C H A 



755 



C H A 



Ciurvbdii 



Chatter, 

 ton. 



France. The river runs beneath the vault which 

 supports it ; and bodies are preserved in the cavern 

 constructed in the thickness of this vault. Great 

 quantities of serges are manufactured in the surround- 

 ing villages. In the neighbourhood of Chartrc* are 

 situated Anet and Maintenon, places celebrated by 

 Diane de Poitiers, and Madame de Maintenon. The 

 aqueduct of Maintenon is very superb, but is not yet 

 finished. Population, 15,000. (n>) 



CHARYBDIS. Sec MK-SINA. 



CHATHAM. See KOCHKSTER. 



CHATTERTON, THOMAS. This astonishing 



eiung man was born on the 20th of November 17.50. 

 is rather was originally a writing usher to a school 

 in Bristol ; afterwards a singer in the cathedral ; and 

 lastly master of a free school in the same city. He 

 died three months before his son was born. Young 

 Chatterton was slow in attaining the first rudiments 

 of learning ; and it was not till he had been delighted 

 with the illuminated capitals of an old manuscript, 

 that he took to learning his letters. This circum- 

 stance, and his being taught from an old black-letter 

 Bible, no doubt contributed to his future fondness for 

 antiquities. At eight he was removed to a charity- 

 school, where he was taught reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic. About his tenth year he began to dis- 

 play a fondness for reading ; and before he was 1 '2, 

 had gone through about 70 volumes, chiefly on his- 

 tory and divinity. He had also begun to versify at 

 that age ; and before leaving school, had picked up 

 some knowledge of music, drawing, and arithmetic. 

 Already the grave and melancholic turn of his mind 

 had displayed its prematurity. At 12 years of age 

 he was confirmed by the bishop, and appeared to feel 

 all the solemnity and importance of the occasion. In 

 his 15th year he left school, and was articled to one 

 Lambert, a scrivener in Bristol, in the lowest form of 

 apprenticeship. Here he had much confinement, but 

 little actual occupation; and he employed the curious 

 activity of his mind in studying heraldry, and tran- 

 scribing old English glossaries. The first opportu- 

 nity which he tried of practising on the public cre- 

 dulity was in 1768, when the new bridge of Bristol 

 was opened. A paper appeared in Farley's journal 

 of that city, entitled a description of the friars first 

 passing the old bridge, taken from an ancient manu- 

 script. It was traced to Chatterton, who, it appears, 

 was examined with little ceremony, and even with 

 threats upon the subject. Who were the brutal cha- 

 racters who could hold out menaces to a child on 

 such an occasion, we are not informed ; but Chatter- 

 ton answered them disdainfully, while he pretended 

 to give satisfactory explanations to those who treated 

 him with more mildness. Those explanations, it is 

 true, were contradictory ; but he at last declared 

 that he had found the paper in a chest from Redcliffe 

 church. These manuscripts of RedclifFe church 

 formed the great pretext of Chatterton's subsequent 

 forgeries. In the monument of the church of St Ma- 

 ry RedclifFe, Bristol, founded or rebuilt by W. Ca- 

 nynge, a merchant of the 15th century, six or seven 

 chests had been deposited, one of which was called 

 Canynge's coffer. In 1727, the keys of this coffer 

 having been lost, it was broken open by authority, 

 and some title deeds were taken away ; but a num- 

 ber of manuscripts were left to casual depredation. 

 The father of Chatterton had removed baskets full 



of thote parchments, using them afterward* as ccvctt 

 t<> books. Among those parchments young C 

 terton, whose mind was now labouring with a pUa 

 t deceiving the public, pretended to have discovered 

 the poetry of Rowley, a pnebt oi the 1.3ih century. 

 He communicated some of hi* pretended treasure* to 

 a Mr Catcot, a pcwterer of Bristol, and to Barret, a 

 surgeon, both ignorant and credulous judge*, who i 

 return supplied the youth with borne books and mo- 

 ney, and introduced him into better company than he 

 had been accustomed to keep. At hit request, M- 

 Barret lent him also some medical book*, and gave 

 him a few instructions in surgery. The course of his 

 studies was now enlarged, and he employed hit pen, 

 both in prose and verse, for the Town and Countr) 

 /.inc. 



Encouraged by this partial success in his native 

 city, he addressed (in ITG'J) a letter to the Hon. 

 Horace Walpole, ottering to furnish him with a his- 

 tory of a series of eminent ancient painters at Bristol, 

 and enclosing specimens of the Rowltian poetry. 

 Walpole sent him a polite answer, requesting it'.' 

 information. In the mean time, he shewed the speci- 

 mens of poetry to capable judges, who pronounced 

 them forgeries ; so that when Chatterton wrote to 

 him again, relating the circumstances of his life, and 

 soliciting his patronage, Walpole replied in a cold 

 monitory epistle, which he intended to close their 

 correspondence. He set out to Paris, however, ne- 

 glecting to return the manuscripts, which occasioned 

 two successive letters from Chatterton, in the latter 

 of which he demanded back the writings, in terms 

 which Walpole chose to consider offensive and inso- 

 lent ; so that he inclosed the papers to Chatterton, 

 without deigning to write to him. This is the whole 

 story of their connection. Undoubtedly, Walpole 

 might have been more courteous towards a youth 

 whose circumstances would have appeared interesting 

 to a liberal mind ; and after neglecting to restore the 

 papers before going abroad, he ought, on his return, 

 to have made an apology. But though his conduct 

 was cold, it cannot be pronounced criminally negli- 

 gent ; for Chatterton came to him in a questionable 

 shape. The odium against Walpole, which occa- 

 sioned his published Vindication of his Conduct re- 

 specting Chatterton, was carried to a most unjusti- 

 fiable violence. After this event, the stirrings of 

 Chattel-ton's mind vented themselves in froward com- 

 munications to the Magazine, consisting of personal 

 and political satire, to which he added some Saxon 

 poems in the manner of Ossian, from his pretended 

 Rowley. A change at this early period of life took 

 place in his religious belief; he became a deist, and 

 connecting infidelity with despair, he avowed his de- 

 termination of terminating a miserable life by self-de- 

 struction. On perusing this threat, which he left ill 

 a last will or testament, his master, the attorney, dis- 

 missed him from his office and house, after he had con- 

 tinued there two years and nine months. 



Reanimated by this emancipation, and by the pro- 

 mises of some London booksellers, he laid aside his 

 project of suicide, and with the hopes and plans of a 

 literary adventurer, came to the metropolis aged 17 

 years and five monthe. His letters during the first 

 few weeks after his arrival describe the most sanguine 

 prospects, and a multiplicity of literary employments ; 

 a History of England, a History of London, Essays 



!.*(. . 



