have elevated Chatterton in his own importance. His sister's testimony is : "He would often speak in great raptures of the undoubted success of his plan for future life. His ambition increased daily. His spirits were rather uneven, sometimes so gloomed that for days together he would say but very little, and apparently by constraint; at other times exceedingly cheerful. When in spirits he would enjoy his rising fame: confident of advancement, he would promise my mother and me should be partakers of his success. Mr. Barrett lent him many books on surgery, and I believe he bought many more, as I remember to have packed them up to send to him when in London, and no demand was ever made for them. About this time he wrote several satirical poems. He began to be universally known among the young men. He had many cap acquaintances, but I am confident but few intimates." For some time he continued to be very communicative on the subject of Rowley. "He was always," says Mr. Smith, one of his intimate companions, " extremely fond of walking in the fields, particularly in Redcliffe meadows, and of talking about these manuscripts, and sometimes reading them there. • Come, (he would say,) you and I will take a walk in the meadow; I have got the cleverest thing for you imaginable—it is worth half-a-crown merely to have a sight of it, and to hear me read it to you.' When we arrived at the place proposed, he would produce his parchment, show it me and read it to me. one spot in particular, full in view of the which he seemed to take a peculiar delight. 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, and abruptly, he would tell me, 'That steeple was burnt down by lightning: that was There was church, in He would 1 the place where they formerly acted plays.' His Sundays were commonly spent in walking alone into 1 It is remarkable that in the course of the evidence afforded by Mr. Smith, there is mention made of Redcliffe church spire being destroyed by lightning. But how could either Mr. Smith or Chatterton have been apprised of this, as there was no history nor any known record concerning such an event? It is true that since the death of the latter, there has been a publication, by Mr. Naśmith, of William of Worcestre; this came out in the year 1778, and we find the fact there mentioned. 'Latitudo (lege altitudo) Turris de Radclyfe continet 300 pedes: de quibus 100 pedes sunt per fulmen dejecti.' p. 120. As the only history in which this is mentioned came out after the death of Chatterton, he could not have his intelligence from hence, but it must have come from one of the manuscripts of Rowley. Rowley must have been in some degree an eye-witness of the event; but Chatterton had no history of it, no record excepting what must have come from Rowley. He could not have mentioned it without some previous intimation from that quarter; for no account was elsewhere to be had.-BRYANT'S OBSERVATIONS. Mr. Bryant was not aware that in the parlour of a person residing in Bristol, a Mr. Katar, whom Chatterton used to visit, hung a print of St. Mary Redcliffe church, engraved by Toms from a drawing by William Halfpenny, and published in the year 1746, seven years before Chatterton's birth, underneath which is the following inscription: "This church was founded by Simon de Burton, merchant, in ye 22nd year of ye reign of King Edward ye first. In the year 1446, the steeple of the said church was blown down in a great storm of thunder and lightning, weh did much damage to the same, but was by Mr. Wm. Canynge, a worthy merchant, wth the assistance of diverse other wealthy inhabitants, at a great expense, new covered, glazed, and repaired." &c. &c.-Published May, 1746, by BENJAMIN HICKEY, Bristol.-A more detailed account of this engraving will be found in Dix's Life of Chatterton, p. 44. the country about Bristol, as far as the duration of daylight would allow; and from these excursions he never failed to bring home with him drawings of churches, or of some other objects which had impressed his romantic imagination." The repeated sums of money which he obtained from Messrs. Catcott and Barrett enabled him to have frequent recourse to his old friends, the circulating libraries. From those gentlemen, too, he procured several volumes; from Mr. Barrett especially, many on surgery. He became a frequent purchaser moreover, as he acknowledges in his "will;" but discontented with the amount of the sums bestowed on him, he is said to have exclaimed against the parsimony of his patrons, who'dribbled' their rewards in shillings and half-crowns. Indeed, neither Catcott nor Barrett seem to have been regarded by him with deference. The reader of his Acknowledged Poems will remember numerous instances in which the former gentleman falls under his lash. But, when "the fit" was on him, that he "spared neither friend nor foe," was his own confession. Perhaps his sincere opinion of them both is to be found in the following lines of his "last Will and Testament: "— "Catcott, for thee, I know thy heart is good, Rowley discharges all-my first chief curse! For had I never known the antique lore, To Barrett next, he has my thanks sincere, But what was knowledge? Could it here succeed, I thank thee, Barrett-thy advice was right, It is certain, at the time when Mr. Catcott first became acquainted with Chatterton, that the works now known as the Rowley poems were either in existence, or were so far matured in Chatterton's mind as to enable him to speak confidently of them. During the first conversation which Mr. Catcott held with him, he enumerated the titles of most of the poems which afterwards appeared. He confessed, moreover, that he had destroyed several; and a nearly completed tragedy, called "The Apostate," was seen by Mr. Catcott, but is now nowhere to be found. To this production Mr. Bryant makes allusion in his 'Observations.' "The subject of it,” he tells us, was the apostatizing of a person from the Christian to the Jewish faith." "A small part," says Dr. Gregory, "has been preserved by Mr. Barrett ;" and a writer so late as 1835 asserts that a portion of it was printed by that gentleman in his History of Bristol. Four lines only, in a note to the "Parliament of Sprytes." It may, however, turn up some day, if not actually destroyed. Whether he was offended by the repeated examinations, to which he was subjected, on the score of the original parchments, and the multiplied entreaties that he would produce them, or whether he was disgusted with the paltry sums with which his patrons requited his services, is uncertain; but he soon became suspicious and reserved, made'fewer communications on the subject, and exhibited no more parchments, or fragments of Rowley's handwriting. In the mean time his peculiarities were remarked by all who were thrown into contact with him. His pride was excessive. For days together he would scarcely utter a word. He would enter and quit his master's house without deigning to address a single inmate; would occupy his stool at the office in rigid silence, noticing the observations of his fellow-clerks only with a supercilious, sarcastic smile of contempt. It was the general impression that he was going mad. His fits of absence were remarkable. "He would often look stedfastly in a person's face without speaking, or seeming to see the person, for a quarter of an hour or more.' So says one of his companions; but perhaps for a quarter of an hour we should read five minutes. Some considered him dull, stupid, and sullen. Yet Dr. Gregory asserts that "his pride, 1 What was supposed to be dulness in Chatterton was genius. The symptoms of talent were misconstrued by his contemporaries. They were disgusted with his pride, which was a consciousness of preeminence of abilities. Mr. Capel, a brother apprentice in the same house with Chatterton, VOL. I. E |