-P. Loft preferred before P. Regained. He is known to have pronounced Dryden to be no poet. M. more from inclination than want of bread, it feems, entered into party disputes, whether a king might be lawfully beheaded, &c. with a fervility and a virulence, and let out his praife to hire with a meannefs, at all periods of his life, which the worst enemies of C. cannot prove him to have equalled. M. in affluence (if compared with others befide C.) felt on his brows thofe laurels which others could not fee; and was perfuaded, that, by labour and in"tense study, his portion ❝ in this life, he might leave "fomething fo written to " after- times, as they should "not willingly let it die." P. Loft produced the author and his widow only 23 pounds. The meaner, more fervile, and more verfatile abilities of the au thor a either to be an author or a critic, had not poffeffed chafter judgement, he would not fill impose on fo many critics and authors. C. in order to procure bread for himself, a grandmother, mother, and fister, was ready to prove the patriotism of Bute, or of Beckford, in writings, which older men need not blush to own, and in an age when older men did not blush as fuch a profession. C. fteeped to the lips in poverty, entertained, long before he had lived 18 years, ideas, hopes, perfuafions (by labour and intense ftudy, more truly his portion in this life than M.'s) of living to all eternity in the memory of Fame. Mr. Catcott and Mr. Barrett muft inform the world whether Rowley's poems and his own together pro cured C. 28 fhillings.. thor produced him indeed enough to be deprived of four thousand pounds by ill fortune, and to leave 15 hundred pounds to his family. Phillips relates of M. from his own mouth, that "his vein never happily "flowed but from the au"tumnal equinox to the ❝vernal." -Richardfon writes, that his poetical "faculty would on a fud"den rush upon him with "an impetus or æftrum.” M. when a man, seldom drank any thing ftrong he ate with delicacy and temperance. M.'s hiftorians and grand daughter admit his morofenefs to his children, and that he would not let them learn to write. What is faid of C. and of the moon's effect upon him, you have read. C. when a boy, hardly ever touched meat, and drank only water; when a child he would often refufe to take any thing but bread and water, even if it did happen that his mother had a hot meal, "because he had a work "in hand, and he muft "not make himself more ftupid than God had "made him." C.'s mother, his fifter, and his letters, can speak beft of his heart, and of his wifes that his fifter might learn every thing. Into this parallel C.'s literary impofitions on mankind, and the circumftance of his carrying the secret out of the world with him, are not taken. Before I conclude this long fcrawl, fuffer me to observe, that the brother of him who wrote the Effay on the Genius of Pope (of whom both, whether deservedly or undeservedly, have received from the hands of Literature that independence for which Chatterton courted her) might furely have concluded his criticism on Rowley, without ftudying to heap fo many epithets of abhorrence upon that boy, whom at the fame time he seems to confider as Rowley, i. e. as the most extraordinary inftance of genius the world ever faw. Warton finishes with faying, that Chatterton was "an (1) adventurer, a pro"feffed (2) hireling in the trade of literature, "full of (3) projects and invention, (4) artful, "(5) enterprifing, (6) unprincipled, (7) indi"gent, and (8) compelled to subsist by expe"dients." (Addition to p. 164. Hift. of Engl. Poetry, vol. ii.) That prophets are not ho noured in their own country, I have heard; but I never till now knew that poets are so little honoured in their own country, and in their own profeffion. After all of these epithets and phrases phrafes bestowed by the author of the Triumph of Ifis, in the moft mature and charitable part of his life, upon the juvenile author of Rowley's poems, 1. 2. 8. do not convey very shocking ideas of criminality-3. 4. 5. may be conftrued into praise-7. is not a very unpardonable fault in C. except that this, together with ambition, and a defire to provide for his grand-mother, mother, and fifter, laid the foundation of the fix crimes already enumerated-6. is abfolutely falfe.. With regard to C.'s face and perfon, all agree that he was a manly, good-looking boy—that there was fomething about him which inftantaneously prepoffeffed you in his favour. Mr. Barrett and Mr. Catcott, as well as all who remember him, speak particularly of his eye. Catcott fays he could never look at it long enough to see what fort of an eye it was; but it seemed to be a kind of a hawk's eye, he thinks; you could fee his foul through it.-Mr. Barrett fays, he took particular notice of his eyes from the nature of his profeffion. He never faw fuch. One was ftill more remarkable than the other. You might fee the fire roll at the bottom of them, as you fometimes do in a black eye, but never in grey ones, which his were. Mr. Barrett adds adds, that he used often to send for him from the charity-school (which is close to his house) and differ from him in opinion, on purpose to make him earnest, and to see how wonderfully his eye would ftrike fire, kindle, and blaze up. So ends what I have to say about Chatterton, when I fhall have just observed that his innocent impofition on the world is exactly the story of M. Angelo's buried ftatue of Cupid; and, finally, that Mifs More is oftener boafted by Bristol, and acquired more fame and wealth, for an Ode to Garrick's dog, than C. for all R.'s poems. Prefix to this letter, if you please, the comforting discovery of Lord Shaftesbury in his Characteristics, that "an ingenious man never ftarves unknown." Such a being as C. fhould not have been fuffered to ftarve at all. But comfort like this is to be expected from "Knights and Barons." Bards may be Lords, but 'tis not in the cards, The employment has been of the service to me you meant it should. In fome measure I have forgotten myself, and, as much as it was poffible, forgotten my M. during the hours I have spent upon this bufinefs. If the ftory be not told as regularly as it might, the fituation of my mind. with regard to you must be my excufe. Befide, were I cold enough to tell fuch a tale as ChatY terton's |