Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

Thou see'st this mastery of a human hand,
The pride of Bristol, and the western land.
Yet is the builder's virtue much more great;
Greater than can by Rowley's pen be scann'd.
Thou see'st the saints and kings in stony state,
As if with breath and human soul expand.
Well may'st thou be astounded—view it well;
Go not from hence before thou see thy fill,
And learn the builder's virtues and his name.
Of this tall spire in every country tell,
And with thy tale the lazy rich men shame;
Show how the glorious Canning did excel;
How he, good man, a friend for kings became,
And glorious paved at once the way to heaven and fame."

The "Battle of Hastings" is the longest of Chatterton's poems, and the reader who arrives at its abrupt termination will probably not grieve that it is left unfinished. The whole contains about 1300 lines in stanzas of ten, describing archery fights and heroic duels that are rather tedious by their similarity, and offensive from the smell of the shambles; and which any quick-witted stripling with the knack of rhyming might perhaps have done as well, and less coarsely, after reading Chapman's or Ogilby's Homer, or the fighting scenes in Spenser, the Border Ballads, &c. But even this composition is not unconscious of the true afflatus, such as is incommunicable by learning, not to be inhaled by mere imitative powers, and which might be vainly sought for in hundreds of highly elaborated prize poems.

There is nothing more interesting in British history than the subject; and it is one which Chatterton, with all his genius, was much too young to treat in a manner at all approaching to epic completeness. Yet a few specimens might show that he is not deficient in the energy of the Homeric poetry of action. But here is metal more attractive, a young Saxon wife:—

"White as the chalky cliffs of Britain's isle,
Red as the highest-coloured Gallic wine,
Gay as all nature at the morning smile,
Those hues with pleasance on her lips combine;
Her lips more red than summer evening's skies,
Or Phœbus rising in a frosty morn;
Her breast more white than snow in fields that lies,
Or lily lambs that never have been shorn,
Swelling like bubbles in a boiling well,
Or new-burst brooklets gentling whispering in the dell,

"Brown as the filbert dropping from the shell,
Brown as the nappy ale at Hocktide game—
So brown the crooked rings that neatly fell
Over the neck of that all-beauteous dame.
Grey as the morn before the ruddy flame
Of Phœbus' chariot rolling through the sky;
Grey as the steel-horn'd goats Conyan made tame—
So grey appear'd her featly sparkling eye.

"Majestic as the grove of oaks that stood
Before the abbey built by Oswald king;
Majestic as Hibernia's holy wood,
Where saints, and souls departed, masses sing—
Such awe from her sweet look far issuing,
At once for reverence and love did call.
Sweet as the voice of thrushes in the spring,
So sweet the words that from her lips did fall.

"Taper as candles laid at Cuthbert's shrine,
Taper as silver chalices for wine,
So were her arms and shape.—
As skilful miners by the stones above
Can ken what metal is inlaid below,
So Kennewalcha's face, design'd for love,
The lovely image of her soul did show.
Thus was she outward form'd; the sun, her mind,
Did gild her mortal shape and all her charms refined."

The next poem, and the last of the modern-antiques that it may be worth while to note, is the story of William Canning, the illustrious founder of Redcliff Church, and is worthy of the author and his subject.

"Anent a brooklet as I lay reclined,
Listening to hear the water glide along,
Minding how thorough the green meads it twined,
While caves responded to its muttering song,
To distant-rising Avon as it sped,
Where, among hills, the river show'd his head.

Engarlanded with crowns of osier-weeds,
And wreaths of alders of a pleasant scent.

"Then from the distant stream arose a maid,
Whose gentle tresses moved not to the wind.
Like to the silver moon in frosty night,
The damsel did come on so blithe and bright.
No broider'd mantle of a scarlet hue,
No peakèd shoon with plaited riband gear,
No costly paraments of woaden blue;
Nought of a dress but beauty did she wear;
Naked she was, and looked sweet of youth,
And all betoken'd that her name was Truth."

The few words then spoken by this angelical lady—who unhappily favoured Chatterton but with "angel visits, short and far between"—throw him into a reverie on the life of William Canning, whose boyhood was more fortunate than the poet's; for it is here reported of Canning, that

"He ate down learning with the wastlecake."

Chatterton, poor fellow, had neither fine bread to eat, nor fine learning within the possibility of his acquisition. Yet even the worthy Corporation of his native city will, we doubt not, be willing to allow that the Blue-Coat Charity boy might be entitled to the praise he gives Canning in the next couplet: that he—

"As wise as any of the Aldermen,
Had wit enough to make a Mayor at ten."

We have limited these slight notices to the Rowley Poems; and such readers of our extracts as have been repelled from the perusal of those poems, by the formidable array of uncouth diction and strange spelling, may enquire what has become of the hard words. Here are long quotations, and not an obsolete term or unfamiliar metre among them. Chatterton took great pains to encrust his gold with verd-antique; it requires little to remove the green rubbish from the coin. By the aid of little else than his own glossary, "the Gode Preeste Rowleie, Aucthoure," is restored to his true form and pressure, and is all the fairer for the renovation.

We have no space for examination of the "numerous verse," and verses numerous, that Chatterton left undisguised by barbarous phraseology. His modern poems, morally exceptionable as is much of the matter, are affluent of the genius that inspired the old. African Eclogues, Elegies, Political Satires, Amatory Triflings, Lines on the Copernican System, the Consuliad, Lines on Happiness, Resignation, The Art of Puffing, and Kew Gardens—to say nothing of his equally remarkable prose writings—attest the versatility of his powers, and the variety of his perception of men and manners. His knowledge of the world appears to have been almost intuitive; for surely no youth of his years ever displayed so much. Bristol, it is true, was, of all great towns in England, one of the most favourable to the development of his peculiar and complicated faculties. His passion for antiquarian lore, and his poetical enthusiasm, found a nursing mother in a city so rich in ancient architecture, heraldic monuments, and historical interest; his caustic humour was amply fed from the full tide of human life, with all its follies, in that populous mart; and his exquisite sensibility to the beautiful and magnificent in nature, was abundantly ministered to by the surrounding country. We are told that he had been by some odd chance taught his alphabet, and his first lesson in "reading made easy," out of a black-letter Bible! That accident may have had its share in forming his taste for old-fashioned literature. But he was an attorney's clerk! The very name of a lawyer's office seems to suggest a writ of ejectment against all poetical influences in the brain of his indented apprentice. Yet Chatterton's anomalous genius was in all likelihood fostered by that dark, yet subtle atmosphere. His duty of copying precedents must have initiated him in many of the astute wiles and twisted lines of reasoning that lead to what is termed sharp practice, and so may have confirmed and aided his propensities to artifice; while the mere manual operation tutored his fingers to dexterity at quaint penmanship. He had much leisure too; for it is recorded that his master's business seldom occupied him more than two hours a-day. He was left to devote the rest of his time unquestioned to all the devices of an inordinate imagination.

After all, it is no unreasonable charity to believe, that what was unworthy and unsound in his character, and probably in his physical temperament, might, under more auspicious circumstances of condition and training, have been kept in check till utterly expelled by the force of his own maturer mind. In weighing his faults against his genius and its better fruits, it should never be forgotten that when he terminated his existence he was only seventeen years and nine months old.

"More wounds than nature gave he knew,
While misery's form his fancy drew
In dark ideal hues and horrors not its own."[39 - T. Warton's "Suicide."]