Gods! what would Burgum give to get a name,
And snatch his blundering dialect from shame!
What would he give, to hand his memory down
To time's reinotest boundary ?—A Crown.*
Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue;
Futurity he rates at two pounds two.

Well, Burgum, take thy laurel to thy brow;
With a rich saddle decorate a sow,
Strut in Iambics, totter in an Ode,

Promise, and never pay, and be the mode.

Catcott, for thee, I know thy heart is good,
But ah! thy merit's seldom understood;
Too bigoted to whimsies, which thy youth
Received to venerate as Gospel truth,
Thy friendship never could be dear to me,
Since all I am is opposite to thee.
If ever obligated to thy purse,

Rowley discharges all-my first chief curse!
For had I never known the antique lore,
I ne'er had ventur'd from my peaceful shore,
To be the wreck of promises and hopes,
A Boy of Learning, and a Bard of Tropes;
But happy in my humble sphere had moved,
Untroubled, unsuspected, unbelov'd.+

The sum given to Chatterton by Mr. Burgum for his pedigree. Such was Chatterton's firmness of perseverance, that he seems to attest the originality of Rowley, even in the Will which he wrote before his projected suicide. This circumstance is much founded on by believers. To me it only affords an additional proof of the unconquerable and haughty perseverance of his character. I attach no implicit faith to dying declarations; for upon points in which fame is implicated, the voice of the passions is heard even in the hour of death. I disclaim every application of the illustration which can be disrespectful to the memory of Chatterton; but it is well known, that criminals, whose crimes are not of a nature to meet public sympathy, often

To Barrett next, he has my thanks sincere,
For all the little knowledge I had here.

But what was knowledge? Could it here succeed
When scarcely twenty in the town can read?
Could knowledge bring in interest to maintain
The wild expenses of a Poet's brain;
Disinterested Burgum never meant

To take my knowledge for his gain per cent.
When wildly squand'ring ev'ry thing I got,

On books and learning, and the Lord knows what,
Could Burgum 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.
He promis'd, I confess, and seem'd sincere ;
Few keep an honorary promise here.

I thank thee, Barrett-thy advice was right,
But 'twas ordain'd by fate that I should write.
Spite of the prudence of this prudent place,
I wrote my mind, nor hid the author's face.
Harris ere long, when reeking from the press,
My numbers make his self-importance less,
Will wrinkle up his face, and damn the day,
And drag my body to the triple way-
Poor superstitious mortals! wreak your hate
Upon my cold remains-

at their death endeavour, by a denial of guilt most satisfactorily proved, to avert the odium attached to their persons and memory. It may be thought that Chatterton would have better consulted his own fame by avowing these beautiful poems; but the pride of every one is not sustained by the same nutriment. He probably deprecated the doubtful fame of an ingenious but detected impostor, and preferred the internal consciousness, that, by persisting in the deception he had commenced, future ages might venerate the poems of Chatterton, under patronage of the fictitious Rowley. -SIR WALTER SCOTT.

This is the last Will and Testament of me, Thomas Chatterton, of the city of 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 tomorrow night before eight o'clock, being the Feast of the Resurrection, the coroner and jury bring it in lunacy, I will and direct, that Paul Farr, Esq. and Mr. John Flower, at their joint expense, cause my body to be interred in the tomb of my fathers, 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.

On the first, to be engraved in Old English charac

ters:

Vous qui par ici pasez

Pur l'ame Guateroine Chatterton priez
Le Cors di oi ici gist

L'ame recepbe Thu Crist. MCCX.+

Chatterton was insane,-better proof of this than the coroner's inquest is. that there was insanity in his family. (His sister, Mrs. Newton, was for some period confined in a mad-house.) His biographers were not informed of this important fact; and the editors of his collected works forbore to state it, because the collection was made for the benefit of his surviving relations, a sister and niece, in both of whom the disease had manifested itself. -SOUTHEY.

+ Whatever obsolete spelling or mistakes may be observed here,

On the second tablet, in Old English characters:— 'Orate pro animabus Alanus Chatterton, et Alicia Areris ejus, qui quidem Alanus obict x die mensis Novemb. MECCCXV, quorum animabus propinetur Deus Amen.

On the third tablet, in Roman characters :

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

THOMAS

CHATTERTON,

Subchaunter of the Cathedral of this city, whose ancestors were residents of St. Mary Redcliffe since the year 1140. He died the 7th of August, 1752.

On the fourth tablet, in Roman characters :

TO THE MEMORY OF

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Reader, judge not; if thou art a Christian-believe that he shall be judged by a superior Power-to that Power alone is he now answerable.*

On the fifth and sixth tablets, which shall front each other :

Atchievements: viz. on the one, vest, a fess, or; crest, a mantle of estate, gules, supported by a spear, sable, headed, or. On the other, or, a fess vert, crest, a cross of Knights Templars.—And I will and

either in the French or the Latin, the reader is desired to consider as the author's, not the editor's.

*This suitable portion of the inscription has been engraved on the monument recently erected to Chatterton's memory in Bristol.

direct that if the coroner's inquest bring it in felode-se, the said monument shall be notwithstanding erected. And 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 Bill of Rights, whom I hereby empower to build the said monument according 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 Kew Gardens shall be dedicated to them in the following dedication:-To Paul Farr and John Flower, Esqrs. this 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 Reverend Mr. Camplin senior, 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 commodity. To Bristol, all my spirit and disinterestedness, parcels of goods, unknown on her quay since the days of Canning and Rowley! 'Tis true, a charitable gentleman, one Mr. Colston, smuggled a considerable quantity of it, but it being proved that he was a papist, the Worshipful Society of Aldermen