The Rowley Poems | Page 6

more Rowleian
matter both prose and verse, that he consulted his friends Gray and
Mason, who at once detected the forgery. If, as seems certain, Elinoure
and Juga was among the pieces sent, it was inevitable that Gray should
recognize lines 22-25 of that poem as a striking if unconscious
reminiscence of his own Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Now Walpole
had some years before introduced Ossian's poems to the world and his
reputation as a critic had suffered when their authenticity was generally
disputed. Accordingly he wrote Chatterton a stiff letter suggesting that
'when he should have made a fortune he might unbend himself with the
studies consonant to his inclination'; and in this one must suppose that
he was actuated by a very natural irritation at having been duped a
second time by an expositor of antique poetry, rather than by any
snobbish contempt for his correspondent, who had frankly confessed
himself an attorney's apprentice. Chatterton then wrote twice to have
his MS. returned, asserting at the same time his confidence in the
authenticity of the Rowley documents. Walpole for some reason
returned no answer to either application, but left for Paris, where he
stayed six weeks, returning to find another letter from Chatterton
written with considerable dignity and restraint--a last formal demand to
have his manuscript returned. Whereupon, amazed at the boy's 'singular
impertinence,' the great man snapped up both letters and poems and
returned them in a blank cover--that is to say without a word of
apology or explanation. He might have acted otherwise if he had been a
more generous spirit, but an attempt had been made to impose upon
him which had in part succeeded, and he can hardly be blamed for
showing his resentment by neglecting to return the forgeries. One may
notice in passing that when Chatterton, more than a year later,
committed suicide there were not wanting a great many persons absurd
enough to accuse Walpole of having driven him to his death--a
contemptible suggestion. Yet the connoisseur's credit certainly suffers
from the fact that he gave currency to a false account of the transaction
in the hope of concealing his first credulity.[8]
We now come to the circumstance which procured Chatterton's release
from his irksome apprenticeship--his threat of suicide. He had often

been heard to speak approvingly of suicide, and there is a story, which
has, however, little authority, that once in a company of friends he drew
a pistol from his pocket, put it to his head, and exclaimed 'Now if one
had but the courage to pull the trigger!' This anecdote--if not in fact
true--illustrates very well the gloomy depression of spirit which
alternated with those outbursts of feverish energy in which his poems
were composed. And he had much to make him miserable when with a
change of mood he lost his buoyancy and confidence of ultimate fame
and success. His ambition was boundless and his audience was as
limited in numbers as in understanding. He was as proud as the poor
Spaniard who on a bitter day rejected the friendly offer of a cloak with
the words 'A gentleman does not feel the cold,' and his pride was
continually fretted. He was keenly conscious of the indignity of his
position in Lambert's kitchen; he seems to have been pressed for money,
and though he 'did not owe five pounds altogether' he probably smarted
under the thought that all his hard work, all the long nights of study and
composition in the moonlight which helped his thought, could not earn
him even this comparatively small sum. Again, he was not restrained
from a contemplation of suicide by any scruples of religion--for he has
left his views expressed in an article written some few days before his
death. He believed in a daemon or conscience which prompted every
man to follow good and avoid evil; but--different men different
daemons--his held self-slaughter justified when life became intolerable;
with him therefore it would be no crime. Wilson suggests too that the
boy who had read theology, orthodox and the reverse, held to the
common eighteenth century view that death was annihilation; and this
may well have been the case. One thing at any rate is certain, that
Chatterton on the 14th of April 1770 left on his desk a number of
pieces of paper filled with a jumble of satiric verse, mocking prose, and
directions for the construction of a mediæval tomb to cover the remains
of his father and himself. Part of this strange document was headed in
legal form--'This is the last Will and Testament of me Thomas
Chatterton,' and contained the declaration that the Testator would be
dead on the evening of the following day--'being the feast of the
resurrection.' The bundle was dated and endorsed 'All this