CHAP. XIII. Was this intended for Mr. Barrett, or was it Mr. Lambert he had in view? It was for either no unmerited return. No wonder that, in the last letter he ever wrote, he refers, in bitter irony, to a correspondent from Bristol, who has raised his admiration to the highest pitch by informing him that an appearance of spirit and generosity had crept into its niches of avarice and meanness.

CHAPTER XIV.

DESPAIR AND DEATH.

*

CHAP. XIV.

Last pice

of writing.

A happy resurrection

of Genius.

ON the 12th of August, 1770, Chatterton penned the last piece of writing of which any distinct account has been preserved, if we except the fragments which littered the floor of the room in which he died. There is indeed a story told, in more than one form, of a still later letter received by his mother, in which he stated that, wandering a few days before in some London churchyard, he was so lost in thought that he did not perceive a newly opened grave till he fell into it. According to Mr. Dix's version, it occurred in St. Pancras Churchyard, and within three days of his death. He was accompanied by a friend, who, as he helped him out again, jestingly congratulated him on the happy resurrection of Genius; but Chatterton, taking him by the arm, replied, with a sad smile: "My dear friend, I feel the sting of a speedy dissolution. I have been at war with the grave for some time, and find it is not so easy to vanquish as I imagined. We can find an asylum from every creditor but that."1 It is difficult to conceive of any confidential friend in London to whom Chatterton would unbosom himself in such a fashion. In all probability this apocryphal narrative is only an improved version of the more probable account Mrs. Edkins gives, of being sent for by Mrs. Chatterton the week before she heard of her son's death, when she found her in tears over a letter just Final letter received. In this he had narrated the incident of his stumbling into an open grave; but added, with characteristic humour, "it was not the quick and the dead together;" 1 Dix's Life, p. 290.

to his

mother.

CHAP. XIV. for he found the sexton under him, and still able to pursue his work.

Last linger ing hope.

Snatching at illusive promises.

Solitudes of old London.

The dreary void of infidelity.

The letter was written about the 15th or 16th of August. Mr. Barrett, it may be presumed, had by this time sent his refusal of the needful testimonial; but possibly a lingering hope of Mr. Catcott's or other friend's interposition still kept him in suspense. The letter, no doubt, contained some desponding reflections, suggested by his desperate circumstances, to which the accident that brought his churchyard reveries to a close was apropos. Hence his mother's anxiety and tears, in spite of the sardonic jest with which the half-revealed truth was turned aside. His mind was already in that morbid state in which every trifle seems to carry an ill omen. Proud, and still ready to snatch at every illusive promise, he strove to assume a cheerful bearing, and to suggest hopes to others which no longer deceived himself. His mind had fluctuated during the weeks of July, and up to this date, through all the extremes of which it was so capable: extravagant dreams of unrealizable fortune; moody reveries, in which he would lapse, as in childhood, into a seeming stupor, and gaze blankly into the face of the questioner, as though lost to all consciousness of an external world; and passionate outbursts of feeling that found relief in tears.

Among all its millions, long since gone to their account, no more forlorn one was to be found in the vast solitudes of that old London, than the youth in whose mind hope and pride were now battling with despair. In his last letter to Mr. George Catcott, this melancholy avowal occurs: "Heaven send you the comforts of Christianity. I request them not, for I am no Christian." Terrible words at any moment, but how terrible now! Amid the wreck of all his hopes in this life, he looked beyond it into the dreary void of infidelity. He owned, indeed, a God; but he had no reliance on his divine fatherhood. With a faculty of veneration, rare in his day, and with sensibilities intensely acute, vibrating responsive to every tender

His only

emotion, his soul yielded no response of faith in that CHAP. XIV. Divine One, himself made perfect through suffering, that he might be the succourer of the afflicted. A stubborn, haughty pride was his only stay, nor did it wholly fail him in the terrible ordeal.

stay.

to his sister.

Chatterton had now occupied his lodgings in Brooke Street fully eleven weeks. So late as the 20th of July, Last letter when he wrote the last letter his sister was ever to receive from him, there is no doubt that his hopes were still high. The next number of the Town and Country Magazine, due on the last of the month, was to appear, as he fancied, nearly filled with his accepted articles; and he might reasonably anticipate payment for that amount of work, and an ample commission for more. But with the new month came the overthrow of all such

Overthrow

hopes. The larger portion of his literary labours, if not of all hopes. absolutely rejected, was at any rate thrown aside for some indefinite future. His chief market was glutted. No pay, apparently, was forthcoming for what had actually been published; and Mr. Hamilton had doubtless told him,--in terms wonderfully different from the first gracious reception of his Bristol correspondent,-that he need not trouble himself to call again for months to come.

like method.

The notes, endorsements, and letters of Chatterton Businesspartake somewhat of the business-like method which he, no doubt, acquired in Lambert's office; and, among other information due to this source, we possess one important memorandum of pecuniary receipts. The pocket-book of her brother, which Mrs. Newton recovered and presented to Mr. Joseph Cottle, contained this jotting of receipts during his first month in London:"Received to May 23, of Mr. Hamilton, for Middlesex £1 11 6

of B

of Fell for The Consuliad

Fotting of receipts.

CHAP. XIV. Dealings with London editors.

Abstemious habits.

Legitimate pastimes.

No trace of dissipation.

The record unmistakeably suggests the idea that Hamilton was making a tool of the inexperienced youth. A shilling a piece for two articles; eightpence each or rather less for sixteen songs; and no pecuniary acknowledgment for a pile of work accepted and held in reserve! Fell's payments are scarcely more liberal; for "The Consuliad: an Heroic Poem," is a spirited satire, extending to upwards of two hundred and fifty lines. Here then are the actual receipts of the first month, while the author was yet fresh, and his productions had some charm of novelty. If they are accepted, as they probably may be, as a fair average of the whole period of Chatterton's London career, it is easy to guess his condition when the last guinea of his Bristol purse had vanished; and he began to dun his fair-spoken patrons for fulfilment of promises, or payment for work already furnished.

66

The abstemious habits of his earlier days were retained by Chatterton unchanged during his short London career. He drank only water, and rarely touched animal food. He frequented the theatres and pleasure gardens of the metropolis; but as a professional man, and for the most part, it may be presumed, gratuitously. These were indeed the most promising professional resorts. He pleads such legitimate occupation of his time in excuse for unwritten letters; telling his mother: What with writing for publications, and going to places of public diversion, which is as absolutely necessary to me as food, I find but little time to write to you.' The most profitable of all his literary labours, and that which supplied him with means for gratifying his generous designs for his mother and sister, was his "Marylebone Burletta." Immediately on receipt of its well-earned five guineas, the sanguine boy wrote his mother: "I shall forestall your intended journey; and pop down on you at Christmas."

There is no trace of the squandering of funds in any form of dissipation. Mrs. Walmsley, who had no special reason to uphold his character; and Mrs. Ballance, to