The Palace of Art

Irish Jesuit Province

The Palace of ArtAuthor(s): R. P. CartonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 27, No. 315 (Sep., 1899), pp. 449-464Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20499485 .

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SEPTEMBER, I899.

THE PALACE OF ART.

I FEEL that an apology is due for the somewhat misleading title I have chosen for this paper. I am not about to deal with Art

in its generally accepted meaning of Painting and Sculpture. I am not about to go through some great treasure house of Art in this sense, such as the Louvre, or the Uffizi, or our own too little valued

National Gallery, anld point out what you should admire and what you should condemn, and why admiration should be awarded to the

work of one artist and withheld from the work of another. I am not

about to speak of that phase of Art which has been so largely developed in recent years, and of which the late William Morris was the

chief apostle, that phase of Art which has been aptly called "I Art in

the House," which has banished, for the most part, the ugly forms of

furniture and the crude colourings of carpets and curtains which were in fashion during the earlier years of the present reign, and taught us how to make our homes bright and suggestive and pleasant to

look upon, and to impart to the common things of daily life a beauty and a harmony of their own. "The Palace of Art," from which I have taken my title, is Tennyson's poem, and I have sotaken it because

the subject of that poem has suggested the subject of this paper. The poem is one of the very finest creations of Tennyson's muse. It

is specially noteworthy for its stately rhythm, its series of beautiful

pictures, and, above all, for the noble allegory it contains. It is

meant, as he tells us himself in some prefatory verses, to teach how

knowledge and intellect and

Beauty seen In all varieties of mould and mind

VoL. xxvii No. 316 33



450 The frish Monthly.

are insufficient for the life of man's soul, and to show the consequences of an attempt to live on these alone and to cut oneself off from the

love of one's fellowman and from the humbling influence of religion.

Seeing not That Beauty, Good and Knowledge are three asters That doat upon each other, friends of man Living together under the same roof And never can be sundered without tears, And he that shuts Love out in turn shall be Shut out from Love and at her threshold lie Howling in utter darkness.

The poem tells how a soul built for itself

A lordly pleasr. house Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

How it was built firm, remote from men and inaccessible, that she

might carry out the determination she had made.

.My soul woulld live alone unto herself In her high Palace there,

An-d while the world runs round and round I said, Reign thou apart a quiet King

Stil, as while Satur whirls, his stedfast shade Sleeps on his luminous ring;

To which my soul made answer readily Trust me in bliss I shall abide

In this great mansion that is built for me So royal, rich and wide.

The poem then goes on to describe in stanzas, each one of which

is a finished picture, the treasures of Art and the things of Beauty

and the wealth of Knowledge which she heaps around her in that

"c lordly treasure house." It shows how for three years she lived in

isolation, sating her eyes with all the fair things she had gathered, and revelling in her- pride of intellect, until at last with blasphemous

presumption she exclaims: -

I take possession of man's mind and deed,

I care not what the sects may brawl,

I sit as God holding no form of creed But contemplating all,

Then during the fourth year a

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her,



The Palace of Art. 451

and the silence in which she lived became intolerable, and sore despair plagued her, and she realized at last as she

Lay thus exiled from the Eternal God,

Lost to her place and name,

that beauty however lavish and knowledge however vast could not

bring full or true life or happiness.

So when four years were wholly finishIed She threw her royal robes away.

Make me a cottage in the vale, she said,

Where I may mourn and pray.

I had often thought that the lessons which this poem was meanit

tc) teach would be best understood if they could be put into a concrete

form. And so I thought that if I could fi-nd in the history of our

literature men sufficiently well known whose lives would illustrate the

fatal consequences of isolation and intellectual pride when divorced

from the restraining and consoling influences of religion, and would

on the other hand show how religion under somewhat parallel circumstances, while it was no clog on the fancy and no hindrance to

the acquisition of knowledge, consoled in difficulties, shielded in

temptations and at last led the way to the true greatness of humility

and charity, I might be able to bring these lessons home in a clearer

and more striking manner.

Where, then, was I to find one whose life would illustrate the first

state of the soul in the Palace of Art ? Who was to teach the lesson

that isolation and intellectual pride when divorced from religion lead

to despair and death? Looking back on the history of our literature, I remembered Wordsworth's lines and

I thought of Chatterton the marvellous boy,

The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.

And truly no more marvellous boy figures in the annals of our

literature. Instances of precocious genius are to be found amongst others of our poets. Marlowe, who at a bound and by a literary miracle

bridged over the gulf that lay between the language of Gower and

Chaucer and Lydgate with what is to all intents and purposes modern verse, the verse which Shakespeare found ready to his hand and made such noble use of, wrote " Tamerlane " when he was a little over 18. He died in a disreputable quarrel under the age of 30, but he left behind

him in addition to " Tamerlane " the splendid dramas of " Faustus," "t The Jew of Malta," and " Edward It." besides a number of original

poems and manyadaptations and translations from the classics. Cowley

published his first volume of poems at 15. Pope tells us himself "1. I



452 T'h Irish lonthly.

lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." He undoubtedly com menced his literary career when he was only 16, and produced when he was 17 his modernised visions of Chaucer. That sinigular genius

William Blake, who was born five years after Chatterton, commenced

to write his weird and mystic verses at the age of I1. Instances too

of the disappointments and want and poverty which dog the footsteps of literary men could readily be furnished from the lives of our poets.

Otway after a life of unexampled poverty and distress is said to have

received a guinea from a charitable friend, and, fainting with hunger,

to have gone to the nearest baker's shop and bought a roll, with which

he choked himself while ravenously eating the first mouthful. Richard

Savage, so well known from Johnson's Life, lived and died miserably,

and we all have read in Mr. Forster's charming Life how the pressure

of- poverty made our own Goldsmith part with the immortal " Vicar of

Wakefield " for ?60. Instances too of literary forgery could also be found for the looking of them. James Macpherson had, some time

before Ohatterton, put off upon the world a series of poems alleged by

him to be Ossian's, but which while they are crowded with names and

allusions in the old Irish and Highland legends cannot be identified

with any entire poem or any considerable fragment of a poem in the

least corresponding with any of his pretended discoveries, Ireland, after Chatterton's death, put forward plays which he pretended to have discovered of Shakspere, and one of them, "Vortigern," was actually acted by John Kemble in 1795. But for a combination of precocity of

intellect, originality of thought, imagination beyond his years and in advance of his time, unsatiable ambition and love of pre-eminence, chill and haughty reserve and isolation which even the affection of his

mother and sister could not thaw or enter into, unquenchable thirst of knowledge, unwearying industry, constant self-denial and

abstemiousness, and unparalleled audacity of imposture, leading only through disappointment, destitution, obscurity and despair to a

suicide's death and a pauper's grave, the figure of Chatterton stands

unique in our literature. Chatterton was alikeunfortunate in hlis time and in his surroundings.

He should have been born about two centuries earlier, or (what would' have been better still) half a century later. Had hebeeh born earlier, he

might have come down to us as one of the stars of the Elizabethan

firmament. Had he been born half a century later, he would- have

come within the influence of the school which with Burns and notably

with Wordsworth looked upon nature and described her as she really

was. His muse would then have revelled in the brightening dawn of

our new romantic poetry which first broke with the publication of

&uhp Percy's Reliques, and his Ella and Sir Bawdyn might




have fitly taken their places beside the best af the- romantic

creations of Scott. But he was born at the middle point of a century which has been well described as 'a valley of dry bones." An age whose philosophy was scepticism and whose love of nature was sham; whose poetry was formal and unreal, and either reflected the

scepticism of its philosophy or, if it stooped to deal with nature and

the world it lived in, never dared to go out into the open air and

describe the glories of sky and sea and lake and mountain, or the fair

pastures and waving woodlands of a country landscape, but peopled

an unreal country with swains and nymphs equally unreal, or else masqueraded in sham pastorals and eclogues which were at best only

poor imitations of Theocritus and Virgil. It was an age which left unfelt and unheeded the manifold glories of Gothic architecture

which covered the land and in which we now recognize the genius and honour the devotion of the men who have bequeathed them to us. It was the age, in fine, which, as Macaulay pithily puts it, "gave us Douglas for Othello and the Triumphs of Temper for the Faerie

Queen." And so all the fair creations of Chatterton's fancy and all the outcome of his romantic dreams fell upon barren ground or were

choked by the thorns of formality and unbelief.

Chatterton was also unfortunate in his surroundings. - He was

born in Bristol on the 20th November, 1752. His father had died on the 7th August previously, leaving penniless his widow, then aged only 21, with a daughter aged 2 and an old mother-in-law who lived

along with them. All through he exhibited that reserve and love of isolation which are so often the characteristics of a posthumous child.

For at least 120 years the post of sexton of the church of St. Mary, Redeliffe had been held uninterruptedly and in a direct line by the

Chatterton family. The last of the name who held the post was John

Chatterton. He died in 1748. Thomas Chatterton his son and the

father of the poet was not contented with the post which had satisfied

so many of his forefathers, but he aspired to something better. After

having filled the place of writing master in a classical school he was

appointed sub-chanter in Bristol Cathedral and also master of the

Pile Street Free School which was situate a few yards from Redelifle

Church. The latter post he held until his death. He appears to

have been a man somewhat above his station, and in his taste for

music, pictures and antiquities he gave some indications of the

versatile genius which was developed so highly in his son. He was,

however, dissipated in his habits and an inconsiderate and unkind

husband, so that one cannot think that, had he lived, his influence

would have been a beneficial one for the boy. Chatterton was a

strange child, given to silent moods and-fits of atbstraction, so that for



454 The Itish MoRti4.

the first six years of his life he was put down for a dunce. When

about 6 he was attracted by the decorations of an oldl musical folio of

his father's which his mother was tearing up for waste paper, and, as

she expressed it, "' he fell in love with the illuminated capitals." He

learned to read from an old black-letter Bible, and then from 7 he

exhibited that love of reading and intense devotion to study which

never left him. His delight even then was to lock himself up in his little

attic with his books, papers and drawing materials. In his eighth

year he was elected on the foundation of Colston's Charity, the Blue

Coat School of Bristol. Here he remained seven years, and on the

day he left school he was apprenticed to Mr. John Lambert, a Bristol

attorney. All through his Bristol life, as well at school as in the

attorney's office, Chatterton lacked the guidance and advice which

would have come could he have found some one older than himself

with culture able to appreciate the growing genius of the boy, with power to invite his confidence, and witlh a sobriety of intellect and a

mental experience under the influence of which that genius would have

been trained and led on to its proper outcome. His mother and sister,

much as they loved and admired him, failed to understand him. At school he seems to have made no intimate friends save an under

master named Phillips,- whose early death he afterwards deplored in

some touching verses. In the attorney's office he chafed alike at the

drudgery of his work and the menial treatment he received, having to

take his meals with the servants and share his room with the footboy.

His chief friends and patrons were William Barrett, a surgeon and

antiquary, then collecting materials for a, history of Bristol, and

George Catcott and Henry Burgum, who carried on the trade of

.pewterers, and whose shop he passed every time he crossed the bridge. Barrett had a well stocked library, of which Chatterton was made

free and of which he made ample use. But that was all the help he

did get and- could get from Barrett. Ile appears to have been a dull,

heavy and pompous man.

"On every atom of the Doctor's frame

Nature has stamped the pedant with his name. "

Catcott posed as a lover of literature. Chatterton afterwards described him in one of his satires as having a large collection of

books of which he frequently boasts that none are less than a hundred

years old, which indeed he says seems the principal reason of his

having any. His books were the chief attraction for Ohatterton.

The man's capacity to make use of them may be judged from his

atirist's statement that he was always of the opinion of the last

author he had read. As for Burgum he was a self..made, ignoranf



7he Palace of Art. 455

mnan, ambitiouis of- notoriety in any shape however ridiculous, and as we learn from "Kew Gardens" and others of Chatterton's satires, his language was ungrammatical and his habit of profane- swearing notorious.

But Burgum swears so loud, so indiscreet, His tbunder echo through the listening street.

I will have to show you in a moment some important parts these three

Bristol citizens played in Chatterton's life.

When I said Chatterton was unfortunate in his surroundings, I

should have made one notable exception. The old Church of St. Mary Redeliffe, in whose shadow he was born and lived, was an

educating influence of a very direct and real as well as of a very nobre kind Around its precincts or in the old Church itself his leisure hours were spent. Here the old past with its Knights and its Priests

and its merchant princes became for him the world of realities in which he willingly dwelt. Here amidst the pillared aisles- and the sculptured tombs of crusading heroes anud departed Bristol

worthies, the boy began to realize that romance of mediaeval life of

which the founder of the Church was to be the hero and his poet chaplain was to be the chronicler. One of the founders of the Church, if not its principal founder, was William Canynge, Morch-ant and

Mayor of Bristol in the Reign of- Henry VI. and Edward IV. In the

Church was a beautiful tomb to William Canynge and his wife, Joan,

and near it were quaintly sculptured tombs wherein tradition placed the bones of his purse-bearer, his cook and his brewer. Chatterton's cousin stw in her father's possession a picture supposed -to be from his

pencil in which he is represented clad in the costume of a blue coat

boy being led by his mother to the altar tomb of Canynge. Over the

North porch of the Church is a chamber called the Treasury House, in which lay, in 6 or 7 oak chests, the charters and title deeds of the

Ohurch aud documents of even- older date. Amongst those wasI one

large iron-bound coffer secured by 6 locks designated in a deed of the

15th century, "William Canynge's chest -in the Treasury House: of

the church of Blessed Mary of Redeliffe." In course of time the keys became lost, and about 17 years befbreOhatterton's birth an examina

tion of the church muniments was instituted and this coffer and the

other chests were broken- open. All the deeds relating to the church

or which were considered of value w-ere removed to a place of security, while the remainder were left loose for any one who liked to help himself. The most liberal in this way was Chatterton's father. iHe

was in the habit, of taking large -quantities at a time and applying

theIm to covering school-books and other common uses, At thatime:



456 The Irish Monthly.

of his death there still remained in his house two boxes fill of them,

which the widow took with her to -her new home and continued to

supply her household from them with dress patterns, thread holders and other trifling requisites. In this way old parchments and ancient

writings and the phraseology of ancient documents became familar to

C(hatterton. As soon as he first ascertained that these documents

had come from the Church, he resented the manner in which they

were abused and destroyed, and whenever afterwards he found a

parchment with writing upon it he would seize it and carry it off to

his attic. It was in that attic he carried out the dreams which had

come to him in St. Mary's Church. He feigned to have discovered in William Canynge's coffer poetry, history and biography of the

15th century, all forming together what is known as the "Rowley

:Romance." The creation is embodied in a series of writings mainly

ascribed to the pen of Thomas Rowley, a priest of the 15th century.

They are in prose and verse, the prose consisting of letters and

architectural notices and other miscellaneous writings, which, though fragmentary, are sufficient to develop a conneDted story. Of this

romance the real William Canynge is the central figure. It introduces

us to Caitynge in his private rather than his public life. He is shown

to us as endowed with all human excellences, as the God-fearing

merchant piously devoting a large portion of his fortune to the

bu'ilding of the church, as the enlightened patron of art and

literature, or as entertaining with princely hospitality the citizens of Bristol at his ap2cryphal dwelling, the Red House. Among his

chosen associates are represented Dr. Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester; Sir Thoobald Gorges, a Knight of ancient family residing on a

neighbouring estate, and John a Lecam, a Canon of St. Augustine's

Abbey. The latter is represented as a poet of some repute, while

the other two as well as Canynge himself are not incapable of turning

out a stanza on occasion. The genius of the plot is the altogether fictitious character of Thomas Rowley, the poet-priest. He is

represented as having been a schoolfellow of Canynge at the Priory of the Friars Carmelite. "H ere," says Rowley in his Life of William

C4nyage, "did begin the kindness of our lives, oar minds and kinds

were alike and were always together." After his ordination he is

induced by Canynge to give up parish work and become his chaplain

and confessor. He was also employed by Canynge to 'goe to all the aunciont abbies and priories and gather together auncient drawings

if of anie accou:nt at any price." HE accordingly collects drawings

and manuscripts for his patron. He writes poems for his patron as

we4 and dramatic interl udes for the festivities of the Red House, in whic Canynge and his, most distinguished guests would each



..The Palace of Art, 457

personate a character. Canynge, after the death of his wife, Joan, is represented to have avoided a marriage, sought to be forced on him by Edward IV., by retiring with Rowley to the College of Westbury, to have entered the church, and ultimately to have become Dean of

Westbury. Rowley concludes his account thus: " hee deceased yer

MCCOCLXXLV of the age of 72. Hys worke I shall ne blazon, th-e eyen will attest yts worth; hys minde, knowledge and love his epistles wylle shewe, and the more soe as he dyd ne entende the

same bute forre private syght." Such is a very meagre outline of the narrative to be gathered from the Rowley MS.S. In these

imaginary lives of the princely merchant and the poet priest, as in

an antique setting appear the poems on which the fame of Chatterton

and the attraction of his career mainly rest.

Before the Rowley Romance was commenced Chatterton had begun

verse-making. He had begun when only 10 years old and some of his

verses appeared before he was 1, in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. He

was only in his 12th year when the manufacture of sham antiques was

begun. His first attempt was the production to Mr Burgum of a sham coat of arms and a sham pedigree, which he stated he had discovered amongst the parchments of Redclilfe Church and which traced the

descent of the pewterer down to the 13th century from one of the

noblest of English houses. The pedigree was apparently verified bby numerous marginal references to the Roll of Battle Abbey, original

Charters, Rowley, &c. Had Burgum been less vain or credulous, the introduction of one Radcliff de Chatterton amongst his hypothetical

ancestors might have aroused his suspicion. But his vanity passed this unnoticed, and he presented the young genealogist with 5s.,

which in turn produced a continuation of the pedigree &own to

James It. where it was thought prudent to stop. Each pedigree waq

accompanied, by way of verifica-tion, with copies of poems in sham;

o0ne, "The Tournament," attributed to Rowley, and another, "1 The

Gouler's Requiem," attributed to Canynge another by "the Romaunt of the Cnyghte," said to be composed by John de Bergham in 1320. The first public announcement of the discovery of the old

parchments was due to a local event of some importance. An old Gothic bridge which had crossed the Avon since the days of Henry I1. and whose roadway was crowded with buildings overhanging the river, including a-church erected by Edward HI. and his Queen

Philippa, had been cmndlemned and taken down and a new one

had been erected in its place. In September 1768, it was sufficiently advanced to allow of its being used by foot passengers and in the

year following it was opened for general traffic. In the interval

there appeared in Farley's Bristol Journal this letter



45$8 The Irsh Jfonthly

Mn PRINTER, The following description of the Mayor's first passing over

the old bridge, taken from an old manuscript. may not at this time be unacceptable to the generality of your readers.

Yours, &C., DUNLMus BRISTOLIMns8.

The letter was accompanied by a full and detailed description in

antique diction and orthography of the procession and public rejoicings which signalized the opening of the old bridge. The manuscript was traced to Chatterton, and he then stated that the description was trans

cribed from a parchment which his father had taken from the muniment room of St. Mlary's Church. The explanation was accepted without further question and with less scrutiny than Chatterton himself bad expected. Emboldened by his success, he produced from time to time poems and plays and lyrical pieces all of which he ascribed to Rowley, and whieh he professed to have found in the coffer of Master Canynge. "Elinure and Jirga," "Bristow Tragedie," "11illa," " Goddwyn," "The Battle of Hastings," " The Parliament of Sprites," "The

Souge of Seyncte Baldwynne," " The Songe of Seyncte Warburghe," "On Happiness," and many others which for the purpose of this lecture must be onlv names. Nor did he confine himself to sham antiques in poetry, Barrett, I have told you, when he made the

acquaintance of Chatterton, was engaged on the History of Bristol.

Chatterton according to Barrett's needs was ever ready to supply him from Master Canynge's coffer. Did hle require a date or a name or a veri

ficetion of some event in the History of Bristol, forthwith Ohatterton would produce a supposed charter, or deed of foundation, or a procla mation, or a sermon, all which were readily accepted by Barrett and

incorporated into his history. Recollect all this was work done by a boy

between the ages of 12 and 17. To begin with, what a preparation he must have gone through to conceive and enter on such work at the

age of 12? The number of books he had read must have been

enormous. He had made himself familiar with Shakspere and with

Dryden, Pope. Gray, and the other poets of his day. Hismwork at

Lambert's, although irksome, was not severe and did not take him more

than two hours in the day. The remainder -of the time he spent in

-putting together the knowledge required for the manufacture of his

sham antiques or else in the manufacture itself, and many of his

master's parchments had put upon them instead of " This Indenture

Witnesseth " or "Know all men by these Presents" the quaint forms

of language and brilliant fancies ascribed to the poet priest. His

acquauitance, Thistlethwaite, would sometimes call at Larubert's office

dring the daytime, and he has deserqibed how hkewogld find Chatterton




engaged in studying by times heraldry, antiquities; metaphysics, astronomy, and even medicine. The mere mechanical amount of

work he went through must have been prodigious. This was his method of working. He compiled for himself mostly with the aid of

Bailey's and Kersey's English Dictionary and partly from Speght's

Chaucer and Benson's Saxon Vocabulary, a glossary of modern words

followedl by their supposed old English equivalent. He would then

write down his poem or prose-work as the case might be, and with the

aid of this glossary transmute the language of Chatterton into the language of Rowley. He would then transcribe this transmuted

composition on to parchment, using the quaint and archaic forms of

handwriting which he had laboriously acquired by a study of the

genuine old manuscripts. He would then hold the parchment over a

candle to give it the appearance of antiquity, which process changed

the colour of the ink and made the parchment appear black and a little

contracted, or else he would colour the parchment with ochre and rub it

on the ground. With many of the poems he manufactured parchments purporting to be accounts of the subject of the poem and the persons and events it celebrated. Chatterton was at all times reticent in

producing the pretended original parchments. What --he generally

produced were his own copies. I do not intend to-night to say any-, thing of the merits of the poems themselves. They exhibit for the

most part singular originality, rare genius, strange creative powers

and great beauty of thought and description, altiough the archaic

mould in which they are cast rather repels the reader -especially when

he knows it is not real. Any discussion of the poems or the place

they entitle Chatterton to hold in English literature would be foreign

to the subject of my lecture and would be worthy- to form the subject

of a lecture by itself. Looking back from our advanced standpoint of knowledge, of

philology and literary and historical criticism, -it seems almost

incredible that the brilliant and daring impostures of Chatterton should have deceived any one. It is easy to -understand why an

ambitious pewterer like Burgum or shallow pedants like Barrett and

Catcott could have been taken in. But that they should for a

moment have been received as genuine by men of letters like Johnson,

and Goldsmith, and Walpole (who was' for a time at least deceived

although he afterwards denied it) is indeed astounding. 'The form

only is archaic, the sentiment is modern. Coleridge called them

Young-eyed poesy All deftly marked as hoar antiquity.

But the marking was not deftly done. The poems are full- of

anachronisms of style. anachronisms of historvy and anachronisrna of



460 The Irish Monthli.

language. For example in AUla blank verse is used whereas blank

verse was first introduced by Lord Surrey towards the middle of the

16th century. A great portion of EllIa is written in a stanza imitated

from Spenser but is in reality an invention of Chatterton, for I know

of no other poet who has used it. The stanza of Spenser, more

familiar to us perhaps as the Childe Harold stanza, is a very noble

form of verse, but any one who has ever tried to write it knowsv how

difficult a one it is. The stanza contains nine lines of which the 1st and

3rd rhyme together, the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th rhyme together, and then

the 6th, 8th and 9th rhyme together, the last line being an Alexandrine. The necessity of finding four and three rhymes in each stanza i's no

easy task. Chatterton got over the difficulty by a formula which' while it increased the stanza to 10 lines, abolished the triple rhyme and thereby a stanza originally compact and difficult was made loose

and easy. He continually makes mistakes in his rhymes, in the

meaning he attributes to old words and in alterations of old words so

as to secure a rhyme or to make a line scan for which there is no

authority. I have not time to dwell in detail on the mistakes of

language. If you would desire to know more on the subject, I would

refer you to the Essay by the Rev. Walter Skeat, prefixed to the 2nd

volume of the last Aldine edition of Chatterton. I may give you,

however, in passing one very striking instance of anachronism of language. There is a poem he calls afragment of a poem on Richard 1. which is supposed to have been written by a contemporaty, Johin, 2nd Abbot of St. Austin's Minster. It is written, however, not in the

English of the 12th century, as it should have been, but in the

English of the 14th century.

You are not to suppose that during the period covered by Chatterton's life in Bristol he was occupied entirely with the Rowley

Romance and the studies it involved, Occasional verses without

number, tales in verse, elegies, lyrics and songs innumerable flowed from his facile pen. There flowed two satires after the manner of

Junius, political and heraldic papers, prose contributions to Peter Farley's Journal, and later on to the Town and Country Magazine,, then the most popular London periodical, and to which he had established himself a constant contributor. All this work, however, brought him in no money. It was done for pure love of it and the pleasure of seeing himself in print. He grew tired at last of the

colourless monotony and irksome drudgery of his life, and his daring ambition turned to London as the proper sphere for the acquisition

of fame and fortune. He thought at first to find some patron like' the Canynge of his fancy by whom his genius was to be recognised d to whom all his plans and hopes were to be revealed and realised



flee Palace of Art. 461

with his assitance. He first tried Dodcley to whom he offeredADIla as the work of Rowley, sending the Song of AHla as a specimen, but

Dodsley did not reply to his communications. He then approached

Horace Walpole. He was probably attracted to him by the fact that

about three years before Walpole had produced his "Castle of

Otranto," professedly as a translation by one William Marshall

from an old Italian manuscript found in the library of an

ancient Catholic family in the north of England and printed in

Naples in the black letter in the year 1529. Walpole had shortly

before published his " Anecdotes of Painting," and as he had adapted his earlier ventures to the tastes of Burgum and Barret, Chatterton

sought to attract Walpole with a work he called "The Ryse of

Peyncteigne yn England, wroten by T. Roulsie, 1469, for Master

Canuynge," which he accompanied with notes and which he suggested

might be of service in any future edition of the Anecdotes. He also

sent another leaf from the Rowley Romance in the shape of a poem ae.cribed to John, 2nd Abbot of St. Augustine's, and offered more.

Walpole was undoubtedly at first taken in. His letter of reply is

dated 28 March, 1769. In it he thanks the writer for the MSS.,

which he accepts as genuine, hints an offer to undertake the expense of publishing them, praises the verses of Abbot John for their

harmony and spirit, and goes on to say that the Roiuleie tracts must

have been before John Van Eyok's discovery of oil-painting, which

confirmed what he had hinted in the Anecdotes that oil-painting was

known in England much earlier than that discovery. , Th-is letter'

induced Ohatterton to disclose who he was and -his humble circum stances, and he sent another instalment entitled, "A Historie of

Peyncters yn Englande, bie T. Rouleie," and an Ode entitled, War.

Walpole had been deceived not long before by the forgeries of.

Macpherson I have referred to, and he became suspicious. He

consulted Gray and Mason who pronounced the ispecimens modern

fabrications, and he wrote a letter of advice to Chatterton telling him

"when he should have made a fortune he might unbend himself

with the studies consonant to his inclinations." Three haughty letters

were written by Chatterton reiterating the authenticity of the MSS.

and demanding their return. The letters were never answered. Walpole went to Paris and on his return he sent the MSS. to Chatterton's

a:ddress. He thought no more of his correspondent until a year and

a -half later at the Royal Academy's dinner he heard his name

mentioned by Goldsmith with enthusiastic references to the treasures of ancient poetry he had brought to light, and' then learned, for the

frst tilme that the boy had come to London and had met his miserable

end.



482 The irtsh Monthly.

Chatterton was rudely awakened from his brilliant dream. The shattering of the hopes which the first letter of Walpole had

excited was a bitter blow. For a time his spirit reeled under the shock, and he went so far as to say he would destroy " all his useless lumber of literature and never use his pen again but in the law." But his indomitable energy and ambition soon caused the rebound, and, baffled in his attempt to gain the patronage of a modern Canynge, he determined to go to London and fight his battle unaided and alone. To get his. Indentures cancelled was the first step. He knew that Lambert would not and indeed could not cancel them voluntarily and so he had recourse to artifice. He wrote a document of very grim humour which he called his will. Amongst other bequests he bequeathed to Mr Matthew Mease a mourning ring with the motto

"Alas! poor Chatterton," provided he paid for it himself. He beqneathed to Burgum all his prosody and grammar, and to Bristol all

his spirit and disinterestedness, parcels of goods unknown on its quay

since the days of Canynge and Rowley. But the bequest on which he

rested for his emancipation waas a direction how he was to

be buried and a direction for his tomb, "after my death, which will happen to-morrow night before eight o'clock, being the Feast of the Resurrection." He added a codicil, "Iit is my pleasure that Mir Cocking and Miss Farley shall print this my will

the first Saturday after my death." He added an endorsiement "all this wrote between 11 and 2 in the utmost distress of mind

Saturday 14th." This singular production he purposely left open on

his desk that Lambert might read it. Lambert was frightenled out of

his wits and forthwith cancelled the Indentures. Then the boy bade

farewell to his sorrowing mother and sister and to St. Mary Redeliffe, and to all the cherished associations of his youth, and, with his

parchments and his manuscripts and a few guineas subscribed by Barrett, Burgum, the Catcotts, and a few others, he set sail on the perilous sea of London life where so many have gone down under its cruel waters for the few who have come safely into port. He reached London on the 25th April, 1770. He lived at first with a Mrs.

Balance, a distant relation, who lodged in Shoreditch with a plasterer and his wife. He was received with encouragement by Hamilton, editor of the Town and Country Magazine; Edwards, the editor of the 'Middlesex Journal, to both of whom he was known by name, and by Dodsley to whom he had offered 2Ella. Politics were

running high at the time and Chatterton's pen was freely made use of by the patriotic newspapers. Beckford, the author of "' Vathek," waa then Lord Mayor and had adopted the popular side. Chatterton had obtained an introduction to him and had much reliance on him for



TAe Palace of Art. 468

his f-uture success, but unfortunately BeckWord's sudden death on 21st

January deprived him of this- hope. His activity during the few

months of his London life was prodigious. H He contributed to

magazines and journals of every class. In them appeared the African

Eclogues, several sets of verses, musical extravaganzas, songs, political

essays and letters, and numerous light prose pieces suited to the tastes

of the day. He wrote some of those satires in verse, commenced

before he left Bristol, sparing neither friend nor foe, and which we

would wish he had never penned. He covers with unworthy and

ungrateful sarcasm the men in Bristol who had befriended him

according to their lights, and in coarse phrase- and unworthy allusion

he shows all too sadly and too well that youthful innocence and purity of thought had been irretrievably lost. He seems to have gone back

too to the Rowley Romance, for the " Balade of Charitie " belongs to

this -period. But all this work brought him little or no money.

Editors of magazines and political newspapers were glad enough to

avail themselves of his brilliant and caustic pen. Their ability or

willingness to pay was more doubtful. He was absolutely dependent now for existence on the proceeds, of his literary labour and the

actual cash he received was very small indeed. For 16 songs in the

burletta of the "IRevenge" he got IOs. 6d. or less than 8d. a song.

Hle moved about from one poor lodging to another still poorer. -He

was in actual physical want, but though his several kind-hearted

Jandladies, who pitied the lonely lad, would have cheerfully given

him -a meal, his pride would not admit his needs or accept their charity.

At last unable to dispose of more work and unable to get payment

for what he had done, towards the middle of August :his situation

became desperate. As a last forlorn hope, relying on the little

knowledge he had acquired from reading, he determined to go to sea

as a surgeon- if Barrett would give him what he called a "physical

characteri" - He applied to Barrett for the character whiich Barrett

declined, and I must say I think, properly declined to give. For a

few days after Barrett's refusal he lingered on in gradually increasing

destitution. His landlady, Mrs Angel, knowing that he had eaten

nothing for two days, begged that he would take some dinner with

her on the 24th August. He was quite offended at the invitation

which seemed to assume that he was in want, and assured her he

was not hungry. He had long abandoned all the religious impreions

of his childhood and had turned to the philosophic creed of that

eentury that death was an eternal sleep. During the night of that

24th August he poisoned himself with arsenic and died miserably

amidst the torn up fragments of his later works, which were found

littering the floor of hi& attic when the door was broken- open in the



464 The Irsh MonthlMs.

morning. He was buried in the common pit prepared for paupers m

the neighbouring burying ground of Shoo Lane Workhouse. " Alas !

poor Chatterton." A life of disappointment and unhappines and a

death solitary and without hope.

I have not offered, and do not intend to offer, any criticism of

Chatterton's works or to discuss the place he fills, or, if he had lived, -might have filled in English literature. I have attempted only to bring

before you the sal'ient points of a career of such singular fascination,

interest, and, I thinLk, instruction. I have done so with the view,

as I have said, of illustrating from life the first state of the soul in

the Palace of Art. I have u-sed him to show to what sad and dreary.

ending a soul may come to who, - however richly dowered with all

intellectual gifts, does not, from time to time, throw "her royal

robes away " for humble prayer. I will dismiss him now with the

w.ords in which Marlowe makes the Chorus lament the death of

Faustus: Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burn0d is Apollo's laurel bough.

R. P. CARTON.

(To be concluded next month.)

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.

(Written during the evening of a Bank-foliday, in a Thames-8ide village

near London).

ARE these thy daughters, Erin, mother mine, 'These, that with arms upwaved and tresses bare

Are flaunting by the tavern in the squaare

These girl-bacchantes with the streaming hair,

Say, weeping mother, dost thou call them thine ?

A song is sung thy proud lips never knew: I hear loud laughter in the evil street,

They trip the lilting tune with flying feet,

And English revellers watch the " Irish crew."

O grey-blue eyes that innocent should be,

Wildly ye rove, or gaze in vacant bliss;

Young lips, empoisoned with the tankard's kiss,

Why breathe,ye not pure Erin's majesty ?

Sc X $



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