But ever in my love-lorn flights
Nature untouch'd by art delights-

Art ever gives disgust.

Why, says some priest of mystic thought, The bard alone by nature taught,

Is to that nature just.

But ask your orthodox divine,

If ye perchance should read this line
Which fancy now inspires:

Will all his sermons, preaching, prayers,
His hell, his heaven, his solemn airs,
Quench nature's rising fires?

In natural religion free,

I to no other bow the knee,

Nature's the God I own:

Let priests of future torments tell,
Your anger is the only hell,

No other hell is known.

I steel'd by destiny was born,
Well fenced against a woman's scorn,
Regardless of that hell;

I fired by burning planets came

From flaming hearts to catch a flame,

And bid the bosom swell.

Then catch the shadow of a heart,
I will not with the substance part,
Although that substance burn,

Till as a hostage you remit

Your heart, your sentiment, your wit, To make a safe return.

A rev'rend cully-mully puff
May call this letter odious stuff,
With no Greek motto graced;
Whilst you, despising the poor strain,
The dog's insufferably vain
“To think to please my taste!"

'Tis vanity, 'tis impudence

Is all the merit, all the sense
Through which to fame I trod ;
These (by the Trinity 'tis true)
Procure me friends and notice too,
And shall gain you by G-d.

TO MR. HOLLAND.*

WHAT numbers, Holland, can the muses find,
To sing thy merit in each varied part,
When action, eloquence, and ease combin'd,
Make nature but a copy of thy art?

Majestic as the eagle on the wing,

Or the young sky-helm'd, mountain-rooted tree; Pleasing as meadows blushing with the spring, Loud as the surges of the Severn sea.

In terror's strain, as clanging armies drear :
In love, as Jove, too great for mortal praise;

In pity, gentle as the falling tear;

In all-superior to my feeble lays.

Black Anger's sudden rise, extatic pain;
Tormenting Jealousy's self-cank'ring sting;
Consuming Envy, with her yelling train;
Fraud closely shrouded with the turtle's wing:

Whatever passions gall the human breast,
Play in thy features, and await thy nod ;
In thee, by art, the demon stands confest,
But nature on thy soul has stamp'd the god.

This person was an actor of some provincial celebrity, whose performance of various characters at Bristol was for some time the engrossing subject of conversation among the friends of Chatterton.

So just thy action with thy part agrees,
Each feature does the office of a tongue;
Such is thy native elegance and ease,

By thee the harsh line smoothly glides along.

At thy feign'd woe we're really distrest,
At thy feign'd tears we let the real fall;

By every judge of nature 'tis confest,
No single part is thine, thou'rt all in all.

AN ELEGY,

On the much-lamented death of WM. BECKFORD, Esq., late Lord Mayor of, and Representative in Parliament for the City of London.*

I.

WEEP on, ye Britons! give your gen'ral Tear;
But hence, ye venal—hence each titled Slave!
An honest pang should wait on Beckford's Bier,
And patriot Anguish mark the Patriot's Grave.

To the Editor of Felix Farley's Journal.

SIR,-As the columns of your Paper gave the earliest effusions of the highly-gifted Chatterton to the public eye, it may form a ground for claiming a space for an entire copy of an Elegy by him, of which only the first twelve stanzas, gathered from a contemporary review, are to be found in any edition of his works. It was advertised in the Middle

11.

When like the Roman to his Field retired,
'Twas you (surrounded by unnumber'd Foes)
Who call'd him forth, his Services required,
And took from Age the Blessing of Repose.

111.

With soul impell'd by Virtue's Sacred Flame,
To stem the Torrent of corruption's Tide,
He came, heav'n fraught with Liberty! he came,
And nobly in his Country's Service died.

IV.

In the last awful, the departing Hour,

When life's poor Lamp more faint and fainter grew; As Mem'ry feebly exercis'd her pow'r,

He only felt for Liberty and you.

V.

He view'd Death's Arrow with a Christian Eye,
With firmness only to a Christian known;

And nobly gave your Miseries that sigh

With which he never gratified his own.

sex Journal (the patriotic paper of that period, to which Chatterton made many communications), on the 3rd July, 1770, and was published in quarto, by Mr. Kearsley of Fleet-street, price one shilling. It is probable the author received for this production two guineas, according to his current account, inserted in his life, of the balance in favour of the Lord Mayor's death. The obtainment of a copy of the original publication was an object of search for above ten years. Your's &c.

EU. HOOD.

The punctuation, capital letters, numerals, &c. are followed, as printed in Kearsley's edition.

[For a complete copy of this celebrated Elegy-the first ever included in an edition of Chatterton's Works- the present Editor is indebted to the good services of Mr. Tyson, of Bristol.]