Perrow—The Last Will and Testament in Literature. 745 
1769 contains a humorous and satirical account of the life of 
Samuel Derrick. Into this is introduced his testament. It 
contains many satirical bequests, most of which are intended 
to make fun of the ridiculous spirit of self-importance which 
he seems to have shown and his fruitless attempts to make a 
place for himself in literature. It has' been thought that this 
piece, published in the magazine in which Chatterton pub¬ 
lished, may have suggested to the latter the idea of writing 
his own last will and testament. 
Chatterton’s Will is dated April 14, 1770. 1 In straightened 
circumstances the seventeen year old lad had applied for help 
to Burgam to whom he looked as a patron. This help was re¬ 
fused, and Chatterton, plunged into despair, wrote for him¬ 
self a suicide’s last will and testament. Although he did not 
take his life till the night of August 24, 1770, this piece shows 
that he had already been playing with the idea of suicide. 
The piece opens with fifty-four and a half lines of heroic 
couplet in which the poet commends a few friends and satirizes 
several who have failed to aid him. The testament proper is 
written in prose. Tie sets forth the fact of his approaching 
death and directs his burial in accordance with the rites of 
chivalry. Many satirical bequests are left to certain acquaint¬ 
ances who for one reason or another have earned Chatterton’s 
dislike. The testament closes with the pathetic clause: “I 
leave my mother and sister to the protection of my friends, if I 
have any.” 
Such is the testament of the unhappy boy. Other testa¬ 
ments which he may have seen in his reading probably sugges¬ 
ted to him the use of this form to give expression to the despair 
that was rapidly closing about his young life. With regard 
to its value as literature I feel that, incoherent as it is, this 
testament gives artistic expression to a contest of feeling that 
we do not often find revealed in even much longer pieces. In 
it we see all Chatterton’s aspiration for an ideal world as typi¬ 
fied to his mind by the chivalrous past, a past that he had loved 
i Skeat and Bell, The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton , London, 
1871, I, 267. 
