aspiration must have acted as a self-corrective had time been given him. Chatterton, on leaving his employer, went to London, with great confidence in his own powers, panting for distinction, and sanguine of success, but still possessing a very limited knowledge of life. In whatever he was deficient, he wanted not natural affection. His letters to his mother and sisters at this time were kind and sanguine, though probably many of his expressions of confidence were meant to sooth their anxiety for the young adventurer. While his short-lived prosperity continued, they shared in it; and the adverse fortune which rapidly followed was confined to his own bosom. Finding himself disappointed of procuring a living by writing for the booksellers, and either unacquainted with the temporary shifts to which the literary adventurer must submit, or too proud to practise them, want of food-literal famine -led the way to a voluntary death. It is told, that the day before his death his landlady offered him a dinner, which he indignantly refused, saying he was not hungry. He was buried at the charge of the parish, in the burying-ground of a workhouse. The genius of Chatterton, wonderful though it be, is less extraordinary than its singular bent. A poetical antiquary of sixteen is an anomaly in literature. The strongest proof on which the poems attributed by him to Rowley are pronounced forgeries, is, that they surpass the style of the age to which they are assigned. That these productions are throughout poetical and animated, is surely no great crime, at least in the eyes of those who prefer good to bad verse, though the former may have been written three centuries later, and by a youth of fifteen instead of an ancient priest. The strongest marks of antiquity which Chatterton's poems possess, is the apparently antiquated spelling, and the use of a few poetical epithets now become obsolete. Yet they bear Q so well to be restored to modern orthography, that no scruple is made in adopting it in the following specimen selected from ELLA, a drama attributed by Chatterton to his imaginary Rowley, and thus supposed to be written long before any drama had appeared in the language. THE MINSTREL'S SONG IN ELLA. O! SING unto my roundelay, O! drop the briny tear with me, Like a running river be; For my love's dead, Gone to his deathbed, Black his hair as winter night, Sweet his tongue as throstle's note, Hark! the raven flaps his wing Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing See! the white moon shines on high; Whiter than the evening cloud : Here upon my true love's grave Come with acorn-cup and thorn, Water-witches crown'd with reeds, I die! I come! my true love waits : Thus the damsel spoke, and died. (a) Bright, garish. WILLIAM MASON. BORN 1725-DIED 1797. MASON was the son of the vicar of St Trinity, in the EastRiding of York. He studied at Cambridge, obtained orders, and in 1754 was appointed one of the king's chaplains. Mason's tragedies of ELFRIDA and CARACTACUS have been much admired; nor were his attainments in the fine arts confined to poetry. On obtaining a prebend in York cathedral, Mason married. His epitaph on his wife, who did not survive her marriage above two years, bears testimony to the tenderness of his affections and the elegance of his mind. Mason was long the favourite and confidential friend of Gray, who left him all his books and MSS., with a legacy of L.500. He was a firm and consistent Whig in politics, and often took a more active part in public affairs than men of letters generally assume. ODE FROM CARACTACUS. MONA on Snowdon calls: Hear, thou king of mountains, hear; And greet in whispers sage and slow. Snowdon, mark! 'tis magic's hour; And burst thy base with thunder's shock: Shall Mona use, than those that dwell In music's secret cells, and lie Steep'd in the stream of harmony. Rustling vestments brush the ground; And gild the tufted misletoe. Close your wings, and check your flight; Spread your robes of saffron hue; EPITAPH ON MRS MASON, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL, TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave: |