complained of familiarity’s blunting the edge of every sense on which
she lays her hand? At her bidding, beauty fades even in the eye of
love; and the son of pity smiles at sorrow’s bleeding breast. In
her presence, who is he that still continues to behold the scene of
delight, or that still hears the voice of mourning? What, then, is the
praise of that gaoler, who in the midst of misery, and crimes, and
death, sets familiarity at defiance, and still preserves the feelings
of a man? The author of the life of Savage gives celebrity to the
Bristol gaoler, by whose humanity the latter part of that strange man’s
life was rendered more comfortable. Shall no one give celebrity to the
present keeper of Newgate? Mr. Akerman marks every day of his existence
by more than one such deed as this. Know, ye rich and powerful, ye
who might save hundreds of your fellow-creatures from starving by the
sweepings of your tables—know that, among the various feelings of
almost every wretch who quits Newgate for Tyburn, a concern neither
last nor least is that which he feels upon leaving the gaol of which
_this man_ is the keeper.
But I can now no longer fly from myself. In a few short hours, the hand
which is now writing to you, the hand which——
I will not distress either you or myself. My life I owe to the laws of
my country, and I will pay the debt. How I felt for poor Dodd! Well,
you shall hear that I died like a man and a Christian. I cannot have
a better trust than in the mercy of an all-just God. And, in your
letters, when you shall these unhappy deeds relate, tell of me as I am.
I forget the passage, it is in Othello.
You must suffer me to mention the tenderness and greatness of mind of
my dear Booth. The last moments of my life cannot be better spent than
in recording this complicated act of friendship and humanity. When we
parted, a task too much for us both, he asked me if there was anything
for which I wished to live. Upon his pressing me, I acknowledged I was
uneasy, very uneasy, lest Lord Sandwich might withdraw an allowance of
fifty pounds a year, which I knew he made to her father. “Then,” said
Booth, squeezing my hand, bursting into tears, and hurrying out of the
room, “I will allow it him.” The affectionate manner in which he spoke
of my sister would have charmed you. God for ever bless and prosper
him! And my sister and you!
* * * * *
While he was in Newgate he received, says the author of Hackman’s “Case
and Memoirs,” many anonymous letters, one, as the handwriting showed,
was from Galli, saying:
“O! Mr. Hackman, for God’s sake, die in the Roman Catholick faith!”
He also had a letter from a woman he did not know, saying that she had
long privately loved him, but that her love was hopeless because she
was poor, without beauty, and had nothing to boast of. The author of
the “Case and Memoirs” goes on to say that Hackman also received many
letters from “those superabundant good Christians called Methodists,
who, negligent of themselves, affect the highest concern for the future
welfare of others.... Bedlam is the place for such men to rave in,
rather than the chamber of an invalid, or the apartments of a condemned
prisoner.”
Hackman spent the evening preceding his execution with his friend,
Mr. Porter; he went to bed at eleven, and slept for some hours. At
five he arose, and after he was dressed, drank a “bason of tea” and
remained in prayer until half-past seven. Mr. Porter and Mr. Vilette,
the prison chaplain, then went to him, and led him to the chapel, where
they remained until nine. By this time the sheriffs were waiting,
and Hackman was taken to the press-yard, where a rope was fastened
round his shoulders and under his arms. He was, however, spared the
additional degradation of having a rope put round his neck, and his
hands were not tied at the wrists. He was then brought out and put into
a coach, and, accompanied by the two clergymen and a sheriff’s officer,
the dreary progress to Tyburn commenced. Owing to the enormous crowds
that blocked the streets he did not arrive there until eleven o’clock.
In a second coach were seated the Earl of Carlisle and Boswell—the
latter, however, did not deem it expedient to mention this fact to
Dr. Johnson. As soon as he was in the cart, which in those days took
the place of a fixed platform, he spent some time in prayer, kneeling
down with his face towards Paddington. His friends then took leave of
him, and it is recorded that he behaved with the utmost fortitude,
although Mr. Porter was so moved by his emotions that he had to be
supported. Hackman, desiring that he might drop his handkerchief as a
signal when he was ready, kneeled down again, and, amid the silence
and suspense of the largest crowd that had ever witnessed an execution
at Tyburn, prayed for five minutes. When he dropped the handkerchief
it fell underneath the cart, causing a delay of half a minute while
the executioner and his assistants scrambled for it. Then the horses
were whipped up, and James Hackman paid the last earthly penalty for
the crime of having loved Martha Reay so passionately that he was
irresistibly impelled to murder her. In his last moments he scribbled a
few words in pencil to his friend, Mr. Porter:
“Farewell for ever in this world! I die a sincere Christian and
penitent, and everything I hope that you can wish me. Would it prevent
my example’s having any bad effect if the world should know how I abhor
my former ideas of suicide, my crime ... will be the best judge. Of her
fame I charge you to be careful. My poor sister will....”
APPENDIX
The following account of the life of Chatterton, which Croft prefaces
with a few sentences in clumsy imitation of Hackman’s style, is copied
from a reprint of “Love and Madness,” which was issued by an Ipswich
bookseller in 1810. It is more connected and concise than the versions
in the earlier editions.
* * * * *
The task you have set me about Chatterton is only a further proof of
your regard for me. You know the warmth of my passions, and you think
that if I do not employ myself they may flame out and consume me. Well,
then, I will spend a morning or two in arranging what I have collected
respecting the author of Rowley’s poems. Every syllable you will read I
assure you shall be _authentic_.
Did you start at “The author of Rowley’s poems?” My mind does not now
harbour a doubt that Chatterton wrote the whole, whatever I thought
when we read them together at H. The internal evidence of the matter
shall not puzzle you, but you shall tell me whether you do not think
it easier for Chatterton to have imitated the style of Rowley’s age
(which he has not done exactly, if you believe those who think as I
think), than for Rowley to write in a style which did not exist till
so many ages after his time. To suppose him to have found half, and to
have added to them, or to consider him as a cat’s paw in the business
to some contemporary Rowley, in order to extricate a fictitious Rowley
from oblivion, would in my humble opinion be nonsense. For my own
part, though he might find some old MSS., I cannot believe he found
a syllable which he has attributed to Rowley. Who will engage to
prove from internal evidence the antiquity of _any one_ of Rowley’s
compositions? What he did find certainly suggested to him the idea of
pretending to have found more; but how shall we persuade credulity to
believe that all Rowley’s poems were copied from old MSS., when the
only MSS. produced in confirmation of the story are indisputably proved
to be modern? Is any one fool enough to believe C. was the only blind,
subterraneous channel through which these things were to emerge to-day,
and float for ever down the stream of fame? This (without mentioning
other objections to such a ridiculous belief) were to suppose two
people to determine on the same strange conduct, and two people (the
real and the foster father) to keep with equal fidelity the same
secret. And would the foster father have been as fond and careful of
another’s secret, as of the offspring of his own invention?
It is not clear to me that C.’s life (if such a scrap of existence
can be called a life) does not exhibit circumstances still more
extraordinary, if possible, than his being the author of Rowley’s
poems. But I possess not the abilities which Johnson displayed in his
famous life of Savage, nor is this a formal life of Chatterton; though
such a thing might well employ even the pen of Johnson. This is only an
idle letter to my dear M. Oh, my M., you, who contributed so liberally
last year to extricate from distress the abilities of a——; what would
you not have done for Chatterton!
Thomas Chatterton, destined to puzzle at least, if not to impose upon,
the ablest critics and antiquarians which the most polished age of
England has produced, was born at Bristol, Nov. 20, 1752. His father
had been master of the free school in Pile Street in that city, and
was sexton of St. Mary Redcliffe Church. History condescends not to
relate anything more of such an ignoble family, than that they had been
sextons of the same church for near a century and a half.
It seems to have been determined by fortune that this poor lad—I ought
rather to say this extraordinary human being—should have no obligation
but to genius and himself. His father, as he was a schoolmaster, and
reported to have been a tolerable poet for a sexton, might perhaps have
given his son a free-school education, had he lived to see him old
enough for instruction. The sexton died very soon after, if not before,
the birth of his son; who indisputably received no other education than
what he picked up at a charity school at a place called St. Augustine’s
Back in Bristol. Reading, writing, and accounts, composed the whole
circle of sciences which were taught at this university of our Bristol
Shakespeare.
On July 1, 1767, he was articled clerk to an attorney of Bristol, whom
I have not been able to find out. From him, I understand, has been
procured a strange, mad MS. of Chatterton, which he called his _will_.
When the new bridge at Bristol was finished, there appeared, in
Farly’s _Bristol Journal_, an account of the ceremonies on opening
the old bridge (the piece is prefixed to the volume of Chatterton’s
“Miscellanies”), preceded by these words: “To the Printer. Oct. 1,
1768. The following description of the ‘fryars’ first passing over the
old bridge, taken from an old MS., may not at this time be unacceptable
to the generality of your readers. Yours, Dunhelmus Bristoliensis.”
Curiosity at last traced the insertion of this curious memoir to
Chatterton. To the threats of those who treated him (agreeably to his
age and appearance) as a child, he returned nothing but haughtiness
and a refusal to give any account. To milder usages and many promises,
the boy, after some time, confessed that he had received that and
other MSS. from his father, which he had found in an iron chest
placed by William Canynge (the founder of the church of which C.’s
family had so long been sextons) in a muniment room over the northern
portico of St. Mary Redcliffe. Warton (in his history of English
poetry) says when this appeared he was about seventeen. Days are more
material in C.’s life than years in the lives of others. He wanted,
you see, something of sixteen. One fact is curious, that, though
it was not possible for him to have picked up Latin at a charity
school where Latin was not taught, his note to the printer has, for
no apparent reason, a Latin signature, Dunhelmus Bristoliensis. This
Latin certainly was not Rowley’s. It must have been C.’s. The memoir
procured C. the acquaintance of some gentlemen of Bristol, who,
because they condescended to receive from him the compositions which
he brought them, without giving him much, if anything, in return,
fondly imagined themselves the patrons of genius. Mr. Catcott and Mr.
Barrett, a pewterer and a surgeon, of his obligations to whom he speaks
in his letters, were his principal, if not his only, patrons. To these
gentlemen he produced, between October 1768 and April 1770 (besides
many things which he confessed to be his own, and many which, in the
interval, appeared in the _Town and Country Magazine_), all Rowley’s
poems, except the “Ballad of Charitie.” Of these only two, I think, and
those the shortest, he pretended to be the original MSS. The rest were
transcripts, in his own hand, of some of which he acknowledged himself
the author. Concerning these curiosities no distinct or satisfactory
account, by friend or enemy, by threat or promise, could ever be
drawn from him. For these curiosities how much he received from his
Bristol patrons does not appear. His patrons do not boast of their
generosity to him. They (Catcott at least) received no inconsiderable
sum for Rowley’s poems; nor has the sale of them turned out badly.
In consequence of the money got by poems which Chatterton certainly
brought to light, and which I firmly believe C. to have written, his
mother acknowledges to have received the immense sum of five guineas,
by the hands of Mr. Catcott; and Mr. Barrett, without fee or reward,
cured the whitlowed finger of the sister. Talk no more of the neglect
of genius in any age or country, when _in this age and country_
Rowley’s poems have produced such fortunes to the author and his
family. Should I ever appear in print on this subject, I would publicly
call upon the gentlemen concerned in this transaction to state their
accounts.
Has not the world a right to know what Catcott fairly bought of
Chatterton (he does not pretend to have bought all), and what was the
fair purchase-money of these inestimable treasures? Let us know what
the editors of Rowley’s poems gave and received for them, and what the
sale of them has produced? Is the son to be declared guilty of forgery?
Are his forgeries to be converted into (I believe, no inconsiderable
sums of) money? And is the mother and sister’s share to be five guineas?
Either mean envy of C.’s extraordinary genius, or manly abhorrence of
his detestable death, leads almost every person, who talks or writes
about this boy, to tell you of his shocking profligacy and his total
want of principle.
When C. left this world in August, 1770, he wanted as many months as
intervene between August and November to complete his eighteenth year.
If into so small a space he had contrived to crowd much profligacy and
much want of principle, some perhaps may be ascribed to his youth,
and to want of friends. Johnson, I remember, defends even the life of
Savage, which differed from Chatterton’s in more circumstances than its
length, by some such observation as this: that the sons of affluence
are improper judges of his conduct, and that few wise men will venture
to affirm they should have lived better than Savage in Savage’s
situation. Do _profligate_ and _unprincipled_, some of the tenderest
epithets vouchsafed unto poor Chatterton, mean dishonest or undutiful,
an unkind brother or an unfeeling child? The dullest enemies of his
genius can produce no proofs of any such crime. Some of the papers that
I shall send you will contain the fullest proof of the negative. Do
they mean that, being a young man, he was addicted to women, like all
youths of strong imaginations? Do the epithets mean that he exhibited
those damnable proofs of his crimes which Bougainville exported into
the country of Omiah? The proofs (if there were any, which his
bedfellow at his first lodging in town denies) only show that he was
unlucky. The crimes must be admitted. Do they mean that, writing to
procure bread for himself, his mother, and his sister, he wrote on any
side and on any subject which would afford bread?
Let me now make you acquainted with the indisputable history of this
boy till he left Bristol. As he says, in his “Story of Canynge.”
In all his sheepen gambols, and child’s play,
At every merry-making, fair or wake,
I kenn a purpled light of wisdom’s ray;
He ate down learning with the wastle cake,
As wise as any of the aldermen,
He’d wit enough to make a mayor at ten.
Beattie has hardly been able to invent a more striking picture of his
minstrel than is exhibited of Chatterton in a letter written by his
sister, last year, to a gentleman who desired her to recollect every
circumstance concerning him, however trifling it might seem to her. The
letter is lent to me, with many charges of care. Pray be careful of it.
In transcribing it, you will naturally preserve the false spelling and
stops. Let Chatterton’s sister tell her own story in her own way. The
anxiety shown in this letter to prove “he was a lover of truth from the
earliest dawn of reason,” is owing to what these two poor women (the
mother and sister) have heard about deceit, imposter and _forgery_.
For Chatterton’s sake the English language should add another word
to its dictionary; and should not suffer the same term to signify a
crime for which a man suffers the most ignominious punishment, and the
deception of ascribing a false antiquity of two or three centuries to
compositions, for which the author’s name deserves to live for ever.
Suffer me to ask what the prudery of our critics would have said
had the song to Ælla, or the chorus to Godwin, been produced by Mr.
Warton’s nephew, or by a relation of Mr. Walpole? Should we then have
been stunned in this manner with repetitions of imposter and forgery?
The sins of the forgery and the imposter would then have been boasted
by the child’s most distant relations, unto the third and fourth
generations. Is lady A. L. accused of _forgery_ for her “Auld Robin
Gray?” Is Macpherson’s name mentioned in the same sentence with this
unfeeling word _forgery_, even by those who believe Macpherson and
Ossian to be the same? “When a rich man speaketh,” says the son of
Sirach (you see I have not taken orders in vain), “every man holdeth
his tongue: and lo! what he says is extolled to the clouds: but if a
poor man speak, they say, ‘What fellow is this?’”
A gentleman, who saw these two women last year, declares that, in his
opinion, they might easily have been persuaded that injured justice
demanded their lives at Tyburn, for being the mother and sister of him
who was suspected to have _forged_ the poems of Rowley. Such terror had
the humanity of certain curious enquirers impressed upon their minds,
by worrying them to declare the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth about the _forgery_. Strange-fated Chatterton! Hadst thou
possessed fewer and less eminent abilities, the world would now give
thee credit for more and for greater.
With regard to the fact, the mother and sister, either believe, or
pretend to believe, that all Rowley’s poems came out of the old chest
in the church. The case is, not one of the three knows anything of
the matter. Most readily I admit that, if Chatterton be an impostor
(_i.e._, the wonderful human being I firmly believe him), he imposed
upon every soul who knew him. This, with me, is one trait of his
greatness.
It has been thought that murders and other crimes are pointed out to
discovery by the finger of Providence. But “God’s revenge against
murder” is, in fact, only the sociableness of man’s disposition. That
we may have been wisely formed for this purpose, among others, I do not
deny. But Tyburn would see fewer executions were man a less sociable
animal. It is not good for him to be alone. Joy or sorrow, villainy
or otherwise, _we must have society, we must communicate it_. Man, in
spite of grammar, is a noun adjective. Does any one admire Junius for
saying that his secret should die with him, and for keeping his word?
But this was only saying he would not enlarge the circle of those to
whom his secret was already known, for that he was, as he says, “the
sole depositary of his own secret,” I cannot think.
The original letters are clearly written in a female hand. But Junius
is now known.
Let any man, at any time of life, make an experiment of not
communicating to a single individual, during twelve months, a single
scheme, a single prospect, a single circumstance respecting himself.
Let him try how it is to lock up everything, trifling or serious, sad
or merry, within his own solitary breast. There are easier tasks. This
boy did it during his whole life.
Very few such men as John the Painter[13] have appeared in the world,
from whom his secret was only stolen by the traitorous hand of
friendship. No such human being as this boy, at any period of life,
has ever been known, or possibly ever will be known. The Spartan lad
was far inferior, and that was the effect of education. Psalmanazar
and D’Eon are not to be compared with him. That, at his timid and
sociable age, when other children are almost afraid to be left alone,
Chatterton should wrap his arms round him, stand aloof from the whole
world, and never lean upon a single individual for society in his
schemes (in schemes, too, neither odious nor criminal), is with me
almost more wonderful than the schemes which I firmly believe him,
without any assistance, to have planned and executed. It shall make
a trait in the character of a general, if he have strength of mind
enough not to communicate his plans to his first favourite, till the
communication is no longer dangerous. Shall not a boy of eighteen, of
seventeen, of _sixteen_, have merit for secrecy much more singular?
[13] Do not smile at my lugging in John the Painter till you consider
how it applies. His secrecy was wonderful, yet less wonderful that
Chatterton’s in exact proportion as his secret was more criminal, and
more nearly concerned his life. But you will not deny it to be _odd_,
what I know for a fact, that among his papers were some observations
on Rowley’s poems. If they have not been destroyed, they might surely
be published. They could not endanger our dockyards, though written by
John the Painter. Cannot you give a hint of this kind, some day, at
your house? Most probably _he_ has them.
In one part of the sister’s letter, you will not fail to recollect
Dryden, who speaks of the alliance between understanding and madness. I
am sure that “Love and Madness” are near relations.
* * * * *
“Conscious, of my own inability’s to write to a man of letters. And
reluctant to engage in the painful recollection of the particulars of
the life of my poor deceased brother. Together with the ill-state of
health I’ve enjoyed since it has been required of me, are Sir, the
real causes of my not writing sooner. But I am invited to write as to a
friend, inspired with the sacred name, I will forget the incorrectness
of my epistle and proceed.
“My brother very early discover’d a thurst for preheminence, I remember
before he was 5 years old he would always preside over his play mates
as their master and they his hired servants. He was dull in learning
not knowing many letters at 4 years old, and always objected to read in
a small book. He learnt the Alphabet from an old Folio musick book of
father’s my mother was then tearing up for waste paper, the capitals at
the beginning of the verses. I assisted in teaching him. I recollect
nothing remarkable till he went into the school, which was in his 8th
year. Excepting his promising my mother and me a deal of finery when
he grew up as a reward of her care. About his 10th year he began (with
the trifle my mother allowed him for pocket money) to hire books from
the circulating library and we were informed by the usher made rapid
progress in arithmetick. Between his 11th and 12th year he wrote a
caterlogue of the books he had read to the number of 70. History and
divinity were the chief subjects, his school mates informed us he
retired to read at the hours allotted for play. At 12 years old he was
confirmed by the bishop, he made very sencible serious remarks on the
awfullness of the ceremony and his own feelings and convictions during
it. Soon after this in the week he was door-keeper he made some verses
on the last day, I think about 18 lines, paraphrased the 9 chapter of
Job and not long after some chapters in Isaiah. He had been gloomy from
the time he began to learn, but we remark’d he was more cheerfull after
he began to write poetry. Some saterical peicis we saw soon after. His
intimates in the school were but few and they solid lads and except the
next neighbour’s sons I know of none acquaintance he had out. He was 14
the 20th of Novr. and bound apprentice the 1st of July following. Soon
after his apprenticeship he corresponded with one of his school mates
that had been his bedfellow, and was I believe bound to a merchant
at New York. He read a letter at home that he wrote to his friend, a
collection of all the hard words in the English language, and requested
him to answer it. He was a lover of truth from the earlyest dawn of
reason, and nothing would move him so much as being bely’d. When in
the school we were informed by the usher, his master depended on his
verasity on all occations. Till this time he was remarkably indifferent
to females, one day he was remarking to me the tendency sever study
had to sour the temper and declared he had always seen all the sex
with equal indifference but those that nature made dear, he thought of
makeing an acquaintance with a girl in the neighbourhood, supposeing it
might soften the austerity of temper study had ocationed, he wrote a
poem to her and they commenced corrisponding acquaintance. About this
time the parchments belonging to my father that was left of covering
his boys books, my brother carried to the office. He would often speak
in great raptures of the undoubted success of his plan for future life.
He was introduced to Mr. Barret, Mr. Catcot, his ambition increas’d
daily. His spirits was rather uneven. Some time so gloom’d that for
many days together he would say very little and that by constraint. At
other times exceeding chearfull. When in spirits he would injoy his
rising fame. Confident of advancement he would promise my mother and me
should be partakers of his success. Mr. Barret lent him many books on
surgery and I believe he bought many more as I remember to have packt
them up to send to him when in London and no demand was ever made for
them. About this time he wrote several saterical poems. One in the
papers of Mr. Catcot’s putting the pewter plates in St. Nicholas tower.
He began to be universally known among the young men. He had many cap
acquaintance but I am confident but few intimates. At about 17, he
became acquainted with Mr. Clayfield, distiller in Castle-street, who
lent him many books on astronomy. Mr. Cator likewise assisted him with
books on that subject, from thence he applyd himself to that study. His
hours in the office was from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening. He
had little of his masters business to do. Sometimes not 2 hours in the
day, which gave him an opportunity to pursue his genius. He boarded at
Mr. Lambert’s, but we saw him most evenings before 9 o’clock and would
in general stay to the limits of his time which was 10 o’clock. He was
seldom 2 evenings together without seeing us. I had almost forgotten
to add, we had heard him frequently say that he found he studied best
towards the full of the moon and would often sit up all night and write
by moon light. A few months before he left Bristol he wrote letters
to several booksellers in London I believe to learn if there was any
probability of his getting an employment there but that I cannot affirm
as the subject was a secret at home. He wrote one letter to Sir Horace
Warpool, and except his corrispondence with Miss Rumsey, the girl I
before mentioned, I know of no other. He would frequently walk the
colledge green with the young girls that statedly paraded there to
show their finery. But I really believe he was no debauchee (tho some
have reported it), the dear unhappy boy had faults enough I saw with
concern. He was proud and exceedingly impetious but that of venality he
could not be accused justly with. Mrs. Lambert informed me not 2 months
before he left Bristol, he had never been once found out of the office
in the stated hours as they frequently sent the footman and other
servants there to see. Nor but once stayd out till 11 o’clock; then he
had leave, as we entertained some friends at our house at Christmas.
“Thus Sir have I given you, as before the great searcher of hearts the
whole truth as far as my memory have been faithful the particulars of
my dear brother. The task have been painfull, and for want of earlier
recollection much have been nay the greatest part have been lost. My
mother joins with me in best respects which conclude me.
“Sir,
“Your very humble servant,
“+Mary Newton+.
“+Bristol, Somersetshire Square+,
“_Sept. 22, 1778_.”
Chatterton remained in the attorney’s office at Bristol till April
1770. The life he led there you may collect from Mrs. Newton’s letter.
In addition to that, she and her mother relate that his Sundays were
generally spent in walking alone into the country round Bristol, as far
as the day would allow his return before night. From these excursions
he never failed to bring home with him drawings of churches, or of
something which had struck him. That he had a turn of drawing you will
see by the figure of a warrior (perhaps Ælla) presenting a church on
his knee, which shall accompany this letter (and you are now a judge of
drawing, you know). It was one of his first attempts.
But any single self-acquired accomplishment ceases to surprise, when
we recollect his other acquisitions of heraldry, architecture, music,
astronomy, surgery, &c. Our surprise has been long since called
forth. Had Chatterton, without any instruction but reading, writing,
and accounts, _before he was 18_, arrived at the ability of _only_
putting together, in prose or in verse, something which was deemed
worth insertion in the most worthless magazine, it would have been
surprising. What master would not be astonished to discover such a
talent in a servant (grown grey in the acquisition of it) who had only
learnt to read and write? Stephen Duck, and others, have been lifted to
independence, to wealth, for little more. The author of our existence
can alone determine to what He has made his creatures equal.
That Chatterton should acquire particular things, without instruction,
is not singular, since it was with him a favourite maxim that man
was equal to _anything_ and that _everything_ might be acquired by
diligence and abstinence. Was anything of this sort mentioned in his
hearing? All boy as he was, he would only observe that the person in
question merited praise; but that God had sent His creatures into the
world with arms long enough to reach anything, if they would be at the
trouble of extending them. This idea he could not but feel confirmed
by what he knew of a Mr. Burgum (I think), Mr. Catcott’s partner, who
taught himself Latin and Greek.
How very strongly the idea, that a human being may accomplish anything,
had taken possession of Chatterton. He desires his sister to improve
herself in copying music, drawing, and _everything which requires
genius_; as if genius were no less common to man and woman than a pair
of eyes or a nose. He gave all his fellow-creatures credit for what he
felt so plainly himself.
When Voltaire tells us, in his history of Charles XII., that on such
a day he quitted Stockholm, _to which he never returned_, we are
interested enough, even in such a savage, to feel something like
concern. In April 1770 Chatterton quitted Bristol (from which place
he never had before been absent further than he could walk in half a
Sunday, and to which place _he never returned_), to try his fortune in
London.
He lodged first at Shoreditch, afterwards (when his employment made
it necessary for him to frequent public places, I suppose) in Brook
Street, Holborn. The man and woman where he first lodged are still
living in the same house. He is a plaisterer. They and their nephew,
niece, and Mrs. Ballance, who lodged in the house, and desired them to
let Chatterton (her relation) lodge there also. The little collected
from them you shall have in their own words. But the life he led did
not afford them any opportunities to observe him, could they have
imagined that such a being was under the same roof with them, or that
they would be asked for their observations upon him, after an interval
of so many years. Mrs. Ballance says he was as proud as Lucifer. He
very soon quarrelled with her for calling him “Cousin _Tommy_,” and
asked her if she ever heard of a poet’s being called _Tommy?_ But she
assured him she knew nothing of poets, and only wished he would not set
up for a gentleman. Upon her recommending it to him to get into some
office, when he had been in town two or three weeks, he stormed about
the room like a madman, and frightened her not a little by telling
her, he hoped, with the blessing of God, very soon to be sent prisoner
to the Tower, which would make his fortune. He would often look
steadfastly in a person’s face without speaking, or seeming to see the
person, for a quarter of an hour or more, till it was quite frightful,
during all which time (she supposes, from what she has since heard)
that his thoughts _were gone about something else_. When Beckford died,
he was perfectly frantic, and out of his mind, and said he was ruined.
He frequently said he should settle the nation before he had done; but
how could she think her poor cousin Tommy was so great a man as she now
finds he was? His mother should have written word of his greatness, and
then, to be sure, she would have humoured the gentleman accordingly.
Mr. Walmsley saw nothing of him, but that there was something manly
and pleasing about him, and that he did not dislike the wenches. Mrs.
Walmsley’s account is that she never saw any harm of him, that he
never _mislisted_ her; but was always very civil whenever they met in
the house by accident; that he would never suffer the room, in which
he used to read and write, to be swept, because, he said, poets hated
brooms; that she told him she did not anything that _poet folks_ were
good for, but to sit in a dirty cap and gown in a garret, and at last
to be starved; that, during the nine weeks he was at her house, he
never stayed out after the family hours, except once, when he did not
come home all night, and had been, she heard, _poeting_ a song about
the streets. The night, Mrs. Ballance says, she knows he lodged at a
relation’s; Mr. Walmsley’s house was shut up when he came home.
The niece says, for her part, she always took him more for a mad boy
than anything else, he would have such flights and _vagaries_; that,
but for his face, and her knowledge of his age, she should never have
thought him a boy, he was so manly, _and so much himself_; that no
women came after him, nor did she know of any connection; but still
that he was a sad rake, and terribly fond of women, and would sometimes
be saucy to her; that he ate what he chose to have with his relation
(Mrs. B.) who lodged in the house, but he never touched meat, and drank
only water and seemed to live on the air.
The niece adds that he was good-tempered, and agreeable, and obliging,
but sadly proud and haughty; nothing was too good for him, nor was
anything too good for his grandmother, &c., at a time when she (the
niece) knew he was almost in want; that he used to sit up almost all
night, reading and writing, and that her brother said he was afraid to
lie with him; for, to be sure, he was a _spirit_, and never slept; for
he never came to bed until it was morning, and then, for what he saw,
never closed his eyes.
The nephew (Chatterton’s bedfellow, during the first six weeks he
lodged there) says, that, notwithstanding his pride and haughtiness,
it was impossible to help liking him; that he lived chiefly upon a bit
of bread, or a tart, and some water, but he once or twice saw him take
a sheep’s tongue out of his pocket; that Chatterton, to his knowledge,
never slept while they lay together; that he never came to bed until
very late, sometimes three or four o’clock, and was always awake when
he (the nephew) waked, and got up at the same time, about five or
six; that almost every morning the floor was covered with pieces of
paper not so big as sixpences, into which he had torn what he had been
writing before he came to bed. In short, they all agree that no one
would have taken him, from his behaviour, &c., to have been a poor boy
of seventeen, and a sexton’s son: they never saw such another person
before nor since—he appeared to have something wonderful about him.
They say he gave no reason for quitting their house. They found the
floor of his room covered with little pieces of paper, the remains of
his _poeting_, as they term it.
And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy;
Deep thought oft seem’d to fix his infant eye.
Dainties he heeded not, not gaude, nor toy,
Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy.
Silent, when glad; affectionate, though shy:
And now his look was most demurely sad;
And now he laugh’d aloud, yet none knew why.
The neighbours stared and sigh’d, yet bless’d the lad
_Some deem’d him wondrous wise, and some believ’d him mad._
Mrs. Angel, to whose house he removed from Shoreditch, I have in
vain endeavoured repeatedly to find out. A person in distressed
circumstances, as I understand her to be, is slow to believe that an
inquiry after her hiding-place is only set on foot by the curiosity of
honest enthusiasm. Little versed in the history of mankind, she cannot
imagine how any one can be curious or concerned about a person, so
many years after his death, for whom in his lifetime no one cared a
farthing. Every stranger is to her imagination a bailiff in disguise.
In every hasty tread she hears “the monster Bumbailiano, keeper of
the dark and black cave.” Poor hunted animal! If thou wert kind to
Chatterton; if, by thy charitable means, his young hairs were brought
down with somewhat less of sorrow to the grave, never may the monster
lay his cruel paw upon thy shoulder!
Could Mrs. Angel be found, much might not be learnt from her short
knowledge of Chatterton, for he remained nine weeks in Shoreditch—at
least, not much more, perhaps, than has been gotten from Mrs. Walmsley
and her family. Mrs. Wolfe, a barber’s wife, within a few doors of the
house in which Mrs. Angel lived, remembers him, and remembers his
death. She speaks also of his proud and haughty spirit, and adds, that
he appeared both to her and Mrs. Angel as if he were born for something
great. Mrs. Angel told her, after his death, that, as she knew he had
not eaten anything for two or three days, she begged he would take
some dinner with her on the 24th of August; but he was offended at her
expressions, which seemed to hint that he was in want, and assured her
he was not hungry.
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!
Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime
Hath felt the influence of malignant star,
And wag’d with fortune an eternal war!
Check’d by the scoff of pride, and envy’s frown,
And poverty’s unconquerable bar,
In life’s low vale remote hath pin’d alone,
_Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown_!
Such was the short and incredible life of Thomas Chatterton. Over
his death, for the sake of the world (he is out of the reach of our
pity or concern), I would willingly draw a veil. But this must not
be. They who are in a condition to patronise merit, and they who
feel a consciousness of merit which is not patronised, may form their
own resolutions from the catastrophe of his tale: those, to lose no
opportunity of befriending genius; these, to seize every opportunity
of befriending themselves; and, upon no account, to harbour the most
distant idea of quitting the world, however it may be unworthy of them,
lest despondency should at last deceive them into so unpardonable
a step. Chatterton, as appears by the coroner’s inquest, swallowed
arsenic in water on the 24th of August, 1770, and died in consequence
thereof the next day. He was buried in a shell in the burying-ground
of Shoe-land workhouse. His taking such a rash and unjustifiable step
is almost as strange as his fathering his poems upon Rowley. That he
should have been driven to it by _absolute_ want (though I do not say
it was _not_ so) is not very possible, since he never indulged himself
in meat and drank nothing but water. The coroner has no minutes of the
melancholy business, and is unable to recall any of the circumstances
at this distance of time to his memory. The witnesses before the
inquest, as appears by his memorandum, were Frederick Angel, Mary
Foster, and William Hamsley, none of whom I have been able to find
out. That his despair should fix on August, that it should not have
staid at least till the gloomier months of winter, must surprise
those who are sensible of the influence of such a climate as ours.
Recollecting what Mrs. Newton says of the effect which the moon had
upon her brother, I searched for the moon’s changes in August 1770.
Much cannot be presumed from them. The moon was at the full on the
6th, and in the last quarter the 14th. The 20th, at eleven at night,
there was a new moon. The fatal day was the 24th. But who can bear to
dwell upon, or argue about, the self-destruction of such a being as
Chatterton? The motives for everything he did are past finding out.
His room, when it was broke open after his death, was found, like
the room he quitted at Mrs. Walmsley’s, covered with little scraps
of paper. What a picture he would have made, with the fatal cup by
his bedside, destroying plans of future Ællas and Godwins, and of
unfinished books of The Battle of Hastings? M. I have had the (call
it what you will) to spend half an hour in the room. It was half an
hour of most exquisite sensations. My visit of devotion was paid in
the morning, I remember; but I was not myself again all day. To look
round the room; to say to myself, here stood his bed; there the poison
was set; in that window he loitered for some hours before he retired
to his last rest, envying the meanest passenger, and wishing he could
exchange his own feelings and intellects for their manual powers and
insensibility! Then, abhorrence of his death, abhorrence of the world,
and I know not how many different and contradictory but all distracting
ideas! Nothing should tempt me to undergo such another half-hour.
Bristol, stand forth! Too just are even these rhymes
Without a trial to condemn thy crimes.
Come forward, answer to thy cursed name;
Stand, if thou dare, before the bar of fame.
Bristol, hold up thine hand, that damned hand
Which scatters misery over half the land,
The land of Genius!
We come now to the question of most difficulty, but of least
consequence. What could induce Chatterton to lay such a plan? Was it
the credit of imposing upon the world, which he was determined never
to claim, since he never owned the imposition? My answer is, that I
neither know nor care; and the conjectures of the _rustiest fellow_ of
the Antiquarian Society cannot give an answer much more to the purpose.
Are the motives of men’s and women’s conduct so plain that he who runs
may read them? How much less obvious are we to expect the motives of
a boy’s conduct? Chatterton, with some, with many things about him,
superior to most, to all men, was still but a boy. Though he did see
seventeen before his death, he must have been _literally_ a boy when he
laid the foundation of his plans. If Macpherson and Ossian be the same,
if Chatterton thought them to be the same, Chatterton is an original
in poetry only, not in suppositiousness. Good men are satisfied with
the applause of their own consciences, and scatter charity with the
invisible hand of bounty. May not great men be formed in the same
mould? May not obscurity appear to enlarge an ideal as well as a real
object? God would, perhaps, be something less of God were He visible.
But, as I said, I neither know nor care what was Chatterton’s motive.
Am I still asked for it? Like many a man in conversation, I will
get off by telling a story. D’Alembert, in his pamphlet upon the
destruction of the Jesuits, relates that one of the Order, who had
spent twenty years upon a mission in Canada, did not believe even the
existence of a God. Notwithstanding this, he had, numerous times run
the hazard of his life in defence of that religion which he preached
with success among the savages. To a friend, who expressed surprise at
the warmth of his zeal, the missionary observed: “Ah, you have no idea
of the pleasure there is in having 20,000 men to listen to you, and in
persuading them what you do not believe yourself.”
By what was the scheme suggested to Chatterton’s invention? This
question, it is, perhaps, still more impossible to answer, nor do I
pretend to answer it. If you can ground any conjecture on a few facts I
will mention, so: Psalmanazar died about the time Chatterton’s scheme
was born, and bequeathed his methodistical memoirs to the world.
Walpole, about the same time, endeavoured to turn a whole national
current of belief with respect to Richard III., and not long before,
acknowledged the imposition he had put upon the public in the preface
to “Otranto.” The Douglas cause was, about the same time, in high
agitation. Ossian, with Blair’s dissertation, in which the name of
_Ælla_ is mentioned, had not long made its appearance. “The Concubine,”
in Spenser’s manner, appeared in 1767. Percy’s “Reliques” had not long
been published. Page xxiv. of the first volume (second edition, 1767),
mention is made of “Colgrin, son of that _Ælla_ who was elected King
of the Saxons in the room of Hengist.” Chatterton must have admired
“Hardyknute” (vol. ii. p. 94), which Mrs. Wardlaw _pretended_ to have
found on “shreds of paper employed for what is called the bottoms of
clues,” and must have seen through the _pretended_ extract of a letter
from _Canton_ to James Carland, Esq., at the end of the third volume,
which vouches for the _truth_ of Percy’s _Hau Kiou Choaau_, there
advertised as _translated from the Chinese_. On the 21st of January,
1769, the _invisible_ Junius printed his first letter. In May 1769,
Mrs. Montague published her Essay on Shakespeare, from which it is not
impossible that Chatterton’s _tindery_ ambition might catch the fire
of rivalry. Farrer’s Essay on the learning of Shakespeare had appeared
about a twelvemonth. In the wonderful extent of his reading, Chatterton
could not be ignorant of Parnell’s imposition on Pope, by means of
a pretended Leonine translation of some of his lines in the Rape of
the Lock, or of Parnell’s Fairy Tale, _in the Ancient English style_.
Better memories may, perhaps, recollect other things of this kind. That
Chatterton had Walpole and Ossian in some measure present to his mind,
is manifest from his fixing upon the same person (Mr. W.) to introduce
Rowley to the world, whom Macpherson chose for Ossian. And, surely, to
prove Earl Godwin a good man and true, in spite of history, is much
such an attempt as Mr. Walpole’s concerning Richard. The first stanza
of Canynge’s prologue to Godwin, is little more than a versification of
the ingenious supposition in the article _Godwin_, in the “Biographia
Britannica,” and is rather the language of our _distant_ age, than of
a man writing _three hundred years nearer_ Godwin, who was not then
_ungently_ treated in _so many_ histories as now.
Whilomme, by pensmen, much ungentle name
Has upon Godwin Earl of Kent been laid,
Thereby bereaving him of faith and fame.
The unforgiving clergymen have said,
That he was known to no holy wurche,
But this was all his fault, he gifted not the church.
It may be said that hardly one of the schemes which I have mentioned
succeeded. Let me, in my turn, tell what Fontenelle, in his
“Dialogues,” puts into the mouth of the Russian Pretender. When he is
asked how he dared to assert a claim, for which two or three impostors
had suffered the cruellest death, he answers, it was upon that very
circumstance he grounded the probability of passing for a true man and
no impostor.
Of the impossibility to prove imitation I am well aware. But for
intentional imitation I do not here contend. The originality of his
sublime genius would not have stooped from its height to imitate any
man that ever existed. By the nature of his plan, the folding-doors
of imitation were effectually shut against Chatterton. His hands were
tied up from picking and stealing. What other poet, ancient or modern,
except Homer (and even Homer had his ancients, perhaps), can produce
an octavo volume, in the whole course of which, after a search of
some years, the best and oldest heads are not able to detect him with
certainty more than six or eight times? And those coincidences must of
course have been the effect more of memory than design.
If Chatterton did endeavour to catch the public by other baits besides
genius who can blame him?
Ill-fated Chatterton! Why didst thou not attend to _Orestes_ “On the
Poverty of Authors”? (_Town and Country Magazine_, Aug. 1769, p.
399.) How couldst thou imagine that even thy parts would prevent thy
adding one to his long but faithful list of the starved children of
genius? Could thy penetrating sight discover no truth in his borrowed
observation, that “We more readily assist the lame and the blind than
a poor man of genius; for every one is sensibly affected with the
apprehension of blindness or lameness; but who is in the least dread of
the accidents which attend on genius?”
Here let me stop a moment to rescue the world from blame it does not
merit. The world is not accountable for the death of every man of
abilities who has perished, however miserably, in an alehouse, or a
prison. Profligacy and genius, ability and prodigality, are not, as
many imagine, the same things. But genius too often thinks it necessary
to be profligate, and profligacy often demands to pass for genius.
To behold genius confined in a prison, or skulking in an alehouse,
and not to lend relief, were infamous, provided the spectator could
be sure he was lending _effectual relief_. But if to rescue from one
prison, be only to give an opportunity to visit another—whose humanity
is sturdy enough to bear such insults even from a friend or from a
child? Churchill reproached the world with suffering Lloyd to pine in
the Fleet, and Johnson has moistened many an eye with the sufferings of
Savage. But the world, if it be ever accountable, is only accountable
for the death of such a being as Chatterton, who (let his enemies
or enviers persist, as they choose, in asserting what they cannot
prove) was not extravagant, was not profligate, was not unprincipled.
All his profligacy consisted in quitting the attorney’s office, and
penning Ælla—“when he should have engrossed.” His only extravagance
was lavishing unnecessary presents upon his grandmother, mother,
and sister, a few shillings, the earnings of his genius, which might
otherwise, perhaps, have saved him from starving. Unprinciples belongs
to those who accuse him of crimes without a shadow of proof.
One other question remains to be answered. It may be asked why
Chatterton’s own “Miscellanies” are inferior to Rowley? Let me ask
another question. _Are_ they inferior? Genius, abilities, application,
we _may_ bring into the world with us; these rare ingredients _may_ be
mixed up in our compositions by the hand of Nature; but Nature herself
cannot create a human being possest of a complete knowledge of the
world almost the moment he is born into it. Is the knowledge of the
world, which his “Miscellanies” contain, no proof of his astonishing
quickness in seizing everything he chose? Is it remembered when, and at
what age, Chatterton for the first time quitted Bristol, and how few
weeks he lived afterwards? Chatterton’s “Letters” and “Miscellanies”
exhibit an insight into men, manners, and things, for the want of
which in their writings, authors who have died old men, with more
opportunities to know the world (who could have fewer than Chatterton?)
have been thought to make amends by other merits.
Again, in his own character, he painted for booksellers and bread; in
Rowley’s, for fame and eternity. Why are a boy’s _tasks_ at school
inferior to what he writes for his amusement? Then it is not impossible
that he might designedly underwrite himself. He certainly did when he
wrote “Ladgate’s answer to the Song of Ælla.” After all, he was no
modern; the boy was born an ancient; and he knew mankind well enough to
see that, in the present age, there was a greater facility of emergence
from obscurity to fame, through the channel of curiosity, for a monk
of the fifteenth century than for a sexton’s son of the eighteenth.
Shame upon that age, which still persists in bearing testimony to his
knowledge of it!
With regard to Chatterton’s face and person, all agree that he was
a manly, good-looking boy, that there was something about him which
instantaneously prepossessed you in his favour. Mr. Barrett and Mr.
Catcott, as well as all who remember him, speak particularly of his
eye. Catcott says he could never look at it long enough to see what
sort of an eye it was; but it seemed to be a kind of hawk’s eye, he
thinks; you could see his soul through it. Mr. Barrett says he took
particular notice of his eyes from the nature of his profession. He
never saw such. One was still more remarkable than the other. You might
see the fire roll at the bottom of them, as you sometimes do in a black
eye, but never in grey ones, which his were. Mr. Barrett adds, that
he used often to send for him from the charity school (which is close
to his house) and differ from him in opinion on purpose to make him
earnest, and to see how wonderfully his eye would strike fire, kindle,
and blaze up....
So ends what I have to say about Chatterton, when I shall have just
observed that his _innocent_ imposition on the world is exactly the
story of M. Angelo’s buried statue of Cupid; and, finally, that Miss
More is oftener boasted of by Bristol, and has acquired more fame and
wealth for an “Ode to Garrick’s Dog” than Chatterton for all Rowley’s
poems. Prefix to this letter, if you please, the _comforting_ discovery
of Lord Shaftesbury in his “Characteristics,” that “an ingenious man
never starves unknown.” Such a being as Chatterton should not have been
suffered to starve at all. But _comfort_ like this is to be expected
from “Knights and Barons.”
Bards may be Lords, but ’tis not in the cards,
Play as you will, to turn Lords into Bards.
The employment has been of the service to me that you meant it should.
In some measure I have forgotten myself, and, as much as it was
possible, forgotten my M. during the hours I have spent upon this
business. If the story be not told as regularly as it might, the
situation of my mind with regard to you must be my excuse. Besides,
were I cold enough to tell such a tale as Chatterton’s with as much
regularity as I put a common occurrence upon paper I should despise
myself. All I shall further add is, that I do not hold out Chatterton
as the first character in the world. An army of Macedonian and Swedish
butchers, indeed, fly before him; nor does my memory supply me with
any human being who, at such an age, with such disadvantages, has
produced such compositions. Under the heathen mythology superstition
and admiration would have explained all by bringing Apollo upon earth.
Nor would the god ever have descended with more credit to himself.
But, after all, the world is only indebted to Chatterton for a few
inimitable poems. If barbarity and fanaticism be suffered to destroy
mankind, genius will write in vain, when there is none to read. To
preserve our fellow-creatures is still a greater praise than to
instruct or amuse them. Perhaps, all circumstances considered, the
first character that ever existed was Bartholomew las Casas.
Let me conclude these tedious sheets of paper with a most capital
subject for a painter, from Chatterton’s _tournament_, which you
may add to the subjects I have before suggested to you. It will
surprise you to find how _very_ modern it is. The advocates to Rowley
must explain this to you, if they can, and if Rowley has still any
advocates; for I do assure you, as you will find by turning to the
poem, that I have only altered _four_ words, and those _only_ by
changing them for Chatterton’s words of explanation in his notes to the
poem.
When battle, steaming with new-quicken’d gore,
Bending with spoils and bloody dropping head,
Did the dark wood of ease and rest explore,
Seeking to lie on pleasure’s downy bed—
Pleasure, dancing from her wood,
Wreath’d with flowers of eglantine,
From his visage wash’d the blood,
Hid his sword and gaberdine.
The manner in which you account for the self-destruction of that most
wonderful boy, Chatterton, is physical, I assure you, as well as
sensible. Tissot, in his “Essay on the Diseases Incident to Literary
Persons,” starts some ideas very much like yours, only they are wrapped
up in harder words. You shall see:
* * * * *
“When the mind, long time occupied, has forcibly impressed an action
upon the brain, she is unable to repress that forcible action. The
shock continues after its cause; and, re-acting upon the mind, makes it
experience ideas which are truly delirious: for they no longer answer
to the external impressions of objects, but to the internal disposition
of the brain, some parts of which are now become incapable to receive
new movements transmitted to it by the senses.”
“The brain of Pascal was so vitiated by passing his life in the
laborious exercises of study, thought, and imagination, that certain
fibres, agitated by incessant motion, made him perpetually feel a
sensation which seemed to be excited by a gulph of fire situated on one
side of him; and his reason, overpowered by the disorder of his nerves,
could never banish the idea of this fiery abyss. Spinello painted the
fall of the rebel angels, and gave so fierce a countenance to Lucifer,
that he was struck with horror himself; and during the remainder of his
life, his imagination was continually haunted by the figure of that
dæmon, upbraiding him with having made his portrait so hideous. Gasper
Barlæis, the orator, poet, and physician, was not ignorant of these
dangers. He warned his friend Hughens against them: but, blind with
regard to himself, by immoderate studies he so weakened his brain, that
he thought his body was made of butter, and carefully shunned the fire,
lest it should melt him; till at last, worn out with his continual
fears, he leapt into a well. Peter Jurieu, so famous in theological
dispute, and for his “Commentary on the Apocalypse,” disordered his
brain in such a manner that, though he thought like a man of sense in
other respects, he was firmly persuaded his frequent fits of the cholic
were occasioned by a constant engagement between seven horsemen, who
were shut up in his belly. There have been many instances of literature
persons who thought themselves metamorphosed into lanterns; and who
complained of having lost their thighs.”
* * * * *
No one can deny that Chatterton must have gone through as much wear
and tear of the imagination as any person whom Tissot mentions. But I
would give a good deal, were it possible for me never again to think
about Chatterton, or about his death, as long as I live, for I never do
without being miserable.
What you let fall about the propensity of the English to suicide, is
not true; though a very popular idea. And yet I will relate to you, in
the words of another person, an instance of English suicide much more
cool and deliberate than any you ever heard, I daresay. It is a fact,
and happened in 1732.
Richard Smith, a bookbinder, and prisoner for debt within the
liberties of the King’s Bench, persuaded his wife to follow his
example, in making away with herself, after they had murdered their
little infant. This wretched pair were, in the month of April, found
hanging in their bedchamber at about a yard’s distance from each
other; and in a separate apartment the child lay dead in a cradle.
They left two papers inclosed in a short letter to their landlord,
whose kindness they implored in favour of their dog and cat. They even
left money to the porter, who should carry the inclosed papers to
the person to whom they were addressed. In one of these the husband
thanked that person for the marks of friendship he had received at
his hands; and complained of the ill-offices he had undergone from a
different quarter. The other papers, subscribed by the husband and
wife, contained the reasons which induced them to act such a tragedy on
themselves and their offspring. This letter was altogether surprising
for the calm resolution, the good humour, and the propriety, with
which it was written. They declared that they withdrew themselves from
poverty and rags; evils that, through a train of unlucky accidents,
were become inevitable. They appealed to their neighbours for the
industry with which they had endeavoured to earn a livelihood. They
justified the murder of their child by saying, it was less cruelty to
take her with them, than to leave her friendless in the world, exposed
to ignorance and misery. They professed their belief and confidence
in an Almighty God, the fountain of goodness and beneficence, who
could not possibly take delight in the misery of His creatures:
they therefore, resigned up their lives to Him without any terrible
apprehensions; submitting themselves to those ways, which, in His
goodness, He should appoint after death. These unfortunate suicides had
been always industrious and frugal, invincibly honest, and remarkable
for conjugal affection.
* * * * *
This tragedy I have shown you, because I think France, lively France,
in whose language suicide is an _Anglicism_, can supply me with an
anecdote as authentic of something still more cool and more deliberate,
since the motives to the crime (to which no motive can be sufficiently
strong) were so much weaker.
On the day before Christmas Day, 1773, about eleven o’clock, two
soldiers came to the Cross-Bow Inn, at St. Dennis, and ordered a
dinner. Bordeaux, one of the soldiers, went out and bought a little
paper of powder and a couple of bullets, observing to the person
who sold them to him, that as St. Dennis seemed to be so pleasant a
place, he should not dislike to spend the remainder of his life there.
Returning to the inn, he and his companion passed the day together
very merrily. On Christmas Day they again dined as merrily, ordered
wine, and about five o’clock in the afternoon were found at the fire,
on breaking open the door, sitting on the opposite sides of a table,
whereon were three empty champaign bottles, the following will and
letter, and a half-crown. They were both shot through the head; two
pistols lay upon the floor. The noise of the pistols brought up the
people of the house, who immediately sent for M. de Rouilleres, the
Commandant of the _Maréchaussée_ at St. Dennis.
The will I translated myself from a formal copy, which was taken for a
friend of mine at St. Dennis in 1774.
+The Will.+
A man, who knows he is to die, should take care to do everything which
his survivors can wish him to have done. We are more particularly in
that situation. Our intention is to prevent uneasiness to our host, as
well as to lighten the labours of those whom curiosity, under pretence
of form and order, will bring hither to pay us visits.
Humain is the bigger, and I, Bourdeaux, am the lesser of the two.
He is drum-major of _mestre de camp des dragons_, and I am simply a
dragoon of Belzunce.
Death is a passage I address to the gentleman of the law of St. Dennis
(who, with his first clerk as assistant, must come hither for the
sake of justice) the principle; which, joined to the reflexion that
everything must have an end, put these pistols into our hands. The
future presents nothing to us but what is agreeable. Yet that future is
short and must end.
Humain is but twenty-four years of age; as for me, I have not yet
completed four lustres. No particular reason forces us to interrupt our
career, except the disgust we feel at existing for a moment under the
continual apprehension of ceasing to exist. An eternity is the point of
re-union; a longing-after which leads us to prevent the despotic act of
fate. In fine, disgust of life is our sole inducement to quit it.
If all those who are wretched would dare to divest themselves of
prejudice, and to look their destruction in the face, they would see
it is as easy to lay aside existence as to throw off an old coat, the
colour of which displeases. The proof of this may be referred to our
experience.
We have enjoyed every gratification in life, even that of obliging our
fellow-creatures. We could still procure to ourselves gratifications:
but all gratifications must have a period. That period is our poison.
We are disgusted at the perpetual sameness of the scene. The curtain is
dropped: and we leave our parts to those who are weak enough to feel an
inclination to play them a few hours longer.
Two or three grains of powder will soon break the springs of this
moving mass of flesh, which our haughty fellow-creatures stile the King
of Beings.
Messrs. the officers of justice, our carcases are at your discretion!
We despise them too much to give ourselves any trouble about what
becomes of them.
As to what we shall leave behind, for myself, Bordeaux, I give to M.
de Rouilleres, commandant of the _maréchaussée_ at St. Dennis, my
steel-mounted sword. He will recollect, that, last year, about this
very day, as he was conducting a recruit, he had the civility to grant
me a favour for a person of the name of St. Germain, who had offended
him.
The maid of the inn will take my pocket and neck handkerchiefs, as well
as the silk stockings which I now have on, and all my other linen.
The rest of our effects will be sufficient to pay the expense of the
useless law proceedings of which we shall be the subject.
The half crown upon the table will pay for the last bottle of wine
which we are going to drink.
+Bourdeaux.
Humain.+
At +St. Dennis+, _Christmas Day, 1773_.
Of the following letter from Bordeaux to his lieutenant in the regiment
of Belzunce, I have not seen the French; I cannot therefore answer for
the translation, which does not appear to have been done carefully.
Another friend supplied me with it. You shall have it as I had it from
him.
* * * * *
“+Sir+,
“During my residence at Guise, you honoured me with your friendship. It
is time that I thank you. You have often told me I appeared displeased
with my situation. It was sincere, but not absolutely true. I have
since examined myself more seriously, and acknowledge myself entirely
disgusted with every state of man, the whole world, and myself. From
these discoveries a consequence should be drawn: if disgusted with the
whole, renounce the whole. The calculation is not long. I have made it
without the aid of geometry. In short, I am on the point of putting an
end to the existence that I have possessed for nearly twenty years,
fifteen of which it has been a burden to me; and, from the moment that
I write, a few grains of powder will destroy this moving mass of
flesh, which we vain mortals call the King of Beings.
“I owe no one an excuse. I deserted, that was a crime; but I am going
to punish it; and the law will be satisfied.
“I asked leave of absence from my superiors, to have the pleasure of
dying at my ease. They never condescended to give me an answer. This
served to hasten my end.
“I wrote to Bord to send you some detached pieces I left at Guise,
which I beg you to accept. You will find they contain some well-chosen
literature. These pieces will solicit for me a place in your
remembrance.
“Adieu, my dear lieutenant; continue your esteem for St. Lambert and
Dorat. As for the rest, skip from flower to flower, and acquire the
sweets of all knowledge, and enjoy every pleasure.
“Pour moi, j’arrivé au trou
Qui n’échappe ni sage ni fou,
Pour aller je ne scais où.”
“If we exist after this life, and it is forbidden to quit it without
permission, I will endeavour to procure one moment to inform you of it;
if not, I should advise all those who are unhappy, which is by far the
greatest part of mankind, to follow my example.
“When you receive this letter, I shall have been dead at least
twenty-four hours.”
“With esteem, &c.,
“+Bourdeaux+.”
Is there any thing like this in English story?
_If we exist after this life._ Ah, my brave Bourdeaux, that is the
question; and a question which even you could not answer in the
_negative_.
... There’s the retrospect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns o’ th’ time,
_The pangs of despised love_,
(Which I could never bear.)
... The law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th’ unworthy takes?
But that the dread of something after death
Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
The pains these two poor fellows took (or rather Bourdeaux, for he
seems to have been the principal) to prevent any trouble or uneasiness
to their survivors, lead me to reflect how very uniformly the contrary
is the conduct of suicides with us. One would sometimes almost fancy
that they studied how they might commit the abominable crime so as
to be found by those whom the discovery would most affect. Have they
wives, children? It must be done sometimes in their presence, in bed
with them; often in their hearing; almost always in such a manner that
they may be the first spectators of it. Mr. Y., Lord F., Mr. S., Lord
C., Mr. B., are cruel instances of this. Oh, for Omnipotence, to call
such savages back to life, and chain them to the hardest tasks of
existence! Is not the crime of suicide sufficient, without adding to it
the _murder_, or a heartbroken wife or child? Hence you may, perhaps,
draw an argument that every suicide is a madman. For my part, I have no
doubt of it; and if Humain had fallen into the hands of a friend less
mad than Bourdeaux, he might have lived to have fought another day.
And here ends a long, dull letter, about a short, entertaining
conversation (on your part at least).
_Printed by_ +Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.+
_London and Edinburgh._
Transcriber’s notes
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
The text contains words in a somewhat strange spelling. This might
be due to it being older, or the use of dialect. In one letter in
particular errors might very well have been made intentionally: e.g.
“sencible”, “ocation”, “corrispondence”, “verasity” and more. These are
not corrected. There are however errors that seem most probably due to
printing errors. These have been corrected. Below is a list.
Corrections
Page 27 “Come then to morrow” changed to “Come then to-morrow”;
Page 29 “t” added to “regimen” in “I should be drummed out of my
regiment”;
Page 32 period instead of comma after “Her yielding waist should want
a zone”;
Page 34 “’ee” changed to “e’e” in “The woes of my heart fall in showers
from mine e’e”;
Page 50 “Had the frost and snow contiued” changed to “Had the frost and
snow continued”;
Page 52 “fellow creature” hyphenated in “The happiness, the existence of
a fellow-creature”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 57 period added after “Hinchinbrook, Feb. 24, 1776”, as customary
in the rest of the text;
Page 65 “Charing-cross” de-hyphenated in “Cannon Coffee House, Charing
cross, March 17, 1776.”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 65 “coffee-house” de-hyphenated in “from a coffee house near
Charing Cross”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 69 “Storgè” changed to “Storgé” in “as Storgé prophetically says
in Jephtha”;
Page 89 “by-the-way” de-hyphenated in “(which, by the way, is almost
worn out)”, as is customary;
Page 99 “afte swinging in terrible suspense” changed to “after swinging
in terrible suspense”;
Page 105 “new” changed to “knew” in “because they once knew what it was
to be miserable”;
Page 106 “some some” changed to “some” in “I will send you some hasty
lines”;
Page 114 comma removed after “April” in “Ireland, April 20, 1777.”;
Page 119 comma changed to period after “I have been to see the last of
poor Dodd”;
Page 122 “might have been heard at a considerable disstance” changed to
“might have been heard at a considerable distance”;
Page 124 “weeeping” changed to “weeping” in “are weeping over the crime
and punishment”;
Page 133 period inserted at the end of the sentence “One trifling
circumstance I must mention”;
Page 135 hyphen assumed missing in “enquiring”;
Page 135 comma added after “on entering the world of spirits”;
Page 147 period added at the end of the sentence “now they rage too
fiercely”;
Page 148 “brandy-and-water” de-hyphenated in “at the Bedford Coffee
House to take brandy and water”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 165 period added after the date in “Newgate, Saturday Night. April
17, 1779”;
Page 173 “fellow creatures” hyphenated in “Take warning from me, my
fellow-creatures”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 177 “fellow creatures” hyphenated in “ye who might save hundreds of
your fellow-creatures”, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 185 “to day” in “through which these things were to emerge to-day”
hyphenated, as elsewhere in the text;
Page 202 capital “H” at the beginning of the sentence “He was proud and
exceedingly impetious”;
Page 203 period added after “sent the footman and other servants there
to see”;
Page 210 period added at the end of the poem, in the line “and some
believ’d him mad”;
Page 219 period added after “Mr” in “upon the same person (Mr. W.)”;
Page 233 “Commandent of the Maréchaussée at St. Dennis” changed to
“Commandant of the Maréchaussée at St. Dennis”;
Page 236 one of two occurences of “about” removed from “to give
ourselves any trouble about about what becomes of them.”;
Page 238 “and enjoy overy pleasure” changed to “and enjoy every
pleasure”.
Formating conventions
_Word_ means that “Word” is in italic;
+Word+ means that “Word” is in small capitals.