninth number (that for May 1770), of a certain
" patriotic society," who employed W. Adland and J.
Browne of Eed-lion Court, Fleet Street, to print it for
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 189
them — Chattertou says little of it. He did apparently
write for it ; but not much. Of greater consequence
in his eyes was the London Museum, a shilling monthly,
printed, as we have said, by J. ^Miller, of Queen's Head
Passage, and whicli, in ^May 1770, liad attained its fifth
imniber. Next was tlio Political Register, already de-
scribed. After it, may 1)C mentioned The Court and City
Magazine, price sixpence, six numbers old in IMay 1770,
printed by J. Smith of 15, Paternoster Row, and cha-
racterised in the advertisements as " A Fund of Enter-
tainment for the Man of Quality, the Citizen, the Scholar,
the Country Gentleman, and the Man of Gallantry, as
well as the Fair of every denomination." This magazine
had plates, as indeed most of the others had ; and, from
the advertised contents of one or two numbers, we judge
that the light amatory vein was deemed the most
attractive by the publishers. Lastly, there was the
Gospel Magazine, begun in 17C8, and printed and sold,
in 1770, by M. Lewis of No, 1, Paternoster Eow. This
magazine, the purpose of which, as stated on its title-
page, was " to promote religion, devotion, and piety
from evangelical principles," usually consisted, if we
may judge from the contents of a few numbers, of scraps
of sermons and short religious biographies, followed by a
few pieces of religious verse.
The editors of Chatterton's Eemains, after his death,
were not so careful as they might have been in recovering
mo CEATTEBTON.
his contributions to the various London magazines, or
even in giving the exact dates and references of thofee
which they did recover. The task, in any case, was
not an easy one. Chatterton adopted various signatures,
and some of his contributions may have appeared, as
was then common, without any signature at all. It is
possible, therefore, that trifles which have been assumed
as his were not really his ; and it is far more possible
that trifles which he did write have been neglected.
(3n the whole, after such references as we have been
able to make to the old periodicals themselves, we
t^ive the foUowino; as the list of at least the chief of
Chatterton's contributions to these periodicals (the
poetical columns of newspapers included) from his
arrival in London to the end of June : —
"Narva and Mored, an African Eclogue," in verse,
dated May 2, 1770: published in the London Ifuseicm
for May.
"A Song," addressed to Miss C am, of Bristol, in
seven stanzas, dated " London, May 4."
"The Methodist", a short Hudibrastic squib, dated
May, 1770.
" Elegy " beginning " Wliy blooms," &c. : dated " Shore-
ditch, May 20," and published in the To2vn and
Country Magazine for ]May.
" The Prophecy ", a political poem in eighteen stanzas :
published in the Middlesex Journal of May 31, along
with the " Letter to the Freeholders of Bristol."
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. IDl
" The Death of Nicou, an African Eclogue," in verse :
dated " Urooke Street, June 12," and published in
the London Museum for June. [This is tlie piece
to which we have referred as proving Chatterton's
removal to ]5rooke Street early in June.]
" Maria Friendless ", a short tale in prose : dated " June
15," and published in the Town and Country Maga-
zine for June.
" The False Step " : a short prose tale, publislied in
the same number of the Town and Country Maga-
zine.
" Anecdote of Judge Jeffries " : a short paragraph,
published in the same number of the Toivn and
Country Magazine.
" On Punning " : a short letter, dated " June 16," and
published in the same number of the Town and
Country Magazine.
A Paper signed "Hunter of Oddities," dated " Slaughter's
Coffee-house, June 15," and describing the conduct
of a mad gentleman seen there : published in the
same number of the Town and Country Magazine.
[This was the fourth of a series of papers, all bearing
the same signature, and having the same object —
namely, the description of odd characters picked up
in walking about London. There are about twelve
papers in all in the series, extending over all the
numbers of the magazine for 1770. Chatterton was
certainly the author of some of them ; and, though
the rest were published after his death, and even
dated after it, this may have been only the editor's
way of using copy which Chatterton had given him
in a lump].
192 CHATTERTON.
" Elegy on W. Beckford, Esq.," in twelve stanzas,
published in June.
" Letter to the Lord Mayor," signed " Probus," published
in the Political Berjistcr some time in June.
If this list were extended by the addition of scraps
from the same periodicals which look as if they were
Chatterton's, and of similar scraps from the Court and
City Magazine, the Gospel Magazine, and the Freeholder,
it might be more than doubled. We know, for example,
that Chatterton must have written more on Beckford's
death, both in verse and in prose, than the elegy above-
mentioned could amount to. He estimated his earnings
from this topic at five guineas. Indeed, it was in
connexion with this topic that he made the only
venture towards independent publication of which there
is any record. In the Middlesex Journal of Jvily 3rd
there is the following advertisement : " This day was
published, price one shilling, an Elegy on the much-
lamented death of William Beckford, Esq., late Lord
Mayor of, and Representative in Parliament for, the
City of London: Printed by G. Kearsly, at No. 1,
Ludgate Street." A copy of this publication has
survived ; and, on comparing it with the Elegy of
Chatterton mentioned above, it is found to be the same,
with sixteen additional stanzas. Here are the opening
stanzas: —
SETTING THE THAMES Oy FT HE. 103
" Weep on, ye Britons ! give your gen'ral tear ;
But hence, ye venal — hence eacli titled slave !
An lionest pang should wait on Beckford's bier.
And patriot Anguish mark the patriot's grave.
" "When like the Roman to his field retired,
'Twas you (surrounded by unnuinber'd foes)
Wlio call'd him forth, his services required,
And took from Age the blessing of repose."
Whether Chatterton gained any part of his five guineas
by this publication, or whether he lost some of them by
tlie venture, we do not know. The Elegy is as good as
was going, but is poor enough ; and perhaps it did
not sell.
But we have not yet taken account of all Chatterton's
efforts to make money and win fame during his first
two months in London. Besides writing political
articles for the newspapers, and miscellaneous scraps of
a more literary kind for the magazines, he made, as
we gather from his letters, a distinct effort towards
connecting himself with what may be called generally
the minor dramatic literature of the metropolis.
Within a month after his arrival in London, as we
have seen, the two great theatres of Drury Lane and
Covent Garden were closed for the season. But,
though the greater theatres were shut, one or two minor
or Slimmer theatres were open. Thus, at the Hay-
market, Foote was just about to bring out, for the
C.
194 CIIATTERTON.
delight of the town, his comedy of the Lame Lover,
perhaps the greatest theatrical hit of that year. Sadler's
AVells was also in its glory. But, whatever dreams of
future work for those places may have passed across
Chatterton's mind, there was as yet no means of realizing
them ; and all that his ambition did conceive as within
its reach, for the present, was the chance of becoming
connected with one or other of those places of evening
musical and pyrotechnic entertainment which competed
with the minor theatres for the right to entertain the
more dissipated Londoners during the summer and
autumn months. Of these there were three of some
note — Eanelagh Gardens, at Chelsea ; Vauxhall Gardens,
on the Surrey side of the Thames, over against Millbank ;
and Marylebone or Mary bone Gardens, on the site of
part of the present New Road. At all these places
tlie entertainments consisted of promenading under
brilliant lights, hearing concerts of music, sipping tea
and coffee or more expensive beverages, and seeing, at
the close, grand displays of fireworks. Any hope that
Chatterton could entertain of contributing to the pro-
vision involved in such a bill of fare could obviously
consist only in liis ability to furnish words for the
musical portion of it. It did so happen that he had
an opportunity of making his ability in this respect
known, and that this opportunity was more especially
in connexion with Marylebone Gardens. We see no
SETTlNCr THh: THAMES ON FIRE. 105
reason to doubt the literal accuracy of liis account to
his mother, on the I4th of ^May, of the accidental
manner in which the connexion was brought about.
"Last week;' he says, "being in the pit of Drury
" Lane Theatre, I contracted an immediate acquaintance
" (which you know is no hard task to me) with a young
" gentleman in Cheapside, partner in a music-shop, the
"greatest iu the city. Hearing I could write, he
" desired me to write a few songs for him : this 1 did
" the same night, and conveyed them to him the next
" morninfr. These he showed to a Doctor in music, and
" I am invited to treat with the Doctor on the footing of
" a composer for Eanelagh and the Gardens. Bravo, Jiaj
" hoijSy tip ive go ! '* For a while we hear no more of this
bargain or its results ; but, in the end of June, writing to
Cary,who had apparently been already informed of all
the particulars, he reports progress. " A song of mine,"
he then says, " is a great favourite with the town, on
"account of the fulness of the music. You will see that
" and twenty more in print after the season is over. I
" yesterday heard several airs of my Burletta sung to the
" harpsichord, horns, bassoons, hautboys, violins, &c., and
" will venture to pronounce, from the excellence of the
" music, that it will take with the town." If we interpret
this into the language of direct statement, the facts seem
to be as follows -.—Chatterton having, early in May,
written some songs for some music-publisher who had
2
196 CHATTEBTON.
an interest in Marylebone Gardens, one or two of these
had already been set to nnisic, and perhaps snng at the
Gardens, in the course of one of tlie concerts, by Mr.
Eeinhold, Mr. Bannister, or Mrs. Bartlielemon, who were
then the Marylebone stars ; and, these having pleased, he
had made some kind of arrangement for a more extensive
attempt, in the shape of a continuous Burletta, to be
brought out at the Gardens as soon as might be con-
venient, and had already before the end of June finished
this Burletta, handed it to the composer, and even had
the pleasure of hearing some of the songs of it in
rehearsal to the airs to vvliich they had been fitted.
All this is corroborated by the evidence of Chatter-
ton's remaining writings. For some five-and-twenty
years, indeed, after his death, all traces of either his
Burletta or his songs seem to have been lost ; but in
1795, the manuscripts having been recovered in the
possession of ]\Ir. Atterbury, who had been proprietor of
Marylebone Gardens, they were edited in the form
of a neat little pamphlet, having this title-page : " The
Revenge: A Burletta, acted at Maryhone Gardens 1770;
with additional sovf/s ; ly Thomas Chattcrton." Prefixed
to " Tlic Revenge" there is this list of dramatis 2')crson(B :
Jupiter Mr. Eeinhold.
Bacchus Mil. Bannistek.
Cupid Master Cheney.
Juno Mrs. Thompson.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 107
The natural inference is that the Builetta was actually
performed at the Gardens. After looking over the
newspapers for 1770, however, in which there is a
pretty complete series of advertisements of the enter,
tainments at the Gardens fioui the lx?ginning to the
end of the season, we have found no trace of any
such Burletta having been produced that year ; and we
rather incline to think tliat, if the production took
place at all, it was not till a subsecpient season. Of
five short songs, however, printed along with the
Burletta, it seems likely enough that one, entitled
A Bacchanalian, and purporting to have been " sung by
Mr. Eeinliold," was actually sung by that gentleman at
one of the mixed concerts ; and it may be the very song
respecting which Chatterton wrote to Gary. Another
of the five, entitled The Invitation, has attached to it
the words, " To be sung by j\Irs. Barthelemon and
Master Gheney," as if it had not yet gone so far as the
other. The remainiu'j: three have no singer's name
o o
attached to them. Probably, however, to have had one
song actually sung at the Gardens, another about to be
sung, and a Burletta in progress, seemed to Chatterton
sufficient success. At all events, no sooner was one
Burletta off his hands than he began another of a more
modern dramatic character, entitled TJic Woman of
Spirit, the several parts of which are distributed by
anticipation thus : —
]98 CHATTEETOK.
Distort Mr. Bannister.
Councillor Latitat . . i\lR. 1'einiiold.
Endorse Master Cheney.
Lady Tempest . . . ISIrs. Thompson.
Of this intended Burletta only two scenes were written.
No one can read these dramatic attempts of the
industrious boy without a new impression of his extra-
ordinary cleverness and versatility. The Revenge, which
is in two acts, and is written in rhyme throughout,
partly in passages of recitative, but with numerous solo
airs, one or two duets, and a chorus at the close, might
really, if set to tolerable music, have been a pleasant
piece to hear. The words are decidedly better than
those of many of the musical burlesques which succeed
now-a-days. The story is that of a quarrel between
Jupiter and Juno on account of an assignation which
Jupiter has made with Maia ; the plot is thickened by
the introduction of Cupid and Bacchus ; and, after the
usual amount of confusion and cross-purpose, all ends
happily. Here is a specimen — a dispute between
Bacchus and Cupid respecting the worth of their diverse
functions : —
Bacchfs (with a bowl).
Recitative. — Od'sniggers, t'other draught; 'tis dev'Iish
heady ;
Olympus turns about {staggers) ; steady,
boys, steady !
SETTTXa THE THAMES ON FIRE. V.iU
^ir, — If Jove should pretend that he governs the skies,
I swear by this liquor his Tlmndership lies ;
A slave to his bottle, he governs by wine ;
And all must confess he's a servant of mine.
Air chamjes. — Kosy, sparkling, powerful wine.
All the joys of life are thine ;
Search the drinking world around,
Bacchus everywhere sits crown'd.
AVhilst we lift the flowing bowl
Unregarded thunders roll.
Air clianfjcs. — Since man, as says each bearded sage,
Is but a piece of clay,
Whose mystic moisture lost by age.
To dust it falls away,
'Tis orthodox, beyond a doubt,
That drought will only fret it ;
To make the brittle stuff hold out
Is thus to drink and wet it.
Recitative. — Ah ! Master Cupid, 'slife, I did not s' ye ;
'Tis excellent champagne, and so here's t' ye:
I brought it to these G ardens as imported ;
'Tis bloody strong ; you need not twice be
courted ;
Come, drink, my boy
Cupid.
Hence, monster, hence ! I scorn thy flowing bowl :
It prostitutes the sense, degenerates the soul.
Bacchus.
Gadso, methinks the youngster's woundy moral
He plays with ethics like a bell and coral.
200 CHATTERTON.
Air. — 'Tis madness to think,
To judge ere you drink :
The bottom all wisdom contains.
Then let you and I
Now drink the bowl dry ;
We both shall grow wise for our pains.
Cupid.
Recitative. — Pray, keep' your distance, beast, and cease
your bawling,
Or with this dart I'll send you caterwauling.
Air. — The cliarms of wine cannot compare
With the soft raptures of the fair ;
Can drunken pleasures ever find
A place with love and womankind ?
Can the full bowl pretend to vie
With the soft languish of the eye ?
Can the mad roar our passions move
Like gentle breathing sighs of Love ?
Bacchus.
Go, whine and complain
To the girls of the plain,
And sigh out your soul ere she comes to the mind ;
My mistress is here.
And, faith, I don't fear :
/ always am happy, she always is kind.
Air chcmga;. — A pox o' your lasses !
A sliot of my glasses
Your arrows surpasses ;
Tor nothing but asses
Will draw in your team.
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 201
Whilst thus I am drinking,
My misery sinkinj^,
The cannikin clinking,
I'm lost to all thinking,
And care is a dream.
Cupid.
Provoking insolence ! &c.
One would like to know, if possible, the exact
pecuniary result for Chatterton of all those various
exertions of his during his first two busy months in
London — his political articles and essays, his miscel-
laneous poems and other literary trifles contributed to
magazines, and his songs and Burletta for jNIarylebone
Gardens. Oar data for this calculation are contained in
three small documents : — (1) On a scrap of paper found
in his pocket-book was the following jotting — an
account, as it would seem, of his earnings up to the
23rd of May :—
£ s. d.
" Eeceived to May 23, of Mr. Hamilton, for .Middlesex 111 6
„■ ofB 12 3
„ ,, of Fell for Tlie Consulmd (one of
Chattertou's longer satirical jioenis, which
Fell hail apparently bonght for the Free-
holder' n Marjazinc) 0106
„ „ of Mr. Hamilton for ' Candidus'
and 'Foreign Journal ' (punigraplis, it
seems, for the J\Iiddhsc.r or the Tuicn and
Coimtri/) 020
„ of Mr. Fell 10 6
,, ,, Middlesex Journal 8 ti
,, „ Mr. Hamilton, for 16 songs . . 10 6
£i 15 9
202 CHATTEBTON.
(2) Another money document is that already quoted,
G;ivin<i; an ironical account of the balance in his favour
by Beckford's death, which is estimated at SI. 13s. 6^.
Tliis ma}' have been but one item in his receipts for
June, though probably, from the nature of the topic, it
was the most important item. (3) From a receipt in
Chatterton's hand, accidentally recovered in 1824, it is
inferred that he received, on the 6tli of July, 1770, the
sum of five guineas from ]\rr. Atterbury of jMarylebone
Gardens, in payment for his Burletta. On the whole,
allowing for uncertainties in our construction of these
documents, and for the probability that some of the
calculated earnings, including even part of the elegiac
3/. 13s. Sd., remained unpaid, we shall probably be
correct if we say that Chatterton's total receipts
during his first two months in London cannot have
exceeded 10/. or 12/., and that, if he had Mr. Atter-
bury's five guineas in hand early in Jul;^^, he had
nothing else then left with which to face the rest of
that month.
Chatterton was singularly abstemious in his personal
habits. He drank only water, and would rarely eat
animal food, assigning as his reason that " he had work
on hand and must not make himself more stupid than
God had made him." His receipts, therefore, small as
they were, would probably have satisfied all his absolute
wants for a considerable time. But there were other
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE. 203
respects in M-liich lie did not deny liimself. "I employ
my money now," he writes to his sister on the 30tli of
Llay, " in fitting myself fashionably, and getting into
good company, " i.e. going to coffee-houses, the gardens,
the theatres, &c. Add to this the little presents sent
home to his mother and sister, and it will not be diffi-
cult to sec how, even without supposing any extrava-
gance, the end of his second and beginning of his third
month in London should have found him in some such
state as we have imagined. Still there was as yet no
appearance of despondency in Chatterton as to the
future. What he had spent in dress and " getting into
good company " was sure to bring him in interest ; and
each succeeding month would bring its own earnings !
If money flowed as fast as honours upon him, he would
give his sister a portion of 5,000/. ! That day might be
still distant ; but, at least, he could look forward to the
time when his mother and sister should leave Bristol
and join him in London, where he could take apart-
ments for them and himself. Then how happy they
should be, all three together, walking out on Sundays to
Hampstead or Kensington, when the heaven over
London should begin to glow and blush with the burning
beneath it of that hard-to-kindle but still surely com-
bustible river, and the whole town, his mother and
sister included, should gaze at the crimson air and see
Ms portrait and the letters T. C. freaked in keener fire
204 CHATTEBTON.
in tlie heart of the crimson ! Dream on, poor boy, for
the end is not yet.
It will have been observed that, all this while, in his
ceaseless efforts to become known in London, Chatterton
made no use of his antiques. Of at least one of those
longer modern satirical pieces which he had brought
with hiia to town from Bristol; — that called The Con-
suliad — he had contrived to make something ; but,
though he must have had his tragedy of JElla with him,
his fragment of the tragedy of Godclwyn, his Tuurna-
luait, his Baltic of Hastings, and others of his Rowley
l^oems, he seems to have made no attempt to get them
l)ublished. Indeed, his only allusion, after his arrival
in London, to the Rowley Poems, is contained in his
saying to his sister that,»if Rowley had been a Londoner,
instead of a " Biistowyan," he could have lived by
copying his works. It is possible, however, from his
writing to his sister for his MS. glossary of obsolete
terms, that he may have had some scheme in his
head with regard to his antiques. One wonders
what would have been the effect if he had tried the
London public with a bit of his jElla, fresh from his
lodging in Brooke Street. Fancy Johnson, Goldy,
AVarton, and the rest of them, reading it ! The London
antiquarians of that day may be supposed to have been
to the Bristol ones, in respect of perspicacity, as hawks
SETTING THE THAMES OX EIRE. 20;-,
to doves ; but what a fluttering there would have been
even among the hawks I "Would it have been better for
Chatterton had he made the attempt ? Who can tell ?
On the one hand, by refraining from it, he moved to
a fate sad enough ; on the other, he might have lived
on a hardened literary liar.
CHAPTER IV.
BROOKE STREET, UOLBORN.
CiiATTEliTON had been in Lis new lodging in Brooke
Street now about three weeks. During that time he
had become pretty well acquainted with his landlady,
Mrs. Angellj and with her husband, Frederick Angell,
who seems to have been engaged in some kind of
business which took him from home durincr the
day, leaving his wife to her dress-making. Always of
social habits and willing to converse with those about
him, he seems now and then to have sat with Mr, and
Mrs. Angell of an evening, talking with them. The
impression he made on them appears to have been very
nmch the same as that made on the Walmsleys of
Slioreditch. Sir Herbert Croft, indeed, who made
repeated attempts, some years afterwards, to see Mrs.
Angell, in order to learn froui her all he coidd about
her strange lodger of 1770, never succeeded in finding
her. She was then, he tells us, in distressed circum-
stances, very suspicious of all visitors, and unable to
BROOKE STREET, nOLP.ORN. 2n7
imagine what motive there could be for the calls with
which she was assailed, unless it might be something of
a police nature, or at least molestation for debt. In
default of ^Irs. Angell, however, Sir Herbert found a
neighbour and acquaintance of hers, " Mrs. "Wolfe, a
barber's wife," living two doors off, on the same side of
the street. She remembered Chattertou, and spoke of
"his proud and haughty spirit," adding that "he
appeared both to her and to Mrs. Angell as if born for
something great." Thomas Warton, whose interest in
the controversy as to the authenticity of the Eowley
Poems led him to similar inquiries about Chatterton
personally, discovered, in 1781 or 1782, yet another
person who had been a resident in Brooke Street in
1770 and had known Chatterton there. This was a
Mr, Cross, an apothecary. His information was to the
effect that Chatterton, dropping in at his shop, and
familiarly talking with him over the counter, had,
almost from the first day of his residence in Brooke
Street, struck up an acquaintance with him. Cross,
who, from his profession, was probably a man of some
intelligence, had begun to contract a real liking for his
odd visitor, and " found his conversation," as he after-
wards told "Warton^ " a little infidelity excepted, most
captivating."
So the month of July opens, Chatterton going out
and in as usual, and sitting up late at night in his room
208 CHATTERTON.
among tlie tiles, still in high spirits, if not so fresh as at
first, and still with some money in his pocket, if only
the five guineas for his Burletta which he received on
the 6th of the month. Tliis last fact is somewhat
touchingly proved hy his next letter home, dated July
8th, and sent, apparently with a box, by the Bristol
coach or carrier,
" Dear Mother, — I send you in the box
" Six cups and saucers, with two basins, for my sister.
If a china tea-pot and cream-pot is, in your opinion,
necessary, I will send them ; but I am informed they
are unfashionable, and that the red china, which you are
provided with, is more in use.
" A cargo of patterns for yourself, with a snuff-box,
right French, and very curious in my opinion.
" Two fans : — The silver one is more giave than the
other, which would suit my sister best. But that I
leave to you both.
" Some British herb-snuff in the box — be careful how
you open it. (This I omit, lest it should injure the
other matters.) Some British herb-tobacco for my
grandmother, with a pipe. Some trifles for Thorne. Be
assured, whenever I have the power, my will won't be
wanting to testify that I remember you. Yours,
"T. Chatterton.
"July 2, 1770.
"KB. — I shall forestall your intended journey and
pop down upon you at Christmas.
" I could have wished you had sent my red pocket-
book, as 'tis very material.
BROOKE STREET, nOLBORN. 203
" I bouL-lit two very curious twisted pipes for my
grandmotlier ; but, both breaking, I was afraid to buy
others, lest they should break in the box, and, bein-^
loose, injure the china. Have you heard any thin '
furtlier of the clearance ? Direct for me at Alis.
Angell's, sack-maker, Brooke Street, Holborn."
From his giving his address at tlie end of this letter it
is perhaps to be inferred that lie had not till nov.-
acquainted his mother with his change of lodfino-.
Probably, as we have said, he still called at Walmsley's
for his letters. This would account for Mrs. Ballance's
knowing his state of mind on the occasion of Beckford's
death.
The next letter, written to his sister, tliree days after
the last, is partly a continuation of it ; but it contains
some references to his literary occupations of the past
month, and his expectations for the month just begun.
" Dear Sister, — I have sent you some china and a fan.
You have your choice of two. I am surprised that you
chose purple and gold. [Was this for the fan or for some
one of the other presents ?] T went into the shop to buy
it ; but it is the most disagreeable colour I ever saw —
dead, lifeless, and inelegant. Purple and pink, or lemon
and pink, are more genteel and lively. Your answer in
this affair Avill oblige me. Be assured that I shall ever
make your wants my wants, and stretch to tlie utmost
to serve you. Eeraember me to Miss Sandford, Miss
Rumsey, jVIiss Singer, &c. &c. &c. As to the songs, I
have waited this week for them, and have not had time
C.
210 CHATTERTON.
to copy one perfectly. When the season 's over, you
will have them all m print. I had pieces last month in
the following magazines — Gospel Magazine, Town and
CovMtry, (viz. ' Maria Friendless/ ' False Step/ ' Hunter
of Oddities/ ' To Miss Bush/ &c.,) Court and City,
London, Political Bcgister, &c. &c. The Christian Maga-
zine, as they are not to be had perfect, are not wortli
buying. [This Magazine, begun in 1760, and carried
on till 1707, had some celebrity, as having been edited
by Dr. Dodd ; and probably his sister or some one else
had been inquiring about it.]
" I remain yours,
" July 11, 1770. " T. ChaTTERTON."
The next, also to his sister, is nine days later ; and it
was the last but one that she and her mother were to
receive from him.
" I am about an Oratorio, which, when finished, will
purchase you a gown. You may be certain of seeing
me before the 1st of January, 1771. The clearance
[from Mr. Lambert] is immaterial. My mother may
expect more patterns. Almost all the next Tovjn and
Country Magazine is mine. I have an universal
acquaintance : my company is courted everywhere ;
and, could I humble myself to go into a compter, could
liave had twenty places before now. But I must be
among the great ; state-matters suit me better than
commercial. The ladies are not out of my acquaint-
ance. I have a great deal of business now, and must
therefore bid you adieu. You will have a longer letter
from me soon, and more to the purpose. Yours,
" T. C.
"•ICthJ^ihj, 1770."
BROOKE STREET, nOLBOUN. 211
These three letters, giving us glimpses as they do of
Chatterton at three successive points in the month of
July, carry us over nearly the whole of that month.
It is necessary, however, to examine them a little in tlie
light which subsequent facts cast upon theui.
It is evident, at least, that in the be<nnnin«:c of that
month Chatterton was not in want of money. The
presents sent to his mother, sister, and grandmother,
seem to have been rather costly for a youth in his
circumstances. They probably left him with so little
that, had it been known at home how disproportionate
to his means had been this proof of his affection, the
pleasure in receiving it would have been mixed with
anxiety and fear. Clearly, however, from the first, it
was Chatterton's pride to convey to his mother and
sister the idea that he was getting on splendidly ; and
probably it was part of his chief delight, in sending the
presents, to fancy how they would be exhibited on the
widow's table to her acquaintances, — how Lambert,
Barrett, Catcott, and the rest would hear of them, and
what inferences, reflecting on their own inability to
appreciate a youth of genius, these Bristol pettifoggers
would draw Irom them ! Still, great as were Chatter-
ton's affection and pride, it is not to be conceived that
he would have actually impoverished himself in
gratifying them, unless at the time he had been
convinced that he had such prospects of continued work
1" -1
212 CHATTERTON.
as would at least supply him with what was absolutely
necessary for his own subsistence. Unfortunately, when
we look carefully at the second and third letters, we
begm to perceive a kind of consciousness creeping
through that he had, at the time of writing the first,
been too sanguine in this respect. There are the same
bragging generalities as in the earlier letters of May and
June — extremely " busy," " an universal acquaintance,"
" his company courted everywhere," and the like ; but
there is no such profuse mention as in those earlier
letters of specific shifts and contrivances in reserve
against the coming weeks, and of actual engagements on
hand. He tells of his great doings in last month's
magazines ; but, when he condescends on the business
of the month then passing, all that he says is that his
songs, which he had expected to see in copper-plate by
this time, were still not out, that he had begun an
oratorio, and that Hamilton had so much of his copy
that nearly the whole of the forthcoming Town and
Country Magazine would be his. We hear nothing of
fartlier work for the Middlesex Journal, for the
Folitical Register, for the London Museum, or any of the
other periodicals. In short, it is too plain that, by the
end of 'Tuly, Chatterton was in want of work and had
begTin to know it.
One can see various reasons why Chatterton should
somewhat suddenly have found himself in this predica-
BROOKE STREET, TTOLBORN. 21S
inent, without resorting to the supposition — though
there may be something in that too — that he and his
bookselling patrons were not on such good terms as at
first, and that, by his incessant calling upon them, he
had begun to be regarded by them as a bore.
The months of July and August, we should think,
were then, even more than now, about the slackest
portions of the London year; and in the year 1770 they
seem to have been even slacker than usual. It was
the season of the Parliamentary recess, and of tlie liot
summer weather, when all who were not absolutely tied
to town were away taking their holiday. "Wilkes and
his family, we find, were olf to a watering-place on the
southern coast, en route for the Continent. And so with
other families in the same station — some north, some
west, some south, according to their tastes and oppor-
tunities. The jMargate hoys were in full activity, con-
veying their annual freights of sea-sick London trades-
men, with their wives and children, and packets of
unnecessary sandwiches, to that greedy coast-town of
Kent, where the lodging-house keepers had already
raised their prices, and the bathing-machines were out
on the beach, and all the shop-windows were exhibiting
their plates of boiled prawns and shrimps, and the
dancing saloons and petty theatres were in full play.
Even men who were never happy out of the London
;st]"eets yielded to custom and forsook them now. The
214 CHATTERTON.
taverns and coffee-houses had little to do. The clubs
were all broken up, and their scatte'red atoms were
wandering melancholy among green fields, smelling the
fresh hay, amusing the farmers by their ignorance of
crops, and saying it was so pleasant to get away from
town, but really longing for the time when they should
again come together in their familiar rooms in the courts
round about Temple Bar, and sit down, reconstituted
for another year, to their punch, their gossip, and their
oysters.
So it was with the famous club of the Turk's Head,
Gerard Street. Where Garrick, Burke, Sir Joshua
Eeynolds, and the rest of the club, were rusticating, we
do not know ; but we can trace the great Doctor Samuel,
and his familiar Goldy.
Johnson, whom Bozzy had left with regret in the
previous November, in order to go back to Scotland and
settle down as a married man, had produced nothing
this year except his Tory pamphlet on the Wilkes
([uestion, entitled The False Alarm ; the effect of which
had been to procure him no end of abuse from the
Opposition writers, and to fill the Opposition papers
with paragraphs about his pension. In the midst of
this unpopularity he had been living on as usual, and
making preparations for a new edition of his " Shake-
speare." But in the end of June, — the poet Akenside
had died on the 23rd of that month, and his body was
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 215
tlieii lying in its cdfflii in liis liousc in TUirlington SU'Cot,
— he did as others were doing and went out of town.
His purpose was to visit liis native Lichfield, and other
parts of the midland counties. During a considerable
portion of the month of July he was at Lichfield, whence,
as we learn from Mr. Croker, he wrote two letters to
Mrs. Thrale at Streatham. In one of these, dated the
nth of July — the day on which Chatterton wrote the
second of the foregoing letters from Brooke Street — we
find him informing Mrs. Thrale that he was going about
in his native town, " not wholly unaffected by the
revolutions " that had taken place in it since he re-
membered it, and, in particular, taking considerable
interest in a book recently found by ^Mr. Greene, an
apothecary of the town, which showed " who paid levies
in our parish, and how much they paid, above an
hundred years ago." " Many families," he says, " that
paid the parish rates are now extinct, like the race of
Hercules. Pulvis ct umbra sumus. What is nearest
touches us most. The passions rise higher at domestic
than at imperial tragedies." Thus moralizing about
Lichfield and its vicinity, the ponderous and noble man
remained out of town apparently about three months in
all ; for it is not till the 21st of September that we are
sure of his being again back in his well-known quarters
in Johnson's Court.
Through a portion, at least, of this same period, Gold-
216 CHATTERTON.
smith was also absent from town. His Deserted Village
had appeared this year, on the 26th of May, and may,
therefore, have been read by Chatterton in the first
week of his residence in Brooke Street. Three new
editions were called for in the course of June ; and it
was with the pathos of that exquisite poem fresh in his
heart, and its pictures of rural peace and beauty in con-
trast with the crowded anguish of cities still vivid in
his fancy, that Goldsmith, in the middle of July, per-
mitted himself to be taken off on a short continental
tour, as one of a party made up by his friends the
Miss Hornecks. Precisely at the time when Chatterton
was writing his last letters home, and beginning to see
want staring him in the face, was this kindest of Irish
hearts taking leave for a while of Brick Court and all its
pleasant cares. Ah me ! so very kind a heart it was that
one feels as if, when it left London, Chatterton's truest
hope was gone. Goldsmith never saw Chatterton ; but
one feels as if, had he remained in London, Chatterton
would have been more safe. Surely — even if by some
express electric communication, shot, at the moment of
utmost need, under the very stones and pavements that
intervened between the two spots — the agony pent up
in that garret in Brooke Street, where the despairing lad
was walking to and fro, would have made itself felt in
the chamber in Brick Court ; the tenant of that chamber
would have been seized by a restlessness and a creeping
BROOKE STREET, nOLBORN. 217
sense of some horror near ; he would have Imrried out,
led by au invisible power, and, by the grace of God,
Brick Court and Brooke Street would have come together!
O the hasty excited gait of Goldsmith as he turned into
Brooke Street : the knock ; the rush upstairs ; the garret
door burst open ; the arms of a friend thrown round the
friendless youth ; the gu.sli of tears over him and with
him ; the pride melted out of the youth at once and for
ever ; the joy over a young soul saved ! Phantasy all,
phantasy uU ! What migJd have been is one thing ;
what has been is another. In those late days of July,
when Chatterton was beginning to foresee the worst.
Goldsmith, having escaped the little mishaps of his
journey, in the society of the " Jessamy Bride " and her
sister, from London to Dover, from Dover to Calais, from
Calais to Lille, and from Lille to Paris, was going about
in Paris seeing the sights, but longing, even in such
sweet company, to be back in London again, and getting
very nervous on account of his arrears of work. He
was in Paris on the 29th of July, and remained there
some time. Latterly the party was joined by a person
who rather spoiled the pleasure of it for poor Goldy — a
certain attorney, Mr. Hickey; who would persist in
quizzing Goldy before the ladies, and who afterwards
brought home the story that, when the party went to
Versailles, Goldy, in order to prove himself right in
saying that a certain distance beyond one of the fountains
218 CEATTERTON.
was within a leap, actually took the leap and fell into
the water. All August, Goldy had to bear his absence
from London, the thought of his arrears of work, and
the jokes of Mr, Hickey. Not till the first week in
September was he back in town.
Well, but though Goldsmith, Johnson, Wilkes, the
legislators of the country, and all the families of the
wealthier tradesmen were out of town on their annual
holiday, the town was not empty, A huge host of
citizens of all classes remained behind on duty, tiding
over the languid season as best they could, keeping their
windows open to abate the heat of the afternoon sun as
it beat on the brick houses, and strolling out of an
evening, if they could, to enjoy the cooler air of the
parks, and the green suburbs round. And these, of
course, still constituted " the town ; " and " the town,"
even in the languid season, will have its excitements
and its topics of gossip. Thus, in London, in the months
of July and August 1770, though there was a comparative
lull in politics, consequent on the preternatural excite-
ment of the first half of the year, there was still matter
of interest for the newsmongers. On the 29th of June
Alderman Trecothick had been elected, after a some-
what brisk contest in the City, to succeed Beckford in
the Mayoralty ; and on the 12th of July Beckford's
place, as representative of the City in Parliament, was
filled up, after similar opposition, by the election, in the
BROOKE STREET, nOLBORN. 211)
old City fashion, of Alderman Oliver. These elections,
affording room as they did for new trials of strength
between the Wilkesites and the Court party, were not
regarded with indifference ; and indeed it was not till
the second of the two was over that AVilkes himself left
town. Then there was a good deal of interest among
the City people about a proposed statue to Beckford,
and motion after motion on the subject was discussed at
the Common Council. The trial of Mr. jNIiller, of the
London Evening Post, for re-publishing Junius's letter,
did not come on till the 13th of July, and gave rise to
new arguments respecting the liberty of the press, and
the conduct of Lord Mansfield. A trial of a different
character, and far more piquant for the town at large,
was that of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland,
on an action for damages brought against him by the
husband of a certain lady of high rank. The jury
awarded 10,000/. of damages, greatly to the delight of
the town. For many weeks the newspapers, other
matters not being abundant, lived on this trial, reporting
the proceedings at great length, commenting on them,
and printing piece by piece the letters that had passed
between the aristocratic lovers. When cloyed with this
delicious literature, citizens and their apprentices who
were in search of amusement could avail themselves of
the Haymarket and Sadler's Wells Theatres, or of one
or other of the public gardens. Foote at the Hay-
220 CHATTERTON.
market was drawing crowds by his Lame Lover ; and at
the Marybone Gardens the favourite pieces were The
Magic Girdle and Serva Padroiia. By way of morning
relish after such evening dissipations, the citizens could
liear of robberies committed over-night, and particularly
of robberies of the post-boys carrying the mail-bags
to and from London. Robberies of this class were
unusually common at the time, so that the post-boys
never set out without making up their minds to the
chance of meeting a^ highwayman. One post-boy who
was robbed, the papers informed their readers, was fifty
years of age.
Attending to all this news from liis hot lodging in
narrow Brooke Street, wdth a view to extract occupation
for his pen out of it, Chatterton, as we have said, had
begun to find, the task a very hard one. No doubt he
went about the streets with his eyes and ears open, and
entered the coffee-houses to see what he could pick up
there in the shape of information or suggestion. No doubt
lie called frequently at the office of the Middlesex Journal,
and made proposals to Bingley of the Nortli Briton for
essays in lieu of the cancelled one on Beckford, and
similar proposals to the London Museum, the Court and
City Magazine, and the Political Register. But, whether
it was that some of the printers and editors were out
of town, or that they were overstocked already and
disposed to retrench, or tliat they had ceased to care for
BROOKE STREET, TTOLBOU^. 221
liaviiig Chattertoii's contributions in particular, certain
it i3 that all these efforts were fruitless. On the Toion
and Country Magazine alone had he any hold. "Almost
all the next Town and Country Magazine is mine " he
says to his sister on the 20th of July ; and this is in
reality the sum-total of his literary dependence for that
month. We have looked over the July number of the
Magazine, in order to verify the statement. The following
is a list of its contents : —
" 1. State of Europe for July ; 2. *Character of Eolus, by
a Hunter of Oddities ; 3. Anecdote of Young lieynard ; 4.
An original letter from a Tutor to his r 1 pupil ; 5.
Letter from an Irish Fortune-hunter; 6. History of the
Tete-a-tete, or Memoirs of Tom Tilbury, &c. ; 7. Amusing
and instructive (Questions ; 8, Eemonstrance from the
Secretary of the Female Coterie ; 9. Particular Details in
the Trials of the Printers for publishing Junius's Letter ;
10. Sergeant Glynn's Argument (in the same case) at
large ; 11. Lord Mansfield's Charge (in the same case) ;
12. The Folly of Despair— a moral Tale ; 13. The Dang.-v
of Deceit ; 14. Singular Kesolution of a ]\rarried Lady ;
15. The Theatre, No. XVIIL; 16. A most comic Scen'/
from the Lame Lover ; 17. Trial of his R. H. the Duke
of C ; 18. Letters of the D of C and Lady
; 19. Mr. Wedderburne's Argument and }sh\
Dunning's Reply; 20. Charge on a late remarkable Trial ;
21. The Gardener's Kalendar for July ; 22. Character
of Peter the Great ; 23. Reflections on the Characters of
Cnesar and Addison ; 24. * Memoirs of a Sad Dog, Part
L ; 25. * The Polite Advertiser, by Sir Buttertly Feather ;
2-22 CHATTERTON.
26. A Defence of Lady , by a Member of the Female
Coterie ; 27. Experiments on certain Dissolvents for the
Stone; 28. Account of New Books, &c.; 29. Matliematical
Questions and Answers ; 30. Poetical Pieces ; 31. Foreign
Affairs; 32. Domestic Intelligence; 33. Births, Marriages,
Deaths, Bankrupts, &c. &c."
Of these articles, only the three which we have marked
with asterisks are identified as Chatterton's by the
editors of his Piemains. It is possible, however, that he
wrote some of the others. Still, on any supposition, his
contributions to the number form but a small proportion
of the entire contents. This fact may, to some extent,
1)6 reconciled with his statement, in anticipation, to his
sister, by supposing that, though he had supplied Hamil-
ton with copy enough to fill a much larger space in the
Magazine, Hamilton had, contrary to expectations,
published only a small portion of it, and reserved the
rest for future numbers. It is certain, at least, that
papers by Chatterton did continue to appear at intervals
in the future numbers of that year. Thus in the August
number (published, it must be remembered, on the last
day of August) there appeared not only the second part
of the Memoirs of a Sad Dog, but also a paper on The
Origin^ Nature, and Design of Sculpture, to accompany
an engraving of a design for Beckford's statue, and a
tale called Tony Selvmod, both written by Chatterton.
These, we imagine, with other pieces published still later,
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 223
were all in Ilaniilton's hands in tiuie fur the July number;
but he divided the Sad Do[j into two, so as not to give
the public too much of liim at a time, and he found it
con^'enient to postpone the rest.
The Memoirs of a Sad Dog, as being one of the largest
of Chatterton's prose pieces, and as having been written
at the period when he was beginning to despond,
deserve some notice. They are the imaginary autobio-
graphy, in brief, of one Harry Wildfire, who, having
been left five thousand pounds by his frugal father, sets
about spending it as a fast man. First he lost one of
his thousands in gambling ; and the remainder soon went
in successive debaucheries. Eeduced to his last penny,
he then throws himself on his brother-in-law, Sir Stentor
Ranger, a country knight, whose ideas are limited to
horses, but who, having some rough, natural kindliness,
forthwith instals his reprobate relative in the post of
chief of his stables. Sir Stentor sometimes has visitors
at his old place, and among these is " the redoubted
Baron Otranto " of antiquarian celebrity ; who, poking
about the house, falls in with what he considers a
remarkable curiosity, in the shape of a stone with an
old inscription in Gothic letters. This he deciphers
with great pains as "Hicjacet" the "coitus" of some-
body or other of the thirteenth century — the fact, known
to all the stable-boys, being that the stone was taken
from a neighbouring churchyard, and was nothing more
224 CHATTEllTON.
than the memorial of an honest couple, James Hicks and
his wife. After living with Sir Stentor two years, and
making some money on the turf, Wildfire recommences
his old career, and carries it on till lie is again ruined,
when, as a last shift, he comes to town, and betakes
himself to literature. At the moment of his writing
his sad relation, he says, he is " throned in a broken
chair within an inch of a thunder-cloud." Such is the
story. The writing is slipshod in the extreme, and the
spirit deplorably coarse ; nor is there any merit in the
construction. The sole interest it has consists in a
certain evidence it furnishes of rough satirical force, and
in an occasional passage, like that on Walpole, bearing
on the author's own life and circumstances. Thus, the
hero, after describing one of his periods of good fortune,
breaks out in mock heroics as follows : — •
" But, alas ! happiness is of short duration ; or, to
speak in the language of tlie high-soimding Ossian,
' Behold thou art happy ; but soon, ah ! soon, wilt thou
be miserable. Thou art as easy and tranquil as the
face of the green-mantled puddle ; but soon, ah ! soon,
wilt thou be tumbled and tossed by misfortunes, like the
stream of the water-mill. Tliou art beautiful as the
Cathedral of Canterbury ; but soon wilt thou be deformed
like Chinese palace-paling. So the sun, rising in the
east, gilds the borders of the black mountains, and laces
'>vith his golden rays the dark-brown heath. The hind
leaps over the flowery lawn, and the reeky bull rolls in
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 225
tiie bubltling brook. 'I'lie wild boar makes ready his
armour of defence. Tlie inhabitants of the rocks dance,
and all nature joins in the song. But see ! riding on
the wings of the wind, the black clouds fly. The noi.sy
tliunders roar; the rapid lightnings gleam; the rainy
torrents pour ; and the dropping swain flies over the
mountain, swift as Bickerstatf, the son of song, when
the monster Bumbailiano, keeper of the dark and black
cave, pursued him over the hills of death and the green
meadows of dark men.' Oh, Ossian ! immortal genius !
what an invocation could I make now ! But I shall
leave it to the abler pen of Mr. Duff, and spin out the
thread of my own adventures."
The conclusion of the piece is even more specific. Mr.
Wildfire, from his " broken chair within an inch of the
thunder-cloud," thus details his brief experience of
authorship in London : —
" The first fruits of my pen were a political essay and
a piece of poetry. The first I carried to a patriotic book-
seller, who is, in his own opinion, of much consequence
to the cause of liberty ; and the poetry was left with
another of the same tribe, who made bold to make it a
means of puffing his magazine, but refused any gratuity.
jMr. T5ritannicus [Bingley of the North Britoji?], at first
imagining that the piece was not to be paid for, was
lavish of his praises, and, I might depend upon it, it
should do honour to his flaming patriotic paper ; but,
when he was told that I expected some recompense, he
assumed an air of criticism, and begged my pardon : he
did not know the circumstance, and really he did not
C. Q
2-26 CHATTERTON.
think it good language or sound reasoning ! — I was not
discouraged by the objections and criticisms of the book-
selling tribe ; and, as I knew the art of Curlism pretty-
well, I made a tolerable hand of it. But, Mr. Printer,
the late prosecution against the booksellers having
frightened them all out of their patriotism, I am neces-
sitated either to write for the entertainment of the
public or in defence of the Ministry. As I have some
little remains of conscience, the latter is not very
agreeable. Political writing on either side of the question
is of little service to the entertainment or instruction of
the reader. Abuse and scurrility are generally the chief
figures in the language of party. I am not of the
opinion of those authors who deem every man in place
a rascal, and every man out of place a patriot. Permit
this, then, to appear in your universally-admired
magazine : it may give some entertainment to your
readers, and a dinner to
" Your humble servant,
" Haeky Wildfire."
This, we fear, was but too true a description of Chatter-
ton's own circumstances while he was writing. He too
was " throned on a broken chair within an inch of a
thunder-cloud," and had come to the extremity when
too literally the purpose of giving entertainment to his
readers was bound up with that of obtaining means for his
own next dinner. But it was not, as in the case of his
imaginary hero, "the monster Bumbailiano " that ^\ as
pursuing him over the hills of death and the green
meadows of dark men. It was a more fearful monster
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 227
still — the monster Want, without any bailiff as harbin;;er.
No imaginary five thousand pounds had he wasted ;
no writs were out against him; else, probably — for
Debt, though negative property, still is a kind of
property, and functions as such to the advantage of its
possessor, — it might have been better for him ! He was
but a poor widow's son of Bristol, who had been working
like a slave for three months in London to obtain the
barest livelihood, and now found that even that was
failincr him.
Hamilton, at best, must have been a stingy paymaster.
If we may judge from the rate of his previous pay-
ments — two shillings for two paragraphs, and half a
guinea for sixteen songs — Chatterton's receipts from
him for his July contributions can have gone but a
very little way, even if they had not been spent in
anticipation before the month was over. It seems also
clear enough that, if Hamilton did pay punctually
according to his miserable tariff, he was resolute against
solicitations for an advance on the faith of future work,
or even of manuscript on hand. Accordingly, through
the latter half of July we arc to fancy Chatterton
almost at his last shilling. No visits any longer, we are
to fancy, to the theatres and the gardens ; visits to the
coffee-houses, if made at all, conducted on the most
parsimonious scale ; no purchases of articles of dress, as
at first; his very shoes, if we could see the soles, worn
Q 2
228 CHATTERTON.
through, so that the dust gets in as lie walks, and if it
rains his feet are wet ! As he walks out, it is this
consciousness of his shuffling and poverty-stricken
appearance that most distresses him ; and it is a part of
his meditations, as people pass him, whether they remark
it. Probably what he cares far less about is that, in
the privacy of his lodging, he lives chiefly on bread
and water.
And so out and in, out and in, through all the late
days of July, wanders the poor youth, growing daily
more wan and haggard : out in the morning, or about
mid-day, on his daily round among the publishing and
editorial offices near, the doors of which begin to be shut
against him ; or farther still, on his aimless ramble
into the suburbs and the sequestered places of the
parks, where methinks I sometimes see him weeping
Tinder trees ; and then, fatigued and fevered, back again
in the evening to his lodging, where he sits up nearly
all night, scribbling hopelessly his " Harry Wildfires "
and his " Tony Selwoods," or sometimes merely gazing
hour after hour at the empty grate. The biographers of
Schiller tell how people, going to a kind of bank or high
ground behind the poet's house at Weimar, could see
him stalking up and down in his lighted room till long
after midnight, engaged in poetical composition, every
now and then sitting down to write what he had just
completed in thought, and helping himself freely to wine,
BROOKE STREET, HOLBOllN. 229
or to coffee with wine in it, to maintain his phrenzy.
Had the watchman of Brooke Street stood opposite that
window among the tiles, the light of which he must
liave noticed burning so long after all the others were
dark, he, too, might have seen the shadow of a poet pass
and repass. Ikit there was a difference between the two
cases. In the one, it was a famous and noble man, to
whose nerves the world would willingly permit wine oi
spices, or whatever else might be necessary that they
might thrill productively ; in the other, it was a poor
boy, not yet eighteen, living on a crust and water, and
writing that he may get more of that. There he sits!
The short July night passes ; the light of the morning
breaks over the city, paling that by which he is writing;
he looks up to be aware that another day has come, that
people are moving about the streets, and that the
sparrows are chirping along the eaves.
July is gone, and it is now the month of August.
There is no better hope. Indeed, the prospect is worse.
The last driblet of money from Hamilton, on account of
July, is exhausting itself as former driblets had done ;
and, Hamilton having already enough of his copy on
liand, there is no demand for any new copy for the
August number of the Toicn and Country. All other
magazines and periodicals are closed as before. If he
writes at all, it must be on pure speculation, or for the
mere sake of writini;.
230 CHATTERTON.
So much, probably, had become known to liim before
August was ten days old. Mercifully it is not given to
us to know the history of those ten davs. Out and in,
out and in, every day twenty-four hours long, and each
of these hours to be gone through somewhere and some-
how, that is the substance of the history, even if it could
be told. He has ceased to write home, and they can
only guess there what he is doing. Eiither than that
the truth should be known in Bristol, and that, after all
his boasting, the jest of his total failure should go round
among his friends there, he will die of starvation !
One communication with Bristol, though not of the
frankest, he does seem to have been driven to in his
extremity. The thought, we have seen, of obtainiiig a
clerk's place or some similar situation in a counting-
house in London, had more than once occurred to him,
and also the thought of getting some kind of appointment
that would take him abroad. To this last notion in a
somewhat modified form he had at last returned. Fond,
when in Bristol, of reading medical books, which
Barrett used to lend him, he had picked up, as he
thought himself, a considerable smattering of medical
knowledge ; and, in consequence perhaps of something
that passed in conversation between him and the
apothecary Cross, it had occurred to him as possible
that he might obtain an appointment as surgeon or
surgeon's mate on board of some ship. How he proposed
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 231
to manage it we cannot say ; Lut in those days " the
experienced surgeons " that ships, and especially African
ships, carried, were probably, in many cases, witliout
the qualification of a diploma. Chatterton, at all events,
was prepared to doctor any crew that would take him.
As a first step towards trying for such an appointment,
he thought it worth while to apply to Barrett for some
kind of certificate or testimonial which he might show
to owners of vessels. This he appears to have done
directly in a letter sent to Barrett; but he also did it
indirectly in the course of a letter to Catcott, written on
the 12th of August. The second letter is extant. It
is evidently an answer to one wln'ch Catcott had sent
to him.
"London, Arigiist 12, 1770.
" t<ip,^ — A correspondent from Bristol had raised my
admiration to the highest pitch, by informing me that
an appearance of spirit and generosity had crept into
tlie niches of avarice and meanness — that the murderer
of Newton, Ferguson, [James Ferguson, the mechanician,
who had written a popular work simplifying Newton's
Philosophy ?] had met with every encouragement that
ignorance could bestow; that an episcopal palace was to be
erected for the enemy of the Whore of Babylon, and the
present tui'ned into a stable for the ten-headed beast; that
a spire was to be patched to St. Mary Eedcliffe, and the
streets kept cleaner; with many other impossibilities.
But, when j\Ir. Catcott (the ChamjnoJi of Bristol) doubts
it, it may be doubted. Your description of the intended
steeple struck me. I have seen it, but not as the
332 CEATTERTON.
inventiou of ^Nlr. . All that he can boast is Gotliic-
izing it. Give yourself the trouble to send to Mr.
"SVeobley's, Holborn, for a view of the Church of St. Mary
de la Annunciation at Madrid, and you will see a spire
almost the parallel of what you describe. The conduct
of is no more than what I expected. I had
received information that he was absolutely engaged in
the defence of the Ministry, and had a pamphlet on the
stocks which was to have been paid with a translation
[i.e., to a new see ; for it is clearly Dr. Newton, Bishop
of Bristol, that is meant]. In consequence of this
information, I inserted the following paragraph in one
of my ' Exhibitions ' [newspaper-squibs so named] : —
' Eevelation unravelled by : The Ministry are
indefatigable in establishing themselves ; they spare no
expense so long as the expense does not lie upon them.
This piece represents the tools of the Administration
offering the Doctor a pension, or translation, to new-
model his treatise on the Revelation, and to prove
Wilkes to be an Atheist.'
" The Editor of Baddch\i/s Bath Journal has done me'
the honour to murder most of my hieroglyphics, thaf
they may be abbreviated for his paper. Whatever may
be the political sentiments of your inferior clergy, their
superiors are all flamingly ministerial. Should your
scheme for a single row of houses in Bridge Street take
place, conscience must tell you that Bristol will owe
even that beauty to avarice ; since the absolute impossi-
bility of Knding tenants for a double row is the only
occasion of your having but one. The Gothic dome I
mentioned was not designed by Hogarth. I have no
great opinion of him out of his ludicrous walk ; here he
BROOKE STREET, IIOLBORN. 233
was undoubtedly iuiniitable. It was designed by the
great Cipriani. Tiie following description may give
you a faint idea of it : — From an hexagonal spiral tower
(such as I believe liedclitle is) rose a similar palisado
of Gothic pillars, three at a cluster in every angle, but
single and at ecpial distance in angular spaces. The
pillars were trifoliated (as liowlie terms it), and supported
by a majestic oval dome, not absolutely circular (that
would not be Gothic), but terminating in a point,
surmounted with a cross, and on the top of the cross
a globe. — The last two ornaments may perhaps throw
you into a fit of religious meditation, and give rise to
many pious reflections. Heaven send you the comforts
of Christianity ! / request them not ; for I am no
Christian. . . .
" I intend going abroad as a surgeon. Mr. Barrett
has it in his power to assist me greatly by his giving me
a physical character. I hope he will. I trouble you
with a copy of an Essay I intend publishing.
" I remain your much obliged humble Servant,
" Thomas Chatterton.
" Direct to me at ]\Irs. Angell's, sack-maker, Brooke
Street, Holborn."
Aha ! What words were those that one heard ?
" Heaven send you the comforts of Christianity ! /
request them not; for I am no Christian !" The whole
letter, with its hollow mocking bitterness, and its cool
architectural details penned by one who knew himself
to be on the brink of starvation, has for us an air of
horrible irony ; but these words, Hung into it so care-
234 CHATTERTON.
lessly, complete the impression, and convert the horrible
into the ghastly.
" I am no Christian." The Mords are simple, strong, and
straightforward. What do they mean? They mean that
he, a youth of seventeen years and nine months, born in a
town in the west of England, bred up there as an attorney's
clerk, and now lodg(;d in a London garret, without food
to eat, has, by dint of reading and reflection, come to
the conclusion that the Divine One who died in Jadiea
eighteen hundred years ago, and whom all the genera-
tions of men in the fairest lands of the world since have
been worshipping as the Son of God, and building
temples to, and believing in as their Lord and Saviour,
was in reality no such thing or being, but, at the utmost,
a wise and holy Jew. They mean that he, this same
English stripling, has, in virtue of this conclusion, come
to regard all that part of the past history of eighteen
centuries which had proceeded on the belief in Christi-
anity as so much human action, grand perhaps in itself,
but done in pursuit of an illusion. They mean that,
looking about him upon all the apparatus of bishops,
churches, and schools, established in the service of this
belief, he could view it with a smile, as a fabric with
no foundation, piled up by ancient zeal, and cemented
by time, custom, and the necessities of social arrange-
ment. They mean that, remembering the names of
great men, recently or anciently dead, who had nourished
BROOKE STIiEET, HOLBORN. 235
their souls in this belief, and clang to it through grown
manhood to grey old age, and died serene in it, and left
tlieir testimonies to it as their most solemn words to the
world, he could yet account for all this to himself by
supposing that those men were and would have been
noble anyhow, and that the special form of their nobility
alone was due to this intense grasp they had taken of
Humanity's largest hallucination. They mean more
They mean that he, the boy of Bristol, was decidedly of
opinion, with Voltaire and others, that, though the earth
had rolled on for ages, a brown ball spinning in the
azure, and i'reighted with beings capable of weal and
Avoe, all longing, as by the one sole law of their consti-
tution, to hear some voice from behind the azure, no
such voice liud really spoken, nor any tongue of light
irom the outer realms of mystery ever struck the surface
of the planet, either in Judaea or elsewhere. They mean
that the world did not seem to him at all to rest certainly
on any rule of love, but to be possibly only an aggregate
of beings, more or less clever, more or less miserable,
and more or less rich, jostling together and working on
to some end, though no one could say what. They mean
that in tlie matter even of Immortality, or a future
world in continuation of this, he had no absolute
certainty ; that sometimes he might have a glimpse of
such immortality as possible, but tliat again the glimpse
would vanish quite, and it would seem to him that
236 CEATTERTON.
Avhen a iiiim died tliere might very well be an end of
him, and that, should tlie earth itself ever meet a
sufficient catastrophe to destroy all the life upon it at
once, tliere would be some risk of an end to the race too,
and to all the accumulated memories and maxims of its
sages and Shakespeares, and all the vast lore of it.s
libraries. Sometimes, indeed, he might have his new
doubts on this, and might think both of individual life
as continued, and of the collective Avisdom of the world
as safe against any catastrophe, and sure, should the
erath itself be cracked in pieces or shrivelled to a scroll,
to take wing elsewhither at the moment of the last
shriek, and prolong itself somewhere and somehow to
the further issues of the Universe. But, at all events,
for the Heaven and Hell of the Christian he could have
no belief left ; and, if a poor wretch, wearj'- of the world,
did think fit to kill himself, his soul, if he had one,
could fare none the worse in the future life for the one
act of rushing suddenly into it !
There is abundant proof, in scores of passages in
Chatterton's writings, and in his recorded conversations
with his friends among the young men of Bristol, that,
after the peculiarities of that coarse and scoffing fashion
of infidelity which had crept over so much of English
society in his day, and which was represented in such
men as Wilkes, he had substantially accustomed him-
self to the above method of regarding the Christian
BROOKE STREET, IfOLBORN. 237
religion. Tt is unnecessary to multiply quotations to
illustrate his way of speaking of Methodists, preachers
like Whitfield, and priests in general. Here is one,
selected as being comprehensive : —
" 'Tis mystery all : In every sect
You find this palpable defect : —
The axis of the dark machine
Is enigmatic and unseen ;
Opinion is the only guide
By which our senses are supplied."
Now, it was of supremely little consequence to Christi-
anity that one precocious lad the more had taken
this attitude of hostility to it. But it was of some
consequence to the lad himself. There are and have
been many — and these men in our I\irliaments and in
other high places — who might in a certain sense use
Chatterton's phrase, " I am no Christian," and probably,
in using it, speak the exact truth, and yet who never do
use it, but leave it to their loud-mouthed critics to make
the inference for them. One has to distinguish, there-
fore, between the sceptic who finds no occasion for
asserting this negative side of his views at all and the
sceptic who is vehement in proclaiming the negative.
The second is in a different stage intellectually, and
morally in a more restless predicament. lie is always
proclaiming his independence of a certain class of con-
siderations, and yet he is always meddling with them.
238 CHA TTEBTON.
Si) it was with Cliattertou. In his statement " I am no
Christian," and his spasmodic variations of it through
his writings, one sees him fascinated by the very creed
towards which he is malignant, so that he cannot avoid
making it the topic of his thoughts. It is as if he saw
that he had parted with certain beliefs, the very pretence
of which, the very habit of even nominally professing
them, was a safeguard to those who were capable of it.
It is as if he were conscious of one check less upon his
own course to ruin than even ordinary youths around
liim had. Nay more, said at the moment at which they
were said, his Avords to Catcott are a proof that the
MTiter has again been, for some reason or other, catechis-
ing himself on the subject to w^hich they refer. He has
been turning one sarcastic look more, as it were, in his
depression and despair, to those " comforts of Christian-
ity" the efficacy of which, in such circumstances, he has all
his life heard mentioned ; and the result is that he finds
they wall not suit him and remits them to Mr. Catcott.
Well, but was there no equivalent ? If the Christian
has a source of faitli and hope that the world knows
not of, and that bears him u}), as nothing else could, in
times of worldly distress and trial, still it is known by
universal experience that, in such times of worldly
distress and trial, men who are not Christians do not
uniformly break down. That fervid and impassioned
man of majestic thought and gait, people do not call him
BROOKE STREET, IIOLBORN. 239
a Christian : they call him a Pantheist, or a rhilosoplter,
or something of that sort ; and yet, were he at his last
sliilling or his last crust, were the rack prepared for him
and the multitude howling IVn- his destruction, every
one knows that lie would endure and come through.
Rifr actus illahatur orhis, wipaviclum ferient mince. lie
helieves in Justice, and God, and the Everlasting I Nay
more, that tough little fellow, all grey iron and scepticism,
whose very principle it is that there is no Everlasting,
and that men ought " to apprehend no farther than this
world, and square their lives according " : he too, unless
his antecedents belie him, might be beaten a long time
between any size of hammer and any shape of anvil.
He, too, could come througli. ^Vhy, since the beginning
of the world people have been coming through ! Quiet,
plain scholars have lived, before now, in German or in
Scottish University towns, on boiled peas-cods for
months, or a single guinea a quarter earned by teaching,
without saying much about it. Had youths of this type
been in Chatterton's place in London, in August, 1770,
they would have most probably survived the crisis.
They would have availed themselves gratefully, and yet
honestly, of such small immediate aid as those aunts
and other relatives that we hear of so slightly in Chat-
terton's letters (one of them a carpenter, who had
married one of his aunts) might perhaps, though poor,
have willingly offered at the sharpest moment (jf the
240 CHATTERTOK.
emergency ; and, even failing tliat, tliey would have
conquered by slieer patience. How was it, then, in
Chatterton's case — the " comforts of Christianity " being
placed out of the question ?
Chatterton never would call himself an Atheist. In
a time when Wilkes and other contemporaries, whose
language he sometimes borrowed, carried on their
outrages on Christianity very much in that character,
Chatterton, by the very structure of his genius as a boy
of ardour and imagination, retained something in him
of a poet's reverence for the sublime and the awful. In
express anticipation, in one of his satirical poems, of
the stigma of Atheism, he says —
" Fallacious is the charge ; 'tis all a lie,
As to my reason I can testify.
I own a God, immortal, boundless, wise.
Who bid our glories of Creation rise ;
Wlio forra'd his varied likeness in mankind.
Centering his many wonders in the mind."
And, again, in one more solemn soliloquy, on which one
dwells with peculiar interest, as perhaps, in its kind, the
highest utterance by the poor boy of what was best in
him, and which reminds one of similar bursts of natural
piety in the writings of Burns and Byron : —
" God, Avhose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To Thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in Thy justice praise.
BROOKE STREET, TWLBORN. 241
The mystic mazes of Thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill ;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
teach me in the trying hour.
When anguish swells the dewy tear.
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear!
Tf in this hnsoni aught hut Tliee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway.
Omniscience could the danger see,
And jMercy look the cause away.
Then, why, my soul, dost thou complain ?
Why drooping seek the dark recess ?
Shake off the melancholy chain,
For God created all to bless.
But ah ! my breast is human still ;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals' feeble rill.
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resign'd,
I'll thank the luflicter of the blow,
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night.
Which on my sinking spirit steals.
Will vanish at the morning liiiht
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals."
R
242 CHATTERTON.
Well for the poor fatherless boy had this mood been
permanent ! But, at the time of his extreme need^
these comforts, even of such natural religion as he had,
seem to have taken their flight too, and left him, mock-
ing and bitter, face to face with despair.
Nor had Chatterton the resources to be found in
rectitude and gentleness of mere worldly character.
Impetuous, stormy, industrious, and energetic, as he was,
there was still in him an element of weakness in what
he called his " pride," as well as in his open contempt
for all the commoner forms of moral principle. Above
all, he had in him the conscious sense of a past impos-
ture, and of innumerable minor deceits practised in
prosecuting it. Eowley, once the darling phantasm of
his poetical imagination, now dogged him as a hateful
demon, evoked by himself from the world of spirits,
and not to be laid to rest. Wherever he moved, and in
whatever form of new labour or distraction he engaged,
he could not look back over his shoulder, but there was
to be seen the form of this demon, in the garb of a
Bristol monk of the fifteenth century, with his hideous
old face under a cowl, grinning and gliding after him.
In short, whether we view Chatterton's character as it
naturally was, or those recollections of past lies and
deceits with which he had burdened his conscience, so
as to deprive his character of half its natural force, he
was very likely to endure much, and yet to break down
BROOKE STREET, HOLBOUN. 243
at a point where others in the same circumstances
might have found longer endurance quite possible.
After all, however, the most material fact in the case
remains to be told. Physical causes were at work.
Bereft of the amount of actual food, and of other com-
forts, necessary, even with his abstemious habits, to
keep body and soul healthily together; wandering about
LouddU in a per})etual state of fever and excitement ;
returning home to write ni'dit after night without rest
or sleep — little wonder if he had overstrained his
physical capabilities, and if br.iin and nerve began
to fail in their office. Whatever taint of hereditary
insanity was in him — derived from the old line of
sextons who had jangled in past generations the keys
of St. Mary's Church in Bristol, and walked at midnight
through its aisles, and dug the graves of its parishioners ;
or derived, more immediately, from that drunken, wild-
eyed father, whom lie had never seen, but w^ho used to
tell his tavern-companions that he believed in Cornelius
Agrippa the necromancer — it had at last come out in a
way not to be mistaken. From his childhood there had
been symptoms of it — his fits of weeping, his sudden
paroxysms of passion, his long reveries when he gazed
at people without seeming to see them, his frequent
mutterings aloud. Not till now, however, had these
traits passed the limits of what could be considered
compatible with sanity. But now, almost certainly,
R 2
244 CIIATTERTON.
those limits ivere passed. Noticing the strange haggard
hid walking about the streets, muttering perhaps to
himself, or making sudden gestures, or looking at what
was passing, sometimes vacantly, and sometimes with
glances unusually keen and bright, even strangers could
not but follow him with their eyes, and wonder who he
was and where he came from. Had the observer been
one accustomed to the ways of the insane, he would
probably at once have pronounced that the lad's brain was
affected. And, had the observer been able, with this idea
in his mind, to pursue his inquiries farther, so as to ascer-
tain what peculiar form or species of insanity had taken
possession of the lad, he would have found that it was
that form which physicians recognise as the " suicidal
tendency." Physicians, as all know, do recognise this
as a form of madness ; and, though they allow that a
perfectly sane man may commit suicide after deliberate
reasoning on the point, they attribute a large proportion
of suicides to the action of a certain specific impulse
which reason cannot overcome. In Chatterton's case,
as we have seen, there had been premonitory appearances
of the existence of this tendency. The idea of suicide
had from the first been familiar to him.
Something like positive proof exists that before the
month of August, 1770, was very far advanced Chatter-
ton was actually in the specific maniacal condition which
BROOKE STREET, IIOLBORN.
physicians recognise as capable of being induced by
circumstances where there is a predisposition Even in
the letter to Catcott which we have quoted we see
traces of overrexciternent of brain, and of that morbid
spirit of hatred to persons which results from it. There
is a story also of a letter sent by him to his mother, on
or about the loth of August, which was written in such
a strain as to cause her very great anxiety. This letter
— the last she ever received from him — is not extant ;
but Mrs. Edkins, the wife of a painter and glazier in
Bristol, who lived long afterwards and communicated
many particulars about the Chatterton family, distinctly
remembered having been sent for by Mrs. Chatterton
when the letter was received. She found Mrs. Chatter-
ton " in tears and very uneasy " on account of the con-
tents of the letter, and particularly on account of one
part of it, in wliich he told her a strange story of his
walking among the tombs in a churchyard, and suddenly,
in a fit of absent meditation, stumbling into an open
grave. " But," added he, in his humorous way, " it was
not the quick and the dead together," for he found the
sexton under him, who was digging the grave ! Mrs.
Edkins tried to console Mrs. Chatterton by saymg it
was only " one of his reveries ; " but " she could not be
persuaded to consider it otherwise than as ominous."
And so it proved. Barrett very properly refused tc
give Chatterton the certificate he wanted of competence
246 CHATTERTON.
for the situation of surgeon's mate on board an African
ship ; and the refusal was one disappointment the more
added to those wliich were already preying upon him.
His misery was almost at its climax. Cross, whose re-
peated invitations to come and take a meal in his house
in Brcoke Street he had always hitherto declined, was
rather surprised to find him one day, on being again
pressed, consent. That evening he partook of a supper
of oysters at Cross's house, and was observed, as Cross
afterwards told Warton, " to eat most voraciously." Tor
audit we know, it was the last meal he had. On the
22nd or 23rd of August, at all events, he had reached
that extreme beyond wdiich our fancies of human
destitution cannot go. Hope, patience, and all force of
reason had finally forsaken him ; and he was secretly
bidding farew^ell to the world. Strange that at this very
moment something w^as happening in his favour which,
had he but known it, might even then have roused him
and determined him to live. Tlie Eev. Dr. Fry, Head
of St. John's College, Oxford, had by some means or
other seen some of the antique Eowley Poems which
had been circulating in Bristol, and, having conceived
an unusual desire to know something more about them
and their authorship, was on the eve of setting out for
Bristol, to make inquiries about Chatterton, whom he
supposed still to be there. Dr. Fry, make haste ; set
out at once ; life or death depends upon it ! Dr. Fry,
BROOKE STREET, UOLBORN. 24'
not knowing what we now know, takes his own time,
and lives to regret it. lie did make the journey, but it
was too late.
The 23rd of August, 1770, was a Thursday, the morn-
in<^ of which, according to tlie old London weather-
registers, was " hazy," but the day itself " fine." That
day is a dead blank in the tragic story : \\hether
Chatterton remained in-doors all day, or took a ramble
about the streets and returned in the evening as usual,
no one can tell. Of the next day, Friday, the 24th of
August,—" clouds, sunshine, and showers at intervals," is
the description of the day in the registers— one incident
is recorded, on the faith of the information afterwards
civen to Sir Herbert Croft by Mrs. AYolfe, the barber's
wife of Brooke Street. Her neighbour, Mrs. Augell,
Chatterton's landlady, had told her that, " as she knew
" he had not eaten anything for two or three days, she
"begged he would take some dinner with her on the
" 24th of Augiist, but he was offended at her expressions,
" which seemed to hint that he was in want, and assured
" her (though his looks showed him to be three parts
" starved) that he was not hungry." Possibly true ;
possibly only an invention of Mrs. Angell afterwards, or
of Mrs. Wolfe for her, to save her character for motherly
vigilance and humanity against too sore impeachments !
Enough that on that evening too, if Chatterton had
again gone out for a ramble, Mrs. Angell heard him
248 CHATTERTON.
return, ascend the stairs, and reach his room. He
entered, and locked the door behind him. -The
Devi] was abroad that night in the sleeping city. Down
narrow and squalid courts his presence was felt, where
savage men clutched miserable w^omen by the throat,
and the neighbourhood was roused by yells of murder, •
and the barking of dogs, and the shrieks of children.
Up in wretched garrets his presence was felt, where
solitary mothers gazed on their infants and longed to
kill them. He was in the niches of dark bridges, where
outcasts lay huddled together, and some of them stood
up from time to time and looked over at the dim stream
below. He was in the uneasy hearts of undiscovered
forgers, and of ruined men plotting mischief He was
in prison-ceUs, where condemned criminals condoled
M'ith each other in obscene songs and blasphemy.
What he achieved that night, in and about the vast
city, came duly out into light and history. But of all the
spots over which the Black Shadow hung the chief, for
that night at least, was a certain undistinguished house
in the narrow street which thousands who now dwell in
Loudon pass and repass, scarce observing it, every day
of their lives, as they go and come along the thorough-
fare of Holborn. At the door of one house in that quiet
street the horrid Shape watched; through that door
he passed in towards midnight; and from that door,
having done his work, he emerged before it was morning.
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 249
On the morrow — Saturday tlic 2r)tli of Au^^ust —
alarm liavin<^ been caused 1)}' the protracted non-appear-
ance of Mrs. Angell's lodger, his room was broken opeii»
and he was discovered lying dead, having swallowed
arsenic in water. " His room, when they broke it open,
after his death," says Sir Herbert Croft, "was found,
like the room lie quitted at Mr. Walmsley's, covered
with scraps of paper." There was a coroner's inquest ;
and Sir Herbert afterwards took the trouble, when he
was pursuing his inquiries about Chatterton, to look out
the Coroner, and question him as to the circumstances.
The Coroner, however, had kept no minutes of "the
melancholy business," beyond a memorandum that the
witnesses had been Frederick Angell, a Mary Foster,
and a William Halmsley (Walmsley ?) ; nor, at the
distance of time, could his memory recall any of the
particulars. The verdict seems to have been Fdo dc se ;
and, in accordance with this verdict, the body, having
been inclosed in a parish shell, was privately interred,
the following day, in the burying-grouud attached to
Shoe Lane Workhouse. This appears from the entry of
the burial, under the date August 28th, iu the parish-
registers of St. Andrew's, Holborn — the parish in which
Brooke Street is situated, and the church and consecrated
churchyard of which are close to Shoe Lane. jNIr. Peter
Cunningham notices, as a coincidence, that the same
parish-registers contain the entry of the baptism of
250 CHATTERTON.
Richard Savage on the 18th of January, 1G96-7 ; and he
enhances the coincidence by remarking that Savage M^as
born in Eox Court, Brooke Street, close to the house
wliere Chatterton died, and that he died in 1743 in the
jail of the very city of Bristol where, nine years later,
Chatterton was bora.^
' In Notes and Queries for Feb. 5, 1853 (vol. vii., First Series,
jip. 138-139) appeared what purported to be "Account of the inquest
held on tlie body of Thomas Chatterton, deceased, at the Three
Clowns, Brooke Street, Holborn, on Friday, the 27th August, 1770,
before Swinson Carter, Esq., and the following jury : — Charles Skinner,
— Meres, John Hollier, John Park, S. G. Boran, Henry Dugdale,
G. J. Hillsley, C. Sheen, E. Manley, C. Moore, — Nevett." In this
document the witnesses examined were said to have been " Mary
Angcll, of No. 17, Brook Street," "Frederick Angell," "Edwin Cross,
apothecary," and "Anne Wolfe ;" and an abstract of the evidence of
each was given. Tlie document was communicated to Notes and Queries
by John i\Iatthew Gutch, Esq., of Worcester, formerly of Bristol,
possessor of a large collection of papers relating to Chatterton and his
writings; and Mr. Gutch stated it to be from "a MS. copy" in his
possession, never before published. In the first edition of the present
Narrative in 1856, I pointed out certain suspicious circumstances about
Mr. Gutch's document — e.g. the unauthenticated numbering of Mrs.
Angell's house in Brooke Street as 17 ; the incongruity of parts of the
report with Sir Herbert Croft's account of what he had been told by
the coroner ; and, above all, the blunder of making the 27th of
August, 1770, a " Friday," when it was really a Monday. Neverthe-
le.ss, as Mr. Gutch's jiersonal good laith was unimpeachable, I was not
sufficiently on my guard against the document as a whole, but allowed
the reported evidence of the four witnesses cited in it to affect my
narrative somewhat in the particular cluii)ter to which this note is
appended, and especially to tinge my details of the closing days of
Chatterton's life. Not long after the publication of my volume,
however, it came out distinctly that the profes.sed report of the inquest
was a sheer fabrication by an ingenious but unscrupulous person, who
had worked upon hints derived from the authentic accounts of
Sir Herbert Croft, Warton, and others, and bestowed the result
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 251
Whetlier Chatterton's body ve,maineil in the Shoe
Lane buryiug-grouud, to be torn up, with the bodies of
otlier paupers, fifty years afterwards, when Farriugdon
Market usurped the site, is a point on which a question
has been laised.
In or about tbe year 1808, George Cumberland, Esq.,
" descendant of Bishop Cumberland, and a literary and
highly respectable man," was informed by Sir Robert
Wilmot that at a basket-maker's in Bristol, whose name
Sir Robert had forgotten, he had heard it positively
stated that Chatterton was buried in the churchyard of
St, Mary Redcliffe. Sir Robert farther said that the
statement was made to liim in such a manner that he
believed it. ^Ir. Cumberland thereupon instituted
inquiries in Bristol, so as to ascertain the truth of the
story. For some time he could find no one who knew
anything of the matter ; but at last he traced the infor-
mation to a Mrs. Stockwell, the wife of a basketmaker
in Peter Street. Questioned on the subject, she stated
that, when a girl (apparently after Chatterton's death),
on the uususpectiiig Mr. Gatch (see exposure of the affair by Mr. W.
Moy Thomas in Atkoueum of Dec. 5, 1857, and a subsequent article
in the same journal for Jan. 23, 1858). In the present reprint of my
story of Chatterton's life it lias, accordingly, been my duiy to revise
this particular chapter carefully, so as to remove from it every state-
ment or suggestion derived from the tainted document. The changes
so recpiired have been almost wholly omissions, and have not e.xtended
to mcn-e than about four pages of the chapter as originally printed ;
and 1 believe that the chapter, in ils present form, is brought back, a.s
I should like it tu be, to the strict basis of authentic records.
252 CIIATTERTON.
slie had been a pupil of Mrs. Chatterton's, and tliat she
used to be frequently with her till she was twenty years
old ; that often slie stayed with Mrs. Chatterton and
slept with her ; that she was •' very kind and motherly,"
and told her many things she would not tell to most
l^eople — among others, "how happy she was that her
unfortunate boy was brought home and buried in
Eedcliffe." This had been done, she said, " through the
attention of a relative in London, who, after the body
had been cased in a parish-shell, had it secured and sent
to her by the waggon." When the case arrived and was
opened, the body was found '"black and half-putrid;"
it was, therefore, interred immediately — this being done
secretly by Phillips, the sexton, who was a friend of the
family, and extremely fond of Chatterton. Mrs. Stock-
well farther stated that the grave was " on the right
hand side of the lime-tree, in the middle paved- walk in
Eedcliffe churchyard, about twenty feet from the father's
grave, which was m the paved-walk, and where Mrs.
Chatterton and Mrs. Newton also lay." She also recol-
lected that Mrs. Chatterton had given leave to a person
named Hutchinson or Taylor (she could not be sure
which) to bury his child over her son's cothn, and was
very sorry afterwards tliat she had done so, as this person
had not only put a stone over the grave which had for-
merly belonged to it, though it had been removed and
placed against the church- wall, but had also subsequently
BROOKE STREET, IJOLBORN. 253
buried his wife in the same grave, and on that occasion
erased the old inscription on the stone to make room for
a new one. This was all that Mrs. Stockwell could tell ;
but she mentioned to j\lr. Cumberland that there was a
Mrs. Kirkland, the wife of a Scotch naval man, who
had formerly resided in Bristol, and been on such very
intimate terms with Mrs. Chatterton in her old age that
she was likely to know all about the burial. Cumber-
land, on inquiry, found that this Mrs. Kirkland had
dieil about three months before, leaving a daughter
somewhere in London, whom he could not trace. But
Mrs. Stockwell referred him to " a hatter's wife " (name
not given) who remembered Mrs, Kirkland, and had
often heard her say that Chatterton was privately
buried in Bedcliffe churchyard. To make the matter
more sure, Mr. Cumberland sought out the family of the
sexton Phillips, who had himself died in 1772. He
found his sister, a Mrs. Jane Phillips, still alive; and
she told him that she had known Chatterton well, and
that her brother, the sexton, whom Chatterton used to
call " uncle," was much attached to the family. It was
her brother that first told her the news of Chatterton's
having killed himself in London ; and, on hearing it,
she had gone, against her brother's wish, to j\Irs. Chat-
terton, in order to know more about it. She asked Mrs.
Chatterton where her son was buried ; and she replied
" Ask me nothing : he is dead and buried." A daughter
254 CHATTERTON.
of the sexton, now Mrs. Stephens, tlie wife of a cabinet-
maker, was also found by Cumberland and interrogated.
She said her father had never told her anytliing of the
burial in PiedclifFe churchyard, and, " if he had done it
privately, it was not likely that he would tell her, being
very reserved on all occasions ; " but she thought " he
would not have refused, if asked, being attached to
Chatterton and his mother." She remembered the
removal of a stone from the church-wall, and the erasure
of the old inscription to make room for a new one, by
a person named Hutchinson, whose wife had died. A
brother of this Mrs. Stephens, a son of the sexton, and
named Stephen Chatterton Phillips, was also seen by
Cumberland. He was then a retired sailor with a
wooden leg, and was said to have some resemblance to
Chatterton in the face. He but corroborated vvhat his
sister had said : i.e., he knew nothing of the burial,
and " His father was not likely to tell him, and yet
might have done it." Finally, Cumberland saw Mrs.
Eilkins, already mentioned as having been so intimate
with Mrs. Chatterton. As a Miss James, she had been
at the school kept by Chatterton's father, whom she
remembered well ; she had known Mrs. Chatterton then,
and had been present afterwards at the birth of her son ;
and from the time of his birth, all through his school-
boy period and his apprenticeship with Mr. Lambert,
till he went to Loudon, she had been continually seeing
BROOKE STREET, HOLBORN. 255
him and his mother. Some interesting particulars
of Chatterton's early life wore procured finm h<'r. As
to the private burial, however, she was unable to say
anything. She had gone to see Mrs. Chatterton imme-
diately after the news came of her son's death. On
entering, she found Mrs. Chatterton in a fit of hysterics.
She said she had come to ask about her health. " Ay,"
said Mrs. Chatterton, " and about something else ; " on
which she burst into tears, and they cried together, and
" no more was said till they parted."
All these facts or rumours, collected by Cumberland
about 1808, were given by him to Cromek, the editor of
" Burns's Reliques," who undertook to make farther
researches and publish them. This was not done ; and
Cumberland's memoranda did not see the light till they
were printed as an appendix to Dix's Zi/e of Clmt-
Urton in 1837. Since that date they have received one
slight corroboration. In the " Memorials of Canynge,"
&c., published in 1854 by Mr. George Pryce, a Bristol
antiquary, there is a short account of Chatterton ; and
in that account is included a letter written, in 1853, by
the late well-known Mr. Joseph Cottle of Bristol, in
which he states his belief that Chatterton was buried
in Eedcliffe churchyard. His reasons for the belief are
thus stated : — " About forty years ago, Mr. George
Cumberland called upon me and said, ' 1 have ascertained
one important fact about Chatterton.' 'What is it?' I
!.2n6 CHATTERTON.
said. 'It is,' said he, 'that that marvellous boy was
buried in Eedcliffe churchyard.' He continued : ' I am
just come from conversing with old Mrs. Edkins, a
friend of Chatterton's mother. She affirmed to me this
fact, with the following explanation :' — ' Mrs. Chatterton
was passionately fond of her darling and only son,
Thomas ; and, when she heard that he had destroyed
himself, she immediately wrote to a relation of hers (the
poet's uncle, then residing in London), a carpenter, urging
him to send home his body in a coffin or box. The box
was accordingly sent down to Bristol ; and, when I
called on my friend Mrs. Chatterton to condole with her,
she, as a very great secret, took me upstairs and showed
me the box ; and, removing the lid, I saw the poor boy,
whilst his mother sobbed in silence. She told me that
she should have him taken out in the middle of the
night, and bury him in Redcliffe churchyard. After-
wards, when I saw her, she said she had managed it
very well, so that none but the sexton and his assistant
knew anything about it. This secrecy was necessary,
as he could not be buried in consecrated ground.' " Mr,
Cottle adds that he knew the hiisband of Mrs. Edkins,
wlio was a respectable painter and glazier.
There is some difference, it will be observed, between
the account given in Mr. Cumberland's surviving
memoranda and that given by Mr. Cottle as his
recollection of what Mr. Cumberland had told him. In
BROOKE STRI'JET, HOLBORN.
short, tlicrc are doubts about the wliole story. At the
least, however, one would wish to believe it, and to
fancy the poor boy's bones resting (juietly within the
hallowed precincts he loved so well, and where, since
1840, the piety of Ihistol has raised him a modest
monument.
CHAPTEK V.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY.
Chattekton's death made very little sensation in
London beyond the immediate neighbourhood in which
the inquest was held. We have looked over the news-
papers of the time with some diligence ; but, though
paragraphs giving accounts of such casualties were ns
common then as now, we have not found the slightest
reference to the suicide in Brooke Street. The incident
which figures in the newspapers as the chief metro-
politan fact of the day on whi'ch the suicide occurred
— i.e. the 24th of August — is the robbery at the foot of
Hi<ihgate Hill, bv " a tall thin man in a light-coloured
coat, mounted on a black horse," of the boy carrying the
Chester mail. Under the same date is recorded, as a
somewhat minor incident, a visit paid by their Majesties
to Woolwich to see the artillery. Even the Town and
Courdrij Mayazine, which came out, on the 31st of
August, with three contributions in it from the pen of
THE JUDGMENT OF FOSTERITY. 2-,'.)
the unfortunate youth who was now no more (one of
these the article on sculpture to accompany the en-
graved design for Beckford's monument) takes no notice
in its " Domestic Intelligence " of the death of its cor-
respondent. Doubtless, Plamilton knew the fact in
time to notice it if he chose; hut he may have had
his reasons for not doing so. Nor in the September
number, which likewise contains souk? of Chatterton's
writings, is the omission supplied. It is not till the
October number that any notice of Chatterton occurs ;
and then it is in the form of an elt;gy in twenty-three
stanzas " To the Memory of Mr. Thomas Chatterton,
late of Bristol" The elegy is dated " Bristol, October,
1770," and is signed " T. C." — evidently the initials of
Chatterton's friend, Thomas Cary. The elegy is written
with more of genuine affection than of poetry ; but two
stanzas may be quoted : —
" Think of his tender opening unfledged years.
Brought to a final crisis ere mature,
As Fate had grudged the wonders Nature rears,
Bright genius in oblivion to ininiure.
Weep, Nature, weep : the mighty loss bewail ; —
The wonder of our drooping isle is dead !
Oh ! could but tears or plaintive sighs avail,
By night and day would I bedew my bed."
In consequence, however, of such communications as
these sent from Bristol, and of the naturally increased
s 2
260 CHATTEBTON.
interest that there would be there among the Catcotts
and the Barretts in the Eovvley manuscripts and other
l)apers that Chatterton had left behind him — perhaps,
too, of the researches of Dr. Fry and others, who ob-
tained copies of those papers and began to send them
about; and, doubtless, to some extent also, of the
casual references to Chatterton's fate that would be made
by persons who had seen liim in town — it is certain that
before the winter of 1770-1 w^as far advanced the tragic
death in the previous August of a certain youth of
genius named Chatterton, a writer for the Magazines,
and the alleged editor and transcriber of various pieces
of ancient poetry, had become a topic of conversation in
the literary clubs of London.
This was especially the case at the Gerard Street
Club. Goldy had returned from his Parisian trip before
the 8th of September: on which day, his biographer,
]\Ir. Forster, finds him receiving a new suit of mourning
from his tailor, to be worn on account of the death of
hi.-j old mother, of wliich he had received the news when
in Paris. Johnson was also back in town before
September was over. One of the two — most probably
it was Goldy — having seen the Elegy in the Town and
Country for October, or otherwise coming across tlie
story of Chatterton, made himself acquainted wdth the
particulars ; and thus Chatterton and the Ptowley Poems
came to be discussed at the Club. P)y this means it
THE JUDGMENT OF POHTEIUTY. f!ni
]>robal)ly was tliiit the Iloiiourable Horace WaljDole
unexpectedly found liiiusolf, one day early in 1771,
reminded of liis Bristol correspondent of the year 17G9,
The occasion of his doing so was in itself a somewhat
memorable one. The first annual dinner of the Royal
Academy was held on St. George's Day (April 23rd),
1771. At this dinner Sir Joshua Reynolds presided;
and uuKjiig the guests who sat under the pictures which
Avere hung along the walls were almost all the distin-
guished men of London. "Walpole, who was not in the
habit of seeing much of Johnson, (ioldsmith, and that
set, elsewhere, found himself seated near to them. We
will let himself relate the rest. " Dining," he says, " at
" the Iioyal Academy, Doctor Goldsmith drew the
" attention of the company witli an account of a mar-
" vellous treasure of ancient poems lately discovered at
" Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in them, for
" which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was
" present. I soon found this was the trouvaille of my
" friend Ohatterton ; and I told Dr. Gold.smith that this
" novelty was known to me, who might, if 1 had pleased,
" have had the honour of ushering the great discovery
" to the learned world. You may imagine, Sir, we did
*' not all agree in the measure of our faith ; but, thougli
" his credulity diverted mo, my mirtli was soon dashed :
" for, on asking about Ohatterton, he told me he had.
" been in London and had destroyed himself. The
262 I'UATTERTON.
" persons of honour uuJ veracity wlio were present will
" attest with what surprise and concern I thus first hear J
'•' of his death." Said we not that, of all the literary men
then alive, the one that it niiglit have been best for
Chatterton to have near him in his hour of despair was
Oliver Goldsmith ? AVe see that, after Chatterton was
dead, Goldsmith was somehow the first to hear of his
fate and to talk about it.
From that time, for the next six or seven years, we
are to fancy the interest in the Rowley Poems, and in
Chatterton as connected with them, gradually increas-
ing. Catcott, as possessor of the greater portion of
Chatterton s transcripts of the supposed ancient poems,
has become a person of some consequence in the eyes of
local antiquarians, and he takes care to make the most
of it. He has already increased his stock of MSS. by
buying from Chatterton's mother, for five guineas, such
of his papers as had been left Avith her, — a proceeding
by no means to his credit, if it is true that about the
same time he offered to sell his own collection for 70/.
Barrett, too, as the possessor of some copies of the
supposed antiques, finds himself inquired after. Both
he and Catcott lend about copies of their manuscripts,
some fragments of which get into print. The Bristol
poems of the fifteenth century are frequently spoken of
in literary circles in London. Warton, for example,
was shown a collection of them in 1773 by the Earl of
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. -nv.)
Lichfield, wlio asked his opinion of their genuineness.
All sensible persons who had seen specimens had already
made up tlieir minds that they were forgeries ; hut
many antiquarian old women stoutly maintained the
contrary. Whenever a literary man from the metropolis
was in the neighbourhood of Bristol, he endeavoured, as
a matter of course, to see Catcott and Barrett, and to
get all the particulars from them about Chatterton and
his circumstances. They were very communicative on
this subject, and spoke of Chatterton's talents, now that
they had a kind of property in them, far more enthusi-
astically than they had done when he was alive ; but
they, and indeed nearly all Bristol, persisted in believing
in the genuineness of the antiques. Chatterton, they
said, was a youth of extraordinary genius ; but he could
not have produced such poems as these were ! They
were, they had no doubt of it, the works of the much
older Bristol poet, Thomas Eowley, mysteriously pre-
served for three hundred years in the old chest in the
nmniment-room of St. Mary Redcliife, and only brought
to light by Chatterton ! Thus, when in April 177(j
Johnson and Boswell paid a visit to Bristol, they saw
Catcott and Barrett, and were shown the original MSS.
Johnson, says Boswell, read some of them aloud, while
Catcott stood by with open mouth, amazed at his
scepticism; after which, Catcott, to settle the matter,
led them in tiiumph to the Church of St. Mary Eedcliffe,
2G4 CHATTERTON.
and, by way of uuauswerable argument, sliowed them
" the chest itself." It was on this occasion that Johnson
said to Boswell, speaking of Chatterton, " This is the
most extraordinary young man that has encountered my
knowledge : it is wonderful how the whelp has written
such things." In connexion with this same visit, it
may be interesting to state that Hannah More, who was
still residing in Bristol with her sisters, a young woman
of twenty-five, at the time of Chatterton's death, had,
between that time and Dr. Johnson's visit in 1770,
added to the literary reputation of Bristol by the publi-
cation of her first dramas. In visiting Bristol, Johnsou
was paying a compliment to this rising poetess, as well
as to the memory of Chatterton. One is glad to know
also that, if Hannah More, as one of the conductors of
the best boarding-school for young ladies in Bristol,
was almost necessarily out of the circle of Chat-
terton's acquaintances while he was going about
in the city as an attorney's apprentice, she was
one of the first in Bristol to show an interest in
his fate after she did hear of him, and to prove
that interest by being kind to his mother and sister.
Mrs. Chatterton, after her son's death, was seized
with a nervous illness, which, though she lived a
good many years longer, never left her ; and among
those who used to go to see her and sometimes take
tea with her, for lier dead son's sake, there was none*
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 205
Mrs. Stockwell said, whom she respected so much as
Miss More.
It was in 1777 that the liovvley Poems were first
published collectively, chiefly from the manuscripts in
possession of Catcott and Barrett. A second and more
splendid edition was published in 1782 by Dean Milles,
President of the Society of Antiquaries, with the follow-
ing title : — " Poems supposed to have been written at
Bristol in the Fifteenth Century hy Thomas Eoicley,
Priest, &c. ; with a Commentary, in ivhich the antiquity of
them is considered and defended hy Jeremiah Milles, D.D.,
Dean of Exeter." Dean jMilles, in his preliminary dis-
sertation on the poems, gave a very slight account of
Chatterton, with a view to show that he could not have
been their author. Immediately on the publication of
the volume, there blazed out a Eowley controversy, as
fierce as that which had attended the appearance of the
Ossian Poems. Bryant and one or two others sided
with Milles, and the question was argued and re-argued
in every shape; but all the great critical and anti-
quarian authorities, such as INIalone, Tyrwhitt, and
Warton, were on the other side, and their arguments,
from evidence external and internal, set the question
conclusively at rest in the minds of all who could be set
at rest about anything. The collection and publication
about the same time of Chatterton's acknowledged
Miscellanies helped somewhat in the demonstration, by
266 CHATTEIITON.
showing the possibility that their author miglit also have
been the author even of things so extraordinary as tlie
Rowley Poems. It was not till 1803, however, that the
two sets of pieces were printed, together with additions
as the undoubted works of Chatterton. This first com
]ilete edition of Chatterton's works was undertaken ii
1799 by subscription, with a view to raise a sum for the
benetit of his sister, then Mrs. Newton, his mother being
by that time dead. Southey and jSIr. Cottle of Bristol
acted as the editors. Tlie subscription, however, not
reaching the expenses of publication, an arrangement
was made with Messrs. Longman in the interest of Mrs.
iSTewton. According to what Mr. Cumberland heard in
Bristol in ISOvS, the result of this speculation, and of
other similar acts of kindness shown to tlie Chatterton
family since the fatal year whicli had made them im-
mortal, was that a sum of about GOO/, came after ]\Irs.
Newton's death to her only daughter, who had for some
time been in the service of Miss Hannah JMore. This
girl, the last of the Chattertous, died in 1807, leaving
100/. to a young man, an attorney, to whom she was
about to be married. The rest went to her father's rela-
tives, the Newtons, living in London somewhere about
the Minories.
We have already quoted enough from Chatterton's
acknowledged writings in prose and in verse to give an
TUB JUDGMENT OF rOHTERITY. 267
idea of his ability and versatility as there shown. They
are certainly astonishing; productions for a Loy not
past his eighteenth year: astonishing for their very
variety, and their precocious tone and manner, even
where in substance they are most worthless. He writes
])olitical letters for the newspapers, shallow enough, but
as aood as were iroinff ; he writes scurrilous satires in
the Churchill vein, with here and tliert^ lines as good as
any in Churchill, and sometimes with turns of epigram
reminding us of Pope ; he writes very tolerable imita-
tions of Ossian, and elegies and serious poems showing
some power both of thought and of imagination; he
catches the knack of magazine-articles, and scribbles
them off currente calamo, exactly of a kind to suit ; he
goes an evening or two to Marylebone Gardens, and
straightway he writes a capital Burletta. Ou the evi-
dence, then, of his acknowledged productions alone,
Chatterton must be pronounced to have been a youth
of singular endowments, who, had he lived, would cer-
tainly have made himself a name in the literature of
England at the close of the last antl the beginning of
the present century. The passages which we have
hitherto quoted from those productions having, however,
been selected mainly as affording illustrations of his
character and life, it may be well to cite one or two
more, exhibiting rather his poetical powers as such.
Here is a piece entitled " An Elegy " : —
268 CHATTEBTON.
"Joyless I seelc the solitarj^ shade,
Where dusky Contemplation veils the scene —
The dark retreat, of leafless branches made,
AVhere sick'ning sorrow wets the yellow'd green.
The darksome ruins of some sacred cell,
Where erst the sons of Superstition trod,
Tott'ring upon the mossy meadow, tell
We better know, but less adore, our God.
Now, as I mournful tread the t;loomv cave,
Thro' the wide window, once with mysteries dight,
The distant forest and the darken'd wave
Of the swoln Avon ravishes my sight.
But see ! the thick'ning veil of Evenino's drawn :
The azure changes to a sable blue ;
The rapturing prospects fly tiie less'ning lawn.
And Nature seems to mourn the dying view.
Self-sprighted Fear creeps silent thro' the gloom.
Starts at tlie rustling leaf and rolls his eyes ;
Aghast with horror, when he views the tomb,
Witli every torment of a hell he flies.
The bubbling brooks in plaintive murmurs roll ;
The bird of omen, with incessant scream,
To melancholy thoughts awakes the soul,
And lulls the mind to Contemplation's dream.
A dreary stillness broods o'er all the vale ;
The clouded moon emits a feeble "lare ;
Joyless I seek the darkling hill and dale :
Where'er I wander, sorrow still is there."
This is by no moans perfect, but it is in a vein of true
poetry; and both the melancholy of the mood, and the
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 2G9
tendency tu personitication, as in " Self-spriglited Fear,"
are very cliaracteristic of Cliatterton. The foUowinjf,
also a fine instance of personification, is from another
Elegy, which contains many good stanzas : —
" I'alc, rugged Winter, Lending o'er his tread ; —
His grizzled hair bedrupt ^vith icy dew;
His eyes a dusky light congeal'd and dead ;
His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue !
His train a motleyed, sanguine, sable cluud.
He limps along the russet dreary moor.
While rising whirlwinds, blasting keen and loud,
lioU the white surges to the sounding shore."
There is a satirical description of Whitfield preaching,
wiiich, if we were to quote from it, might remind readers
of some of Burns's humorous pieces on the preachers of
Ayrshire. What we have already quoted from the
IJurletta, however, must suffice in this vein.
It must not be supposed that there are many passages
so good as the above in Chatterton's acknowledged
poems. There is not one of them that is not clever ;
and from the longer ones there might be selected
instances of nervous and epigrammatic expression, and of
sudden strokes of fancy, which would have done credit
to any veteran writer of the time. But, upon the whole,
except as they bear on the life and character of their
extraordinary author, these poems possess little interest;
and, were an editor to go over them now, with a view
270 CHATTERTON.
to select such portions of them as, apart from the peculiar
circumstances of their authorship, might be entitled to
preservation in a collected edition of extracts from the
English Poets, all that he could find in them suitable
for his purpose might be comprised in a very few printed
pages.
It is very different witli the antique pieces written in
the names of Kowley and other poets. Whether, in the
composition of tliose poems, it was Chatterton's habit
first to write in ordinary phraseology, and then, by the
help of glossaries, to translate what he had written into
archaic language, or whether he had by practice become
so far master of ancient words and expressions as to be
aide to write directly in the fictitious dialect he had
prescribed for himself, certain it is that, whenever his
thoughts and fancies attained their highest strain, he
either was whirled into the archaic form by an irresistible
instinct, or deliberately adopted it. Up to a certain
point, as it were, Chatterton could remain himself; but
the moment he was hurried past that point, the moment
he attained to a certain degree of sublimity, or fervour,
or solemnity in his conceptions, and was constrained to
continue at the same pitch, at that moment he reverted
to the fifteenth century, and passed into the soul of
Eowley. !No one who has not read the antique poems
of Chatterton can conceive what extraordinary things
they are. Feeling this, and feeling that all tliat we have
Tllf': JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 271
written about Cliatterton hitherto would be out of pro-
portion unless we could communicate some idea of the
force of his genius as shown in his Itowley antiques, we
shall close this sketch of his life with a slight account
of these poems, and with a few extracts from them.
The antique poems, as printed in Southey's edition of
Chatterton's works in 1803, occupy one octavo volume
out of three. The following is a descriptive list of the
most important of them : —
1. Four Eclogues, or supposed poetical dialogues of
shepherds and shepherdesses at different periods in the
])ast history of England — chiefly about the period of the
Wars of the Roses. The first three of the Eclogues
were printed from MSS. in Chatterton's writing in the
possession of Mr. Catcott, to whom they had been given
as transcripts of old poems by Eowley ; the fourth was
published in the Town and Country Magazine for May,
17G9, with this title, " Elinoure and Juga : written three
hundred years ago by T. Rowley, secular priest."
2. The Parliament of Sprytes : " A most merrie
Entyrlude, plaied by the Carmelyte Freeres at Mastre
Canynges hys greete howse, before Mastre Canynges and
I'yshoppe Carpenterre, on dedicatynge the Chyrche of
Oure Ladie of Redclefte; wroten bie T. Rowleie and J.
Iscarame." Printed from Mr. Barrett's History of
Bristol : the original, in Chatterton's handwriting, in
the British Museum.
3. The Tournament : A dramatic account by Rowley
of a Tournament, held at Bristol before Edward I. in
1285, in wlrch Sir Simon Burton, one of the old worthies
CIIATTERTON.
of Bristol, and tlie original founder of the Church of St.
"Mary Eeilcliffe, which Canynge rebuilt, showed his
prowess over all other knights. Printed from a copy
made by Catcott from one in Cliatterton's handwriting.
4. The Bristowc Tragedic ; or the Dcthe of Syr Charles
Baivdin : A ballad, in nearly a hundred stanzas, celebra-
ting the death of Sir Charles Baldwin, otherwise Sir
Baldwin Fulford, a zealous Lancastrian, who M^as exe-
cuted at Bristol, in 1461, by order of Edward IV. The
poem was printed in London, in 1772, from a copy
made by Catcott from one in Cliatterton's handwriting.
Chatterton, it appears, acknowledged to his mother and
sister that he was the author of this poem.
5. The Storie of William Canynge : A poem in twenty-
five stanzas, purporting to be extracted from a jDrose
work by Eowley, giving an account of eminent natives
of Bristol, from the earliest times to his own. The first
thirty-four lines of this poem are extant on the "original
vellum " given by Chatterton to Mr. Barrett ; the rest is
from various transcripts.
6. Songe to yElla, Lorde of the Cast el of Brystaire
ynne dales of yore : A short Pindaric lyric by Eowley,
t(^ the memory of ^Ua, the great Saxon chieftain of
West England, and enemy of the Danes, in the tenth
century. Printed from the Catcott MSS.
7. JElla : " A Tragycal Enterlude, or Discoorseynge
Tragedie, wrotenn by Thomas Rowieie ; plaiedd before
]\Iastre Canynge, atte hys howse nempte the Eodde
Lodge ; alsoe before the Duke of iJ^orfolck, Johan
Howard." This is Chatterton's masterpiece. It is a
long dramatic poem in various rhyme, with songs
interspersed, originally jirinted from a manuscript in
Chatterton's hand in the possession of Mr. Catcott.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 273
The hero of tlic di'ama is the aforesaid yElla, the Saxon
lord of Bristol in the tenth century, and the hammer of
the then invading Danes. The plot is this : — i'Elhi has
iust married the Leauteous Birtlia, and is feasting at
Bristol in all the joy of liis spousals, Avhon the news is
brought that two hosts of the Danes, under jNIagnus and
Hurra, are ravaging the country round. ^Ua tears
himself away from Birtha ; meets the Danes ; totally
defeats ]\Iagnus and his host ; and drives Hurra and his
host skulking into the woods. He is in the pride of his
victory when his i'ricnd Celmonde, who has been
secretly in love with Birtha, steals from the camp, and,
(ToinfT to Bristol alone, tells Birtha that her husband is
sorely wounded, and wishes her to come to him. Birtha
mounts a horse immediately, and, not waiting to inform
her maidens of her purpose, rides off wdth Celmonde.
They go tlirougli a wood ; where, as Celmonde is
revealing his purpose and offering violence. Hurra and
his Danes come to the rescue, slay him, and magnani-
mously protect Birtha. They escort her to Bristol;
where, meanwhile, however, yElla has arrived, and,
thinking his Birtha false, has stabbed himself. He
survives to see her, and then dies ; and she swoons on
his body.
8. Goddimjnn: "A Tragedie, by Thomas Eowleie."
This poem, also from the Catcott INISS., is a fragment of
a supposed tragedy, the scene of which is laid in England
immediately before the Norman Conquest, and the chief
persons in which are Earl Godwin, Harold, and King
Edward the Confessor. The topic of the drama, so far
as it proceeds, is the patriotic rage of tlin Saxons at the
growing power of tlie Xormaus in the land.
C. T
274 CHATTERTON.
9. The Bcdade of Charitie : " As wroten bie the gode
prieste Thomas Eowleie, 1464." This poem, originally
printed from a professed copy in Chatterton's hand-
writing in the possession of JNIr. Barrett, is a kind of.
narrative phantasy, describing a pilgrim overtaken by a
storm. A rich abbot passes him, and refuses him an
alms ; but a poor " Limitour " friar, who has little to
spare, acts a more In^otherly part.
10. The Battle of Hastings: A long rhymed descrip-
tion, in two parts, of the supposed incidents of the great
liattle by which Duke William became master of
England. The poem purported to be a translation by
Eowley of a metrical narrative by Turgot, a Saxon
monk, contemporary \\'ith the Conquest. Chatterton,
when liard pressed, had admitted to Mr. Barrett that
the first part was his own.
These antique poems of Chatterton (and there are
about twenty shorter ones in the same series) are perhaps
as worthy of being read consecutively as many portions
of the poetry of Byron, Shelley, or Keats. There are
passages in them, at least, quite equal to any to be found
in these poets ; and it is only the uncouth and spurious
appearance of antiquity which they wear when the
absurd spelling in wliich they were first printed is
retained that prevents them from being known and
quoted. Let us strip a few passages of this unnecessary
concealment as far as is possible witliout changing the
words. Here is a passage, with the spelling partly
modernized, lr(jni the Balade of Charitie : —
THE JUDGMENT OF POUTEUITY.
'Jto
" In Yirgindj the sweltry sun 'gan sheen,
And hot upon the niees did cast Ins vay ;
The apple rudded from its paly green,
And the moll ^ pear did bend his leafy spray ;
The peed chelandrie - sung the livelong day ;
'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year,
And eke the ground was dight in its most defc aumere.-'
The sun was gleaming in the mid of day,
Dead still the air, and eke the welkin blue,
When from the sea arist in drear array
A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue ;
The which full fast unto the woodland drew,
Hiltring atenes* the sunne's fetive face;
And the black tempest swoln and gathered up apace.
Beneath an holm, fast by a pathway-side.
Which did unto Sainte Godwin's convent lead,
A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide.
Poor in the view, ungentle in his weed,
Long bretfuP of the miseries of need.
"Where from the hail-stones could the aimer fly ?
He had no housen there, ne any convent nigh I
Look in his gloomed^ face, his spright there scan:
How woe-begone, how withered, forwend,'^ dead 1
Haste to thv church -glebe-house, ashrewed man !^
Haste to thy kist,'^ thy only dortour-bed : ^^
Cale as the clay which will gre on thy head
Is charity and love among high elves :
Knightes and barons live for pleasure and themselves.
^ Soft pear. - Pied goldfinch. ^ Becomiug mantle.
* Shrouding at once. * Brimful. ^ Clouded face. ^ Sapless.
^ Accursed man. ^ Cofliu. ^° Dormitory.
T 2
276 CHATTERTON.
The gathered storm is ripe ; the big drops fall ;
The forswat meadows smeethe^ and drench with rain ;
The coming ghastness does the cattle pall ;
And the full flocks are driving o'er the plain ;
Dash'd from the clouds the waters float again ;
The welkin opes ; the yellow levin flies ;
And the hot fiery smoth in the wide lowiugs dies.^
List! how the thunder's rattling dimming ^ sound
Cheeves slowly on, and then embollen clangs,*
Shakes the high spire, and, lost, dispended, drowned,
Still on the galliard ear of terror hangs.^
The winds are up ; the lofty elmen swangs ;
Again the levin and the thunder pours,
And the full clouds are burst attenes in stonen showers."
This may serve as a specimen of the descriptive
passages with which the poems abound. Here .are a
few samples of maxim and thought tersely expressed : —
" Plays made from halie tales I hold unmeet ;
Let some great story of a man be sung."
"Verse may be good, but poetry wants more."
" Strange doom it is that in these days of ours
jSTought but a bare recital can have place :
Xow shapely Poesy hath lost its powers,
And pinanf" History is only grace."
" P)Ut then renown eterne ! — It is but air
Bred in tlie phantasie, and allene living there."
^ Sweated meadow.s smoke. * Fiery steam : wide flamings. ' Noisy.
* Moves alow]y : swollen clangs. ^ Flighted ear. ^ Languid History.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 211
" Still inurmuriug at their scliap,^ still to the king
They roll their troubles like a surgy sea.
Han P]ngland, then, a tongue, but not a sting?
Doth all complain, yet none will riglited be ? "
" Virgin and halie saints, who sit in glour,
Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power,"
"And both together sought the unknown shore,
Where we shall go, where many's gone before."
" So have I seen a mountain-oak, that long
Has cast his shadow to the mountain side,
Brave all the winds, though ever they so strong,
And view the briars below with self-taught pride ;
But, when thrown down by mighty thunder-stroke.
He'd rather be a briar than an oak."
The following is a personification worthy of Spenser : —
" Hope, holy sister, sweeping through the sky,
Tn crown of gold and robe of lily white.
Which far abroad in gentle air doth fly.
Meeting from distance the enjoy ous sight ;
Albeit oft thou takest thy high flight
HeckM in mist,^ and with tliine eyne yblent."^
Perhaps, however, it is in the lyrical pieces scattered
through the poems that Chatterton's genius is seen at
its best. Here is RovAeys Song to JElla : —
" Oh thou, or what remains of thee,
^Ua, the darling of futurity.
Let this my song bold as thy courage be,
As everlasting to posterity !
^ Fate. ' SLjouded in mist. ^ Eyes blinded.
278 CHATTERTON.
AVheu Dacia's sous, with hairs of blood-red hue,
Like kingcups bursting with the morning dew,
Arranged in drear array.
Upon the lethal day.
Spread far and wide on Watchet's shore,
Then didst thou furious stand.
And by thy valiant hand
BesprengM all the mees with gore.
Drawn by thine anlace^ fell
Down to the depths of hell
Thousands of Dacians went;
Bristowans, men of might,
Ydared the bloody fight,
And acted deeds full quaint.
Oh thou, where'er (thy bones at rest)
Thy spirit to haunt delighteth best,
"Wliether upon the blood-imbrukl plain,
Or where thou kenst from far
The dismal cry of war.
Or seest some mountain made of corse of slain ;
Or seest the hatched" steed
Yprancing on the meed,
And neigh to be among the pointed spears ;
Or in black armour stalk around
Embattled Bristowe, once thy ground.
And glow ardiirous^ on the castle stairs.
Or fiery round the minster glare,
Let Bristowe still be made thy care.
^ Sworf], ^ Accoutred. ^ All blazing.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 279
Guard it from foemen and consuming lire ;
Lil<e Avon's stream encirc it round ;
Ne let a flame enharni the ground,
Till in one flame all the whole world expire."
From this piece of powerful imagination turn to the
following exquisitely dainty little song, supposed to be
sung for the entertainment of Birtha by one of ^Ella's
minstrels. The song, though introduced into yElla,
purports to be by Sir Tibbot Gorges, and not by
Eowley : —
" As Eliuour by the green lessel was sitting
As from the sun's heate she harried.
She said, as her white hands white hosen was knitting,
■' What pleasure ic is to be married !
' My husband, lord Thomas, a forester bold
As ever clove pin or the basket,^
Does no cherisaunces from Eliuour hold ;
I have it as soon as I ask it.
' When I lived with my father in merry Cloud-dell,
Tho' 'twas at my lief to mind spinning,
I still wanted something, but what ne could tell.
My lord-father's barb'd hall ban ne winning.-
' Each morniug I rise do I set my maidens.
Some to spin, some to cardie, some bleachiug ;
G if any new entered do ask for mine aidens,
Then swithen^ you find me a-teaching.
* Marks iu archery. - Had no cliarms.
^ Straightway.
2S0 CHATTEBTON.
' Lord Walter, my father, he loved me well,
And nothing unto me was needing ;
But, should I again go to merry Cloud-dell,
In soothen 'twould be without reding.'^
She said, and lord Thomas came over the lea,
As he the fat deerkins was chasing ;
She put by her knitting, and to him went she :
So we leave them both kindly embracing."
The following, in another strain, is also one of the
lyrics sung by the minstrels in jElla. It is the song of
a bereaved maiden : —
"0, sing unto my roundelay;
O, drop the briny tear with me ;
Daunce ne moe at halie-day ;
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow tree.
Elack his crine^ as the winter-night,
White his rood^ as the summer snow,
liud his face as the morniuir li^ht ;
Cold he lies in the grave below.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note ;
Quick in dance as thought can be ;
Deft his tabour, cudgel stout ;
0, he lies by the willow-tree.
^ Advice. * Hair. ^ N^eck.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 281
;My love is dead,
Gone to his death -l)ed,
All under tlie willow-tree.
Hark ! the raven flaps his wing
In the briared dell below ;
Hark ! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares as they go.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the w^illow-tree.
See ! the white moon shines on high ;
Wliiter is my true love's shroud,
Whiter than the morning-sky.
Whiter than the evening-cloud.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed.
All under the willow-tree.
Here upon my true love's grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid ;
Ne one halie saint to save
All the celness^ of a maid.
]\Iv love is dead.
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
With my hands I'll dent^ the briars
Eound his halie corse to gree ;
Ouphant,^ fairy, light your fires ;
Here my body stiU shall be.
Coldness. * Fasten. ' Elfin.
282 CHATIERTON.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All iinder the willow- tree.
Come with acom-cup and thorn ;
Drain my heartes blood away ;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death- bed,
All under the willow-tree. .
Water w^itches, crowned with raits,^
Bear me to your lethal tide :
I die ! I come ! my true love waits.
Thus the damsel spake, and died."
But perhaps the grandest thing in all Chatterton
is his fragmentary Ode to Liberty in his Tragedy of
Gochvin. We know nothing finer of its kind in the
whole range of English poetry. A Chorus is supposed
to sing the song ; which is throughout, it will be seen,
a burst of glorious and sustained personification : —
When Freedom, drest in blood-stained vest,
To every knight her war-song sung,
Upon her head wild weeds were spread,
A gory anlace^ by her hung.
She danced on the heath;
She heard the voice of Death ;
^ Rushes. * Sword.
THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 263
Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue,
In vain assailed her bosom to acale.^
She heard untlemed- the shrieking voice of woe,
And sadness in the owlet shake the dale.
She shook the burlkP spear ;
On high she jeest* her shield ;
Her foenien all appear,
And fiizz along the field.
Power, with his heafod straught^ into the skies,
His spear a sun-beam and his shield a star.
Alike tway brenning gronfires^ rolls his eyes,
Chafts 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 ;
Wit skilly wimpled" guides it to his crown ;
His long sharp spear, his spreading shield, is gone ;
He falls, and falling rolleth thousands dovra.
War, gore-faced War, by envy burl'd,^ arist,
His fieiy helm nodding to the air.
Ten bloody arrows in his straining fist."
"\M;at a picture in the last line I With no other
evidence before us than is afforded by this and the
other antique pieces which we have quoted, one may
assert, unhesitatingly, not only that Chatterton was a
true English poet of the eighteenth century, but also
* Freeze. ' Unterrified. ^ Armed. ■* Tossed. ' Head stretchetl.
^ Two buniing meteors. ^ Closely covered. ^ Armed.
284 CHATTERTON.
that, compared with the other English poets of the
part of that century immediately prior to the new era
begun by Burns and AYcrdsworth, he was, with all his
immaturity, almost solitary in the possession of the
highest poetic gift. Pope, Thomson, and Goldsmith,
were poets of this century ; and no sensible man will
for a moment think of comparing the boy of Bristol, in
respect of his whole activity, with those fine stars of
our literature, or even with some of the lesser stars that
shone along with them. But he had a specific fire
and force of imagination in him which they had not ;
and, when one remembers that he was but seventeen
years and nine months old when he died, and that most
of his antiques were written fully a year before that
time, little wonder that, with. Coleridge, Wordsworth,
and Keats, one looks back again and again on his brief
existence with a kind of awe, as on the track of a
heaven-shot meteor earthwards through a night of
gloom.
THE END.
LONDON ; n. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PUINTERS.
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With other Essays.
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With Portrait and A'ij,'nctte, engraved by Jeexs.
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Being a Critical Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction.
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Borland Hall. — By the Author of " Olrig Grange." Crown
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Children's (The) Garland, FROM THE BEST POETS.
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'■'■Taken as a whole," the Spectator says, " these volumes cannot
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THE POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, sometime Fellow
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Clunes. — THE STORY OF PAULINE: an Autobiography.
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Days of Old ; stories from old English history.
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Deane. — MARJORY. By Milly Deane. Third Edition.
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Gray.— THE poetical works of DAVID GRAY. New
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Guesses at Truth. — By Two Brothers. With Vignette
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' ' A story of very unusual merit. The entire story is well conceived,
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Hamerton. — a painter's camp. Second Edition, revised.
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Book I. In England; Book II. In Scotland; Book III. In France.
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" The pictures in this book are ffl///«/."— Athen^um.
Hervey. — duke Ernest, a Tragedy; and other Poems.
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' ' Conceived in pure taste and true historic feeling, and presented ivith
BELLES LETTRES.
much dramatic force Thoroughly original." — BRITISH
Quarterly.
Higginson MALBONE : An Oldport Romance. By T. W.
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The Daily News says: " Who likes a quiet story, full of
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Hillside Rhymes. — Extra fcap. 8vo. 5^.
Home.— BLANCHE LISLE, and other Poems. By Cecil
lIo.MK. Fcap. 8vo. 4J. dd.
Hood (Tom).— THE PLEASANT TALE OF PUSS AND
ROBIN AND THEIR FRIENDS, KITTY AND BOB.
Told in Pictures by L. Frolicii, and in Rhymes by ToM Hood.
Crown 8vo. gilt. 3^. dd.
" The volume is prettily got up, and is sure to be a favourite in the
nursery." — SCOTSMAN. ^^ Her r Frolic h has outdone himself in
his pictures of this dramatic chase." — Morning Post.
Keary (A.) — Works by Miss A. Keary :—
JANET'S HOME. New Edition. Globe 8vo. is. 6d.
^^ Never did a more charming family appear upon the canvas ; and
most skilfully and feluitously have their characters been portrayed.
Each individual of the fireside is a finished portrait, distinct and
lifelike. . . . The fteture before her as a novelist is that of becoming
the Aliss Austin of her generatiofi." — SuN.
CLEMENCY FRANKLYN. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 2s. 6d.
^^ Full of wisdo/n and goodness, simple, truthful, and artistic. . . //
is capital as a story; better still in its pure tone and wholesome
influence." — Globe.
OLDBURY. Three vols. Crown 8vo. 31J. 6d.
"This is a very powerfully written story." — GLOBE. "This is a
really excellent novel." — Illustrated London News. ^^ The
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Keary (A. and E.)— Works by A. and E. Keary:—
THE LITTLE WANDERLIN, and other Fairy Talcs. i8mo. 2s. 6d.
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THE HEROES OF ASGARD. Tales from Scandinavian
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Extra fcap. 8vo. 4J. bd.
" Told in a light and amusing style, which, in its drollery and
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Kingsley. — Works by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, M.A.,
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"WESTWARD HO!" or, The Voyages and Adventures of
Sir Amyas Leigh. Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6j-.
lo BELLES LETTRES.
K i n g S 1 e y ( C . ) — continued.
Fraser's Magazine calls it ^^ almost the best historical novel of
the day y
TWO YEARS AGO. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
"Mr, Kingsley has provided us all along with such pleasant diver siotis
— such rich and brightly tinted glimpses of natural history, such
suggestive remarks on. mankind, society, attd all sorts of topics,
that amidst the pleasure of the way, the circuit to be made will be by
most forgotten.'''' — Guardian.
HYPATIA ; or, New Foes with an Old Face. Seventh Edition.
Crown 8vo. 6^.
HEREWARD THE WAKE— LAST OF THE ENGLISH.
Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6j.
YEAST : A Problem. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5^.
ALTON LOCKE. New Edition. With a New Preface. Crown 8vo.
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The author\ shows, to quote the Spectator, ^'ivhatit is that coH'
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THE WATER BABIES. A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby. New
Edition, with additional Illustrations by Sir Noel Paton, R.S.A.,
and P. Skelton. Crown Svo. cloth; extra gilt. 5^.
^^ In fun, in humour, and in innocent imaginat'ion, as a child'' s
book we do not knozu its equal." — London Review. '■'■Mr.
Kingsley must have the credit of revealitJg to tis a new order of life.
. . . There is in the ' Water Babies ' an abundance of wit, fun,
good humour, geniality, elan, go." — Times,
THE HEROES ; or, Greek Fairy Tales for my Children. With
Coloured Illustrations. New Edition. i8mo. 4^^. ()d.
" IVe do not think these heroic stories have ever been more attractively
told. . . There is a deep under-ao'rent of religious feeling traceable
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fully." — London Review. " One of the children's books that
will surely become a <:/«^«V."— Nonconformist.
PHAETHON ; or. Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers. Third
Edition. Crown Svo. is.
" The dialogue of '■ Phaethon ' has striking beauties, and its sugges-
tions may meet halfway many a latent doubt, and, like a light
breeze, lift frotn the soul clouds that are gathering heavily, and
threatening to settle down in misty gloom on the sunwier of many
a fair and promisiftg young life.'''' — Spectator.
POEMS ; including The Saint's Tragedy, Andromeda, Songs,
Ballads, etc. Complete Collected Edition. Extra fcap. Svo. 6^.
77;r Spectator calls '■^Andromeda'''' ^' the f nest piece of English
hexameter verse that has ever been written. It is a volume
which many readers will be glad to possess."
PROSE IDYLLS. NEW AND OLD. Second Edition. Crown
Svo. 5^.
Contents : — A Charm of Birds; Chalk-Stream Studies ; The
Fens ; My Winter-Garden ; From Ocean to Sea ; North Devon.
• BELLES LETT RES. \\
^' Alto^s^fther a delimit tf id book It exhibits the author's best
traits, and cannot fail to infect the reader noith a love of natnrc
and of out-door life and its enjoyments. It is 7vell calcidated to
bring a gleam of summer toith its pleasant associations, into the
bleak ivinter-time ; 7vhile a better companion for a summer ramble
could hardly be found." — British Quarterly Review.
Kingsley (H.) — Works by Henry Kincsley :—
TALES OF OLD TRAVKL. Rc-narratcd. With Eight full-page
Illustrations by IIUARD. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth,
extra gilt. 5-^'
"/Ft" know no better book for those who want knorwledge or seek to
refresh it. As for the 'sensational,' fnost novels are tame cofn-
pared with these narratives." — ATHENiTLUM. " Exactly the book
to interest and to do good to intelligent and high-spirited boys." —
Literary Churchman.
THE LOST CHILD. With Eight Illustrations by FroLICH.
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*' A pathetic story, and told so as to give children an interest in
Australian ways and scenery." — Globe. "Very charmingly and
very touchingly told." — SATURDAY REVIEW.
OAKSIIOTT CASTLE. 3 Vols. Crown Svo. 31^. 6</.
" A^ one who takes tip ' Oakshott Castle' will willingly put it do7un
until the last page is turned. . . . It may fairly be considered a
capital story, full of go, and abounding in word pictures of storms
and Tc;w/x"— Observer.
Knatchbull-Hugessen. — Works by E. II. Knatchbull-
IIUGESSEX, M.r. : —
Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen has won for himself a reputation as
a teller of fairy-tales. '' Ilis powers" [says the Times,
" are of a very high order ; light and brilliant narrative flows
from his pen, and is fed by an invention as graceful as it is inex-
haustible." " Children reading his stories," the Scotsman says,
"or hearing them read, will have their mitids refreshed and in-
vigorated as much as their bodies would be by abundance of fresh
air and exercise."
STORIES FOR MY CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Fourth
Edition. Crown Svo. 5^-.
" The stones are charming, and fidl of life and fun." — STANDARD.
*' The author has an imagination as fanciful as Grimm himselj,
while some of his stories are superior to anything t/uit Hans Chris-
tian Andersen has written." — NONCONFORMIST.
CRACKERS FOR CHRISTMAS. More Stories. W^ith Illustra-
tions by Jellicoe and Elwes. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 5/.
" A fascinating little 'lolume, which will make him friends in every
household in which there are children. " — Daily News.
MOONSHINE: Fairy Tales. With Illustrations by W. Brunton.
Sixth Edition. Crown Svo. cloth gilt. 5.f.
''A volutne of fairy tales, written not only for ungrown children.
12 BELLES LETTRES. '
KnatchbuU-Hugessen (E. H.) — continued.
but for bigger, and if you are nearly ivorii out, or sick, or sorry,
you will find it good reading. " — Graphic. ' ' The most charming
volume of fairy tales tvhichzoe have ever read. . . . We cannot qjtit
this very pleasant book without a word of praise to its illustrator.
Mr. Brunton from first to last has done admirably." — Times.
TALES AT TEA-TIME. Fairy Stories. With Seven Illustra-
tions by \V. Brunton. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth gilt 5^.
" Capitally illustrated by W. Brunton. . . . In frolic and fancy they
are quite equal to his other books. The author knozvs how to write
fairy stones as they should be written. The xvhole book is full of
the most delightful drolleries.'^ — TIMES.
QUEER FOLK. FAIRY STORIES. Illustrated by S. E.
Waller. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt. ^s.
"Decidedly the author s happiest effort. . . . One of the best story
books of the year."— IIOVR.
Knatchbull-Hugessen (Louisa). — the HISTORY OF
PRINCE PERRYPETS. A Fairy Tale. By Louisa Knatch-
bull-Hugessen. With Eight Illustrations by Weigand.
New Edition. Crown 4to. cloth gilt. ' 3^. 6d.
"A grand and exciting fairy tale." — MORNING PoST. "A delicious
piece of fairy nonsense." — Illustrated London News.
Knox.— SONGS OF CONSOLATION. By Isa Craig Knox.
Extra fcap. 8vo. Cloth extra, gilt edges, ^s. 6d.
" The verses are truly sweet ; there is in them not only much genuine
poetic quality, but an ardent, flowing devotedness, and a peculiar
skill in propounding theological tenets in the most graceful way,
inhirh any divine might envy." — Scotsman.
Latham. — SERTUM SHAKSPERIANUM, Subnexis aliquot
aliunde excerptis floribus. Latine reddidit Rev. H. Latham,
M.A. Extra fcap. 8vo. 5^.
Lemon. — the legends of number nip. By Mark
Lemon, With Illustrations by C. Keene. New Edition. Extra
fcap. 8vo. "Zs. 6d.
Life and Times of Conrad the Squirrel, a Story
for Children. By the Author of "Wandering Willie," " Effie's
Friends," &c. With a Frontispiece by R. Farren. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
'^Having commenced on the first page, we were compelled to go on to
the conclusion, and this we predict will be the case luith every one
-who opens the book." — Pall Mall Gazette.
Little E Stella, and other FAIRY TALES FOR THE YOUNG.
i8mo. cloth extra. 2s. 6d.
' ' This is a fine story, and we thank heaven for not being too wise to
enjoy it." — Daily News.
Lowell. — Works by J. Russell Lowell : —
AMONG MY BOOKS. Six Essays. Dryden — Witchcraft —
BELLES LETT RES. 13
Lowell — continued.
Shakespeare once More — New England Two Centuries Ago —
Lessing — Rousseau and the Sentimentalists. Crown 8vo. 7^. 6(/.
*^VVe may safely say the volume is one of which our chief complaint
must be that there is not more of it. There are good sense and lively
feeling forcibly and tersely expressed in every page of his Tvriting."
— Pall Mall Gazictte.
COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS of Jamks Russell Lowell.
With Portrait, engraved by Jcens. iSmo. cloth extra. ^. td.
^^ All readers who are able to recognise and appreciate genuine verse
■will give a glad welcome to this beautiful little volume." — Pall
Mall Gazette.
Lyttelton. — Works by Lord Lyttelton :—
THE "COMUS" OF MILTON, rendered into Greek Verse.
Extra fcap. 8vo. ^s.
THE "SAMSON AGONISTES" OF MILTON, rendered into
Greek Verse. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6j-. 6(/.
"Classical in spirit, full of force, and true to the original."
— Guardian.
Maclaren. — THE FAIRY FAMILY. A series of Ballads and
Metrical Talcs illustrating the Fairy Mythology of Europe. By
Arciiiuald Maclaken. With Frontispiece, Illustrated Title,
and Vignette, Crown Svo. gilt. 5^.
" A successful attempt to translate into the vernacular sofue of the
Fairy Mythology of Europe. The verses are very good. There is
no shirking dtjfictdties of rhyme, and the ballad metre which is
oftenest employed has a great deal of the ki)ui of ^ go ' which we find
so seldom outside the pages of Scott. The book is of permanent
value."— G uardlvn.
Macmillan's Magazine. — Published Monthly. Price IS.
Volumes I. to XXIX. are now ready. 7^-. dd. each.
Macquoid. — patty. By Katharine S. Macquoid. Third
and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. ()s.
"A booh to be read." — Standard. "A po7uerful and fascinating
story." — Daily Telegraph. The Q-lov,^ considers it "well-
writteti, amusing, and interesting, and has the tnerit of being out
of the ordinary run of novels."
Maguire, — YOUNG PRINCE MARIGOLD, AND OTHER
FAIRY STORIES. By the late John Francis Maguire, M.P.
Illustrated by S. E. Waller. Globe Svo. gilt. 4J. 6d.
" The author has raidcntly studied the ways and tastes of children and
got at the secret of amusing them ; and has succeeded in what is not
so easy a task as it may seem — in producing a really good children's
book."— Daily Telegraph.
Marlitt (E.)— the COUNTESS GISELA. Translated from
the German of E. Marlitt. Crown Svo. "js. 6d.
"A very beautiful story of German country life." — Literary
Churchman.
14 BELLES LETTRES.
Masson (Professor). — Works by David Masson, M.A.,
Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University
of Edinburgh.
BRITISH NOVELISTS AND THEIR STYLES. Being a Critical
Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction. Crown 8vo. 7^-. 6a'.
WORDSWORTH, SHELLEY, KEATS, AND OTHER
ESSAYS. Crown 8vo. 51.
CHATTERTON : A Story of the Year 1770. Crown Svo. 55.
THE THREE DEVILS : LUTHER'S, MILTON'S, and
GOETHE'S ; and other Essays. Crown Svo. 5^.
Mazini.— IN THE GOLDEN SHELL ; A Story of Palermo.
By Linda Mazini. With Illustrations. Globe Svo. cloth gilt,
' ' As beautijul and bright and fresh as the scenes to luhich it 7vafts
us over the blue Ulediten-anean, and as pure and innocent, but
piquant and sprightly as the little girl who plays the part of its
heroine, is this admirable little book." — Illustrated London
News.
Merivale. — KEATS' HYPERION, rendered into Latin Verse.
By C. Merivale, B.D. Second Edition. Extra fcap. Svo.
3^. (id.
Milner. — the lily of LUMLEY. By Edith Milner.
Crown Svo. 7^. dd.
" The novel is a good one and decidedly worth the reading."-^
Examiner, "yi pretty, brightly-written story." — Literary
Churchman. ^'■A tale possessing the deepest interest." — Court
Journal.
Milton's Poetical Works. — Edited with Text collated from
the best Authorities, with Introduction and Notes by David
Masson. Three vols. Svo. With Three Portraits engraved by
C. H. Jeens and Radcliffe. (Uniform with the Cambridge
Shakespeare.)
Mistral (F.) — MIRELLE, a Pastoral Epic of Provence. Trans-
lated by H. Crichton. Extra fcap. Svo. 6^.
" It would be hard to overpraise the sweetness a7td pleasing freshness
of this charming epic." — Athen.'EUM. ^^ A good translation oj
a poem that deserves to be known by all students cf literatuie and
fricjids of old-world simplicity in story-telling." — Nonconformist.
Mitford (A. B.) — TALES OF OLD JAPAN. By A. B.
Mitford, Second Secretary to the British Legation in Japan.
With Illustrations drawn and cut on Wood by Japanese Artists.
New and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. C>s.
" They will always be interesting as memorials of a most exceptional
society ; while, regarded si7nply as tales, they are sparkling, sensa-
tional, and dramatic, and the originality of their ideas and the
quaintness of their language give them a most captivating piquancy.
BELLES I^ETTRES. 15
The illustrations are extremely interesting, and for the curious in
such tnalters have a special and particular value." — Pall Mall
Gazeite.
Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., in THE highlands.
New Kdition, with Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3J-. 6d.
" 'J'he I'ook is calculated to recall fUasant memories of holidays well
spent, and scenes not easily to be forgotten. 'Jo those who have
never been in the IVestern Highlands, or sailed along the Frith of
Clyde and on the IVestern Coast, it will seem almost like a fairy
story. 1 here is a charm in the volume which makes it anything
but easy for a reader who has opened it to put it do^on until the last
page has been read." — Scotsman,
Mrs, Jerningham's Journal, a Poem purporting to be the
Journal of a newly-married Lady. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo.
35. dd.
^' It is nearly a perfect gem. We have had nothing so good for a
long time, and those who neglect to read it are neglecting one of
the jewels of contemporary history." — Edinburgh Daily Re-
view. ^'' One quality in the piece, sufficietit of itself to claim a
moments attention, is that it is unique — original, indeed, is not too
strong a word — in the manner of its conception and execution."
— Pall Mall Gazette.
Mudie. — STRAY LEAVES. ByC. E. Mudie. New Edition.
Extra fcap. 8vo. 35. 6d. Contents: — "His and Mine" —
"Night and Day"— "One of Many," &c.
This little volume consists of a number of poems, mostly of a genuinely
devotio7ial cha7-acter. " They are for the most part so exquisitely
siveet and delicate as to be quite a marvel of composition. They' are
worthy of being laid up in the recesses of the heart, and recalled to
memory from time to time." — Illustrated London News.
Murray. — THE EALLADS AND SONGS OF SCOTLAND,
in View of their Influence on tlie Character of the People. Py
J. Clark Murray, LL.D., Professor of Mental and Moral
Philosophy in McGill Colleije, Montreal. Crown 8vo. 6^.
' ' Independently of the lucidity of the style in which (he whole book
is written, the selection of the examples alone would recommend it
to favour, while the geniality of the criticism upon those examples
cannot fail to make them highly appreciated and valued." —
Morning Post.
Myers (Ernest). — THE PURITANS. By Ernest Myers.
Extra fcap. Svo. cloth. 2s. 6d.
" // is not too much to call it a really graiui poem, stately and dig-
nified, and showing not only a high poetic mitid, but also great
poxver aver poetic expression." — Literary Churchman.
Myers (F. W. H.)— POEMS. By F. W. H. Myers. Con-
taining "St. Paul," "St. John," and others. Extra fcap, 8vo,
4J. 6d.
^' It is rare to find a 7oriter who combines to such an extent the faculty
i6 BELLES LETTRES.
of communicating feelings with the faculty of euphonious expres'
sion." — Spectator. '^'St. FauP stands loithout a rival as the
noblest religious poem zuhich has been "written in an age which
beyond any other has been prolific in this class of poetry. The sub-
limest conceptions are expressed in lajiguage which, for richness,
taste, and purity, zue have never seen excelled." — ^JOHN Bull.
Nichol. — HANNIBAL, A HISTORICAL DRAMA. By John
NiCHOL, B.A. Oxon., Regius Professor of English Language and
Literature in the University of Glasgow. Extra fcap. 8vo. 7^. 6d.
" The poem combines in no ordinary degree firmness and workman-
ship. After the lapse of majiy centuries, an English poet is found
paying to the great Carthagenian the worthiest poetical tribute which
has as yet, to our knowledge, been afforded to his noble and stainless
name." — Saturday Review.
Nine Years Old.— By the Author of "St. Olave's," "When I
was a Little Girl," &c. Illustrated by Frolich. Third Edition.
Extra fcap. 8vo. cloth gilt. ^. 6d.
It is believed that this story, by the favourably known author of
" St. Olave's," will be found both highly interesting and instructive
to the young. The volume contains eight graphic illustrations by
Mr. L. Frolich. The Examiner says: '■'■Whether the readers
are nine years old, or twice, or seven times as old, they must enjoy
this pretty volume."
Noel. — BEATRICE, AND OTHER POEMS. By the Hon.
RoDEN Noel. Fcap. 8vo. ds.
''It is impossible to read the poetn through without being powerfully
moved. There are passages ht it which for intensity and tender-
ness, dear and vivid vision, spontaneous and delicate sympathy,
may be cotnpared luith the best efforts of our best living writers."
— Spectator.
Norton. — Works by the Hon, Mrs. Norton : —
THE LADY OF LA GARAYE. With Vignette and Frontispiece.
New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. i,s. 6d.
' ' Full of thought well expressed, and may be classed among her best
efforts." — Times.
OLD SIR DOUGLAS. Cheap Edition. Globe 8vo. 7.s. 6d.
" This varied and lively novel — this clever novel so full of character,
and of fine incidental refnark." — SCOTSMAN. "One of the
pleasantest and healthiest stories of modern fiction." — Globe.
Oliphant. — Works by Mrs. Oliphant :—
. AGNES HOPETOUN'S SCHOOLS AND HOLIDAYS. New
Edition with Illustrations. Royal i6mo. gilt leaves. 4^. dd.
' ' There are few books of late years more fitted to touch the heart,
purify the feeling, and quicken and sustain right principles." —
Nonconformist. "A more gracefully written story it is impos-
sible to desire."— Dm-ly News.
A SON OF THE SOIL. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 2s. 6d.
"It is a very different work fro)n the ordinary run of novels.
BELLES LETT RES. 17
The whole life of a man is portrayed in it, worked out with subtlety
and i»sij;ht." — Athk.NVF-UM.
Our Year, a Child's Book, in Trose and Verse. By the Author
of "John llaHfax, Gentleman." Illustrated by Clarenxe
DoBELL. Royal i6mo. 3J-. Gd.
"/t is just the book u<c could luish to see in the hands of every child."
— English Churchman.
Olrig Grange. Edited by Hermann Kunst, Philol. Professor.
Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. 6d.
"A masterly and original poaver of impression, pouring itsdf forth
in clear, S7ueet, strong rhythm. ... It is a fine poem, full of lije,
of music and of clear vision." — North British Daily Mail.
Oxford Spectator, The. — Reprinted. Extra fcap. 8vo.
y. 6d.
^'There is," the Saturday Review says, *' all the old fun, the
old sense of social case and brightness and freedom, the old medley
of 7uork and indolence, of jest and- earnest, that made Oxford life
so picturesque. "
Palgrave. — Works by Francis Turner Palgrave, M.A., late
Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford : —
THE FIVE DAYS' ENTERTAINMENTS AT WENTWORTH
GRANGE. A Book for Children. With Illustrations by Arthur
Hughes, and En^jraved Title-page by Jeens. Small 410. cloth
extra. 6 J.
" If yon want a really good book /or both sexes and all ages, buy
this, as handsome a volume of tales as you'll find in all the
market." — ATHENAEUM. "Exquisite both inform and substance."
— Guardian.
LYRICAL POEMS. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6j.
'■^ A volume of pure quiet verse, sparkling zuith tender melodies, and
alive with thoughts of genuine poetry. . . . Turn where we 'vill
throughout the volume, 7oe find traces oj beauty, tenderness, and
truth ; true poet's 'cork, touched and re/ined by the master-hand 0/
a real artist, who shozus his genius even in Irijles." — STANDARD.
ORIGINAL HYMNS. Third Edition, enlarged, i8mo. is. 6d.
" So choice, so perfect, and so refined, so tender in feeling, and so
scholarly in expression, that we look with special interest to every-
thing that he gives us." — LITERARY CHURCHMAN.
GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE BEST SONGS AND LYRICS.
Edited by F. T. Palgrave. See Golden Treasury Series.
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS AND SONGS. Edited by F. T.
Palgrave. Gem Edition. With Vignette Title by Jeens. y. 6d.
"Tor minute elegance no volume could possibly excel the 'Gem
Edition.' " — Scotsman.
Parables.— TWELVE PARABLES OF OUR I,ORD. Illus-
trated in Colours from Sketches taken in the East by McEniry
with Frontispiece from a Picture by John Jellicoe, and Illumi-
nated Texts and Borders. Royal 4ti>. in Ornamental Binding. 16s.
a
1 8 BELLES LETTRES.
The Times calls it "one of the most beautiful of modern pictorial
works ;" -iohile the GRAPHIC says ^^ nothing in this style, so good,
has e7'er before been published"
Patmore. — the children's garland, from the Best
Poets. Selected and an-anged by Coventry Patmore. New
Edition. Willi Illustrations by J. Lawson. Crown 8vo. gilt. 6j.
Golden Treasury lulition. i8mo. 4^.6^/.
" The charming illustrations added to jiiany of the poems will add
greatly to their value in the eyes of children." — Daily News.
Pember. — the tragedy of LESBOS. a Dramatic Poem.
By E. H. Pember. Fcap. 8vo. 4J. dd.
Founded upon the story of Sappho. ' ''He tells his story with dramatic
force, and in language that often rises almost to grandeur." —
Athen^um.
Poole.— PICTURES OF COTTAGE LIFE IN THE WEST
OF ENGLAND. By Margaret E. Poole, New and Cheaper
Edition. With P'rontispiece by R. Farren. Crown 8vo. y. ()d.
" Charming stories of peasant life, 7vritten in something of George
Eliot'' s style. . . . Her stories could not be other than they are, as
literal as truth, as rotnantic as fiction, full of pathetic touches
and strokes of genuine hiimour. . . . All the stories are studies
of actual life, executed with 710 mean art.'''' — Times.
Population of an Old Pear Tree. From the French
of E. Van Bruyssel. Edited by the Author of "The Heir of
Redclyfife." With Illustrations by Becker. Cheaper Edition.
Crown 8vo. gilt. 4J. bd.
" This is not a regular book of natu7-al history, but a description op
all the living c7-eatures that came and went in a summer's day
beneath an old pear tree, observed by eyes that had for the nonce
become tnicroscopic, recorded by a pen that finds dramas in every-
thing, and illustrated by a dainty pencil. . . . We can hardly
fa7icy a7iyo)te with a 7noderate turn for the curiosities of ittsect
life, or for delicate French esprit, not bei7ig taken by these clroer
sketches. " — Guardian, ' ^A zuhi/nsical a7id charmi7ig little book, "
— ATHENi?i:UM.
Prince Florestan of Monaco, The Fall of. By
Himself. New Edition, with Illustration and Map. 8vo. cloth.
Extra gilt edges, ^s. A French Translation, 5^-, Also an Edition
for the People. Crown 8vo. \s.
' ' Those who have read 07ily the extracts given, will not need to be
told how amusing and happily touched it is. Those who read it for
other pmposes than at?iuseme7tt ca7i ha7-dly miss the sober a7td
sound political lesso7is with which its light pages abou7id, a7idrvhich
ai'c as much needed in England as by the 7iatio7i to who?n the author
directly addi-esses his moral." — Pall Mall Gazette. " This
little book 17 very clever, wild with aitimal spirits, but sho^ving
plenty of good sense, amid all the heedless no7isense which fills so
7na}iy of its pages." — Daily News. " Lt anage little re7na7-kable
for powers of political satire, the sparkle of the pages gives them
every claitn to welcome." — Standard.
BELLES LETTRES. 19
Rankine.— SONGS AND FADLES. By W. J. McQuoRN
K.VNKiNE, late rrofessor of Civil Knginecrint; and Mechanics at
Glasgow. Willi Illustrations. Crown 8vo. (ys.
"// lively volume of verses, full of a fine in only spirit, inuc/i
humour and 'geniality. The illustrations are admirably con-
ceived, and executed luith fidelity and talent." — Morning Post.
Realmah. — By the Author of "Friends in Council." Crown
Svo. 6j-.
Rhoades. — POEMS. By James Riioades. Fcap. Svo, e^s. dd.
Richardson.— THE ILIAD OF THE EAST. A Selection of
Legends drawn from Valmiki's Sanskrit Poem, "The Ramayana."
By Freuerika Richardson. Crown Svo. is. bd.
" It is impossible to 7-ead it liiithout recognizing the value and interest
of the Eastern epic. It is as fascinating as a fairy tale, this
romantic poem of India. " — G 1,0 BE. "A charming volume, which
at once enmeshes the reader in its snares." — Atiien,eum,
Roby.— STORY OF A HOUSEHOLD, AND OTHER POEMS.
By Mary K. Robv. Fcap. Svo. 5^-.
Rogers. — Works by J. Y.. Rogers :—
RipiCULA REDIVIVA. Old Nurseiy Rhymes. Illustrated in
Colours, with Ornamental Cover, Crown 4to. 35. 6d.
" The most splendid, and at the same time the most really meritorious
of the boohs specially intended for children, that 7ue have seen. " —
Spectator. " IViese large bright pictures ivill attract children to
really good and honest artistic luork, and that ought not to be an
indifferent consideration ii.<ith parents zuho propose to educate their
children." — Pall Mall Gazkite.
MORES RIDICULI. Old Nursery Rhymes. Illustrated in Colours,
with Ornamental Cover. Crown 4to. 31'. 6d.
These xvorld-old rhymes have never had and need never wish for
a better pictorial setting than Mr. Rogers has given them," —
Times. "Nothing could be quainter or more absurdly comical
than most of the piclia-es, which are all carefully executed ana
beautifully coloured. " — Globe.
Rossetti.— GOBLIN MARKET, AND OTHER POEMS. By
Christina Rossetti. W'ith two Designs byD. G. Rossetti.
Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 5j'.
"She handles her little marvel -with that rare poetic discrimination
which neither exhausts it of its simple wonders by pushing sym-
bolism too far, nor keeps those wonders in the merely fabulous and
capricious stage. In fact, she has produced a true children's poem,
which is Jar more delightful to the mature than to children, though
it would be delightful to all." — Spectator.
Runaway (The), a Stoiy for the Young. By the Author of
" Mrs. Jerningham's Journal." With Illustrations by J. Lawson.
Globe Svo. gilt. 4J. 6(/.
" This is one of the best, if not indeed the very best, cj all the stories
that has come before us this Christmas. The heroines are both
E 2
20 BELLES LETT RES
charmiug, and, unlike heroines, they are as Jull of fun as ot charms.
It is an admirable book to read aloud to the young folk ivhen they
are all gathei-ed round the fire, and nurses and other apparitions
are still far a-vay." — Saturday Review,
Ruth and her Friends, a Story for Girls. With a Frontis-
piece. Fourth Edition. i8mo. Cloth extra. 2J. dd.
*' We zoish all the school girls and hotne-taught girls in the land had
the opportufiity of reading it." — NONCONFORMIST.
Scouring of the \A^hite Horse; or, the Long
VACATION RAMBLE OF A LONDON CLERK. Illustrated
by Doyle. Imp. i6mo. Cheaper Issue. 3^'. 6d.
"A glorious tale of summer joy." — Freeman. " There is a genial
hearty lije about the book." — John Bull. " The execution is
excellent. . . . Like ' To7n Brown^s School Days,' the ' White
Horse' gives the reader a feeling oj gratitude and personal esteem
tozuards the author." — Satvrvay Review.
Shairp (Principal). — KILMAHOE, a Highland Pastoral, with
other Poems. By John Campbell Shairp, Principal of the
United College, St. Andrews. Fcap. 8vo. 5^.
*' Jwlmahoe is a JPighland Pastoral, 7'edolent of the warm soft air
of the ivesterti lochs and moors, sketched out with remarkable
grace and picturesqueness.'" — Saturday Review,
Shakespeare. — The Works of William Shakespeare. Cam-
bridge Edition. Edited by W. George Clark, M,A, and W.
Aldis Wright, M.A. Nine vols. 8vo. Cloth. 4/, 14?. dd.
The Guardian calls it an ^'' excellent, and, to the student, almost
indispensable edition ;" aitd the ILXAUiNEK calls it "an unrivalled
edition. "
Shakespeare's Tempest. Edited with Glossarial and Ex-
planatory Notes, by the Rev. J. M. Jei'HSON. New Edition.
i8mo. is.
Slip (A) in the Fens.— illustrated by the Author. Crown
8vo. 6^.
"An artistic litflevolunie, for every page is a picture." — Times. "//
7vitl be read with pleasure, and with a pleasure that is altogether
innocent. " — Saturday Review.
Smith. — POEMS. By Catherine Barnard Smith. Fcap,
8vo. 5^.
^^ Wealthy in feeling, 77ieaning, finish, and grace; not without passion,
wJiich is suppressed, but the keener for that." — AtheN^UM.
Smith (Rev. Walter). — hymns OF CHRIST and the
CHRISTIAN LIFE. By the Rev. Walter C. Smith, M,A.
Fcap. Svo. ()s.
" These are among the sweetest sacred poems we have read for a long
time. With no p?'ofuse imagery, expressing a range of feeling
and exp7-ession by 710 7/tea7is tmconwion, they aj-e ti-ue a7id elevated,
a7id their pathos is prgfound and simple. " — Nonconformist.
BELLES LETTRES.
Spring Songs. By a West Highlander. With a Vignette
Illustration l)y Gouklay Stkei.e. Fcap. 8vo. \s. (xL
'* IVilkout a trace of affectation or scntu/iculalisin, these utterances
are perfectly simple and natural, profoundly human and pro-
foundly true." — Daily News.
Stanley.— TRUE TO life.— a simple story. By Mary
Sr.A.NLEY, Crown 8vo. lo^. td.
' ' /''or many a long day we have not met loith a more simple, healthy,
and tinpretending story." — STANDARD.
Stephen (C. E.)— the service of the POOR; being
an Inquiry into the Reasons for and against the Establishment of
Religious Sisterhoods for Charitable Purposes. By Caroline
Emilia Stephen. Crown 8vo. 6j. 6^/.
"// touches incidentally and with much wisdom and tenderness on
so many of the relations of women, particularly of single wofncn,
with society, that it 7nay be read with advantage by tnany who
have never thought of entering a Siste)-hood." — Spectator.
Stephens (J. B.)— CONVICT ONCE. A Poem. By J.
Brunton Stephens. Extra fcap. Svo. 3^. dd.
" It is as far more interesting than ninety-nine novels out of a
hundred, as it is superior to them in power, worth, and beauty.
We should most strongly advise everybody to read ' Convict Once. ' "
— Westminster Review.
Streets and Lanes of a City: Being the Reminiscences
of Amy Button. With a Preface by the Bishop of Salis-
bury. Second and Cheaper Edition. Globe Svo. 2s. 6d.
^' One of the most really striking books that has ever come before us."
— Literary Churchman.
Thring.— SCHOOL SONGS. A Collection of Songs for Schools.
With the Music arranged for four Voices. Edited by the Rev. E.
Thring and II. Riccius, Folio. 75-. dd.
The collection includes the '■'■Agnus Dei," Tennyson's *' Light
Brigade, " Jlfacaula/s " Ivry, " etc. amo7ig other pieces.
Tom Brown's School Days. — By an Old Boy,
Golden Treasury Edition, 4J. 6d. People's Edition, 2s.
With Seven Illustrations by A. Hughes and Sydney PIall.
Crown Svo. 6s.
" The most famous boy's book in the language." — Daily News.
Tom Brown at Oxford. — New Edition. With Illustrations.
Crown Svo. 6s.
' ' In no other work that we can call to tnind are the finer qualities of
the English gentleman more happily portrayed." — Daily News.
''A book of great potoer and truth."— 'National Review.
Trench. — Works by R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Archbishop
of Dublin. (For other Works by this Author, see Theological,
Historical, and Philosophical Catalogues.)
POEMS. Collected and arranged anew. Fcap. Svo. "Js. 6d.
22 BELLES LETTRES.
Trench (Archbishop) — continued.
ELEGIAC POEMS. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. is. dd.
CALDERON'S LIFE'S A DREAM : Tlie Great Theatre of the
World. With an Essay on his Life and Genius. Fcap. 8vo. 4;. dd.
HOUSEHOLD BOOK OF ENGLISH POETRY. Selected and
arranged, with Notes, by Archbishop Trench. Second Edition.
Extra fcap. 8vo. 5^. dd.
' ' The Archbishop has con/e>'rcd in (his delightful volume an important
gift on the whole English-speaking population of the world. " —
Pall Mall Gazette.
SACRED LATIN POETRY, Chiefly Lyrical. Selected and
arranged for Use. By Archbishop Trench. Third Edition,
Corrected and Improved. Fcap. 8vo. "js.
JUSTIN MARTYR, AND OTHER POEMS. Fifth Edition.
Fcap. 8vo. 6s.
Trollope (Anthony). — SIR HARRY HOTSPUR OF
IIUiMBLETHWAITE. By Anthony Trollope, Author of
"Framley Parsonage," etc. Cheap Edition. Globe 8vo. 2s.6d.
The Athen^um remarks : "No reader who begins to read this book
is likely to lay it down until the last page is turned. This brilliant
novel appears to us decidedly more successful than any other of Mr.
T7-ollop?s shorter stories."
Turner. — Works by the Rev. Charles Tennyson Turner : —
SONNETS. Dedicated to his Brother, the Poet Laureate. Fcap.
8vo. 4^. 6d.
SMALL TABLEAUX. Fcap. Svo. t^. 6d.
Under the Limes. — By the Author of "Christina North."
.Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6^.
' ' The readers of ' Christina North ' are not likely to have forgotten
that bright, fresh, picturesque story, nor will they be shnv to
welcome so pleasa)it a companion to it as this. It abounds in
happy touches of description, of pathos, and insight into the life
and passion of true love." — Standard. " One of the prettiest
and best told stories which it has been our good fortune to read for
a longti7!ie."—VAi.i. 1\L\LL Gazettk.
Vittoria Colonna.— life AND POEMS. By Mrs. Henry
RoscoE. Crown 8vo. gs.
'^ It is written with good taste, luith quick and intelligent sympathy,
occasionally with a real freshness and charm of styled — Pall
Mall Gazette.
Waller. — six weeks in the saddle : A Painter's journal
in Iceland. By S. E. Waller. Illustrated by tlie Author.
Crown 8vo. Q)S.
"■'An exceedingly pleasant and naturally 7V7-itten little hook. . . Mr.
Waller has a clavr pencil, and the text is well illustrated with his
oiun sketches.'' — Times.
Wandering Willie. By the Author of " Effie's Friends," and
" John Hatherton." Tliird Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
BELLES LETT RES. 23
*' This is an idyll of raretrtUh and beauty. . . . The story is sitnple
and touching, the style oj extraordinary delicacy, precision, and
picturesqueness. . . . A charming ^i/t-Oook for young ladies not
yet promoted to novels, and will amply repay those of their elders
7oho vuiy give an hour to its perusal." — Daily News.
Webster. — Works by AUGUSTA WiiUSTKR : —
"// Mrs. Webster only remains true to herself, she will assuredly
take a higher rank as a poet than any woman has yet done." —
Westminster Review.
DRAMATIC STUDIES. Extra fcap. 8vo. Sj.
"A volume as strongly marked by perfect taste as by poetic power."— '
Nonconformist.
A WOMAN SOLD, AND OTHER POEMS. Crown Svo. ^s. 6d.
^^ Mrs. Webster has shown us that she is able to draw admirably
from the lije ; that she can observe luith subtlety, and render her
observations with delicacy ; that she can impersonate complex con-
ceptions and venture into which few living writers can follow her. "
— Guardian.
PORTRAITS. Second Edition. Extra fcap. Svo. 3j-. 6d.
"Mrs. Webster's poems exhibit simplicity and tenderness . . . her
taste is perfect . . . This simplicity is combined with a subtlety of
thought, feeling, and observation which demand that attentionwhich
only real lovers of poetry are apt to besto^u." — WESTMINSTER
Review.
PROMETHEUS BOUND OF .^SCHYLUS. Literally translated
into English Verse. Extra fcap. Svo. 3J'. 6d.
" Closeness oid simplicity combined with literary skill." — Athe-
naeum. '^ J\frs. Webster's ' Dramatic Studies' and ' Translation
of Prometheus ' have won for her an honourable place among our
female poets. She writes with remarkable vigour and dramatic
realization, and bids fair to be the most successful claimant op Mrs.
Browning's mantle." — British Quarterly Review.
MEDEA OF EURIPIDES. Literally translated into English
Verse. Extra fcap. Svo. 3J. 6^.
"Mrs. Webster's translation surpasses our utmost expectations. It is
a photograph of the original without any oJ that harshness which
so often accompanies a photograph."— W ESVUISSTEK Review.
THE AUSPICIOUS DAY. A Dramatic Poem. Extra fcap.
Svo, 55.
" The 'Auspicious Day"* shoios a marked advance, not only in art,
but, in what is of far more importance, in breadth of thought and
intellectual grasp." — WESTMINSTER Review. " This drama is
a manifestation of high dramatic poioer on the part of the gifted
writer, and entitled to our warmest admiration, as a worthy piece
of work. " — Stan daru.
YU-PE-YA'S LUTE. A Chinese Tale in English Verse. Extra
fcap. Svo. 3^. 6d.
"A very charming tale, charmingly told in dainty verse, with
occasional lyrics of tender beauty." — Standard. " We close the
24 BELLES LETT RES.
Webster — continued.
book with the removed conviction that in Mrs. Websta' ive have a
profound and original poet. The book is marked not by mere
S'iuectness of melody — rare as that gift is — but by the infinitely
rarer gifts of dramatic poiuer, of passion, and sympathetic i7isight."
— Westminster Review.
When I was a Little Girl, stories for CHILDREN.
By the Author of "St. Olave's." Fourth Edition. Extra fcap.
8vo. 4J. 6d. With Eight Illustrations by L. Frolich.
' ' At the head, and a long way ahead, of all books for girls, we
place ' When I was a Little Girl.' " — Times. "// is one of the
choicest morsels op child-biography which we have met %vith." —
Nonconformist.
White.— RHYMES BY WALTER WHITE. 8vo. 'js. 6d
Whittier.— JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER'S POETICAL
WORKS. Complete Edition, \\ith Portrait engraved by C. II.
Jeens. i8mo. 4J-. 6d.
" Air. Whittia- has all the smooth melody and the pathos of the aiithor
op ' Iliaivatha,'' with a greater -nicety of description and a
quainter fancy. " — Graphic.
Wolf.— THE LIFE AND PIAEITS OF WILD ANIMALS.
Twenty Illustrations by Joseph Wolf, engraved by J. W. and E.
Whymper. With descriptive Letter-press, by D. G. Elliot,
F.L.S. Super royal 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges. 2is.
This is the last series of draioings which will be made by Mr. Wolj,
either upon wood or stone. The Pall Mall Gazette says :
" The fierce, untameable side of brute nature has never received a
more robust and vigorous interpretation, and the various incidents
in which pa7-ticidar character is shown are set forth with rare dra-
matic p07ver. For excellence that will endure, zve incline to place
this very near the top of the list of Christmas books." Jlnd the
Art Journal observes, ''''Rarely, if ever, have we seen animal
life more forcibly and beautifully depicted than in this really
splendid volume. "
Also, an Edition in royal folio, handsomely bound in Morocco
elegant, Proofs before Letters, each Proof signed by the Engravers.
Price 8/. 8.f.
Wollaston. — LYRA DEVONIENSIS. By T. v. Wollaston,
M.A. Fcap. 8vo. 3J-. 6d.
"It is the work of a Jiian of refined taste, of deep religious sentiment,
a true artist, and a good Christian." — Churcii Times.
Woolner. — my beautiful lady. By Thomas Woolner.
With a Vignette by Arthur Hughes. Third Edition. Fcap.
8vo, 5j.
" No man can read this poetn without being struck by the fitness and
finish of the worhnanship, so to speak, as well as by the chastened
and unpretending loftiness of thought which pei-vades the whole"
— Globe.
BELLES LETTRES. 25
Words from the Poets. Selected by the Editor of " Rays
of Sunlight." With a Vignette and Frontispiece. i8mo. limp., \s.
" The si-lc'ction aims at popularity, and discrz'es it." — GUARUIAN,
Yonge (C. M.)— Works by Charlotte M. Yonge.
THE IIKIK OF REDCLYFFE. Twentieth Edition. With Illus-
trations. Crown Svo. 6j.
HEARTSEASE. Thirteenth Edition. With Illustrations. Crown
Svo. 6j.
THE DAISY CHAIN. Twelfth Edition. With Illustrations.
Crown Svo. 6j-.
THE TRIAL: MORE LINKS OF THE DAISY CHAIN.
Twelfth Edition. With Illustrations. Crown Svo. ds.
DYNEVOR TERRACE. Sixth Edition. Crown Svo. 6j.
HOPES AND FEARS. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6j-.
THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER. Fifth Edition. Crown Svo. ds.
CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY. Third Edition.
Crown Svo. 6j.
THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST. Fourth Edition.
Crown Svo. 6j.
" We think the authoress of ' The Heir of Redely ffe' has surpassed
her previous efforts in this illuminated chronicle of the olden time."
— British Quarterly.
THE CAGED LION. Illustrated. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
" Prettily and tenderly wjitten, and 'will zvith young people especially
be a great favourite.'''' — Daily News. ^^ Everybody should read
this." — Literary Churchman.
iTIIE 'CIIAPLET OF PEARLS; or, THE WHITE AND
BLACK RIBAUMONT. Crown Svo. 6s. New Edition.
" Miss 'yonge has brought a lofty aim as well as high art to the con-
struction of a story which may claim a place among the best efforts
in historical romance." — Morning Post. " The plot, in truth,
is of the very first order of me)-it." — SPECTATOR. " We have
seldom read a more charmitig story." — Guardian.
THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE. A Tale of the Last Crusade.
Illustrated. iSmo. 2s. 6d.
" A tale which, -we are sure, ivill give pleasure to viany others besides
the young people for whom it is specially intended. . , . This
extremely prettily-told story does not reqiiire the guarantee afforded
by the name of the author of ' The Heir 0/ Redely ffe' on the title-
page to ensure its becoming a universal favourite." — DUBLIN
Evening Mail.
THE LANCES OF LYNWOOD. New Edition, with Coloured
Illustrations. iSmo. 4J. 6d.
" The illustrations are very spirited and i-ich in colour, and the
story can hardly fail to charm the youthful reader. " —MANCHESTER
Examiner.
-THE LITTLE DUKE : RICHARD THE FEARLESS. New
Edition. Illustrated. 1 81110. 2s. 6d.
BELLES LETTERS.
Yonge (C. M.) — continued.
A STOREHOUSE OF STORIES. First and Second Series.
Globe Svo. 3^. 6d. each.
Contents of First Series : — Histoiy of Philip Quarll —
Goody Twoshoes— The Governess— Jemima Placid— The Perambu-
lations of a Mouse— The Village School— The Little Queen-
History of Little Jack.
" Miss Yonge has done great service to the infantry of this generation
by putting these eleven stories of sage simplicity -within their reach."
— British Quarterly Review.
Contents of Second Series : — Family Stories — Elenients of
Morality — A Puzzle for a Curious Girl — Blossoms of Morality.
A BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS OF ALL TIMES AND ALL
COUNTRIES. Gathered and Narrated Anew. New Edition,
with Twenty Illustrations by Frolich. Crown Svo. cloth gilt. ds.
(See also Golden Treasury Series). Cheap Edition, i^.
" We have seen no prettier gift-book for a long time, and none ivhich,
both for its cheapness and the spirit in -which it has been compiled,
is more deserving of praise." — Athen.^um.
LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE. Pictured by
Frolich, and narrated by Charlotte M. Yonge. Second
Edition. Crown 4to. cloth gilt. 6^.
'''Lucy's Wonderful Globe' is capital, and -will give its youthful
readers more idea of foreign countries and custovis than any nmnbcr
of books of geography or travel." — Graphic.
CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to
Edward II. Extra fcap. Svo. i^s. Second Edition, enlarged. 5^.
A Second Series. THE WARS IN FRANCE. Extra fcap,
Svo. 5.f.
'■'■Instead of dry details," says the NONCONFORMIST, "-we have
living pictures, faithful, vivid, and striking."
P's and Q's ; OR, THE QUESTION OF PUTTING UPON.
With Illustrations by C. O. MURRAY. Second Edition. Globe
Svo. cloth gilt. 45-. dd.
" One of her most successfid little pieces . . . . fust -what a narrative
should be, each incident simply and naturally related, no preaching
or moralizing, and yet the moral coining out most powerfully, and
the -whole story not too long, or -with the least appearance of being
spun out." — Literary Churchman.
THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE; or, UNDER WODE,
UNDER RODE. Second Edhion. Four vols, crown Svo. 20J.
" A domestic story oj English professional life, zvhich for szueetness
of tone and absorbing interest from first to last has never been
rivalled."— ii'iMiV,A.-&D. " Miss Yonge has certainly added to
her already high reputation by this charming book, which, although
in four volumes, is not a single page too long, but keeps the reader's
attention fixed to the end. ^Indeed -we are only sorry there _ is not
another volume to come, a^id part -with the Under-wood family with
sincere regret." — Court Circular.
GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES. 27
Yonge (C. yi.)— continued.
LADY HESTER; or, URSULA'S NARRATIVE. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6^.
" We shall not anticipate the interest by epitotnizing the plot, but wt
shall only say that readers -uill find in it all the gracefulness, 1 it;ht
feeli)!'^, and delicate perception zuhich they have been long accustomtd
to look for in Miss Yonge' s writings," — GUARDIAN.
MACMILLAN'8 GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES.
Uniformly printed in iSmo., with Vignette Titles by Sir
Noel Paton, T. Woolner, W. Holman Hunt, J. E.
MiLLAis, Arthur Hughes, &c. Engraved on Steel by
Jeens. Bound in extra cloth, 45. dd. each volume. Also
kept in morocco and calf bindings.
" Messrs. Macmillan have, in their Golden Treasury Series, especially
provided editions of standard works, volumes of selected poetry, and
original compositions, which entitle this series to be called classical.
Nothing can be better than the literary execution, nothing more
elegant than the material workmanship."— BRmsK Quarterly
Review.
The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and
LYRICAL POEMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Selected and arranged, with Notes, by Francis Turner
Palgrave.
" This delightful little volttme, the Golden Treasury, which contains
many of the best original lyrical pieces and songs in our language,
grouped with care and skill, so as to illustrate each other like the
pictures in a wsll-arranged gallery." — Quarterly Review.
The Children's Garland from the best Poets.
Selected and arranged by Coventry Patmokk.
" It includes specimetis of all the great masters in the art of poetry,
selected with the matured judgment of a man concentrated on
obtaining insight into the feelings a7ui tastes of childhood, and
desirous to awaken its finest impulses, to cultivate its keenest sensi-
bilities." — Morning Post.
The Book of Praise. From the Best English Hymn \Vriters.
Selected and arranged by Lord SelhoURNE. A New and En-
larged Edition.
*^ All previous compilations of this kind must undeniably for the
present give place to the Book of Praise. . . . The selection has
been made throughout with sound judgment and critical taste. The
pains involved in this compilation must have been immense, em-
bracing, as it does, every writer of note in this special proz'ince oj
English lite^-ature, and ranging over the most 'widely divergent
tracks of religious thought." — SATURDAY Review.
28 GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES.
The Fairy Book ; the Best Popular Fairy Stories, Selected
and rendered anew by the Author of " John Halifax,
Gentleman."
'* A delightful selection, in a delightful external form ; full of the
physical splendour and vast opulence of pj'oper fairy tales.'" —
Spectator.
The Ballad Book, a Selection of the Choicest British Ballads.
Edited by William Allingham.
' ' His taste as a fudge of old poetry will be found, by all acquainted with
the various readings of old English ballads, true enough to justify
his undertaking so critical a /ffj-/^."— Saturday Review.
The Jest Book. The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings. Selected
and arranged by ]\lARK Lemon.
" The fullest and best jest book that has yet appeared.'" — SATURDAY
Review.
Bacon's Essays and Colours of Good and Evil.
With Notes and Glossarial Index. By \V. Aldis Wright,
M.A.
*' The beautiful little edition of Bacon^s Essays, Jtotu before us, docs
credit to the taste and scholarship of Mr. Aldis Wright. . . . Is
puts the reader in possession of all the essential literary facts and
chronology necessary for reading the Essays in connection with
BacojUs life a7id times." — Spectator.
The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that which is to
come. By John Bunyan.
" A beautiful and scholarly reprint." — SPECTATOR.
The Sunday Book of Poetry for the Young.
Selected and arranged by C. F. Alexander.
*^ A well-selected volufne of Sacred Poetry." — SPECTATOR.
A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Countries.
Gathered and narrated anew. By the Author of "The Heir of
Redclyffe."
"... To the young, for 7vhoi)i it is especially intended, as a most
interesting collection of thrilling tales zvell told ; and to their elders,
as a useful handbook of 7-eference, atid a pleasant one to take up
whe7i their wish is to while away a weary half hour. We have
see7i no prettier gift-book for a long time." — Athen^um.
The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Edited, with
Biographical Memoir, Notes, and Glossary, by Alexander
Smith. Two Vols.
'* Beyond all question this is the most beautiful edition of Burns
yd out." — Edinburgh Daily Review.
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Edited from
the Original Edition by J. W. Clark, M.A. Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge.
' ' Mutilated ami modified editions of this English classic are so much
GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES. 29
the rule, that a cheap and pretty copy of it, rif^dly exact to the
origitta/, will be a prize to many book-buyers." — Examiner.
The Republic of Plato. Translated into English, with
Notes by J. LI. Davies, M.A. and D. J. Vaughan, M.A.
*^ A danitv and cheap little editiott." — Examiner.
The Song Book, Words and Tunes from the best Poets and
Musicians. Selected and arranged by John IIullah, Professor
of Vocal Music in King's College, London.
** A choice collection of the sterling songs of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, 7vith the tnusic of each prefixed to the Words. Iloiv much
true luholesome pleasure such a book can difjuse, and 'vill diff'use,
7ue trust through many thousand families." — EXAMINER.
La Lyre Francaise. Selected and arranged, with Notes, by
OusTAVE Masson, French Master in Harrow School.
-7 selection of the best French songs and lyrical pieces.
Tom Brown's School Days. By An Old Boy.
" A perfect gem of a book. The best and most healthy book about
boys Jor hoys that ever ivas 7i'ritten." — ILLUSTRATED TiMES.
A Book of Worthies. Gathered from the Old Histories and
written anew by the Author of " The Heir ok Redclyffe."
With Vignette.
'■'■ An admirable addition to an admirable series." — WESTMINSTER
Review.
A Book of Golden Thoughts. By Henry Attwei.l,
Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown.
^^ Mr. Attwell has produced a book of rare value . . . . Happily it
is small enough to be carried about in the pocket, and of such a com-
panion it would be difficult to weary" — Pall Mall Gazette.
Guesses at Truth. Py Two Brothers. New Edition.
The Cavalier and his Lady. Selections from the Works
of the Pirst Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. With an Intro-
ductory Essay by ICdward Jenkins, Author of *' Ginx's Baby,"
&c. i8mo. 4^-. (>d.
'■'■A charming little volume." — STANDARD.
Theologia Germanica. — Which setteth forth many fair Linea-
ments of Divine Truth, and saith very lofty and lovely things
touching a Perfect Life. Edited by Dr. Pi-eiffek, from tlie only
complete manuscript yet known. Translated from tlie German,
by Susanna Winkworth. With a Preface by the Kkv. Charles
Kingsley, and a Letter to the Translator by the Chevalier
Bunsen, TXD.
Milton's Poetical Works. — Edited, with Notes, &c., by
Professor Masson. Two vols. i8mo. gj.
Scottish Song, a Selection of the Choicest Lyrics of Scotland.
Compiled and arranged, with brief Notes, by Mary Carlyle
Aitkin. i8mu. 4?. 6d.
30 GLOBE LIBRARY.
_ q
^^ Miss Aitkeiis exquisite collectioti of Scottish Song is so alluring,
and suggests so many topics, that ivc find it difficult to lay it doiun.
The book is one that should fitid a place in every library, lue had
almost said in every pocket, and the summer tou7-ist who ivishes to
carry with him into the country a volume of genu i7te poetry, 7vill
find it difficult to select one containing within so small a compass
so much of rarest value,^' — SrECTATOR.
MACMILLAN'S GLOBE LIBRARY.
Beautifully printed on toned paper and bouiul in cloth extra, gilt
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Books, Wordsworth says, are
"the spirit breathed
By dead men to their kind ; "
and the aim of the publishers of the Globe Library has
been to make it possible for the universal kin of English-
speaking men to hold communion with the loftiest " spirits
of the mighty dead ; " to put within the reach of all classes
confide and accurate editions, carefully and clearly printed
upon the best paper, in a convenient form, at a moderate
price, of the works of the master-minds of English
Literature, and occasionally of foreign literature in an
attractive English dress.
The Editors, by their scholarship and special study of
their authors, are competent to afford every assistance to
readers of all kinds : this assistance is rendered by original
biographies, glossaries of unusual or obsolete words, and
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The publishers hope, therefore, that these Globe Editions
may prove worthy of acceptance by all classes wherever the
English Language is spoken, and by their universal circula-
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they spread and nourish a common sympathy with nature's
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"make the whole world kin,"
The Saturday Review says : " The Globe Editions are admirable
for their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their com-
pendious form, and their cheapness." The British Quarterly
Review says: ^^ In compendiousness, elegance, and scJiolarliness,
the Globe Editions of Messrs. MacmUlan surpass any popular series
GLOBE LIBRARY. 31
of our classics hitherto given to the public. As near an approach
to miniature perfection as has ez'er been vtade,^'
Shakespeare's Complete Works. Edited by w. d
Clark, M.A., and W, Aluis Wright, M, A., of Trinity Collcije-
Cambridge, Editors of the "Cambridge Shakespeare." With
Glossary, pp. 1,075.
T/i^ATllEN/liUM says this edition is "a marvel oj beauty, cheapness,
and compactness. . . . For the busy (man, above all for the
working student, this is the best of all existing Shahespeares."
And the Pall Mall Gazette obsenes : " To have produced
the complete 'dwrks of the world's greatest poet in such a form,
and at a price within the reach of every one, is 0/ itself almost
sufficient to give the publishers a claim to be considered public bene-
factors."
Spenser's Complete Works. Edited from the Orij/inal
Editions and Manuscripts, by R. Morris, with a Memoir by J.
W. Hales, M.A- With Glossary, pp. Iv., 736.
"IJWthy — and higher praise it needs not — of the beautiful 'Globe
Series.^ The luork is edited xvith all the care so noble a poet
desn-c'cs. " — DAILY News.
Sir Walter Scott's Poetical Works. Edited with a
Biographical and Critical Memoir by Francis Turner Palgrave,
and copious Notes, pp. xliii., 559.
" ^Fe can almost sympathise zoith a middle-a^ed grumbler, who, after
reading Mr. Talgrave's memoir and introduction, should exclaim
— * IVhy 7i'as there not such an edition of Scott when I was a school'
boy ? ' " — Guardian.
Complete Works of Robert Burns. — the poems,
SONGS, AND letters, edited from the best Printed and
Manuscript Authorities, with Glossarial Index, Notes, and a
Biographical Memoir by Alexander Smith, pp. Ixii., 636.
"Admirable in all respects." — Spectator. " The cheapest, the
7nost perfect, and the most interesting edition which has ever been
published." — Bell's Messenger.
Robinson Crusoe. Edited after the Original Editions, with a
Biographical Introduction by Henry Kingsley. pp. xxxi., 607.
"^ most excellent and in ei'ery way desirable edition." — Court
Circular. '' Macmillaii s ' Globe' Robinson Crusoe is a book to
have and to Xvr/."— Morning Star.
Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works. Edited, with
Biographical Introduction, by Professor Masson. pp. Ix., 695.
''Such an admirable cotnpcndium of the facts of Goldsmith's life,
and so careful and minute a delineation of the mixed traits of his
peculiar character as to be a very model of a literary biography
in /////c'."— Scotsman.
Pope's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes and Intro-
ductory Memoir, by Adolpiius William Ward, M.A., Fellow
32 GLOBE LIBRARY.
of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and Professor of History in
Owens College, Manchester, jjp. Hi., 508.
The Literary Churchman remarks : " The ediioi's own notes
and introductory vicmoir are excellejtt, the memoir alone "would be
cheap and well worth buying at the price oj the whole volume,"
Dryden's Poetical Works, Edited, with a Memoir,
Revised Text, and Notes, by W. D. Christie, M.A., of Trinity
College, Cambridge, pp. Ixxxvii., 662.
^^ An admirable edition, the result of great research and 0/ a careful
revision of the text. The memoir prefixed contains, ivithin less
than ninety pages, as 7?iuch sound criiicis?n and as comprehensive
a biography as the student of Dry den need desire." — Pall Mall
Gazette.
Cowper's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes and
Biographical Introduction, by William Benham, Vicar of
Addington and Professor of Modern History in Queen's College,
London, pp. Ixxiii., 536.
^^Mr. Benham' s edition of Co-wper is one of permattenf value.
The biographical introduction is excellent, full of information,
singularly neat and readable and modest — indeed too modest in
its comments. The notes are concise and accurate, and the editor
has beejt able to discover and introduce some hitherto imprinted
matter. Altogether the book is a very excellent one." — SATURDAY
Review.
Morte d'Arthur. — SIR THOMAS MALORY'S BOOK OF
KING ARTHUR AND OF HIS 'NOBLE KNIGHTS OF
THE ROUND TABLE. The original Edition of Caxton,
revised for Modern Use. With an Introduction by Sir Edward
Strachey, Bart. pp. xxxvii., 509.
' 'It is witli perfect confulence that 7oe recommend this edition of the old
romance to every class of readers." — Pall Mall Gazette.
The Works of Virgil. Rendered into Enghsh Prose, with
Introductions, Notes, Running Analysis, and an Index. By James
Lonsdale, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College,
Oxford, and Classical Professor in King's College, London ; and
Samuel Lee, M.A., Latin Lecturer at University College,
London, pp. 288.
' ' A more complete edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely possible
to conceive than the scholarly work before us." — Globe.
The Works of Horace. Rendered into English Prose, with
Introductions, Running Analysis, Notes, and Index. By John
Lonsdale, M.A., and Samuel Lee, M.A.
TJic Standard says, " To classical and non-classical readers it
will be invaluable as a faithful interpretation oJ the mind and
meaning of the poet, enriched as it is with notes and dissertations
of the highest value in the way of criticism, illustration, and
explanation."
LONDON : R. CLAV, SONS, AND TAYLOK, PRINTERS.
University of California