TO MR. POWEL.* WHAT language, Powel! can thy merits tell, Yet, though design'd in every walk to shine, Thine is the furious, and the tender thine; Though thy strong feelings and thy native fire Still force the willing gazers to admire, Though great thy praises for thy scenic art, We love thee for the virtues of thy heart. From a MS. of Chatterton's, in the British Museum. THE RESIGNATION.* O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, To thee, my only rock, I fly, Thy mercy in thy justice praise. The mystic mazes of thy will, The shadows of celestial light, Are past the pow'r of human skill,— But what th' Eternal acts is right. James Montgomery, the author of The Wanderer of Switzerland,' in a letter to Mr. Dix, alluded to by that gentleman in his life of Chatterton, says with reference to these verses that they "show at least some light from heaven' breathing through the darkness of his soul, which affected me so deeply, when as a young man I read them, that I responded to them from the depth of my heart, with a sympathy which I endeavoured to express in one of my earlier poems.' The following are Mr. Montgomery's verses : "A dying swan of Pindus sings In wildly-mournful strains; As Death's cold fingers snap the strings, His suffering lyre complains. Soft as the mist of evening wends Sad as in storms the moon ascends, And turns the darkness pale; So soft the melting numbers flow From his harmonious lips; So sad his woe-wan features show, Just fading in eclipse. The Bard to dark despair resign'd, Sings 'midst the tempest of his mind "" O teach me in the trying hour, If in this bosom aught but Thee If Hope still seem to linger nigh, And hover o'er his head, Her pinions are too weak to fly, Or Hope ere now had fled. Rash Minstrel! who can hear thy songs, Nor long to share thy fire? Who read thine errors and thy wrongs, Nor execrate the lyre? The lyre that sunk thee to the grave, When bursting into bloom, That lyre the power to genius gave To blossom in the tomb. Yes; till his memory fail with years, And while thy story swells his tears, Within four months Chatterton's London career began and closed, yet it witnessed all the most fitful extremes of hope and despair. In the hectic gaiety with which he struggles to conceal the latter feeling from his poor friends, and in the buoyant certainty of greatness to which he shows himself lifted by the most trifling success, his letters are models of the profoundest pathos. The "seething brains and shaping fantasies, which apprehend more than cooler reason can," were indeed Chatterton's; but these, we cannot help thinking, included also in his case qualities which redeem his short and unhappy life from he more ordinary class of literary miseries. His pride and his honour never deserted him. He did not die after descending to make his talents instruments of evil to others, or of disgrace to himself. Panting and jaded as he was, and pursued to the extremest verge of despair by the dogs of hunger and necessity, literature still remained a refreshment and a hope to him, when madness suddenly terminated all. His poison draught is not to be compared to Boyse's blanket, or to the prison of Savage, or even to the loaf of the starving Otway.-MRS. S. Ĉ. HALL. Then why, my soul, dost thou complain? For God created all to bless.* But ah! my breast is human still; The sickness of my soul declare. But yet, with fortitude resigned, I'll thank th' inflicter of the blow; Forbid the sigh, compose my mind, Nor let the gush of mis'ry flow. The gloomy mantle of the night, Which God, my East, my sun reveals. During the few months of his existence in London, his letters to his mother and sister, which were always accompanied with presents, expressed the most joyous anticipations. But suddenly all the flush of his gay hopes and busy projects terminated in despair. The particular causes which led to his catastrophe have not been distinctly traced. His own descriptions of his prospects were but little to be trusted; for while apparently exchanging his shadowy visions of Rowley for the real adventures of life, he was still moving under the spell of an imagination that saw everything in exaggerated colours. Out of this dream he was at length awakened, when he found that he had miscalculated the chances of patronage and the profits of literary labour.CAMPBELL. * Heav'n is all love; all joy in giving joy; It never had created, but to bless.-YOUNG's Night Thoughts. CHATTERTON'S WILL. 1770.* All this wrote between 11 and 2 o'clock Saturday, in the utmost distress of mind. April 14, 1770. N.B. In a dispute concerning the character of David, Mr. argued that he must be a holy man, from the strains of piety that breathe through his whole works. I being of a contrary opinion, and knowing that a great genius can effect anything, endeavouring in the foregoing Poems to represent an enthusiastic Methodist, intended to send it to Romaine, and impose it upon the infatuated world as a reality; but thanks to Burgum's generosity, I am now employed in matters of more importance. Saturday, April 20, 1770. BURGUM, I thank thee, thou hast let me see That Bristol has impress'd her stamp on thee, Thy generous spirit emulates the Mayor's, Thy generous spirit with thy Bristol's pairs. It was the accidental sight of this Will which occasioned Mr. Lambert to part with Chatterton; when the latter, a few days after, set off for London.-Without this intimation, and attending to the date, the reader might suppose that the above was the will which Chatterton wrote immediately preceding his death. Dr. Gregory states, that he was informed on good authority, that this will "was occasioned by the refusal of a gentleman, whom he had complimented in his poems, to accommodate him with a supply of money.' The MS. in Chatterton's handwriting is preserved in the Library of the Bristol Institution. " + What poems are here meant is uncertain. |