228 Poetry. 



solitary valley; the scattered oaks; the tombs of 

 the warriors overgrown with moss ; and the melan- 

 choly notes resounding from the hall of shells; 

 still these celebrated productions abound with 

 rich beauties; with energy of style, force of de- 

 scription, pathos, tenderness, and in some instances 

 with sublimity of the highest order. 



In 1777 were published " Poems supposed to 

 have been written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, 

 and others, in the fifteenth century." These poems 

 were first brought to light by Thomas Chatter- 

 ton, a youth of humble origin, and small advant- 

 ages of education/ who professed to be only the 

 transcriber, and declared that they were written 

 by Rowley, a clergyman of Bristol, more than 

 three centuries before their discovery by him. These 

 poems, consisting chiefly of dramatic, lyric, and 

 pastoral pieces, were pronounced by some persons 



* Thomas Chatterton was born in the city of Bristol, November 

 loth, 1752. His father was the master of a free school in that city, and 

 was too poor to give his son any of the advantages of a liberal education. 

 His acquirements, therefore, were chiefly made up of such an acquaintance 

 with English literature as a mind of wonderful force, ardour, and ambition 

 might be expected to gain under the constant pressure of poverty and 

 other difficulties, and in the short space of less than eighteen years. He 

 began to write poetry about the eleventh year of his age ; and was but a 

 little more than sixteen when he produced the celebrated poems ascribed 

 to Rowley. These he constantly affirmed he had copied from manuscripts 

 found in an old church, in his native city ; but he never could be persuaded 

 to produce any of the originals, except a few fragments, which he asserted 

 were among the number, the largest of which was not more than eight 

 inches long, and four or five wide. Though the more general and proba- 

 ble opinion at present is, that this remarkable youth was the real author 

 of the poems which have passed under Rowley's name; yet some other 

 works, certainly known to have been produced by him, place him high in 

 the ranks of genius. Some of his elegies and satires, in particular, unques- 

 tionably display great talents. He died miserably in London, August 25, 

 1770. His death is a c cribed to poison, which he had swallowed in a fit of 

 criminal impatience and overwhelming despair, with the design to ter- 

 minate his sufferings. He is said to have imbibed (in the two or three 

 last years of his life) principles of the most licentious kind, and to have 

 "been very immoral in his practice. His mind was aspiring and ambitious 

 to a degree almost boundless; and not meeting with that success, or 

 those rewards of his talents which he had fondly hoped, he took refuge in 

 a voluntary death, and left a monument of unfortunate degraded genius, of 

 which a parallel will scarcely be again contemplated. 



