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such scraps of ancient records, deeds, accounts of old churches, &c., as were likely to be of use to that gentleman in preparing his History of Bristol. So extensive, in fact, were the surgeon's obligations to the young man that he seems to have thought it impossible to requite them otherwise than by a pecuniary recompense. Accordingly, there is evidence of an occasional guinea or half-guinea having been transferred from the pocket of Mr. Barrett to that of Chatterton on the score of literary assistance rendered to Barrett in the progress of his work. From the Catcotts, too, Chatterton seems, on similar grounds, to have now and then obtained something. That they were not so liberal as they might have been, however, the following bill in Chatterton's handwriting will show :

"Mr. G. CATCOTT

To the Executors of T. ROWLEY.
To pleasure recd. in readg. his Historic works .
his Poetic works.

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£5 5 0

.

5 5 0

£10 10

Whether the above was splenetically sent to Catcott, or whether it was only drawn up by Chatterton in a cashless moment by way of frolic, is not certain; the probability, however, is, that, if it was sent, the pewterer did not think it necessary to discharge it. Yet he was not such a hard subject as his partner, Burgum,

whom Chatterton (no doubt after sufficient trial) represents as stinginess itself.

But it was not only as a young man of extensive antiquarian knowledge and of decided literary talent that Chatterton was known in Bristol. As the transcriber of the Rowley Poems, and the editor of curious pieces of information, derived from ancient manuscripts which he was understood to have in his possession, the Catcotts, Barrett, and the rest, had no fault to find with him; but there were other phases in which he appeared, by no means so likely to recommend him to their favour, or to the favour of such other influential persons in the community as might have been disposed to patronise modesty in combination with youth and literature.

In a town of 70,000 inhabitants (which was about the population of Bristol at that time) it must be remembered that all the public characters are marked

men.

The mayor, the various aldermen and commoncouncilmen, the city clergymen, the chief grocers, bankers, and tradesmen, the teachers of the public schools, &c., are all recognised as they pass along the streets; and their peculiarities, physical and moral, such as the red nose of Alderman Such-an-one, the wheezy voice of the Rev. Such-another, and the blustering self-importance of citizen Such-a-third, are perfectly familiar to the civic imagination. Now, it is the

most natural of all things for a young man in such a town, just arrived at a tolerable conceit of himself, and determined to have a place some day in Mr. Craik's "Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," to be seized with a tremendous disrespect for everything locally sacred, and to delight in avowing the same. What nonsense they do talk in the town-council; what a miserable set of mercantile rogues are the wealthy citizens; what an absence of liberality and high general intelligence there is in the whole procedure of the community: these are the common-places (often, it must be confessed, true enough) through which the high-spirited young native of a middle-class British town must almost necessarily pass, on his way to a higher appreciation of men and things. Through the sorrows of Lichfield, the Lichfield youth realizes how it is that all creation groaneth and travaileth; and, pinched by the inconveniences of Dundee, the aspirant who is there nursed into manhood turns down his collar at all things, and takes a Byronic view of the entire universe.

Chatterton was specially liable to this discontent with all around him. Of a dogged, sullen, and passionate disposition, not without a considerable spice of malice; treated as a boy, yet with a brain believing itself the most powerful in Bristol; sadly in want of pocket-money for purposes more or less questionable, and having hardly any means of procuring it—

he took his revenge out in satire against all that was respectable in Bristol. If Mr. Thomas Harris, then the Right Worshipful Mayor of the city, passed him on the pavement, either ignorant what a youth of genius he was pushing aside, or looking down somewhat askance, as a mayor will do at an attorney's apprentice that will not take off his hat when he is expected, the thought that probably arose in his breast was, "You are a purse-proud fool, Mr. Mayor, and I have more sense in my little finger than you have in your whole body." If there was a civic dinner, and Chatterton was told of it, he would remark what feeding there would be among the aldermen and city brothers, what guzzling of claret, and what after-dinner speeches by fellows that could not pronounce their h's and hardly knew how to read. If he chanced to sit in church, hearing the Rev. Dr. Cutts Barton, then Dean of Bristol, preach, what would pass in his mind would be, "You are a drowsy old rogue, Cutts, and have no more religion in you than a sausage." Even when Dr. Newton, the Bishop of the diocese, editor of Milton and distinguished prelate as he was, made his appearance in the pulpit, he would not be safe from the excoriations of this young critic in the distant pew. Chatterton's own friends and acquaintances, too, came in for their share of his sarcasms. Lambert, we believe, he hated; and we have seen how he could wreak a

personal grudge on an old teacher. The Rev. Mr. Catcott, not a bad fellow in the main, he soon set down, in his own private opinion, as a narrow-minded parson, with no force or philosophy, conceited with his reputation at tea-parties, and a dreadful bore with his fossils and his theory of the Deluge. His brother, the unclerical Catcott, again, had probably more wit and vigour, but dogmatised insufferably over his beer; Burgum was a vain, stingy, ungrammatical goose; and Mr. Barrett, with all his good intentions, was too fond of giving common-place advices. In short, Bristol was a vile place, where originality or genius, or even ordinary culture and intelligence, had no chance of being appreciated; and to spend one's existence there would be but a life-long attempt to teach a certain class of animals the value and the beauty of pearls !

Poor unhappy youth! how, through the mist and din of many years past and gone since then, I recognise thee walking, in the winter evenings of 1769-70, through the dark streets of Bristol, or out into its dark environs, ruminating such evil thoughts as these! And what, constituting myself for the moment the mouthpiece of all that society has since pronounced on thy case, should I, leaping back over the long years to place myself at thy side, whisper to thee by way of counsel or reproach ?

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