A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century

Chatt

omanticism has its trage

Chatt

arvelo

ul that perished

d leaving out of question the absolute value of the Rowley poems, it is most instructive as to the cond

haps it may be more than an idle fancy to attribute to heredity the bent which Chatterton's genius took spontaneously and almost from infancy; to guess that some mysterious ante-natal influence-"striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound"-may have set vibrating links of unconscious association running back through the centuries. Be this as it may, Chatterton was the child of Re

edcliffe Hill and in close neighborhood to St. Mary's. The church itself-"the pride of Bristowe and the western land"-is described as "one of the finest parish churches in England,"[3] a rich specimen of late Gothic or "decorated" style; its building or restoration dating from the middle of the fifteenth century. Chatterton's uncle by marriage, Richard Phillips, had become sexton in 1748, and the boy had the run of the ai

an angel with wings and a trumpet," he answered, when asked what device he would choose for the little earthenware bowl that had been promised him as a gift.[4] Colston's Hospital, where he was put to school, was built on the site of a demolished monastery of Carmelite Friars; the scholars wore blue coats, with metal plates on their breasts stamped with the image of a dolphin, the armorial crest of the founder, and had their hair cropped sho

f down, fix his eyes upon the church, and seem as if he were in a kind of trance. Then on a sudden he would tell me: 'That steeple was burnt down by lightning: that was the place where they formerly acted plays.'" "Among his early studies," we are told, "antiquities, and especially the surroundings of medieval life, were the favorite

eminding one of the child martyr in Chaucer's "Prior

ild his litel

the scole a

demptoris'

lerned hir

n boughs, but through the treetops of the Episcopal gardens discolored by the lancet wi

s, sitting wit

to consecrate mor

e discovered in old records and documents, such as Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester, and Sir Theobald Gorges, a knight of Wraxhall, near Bristol; together with others entirely of his own invention-as John a Iscam, whom he represents to have been a canon of St. Augustine's Abbey in Bristol; and especially one Thomas Rowley, parish priest of St. John's, employed by Canynge to collect manuscripts and antiquities. He was his poet laureate and father confessor, and to him Chatterton ascribed most of the verses which pass under the general name of the Rowley poems. But Iscam was also a poet and Master Canynge himself sometimes burst into song. Samples of the Iscam and the Canynge muse diversify the collection. The great Bristol merchant was a mediaeval Maecenas, and at his house, "nempned

o the soil, that brought passion and poetry into his historical pursuits. With Chatterton, too, this absorption in the past derived its intensity from his love of place. Bristol was his world; in "The Battle of Hastings," he did not forget to introduce a Bristowan contingent, led by a certain fabulous Alfwold, and performing prodigies of valor upon the Normans. The image of mediaeval life which he succeeded in creating was, of course, a poor, faint simulacrum, compared with Scott's. He lacked

hese chests, known as Master Canynge's coffer, had been broken open some years before, and whatever was of value among its contents removed to a place of safety. The remainder of the parchments had been left scattered about, and

764, and the "Reliques," only in the year following. The latter was certainly known to Chatterton; many of the Rowley poems, "The Bristowe Tragedie," e.g., and the ministrel songs in "Aella," show ballad influence[6]; while it seems not unlikely that Chatterton was moved to take a hint from the disguise-slight as it was-assumed by Walpole in the preface to his romance.[7] But perhaps this was not needed to suggest to Chatterton that the surest way to win attention to his poems would be to ascribe them to some fictitious bard of the Middle Ages. It was the day of literary forgery; the Ossian controversy was raging, and the tide of popular favor set strongly toward the antique. A series of avowed imitations of old English poetry, however clever, would have had small success. But the discovery of a hitherto unknown fifteen-century poet was an

parchment emblazoned with the "de Bergham," coat-of-arms, which he pretended to have found in St. Mary's Church, furnishing him also with two copy-books, in which were transcribed the "de Bergham," pedigree, together with three poems in pseudo-antique spelling. One of these, "The Tournament," described a joust in which figured one Sir

y of Bristol," published some twenty years later. He also imparted to Barrett two Rowleian poems, "The Parliament of Sprites," and "The Battle of Hastings" (in two quite different versions). In September, 1768, a new bridge was opened at Bristol over the Avon; and Chatterton, who had now been apprenticed to an attorney, took advantage of the occasion to send anonymously to the printer of Farley's Bristol Journal a description of the mayor's first passing over the old bridge in the reign of Henry II. This was composed in obsolete language and

hose tastes as a virtuoso, a lover of Gothic, and a romancer might be counted on to enlist his curiosity in Chatterton's find. The document which he prepared for Walpole was a prose paper entitled "The Ryse of Peyncteynge yn Englande, wroten by T. Rowleie, 1469, for Mastre Canynge," and containing inter alia, the following extraordinary "anecdote of painting" about Afflem, an Anglo-Saxon glass-stainer of Edmond's reign who was taken prisoner by the Danes. "Inkarde, a soldyer of the Danes, was to slea hym; onne the Nete before the Feeste of Deathe hee founde Afflem to bee hys Broder Affrighte chanynede uppe hys soule. Gastnesse dwelled yn his Breaste. Oscarre, the greate Dane, gave

Rowley, and other imaginary characters, such as John, second abbot of St. Austin's Minster, who was the first En

yone! Shake

heynge steined

in a short note to Wa

ng may be of Service to you, in any future Edition of your truly entertaining Anecdotes of Painting.[9] In corr

s, should not have been able to comprehend Rowley's text." He asks where Rowley's poems are to be found, offers to print them, and pronounces the Abbot John's verses "wonderful for their harmony and spirit." This encouragement called out a second letter from Chatterton, with a

elle open to golp

at I would assist him with my interest in emerging out of so dull a profession, by procuring him someplace." Meanwhile, distrusting his own scholarship, Walpole had shown the manuscripts to his friends Gray and Mason, who promptly pronounced them modern fabrications and recommended him to return them without further notice. But Walpole, good-naturedly considering that it was no "grave crime in a young bard to have forged false notes of hand that were to pass

etime. He had now turned his pen to the service of politics, espousing the side of Wilkes and liberty. In April, 1770, he left Bristol for London, and cast himself upon the hazardous fortunes of a literary career. Most tragical is the story of the poor, unfriended l

f a Sad Dog," and the like. They exhibit a precocious cleverness, but have no value and no interest today. One gets from Chatterton's letters and miscellanies an unpleasant impression of his character. There is not only the hectic quality of too early ripeness which one detects in Keats' correspondence; and the defiant swagger, the affectation of wickedness and knowingness that one encounters in the youthful Byron, and that is apt to

ger. It was in April, 1771, that Walpole first heard of the fate of his would-be protégé. "Dining," he says, "at the Royal Academy, Dr. Goldsmith drew the attention of the company with an account of a marvelous treasure of ancient poems lately discovered at Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in them; for which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was present. I soon found this was the trouvaille of

m entitled "The Storie of William Canynge"; in another a prose account of one "Symonne de Byrtonne," and, in still others, the whole of the short-verse pieces, "Songe to Aella" and "The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast." These scraps of vellum are described as about six inches square, smeared with glue or brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced i

he authenticity of Rowley's poetry, as I had seen him inquire upon the spot into the authenticity of Ossian's poetry. Johnson said of Chatt

e variorum Shakspere, among others. Nevertheless, a controversy sprang up over Rowley, only less lively than the dispute about Ossian, which had been going on since 1760. Rowley's most prominent champions were the Rev. Dr. Symmes, who wrote in the London Review; the Rev. Dr. Sherwin, in the Gentleman's Magazine; Dr. Jacob Bryant,[12] and Jeremiah Milles, D.D., Dean of Exeter, who published a sumptuous quarto edition of the p

ess that a boy of Chatterton's age and imperfect education could have reared such an elaborate structure of deceit; together with the inferiority of his acknowledged writings to the poems that he ascribed to Rowley. But Tyrwhitt was a scholar of unusual thoroughness and acuteness; and, having a special acquaintance with early English, he was able to bring to the decision of the questio

verb, was alone enough to stamp the poems as spurious. Tyrwhitt also showed that the syntax, diction, idioms, and stanza forms were modern; that if modern words were substituted throughout for the antique, and the spelling modernized, the verse would read like eighteenth-century work. "If anyone," says Scott, in his review of the Southey and Cottle edition, "resists the internal evidence of the style of Rowley's poems, we make him welcome to the rest of the argument;

m was it, as

schyne a mor

er he made wi

er and parchment which he covered with imitations of ancient script, and which are now in the British Museum,-"The Yellow Roll," "The Purple Roll," etc.,-he inserted the following title in "The Rolls of St. Bartholomew

iod than of any other. The spelling of the words is frequently too late, or too bizarre, whilst many of the words themselves are too archaic or too uncommon."[14] But this internal evidence, which was so satisfactory to Scott, was so little convincing to Chatterton's contemporaries that Tyrwhitt felt called upon to publish in 1782 a "Vindication" of his appendix; and Thomas Warton put forth in the same year an "Enquiry," in which he reached practically the s

ionaries. Next he wrote his poem in modern English, and finally rewrote it, substituting the archaic words for their modern equivalents, and altering the spelling throughout into an exaggerated imitation of the antique spelling in Speght's Chaucer. The mistakes that the he made are instructive, as showing how closely he followed his authorities, and how little independent know

rtue's gare rhym

ttle luck dese

loo. But Kersey and Bailey misprint this "hollow"; and Chatterton, entering it so in his manuscrip

des for to tell

ords to tell

," but where did Chatterton get it? Mr. Skeat explains this. Heck is a provincial word signifying "rack," i.e., "hay-rack"; but Kersey misprinted it "rock," and Chatterton followed him. A typical instance of the kind of error

velin lisseth

ce, such as hopelen=hopelessness, and anere=another. Skeat says, that "an analysis of the glossary in Milles's edition shows that the genuine old English words correctly used, occurring in the Rowleian dialect, amount to only about seven per cent, of all the old words employed." It is probable that, by constant use of

Chatterton the greatest genius that England had produced since Shakspere. Professor Masson permits himself to say: "The antique poems of Chatterton are perhaps as worthy of being read consecutively as many portions of the poetry of Byron, Shelley, or Keats. There are passages in them, at least, quite equal to any to be found in these poets."[18] Mr. Gosse seems to me much nearer the truth: "Our estimate of the complete originality of the Rowley poems must be tempered by a recollection of the existence of 'The Castle of Otranto' and 'The Schoolmistress,' of the popularity of Percy's 'Reliques' and the 'Odes' of Gray, and of the revival of a taste for Gothic literature and art which dates from Chatterton's infancy. Hence the claim whi

nd generally regarded as Chatterton's masterpiece.[20] The scene of this tragedy is Bristol and the neighboring Watchet Mead; the period, during the Danish invasions. The hero is the warden of Bristol Castle.[21] While he is absent on a victorious campaign against the Danes, his bride, Bertha, is decoyed from home by his treacherous lieutenant, Celmond, who is about to ravish her in the forest, when he is surprised and killed by a band of marauders. Meanwhile Aella has returned home, and finding that his wife has fled, stabs himself mortally. Bertha arrives in time to hear his dying speech and make the necessary explanations, and then dies herself

stol. Celm

k with night; th

n her pallid li

es the silent c

iries joining

ineth with th

ove be sated

of some swift

banquet I wil

se; quickly, ye

a se

tha straight, a str

, mostly in the ten-lined stanza. "English Metamorphosis" is an imitation of a passage in "The Fa?rie Queene," (book ii. canto x. stanzas 5-19). "The Parliament of Sprites" is an interlude played by Carmelite friars at William Canynge's house on the occasion of the

more cast in

antry-song sou

masses to ou

ss-aisles and t

f-hidden silver

moon in foggy

this building

clouds the hol

ghts grow old,

n again, to s

founded on an historical fact: the excecution at Bristol, in 1461, of Sir Baldwin Fulford, who fought on the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses. The best quality in Chatterton's verse is it

zing in the w

ilbert dropping

nchèd with the

t here the sweetè

cking brooklet

oody carnage

ld did gleam with th

nted oars from

ices rare, do s

es, when the mo

cles dance up

tures fly far f

race of des

e that elfin

l wander to Kin

ry genius William Blake[24]-is perhaps seen at its best in one of the minstrel songs in "Aella." This

raven fla

riared d

eath owl lo

htmares, a

ve is

his de

r the wi

e moon shines

my true-lo

an the mo

n the even

is dea

ith many of the poet's schoolmates and fellow-townsmen, and visited his mother and sister, who told him anecdotes of the marvelous boy's childhood and gave him some of his letters. Croft also traced Chatterton's footsteps in London, where he interviewed, among others, the coroner who had presided at the inquest over the suicide's body. The result of these inquiries he gave to the world in a book entitled "Love and Madness" (1780).[26] Southey thought that Croft ha

ed in St. Mary Redcliffe's Church to the Misses Edith and Sara Fricker. Coleridge was greatly interested in

bard, the

ch earth seemed

poverty's drea

d Lovell, he had addressed the dead poet in his indignant "Monody on the Death of Chatt

, that thou w

st spread thy ca

us the tinklin

freedom's un

r eve would ro

tured on thy

smiles the yo

sked as hoar

ve to follow

nnah pours his

ll, whose fore

murmurs of hi

solemn ceno

f time-shroude

"Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," and "The Darke Ladye" would still have been; and yet it is possible that they might not have been just

hath paced

a rose

r heads befo

ry mins

s th

guest here be

rd the lou

tion from certain stanzas of "Th

m went the

et robes

spangling

rious to

th

nt parts a

tly they

backs six m

he strung b

heir crew. Byron, indeed, said that he was insane; but Shelley, in "Adonais," classes him with Keats among "the inheritors of unfulfilled renown." Lord Houghton testifies that Kea

ay soft hum

me, and think on

French idiom or particles, like Chaucer." In a letter from Jane Porter to Keats about the reviews of his "Endymion," she wrote: "Had Chatterton possessed sufficient manliness of mind to

rom Chatterton. In his unfinished poem, "The Eve of St. Mark," there is a Rowleian accent in the passage imitative

in smallest crow-quill

w of St. Mary Redcliffe falling acro

was a ma

th' old Mi

ireside sh

its rich

Bishop's ga

ncient belfry to the sound of the drowsy chimes. Rossetti, in so many ways a continuator of Keats' artistry,

ome-loves, no

den stair thy

ire; and in the w

ord-play:-thes

ever; as thy

m of thine un

les Diables Bleus," afterward dramatized as "Chatterton," and first played at Paris on February 12, 1835, with great success. De Vigny made a love tragedy out of it, inventing a sweetheart for his hero, in the person of Kitty Bell, a rol

no one thought of it. More than one, as in that assembly of impossible professions which Theodore de Banville describes with so resigned an irony, could have cried without falsehood 'I am a lyric poet and I live by my profession.' One who has not passed through that mad, ardent, over-excited but generous epoch, cannot imagine to what a forgetfulness of material existence the in

"Resolution an

nuary

n the Rowley Poems by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat and a Memoir

tterton's Poetical Works," Ca

by Edward Be

ttle of Hast

e pinion, that

smoking crimso

295). To be sure the ballad was widely curre

ante,

comments as follows: "While Chatterton wrote plain narrative, he imitated with considerable success the dry, concise style of an antique ann

edition 1768. Chatterton's le

e ante,

ow first published from the most authentic copies, with engraved specimens of one of the MSS. To which are added a preface, an

n the Poems of Thomas

fteenth century by Thomas Rowley, Priest, etc. With a comment

Skeat's edition of "Chatterton's P

roversy, consult the article on Chatterton

mes! It gars me gre

nte, p

y of the Year 1770," by

h Century Liter

s to the Rowley series," as a whole, he does "not hesitate to say that they contain some of the finest poetry in our language" (p. 39). The Choric "Ode to Free

264-307, the description of a drawing of this building in 1

s metrical originality, see "Ward's

Loo

k Ages . . . of whom the world was not worthy." Mr. Rossetti has pointed out his obligations to Ossia

d the romantic habit of sitting up all night

Gregory, 1789, (reprinted and prefixed to the South

to men. The romantic love of color is observable in

iven in Lord Houghton's memoir. "Life and Letters of John Keats":

, Shelley. "The absolutely miraculous Ch

du Romantisme

and Herman, was played at the Prin