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CHATTERTON, THOMAS (1752-1770)
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See also:CHATTERTON, See also: He did not like, his See also:sister said, reading out of small books. Wayward, as it seems, almost from his earliest years, and manifesting no sympathy with the See also:ordinary pastimes of children, he was regarded for a time as deficient in See also:intellect. But he was even then ambitious of distinction. His sister relates that on being asked what See also:device he would like painted on a bowl that was to be his, he replied, " Paint me an See also:angel, with wings, and a See also:trumpet, to trumpet my name over the See also:world." From his earliest years he was liable to fits of See also:abstraction, sitting for See also:hours in seeming stupor, or yielding after a time to tears, for which he would assign no See also:reason. He had no one near him to sympathize in the See also:strange world of See also:fancy which his See also:imagination had already called into being; and circumstances helped to See also:foster his natural reserve, and to beget that love of See also:mystery which exercised so See also:great an See also:influence on the development of his genius. When the strange child had attained his See also:sixth year his mother began to recognize his capacity; at eight he was so eager for books that he would read and write all See also:day long if undisturbed; and in his See also:eleventh year he had become a contributor to See also:Felix Farley's Bristol See also:Journal. The occasion of his See also:confirmation inspired some religious poems published in this See also:paper. In 1763 a beautiful See also:cross of curious workmanship, which had adorned the See also:churchyard of St Mary Redcliffe for upwards of three centuries, was destroyed by a See also:churchwarden. The spirit of veneration was strong in the boy, and he sent to the See also:local journal on the 7th of See also:January 1764 a See also:clever See also:satire on the parish Vandal. But his delight was to See also:lock himself in a little See also:attic which he had appropriated as his study; and there, with books, cherished parchments, saved from the See also:loot of the muniment room of St Mary Redcliffe, and See also:drawing materials, the child lived in thought with his 15th-See also:century heroes and heroines. The first of his See also:literary mystifications, the duologue of " Elinoure and Juga," was written before he was twelve years old, and he showed his poem to the See also:usher at Colston's See also:hospital, Thomas Phillips, as the See also:work of a 15th-century poet. Chatterton remained an inmate of Colston's hospital for upwards of six years, and the slight advantages gained from this scanty education are traceable to the friendly sympathy of Phillips, himself a writer of See also:verse, who encouraged his pupils to write. Three of Chatterton's companions are named as youths whom Phillips's See also:taste for See also:poetry stimulated to rivalry; but Chatterton held aloof from these contests, and made at that time no confidant of his own more daring literary adventures. His little See also:pocket-See also:money was spent in borrowing books from a circulating library; and he See also:early ingratiated himself with See also:book collectors, by whose aid he found See also:access to See also:Weever, See also:Dugdale and See also:Collins, as well as to Speght's edition of See also:Chaucer, See also:Spenser and other books.
His "Rowleian" See also:jargon appears to have been chiefly the result of the study of See also: In all his sheepen gambols and child's. See also:play,
In every merrymaking, See also:fair, or See also:wake,
I kenn'd a perpled light of See also:wisdom's See also:ray;
He See also:ate down learning with the wastel-cake;
As See also:wise as any of the aldermen,
He'd wit enow to make a See also:mayor at ten."
This beautiful picture of the childhood of the ideal patron of Rowley is in reality that of the poet himself—" the fate-marked babe," with his wondrous child-genius, and all his romantic dreams realized. The literary masquerade which thus constituted the life-See also:dream of the boy was wrought out by him in fragments of See also:prose and verse into a coherent romance, until the credulous scholars and antiquaries of his day were persuaded into the belief that there had lain in the parish See also:chest of Redcliffe church for upwards of three centuries, a collection of See also:MSS. of rare merit, the work of Thomas Rowley, an unknown See also:priest of Bristol in the days of See also: In See also:September 1768, when Chatterton was in the second year of his See also:apprenticeship, the new bridge was partially opened for See also:traffic. Shortly afterwards the editor of Felix Farley's Journal received from a correspondent, See also:signing himself Dunelmus Bristoliensis, a " description of the mayor's first passing over the old bridge," professedly derived from an ancient MS. William See also:Barrett, F.S.A., surgeon and See also:antiquary, who was then accumulating materials for a history of Bristol, secured the original See also:manuscript, which is now preserved in the See also:British Museum, along with other Chatterton MSS., most of which were ultimately incorporated by the credulous antiquary into a learned See also:quarto See also:volume, entitled the History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol, published nearly twenty years after the poet's death. It was at this time that the definite See also:story made its appearance—overwhich critics and antiquaries wrangled for nearly a century—of numerous ancient poems and other MSS. taken by the elder Chatterton from a See also:coffer in the muniment room of Redcliffe church, and transcribed, and so rescued from oblivion, by his son. The pieces include the " Bristowe Tragedie, or the Dethe of Syr See also: Towards Lambert his feelings were of too keen a nature to find relies in such See also:sarcasm.
In See also:December 1768, in his seventeenth year, he wrote to See also:Dodsley, the See also:London publisher, offering to procure for him " copies of several ancient poems, and an interlude, perhaps the See also:oldest dramatic piece extant, wrote b'y one Rowley, a priest in Bristol, who lived in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV." To this letter he appended the See also:initials of his favourite See also:pseudonym, Dunelmus Bristoliensis, but directed the See also:answer to be sent to the care of Thomas Chatterton, Redcliffe See also: But he now coldly advised the boy to stick to the attorney's office; and " when he should have made a See also:fortune," he might betake himself to more favourite
studies. Chatterton had to write three times before he recovered his MSS. Walpole has been loaded with more than his just share of responsibility for the fate of the unhappy poet, of whom he admitted when too See also:late, " I do not believe there ever existed so masterly a genius."
Chatterton now turned his See also:attention to periodical literature and politics, and exchanged Felix Farley's Bristol Journal for the See also:Town and See also:County See also:Magazine and other London See also:periodicals. Assuming the vein of Junius—then in the full See also:blaze of his triumph—he turned his See also:pen against the See also:duke of See also:Grafton, the See also:earl of See also:Bute, and the princess of See also:Wales. He had just despatched one of his See also:political diatribes to the See also:Middlesex Journal, when he sat down on See also:Easter See also:Eve, 17th See also:April 1770, and penned his " Last Will and Testament," a strange satirical See also:compound of jest and See also:earnest, in which he intimated his intention of putting an end to his life the following evening. Among his satirical bequests, such as his " humility " to the Rev. Mr Camplin, his " See also:religion " to Dean See also:Barton, and his "modesty" along with his "See also:prosody and See also:grammar" to Mr Burgum, he leaves "to Bristol all his spirit and disinterestedness, parcels of goods unknown on its See also:quay since the days of Canynge and Rowley." In more genuine earnestness he recalls the name of See also:Michael Clayfield, a friend to whom he owed intelligent sympathy. The will was probably purposely prepared in order to frighten his master into letting him go. If so, it had the desired effect. Lambert cancelled his indentures; his friends and acquaintance made him up a See also:purse; and on the 25th or 26th of the month he arrived in London.
Chatterton was already known to the readers of the Middlesex Journal as a See also:rival of See also:Junius, under the nom de plume of Decimus. He had also been a contributor to See also: His contributions were freely accepted; but the editors paid little or nothing for them. He wrote in the most hopeful terms to his mother and sister, and spent his first earnings in buying gifts for them. His See also:pride and ambition were amply gratified by the promises and interested flattery of editors and political adventurers; Wilkes himself had noted its trenchant See also:style, " and expressed a See also:desire to know the author'; and See also:Lord Mayor See also:Beckford graciously acknowledged a political address of his, and greeted him " as politely as a See also:citizen could." But of actual money he received but little. He was extremely abstemious, his See also:diligence was great, and his versatility wonderful. He could assume the style of Junius or See also:Smollett, reproduce the satiric bitterness of See also:Churchill, See also:parody See also:Macpherson's See also:Ossian, or write in the manner of See also:Pope, or with the polished See also:grace of Gray and Collins. He wrote political letters, eclogues, lyrics, operas and satires, both in prose and verse. In See also:June 177o—after Chatterton had been some nine See also:weeks in London—he removed from See also:Shore-ditch, where he had hitherto lodged with a relative, to an attic in See also:Brook Street, See also:Holborn. But for most of his productions the See also:payment was delayed; and now See also:state prosecutions of the See also:press rendered letters in the Junius vein no longer admissible, and threw him back on the lighter resources of his pen. In See also:Shoreditch, as in his lodging at the Bristol attorney's, he had only shared a room; but now, for the first time, he enjoyed uninterrupted solitude. His bed-See also:fellow at Mr Walmsley's, Shoreditch, noted that much of the See also:night was spent by him in writing; and now he could write all night. The romance of his earlier years revived, and he transcribed from an imaginary parchment of the old priest Rowley his " Excelente Balade of Charitie." This See also:fine poem, perversely disguised in archaic See also:language, he sent to the editor of the Town and County Magazine, and had it rejected. The high hopes of the sanguine boy had begun to fade. He had not yet completed his second month in London, and already failure and See also:starvation stared him in the See also:face. Mr Cross, a neighbouring See also:apothecary, repeatedly invited him to join him at See also:dinner or supper; but he refused. His landlady also, suspecting his See also:necessity, pressed him to share her dinner, but in vain. " She knew," as she afterwards said, " that he had not eaten anything for two or three days." But he was offended at her urgency, and assured her that he was not hungry. The See also:note of his actualreceipts, found in his pocket-book after his death, shows that Hamilton, See also:Fell and other editors who had been so liberal in flattery, had paid him at the See also:rate of a See also:shilling for an See also:article, and somewhat less than eightpence each for his songs; while much which had been accepted was held in reserve, and still unpaid for. The beginning of a new month revealed to him the indefinite postponement of the publication and payment of his work. He had wished, according to his foster-mother, to study See also:medicine with Barrett; in his desperation he now reverted to this, and wrote to Barrett for a letter to help him to an opening as a surgeon's assistant on See also:board an See also:African trader. He appealed also to Mr Catcott to forward his See also:plan, but in vain. On the 24th of See also:August 1770, he retired for the last time to his attic in Brook Street, carrying with him the See also:arsenic which he there drank, after tearing into fragments whatever literary remains were at hand. He was only seventeen years and nine months old; but the best of his numerous productions, both in prose and verse, require no See also:allowance to be made for the immature years of their author, when comparing him with the ablest of his contemporaries. He pictures Lydgate, the monk of See also:Bury St See also:Edmunds, challenging Rowley to a trial at versemaking, and under See also:cover of this fiction, produces his " Songe of See also:Ella," a piece of rare lyrical beauty, worthy of comparison with any antique or modern production of its class. Again, in his " Tragedy of Goddwyn," of which only a fragment has been preserved, the " See also:Ode to Liberty," with which it abruptly closes, may claim a See also:place among the finest See also:martial lyrics in the language. The collection of poems in which such specimens occur furnishes by far the most remark-able example of intellectual precocity in the whole history of letters. Collins, See also:Burns, See also:Keats, See also:Shelley and See also:Byron all awaken sorrow over the premature See also:arrestment of their genius; but the youngest of them survived to his twenty-fifth year, while Chatterton was not eighteen when he perished in his miserable See also:garret. The death of Chatterton attracted little See also:notice at the time; for the few who then entertained any appreciative estimate of the Rowley poems regarded him as their mere transcriber. He was interred in a burying-ground attached to See also:Shoe See also:Lane Workhouse, in the parish of St See also:Andrew's, Holborn, which has since been converted into a site for Farringdon See also:Market. There is a discredited story that the See also:body of the poet was re-covered, and secretly buried by his uncle, Richard Phillips, in Redcliffe Churchyard. There a See also:monument has since been erected to his memory, with the appropriate inscription, borrowed from his " Will," and so supplied by the poet's own pen— " To the memory of Thomas Chatterton. Reader! See also:judge not. If See also:thou See also:art a See also:Christian, believe that he shall be judged by a See also:Superior Power. To that Power only is he now answerable." The Chatterton MSS., originally in the See also:possession of William Barrett of Bristol, were left . by his See also:heir to the British Museum in 1800. Others are preserved in the Bristol library. Chatterton's genius and his tragic death are commemorated by Shelley in Adonais, by See also:Wordsworth in " See also:Resolution and See also:Independence," by See also:Coleridge in " A Monody on the Death of Chatterton," by D. G. See also:Rossetti in " Five English Poets," and John Keats inscribed See also:Endymion " to the memory of Thomas Chatterton." See also:Alfred de See also:Vigny's See also:drama of Chatterton gives an altogether fictitious See also:account of the poet. See also:Herbert See also:Croft (q.v.), in his Love and Madness, interpolated a long and valuable account of Chatterton, giving many of the poet's letters, and much See also:information obtained from his family and friends (pp. 125-244, letter li.). There is a valuable collection of " Chattertoniana' in the British Museum, consisting of See also:separate See also:works by Chatterton, newspaper cuttings, articles, dealing with the Rowley controversy and other subjects, with MS. notes by See also:Joseph Haslewood, and several autograph letters.
Among See also:biographies of Chatterton may be mentioned Chatterton: A See also:Biographical Study (1869), by See also:Daniel See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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