CHATTERTON, THOMAS, an English poet, whose youth, genius, and tragical death have made hint one of the wonders of English literature, was b. at Bristol, Nov. 20, 1752. His fattier, who had once been a chanter in the Bristol cathedral, and also mas ter of a kind of free-school, died two or three months before the poet's birth. C. was educated at a parish-school, was considered a dull child, but, making acquaintance with a black-letter Bible which his mother often used, the dormant spirit flashed up. From early years he was fond of all kinds of antiquities; he around old walls like the ivy, and haunted twilight ruins like the bat. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to Mr. Lambert, an attorney. His situation here was uncomfortable; he took his meals in the kitchen with the footboy, and, when refractory, was chastised with a ruler. In Oct., 1768, the new bridge at Bristol was opened, and C. sent to a newspaper an account, in antique phraseology and spelling, of the ceremonies attending the opening of the old one several centuries before—the whole purporting to be taken from an ancient MS. To a certain Bristol pewterer, Btirgum by name, he presented himself, and astonished the craftsman by the sight of a parchment, in which his pedigree was traced back to the Norman conquest, adorned by many a splendid marriage, and many a knightly name. He also exhibited to his friends copies of old poems, which, he said, were composed by one Thomas Rowley, a monk of the 15th century. These matters made some stir in his native city, but not enough to satisfy C., who resolved to fly at higher game. Accord ingly, Horace Walpole, at that time collecting additional materials for Anecdotes of Painting in England, received from C. several pages of antique writing, accompanied by a short note. The pretended MS. gave biographical sketches of celebrated painters who had flourished in England several centuries ago, and of whose existence Walpole had never dreamed. Walpole, put off his guard, answered his unknown correspondent at once; expressed his delight at receiving the MS.; and desired, as a personal favor, that all the other antique writings, poems included, mentioned in the note, should be forwarded. C., highly elated, immediately sent accounts of a great many more pain ters and poets, and also gave some slight sketch of his personal history. On receipt of this second communication, Walpole suspected a trick. The poems he showed to Mason and Gray, who at once pronounced them forgeries; he then wrote C., expressing his suspicions as to the genuineness of the MS., and administering at the same time a great deal of excellent advice. C. replied, desiring that the 31S. should be returned at once; but, by the time the letter reached London, Walpole was about to start for Paris, and it was allowed to remain unanswered. On Walpole's return some six weeks there after, a tierce note from C. awaited him, the contents of which must have brought the blood to his polished and urbane brow; indignant, ho bundled up the MS., and returned it without a word of explanation.
From his earliest youth, C. had a ghastly forudiarity with the ideaof suicide. Among his papers preserved in the British museum, is a last will and testament, "executed in the presence of Omniscience, the 14th of April, 1770," full of the wildest wit and pro fanity. Another document of similar purport, falling into the hands of his friends, led
to his dismissal from Mr. Lambert's office. Released from what he considered the slavery of law, C.'s eyes turned to London, and in that city he arrived, carrying with him all his Rowley 31S. and several modern poems, on Tuesday, the 24th April, 1770, and took up his abode with one Wahnsley, a plasterer, in Shoreditch. No sooner had he settled there, than he began to work as with a hundred hands. During the last few months of his life, he poured forth squibs, satiric poems, political essays, burlet tas. letters in the style of Junius, and meditated writing a history of England, to appear in parts. For a time, his prospects seemed golden enough. He obtained an introduction to lord mayor Beckford; he sent glowing letters home, accompanied by presents to his mother and sisters. Ultimately, he left the plasterer's in Shoreditch, and took lodgings in Brooke street, adjoining Holborn. Unhappily for C., editors of opposition papers were enough to insert and praise his articles, but were disinclined or unable to render an equivalent in cash. Possibly they conceived that a patriotism so ardent must be its own reward. The means of life were now fast failing. In desperation, he attempted to procure an appointment of surgeon's mate in a vessel going to Africa, but failed. This. was the last drop that made the cup overflow. On Saturday. the 25th Aug., his land lady, alarmed that her lodger did not make his appearance, had the door of his room broken open; saw the floor littered with small pieces of paper, and C. " lying on the bed with his legs hanging over, quite dead." Just at this time, Dr. Fry of Oxford, who. had seen or heard something of the Rowley poems, was on the eve of starting for Bristol to make inquiry into the matter. Sad enough to think on now: a little promptitude on the one hand, a little patience on the other, and the catastrophe might have been averted.
C. died before he reached his 18th year, and takes his place as the greatest prodigy in literature. Indeed, in our judgment of him, age cannot be taken into account. He never seems to have been young. His intellect was born fully matured. He was equally I precocious in other respects. n his letters, he speaks of the relation of the sexes in the tone of a sated roue. Ile never seems to have felt the delicious shame and ingenuous ness of youth; over his heart never was outspread " the bloom of young desire and purple light of love." The Kew Gardens is written in the style of Churchill, and it possesses all that master's vigor, and every now and then we come on a couplet turned with the felicity of Pope. His genius, however, is in its greatest perfection in the ancient poems. No poet, before or since, has written a tenderer strain than the lament in .zElla, or conceived a bolder image than the personification of freedom in the ode to liberty in his Tragedy of Godwin. C.'s life has been written by many hands, but the best and most sympathetic sketch of it is that given by prof. D. Masson of Edinburgh university in his collected essays.—See 17e Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton, by the Rev. Walter Skeat, 31.A. (1875).