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THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 13 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS See also:CHATTERTON (1752-1770)  , See also:English poet, was See also:born at See also:Bristol on the 2oth of See also:November 1752 . His See also:pedigree has a curious significance . The See also:office of See also:sexton of St See also:Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, one of the most beautiful See also:parish churches in See also:England, had been transmitted for nearly two centuries in the Chatter-ton See also:family; and throughout the brief See also:life of the poet it was held by his See also:uncle, See also:Richard See also:Phillips . The poet's See also:father, See also:Thomas See also:Chatterton, was a musical See also:genius, somewhat of a poet, a numismatist, and a dabbler in occult arts . He was one of the sub-chanters of Bristol See also:cathedral, and See also:master of the See also:Pyle See also:Street See also:free school, near Redcliffe See also:church . But whatever hereditary tendencies may have been transmitted from the father, the See also:sole training of the boy necessarily devolved on his See also:mother, who was in the See also:fourth See also:month of her widowhood at the See also:time of his See also:birth . She established a girls' school, took in sewing and ornamental See also:needlework, and so brought up her two See also:children, a girl and a boy, till the latter attained his eighth See also:year, when he was admitted to See also:Colston's Charity . But the Bristol See also:blue-coat school, in which the curriculum was limited to See also:reading, See also:writing, See also:arithmetic and the Church See also:Catechism, had little See also:share in the See also:education of its marvellous See also:pupil . The hereditary See also:race of sextons had come to regard the church of St Mary Redcliffe as their own peculiardomain; and, under the guidance of his uncle, the See also:child found there his favourite haunt . The knights, ecclesiastics and civic dignitaries, recumbent on its See also:altar tombs, became his See also:familiar associates; and by and by, When he was able to spell his way through the See also:inscriptions graven on their monuments, he found a fresh See also:interest in certain See also:quaint oaken chests in the See also:muniment See also:room over the See also:porch on the See also:north See also:side of the See also:nave, where See also:parchment deeds, old as the See also:Wars of the See also:Roses, See also:long See also:lay unheeded and forgotten . They formed the child's playthings almost from his See also:cradle . He learned his first letters from the illuminated capitals of an old musical See also:folio, and learned to read out of a See also:black-See also:letter See also:Bible .

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:John Kersey's Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum, and Prof . W . W . See also:Skeat seems to think his knowledge of even Chaucer was very slight . His holidays were mostly spent at his mother's See also:house; and much of them in the favourite See also:retreat of his attic study there . He had already conceived the See also:romance of Thomas See also:Rowley, an imaginary See also:monk of the 15th century, and lived for the most See also:part in an ideal world of his own, in that See also:elder time when See also:Edward IV. was England's See also:king, and Master See also:William Canynge—familiar to him among the recumbent See also:effigies in Redcliffe church—still ruled in Bristol's civic See also:chair . Canynge is represented as an enlightened See also:patron of literature, and Rowley's dramatic interludes were written for performance at his house . In See also:order to See also:escape a See also:marriage urged by the king, Canynge retired to the See also:college of See also:Westbury in See also:Gloucestershire, where he enjoyed the society of Rowley, and eventually became See also:dean of the institution . In " The Storie of William Canynge," one of the shorter pieces of his ingenious romance, his early See also:history is recorded . Straight was I carried back to times of yore, Whilst Canynge swathed yet in fleshly See also:bed, And saw all actions which had been before, And all the See also:scroll of See also:Fate unravelled; And when the fate-marked babe acome to sight, I saw him eager gasping after See also:light .

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:Henry VI. and his poet See also:laureate, John See also:Lydgate . Among the Bristol patrons of Chatterton were two pewterers, See also:George Catcott and his partner Henry Burgum . Catcott was one of the most zealous believers in Rowley, and continued to collect his reputed writings long after the See also:death of their real author . On Burgum, who had risen in life by his own exertions, the blue-coat boy palmed off the de Bergham pedigree, and other equally apocryphal evidences of the pewterer's descent from an ancestry old as the See also:Norman See also:Conquest . The de Bergham quartering, blazoned on a piece of parchment doubtless recovered from the Redcliffe muniment chest, was itself supposed to have lain for centuries in that See also:ancient depository . The pedigree was professedly collected by Chatterton from See also:original records, including " The Rowley MSS." The pedigree still exists in Chatterton's own See also:handwriting, copied into a book in which he had previously transcribed portions of See also:antique verse, under the See also:title of " Poems by Thomas Rowley, priest of St . John's, in the See also:city of Bristol "; and in one of these, " The See also:Tournament," Syrr Johan de Berghamme plays a conspicuous part . The ennobled pewterer rewarded Chatterton with five shillings, and was satirized for this valuation of a See also:noble pedigree in some of Chatterton's latest verse . On the 1st of See also:July 1767, Chatterton was transferred to the office of John See also:Lambert, See also:attorney, to whom he was See also:bound apprentice as a clerk . There he was See also:left much alone; and after fulfilling the routine duties devolving on him, he found leisure for his own favourite pursuits . An ancient See also:stone See also:bridge on the See also:Avon, built in the reign of Henry II., and altered by many later additions into a singularly picturesque but inconvenient thoroughfare, had been displaced by a structure better adapted to See also:modern requirements .

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 See also: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:Charles Bawdin," a ballad celebrating the death of the Lancastrian See also:knight, Charles See also:Baldwin; " IElla," a "Tragycal Enterlude," as Chatterton styles it, but in reality a dramatic poem of sustained See also:power and curious originality of structure; " Goddwyn," a dramatic fragment; " Tournament," " See also:Battle of See also:Hastings," " The See also:Parliament of Sprites," " Balade of Charitie," with numerous shorter pieces, forming altogether a volume of poetry, the rare merit of which is indisputable, wholly apart from the fact that it was the See also:production of a See also:mere boy . Unfortunately for him, his ingenious romance had either to be acknowledged as his own creation, and so in all See also:probability be treated with See also:con-tempt, or it had to be sustained by the manufacture of See also:spurious antiques . To this accordingly Chatterton resorted, and found no difficulty in gulling the most learned of his credulous dupes with his parchments . The literary labours of the boy, though diligently pursued at his See also:desk, were not allowed to interfere with the duties of Mr Lambert's office . Nevertheless the Bristol attorney used to See also:search his apprentice's drawer, and See also:tear up any poems or other See also:manuscripts that he could lay his hands upon; so that it was only during the absences of Mr Lambert from Bristol that he was able to expend his unemployed time in his favourite pursuits . But repeated allusions, both by Chatterton and others, seem to indicate that such intervals of freedom were of frequent occurrence . Some of his modern poems, such as the piece entitled " Resignation," are of great beauty; and these, with the satires, in which he took his revenge on all the local celebrities whose vanity or meanness had excited his ire, are alone sufficient to fill a volume . The Catcotts, Burgum, Barrett and others of his patrons, figure in these satires, in imprudent yet discriminating See also:caricature, along with mayor, aldermen, See also:bishop, dean and other notabilities of Bristol .

Phoenix-squares

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:Hill, Bristol . To this, as well as to another letter enclosing an See also:extract from the tragedy of "fElla," no answer appears to have been returned . Chatter-ton, conceiving the See also:idea of finding sympathy and aid at the See also:hand of some modern Canynge, bethought him of See also:Horace See also:Walpole, who not only indulged in a See also:medieval See also:renaissance of his own,' but was the reputed author of a spurious antique in the See also:Castle of See also:Otranto . He wrote to him offering him a document entitled " The Ryse of Peyncteyne yn Englande, wroten by T . Rowleie, 1469, for Mastre Canynge," accompanied by notes which included specimens of Rowley's poetry . To this Walpole replied with courteous acknowledgments . He characterized the verses as " wonderful for their See also:harmony and spirit," and added, " Give me leave to ask you where Rowley's poems are to be had ? I should not be sorry to See also:print them; or at least a specimen of them, if they have never been printed." Chatterton replied, enclosing additional specimens of antique verse, and telling Walpole that he was the son of a poor widow, and clerk to an attorney, but had a taste for more refined studies; and he hinted a wish that he might help him to some more congenial occupation . Walpole's manner underwent an abrupt See also:change . The specimens of verse had been submitted to his See also:friends See also:Gray and See also:Mason, the poets, and pronounced modern . They did not thereby forfeit the wonderful harmony and spirit which Walpole had already professed to recognize in them .

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 See also:Junius—then in the full See also:blaze of his See also: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 Junius, under the nom de plume of Decimus . He had also been a contributor to See also:Hamilton's Town and County Magazine, and speedily found access to the Freeholder's Magazine, another political See also:miscellany strong for Wilkes and See also:liberty .

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: