tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}img"/> BIRTHPLACE OF CHATTERTON.

He was admitted into the Blue Coat School, commonly called "Colston's School,"[4] before he was eight years old, and his enthusiastic joy at the prospect of learning so much, was damped by finding that, to quench his thirst for knowledge, "there were not books enough." When he took in rotation the post of doorkeeper at the school, he used to indulge himself in making verses,[5] and his sister, who loved him tenderly, presented him with a pocket-book, in which he wrote verses, and gave it back to her the following year. There was nothing in this species of tuition or companionship to create or foster either the imitations or the satire he indulged in, he had neither correction nor assistance from any one. Even before his apprenticeship to Mr. John Lambert, he felt he was not appreciated or understood; perhaps no one ever acted a greater satire upon his own profession than this harsh attorney, who deemed his apprentice on a level with his footboy. He must have been a man utterly devoid of perception and feeling; his insulting contempt of what he could not understand added considerably to the sarcastic bitterness of Chatterton's nature, and it is easy to picture the boy's feelings when his productions were torn by this tyrant and scattered on the office floor! He has his reward. John Lambert, the scrivener, is only remembered as the insulter of Thomas Chatterton![6]

TOMB OF CANYNGE.

It is impossible not to pause at every page of this boy's brief but eventful life, and lament that he had no friend; reading, as we do, by the light of other days, we can see so many passages where judicious counsel, given with the intelligent affection that would at once have opened his heart, must have saved him; his heart, once laid bare to friendship, would have been purified by the air of truth; it was its closeness which infected his nature. And yet the scrivener considered him a good apprentice. His industry was amazing; his frequent employment was to copy precedents, and one volume, in his handwriting, which is still extant, consists of three hundred and forty-four closely-written folio pages. There was in that gloomy office an edition of Camden's "Britannia," and, having borrowed from Mr. Green, a bookseller, Speight's "Chaucer," he compiled therefrom an ingenious glossary, for his own use, in two parts. "The first," Mr. Dix says, "contained old words, with the modern English—the second, the modern English, with the old words; this enabled him to turn modern English into old, as an English and Latin dictionary enables the student to turn English into Latin." How miserable it is, amongst these evidences of his industry and genius, to find that all his ingenuity turned to the furtherance of a fraud. He seems to have been morally dead to every thing like the disgrace attending falsehood; for, when struggling afterwards in London to appear prosperous while starving, he wrote home to Mr. Catcott, and concludes his letter by stating that he intended going abroad as a surgeon, adding, "Mr. Barrett has it in his power to assist me greatly, by his giving me a physical character; I hope he will." He seems to have had no idea that he was asking Mr. Barrett to do a dishonest action.

But the grand fraud of his short life was boldly dared by this boy in his sixteenth year. Why he should have ever descended to forge when he felt the high pressure of genius so strong within him, is inexplicable. Why, with his daring pride, he should have submitted to be considered a transcriber, where he originated, is more than marvellous. The spell of a benighting antiquity seemed around him; it might lead one to a belief in "Gramarie"—that some fake spirit had issued forth from the "cofre of Mr. Canynge,"[7] so long preserved in the room over the north porch of this Bristol church of Redcliffe—a "cofre" secured by six keys, all of which being lost or mislaid, the vestry ordered the "cofre" to be opened; and not only "Canynge's cofre," but all the "cofres," in the mysterious chamber: not from any love of antiquity, but because of the hope of obtaining certain title-deeds supposed to be contained therein. Well, these intelligent worthies, having found what concerned themselves, took them away, leaving behind, and open, parchments and documents which might have enriched our antiquarian literature beyond all calculation.[8] Chatterton's father used to carry these parchments away wholesale, and covered with the precious relics, bibles, and school-books: most likely other officers of the church did the same. After his death, his widow conveyed many of them, with her children and furniture, to her new residence, and, woman-like, formed them into dolls and thread-papers. In process of time, the child's attention being aroused by the illuminated manuscripts, he conveyed every bit of parchment he could find to a small den of a room in his mother's house, which he called his own: and, when he grew a little older, set forth, with considerable tact, in answer to all questions asked of him as to how he obtained the poems and information, that he himself had searched the old "cofres,"[9] and discovered the poems of the Monk Rowley. Certainly he could not have had a better person to trumpet his discovery than "a talkative fool" like Burgum, who was so proud of his pedigree as to torment the officers of the Herald's College about his ancestors; and he was not the only one imposed on by Chatterton's talent. His simple-minded mother bore testimony to his joy at discovering those "written parchments upon the covered books:" and, of course, each discovery added to his antiquarian knowledge; for, though no trace exists of the Monk Rowley's originals, there is little doubt that on some of those parchments he found enough to set him thinking, and with him to think and act was the same thing; indeed, there is one passage in his poems bearing so fully upon the fraud, that we transcribe it. He is writing of having discharged all his obligations to Mr. Catcott:—