CHAPTER V. THE JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. CHATTERTON'S death made very little sensation in London beyond the immediate neighbourhood in which the inquest was held. We have looked over the newspapers of the time with some diligence; but, though paragraphs giving accounts of such casualties were as common then as now, we have not found the slightest reference to the suicide in Brooke Street. The incident which figures in the newspapers as the chief metropolitan fact of the day on which the suicide occurred -i.e. the 24th of August-is the robbery at the foot of Highgate Hill, by “a tall thin man in a light-coloured coat, mounted on a black horse," of the boy carrying the Chester mail. Under the same date is recorded, as a somewhat minor incident, a visit paid by their Majesties to Woolwich to see the artillery. Even the Town and out, on the 31st of Country Magazine, which came August, with three contributions in it from the pen of the unfortunate youth who was now no more (one of these the article on sculpture to accompany the engraved design for Beckford's monument) takes no notice in its "Domestic Intelligence" of the death of its correspondent. Doubtless, Hamilton knew the fact in time to notice it if he chose; but he may have had his reasons for not doing so. Nor in the September number, which likewise contains some of Chatterton's writings, is the omission supplied. It is not till the October number that any notice of Chatterton occurs; and then it is in the form of an elegy in twenty-three stanzas "To the Memory of Mr. Thomas Chatterton, late of Bristol." The elegy is dated "Bristol, October, 1770," and is signed "T. C."-evidently the initials of Chatterton's friend, Thomas Cary. The elegy is written with more of genuine affection than of poetry; but two stanzas may be quoted: "Think of his tender opening unfledged years, As Fate had grudged the wonders Nature rears, Weep, Nature, weep: the mighty loss bewail;- In consequence, however, of such communications as these sent from Bristol, and of the naturally increased interest that there would be there among the Catcotts and the Barretts in the Rowley manuscripts and other papers that Chatterton had left behind him—perhaps. too, of the researches of Dr. Fry and others, who obtained copies of those papers and began to send them about; and, doubtless, to some extent also, of the casual references to Chatterton's fate that would be made by persons who had seen him in town-it is certain that before the winter of 1770-1 was far advanced the tragic death in the previous August of a certain youth of genius named Chatterton, a writer for the Magazines, and the alleged editor and transcriber of various pieces of ancient poetry, had become a topic of conversation in the literary clubs of London. This was especially the case at the Gerard Street Club. Goldy had returned from his Parisian trip before the 8th of September: on which day, his biographer, Mr. Forster, finds him receiving a new suit of mourning from his tailor, to be worn on account of the death of his old mother, of which he had received the news when in Paris. Johnson was also back in town before September was over. One of the two-most probably it was Goldy-having seen the Elegy in the Town and Country for October, or otherwise coming across the story of Chatterton, made himself acquainted with the particulars; and thus Chatterton and the Rowley Poems came to be discussed at the Club. By this means it probably was that the Honourable Horace Walpole unexpectedly found himself, one day early in 1771, reminded of his Bristol correspondent of the year 1769. The occasion of his doing so was in itself a somewhat memorable one. The first annual dinner of the Royal Academy was held on St. George's Day (April 23rd), 1771. At this dinner Sir Joshua Reynolds presided; and among the guests who sat under the pictures which were hung along the walls were almost all the distinguished men of London. Walpole, who was not in the habit of seeing much of Johnson, Goldsmith, and that set, elsewhere, found himself seated near to them. We will let himself relate the rest. Dining," he says, "at "the Royal Academy, Doctor Goldsmith drew the "attention of the company with an account of a mar"vellous treasure of ancient poems lately discovered at 66 66 Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in them, for 'which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was present. I soon found this was the trouvaille of my "friend Chatterton; and I told Dr. Goldsmith that this "novelty was known to me, who might, if I had pleased, "have had the honour of ushering the great discovery "to the learned world. You may imagine, Sir, we did "not all agree in the measure of our faith; but, though "his credulity diverted me, my mirth was soon dashed; "for, on asking about Chatterton, he told me he had "been in London and had destroyed Ifimself. The persons of honour and veracity who were present will "attest with what surprise and concern I thus first heard "of his death." Said we not that, of all the literary men then alive, the one that it might have been best for Chatterton to have near him in his hour of despair was Oliver Goldsmith? We see that, after Chatterton was dead, Goldsmith was somehow the first to hear of his fate and to talk about it. From that time, for the next six or seven years, we are to fancy the interest in the Rowley Poems, and in Chatterton as connected with them, gradually increasing. Catcott, as possessor of the greater portion of Chatterton's transcripts of the supposed ancient poems, has become a person of some consequence in the eyes of local antiquarians, and he takes care to make the most of it. He has already increased his stock of MSS. by buying from Chatterton's mother, for five guineas, such of his papers as had been left with her,—a proceeding by no means to his credit, if it is true that about the same time he offered to sell his own collection for 70%. Barrett, too, as the possessor of some copies of the supposed antiques, finds himself inquired after. Both he and Catcott lend about copies of their manuscripts, some fragments of which get into print. The Bristol poems of the fifteenth century are frequently spoken of in literary circles in London. Warton, for example, was shown a collection of them in 1773 by the Earl of |