2"<i S. No 65., Jan. 17. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



5^ 



CHATTERTON S POKTKAIT. 



(2"<^ S. ii. 171.231.) 



The recovery of any genuine p6rtrart of Cbat- 

 terton becomes more improbable every day. It 

 is very unlikely that any portrait of him by Gains- 

 borough ever was painted, as Mr. Fulcher men- 

 tions in his Life of Gainsborough, and that it was 

 made during the intervals between 1768 and 1773, 

 when he declined sending specimens to the Royal 

 Academy, and that this portrait was a master- 

 piece. In refutation of the whole of this allusion 

 to a pof trait by Gainsborough, the facts are patent 

 and, fuTl. Chatterton left Bristol for the metro- 

 polis at the end of April, 1770, and committed 

 suicide there the latter end of August in the same 

 year, l^ow, unless it can be shown that Gains- 

 borougli painted his pbrtraft in Bristol before 

 April, 1770, it is highly improbable that during 

 the few months that Chatterton resided in London 

 he did so, or that Chatterton, in the pride of his 

 heart, (for pride was his principal foible,) should 

 not have communicated so important ah occur- 

 rence to his mother or sister Mary :.more reasons 

 might be adduced, but the above are surely suf- 

 ficient to destroy the belief tliat Gainsborough 

 ever did paint such a portrait. In regard to the 

 other portrait to which I alluded iii "N. &. Q ," 

 (2"<> S. H. 172.), prefixed by Mr. Bix to his Lifa 

 of Chatterton, I have now before me ati indubitable 

 proof that it is not one of Chatterton, but of 

 another boy, and the following are extracts from 

 a review of the Life of Chatterton by Mr. Dix, by 

 my iate friend the Rev. John Eagles, the author 

 of The Sketcher, sent by him to Blackwood's Maga- 

 zine with other contributions, but not inserted, 

 and afterwards given to me for insertion in Felix 

 Farley's Bristol Journal ; but being too long for 

 its columns, when supplements were not the 

 .fashion, did not appear, — which extracts, I think, 

 dispose of the two portraits of Chatterton, the one 

 in Dix's life, and the other in Mrs. Newton's pos- 

 session, Chatterton's sister, and the purport of 

 these extracts is so clear that it needs no comment 

 of mine. Mr. Eagles writes : 



" Mr. Dix has obtained a striking portrait (we do not 

 say a striking likeness) as a frontispiece to his volume. 

 It is liighly indicative of genius, and just such a one as 

 we should have expected to see, could we have been 

 assured of there being any real portrait of him in exist- 

 ence. We tind indeed in the appendix by Mr. Cumber- 

 land, p. 317, that Mrs. Edkins says Wheatley painted his 

 picture, but at what age she does not know, and her son 

 had seen it It is fair to state that we under- 

 stand a copy of this portrait has been presented to Mr. 

 Southey, who considers it like ChattertOn's sister, Mrs. 

 Newton. And it must be confessed that a very willing ob- 

 server might fancy he traced a resemblance in some of the 

 features in this portrait and that engraved in the Monthly 

 Visitor. But, notwithstanding all these very plausi- 

 ble circumstances (tlie letter from Chatterton's mother 

 stating she had his pWtrait tak^ii i6 Sred coat, by Morris, 



is Omitted in Mr. Dix's publication), we think the point 

 too important to sutler any disguise of the truth. Tho 

 history of our literature, the histories of our great men, 

 forbid the imposition. We are sorry therefore to be 

 obliged to state that the portrait is the portrait of the son, 

 of Morris the painter, taken when he was thirteen, and 

 that this was written at the back of it, totidem verbis. 

 We think it right to give, as we have perniission, our 

 authority — after which all we can say is, ' Qui vult decipi, 

 decipiatur.' We cannot do better than jh-int the follow- 

 ing letter, which has been forwarded to us tlirough a 

 I friend of the writer himself. 



" ' Nov. 23, 1837. Bristol. 

 " My De.4r ... 

 " ' For a wonder I did not come to town yesterday, or I 

 would have replied to j'our note by the bearer. Yod 

 therein ask me to state what I know concerning the por- 

 trait of Chatterton, lately published by Mr. Dix. I will 

 tell 3'ou:. about 25 years ago I became impressed with a 

 notion that I had a taste for pictures, and fancied, like 

 all so impressed, that I had only to rummage brokers' 

 shops to possess m3'self of gems and hidden treasures 

 without number, which illusions a little practical know- 

 ledge soon dismissed with costs. It happened that a 

 gentleman in whose house I then resided (being at that 

 time a baclielor), became touched with the same mania, 

 and in one of his peregrinations picked up the picture you 

 mention of a broker in Castle Ditch, at a house near the 

 Castle and Ball tavern, and the broker's name was Wil- 

 liam Bear. At the back of the portrait was written with a 

 Irtish, F. Morris, aged thirteen, as well as I can recollect. 

 The gentleman who purchased it, in a playful mood said, 

 that portrait will do for Chatterton, and immediately placed 

 the name of Chatterton over that of F. 3Iorris. What be- 

 came of it afterwards, or how it came into the hands of 

 the present possessor, I am quite ignorant. While in the 

 hands of the gentleman above mentioned, I showed it to 

 Mr. Stewart, the portrait painter, who recognised it at 

 once as the portrait of young Morris, the son of Morrig 

 the portrait painter. That is all I know about it, and 

 you are at liberty to make what use you please of it. 

 " ' I am, 3'ours trulv, 



" ' Geo. Bukge.' " 



Mr. Eagles in his review, says : 



" The disappointment to the amiable possessor (Mr. 

 Brakenridge) cannot be small. That gentleman is him- 

 self deeply learned in antiquities, and has collected at a 

 great expence and constant research curiosities without 

 number, and of great value. But the object of an anti- 

 quary being to discover truth, not to treasure impositions, 

 we think he will not be displeased at being now enabled 

 to weed his collection of that which injures the whole by 

 standing among realities with a false value and a mis- 

 nomer." 



After this clear exposition, I think we arrive at 

 the conclusion that there is not any genuine por- 

 trait of Chatterton now in existence. 



May I be allowed to say a i'Qvr words on the 

 Rowleian and Chattertonian controversy. A re- 

 viewer of Professor Masson's lecture upon Chat- 

 terton, recently published, says, that — 



" Chatterton is one of those personages whom the ge- 

 neral world knows more by allusion than by acquaintance. 

 Every one can talk of the ' marvellous boy,' but few read 

 Rowley's Poems, or know much more about their author 

 than that he ran away from Bristol, and met with a pre- 

 mature death in London," 



