Mr. Prickett was a believer in homeeopathy, 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
favour 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 into 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
forever of the mad whim to be 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 leaned 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 neighbourhood, 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 labour, 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 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; be 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 funereal 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.