Mr. Prickett was a believer in homoeopathy, and declared, to the
indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been
cured of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan. The good Doctor had, as
he promised, seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as
a favor to find some light occupation for the boy, that would serve as
an excuse for a modest weekly salary. "It will not be for long," said
the Doctor; "his relations are respectable and well off. I will write
to his grandparents, and in a few days I hope to relieve you of the
charge. Of course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs
meanwhile."
Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him very graciously,
and, after a few questions, said Leonard was just the person he wanted
to assist him in cataloguing his books, and offered him most
handsomely L1 a-week for the task.
Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had ever before
won admission to, that old divine dream of knowledge, out of which
poetry had sprung, returned to the village student at the very sight
of the venerable volumes. The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however,
in reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary
standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And Leonard paused
in making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents
of each tome, as it passed through his hands. The bookseller, who was
an enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling
(which his shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he
talked about rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated Leonard in
many of the mysteries of the bibliographist.
Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop. There was a booth
outside, containing cheap books and odd volumes, round which there was
always an attentive group; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day.
But time passed quickly to Leonard. He missed not the green fields, he
forgot his disappointments, he ceased to remember even Helen. O
strange passion of knowledge! nothing like thee for strength and
devotion.
Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine with him on a
cold shoulder of mutton. During dinner the shop-boy kept the shop, and
Mr. Prickett was really pleasant as well as loquacious. He took a
liking to Leonard--and Leonard told him his adventures with the
publishers, at which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed as at a
capital joke. "Oh give up poetry, and stick to a shop," cried he;
"and, to cure you for ever of the mad whim to be an author, I'll just
lend you the _Life and Works of Chatterton_. You may take it home with
you and read before you go to bed. You'll come back quite a new man
to-morrow."
Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his
lodging. And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by
the silence, by the void. Helen was gone!
There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and
by it a scrap of paper, on which was written--
"Dear, dear Brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let you know when
we can meet again. Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't forget
poor
HELEN."
Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that
nearly effaced the word.
Leonard leant his face on his hands, and for the first time in his
life he felt what solitude really is. He could not stay long in the
room. He walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the
streets. He passed that stiller and humbler neighborhood, he mixed
with the throng that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares.
Hundreds and thousands passed him by, and still--still such solitude.
He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the
"Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him. It was an old
edition in one thick volume. It had evidently belonged to some
contemporary of the Poet's--apparently an inhabitant of
Bristol--some one who had gathered up many anecdotes respecting
Chatterton's habits, and who appeared even to have seen him, nay, been
in his company; for the book was interleaved, and the leaves covered with
notes and remarks in a stiff clear hand--all evincing personal knowledge
of the mournful immortal dead. At first,Leonard read with an effort; then
the strange and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him--seized
with pain, and gloom, and terror--this boy dying by his own hand, about
the age Leonard had attained himself. This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond
all comparison--the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished
at the age of eighteen--self-taught--self-struggling--self-immolated.
Nothing in literature like that life and that death!
With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant
imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into
the crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin
to the literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence,
and exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so
amazing--such patience, such forethought, such labor, such courage,
such ingenuity--the qualities that, well directed, make men great, not
only in books, but action. And, turning from the history of the
imposture to the poems themselves, the young reader bent before their
beauty, literally awed and breathless. How had this strange Bristol
boy tamed and mastered his rude and motley materials into a music that
comprehended every tune and key, from the simplest to the sublimest?
He turned back to the biography--he read on--he saw the proud, daring,
mournful spirit, alone in the Great City like himself. He followed its
dismal career, he saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into
the mire. He turned again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks for
bread,--the satires without moral grandeur, the politics without
honest faith. He shuddered and sickened as he read. True, even here
his poet mind appreciated (what perhaps only poets can) the divine
fire that burned fitfully through that meaner and more sordid fuel--he
still traced in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire
Necessity, the hand of the young giant who had built up the stately
verse of Rowley. But, alas! how different from that "mighty line." How
all serenity and joy had fled from these later exercises of art
degraded into journey-work. Then rapidly came on the catastrophe--the
closed doors--the poison--the suicide--the manuscripts torn by the
hands of despairing wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon the
funeral floors. It was terrible! The spectre of the Titan boy, (as
described in the notes written on the margin,) with his haughty brow,
his cynic smile, his lustrous eyes, haunted all the night the baffled
and solitary child of song.